Dicota Active Backpack Review

The choice available when buying a laptop bag is bewildering, but the Dicota Active stands out from the crowd. Both for its looks and ability to carry all your stuff safely. 

Dicota are a company that were formed in 1992, they have their headquarters in Switzerland. They have established themselves as a customer focused company that has a passion for making quality notebook cases.  

Unpacking the Active

The Dicota Active is a premium laptop backpack with a sporty look.  It has an attractive look and quality feel about it.  It boasts several compartments, a main one at the back to help store your laptop, a second one that can help to organize your cables, accessories, etc and two smaller compartments at the front to store additional items. 

I've been using the Dicota Active for the last week to carry around the kit that I need for my work.  I've quite comfortably been able to carry about my laptop, charging cables, mouse, mobile phone, pens, notepads, water bottles, wallet, and snacks without the bag becoming cumbersome, awkward or stretched. 

Carrying the Active, even it’s been full, is surprisingly comfortable thanks to the design of the shoulder straps and the ergonomic back cushioning.  There is also a useful handle at the top of the backpack. There is a sternum strap on this backpack but I've found that I haven’t had to use it as the backpack fits comfortably without it. This meant there were hanging straps and clips that could get caught or trodden on.

Packed with my work kit

It doesn't look like the traditional backpack you see commuters using to carry their laptops around so that fact adds an extra level of security when commuting.  I was impressed by the quality and feel of the backpack, I've only used it for a short time but you can tell that it a quality product and with a lifetime warranty you are definitely making a safe investment.

One small detail that I really like about the bag is the zipper toggles, their design make it really easy to find the zip and open/close the pockets.  The laptop compartment also has an extra wee hook on it so that you can padlock that compartment should you feel the need.  

Zip Detail

As a backpack to commute to and from work this bag definitely ticks all the boxes and has impressed me.  I’m not sure it could easily carry my work kit and an overnight set of clothes/toiletries etc unfortunately and doesn’t boast being TSA compliant either.

The backpack does struggle to stand up on its own when empty or full but due to the design and layout of the pockets and compartments this is not an issue as everything is easily accessible.

The Active has a lot of pockets for keeping things organised, a lot of protection for your gadgets and is an attractive backpack.  It can be found for around £50 in the UK, making it great value.  I would definitely recommend.

The backpack can currently be found on sale at Amazon UK - DICOTA Active Laptop Backpack 14-15,6Zoll black / Magenta

Official Dicota Active Marketing Photos

Exchange 2013 Active Directory property ‎homeMDB‎ is not writeable on recipient

When trying to migrate users from Exchange 2007 to Exchange 2013 you may see the following error below:

 Error:MigrationPermanentException: Active Directory property ‎'homeMDB‎' is not writeable on recipient ‎'domain.local/users/employee.smith‎'. --> Active Directory property ‎'homeMDB‎' is not writeable on recipient ‎'domain.local/users/employee.smith‎'.

With many Exchange issues the solution is to set the correct permissions to allow Exchange to migrate the mailbox.

To resolve this issue follow these steps:

1. Launch Active Directory
2. Click on View and select Advanced Features
   
   
   
   
   
3. Now location the users mailbox you are having the issue with and select properties
4. Now click on the security tab
5. Next select Advanced
   
   
        
6. Now place a tick in the "Include inheritable permissions from this objects parents" box and click OK
7. It may take a few minutes for this change to take effect but once it has you should be able to migrate the users mailbox without any problems. 

Unable to sync phone to Exchange

If you've been following my blog for the last few weeks you'll have heard me talk about the Exchange 2013 migration project I've been working on.  Well we hit another snag in the migration the other day around the users mobile phones not syncing to the new mailbox server after moving to Exchange 2013.

At first we thought it was just one or two users but it transpired that over 80 users were affected!! After investigating whether or not ActiveSync was working as expected (it was) we turned our attention to looking at an issue within the users accounts.

It turned out that the 80 users were all a member of a protected group within Active Directory and weren't getting the correct permissions to sync their phones as per Microsoft's best practices.

In order to get to that stage I used some PowerShell queries which I thought were quite interesting so I'm sharing.

I used the following command to query Active Directory for all users that had the "AdminCount" attribute set to something greater than 0.  If set to 1 it indicates the user is either a member of a protected group or has been:

Import-Module ac* 

Get-ADuser -filter {admincount -gt 0} -Properties admincount -ResultSetSize $null | export-csv c:\\onyx\document.csv

To find out which groups within the Active Directory environment I was working in were considered a Protected Group I ran the following query:

Import-Module ac*

Get-ADgroup -LDAPFilter "(admincount=1)" | select name 

From there I was able to check the groups individually to see which ones contained, if any, the users that were having issues with their phones.  All the affected users were a member of the "Print Operators" group. Mystery solved!

Swissgear GA-7305-14F00 Synergy Laptop Bag Review

As an IT Consultant I often have to carry my office with me to client sites and having a comfortable, secure backpack to do this is a must.

A few years ago I purchased the Swissgear GA-7305-14F00 Synergy Bag and have thoroughly enjoyed my purchase.

Having ten pockets, all of varying sizes is extremely handy. It allows me to organise all my items into a neat organised structure for easy access.

The laptop pocket at the back easily carries and protects my Lenovo E540.  While the wee pocket at the top is handy for storing my passport, pens, headphones, phones, powerbars, keys and much more for quick access.

The four pockets on the sides (two each side) allows me to easy carry umbrellas and bottles of water on the outside avoiding any water damage to the items on the inside of my bag.

The main storage pocket is massive and I've managed to fit a change of clothes for an overnight stay, books, notepads and charging cables etc without any hesitation.  I've also still been able to fit the bag easy into cabin luggage on airplanes.

The bag has a stiffened floor that gives the bag its stand-up behaviour which is useful when packing or emptying the bag.  This stiffened floor can also be easy raised so that the bag can be collapsed flat.

Even fully packed with items the backpack is comfortable to carry and helped to easy the weight being carried.  There is no waist strap on this model but it's not a problem for me as I don't want to many straps and clips hanging off the bag that could get caught.

The zips on the bag are also built so that you can easily slip a padlock between them to secure your items if you need to leave it somewhere.

I'd highly recommend this backpack for any IT professional.

If you are interested in purchasing this bag you can find it on sale at Amazon UK here - http://amzn.to/1GSuLdy.  Please note this is an affiliate link and purchasing via this link will help support this blog.

Get Mailbox Move Progress

I've recently been involved in an email migration from Exchange 2007 to Exchange 2013 and in order to monitor the progress of the mailbox moves I've been using Powershell commands, the two I've used are:

Get-MoveRequestStatistics -MoveRequestQueue "Mailbox Database 1"| Sort PercentComplete

This results in giving the Display Name, StatusDetail, TotalMailboxSize, TotalArchiveSize and PercentComplete of each mailbox move to that Exchange 2013 database.

The other one that I've found useful is:

Get-MoveRequestStatistics -MoveRequestQueue "Mailbox Database 1"| Where-Object {$_.StatusDetail -eq "Copying Messages"} | Sort PercentComplete

This is just a variation on the first query but it only shows the mailboxes that are currently copying messages to the Exchange 2013 environment.

Just remember a watched kettle never boils though! lol 

Powershell Query to Analyze your Mailbox Movement

I've recently been doing an Exchange 2007 to Exchange 2013 migration and wanted to find out the kind of speed the mailbox moves were taking.  I used the below Powershell script to pull out the MB transfer speed per minute:

Get-MoveRequest | Where { $_.Status -eq “Completed” } | Get-MoveRequestStatistics | Select DisplayName,TotalMailboxSize,TotalMailboxItemCount,@{n=”Speed MB/min”; e={ [int]($_.BytesTransferred.ToMB() / $_.TotalInProgressDuration.TotalMinutes) }}

Build your skills, slowly and deliberately

I graduated from college with an IT degree back in 2004 and was lucky enough to secure a 1st level support job not long after that. Over the last 11 years I have worked my way up and along the IT industry but I now how the job title of "Technical Consultant", by no means does this mean I know everything but I have a certain wealth of self-taught and mentored learning under my belt. I'm proud of my achievements and strive daily to learn and expand my skillset, however recently I've seen a lot of younger guys come in and expect to be doing Senior IT roles within 6 months of graduating from college. My advice to them always it to take your time building up your skills slowly and deliberately.

Just because you've used a product for a week does not mean you know it, you need to get a couple of years of managing that product in a production environment under load before you can truly know a product.  You need to combine your knowledge with experience otherwise it's useless in my eyes.  Unfortunately there is no quick way of gaining experience you need to be patience and slog it out, and no amount of training can compensate for the lack of experience.

A common mistake among the junior staff is that they are doing the same job as the senior technicians in their teams. This ultimately isn't true, junior staff receive a lot more support than they release and if they were thrown into the deep end they would unfortunately flounder.  Be confident but don't be over cocky.

I always say that IT is no different to any other job, if you were learning a trade such as plumbing you'd spend your first few years being an apprentice, learning the basics, soaking up knowledge from your mentor before gradually moving onto doing jobs yourself.  The same is true for IT.  Don't try and skip the 1st level support jobs because you deem them boring, take that job, learn from it, build yourself a good foundation of knowledge and customer service.  Then progress to the next level. Take your time.

Learn from the jobs you can get, please don't try and run before you walk you will get there.  You will get that much coveted Senior position when you are ready.  You have 30-40 years ahead of you, don't rush it.  Build your skills, slowly and deliberately.