My name is Michel de Rooij, and I’m a Microsoft 365 Apps & Services MVP from the Netherlands. I help organizations in their cloud journey, where my focus lies on Identity and Messaging, especially in the Microsoft domain. This translates to Microsoft Exchange, (Azure) Active Directory, and Teams. I am an enormous enthusiast of automation, so automating tasks or creating tools supporting project activities using PowerShell is also something I love doing.

Background

Before my bachelor’s studies, I worked for a few demo groups for the Commodore C64, where I took up graphics, music, and coding. That would come down to writing in assembly language for the Intel 6502 processor, the famous MOS 6581 SID chip for audio, and the MOS VIC-II 6569 chip for video. Assembler language is not easy and has a high learning curve, but it is what you need to use if you want to get the most out of the machine’s capabilities or even beyond its specifications. Having the proper tools, such as a macro assembler, is also helpful.

At the end of my “C64 period”, the Commodore Amiga arrived on the scene. When starting my bachelor’s studies in Computer Science, my parents got an Amiga 500. PCs were expensive at that time, and the Amiga would allow not only for gaming but also gave the option to run a (albeit terribly slow) software-only PC emulator called Transformer. This was sufficient for school projects that required using compilers such as Borland’s Turbo Pascal or Turbo C++. For storage, I used a 5¼” drive attached to the Amiga. Not only were those disks cheaper, but I could also use them to exchange files with PC systems at the university. As usage for study became more critical, at some point, my parents got me my initial PC, a self-built Intel 386SX system with 2MB memory, a monochrome VGA display, and 80MB(!) SCSI drive. An internship at KLM got me hands-on experience working on a program written in Clipper for managing their flight service job applications. This experience also led to developing some programs for personal use, such as catalog programs for software and music.

void print_route( word start, word end) {
	word i= end, stack[ nr_nodes], j= 0;
	printf( "\n* Shortest path: ");
	while( i != start) {
		stack[ j]= i;
		j++;
		i= node_info[ i].tonode;
	}
	stack[ j]= i;
	i= j;
	while( stack[ i] != end) {
		printf( "%s *> ", node_name[ stack[ i]]);
		i--;
	}
	printf( "%s\n", node_name[ stack[ i]]);
}

After my bachelor’s studies, I started my professional career as a 3/4GL developer. Back then, this meant coding in dBase III+/4, Clipper, FoxPro, and, in the end, PowerBuilder. I worked on several applications for data processing, but over time became more interested in working with infrastructure technology. At some point, I got the opportunity to work with Microsoft Exchange for a large multinational organization during a project, and made the professional switch at that point.

Since then, I have worked on many projects for many enterprise organizations, ranging from migrations to designing infrastructure architecture. Since 2004, my work experience has mainly been related to exchange and related products and technologies. Over time, the associated workloads of Microsoft 365 were mastered as well. The source platform is not always Microsoft, so the usual Notes, Gmail, or Zimbra migration also came by.

A developer background is a significant asset in modern infrastructure-related projects, as they assume scripting (PowerShell) knowledge and a particular thought process for breaking down work and integrating solutions.

EighTwOne
What’s with this name, EighTwOne? I had to make up a name as all the name variations on mail, exchange, and ehlo had already been taken. So, I used the original RFC number for SMTP, which was RFC 821, and wrote that down eight two one. Then I noticed overlapping letters between the words, so I left them out, keeping only 1 letter, putting it in uppercase for readability.

So, in short:
RFC 821 => eight two one => EightTwoOne => EighTwOne

Mystery solved 😀

Logo
Recently, I changed the site logo from the cheesy ‘cloud’ logo many other sites use in some shape or form, replacing it with initials from Exchange, Outlook/Office 365, and Teams icons. The PowerShell icon completes the set because of the code samples and scripts you can find here.

So, as a mnemonic:

• E is for Eight is for Exchange
• T is for Teams is for Two
• O is for Outlook or Office 365 is for One

Sample Names
On a final note: In case you are wondering where names such as Philip Mortimer, Francis Blake, or Olrik, which make an appearance in many examples, come from, I took them from the comics series Blake and Mortimer, created by the late Edgar P. Jacobs.