Blogs

One of the things I do for my sins (many and varied the must be) is lead the London Small Business IT Pro Group. We have a great treat for you all this month! We have two guest speakers this month hot on the heels of their presentations at SMB Nation, Amsterdam. - Karl Palachuk (Sacramento SBS Partner Group leader & author of the “Network Documentation Workbook”) - Matthew Dickerson (one of Australia’s leading SBS partners & rated as #1 in Harry Brelsford's bright blue “Making it Big in Small Business” book covering 15 of the top SBS partners worldwide) Basically, these guys are some of the best SBS partners in the world (up there with Harry Brelsford) & will be giving their time freely as special guests at the London, Thames Valley & Midlands SBS Partner Groups. Perfect opportunity for us to learn from the best (about their business models, not just technical stuff). Both Karl and Matthew are experts in providing Managed Services to their clients as well as having a wealth of experience in running...

Hello, I wanted to move my blog to an easier URL, and I have done so - the new URLs are: RSS - http://uksbsguy.com/blogs/doverton/rss.aspx WEB - http://uksbsguy.com/blogs/doverton/default.aspx Atom - http://uksbsguy.com/blogs/doverton/atom.aspx However when looking at the logs for the site, lots of people were trying to access via the old entries, so I have put in place a simple re-direction piece of software that re-writes the URL from the old to the new without yopu having to know. Once the new URLs take over in popularity I will remove this software. Obviously I would like you to change your Favourites and Reader software as soon as possible. For those who are interested, the re-direction software can be found at http://www.isapirewrite.com/ and the 1 line I had to put into their httpd.ini file was: RewriteRule (.*)david_overton_blog_more_technical(.*) $1doverton$2 Not exactly difficult to manage and that changes the longer name to the shorter one whereever it is found. ttfn David

Hello everyone, as you may know my workload has got a bit silly, so I have the pleasure in announcing that Jo will be assisting me in the land of Small Business. She will specifically be focusing on how Office (2003 & 2007) works for small business. Her blog can be found at http://uksbsguy.com/blogs/jo_carpenter/default.aspx or the RSS feed at http://uksbsguy.com/blogs/jo_carpenter/rss.aspx . Say welcome and start asking her questions :-) ttfn David

Expect more photos to surface, but Susanne has put some some up on her personal blog (did you know she has 3). Anyway, photos of the gang - http://spaces.msn.com/susannedansey/photos/ . Just don't ask why it looks like I am hopping in one of them - it was one of those timing shots. I forgot my camera, so no photos from me. Expect to see other photos linked on the site soon. ttfn David

When we launched MS CRM, the world was wise and fair and rightly said that CRM was great for customer relationships, but perhaps only fair to good for the gentle, overworked sales person on the road. To this end, various ISVs brought out tools that would enable PDAs to work with MS CRM. Microsoft took this feedback on-board and indeed a new CRM client was born, which would enable PDAs to work, but somehow lacked one special ingredient. While PDAs did indeed sync with MS-CRM, a wireless of through PC connection was required, making the concept of true PDA only sales people a mere dream for many. Finally Microsoft has accomplished the desires of many. Hail, we have a new CRM client, one that "goes mobile" and can do so without a wire to a PC or even a WiFi (although these can be used), for finally the GPRS is not a dream, but a tool to provide syncronisation for PDAs to MS-CRM. If such a venture is just what you were looking for, then you can find it at http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=EA5A3566...

OK, so the Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC) is coming. As with many things in the MS International world, we have some firsts coming up. The WPC is always a huge event for understanding and changing MS strategy and networking with both key MS people and also key people in the community. This is also the time to hear from industry experts about the external influences on the market and how to take advantage and prepare for them. You may think this all sounds a big "la-de-da", but a little while ago at WPC someone asked Steve B in an open session why MS people had great demos, but our partners did not. Within 6 months we had added the Technical Demonstration Toolkit for partners to our offerings. You can have this impact if you ask the right questions too. We have a day in the pre-conference dedicated to Small Business, with a fee for non-SBSC members, but SBSC people get entry for free. More information on the conference can be found at http://www.microsoft.com/partner/events/wwpartnerconference/ and it is already...

Many of you know that I am a Star Wars fan (anyone seen my avatar?), but you may also remember me telling everyone to "Use the wizards, Luke, use the wizards" over 3 years ago when explaining that SBS can help make life easier. Today, when playing catch up on a number of blogs, I noticed this article from Susan Bradley that said all I wanted to say / have been saying: http://msmvps.com/blogs/bradley/archive/2006/04/08/89925.aspx A blog worth reading, and I especially like the start: Well..actually more likely.. once you screw up the box so much .. you learn yourself why there are some wizards you should just never bypass..... and the biggie... the granddaddy of the wizards that you should not bypass unless you want me to personally hunt you down... is the basic install wizard of Small Business Server in the first place. HandyAndy's web site has the screen shots..but make your life and your customer's life easier by letting the box install everything as it wants to be laid down by that SBS installer. I don't care...

One of the groups I read is the MSSMALLBIZ group on Yahoo! Groups...... Someone posted up today on how to offer Remote Assistance. Well, whadya know? This is one of those things I'd never clicked existed in Small Business Server 2003. <fx off>Tut, tut</fx off>. Vlad Mazek (of SBS Show fame) then posted on how he'd been alerted to a really cool way of offering Remote Assistance without having to go to Server Management. He's blogged about it here: http://www.vladville.com/2006/04/neat-way-to-offer-remote-assistance.html (BTW there are some extraneous spaces in the URL on Vlad's site. Remove those otherwise it doesn't work!) Not knowing about Remote Assistance <fx off>Tut, tut</fx off> I hadn't realised you can use it to help some one in a Terminal Server session as well as on a desktop. Is that good or what As I said, funny how you stumble across things isn't it........

Howdy, I have seen plenty of system failures over the last two weeks and while some nice new hardware is due to arrive soon, I will be moving the whole system to a virtual server environment on another box that has been a stalwart. If you see the site down, it will almost certainly be rebooting - I have identified it two a couple of drivers (either NTFS.sys or my AV provider) - once it is virtualised, it will remain so until new hardware arrives. One thing I will do is fully document the process I took to move from physical to virtual without the use of an Enterprise Server (which is required to use the MS provided tools). More blogs posts soon - once hardware issues are off my mind. thanks David

Hi folks, just a quick note to say that on the 9th May I will be in Cambridge talking on a number of subjects at the group. More info on how to sign up can be found on the group site at http://www.sbsbpi.co.uk/phpbb2/viewforum.php?f=41 . The agenda will include a 1st sight of the Small Business Ignite content, then a Q&A session around anything Microsoft and the groups should discuss. I look forward to seeing you there. ttfn David

The team I work with come in different shapes and sizes, with some of us very technology focused and others a bit more broadly spread around solutions. To try and get a bit more of the information out about what is happening, the PTS team (Partner Technical Specialists) have started small streaming TV shows, lasting a few minutes, but giving you the chance to meet the team and understand a bit more about the technology landscape. To this end, we have teamed up with Katie Ledger to bring you installment number one - with Mark Deakin. It is worth having a quick look at the two videos on the site, remembering that we have a bit of "outtake" material at the end to show you that we are human too, sometimes many, many, many times over :-) So, to get there, go to http://www.microsoft.com/uk/partner/blog/pts-tv/ and watch the show. You can also find Mark's blog at http://blogs.technet.com/markdea/ Other members of the team have their blogs linked from http://blogs.technet.com/msppuk/ ttfn David

Hi, this is a little off topic, but for those of you who like to play with betas, Windows Live Messenger is available, along with other products at http://ideas.live.com - worth a look in for sure. Lots of new features, but the ones I like the most are: Cheap calls to land lines from my PC send an IM to someone offline and they get it when the log back in IM while appearing offline :-) ttfn David