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.  

The Random Musings of an IT Consultant.......

  • Ways to find the Service Pack levels of products in SBS

    After a thread on the Yahoo! SBS list Don Murphy has put together a page of info on how to find the Service Pack level of the different components on SBS. You can find it here: http://reloadnuggets.com/archives/14 Thanks Don!
  • Using Certificates to secure Wireless Access

    The guys at Microsoft have released a paper for comment on how to use Certificates to secure wireless access on an SBS network. Read about it here: http://blogs.msdn.com/sbsdocsteam/archive/2006/05/16/599362.aspx They want your comments. I have already installed something similar in our office and at one clients. Having an Official Microsoft How-To will be very useful.
  • London Small Business IT Pro Group meeting 8th May - CRM with Julian Sharp of Vigence

    The next meeting of the London Small Business IT Pro Group will take place this coming Monday 8th May. We have another special guest this month. Julian Sharp of Vigence will be talking about implementing and helping clients to use CRM 3.0. Vigence are one of the leading Microsoft CRM consultancies in the UK and I know that Julian has lots of tips and tricks up his sleeve that he's going to share with us. The meeting will be start at 5:30pm Monday 8th May 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 If you could let me know you are coming that would be appreciated. Look forward to seeing all of you who can make it!
  • Next London SME IT Pros Group - Thursday June 8th

    The next meeting of the London Small Business IT Pro Group will take place on Thursday 8th June. Our guest this month is Ian Charles from Bulldog Terrier Systems who offer a hosted Kaseya solution. Ian will be talking about his company's offering. Doug Wilson from Hound Dog was also booked, but because I messed up the dates (sigh) he'll be coming later in the year (probably to our September meeting)..... If you are thinking of offering your clients Managed Service then come along and see how this offering will help you with the software side of that service. But as Amy Luby says, there's a lot more to Managed Service than installing a monitoring app! The meeting will be start at 5:30pm Thursday 8th June at Microsoft House, 10 Great Pulteney Street, London, W1F 9NB. Drinks (courtesy of Microsoft) and pizza (courtesy of our speaker) 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 :-) If you could let me know you...
  • London Small Business IT Pro Group meeting - Monday September 11th

    Just to remind you that the next meeting of the London Small Business IT Pro Group will take place this coming Monday, 11th September. Following on from our presentation on Kaseya back in June we have two presentations on Managed Service software this month. The first is by Doug Wilson and Dr. Alistair Forbes from HoundDog Technology and the second is by Ian Blyth. Ian presently works for Pygmalion, but was the Lead Technology Specialist for MOM in the UK for 4 years. He will be talking about all things MOM and telling us what he can about the up and coming System Center Essentials. The meeting will be start at 5:30pm Monday 11th September 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 :-) If you could let me know you are coming that would be appreciated. Just to remind you of the other dates we have booked this Autumn: 9th October...
  • APC Powerchute

    After an exchange with an APC Support person a while back I discovered that you can get lots more information about your UPS by using a web browser. If you go :3052/">http://<servername>:3052 you get a login page to your attached UPSes. This gives a shedload more information about the UPS then you get from the PowerChute software. Well worth investigating.
  • Microsoft Licencing as Religious Enlightenment.......

    I'm fairly convinced that there only a select few who Truly Understand MS Licencing. These are the High Priests. They are the only ones who are privy to The Inner Secrets. The Prolitatriat and the bog-standard Priesthood (who are on the Licencing Desk or who work for Distributors) are left to struggle on in the dark as best they can. Occassionally a member of the Priesthood or Redmond Forbid one of the Prolitariat have a flash of insight into the inner workings of Licencing. However the feeling of Enlightenment and Well-Being soon dissolves when one the High Priesthood gently explains that it really Isn't Like That At All. Gloom and Despondency then returns to those who are not so Enlightened.......
  • London Small Business IT Pro Group meeting 10th April - SPECIAL GUESTS

    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...
  • You know those pesky Blue Screens?

    Dana Epp has written an excellent article on how to interpret them for fun and for profit http://silverstr.ufies.org/blog/archives/000761.html Next time you get a BSOD this should help you work out the root cause ASAP.
  • Remote Assistance - funny how you stumble across things isn't it.......

    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........

(c)David Overton 2006-23