Category Archives: IT Tips

Fix IOS App outlook can’t show preview issue – “Open outlook to read your message”

Looks like it’s a bug. The fix is

  • Go into Outlook App settings and turn on Face ID at the bottom. Restart App
  • Go back into Outlook App settings and turn Face ID off at the bottom. Restart App
  • Go into iPhone settings, scroll down to Outlook, find Face ID setting. Turn it OFF
  • Open Outlook App.

Install certificate for Unifi Controller

1. Request certificate. I saved my certificate as unifi2020.crt and unifi2020.key
2. Replace certificate on unifi controller

openssl pkcs12 -export -inkey unifi2020.key -in unifi2020.crt -out unifi.p12 -name unifi  -password pass:temppass
keytool -importkeystore -deststorepass aircontrolenterprise -destkeypass aircontrolenterprise -destkeystore /var/lib/unifi/keystore -srckeystore unifi.p12 -srcstoretype PKCS12 -srcstorepass temppass -alias unifi -noprompt

3. Restart unifi

/etc/init.d/unifi restart

expand AWS EC2 FreeBSD ZFS disk

For testing purpose, I setup a Freebsd instance on AWS, which is using zfs on root.
And then I add 10G disk space to the root volume. Even though I enabled auto-expand for zroot, it seems the 10G space is not added to system. Here are the steps to expand the disk for zroot:

1. Reboot the server.  Even though it’s said that reboot is not necessary, I suggest to reboot the server to make sure server can recognize the new size.

2. As the disk size change, we need to fix the GPT partition table first.

gpart recovery ada0

3. Some documents said can use “zpool online -e” to expand the disk. As shown in above picture, the command can’t auto update GPT and assign the space to zfs partition.

4. We need to use gpart to update GPT first, then expand the zfs partition.

#gpart resize -i 2 ada0
#zpool online -e zrrot /dev/adap2

Customize Office 365 Home installation

I just switched from Office2019 retail to Office 365 Home edition.
And we also can’t choose which office program to install, which means by default access/outlook will be installed on my computer and OneNote will not be installed.

And I checked MS document (https://support.office.com/en-us/article/product-ids-that-are-supported-by-the-office-deployment-tool-for-click-to-run-77654e77-aaeb-4ed6-84eb-1d8b0e086590), it seems we can also use Office Deployment Tool to customize Office 365 Home/Personal installation.

1, go to https://config.office.com to generate a configuration file for installation. For Office Suites, you can choose Office365 Proplus, and we’ll change it after the configuration file is generated.
2, select the Apps you want to install.
3. For the update channel, select “Monthly”
4. Answer the rest questions
5. Click export to download the XML file.
6. Open the XML file, change prodouctID from O365ProPlusRetail to O365HomePremRetail or O365PersonalRetail.
7. Download office deployment tool from https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=49117
8, open command line, run

setup.exe /configure Configuration_home.xml

Done!

And below are my configuration files, you can use it if you want.

<Configuration>
  <Add OfficeClientEdition="64" Channel="Monthly" ForceUpgrade="TRUE">
    <Product ID="O365HomePremRetail">
      <Language ID="en-us" />
      <ExcludeApp ID="Access" />
      <ExcludeApp ID="Groove" />
      <ExcludeApp ID="Lync" />
      <ExcludeApp ID="OneDrive" />
      <ExcludeApp ID="Outlook" />
      <ExcludeApp ID="Publisher" />
    </Product>
  </Add>
  <Property Name="SharedComputerLicensing" Value="0" />
  <Property Name="PinIconsToTaskbar" Value="TRUE" />
  <Property Name="SCLCacheOverride" Value="0" />
  <Updates Enabled="TRUE" />
  <RemoveMSI />
</Configuration>

fix new iphone can’t sync with outlook.com issue

It seems Microsoft is encourage people to use the app outlook. The app is good, but I still need to sync the contact between my iphone and outlook to get my contacts number.
Spent some time to check this issue, here is the fix:


    Login to outlook.live.com
    In the browser, click on Settings icon (gear at top right) ; scroll down the Quick Settings panel and click on 'View all Outlook settings'
    In the pop-up window, select 'General'; 'Mobile Devices'
    Select the iPhone, note if you have more than one iPhone (e.g. an older device), select the 'Edit' icon (pencil) to check the details including the version, 'OK' to exit details
    Click on the 'Delete' icon (bin) to remove the device
    Power off the iPhone
    Power on the iPhone - device should attempt to re-register with Microsoft
    Open the iPhone Mail app and look for email with subject: "ACTION REQUIRED TO SYNC EMAIL" (note, this email won't appear in the online version of Outlook, only in the iPhone Mail app)
    Scroll down the message and click on: "Continue using this email app".