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  • What does the bCentral "Flexible Working Solutions from Microsoft" mean to you as a partner?

    I just opened up the latest newsletter from bCentral - if you don't get them, you should as hundred of thousands of people in the UK read the bCentral site and access this information. And if you were not sure, bCentral is the one stop shop from Microsoft for UK small businesses to find information on anything from finance to marketing (with a bit of technology in the middle). Anyway, while reading it, the top article was: Top tips to flexible working The benefits flexible working can bring to your business are significant. With the right technology, a flexible culture truly enhances the way you work because customers are better served and your employees are better looked after. For ten top tips to flexible working, download our free guide. Download the guide >> I thought, this looks interesting - the guide is a fantastic starter to explaining what the benefits of flexible working are for small businesses, so a simple read, and potentially mailing it to key prospects and customers would be top of my...
    Posted to David Overton's Blog by David Overton on Tue, Sep 5 2006

  • What is the Demo Showcase and how do you use it?

    I have a mate at work, Chris, who has always been a good and clever egg the whole time I have known him. He is also very passionate about partners getting the right level of support as well as liking Stoke City, but something's just have to be forgiven. One thing he has got a bee in his bonnet about this year is the Demo Showcase, which we will be using for all our demos going forward for a while. If you have been to an ignite tour, that was based on an early version of the Showcase DVD set. Chris has been a prolific blogger on the subject - this is a great tool for you to use, so look at: Whoever heard of the Demo Showcase for the People Ready Business? The Demo Showcase Line Up What Does the Demo Showcase Look Like (Physically)? What Does the Demo Showcase Look Like (in Reality?) The Demo Showcase Team Tactics ttfn David
    Posted to David Overton's Blog by David Overton on Mon, Sep 4 2006

  • Short chance to offer feedback on the Vista Security Guide

    The Vista Security Guide will be released to Beta on September 6 th exclusively through Microsoft Connect. It will be available to anyone who signs in at https://connect.microsoft.com/InvitationUse.aspx?ProgramID=820&InvitationID=VSG-P74P-BFTH&SiteID=14 . The Beta period will extend for just three weeks, during which we’ll be accepting and triaging bugs and comments. To support this Beta release, the development and program management teams will deliver a LiveMeeting on Wednesday September 6 th . Details are below. We want to welcome as many customers and partners into the Beta as possible to gather the most feedback and ensure that we ship a customer-driven solution. With that in mind, feel free to forward this information to anyone you think might benefit from attending the session. We’ll be describing the guide, how we developed it, the best way to use it, and one really cool new tool that can save lots of time in the test and deployment phases. We will also take questions at the end of the presentation...
    Posted to David Overton's Blog by David Overton on Mon, Sep 4 2006

  • Understanding Workflow in WSS and Office 2007

    Many people have been asking about Windows SharePoint Services and Workflow and how this will work with SBS 2003. While I can not say how WSS v3 will be supported on SBS, the issue is likely to be one of the wizards and fax tools no working rather than the WSS v3 itself not working. One of the good features of WSS is the new workflow features that are available. From within the document it states: Many kinds of processes in many different kinds of organizations can benefit from automated support for human workflow. Examples include: Approval : A common aspect of human-oriented business processes is the need to get approval from multiple participants. What’s being approved can vary widely, ranging from a Word document containing next year’s marketing plan to an expense report from a trip to a conference. In every case, some number of people must review the information, perhaps appending comments, then indicate approval or rejection. Coordinating group efforts : Whether it’s preparing a response...
    Posted to David Overton's Blog by David Overton on Mon, Sep 4 2006

  • Personality test based on Jung - Myers-Briggs typology

    Someone recently asked me my Myers-Briggs personality type and while I had taken this test a long time ago, I could not remember my type. I went to the Personality test based on Jung - Myers-Briggs typology and answered the 40 questions. It came back with the following information - always an interesting read. Purely for fun. Your Type is ENTP Extroverted Intuitive Thinking Perceiving Strength of the preferences % 22 12 38 22 ENTP type description by D.Keirsey ENTP type description by J. Butt and M.M. Heiss Qualitative analysis of your type formula You are: slightly expressed extrovert slightly expressed intuitive personality moderately expressed thinking personality slightly expressed perceiving personality ttfn David
    Posted to David Overton's Blog by David Overton on Sat, Sep 2 2006
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  • Finger improving - stitches removed

    I am not one who likes to dwell on things, but the doctors have said I can drive and this is in part to the progress of my finger. I am off the big pain killers too, so the mind is less numbed, although I do now feel like I want my drugs back - they made the world a more smiley place. To see how I did this, go to here . For those who like the gross things in life, once again, some links to the gory detail: Finger from above before the stitches were removed Finger from side before the stitches were removed Finger from above after the stitches were removed ttfn David
    Posted to David Overton's Blog by David Overton on Sat, Sep 2 2006
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  • More Vista Gadgets

    I just popped along to http://gallery.microsoft.com/Results.aspx?vista=la... and saw that there was a number of Vista gadgets, 24 in total. For an RSS feed of the last 10, go to http://gallery.microsoft.com/rss.aspx?r=1&q=&l=1&s... ttfn David
    Posted to David Overton's Blog by David Overton on Fri, Sep 1 2006

  • Windows Vista Team Blog : It's Official: Windows Vista RC1 Is Complete

    Again, fingers still missing on left hand, so just a quick one to say that RC1 has started the shift out the door. Expect to see if on the official sites over the coming hours and days. Lots of new features, the platform to build and certify applications against and start the serious hardware testing for too. ttfn David Link to Windows Vista Team Blog : It's Official: Windows Vista RC1 Is Complete
    Posted to David Overton's Blog by David Overton on Fri, Sep 1 2006

  • Running Vista RC1 on SBS 2003

    This is just a very quick note to say that good old Sean has published a nice document on how to get SBS 2003 and the tools working with Vista RC1. For more info: SeanDaniel.com on SBS 2003 & other Tech-stuff: Looking to run Vista RC1 on SBS 2003? ttfn David
    Posted to David Overton's Blog by David Overton on Fri, Sep 1 2006

  • Robbie and Susanne's Marathon - come join in

    Think of this as a 1st mover notification. I am always in awe of those who can motivate themselves to do physical exercise and even more so if it is also raising money for charity. Well Robbie and Susanne have decided to take up the challenge. They have a joint site that will feature blogs, training details, events and other useful information as well as guest speakers/ bloggers. The site is just beginning, but pop along to Robbie and Susanne's Marathon and support a good cause and then sponsor them both - I have - by clicking the two charity logos at the top. ttfn David
    Posted to David Overton's Blog by David Overton on Mon, Aug 28 2006
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  • SMB Nation in Seattle in early September

    I remember this time last year - people were debating the benefits of SMBNation - was it worth the cash, then a nice sized bunch left the safe shores of the uk and traveled across the shiny pond and mottled country to arrive in Seattle. Behold, what they found was not quite gold and definitely not fools gold, but was jolly worth while. Advice, information and access to the right people mean that you get your cash back pretty quickly in terms of sales, saved time and swapped opportunities, but it is absolutely an investment. The reason by Susanne is going is listed here, as well as some of the comments from last year and some of the comments from the one in Amsterdam can be found at sbsbpi . The agenda is quite chocker, so worth a look at http://www.smbnation.com/ . ttfn David
    Posted to David Overton's Blog by David Overton on Fri, Aug 25 2006

  • Internet Explorer 7: RC1

    I have often debated the quality of IE over firefox and I'm not about to stop now, however this is just a simple note (as I am still a 4 fingered typist at the moment) to say that the latest build of IE is out there. To get more info on what this build has, go have a look at " What's new in RC1 " however they key paragraph for those not after the toolkit etc is: improvements in performance, stability, security, and application compatibility. With this build, Microsoft has also made enhancements to the fit and finish of the user interface, completed CSS platform changes, added language support, and included an auto-uninstall feature in Setup, which automatically uninstalls prior betas of Internet Explorer 7, making installing the new build even easier ttfn David
    Posted to David Overton's Blog by David Overton on Fri, Aug 25 2006

  • Great Weekend sailing that ended with me in A&E and St Mary's Hospital on the Isle of Wight

    I seem to be able to find trouble at the moment. I attended part 1 (3 of 5-days) of a competent crew training course designed to get me on the ladder to bigger and better sailing experience and finally teach me what the wind has to do with sailing. Over the three days we started with the basics, like how to make a distress call, only ever abandon a boat when you will be stepping up into a life raft, clothing, life jackets and how to use a toilet on a boat. We then progressed to the basics of sailing, so the naming of the various parts of the boat (I have real trouble remembering the shrouds). Finally we got on with the sailing and had some awesome days learning to sail in all weathers. As should be the way with sailing, each night was spent with much merriment and drinking, but as many of you know, I don't drink, smoke or swear ever, so I was always 1st up :-). We also arranged it so that the 3 men on the boat all had cabins and the 2 ladies shared the communal area - this might sound mean, but the men managed...
    Posted to David Overton's Blog by David Overton on Mon, Aug 21 2006
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  • So your profile info is on MS Partner site and partner finder, so now you MUST update your solution profiles to be found - here is why and how it takes 10 mins

    You are all hopefully aware of the need to update your profile information and the web site url in it so that when one of the small businesses follows up on one of our campaigns and clicks on the find a partner link (UK) they can find information about you that makes them want to buy from you. Well, we are now talking about solutions to our customers and this is where you can now create and update your solution profile so that you can have several solutions profiled on the site. Each solution can have a completely separate description and URL, so no longer does everything have to be generic. This means that if a customer is looking for a sharing solution, they find out about by searching the solution finder tool, click on it, read more, then click the url that is not generic, so they actually call you and buy something from you. How do you do all this, here is the profile that took me a good 5-10 minutes to put together - I suggest you spend a bit more time on yours, but it will be worth it as we move to the new...
    Posted to David Overton's Blog by David Overton on Thu, Aug 17 2006

  • The IW Center - podcasts on the office system

    I was looking for a trickle of information that includes videos and podcasts on the technologies around Office 2007 and the Office System. The IW Center is just the right place to get this info - worh a look. ttfn David
    Posted to David Overton's Blog by David Overton on Tue, Aug 15 2006

  • Customizing the Ribbon in Outlook 2007

    I was reading the MSDN Flash and came across this article " Link to Customizing the Ribbon in Outlook 2007 " and thought a few of you who wanted to customise the Office 2007 Ribbon bar can see how to change it and add new icons. ttfn David
    Posted to David Overton's Blog by David Overton on Tue, Aug 15 2006

  • USATODAY.com - Cybercrooks constantly find new ways into PCs

    I was reading this article and it reminded me of a few things. Sometimes when sitting in the Microsoft camp we say how good / bad others are at security, but rarely reflect on what people need to do and why. When there is a known issue with a package, I suspect many don't go to a test environment and pull the patch apart, many just do a quick test on 1 pc and then deploy wider. Obviously SBS 2003 R2 makes this process easier as you can now control the deployment and retraction of patches via the console. It also reminds me that it a patch is needed, it is really a mute discussion on how many issues it fixes, reboots or any other aspect - if your systems are vulnerable, you need to patch of mitigate. To do neither is inviting huge issues - and I have seen plenty of customers with issues. What I did also see was a comparison table showing that systems often thought to not be at risk, such as those by Apple, can still be very susceptible. When a security issue exists on a system, it does not matter if 1 or a 100...
    Posted to David Overton's Blog by David Overton on Tue, Aug 15 2006
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  • Creating a "reminder" appointment for the next day in Outlook

    I don't know about you, but I often need to put a quick reminder in Outlook for tomorrow. Such things as "Phone Bill", "Feed the Guinea Pig" and "Get son to have bath" are the sort of essential things that make life slip along that little easier. A while ago I wrote a quick VBScript to do just that. Here it is: ' Written by Ian Watkins September 2002 ' This script creates an Outlook Appointment item to act as a reminder to the user Dim ol Dim olns dim olAppt dim olAppointmentItem olAppointmentItem = 1 ' Set the Application object. Set ol = CreateObject("Outlook.Application") ' Set the Namespace object. Set olns = ol.GetNamespace("MAPI") ' Create an appointment item and populate it set olAppt = ol.CreateItem(olAppointmentItem) olAppt.start = date + 1 & " 09:00am" olAppt.duration = 0 olAppt.ReminderMinutesBeforeStart = 0 olAppt.subject = inputbox("Please enter a subject", "Reminder Appointment") olAppt.BusyStatus...

  • This is broken! Great web site about broken signs, projects etc

    I was reading this blog from the Live Writer site and came across this link - it is just one of the funniest things I have seen in a long time. Link to ...the musings of a psycho...: This is broken! enjoy David
    Posted to David Overton's Blog by David Overton on Mon, Aug 14 2006
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  • Moving CompanyWeb

    Our internal SBS2003 box and one at a clients were starting to get a bit short of space on the C: drive. One of the culprits were the Sharepoint database files which were well over a gig on our system and .5 gig at our clients. I read up various documents on the MS site and a few NG and blog posts before trying this and I have now successfully moved both sets of Sharepoint databases. I would strongly recommend you read the document at http://download.microsoft.com/download/1/1/6/11671e4d-fb21-489c-870f-db36fd21a7d2/SBS_MoveDataFolders.DOC before doing this. Because I'm basically lazy by nature and prefer to do things the easy way and I really don't like typing in obscure OSQL commands I decided to write a batch file that would do it all for me. Here it is: -------------------------------- @echo off rem Move CompanyWeb rem Based on MS document and posts on newsgroups rem YOU MUST CHANGE THESE SOURCE AND TARGET FOLDERS TO MATCH YOUR OWN rem DON'T FORGET THE TRAILING "\" EITHER OTHERWISE NASTY...

  • Are you near Exeter, then sign up quickly for the Small Business Ignite Tour as it is coming to you on the 29th August from 6pm

    Once again the Small Business Ignite Tour is coming out and this time it is Exeter. You need to sign-up quickly, so go to http://www.microsoft.com/uk/partner/training/ignite/default.aspx?id=Exeter and sign up for the Small Business Tour (as opposed to the tour with a date in the past). If you do not know about the Small Business Ignite Tour, then this is the rough agenda: Introduce just how big the business opportunity is in the land of small business Introduce the topics of Flexible Working and Collaborative Business as these will be the basis of marketing campaigns this year from Microsoft into small business customers Demonstrate technologies that you can deliver to give your customers the benefits they demand - such as : working from home or on the road, using the tools in SBS, Windows XP or Windows Mobile Sharing files between workers, customers and suppliers in a natural and secure way using WSS and Office When to consider a hosted solution and when to consider SBS How to stop searching and start finding...
    Posted to David Overton's Blog by David Overton on Wed, Aug 9 2006

  • New Vista Gadgets

    There are some new gadgets on the web site - http://gallery.Microsoft.com/Results.aspx?vista=la... My Favourites are: (Outlook Info, Media Shuffler, Poker beta, IP Info) ttfn David
    Posted to David Overton's Blog by David Overton on Tue, Aug 8 2006

  • What is going on in the world of Windows Live Ideas - IM, chat and web

    You can see any Live areas you have access too by going to http://ideas.live.com You can now IM to Yahoo Messenger users. Try it | Learn more | View blog The Live.com site continues to be updated - there is just so much you can do to your home page. If you have not been here, have a go at http://www.live.com and see how much fun it can be. Try it | Learn more | View blog There are lots of things you can load onto your Live.com page, your toolbar, Live Messenger and more - the place to configure all this is the Gallery - http://gallery.live.com Of course, there is also: messenger.live.com toolbar.live.com ttfn David
    Posted to David Overton's Blog by David Overton on Tue, Aug 8 2006
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  • Getting IE to search UKSBSGUY.com, companyweb or any other site you happen to like

    I like using IE 7 - I use the tabs all the time, I like the integrated search, I use the Live Toolbar too. Then I discovered that I could add new search times into the IE7 and I thought this was amazing. I have included the web site that builds custom searches and also two search config downloads - one that enables searching of UKSBSGUY.com and one that searches http://Companyweb - assuming you have search enabled as per this entry . (For completeness I also include SBSBPI and UKSBSG search clauses too) So, how to build your own search options for the nice little box in IE7 - go to IE 7 Search Builder page and follow the instructions (which is basically doing a search on whatever page you prefer with the text TEST and then past the URL. The searches can be found at the download page on UKSBSGuy.com. ttfn David
    Posted to David Overton's Blog by David Overton on Mon, Aug 7 2006

  • Enabling Search against your Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) site, such as SBS 2003's companyweb

    I went looking for this post from me today on the web site and was astounded to discover that I had not done it. So, here is the deal - your nice WSS sites can all have search enabled by default - and this means search inside all the documents with them understood (rather than some poor quality text search that can not deal with binary file formats). To enable this it is very simple: 1) Load SQL onto your system choosing to upgrade the instance called SHAREPOINT 2) Go to the SharePoint Admin Page (on SBS this is http://localhost:8081/SearchAdmin.aspx ) and tick the box 3) go to the home page of your WSS site and notice the search box in the top right corner If you want to add more search providers, go look for IFilters and for PDF capability, go to http://davidoverton.com/blogs/doverton/archive/2006/06/27/674.aspx ttfn David
    Posted to David Overton's Blog by David Overton on Mon, Aug 7 2006
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