There once was a geeky exchange team

[The_Exchange_Team]

Hey folks,

This blog's got a lot of great technical information which is all very well and good... but we figure it's time for a fun break. Combined with that, we have some extra goodies left over from the Exchange 2003 SP2 TAP program and wanted to put them to good use. 

We put those two bits of information together and decided to host the first ever official You Had Me At EHLO Contest!

This contest is a tricky one that will require an in-depth knowledge of Exchange.

What's the contest, you ask?

Limericks.

Yes, that's right, you heard us. Come up with some witty limericks about e-mail or Exchange[1], the more creative the better (feel free to stretch the rules on the exact cadence), and email them to [updated 2/8 9:10 PM PST - we're figuring out what's up with the DL, in the meantime just mail me directly] kclemson AT microsoft DOT com.

We will accept entries until midnight, PST on February 17th, at which point a crack team of judges will review all the submissions and pick our favorites (the exact number of winners is to be determined) which we will then share with you.

Each of the winners will receive a magnetic poetry kit from the Exchange 2003[2] TAP program that looks something like this:

We thought we'd whet your appetite with an example of a limerick, prepared by yours truly[3]:

There once was an email from me
That I sent via SMTP
It flew over the net
'Twas delivered no sweat
Thanks to E 2003

Of course, we have to be proper here, so without further ado:

By submitting your limerick to Microsoft, you agree that you are doing so voluntarily, and that Microsoft shall be free to copy, edit, modify, license, publicly display, create derivative works, and otherwise use your submission in whole or in part at any time and as it sees fit, entirely without obligation or restriction of any kind to you or any third party.

- KC Lemson 

[1] Snarkiness also accepted

[2] You may have noticed certain words in the poetry that may or may not be used in mildly amusing sentences. This is entirely unintentional, we believe it may have been a byproduct of the manufacturing process. We don't know how they got in there.

[3] Genius, I know

[#2]

how about..
The following recipient(s) could not be reached:
(editted for clarity ;-)
     'ehlocon at microsoft dot com' on 2/8/2006 9:39 PM
           The e-mail account does not exist at the organization this message was sent to.  Check the e-mail address, or contact the recipient directly to find out the correct address.
           <smtp.myemailserver.com #5.1.1 smtp;550 5.1.1 User unknown>

[#3]

Thanks, Murray (and for a while I thought you were kidding :-)... not sure what's up with the address, but while we're looking into it I updated the entry to just point at my email addy.
- KC

[#4]

We're looking for a few good limericks!
Check out my post on the Exchange blog.

[#5]

From far and wide they came -
spam messages all the same.
Who would have thunk -
but excahnge filtered out the junk -
and the mail box was all clear of that gunk.

[#6]

there once was a lazy admin guy -
who allowed one of his exchange servers to die.
but the cluster took up the slack -
and there was not a bounce back -
So the lazy admin didn't get sacked

[#7]

forget the lick, forget the stamp, just hit the send key
because my exchange server does all my mailing for me.

[#8]

There once was a guy named jim -
who had to disscuss something with tim.
So he sent an exchange invitation -
asking for a meeting confirmation -
even thought they could have used I.M.

[#9]

Your mailing first talked EHLO at arriving.

Where it met Exchange front-end who was driving.

It answered 500 5.3.33 Unrecognized command.

It should start with HELO As we demand.

Well finally I got your mail "You had me at Ehlo" and that's what I want.

[#10]

When I went into work one morning,
I found my hard drives a roaring,
A coworker said "Hey!
Have you tried EXBPA?"
When I ran it I got lots of warnings.

:)

[#11]

I was reading a blog from the exchange team
looking for the best limricks ever seen
But I missed out the part that said
to email it (to an address that by the way was dead)
so I mistakenlly posted it to the blog instead.

[#12]

Hello was the first call
we got EHLO for a change
Exchange was exchanged
You Had Me At EHLO

[#13]

5.5 was x.400 with a connector in the back.
With 2003, tarpitting is free
My SMTP baby's got stack

[#14]

It's Friday...

My briefcase once got lost
All docs and appointments got tossed
If I had used Outlook
As an electronic black book
I wouldn't be in such crap with my boss

[#15]

There once was a techie from Blighty
Who thought that php mail() was mighty
Till his mail was barred
As Auth Login required
Now he's fsockopening with base64_encoding

[#16]

Το διάσημο blog του Exchange Team &quot;You had me a EHLO&quot; διοργανώνει διαγωνισμό για αστεία στιχάκια που...

[#17]

There once was an FE.
That found its true love in BE.
Then came SSL.
That turned the relationship to hell.
Now there is no more owa or oma for me.

[#18]

There once was a server named BES
It kept upper brass on the edge.
One day it got lost
And at such a great cost
That E12 saved us all from the ledge.

[#19]

There once was a messaging admin
Who didn’t know how to stop spammin’
Til he downloaded Exchange 2003.
With improvements in anti-spam and sender id,
That messaging admin kept his job, how lucky he be.

[#20]

The winners from our Limerick Contest (see original post) have been chosen!
We had a great time reading...

[#21]

There was once a Captain Crook
Who used Exchange 5.5 with Outlook
He wanted to have messages with better Look
So he migrated to Exchange 2003 and Outlook

[#22]

If you read KC's blogoversary post&amp;nbsp;carefully, you saw that she hinted that there would be new contest...