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May 2007 - David Overton's Blog
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  • Vista now supports 1.9M devices - up 300,000 since the January launch

    I have had a lot of people come to the site for advice on device drivers. The advice is always the same - go ask your hardware manufacturer about support, however this is good news from the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference Responding to low-level but persistent grumbling from users about peripheral devices that won't work with Windows Vista , Microsoft Corp. claimed Wednesday that its new operating system now supports 1.9 million devices –- up from 1.6 million at Vista's launch in January. In a keynote speech at Microsoft's Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC) here, Mike Nash , corporate vice president of Windows product management at the software vendor, blamed driver compatibility problems with about 4,000 devices for creating roughly 80% of the user complaints received thus far. "It's a relatively small number of drivers that are driving most of the complaints," Nash said in an interview at WinHEC on Tuesday. Source: WinHEC: Microsoft drives toward better device...

  • Installing Office 2003 and Office 2007 on the same system

    [updated 16:42 9th May 2007 with url for MS Support of this] [updated 9:45 22nd July 2007 with url to fix for install dialog coming up with word] I was recently asked in Office 2003 and Office 2007 can co-exist on the same system. The answer is yes, except for Outlook which as in previous versions get a little precious if this is attempted (it will not let you do this, btw). You can choose to have them both installed to the same drive or one to an external hard drive, it does not matter. The key option is when installing Office 2007 is to customise the options and select to NOT uninstall the previous versions. When you install both copies of Office to be installed on 1 machine that switching between Word 2003 and Word 2007 will result in an install dialog box coming up. See How to get rid of the installer / configuration dialog when running Office 2007 and Office 2003 on the same system - for Vista and other versions of Windows to fix this. For more support information, look at http://support.microsoft.com/default...

  • Setting up Yahoo Mail Plus (the paid for service) for Pop3 download into Outlook 2007

    I have had someone ask me about POP3 mail and Outlook 2007 wiht Yahoo mail, so here is a walk through. Go to the tools menu and select Account Settings. press New selected the top option filled in my details and clicked next let it finish processing job done Going back to Account settings screen I see that the settings are not quite the same as the details at http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/mail/original/mailplus/pop/pop-36.html Clicking More Settings the last tab needed some changing from the screen on the left to the screen on the right that is it - SSL based login and e-mail working ttfn David Technorati tags: yahoo mail , Outlook 2007

  • The price of Vista in the UK - some really, really bad maths

    OK, so this has really got my goat - I read that there is a £100 difference between the UK and US prices for Vista Premium Edition, so I thought I would add my PERSONAL view on this. Microsoft does not set the prices, the resellers do - some offer products at a loss to bring you in, some add plenty of margin because they believe the market can bear it When comparing prices we need to do so on as close to a level playing field as possible - so no VAT & state tax etc There is some difference due to the unusually high exchange rate - and using the market exchange rate rather than a normal punter exchange rate does not reflect the man on the street pricing The figures stated don't seem to bear out in reality in my opinion I found a typical story here : UK customers face disparity and confusion over the pricing of Microsoft Windows Vista , Computing Which? has discovered. Windows Vista Home Premium has a recommended retail price of $240 (£125) in the US. But to buy the same software in the UK would set consumers...

  • How to configure SQL Server 2005 to allow remote connections on Windows Server 2008 (Longhorn) / Windows Vista

    Just a quick one - I was playing around with SQL2005 on my Longhorn server and I could not connect from a remote machine - Ahh I thought, the firewall is in the way, but it turned out I had to do 3 or 4 things to get things working. The Microsoft KB article that pointed to the light was How to configure SQL Server 2005 to allow remote connections which covers how to enable the firewall for the 2 programs you need and so on. When you try to connect to an instance of Microsoft SQL Server 2005 from a remote computer, you may receive an error message. This problem may occur when you use any program to connect to SQL Server. For example, you receive the following error message when you use the SQLCMD utility to connect to SQL Server: Sqlcmd: Error: Microsoft SQL Native Client: An error has occurred while establishing a connection to the server. When connecting to SQL Server 2005, this failure may be caused by the fact that under the default settings SQL Server does not allow remote connections. This problem may occur...

  • Trial Software Kit for Windows Small Business Server 2003 R2

    I was recently asked how to get a trial of SBS. You can't download one, but as a customer you can order one here. Note that if you go to the international pages you might have to scroll around a bit to find the right bit of information. If you are a partner and wish to give them to use them with your customers then you only need one copy as you can re-use the key we provide you and you can get it from the Partner Marketplace For customers: Trial Software Kit for Windows Small Business Server 2003 R2 North America – Order your CD package here. Other Locations – The SBS 2003 R2 Trial is not generally available outside North America. Please select your country from the SBS Worldwide page to determine whether the trial software is available in your location. For Partners: Partner MarketPlace - eg Market - Partners - Microsoft UK You searched for items of collateral related to the Small Business Server (SBS) group. To add items to your order, select a quantity from the drop down box. Description Type Audience Price...

  • How to remove those spaces before, after and inbetween paragraphs in Word 2007 (Part of Office 2007)

    I got this mail on the blog today, so decided I would post a solution: 2007 Vista Student and Office Edition does not allow me to create one line spacing in Address Headings but okay within the body of the letter, is this a glitch. I have never experienced this in my former Word Programs. In the dialog box it does specify single spacing. Any advice would be appreciated I have created a simple document and you might notice that there is a big gap between each sentence. This is caused by both line spacing and space before or after the paragraphs. I will walk you through the process I went through to make things look less spaced out. To do all of this I will be using just one icon on the ribbon bar - the one circled below If I hover over this, you can see it is for line spacing. The 1st thing I did was highlight my text and try setting the line spacing to 1.0 - you can see the result is that the text is slightly closer together. Next I clicked the "Remove Space Before Paragraph" option and you will notice...

  • How to do mail merge letters and labels in Office 2007

    I got a mail on this today, so thought I had better drop a quick note. The Office 2007 web site has a great search system that got me an answer straight away that includes screen shots to make it real simple. (I searched on the site for mail merge and then picked Word 2007 from the product picker). Please note that you can also e-mail merge to result in a number of e-mails being sent (perhaps with a newsletter) and that if you use publisher then you can also do things like put in place web links that have a unique identifier so you can tell who clicked on them. The answers can be found at: http://office.microsoft.com/en-gb/word/HA100819761033.aspx?pid=CH100626281033 for the letters http://office.microsoft.com/en-gb/word/HA101091611033.aspx?pid=CH100626261033 for the labels ttfn David Technorati tags: mail merge , word 2007 , Office 2007

  • Want Microsoft to get you leads - this is how you do it

    One of the most commonly asked questions is "How do I get Microsoft to send me leads?" While we run campaigns that point people to the bCentral site and the find a small business IT advisor process some want more direct action. Well, using the Mr Busy campaign you can now get us to carry our a campaign on your behalf. Yes, that is right, we will carry out a campaign on your behalf to people you want to - either by e-mail (EM) or post (DM). The process is really simple - go here and read the instructions. For the Post Card campaign we know that using post cards effectively communicate with your customers and provide short and focused information. You can customise the postcard with your company details, your logo and a relevant web URL and phone number. We advise that the URL you supply has information about the IT healthcheck to increase the number of customers then contacting you. Your postcards will be sent directly to your customers in a neutral envelope within five business days of you submitting...

  • Buying Vista and then installing an old version of Office - what are you allowed to do

    I have already discussed on this blog what is and is not support for Office on Vista (any version from 2000 on) here . However there is always the question of licensing what is actually allowed and what would be piracy. I am going to try to make it very simple here. · If you have the Home and Student (was the Student and Teacher) Edition then this can be installed on 3 computers in the same household · If you have a previous “Full Packaged Product” – the pretty box you bought at a retailers – version of the product then this can be removed from one computer and installed on a new computer. It can only be installed on one computer at any time · If your software is provided as part of a volume license agreement then you can install on a new computer or other computers, but if you change the number of computers that it is installed on you may have to pay more for the extra usage. · If you have neither of these then you have an OEM copy – this is provided and supported by the people who supplied your computer and...

  • New downloads for Business Contact Manager for Office 2007 (and 2003) to provide Pocket PC / Windows Mobile 5 & 6 support, Admin a database on a SBS box, setup a database on a SBS box and offer Office Live Maps for contacts

    I have just got my new mobile phone and I thought I would update the BCM client - a quick trip to http://download.microsoft.com (link takes you to these results) led me to these results below. I think the ones shown are key for many people. Results for - "business contact manager" Title Release Date Popularity Outlook 2007 with Business Contact Manager: Prevent error message about version mismatch when certain Office 2007 applications are launched Prevents error message about version mismatch when you start certain Office 2007 applications on a computer that is running Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 with Business Contact Manager 5/1/2007 #963 Outlook 2007 or 2003 with Business Contact Manager Add-in: Business Contacts for Pocket PC This release is an add-in that allows you to synchronize your business contacts and a subset of your communication history to your Microsoft Windows Mobile 5.0 Pocket PC. 4/25/2007 #536 Business Contact Manager Database Admin Tool Users of Business Contact Manager for Outlook...

  • Responding to another "I can't load Office 2003 on Vista" e-mail

    [updated to correct a typo - 10:48 27th May 2007] I get lots of mails similar to the one below as a result of the blog entries on the EULA not going away and the Office 2003 on Vista and in some cases the issues have been Vista, sometimes the CD and sometimes non-genuine software that someone has been sold (as a side note - it has never been the new security - UAC that has been at the root of the problem). Hi David, I have read your blog entry re: 2003 installation on Vista but I have a problem not previously mentioned. I am doing an install from the CD and have disabled UAC. I attempt to run the SETUP.EXE (as Systems Admin and even with the compatibility set to WinXP SP2) to no avail. The next dialog window comes up saying that the SETUP.INI file cannot be found (path: ./FILES/SETUP/SETUP.INI). I'm baffled because I take the same installation CD and I put it in my old WinXP box and I can explore to find the SETUP.INI file exists. Why is my Vista box not able to see this .ini? Do I need to install the mentioned...

  • WOW!!! Microsoft Surface has just made me say - "I have to have one" and so does everyone else in the family too. This is seriously cool (and not really much to do for most small businesses)

    [updated 1:05 with more information and moving silverlight code to a 2nd page] I'm a difficult person to impress - Silverlight is one technology that impresses me seriously as to the future direction of media and web applications. Now however we have a new platform that I really like the look of - Surface . Have a look at the web site - see the possibilities of this touch and object sensitive device. Put a camera on it and the pictures poor out of it. look at photos and movies on it. It is just a wow, how cool is that type of device. Maybe I should run some form of competition on the blog and see if anyone wants to win one when they ship!! For more information go to www.microsoft.com/surface/ with the "Executive Q&A: What the new surface computing category means for Microsoft and consumers" found at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2007/may07/05-29Surface.mspx and the general PR at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2007/may07/05-29MSSurfacePR.mspx . Finally you can see more...

  • How I created my popfly carousel

    If you go to the blog entry on Microsoft Surface you will be asked to install Microsoft Silverlight. When you do so you will see a carousel effect to show the 12 Surface pictures. As many of you know I am NOT a developer by any means, so I thought I would show you what I had to do to get to the finished product - it is not hard at all. 1st off I signed up for a Popfly account at http://www.popfly.com and was lucky enough to get an account very quickly. OK, so I dropped 3 blocks onto the screen - one to read the RSS fead of the Surface pictures, one to pull out the picture urls and one to display them. That was it (well I did drag those blue lines across too) Here is what I put in the RSS feed Here is what I put in the filter Here is what I put in the carousel initially (I changed it to a more complex piece of code later to change the screen resolution of the images it pulls down) that was it. That is why popfly is so simple to combine things together. ttfn David Technorati tags: popfly , mashup , silverlight
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  • What is the difference between an Outlook contact and a Business Contact Manager (BCM in Office 2007) contact

    I was asked this by someone today and thought I would show you the differences BCM Contact General Page followed by the Outlook Contact General Page: There are lots of differences, but the big ones are: Information Source - where did it come from, how did you get this contact and which account started it. Classification - Is this a lead and is the person still "active". Also who is managing this person, what their credit rating is and whether there is a payment issue BCM Details Page followed by the Outlook Details Page: A host of job related information and then a section for personal information about the person, plus a huge comments section. There is also the communication preferences piece and the ability to suppress mailings (do not call, do not e-mail, do not fax, do not mail (write to on paper)). Finally the BCM (only) History Page: Some of this information can be automatically generated, so for example, the e-mail items can be auto generated whenever you mail, or they mail you. ttfn David Technorati...

  • The "If you only read one post today, this is the one" Post tag is coming

    I was talking to Adrian from EJC.IT yesterday (a great Small Business partner) and one comment that was made was that I sometimes post lots of entries and knowing which one to read if only one was to be read was hard. So, I have decided to create the " If you only read one post today " tag for those blog entries that fall into the category. Obviously this is one as it is the 1st one and tells you about it :-) [updated 11:33 on 23/05/2007] The URL to get just these posts is http://uksbsguy.com/blogs/doverton/archive/tags/If+you+only+read+one+post+today/default.aspx and the RSS feed for this is http://uksbsguy.com/blogs/doverton/rss.aspx?Tags=If+you+only+read+one+post+today&AndTags=1 ttfn David Technorati Tags: If you only read one post today

  • Collaboration (working together) using Infopath and SharePoint - Job Aids (tools to help you do your job) from Microsoft

    Collaboration Discover tools for managing information and collaborating with others. · Collaboration Selection Guide SharePoint · Collaborating with SharePoint Server 2007 Overview · SharePoint Server 2007 Sites & Workspaces Selection Guide · SharePoint Server 2007 Document Collaboration Get Started · SharePoint Server 2007 Team Sites Get Started · Customizing a SharePoint Server 2007 Site Get Started · SharePoint Server 2007 Web Parts Learn More · SharePoint Server 2007 Meeting Workspaces Get Started · SharePoint Server 2007 My Sites Get Started · SharePoint Server 2007 Site Access and Storage Learn More · SharePoint Server 2007 Surveys Get Started · Outlook 2007 and SharePoint Server 2007 Integration Overview · Outlook 2007 and SharePoint Server 2007 Integration Get Started · Using InfoPath 2007 Forms on a SharePoint Server 2007 Site ttfn David Technorati tags: Office 2007 , Collaboration , Job Aids

  • Free exam vouchers to help you become a SBSC member - use by 22nd June 2007!

    Since I re-published how to become a SBSC member I thought it would be worth pointing out that you can now also get a little bit of help in the way of FREE EXAM VOUCHERS. Jen Brinton has told me that "As a special incentive we have a limited number of FREE EXAM VOUCHERS which can be redeemed against any of the exams above. If you would like one of these vouchers please contact [email protected] but please hurry as these vouchers will be offered on a first come first serve basis and must be redeemed before the 22nd June." So, grab voucher and join the community today. ttfn David Technorati tags: SBSC , Exam Vouchers , Free

  • I hate seeing computers advertised on TV with 512MB of RAM with Vista

    This is a personal rant !! I was watching TV and saw a device advertised at a very attractive price, but with only 512MB of RAM. While Vista will work on a machine with 512MB of RAM the RECOMMENDED MINIMUM for all versions other than Home Basic is 1GB , meaning that the systems are shipping with just half the recommended minimum they should ship with. The recommended minimum amount of RAM for Windows XP was 128MB RAM with 64MB being the absolute minimum. Shipping a home premium or business machine with below the recommended minimum is a bit like running Windows XP with 64 (or even 128MB RAM). Think what XP would be like and while Vista is not that bad with 512MB, it is definitely not great. So, please, please, please, 1GB minimum, 2GB and above for power users. I've seen this discussed in so many places, but please, 512MB is just no fun - don't let it happen to your customers - prepare them now. I just bought 2GB of RAM for about £30 per stick so when buying new PCs, be a good person and put it in there...

  • Windows Live Messenger v8.5 beta 1 is released

    I know that you like the odd beta, so this is the 1st of 3 I will post today, so enjoy the code. Lots more information and pictures at Inside Windows Live Messenger . Important Details: Get Messenger 8.5 Beta1 (build 517) here Markets (Country + Language) in order to get this Beta out asap we limited the number of supported markets. If your market is not listed below, please know that we are working on it! English - United States, United Kingdom, India French - France Japanese - Japan German - Germany Chinese (Simplified) - China Spanish - United States, Spain What's new (ever get the feeling that this is a usability and eye candy update) Setup - the look, the desktop short cut, the start menu short cuts, Microsoft Update Sign-in - the look Menus - the look and feel Contact Window - the look Conversation Window - the look and a little feel New Emoticon - the bunny ttfn David Technorati Tags: beta , Messenger , Live
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  • Should you be recognised as a Small Business Specialist Community (SBSC) partner (or do you want to be), here is how - do it today including the new technical areas that are accepted into the program (Sharepoint skills)

    A couple of years back Microsoft realised that it needed a specialised group of partners that it could recommend to small business customers, invest time and effort into helping succeed and help elevate themselves above the 33,000 other partners in the UK. From these desires the SBSC program was born. What are the benefits of becoming a SBSC Partner Use the Small Business Specialist logo for advertising and marketing (eg http://www.bmsnet.co.uk/blog/?p=58 ) Be listed as a Small Business Specialist in the Microsoft Resource Directory Gain access to premium content on the Microsoft Partner Program Web site Access exclusive Small Business Specialist Private Managed Newsgroups If you don't have it already, using the Microsoft Action Pack which has LOADS of software in it and it costs less than £200 per year (10 copies of Vista, 10 copies of Office, SBS Server, Exchange 2007, MS CRM and much, much more) How to become a SBSC Partner From scouring our records some parnters qualify, but haven't signed up yet,...

  • Windows Live Writer Beta 2 Now Available (The best blogging tool in the world)

    OK, so this is beta number 3 for the day and the one I use for about 95% of my blog writing. Hope along to Writer Zone: Windows Live Writer Beta 2 Now Available to get all the details, but once again, here is the summary: from here :-) This release incorporates a ton of feedback from our discussion forums and your blogs. Here are some of the new features you'll find in Beta 2: New Authoring Capabilities Inline spell checking Table editing Ability to add categories Page authoring for WordPress and TypePad Support for excerpts and extended entries Improved hyperlinking and image insertion Paste Special Integration and Compatibility SharePoint 2007 support New APIs enabling custom extensions by weblog providers Automatic synchronization of local and online edits Integration with Windows Live Gallery Support for Blogger Labels Plus... New look and feel Available in 6 languages Improved accessibility and keyboard support Many other frequently requested enhancements! Tables and spell checking Adding categories Page...
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  • Action Pack abuse / misuse and customers who are registered as a partner and should not be - what can be done about it?

    Over the past months I have had people say to me something like: "I have a customer who wants to use the Action Pack, what can I tell them as to why it is wrong" "I know someone who is abusing the action pack by selling it to customers" "I think someone is listed locally as a partner and should not be" I think this customer does not qualify or how do I tell people what is required to use the Action Pack So here is how we can help. To qualifty for the action pack you must (from https://partner.microsoft.com/UK/program/managemembership/actionpack/mapslicensing ) Who can subscribe to the Microsoft Action Pack? The Microsoft Action Pack Subscription is available exclusively to consultants, value-added resellers, value-added providers, system integrators, developers, system builders, hosts and service providers who are enroled as Microsoft Partner Programme Registered Members and who distribute or influence their customers’ acquisition of Microsoft software and Microsoft-based solutions...

  • OneNote Calendar at OneNote PowerToys to view your notes against the day you wrote them

    I saw this and knew it was an awesome tool! Josh Einstein, the developer of TEO 3.0, has created a nifty new application for OneNote. The OneNote Calendar gives you a calendar view of all of your notes, allowing you to view them by when they were created or modified. There is a preview pane that allows you to view your notes. More good news. It is free. Source: Josh Einstein’s OneNote Calendar at OneNote PowerToys

  • Interactive Developer Map - want to develop something on top of a Microsoft platform, but don't know where to go for information - now you can do it all interactively

    Microsoft Office Interactive Developer Map The Microsoft Office Interactive Developer Map is a Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) application that helps developers visualize the different programs, servers, services, and tools that will help them build solutions. It allows them to drill down to each product and technology and learn about new features, objects, Web services, namespaces, and schemas required to extend Microsoft Office and build custom Office Business Applications (OBAs) . Source: Interactive Developer Map I have a look at this and was quite impressed with the list of resources available to you. For example - look at the link below - it is the Office Live drill down - look at all the places to get information - I checked - the sites are good! ttfn David
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(c)David Overton 2006-23