Blogs

I was asked this in the forums, but I felt it was important enough to write about it both here and in the forum. Patch Management should be a key part of what you do. Patching is like car servicing - it can sometimes be put off a little bit, but failure to keep the oil and water up todate and without a regular service, things go horribly wrong. You MUST tell your customers this so they can choose how to pay you for this service. (they can always just call you in when things go wrong, but it will take longer and cost them more). Obviously patching is just one tool in yout kitbag for keeping systems secure - local and perimeter firewalls and anti-spyware and anti-virus software is also needed, as is good password and administrator policy. The best person to talk about patching is the now famous Susan Bradly, who is a SBS MVP and known as a Diva. Before I point you off to some of her blogs on it, I thought I would answer some questions often asked in this area: 1) How do you decide whether to patch or hold off? You...

Every so often I get a mail telling me how MS Support was poor in one way or another. Recently I have been getting the other type of e-mail - how GOOD Microsoft support is. Yesterday, Paul sent me this e-mail: David i found your email address on the sbsbpi.co.uk website, i thought it appropriate to drop you a mail asking you to pass on praise to the relevant people for the technical support i received from Microsoft today. the problem was quite complicated and both support representatives who dealt with it seemed knowledgeable, thorough and also easy to get on with on, all the essential requirements for a telephone support engineer, lots of bad things are said about the support available from Microsoft but today i experienced something very different, please pass on my thanks to the SBS support team. How nice it is to get these, but also in the forums, someone posted this: http://uksbsguy.com/forums/thread/401.aspx I have used Microsoft support a bunch of times over my entire career and a few times since I have...

I have just seen an article in which the conversations from CTS (16 shows on Vista and Office 2007 in 2 days) have been misrepresented. Since I was the Vista presenter, I feel the need to set the record straight, 1 st off, the site where this is all being so heavily debated: http://arstechnica.com/journals/microsoft.ars/2006/5/15/3974 http://forums.hexus.net/showthread.php?t=75041 http://lifestyle.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=5570 (article) To clarify Vista and Office 2007 are coming, as per the PR announcements at the same time – there is no new delay . At CTS we were speculating when in January the launch might happen. The only timeline shifts were those already mentioned in the MARCH press release - http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2006/mar06/03-21WindowsVistaDeliveryPR.mspx There were several interesting highlights from that article which were either not accurate or misunderstood. Whether that is the joy of journalism or my mistake we will never know. Vista will ship for Volume License customers...

We will not have a version of SBS Longhorn for many months yet, but we do already know that it will be a x64 product only – as all Microsoft products are heading in that direction. Anyway, to the chase, on the 9 th June there is a chat on Longhorn. Details as below: An Introduction to Windows Server "Longhorn" Please join Bill Laing, General Manager of the Windows Server Division, and Iain McDonald, Director of Central Program Management within the Windows Server Division, for a discussion about Windows Server “Longhorn” Beta 2. Windows Server “Longhorn” is the next generation server operating system from Microsoft that will help IT professionals maximize control over their infrastructure and deliver a more secure, reliable and robust server environment. Join us to provide feedback, input into the product and to get answers to your tough questions. http://www.microsoft.com/technet/community/chats/default.mspx ttfn David

So, learn more about Office 2007 - a great set of tools for small businesses - I will blog why once the beta is launched - soon!! ttfn David Microsoft Office System Developers Conference http://www.microsoft.com/uk/business/devcon/ Microsoft Office System Developers Conference is the best opportunity for you to learn more about all the new solution technologies and capabilities in the Microsoft Office System 2007 wave of programmes and servers. At this two-day conference, members of the Microsoft product development and management teams will drill into the latest Office System 2007 innovations to show how developer extensibility will allow you to build powerful custom solutions. You will learn the latest techniques for creating applications around business intelligence, enterprise content management, collaboration, and more! You will also have the opportunity to meet and network with developers and architects on the Microsoft product teams and other customers and partners from the UK and Ireland. Key benefits...

One of the benefits of SBSC membership is the regular livemeetings with Microsoft and the ability to ask us questions. On Monday we have one for SBS 2003 R2. For more info on these go to http://www.microsoft.com/uk/partner/sbsc - you need to have passed the exams to see the exclusive content. ttfn David

We got the message - we need to come to more places and have a more blended technical and business session. This will last 2hours plus some MS funded food and it is at no charge to you!! The slides are written as are 40+ mins of David Overton Stylie demos and interaction. This is a use it or lose it situation - go to the site - http://www.microsoft.com/uk/partner/training/ignite/default.aspx - and book on the closest place and come along. give us your feedback, tell us what changes you want and next time it will be event better. While the event is billed as a non-technical event, there will be plenty of technology in view, on show and available for questions. As a snippet, the demos should show all this - and in such a short period of time - woo-hoo!!! If this is not to taste, reply in the comments!!: Collaborative Business How can I share information with my colleagues and partners - WSS Sites - Hosted Sharepoint - Office shared working documents How can I ensure only the right people see the documents - WSS...

If you are using Sophos Puremessage and are having problems getting Server-side ActiveSync to work with either your PPC or your Windows Mobile 5 (WM5) device then you might need to do the following: In the Puremessage console go to Jobs / Exchange Information Store / Databases tab and check Public Store Background Scanning and Private Store Background Scanning. Click the Apply button at the bottom of the console. I've never been able to get Server-side ActiveSync working since I bought my iPaq a year or so ago, but haven't had time to work out why not. A chance comment by someone in the UKSBSG Yahoo! group put me onto it. Thanks to James and Alexandre! Since I found this out I've discovered there's a Sophos KB article about it - www.sophos.com/support/knowledgebase/article/3186.html . It's great when you know what to look for isn't it

Hi, I don't follow the legal ups and downs of most products, but one of the nice things people like about Office 2007 is the ability to create PDF files. I now read in the news (so this is not an official annoucement from Microsoft) that to reduce the potential for legal moves, the PDF & XPS functionality will be a download. More information can be found at http://news.com.com/Office%2C+Vista+changed+in+wake+of+Adobe+threat/2100-1012_3-6079519.html ttfn David

I have posted the event presentation to the files section - http://uksbsguy.com/files/12/small_business_ignite_tour/default.aspx . This is a Office 2007 file, but converters are in the notes so you can open in Office XP or 2003. The demos last for 40+ minutes at the events, so if you want to book onto your local one at http://www.microsoft.com/uk/partner/training/ignite/default.aspx ttfn David

This is a great tool that you can easily get your customers to run themselves if things are looking a bit poor on their system. Simply go to http://safety.live.com and asn them to run a full scan, or a protection, clean-up or tune up scan. Note, it can take quite a time. ttfn David

Guys, this is hard to do, but we have had problems with the machine running the VPCs for the Ignite Tour this week (which means Scotland). The result is that we would not be able to show any demos. While this is very undesirable, we have taken the decision to postpone them until we can get the hardware sorted and the people back in Scotland. Any thoughts, please feel free to leave comments, otherwise we will see you soon. We should have the issues resolved for the other dates published so far ttfn David

I love Windows Vista. One thing that opele complain about is the security prompts that come up when you run an administrative task. There are two things to say here. Firstly, this peaks while you are setting up the machine - adding applications and drivers etc, so give it a week before you pass judgement on it. Second, this is being improved. We have a great team who take all the feedback on this and they are looking how to simplify this for the RC1 and final product. If you want to find out more, pop along to http://blogs.msdn.com/uac/archive/2006/06/01/613098.aspx to see what the UAC (User Account Control) team have to say. ttfn David