Fixing Office 365 Ribbon Toolbars

After a recent update to Microsoft Office 365, I was surprised to see the Office Toolbar/Ribbon behave weirdly when I tried to pin it. Previously, when I pinned it, it would just stay on the screen in the format it was in. However, after the update, pinning the Toolbar resulted in it completely changing - and it became bigger and (in my opinion) less useful. It turns out the issue is related to some Touch settings in Office! [More]

Betelgeuse Is Fainting?!

With a diameter of about 700 times that of our Sun, Betelgeuse would extend out past the orbit of Mars if it was plunked into the middle of our Solar System. It's surface temperature is lower than our Sun's (3500K vs. 5778K) so it glows with a distinctive red colour. It is a semi-regular variable, which means it does dim and brighten over time - so in some respects this fainting (dimming) is normal. [More]

Using LetsEncrypt Certs with IIS without ACME

I use LetsEncrypt for my SSL needs on my websites (including this one!). It works seamlessly with my hosting provider (GoDaddy) but sometimes I generate a certificate to use on a local Windows box for testing purposes. However, the certificates that LetsEncrypt gives you aren't readily importable into IIS. Fortunately, there is a way to do it. [More]

Seeing and Transparency Scales


Verifying Active Directory Credentials

If you're like me, you are often configuring servers and services to use service accounts - a service account is a dedicated Active Directory account that is not used by any users, instead it is used by an application to access network resources. Sometimes I am unsure if I have the right password for the service account (for example, configuring SQL Reporting Services to use an AD account), so it is helpful if I can verify that I have the right username and password. [More]

Set ADFS Timeout for CRM/D365 On Premises using IFD

If you run CRM/D365 on premises you may notice that out of the box the security tokens only last for an hour and then you have to log in again. This is because the default lifetime of the security token for claims-based authentication in Active Directory Federation Services (ADFS) is 60 minutes. When I normally set up an on premises installation, I set the token lifetime to be at least 8 hours (480 minutes) so that users will be able to log in when they arrive in the morning and then use CRM uninterrupted until they leave at the end of the day. The next day when they go to CRM, they have to log in again. [More]