If you are an Exchange administrator, you might have worked with Exchange Management tools. And while you might enjoy the power and flexibility of these tools, you might be missing the ability to get a graphical overview of user mailbox details.

Now, I'm not an Exchange administrator, but I get the feeling that this thing is probably pretty cool for those of you who are...

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Whether you are looking to conserve energy, optimize your hardware usage, or rapidly test a wide variety of software configurations, some sort of virtualization is surely in your future.

And if you are a Visio Guy or a Visio Gal, you'll surely want to make a diagram to better see how your network's hardware is set up.

I've been hopping around the net looking for (mostly-free) Visio-related resources for virtualization. Here's what I found...

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One of our Visio Guy readers recently sent us some very well-drawn shapes for Cisco IP Telephone buttons. Let's all send a warm thank you very much to Art Braune for adding to the quality and usefulness of this site!

Art told me he would send me a blurb, describing how he uses the shapes, but I thought I'd take a guess. After quickly Google-ing for Cisco IP Telephone, but without reading too much, I surmised that this thing is highly customizable. So it would make sense that IT departments would want to document how they had modified the phone, then send out a quick-reference card (or booklet) to company employees.

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Well, it's been a while since we offered an overdrawn Visio Network shape, like the Logitech VX Revolution Mouse Shape, the Thinkpad Network Shape. or the USB Stick Shape.

Since it's Easter Sunday, and things are slow around here, I was in the mood to create something pretty. And of all the new gadgets on the market, few are prettier than the sensational Apple iPhone and the Apple iPod Touch.

So for you Apple fans who still use PCs, and for you die-hard Windows fans who appreciate a bit of sarcasm, please enjoy the Apple iPhone Visio Network Shape.

<haha> And NO, there won't be a Mac Version of this shape... </haha>

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Visio network shapes have gone "3D", but Visio connectors have decidedly not...

...unless you're the guys behind the creation of the Zeus ZXTM Appliance Network Stencil. Several readers have noticed the cool isometric connectors that the KnowledgeHub guys used in their sample illustration, and want to get 'hold of 'em.

We're not sure where the KH folks got those connectors, but a little light bulb went * bing * inside our Visio Guy heads as we remembered yet another an unfinished prototype gathering dust on our HD. Ah yes, Oblique Connector.vsd, from long, long ago...

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It's snowing here in Liezen, Austria and I don't have proper winter clothing with me. So I thought I'd take advantage of this indoor time and finish up another over-drawn network shape and offer it to you, the Visio Guy Public.

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If you are using Microsoft Forefront Client Security, and are documenting it in your Visio network diagrams, or if you dig Visio's new Data Graphics features, or simply like brightly-colored, shiny new Visio shapes and then we've got an article and a download for you!

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Many many years ago, when I worked at Visio Corporation, one of my projects was to create the dimension line shapes that you can still find to this day under File > Shapes > Visio Extras > Dimensioning - Architectural or Engineering.

After all the sweat and tears that went in to creating them, I came to affectionately call them: My Babies. In fact, I still claim them as dependants every April 15th, and will soon be searching for a suitable university for them to attend.

So when a forum question appears regarding Visio's dimension lines, I'm naturally all ears. Recently, someone made an inquiry in the Visio general newsgroup about a dimension line that could display Rack Units...

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Microsoft has published a brand-spanking-new set of Visio shapes for Microsoft Exchange Server 2007. You can download the stencil for free from Microsoft's web-site and immediately get to work planning your next Exchange deployment. You'll also amaze your co-workers with your unmatched graphic-abilities and non-boring PowerPoint slides!

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Zeus Technology produces software and hardware for advanced traffic management and application acceleration. If you're working with Zeus' products, you'll probably want to map out your system from time to time.

Well, the guys that put together the ZXTM KnowledgeHub blog have just published a set of 3D network shapes for Zeus' ZXTM appliances. They have the look-and-feel of the other 3D network shapes that ship with Visio 2003 and are nicely crafted. Go have a look...here!

Good work, KnowledgeHub Team!

If you're an IBM ThinkPad fanatic like me and the folks over at forum.thinkpads.com -- or used to be before Lenovo removed the red stripes from the buttons -- then you'll appreciate having a real laptop shape for your diagrams.

I've created a fully over-drawn ThinkPad laptop Visio network shape that's sure to bloat your file sizes, but look really cool on your 2400dpi color laser printer. It's got all the normal features of Visio's network shapes: a whole slew of custom properties and text that can be moved via a little, yellow control handle.

Hope you enjoy it!

So Steve popped up on MSN Messenger a few months ago and told me he needed a USB Stick shape that matched the cool 3D network shapes in Visio 2003.

Of course this was annoying -- what am I? The Visio Guy? But then I remembered how he manages to save me big $$$ on my ThinkPads. And since I was chatting with him on a T43p, I figured it was the least I could do

Steve has enjoyed a competitive advantage -- being the only person with this shape for many months -- but now his patent has run out and I'm sharing it with you!

(Download UsbStick.zip)