DavidOverton.com
This site is my way to share my views and general business and IT information with you about Microsoft, IT solutions for ISVs, technologists and businesses, large and small.  

Blogs

  • More feedback that Microsoft Support for SBS and Windows XP, no matter where in the world, is great

    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...
    Posted to David Overton's Blog by David Overton on Wed, May 17 2006
  • Vlad Mazek - explains why Work Life Balance is so important

    I came across this on Vlad's blog - I think Vlad finally has a handle on Work Life Balance - have a look at his blog to see the picture and realise what he is saying when getting ready to walk down the Aisle and someone wants him to do just one more thing ;-) Congrats to Vlad as he is now a married man!! Dear Vlad, I am really running on a tight deadline here and as much as I can appreciate that you’re out of town I REALLY need an ETA on <SBS Show, Shockey Monkey, Vladfire>… I am running out of time. They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Here is your ETA. Provided in 4MP resolution just in case you can’t see my ETA guarantee: Source: Vlad Mazek - Vladville Blog » Blog Archive » Can I have an ETA?
    Posted to David Overton's Blog by David Overton on Mon, Oct 9 2006
  • David Overton at the East Anglia Partner Group (Sometimes known as the Cambridge SBS User Group)

    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
    Posted to David Overton's Blog by David Overton on Thu, May 4 2006
  • Can't wait for Office 2007 - get the full product trial

    If you are wanting to play with Office, you can now get a trial from here . You can play with this until you get your full version. Yes, this is RTM code and yes, this is a DOWNLOAD. That's it David
    Posted to David Overton's Blog by David Overton on Fri, Dec 15 2006
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  • Susanne has gone for the split personality

    Now you all know how great a community leader Susanne is (and if not, better go find out by seeing here community site at http://www.sbsbpi.co.uk ) and that she has her blog on this site, well she has now struck out on her own as well - have a look at her posts on http://www.uksmbgirl.co.uk/blog/ ttfn David
    Posted to David Overton's Blog by David Overton on Mon, Apr 10 2006
  • Did you know that your small business customers want Windows Vista

    I know this has been discussed before and while I am on Paternity I am not authoring much in the way of content (not enough time), so simply adding things I am finding elsewhere, but this little gem was interesting. A recent web survey that I think, but am not 100% sure about, was NOT commissioned by Microsoft found the following: http://www.itbusinessedge.com/item/?ci=11414 Small shops (with fewer than 100 employees) who identified themselves as aggressive when it comes to platform upgrades were among the most avid projected Vista adopters, with 76 percent saying they would roll out within the first year of Vista release. Of respondents who said they plan on delaying a Vista rollout, 69 percent said they would rely on their PC refresh cycle to drive the transition . Overall, 46 percent of respondents said that new security features would be a factor in causing them to undertake a Vista rollout; the next most popular response was end of support for legacy Windows systems, at 28 percent. Only three survey respondents...
    Posted to David Overton's Blog by David Overton on Mon, Jun 26 2006
  • Windows XP SP1 support is ending in October

    Support Ends for Windows XP Service Pack 1 http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=5159878 Effective October 10, 2006, support for Windows XP Service Pack 1 (SP1) will end. After this date, Microsoft will no longer provide any incident support or security updates. To enhance the security of your computer and to continue receiving updates, we recommend upgrading to Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2). To learn more about this upgrade and the free technical support provided to download and install the service pack, visit the Web site http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=5159908 . You know the answer, if your customers are not on XP SP2, time to move them up. ttfn David
    Posted to David Overton's Blog by David Overton on Mon, Sep 18 2006
  • The Virtual Partner Conference - Partners - Microsoft UK - starts on 27th September

    OK, so I think I said at http://uksbsguy.com/blogs/doverton/archive/2006/09... that this started today, but it in fact tomorrow. Line up still looks good! The Virtual Partner Conference goes live on 27 September 2006, with video sessions from key speakers within Microsoft and accredited external speakers. Here's a taste of what you can expect: Hear David James (Henley Management College) and Nigel Montgomery (AMR Research) talking about the UK market trends, the opportunity areas and how you can align your business to take full advantage. Listen to our plans for the coming year... in the areas you're interested in. We have video sessions with key speakers discussing our plans in each business area and what the opportunity is for you. Hear our plans for Vista and Office straight from the product managers themselves - along with demos of the new software to get you clued up. Get the latest information on the Partner Programme and find out how you can make the most of being a Microsoft Partner. And much more... Source...
    Posted to David Overton's Blog by David Overton on Tue, Sep 26 2006
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  • What is a UK SBSC PAL and where have they been?

    A PAL is a great friend - I did a quick search of Vijay's blog and came up with http://www.iqubed.biz/blog/2007/04/09/sbsc-pals-programme/ however this does not say what a PAL is, do I did a bit more digging (I know as I was involved in the process, but does anyone else?) A quick look at Versand von T-Online Mails unter eigenem Konto in Small Business tells me what I needed to show: Partner Area Lead ( SBSC PAL ). In the UK we have two - Vijay and Gareth of Sytec . Anyway, they had their 1st outing and here is a snippet of what Vijay had to say This was the first outing for the UK SBSC PALs (Gareth and myself) and it was to the SME Day at the Microsoft Executive Briefing Centre in Brussels held over two days. The first day was the VC Summit and a showcase of ISVs that the Microsoft Emerging Business Team had selected and who were looking for potential equity funding. The keynote was given by Craig Mundie , Microsoft’s Chief Research & Strategy Officer. You don’t get much higher up in Microsoft than this...
    Posted to David Overton's Blog by David Overton on Fri, Jun 8 2007
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  • Back from holiday and ploughing through mail

    Howdy folks, I am well and truly back at my desk, but I received a little over 2,000 mails while I was away, so I am closing them down before I do lots of blog posts. Will be soon. thanks David
    Posted to David Overton's Blog by David Overton on Tue, Oct 31 2006
  • Windows Vista build 5728 - post RC1 build - get it now

    This page includes information to help you download a special test build of Windows Vista. This build (5728) has a number of improvements and updates from RC1, but has not been put through the same internal testing process as RC1 and therefore may be unstable in certain installations. We are making this release available for a limited time only (and only by download) in order to get broad distribution and testing in a variety of PC configurations. Please note: This build may not have the same level of support or servicing via Windows Update, and you may not be able to upgrade to the final version of Windows Vista . To continue, please use the links below to start the download. Otherwise, please click here to access the download for Windows Vista RC1 (build 5600) . Link to Windows Vista build 5728 ttfn David
    Posted to David Overton's Blog by David Overton on Sun, Sep 24 2006
  • Off-line site

    While I was away in Amsterdam my SBS box crashed twice, so I took the server offline today to run a lenght memory and hard disk test - neither returned any results, but the system appears to be crashing from random hardware issues - I will update you with hwo I diagnosed it soon. ttfn David
    Posted to David Overton's Blog by David Overton on Sat, Apr 8 2006
  • Off topic- another feature played with in Vista

    Hello again everyone, I have been playing with a new feature in Vista . It is the the ability to dictate directly into the operating system or application, so for example this blog was dictated using a the headset and Windows Vista speech recognition of my UK accent. While it can be frustrating while windows lands my voice one benefit at least is that I no longer have to spell check what type type is this is automatically performed by the voice recognition technology. It can even be set to use my local language so words which would normally be spelt in the American way such as a magazine are now starting the English way. While this technology is not knew I had spent many hours in the past training this sort of behaviour into applications before where is now it is taken over a short amount of time to get it right. The process of correcting its mistakes is also very nice as is the way in which you can now move around other applications including Internet explorer by showing that numbers for all of the places where...
    Posted to David Overton's Blog by David Overton on Tue, Apr 4 2006
  • Puzzle of the week......

    Why does it take so long to prepare the desktop on a Windows 2008 Core server when you RDP to it? I mean it's only a command prompt.....
  • Office Rocker! : the launch is not canceled

    Darren Strange wanted to make sure everyone knew that the Office launch is on schedule, so he wrote a blog entry called " the launch is not cancelled " and says: My days now seem to consist of queues of wild people, frothing at the mouth running at me like some sort of marketing shaun of the dead scene screaming "cancel the launch!". People, hear me, take a chill pill, we are launching and we are on track. :-) Things will go wrong when you run a launch. Customer projects deploying the beta are fraught with politics and yes sometimes bugs, shock horror, can crop up when you least need it. But we will launch. We will get our events together, we will sort out who attends, we will get that PO sorted, that content will get written, that speaker briefed, that customer PR form signed, that video will get recorded and edited and how can I be so sure??? ttfn David
    Posted to David Overton's Blog by David Overton on Mon, Oct 9 2006
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  • Small Business News : SME leasing identified as means to growth

    Just saw this on the bCentral news site - always useful to know!! Of course, this can include IT solutions and of course, the MS Finance offers found at http://www.microsoft.com/uk/partner/sales_and_marketing/promotions/default.aspx?page=product can be used to cover the whole solution, so your fees, SBS server and desktops with Office... ;-) SME leasing identified as means to growth Thu, 05 Oct 2006 12:05:05 GMT Leasing has been identified as a cost effective option for smaller businesses, according to the Forum of Private Business (FPB). Leasing has been identified as a cost effective option for smaller businesses, according to the Forum of Private Business (FPB). Source: Small Business News : SME leasing identified as means to growth
    Posted to David Overton's Blog by David Overton on Mon, Oct 9 2006
  • Two Windows Vista events next week in London and Reading

    11 September 2006, London: Windows Vista System Integrity Technologies Windows Vista will ship with several new system integrity technologies, including code integrity, secure start-up, service hardening, mandatory integrity control and Internet Explorer protected mode. In this session, Steve Lamb explores how these technologies work to thwart malware's attempts to take over your computer. 14 September 2006, Reading: What's New in Administering Vista? In this session, we will examine Group Policy functionality improvements that have been made with Windows Vista. We will describe the new and updated features and how these help to alleviate the problems that were present with previous versions of Windows. ttfn David
  • Microsoft finally confirm that they are entering the media entertainment device arena - with the Zune

    http://www.billboard.biz/bb/biz/magazine/upfront/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002877378 This web site features an interview aroudn the Zune. Not much is really present in the article, except for the fact that it should ship this year, it will support wireless syncronisation, which could be used for wireless playlist and music swapping. Other places for info on the Zune include - https://www.comingzune.com/default.aspx and http://news.com.com/Microsofts+Zune+to+rival+Apples+iPod/2100-1041_3-6097196.html as soon as I hear more, I promise to tell all :-) ttfn David
    Posted to David Overton's Blog by David Overton on Wed, Jul 26 2006
  • The key to Vista's success is a great product and some amazing ISV applications

    I have been having a chat with Vlad ( http://www.vladville.com/2006/06/vista-advertising-machine-starts-its-engine.html ) and he has made a really good point that Vista looks good, that it is beta, so should not be deployed in a live environment and that he needs some compelling apps. I happen to agree with him - it is beta, and therefore more sluggish and buggy than a final product, but on the apps front, there is soooo much to come. The view of public apps can be seen on http://www.seewindowsvista.com , but Mary Jane Foley has raised the question in http://www.microsoft-watch.com/article2/0,2180,1972444,00.asp and also points out that a different bread of ISV is coming to town and they are bringing Vista only or enabled apps that will help. Obviously the Vista benefits for Security, reliablility, ease of use and user safety will all be a major factor for many customers. I can't wait for the information on ISVs to continue to materialize over the coming weeks. ttfn David
    Posted to David Overton's Blog by David Overton on Mon, Jun 12 2006
  • VMware Consolidated Backup and Backup Exec

    We've implemented a VMware ESX farm in our offices (and we do have a Hyper-V server as well) and I have been looking at using VMware Consolidated Backup along with our NFR copy of Backup Exec to take snapshots of the VMs. I'm cheap see :-) I have got the VCB command line utilities working fine with the given documentation but whan I set BE up it failed with invalid username or password. This has been doing my head in. However looking around I discovered one post where someone had improved the JavaScript files that come with BE integration module and this gave me the idea to see if I could find out what username and password were being passed. I edited glue.js and wrote the username and password out to STDERR. In the CONFIG.JS I had put the username and password in (I'll lock down when it's all working) and was using a domain user in the form of domain\username. When I looked at the output in the logfile I was seeing domainusername all together. Being a JavaScript file it needed two \\ between the...
  • London SMB IT Pro Group meeting Monday 13th November - EVO

    The next meeting of the London Small Business IT Pro Group will take place on Monday, 13th November. If you can let me know you're coming that'll be great (just so I've got some idea of numbers) otherwise just turn up. This month we welcome Matt McSpirit, Partner Technology Specialist for Vista who is coming to talk about all things Exchange 2007, Vista and Office 2007. In fact he would like us to tell him what we'd like to hear about so he can tailor some of his talk to our requirements, so if you let me know you are coming also let me know what subjects around EVO you'd like to hear about and I'll feed that back. Please let me have your input by 9:00am Wednesday. The meeting will be start at 5:30pm Monday 13th November at Microsoft House, 10 Great Pulteney Street, London, W1F 9NB. Drinks and pizza will be served and the meeting will finish around 8:30pm in time for those who travel any distance to get away and for the locals to retire to the pub :-) This is as far as I know the last meeting...
  • UK SMB Girl - RIP SBSC Premium Programme - what happened and what do you think

    Susanne is a little gem sometimes and today is no different - she has posted an interesting review of the SBSC programme and it's changes . The programme largely revolves around partners who sell SBS, although it is aimed at any who services small businesses (just in case you somehow have not heard of it). We are making changes this year, which included the removal of the Premium part of the badge. SBSC compares very favourably to the Certified Partner Programme in so much as you don't have to give Microsoft £1,000 or have to have 2 people certified in the same subject area. Membership to SBSC does not cost money, but does require an MCP in one of two areas and the passing of a simple sales and marketing exam. If you are already a SBSC member your opinion as to what else should be on the list of requirements will be key to shaping the implementation for next year. Benefits of SBSC membership: Microsoft notices you over the other 25,000+ registered partners in the UK Access to the private managed...
    Posted to David Overton's Blog by David Overton on Sat, Sep 23 2006
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  • Learn what Information Worker is when Microsoft talk about it (Office 2003 & servers) and what James Akrigg has to say - More PTS TV

    The PTS Team (the group I work for - Partner Technical Support) are recording regular small videos to explain what we do and what it means to partners. One of my hero's in the team is James AKrigg. You will know if you have ever seen him present - he is very passionate about technolog and getting the most out of it - very much like me - and he was also one of the original architects of the SBSC programme idea. So (being one of my favorite words), what has he done, well he has recorded a small piece on PTS-TV about Information Worker. My advice to you, go spend 7 minutes learning what he has to say - you will find it valuable, and possibly funny as we seem to be leaving in outtakes :-) Where can you get it? - http://www.microsoft.com/uk/partner/blog/pts-tv/ let me know if you like it :-) ttfn David
    Posted to David Overton's Blog by David Overton on Fri, May 12 2006
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  • How to put your copyright information and usage into Office Documents with the Creative Commons add-in

    Just a quick note to say that Microsoft have been working with Creative Commons to enable the use of their Copyright licenses and tools within Office. More info at Creative Commons can be found at http://creativecommons.org/ and the plug-in for Office can be found at http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=113B53DD-1CC0-4FBE-9E1D-B91D07C76504&displaylang=en ttfn David
    Posted to David Overton's Blog by David Overton on Sun, Jun 25 2006
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  • Using Windows SharePoint Services (WSS and Companyweb) to keep everyone up to date

    Again I am taking content from the Small Business Ignite Tour which covers WSS is some detail – http://www.microsoft.com/uk/partner/ignite . This continues in the series and now we are looking at how to keep everyone up to date. Many business owners talk about issues such as: “My sales people have access to an electronic price book, but they do not keep it up to date, so they sell at the wrong price” or “When I make an important policy document change, everyone must know about it and acknowledge the fact that they agree” While some of this is about teaching people some new skills, most of it is about using the functionality provided between Office 2003 and SBS 2003 using Windows SharePoint Services. If you have been reading the other WSS blog entries, then you should now be familiar with Document Workspaces. Open a document workspace and note the “Alert Me” option down the bottom. You can give certain users the capability to use e-mail addresses such as all employees or sales team. Create Windows users that can...
    Posted to David Overton's Blog by David Overton on Wed, Jun 14 2006
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