Had to make a comment on two of the entries. First, I agree on the Q phone. One of our customers who purchased 5 of them last week has already exchanged them for another phone because they hated them so much.

Second, I have to disagree on SBA. We’ve been using it in place of QuickBooks since the beginning of the year. While not perfect it’s actually a lot more usable for us than QB was. Not to mention it doesn’t have half the problems that the current QB2006 v6 does. I can’t say I’m ready to try and sell it to our customers yet but for our use, it’s great.

Ditto on SBA. Even with SP2 it is a far cry from Quickbooks. Yes QB has issues in 2006 but even with those problems its better than SBA.

I’ve never seen something in IT that you didn’t have an opinion on

Thankfully, you’re 100% on the target almost all the time. You’ve just saved me $200 that was going to go to Q, instead will stick with my Wizard.

I wish I could go to WWPC man, we’re not all made of money I guess thats what keeps the small biz guys out of there to begin with.

Word is Dell had no choice but to go AMD and it will result in a full lineup being announced third week of July or so. The issue has to do with growth and Dell is not growing but their stock is priced like a growth stock. If the market loses faith that Dell can keep growing their price will drop and drop fast putting a huge hurt on them. Due to the errosion of their pricing power on Intel chips AMD was their only option to try and keep earnings up.

Further announcements such as the Google one will keep flowing out along with some new product announements as well all to keep the market interested in their stock. It’s all about the stock price right now.

Qucked?

I went out and got a Moto Q smartphone on the 2nd day it was released.Out of the box it wouldn’t charge – returned – 2nd Q works well.

I have to comment on the MS mobiles post.

Thumbwheel Does Not Work Like Blackberry: Hey it’s NOT a blackberry.

The Touch Screen Does Not Work: Doesn’t have one – I haven’t found a compelling reason why it should.

The Motorola Q Does Not Have a Headset Jack: must be talking stereo headphones – there is a headset jack that will accept any mobile phone headset – top right – on the unit.

The Q connected to exchange on our SBS box just fine – totally useful for communication with the office and customers. Server Status reports are totally readable.

Unlike a blackberry you can select the folders in your e-mail that you want to sync – so creative filters on the exchange server can give you just what you need to see.

Verizon offers the extended battery for less that $20 – that gives you a whole day or roaming about and using the device with incoming e-mail every 10 minutes.

Verizon hasn’t released the mobile 5 feature pack which IS NOT making me happy. So! NO Push e-mail, no remote wipe and the device doesn’t show in the mobile admin console on sbs. Grrrr……

I use the Q with a bluetooth headset and it will dial all your Outlook contacts with the voice recognition engine so hands free is the way to go.

All in all for the price I think the Q is well done. Maybe a firmware update will address some of the quirks.

While I have generally supported your rants, I wholeheartedly object to your comment “if your IT consultant is reading this printout to configure your server you need a more competent consultant.”

I’m not a terribly religious man, but I have had a fairly decent religious education… and if there’s one thing that I learned from all those afternoons at Hebrew School was that even if you know the prayer you still have the book open in front of you just so that you don’t accidently leave out an important word.

An attorney may state this same concept but would have the book open in front of herself just so that you don’t accidently leave out an important punctuation mark, forever altering the meaning of the sentence.

And, as an SBS Consultant, I will stand up and say that I ALWAYS work with print-outs, guide-books, KB Articles, etc, in front of me. If your IT Consultant works without a net (and tries to configure your SBS 2003 like a standard Server 2003), you need a more competent consultant!

Jeff,

Did you read that doc? Honestly, there wasn’t a single even insightful entry in it that anybody working with SBS would have to rely on. I don’t think anybody seriously consulting with SBS could learn anything from it – and if thats not true I stand by my statement. This doesn’t even cover ISA publishing issues.

Steve,

Given your 50% success ratio with the Q (since first one came DOA) I think your initial experience is what most users are finding commonplace with the device, I just hope you don’t experience the other stuff that comes along with it. This sounds like your first smartphone so I guess its easy to be impressed when comparing it to a blackberry, but comparing it with its peers really makes it a.. disappointment.

But you know, these are all just my opinions and I welcome everyone elses. Thats what makes this great, sharing ideas, opinions and attitudes. I am certainly not right all the time so thanks for keeping me grounded.

-Vlad

50% failure rate on the Q for me. Not a real confidence builder.

Yes, this is my first “smartphone” so I may not be aware of features that I am missing. For what I need, the features (the SBS gee whiz factors)that are available are working great.

Here’s what I know:
In the SBS space Blackberry is expensive from the extra “add on” cost to connect to Exchange, where smartphone technology is built right in. I always prefer to use native apps whenever possible.

Sharing ideas – thats part of teamwork and it’s esential to what we all do.

Thanks for telling it like it is – that keeps us all grounded.