Load Balancer Fun

Posted: 9:36 am
December 12, 2007
IT Business, Linux, Open Source
1 Comment

I really don’t like talking smack about my competitors both because I know how difficult of a task we all have always being a step behind spammers and I choose to put my energy into building our own products. After all, with all due professional respect, nobody has unplugged more of their appliances than me.

But yesterday I had a particularly frustrating day of learning more about Linux load balancing than I particularly wanted to. And after several hours of piecing together the concepts through Google and outdated documents and technologies I figured – screw it, I’ll just go buy one from them and move on to one of the other billion projects I have on my desk. I look at the model breakdown and the first thing that strikes me is obvious hard locks in the appliance to limit the number of real servers so you’d have to upgrade to the higher model just because. Ok, fine, what’s $500 wasted on top of $1499? So I go to the order form and they got more fees – multiyear IDS protection subscriptions.

Ok, so now this is just getting ridiculous. So I figured let me hit up chat and see if there is “I’m not a sucker” form. So I ask politely, “Can I buy your load balancer without the extended support contract?” and instead of saying yes or no, he/she responds with “I can send you more information about that, what is your email address?” and I say “No thanks, I don’t want you spamming me, I am buying right now I just want to know if its possible to get it without the energizer updates”; They let me sit around for a minute or two and come back with the barrage of questions: “The updates come with IDS, blah, blah, blah” and I respond with “I just need a load balancer, can I please just order one without updates” and they say “No.” and close the chat faster than I can even blink.

So suffice to say they lost that order. I mean, I can understand that they are crooks and are using the same deceptive advertising that has been available from the beginning of time – low advertised price but by the time you get to the counter you end up paying almost double. And would I have paid $2K? Yeah. But after that treatment I won’t. And this is perhaps yet another reason why you don’t want to be a sales prick, you just might end up pissing off the guys that run data centers and will now spend another day trying to figure it out – and when they do, you will lose a hell of a lot more than the $399 or whatever bs markup it was.

So that’s the lesson for the day: Don’t be a prick when people are trying to give you money. You can still sell by saying “no”  but you can’t sell if you’re throwing customer out of the store.

Anyhow, if you’ve got Linux Kung Fu, this is what I’m trying to do:

ipvsadm -A -t 65.99.255.235:25 -s wrr
ipvsadm -a -t 65.99.255.235:25 -r 65.99.255.242:25 -m -w 1
ipvsadm -a -t 65.99.255.235:25 -r 65.99.255.246:25 -m -w 1

Stock CentOS 5 (RHEL 5) 2.6.18 kernel with net.ipv4.ip_forward turned on and I have a public IP that I want to distribute traffic over the two real servers with direct return (direct path return) with both real servers on the public range. The load balancer is at 65.99.255.230 and here is the tcpdump:

08:29:33.214112 IP (tos 0x0, ttl  64, id 5746, offset 0, flags [DF], proto: TCP (6), length: 60) 65.99.255.230.56232 > 65.99.255.246.smtp: S, cksum 0x4bde (correct), 2861789973:2861789973(0) win 5840 <mss 1460,sackOK,timestamp 64775527 0,nop,wscale 7>
08:29:33.214171 IP (tos 0x0, ttl  64, id 0, offset 0, flags [DF], proto: TCP (6), length: 60) 65.99.255.246.smtp > 65.99.255.230.56232: S, cksum 0x1f4c (correct), 3193828587:3193828587(0) ack 2861789974 win 5792 <mss 1460,sackOK,timestamp 377709289 64775527,nop,wscale 2>
08:29:33.214179 IP (tos 0x0, ttl  64, id 5747, offset 0, flags [DF], proto: TCP (6), length: 52) 65.99.255.230.56232 > 65.99.255.246.smtp: ., cksum 0x6485 (correct), ack 1 win 46 <nop,nop,timestamp 64775527 377709289>
08:29:33.214232 IP (tos 0x0, ttl  64, id 5748, offset 0, flags [DF], proto: TCP (6), length: 52) 65.99.255.230.56232 > 65.99.255.246.smtp: F, cksum 0x6484 (correct), 1:1(0) ack 1 win 46 <nop,nop,timestamp 64775527 377709289>
08:29:33.214753 IP (tos 0x0, ttl  64, id 38405, offset 0, flags [DF], proto: TCP (6), length: 52) 65.99.255.246.smtp > 65.99.255.230.56232: ., cksum 0x5f0a (correct), ack 2 win 1448 <nop,nop,timestamp 377709289 64775527>
08:29:33.218077 IP (tos 0x0, ttl  64, id 38407, offset 0, flags [DF], proto: TCP (6), length: 117) 65.99.255.246.smtp > 65.99.255.230.56232: P 1:66(65) ack 2 win 1448 <nop,nop,timestamp 377709293 64775527>
08:29:33.218091 IP (tos 0x0, ttl  64, id 0, offset 0, flags [DF], proto: TCP (6), length: 40) 65.99.255.230.56232 > 65.99.255.246.smtp: R, cksum 0x33d0 (correct), 2861789975:2861789975(0) win 0
08:29:33.218095 IP (tos 0x0, ttl  64, id 38409, offset 0, flags [DF], proto: TCP (6), length: 52) 65.99.255.246.smtp > 65.99.255.230.56232: F, cksum 0x5ec4 (correct), 66:66(0) ack 2 win 1448 <nop,nop,timestamp 377709293 64775527>
08:29:33.218102 IP (tos 0x0, ttl  64, id 0, offset 0, flags [DF], proto: TCP (6), length: 40) 65.99.255.230.56232 > 65.99.255.246.smtp: R, cksum 0x33d0 (correct), 2861789975:2861789975(0) win 0
08:29:33.222272 IP (tos 0x0, ttl  64, id 23742, offset 0, flags [DF], proto: TCP (6), length: 60) 65.99.255.230.45127 > 65.99.255.242.smtp: S, cksum 0xb04d (correct), 2865052113:2865052113(0) win 5840 <mss 1460,sackOK,timestamp 64775535 0,nop,wscale 7>
08:29:33.222380 IP (tos 0x0, ttl  64, id 0, offset 0, flags [DF], proto: TCP (6), length: 60) 65.99.255.242.smtp > 65.99.255.230.45127: S, cksum 0xb60a (correct), 2798131280:2798131280(0) ack 2865052114 win 5792 <mss 1460,sackOK,timestamp 408392 64775535,nop,wscale 2>
08:29:33.222396 IP (tos 0x0, ttl  64, id 23743, offset 0, flags [DF], proto: TCP (6), length: 52) 65.99.255.230.45127 > 65.99.255.242.smtp: ., cksum 0xfb43 (correct), ack 1 win 46 <nop,nop,timestamp 64775535 408392>
08:29:33.222476 IP (tos 0x0, ttl  64, id 23744, offset 0, flags [DF], proto: TCP (6), length: 52) 65.99.255.230.45127 > 65.99.255.242.smtp: F, cksum 0xfb42 (correct), 1:1(0) ack 1 win 46 <nop,nop,timestamp 64775535 408392>
08:29:33.223193 IP (tos 0x0, ttl  64, id 8985, offset 0, flags [DF], proto: TCP (6), length: 52) 65.99.255.242.smtp > 65.99.255.230.45127: ., cksum 0xf5c7 (correct), ack 2 win 1448 <nop,nop,timestamp 408393 64775535>
08:29:33.242440 IP (tos 0x0, ttl  64, id 8987, offset 0, flags [DF], proto: TCP (6), length: 117) 65.99.255.242.smtp > 65.99.255.230.45127: P 1:66(65) ack 2 win 1448 <nop,nop,timestamp 408412 64775535>
08:29:33.242454 IP (tos 0x0, ttl  64, id 0, offset 0, flags [DF], proto: TCP (6), length: 40) 65.99.255.230.45127 > 65.99.255.242.smtp: R, cksum 0x9847 (correct), 2865052115:2865052115(0) win 0
08:29:33.242458 IP (tos 0x0, ttl  64, id 8989, offset 0, flags [DF], proto: TCP (6), length: 52) 65.99.255.242.smtp > 65.99.255.230.45127: F, cksum 0xf572 (correct), 66:66(0) ack 2 win 1448 <nop,nop,timestamp 408412 64775535>
08:29:33.242465 IP (tos 0x0, ttl  64, id 0, offset 0, flags [DF], proto: TCP (6), length: 40) 65.99.255.230.45127 > 65.99.255.242.smtp: R, cksum 0x9847 (correct), 2865052115:2865052115(0) win 0

I see the connection come up, and the weights look right:

IP Virtual Server version 1.2.1 (size=4096)
Prot LocalAddress:Port Scheduler Flags
  -> RemoteAddress:Port           Forward Weight ActiveConn InActConn
TCP  65.99.255.235:smtp wrr
  -> i246 Route   1      0          0        
  -> i242 Route   1      0          1 

So I’m missing something here… If you can see it from there, let me know.

Microsoft Office 2007 Service Pack 1

Posted: 3:06 pm
December 11, 2007
Microsoft
1 Comment

Eric is letting us know that Microsoft has relased Office 2007 Service Pack 1.

Scoll down to the bottom of the post – if you’re like me and use Project, Visio and SharePoint Designer 2007 the updates to these programs must be downloaded separately from the 250Mb Office 2007 SP1 download. Here is what it covers:

  • Microsoft® Office Basic 2007
  • Microsoft® Office Enterprise 2007
  • Microsoft® Office Home and Student 2007
  • Microsoft® Office Professional 2007
  • Microsoft® Office Professional Plus 2007
  • Microsoft® Office Small Business 2007
  • Microsoft® Office Small Business Management 2007
  • Microsoft® Office Standard 2007
  • Microsoft® Office Ultimate 2007
  • Microsoft® Office Access® 2007
  • Microsoft® Office Excel® 2007
  • Microsoft® Office InfoPath® 2007
  • Microsoft® Office Outlook® 2007
  • Microsoft® Office PowerPoint® 2007
  • Microsoft® Office Publisher® 2007
  • Microsoft® Office Word 2007
  • Microsoft® Office OneNote® 2007
  • Microsoft® Office Groove® 2007

It’s a heck of a December. We’re just breaking into the new phone systems and Office Communicator and Response Point that got rolled out over the weekend, dealing with Exchange 2007 SP1, last night I got Windows Home Server deployed just in time for Microsoft Business Essential Server Beta 2 to land in my mail. Top that off with the AuthAnvil stuff that I need to get going and I will not be sleeping for the rest of this year.

It’s a good time to be a geek in this biz. Lot’s of toys.

Windows Home Server: First Steps

Posted: 11:20 am
December 11, 2007
Windows Home Server
9 Comments

Last night I took my first steps with the released version of Windows Home Server. Here are my initial thoughts:

  1. I should have paid $600 for the HP model, the install was excruciating and took forever.
  2. They did a heck of a job creating the installer and the deployment tools. The initial stage of the install looks like Windows Server 2008 / Vista and had all the drivers for my Intel 965 chipset so no floppy needed for a SATA controller (SiS)
  3. RTFM: Needs an 76Gb drive or better
  4. Headless or RDP? So the idea is that this server is deployed headless, but you have to activate it, but you shouldn’t log into it, but you have to install an antivirus on it because it doesn’t have one.
  5. Addins: Not very intuitive at all, comes as an installation package (.msi) but what do you do with it? RDP and install? Open on the desktop? (you actually dump into \\server\software\add-ins if you’re curious)
  6. Pushy: When I deployed the client software it wanted to run a backup within a minute. Whoa, whoa, wait a minute. I just got this new toy and you want to destroy my network and my ability to play with it first? (something can be learned from Apple here). When I told it to defer the backup it wanted to run it an hour later. It gave me no options of what I wanted to back up, so I am assuming it would have tried to squeeze everything over.
  7. Interesting documentation. I have mixed feelings about this because I tried to behave like a stupid user would. Stupid user would never be able to get the WHS online. I first let it have a go at my hardened firewall, it failed. Then I let it go at a stock WRT-54G router, which is probably the most widely used wifi device on the planet. No go again. Then I followed the documentation – they wanted 3389 redirected. Ok, not a problem – no go either. Then I decided to do what a user would have done – stuck it in a DMZ. All worked! Yay! This is where the user would likely have stopped, leaving a box on their home network wide open.
  8. Patching: Impressive. It powered itself on, patched itself without a click and told me it would be right back.
  9. Remote access: Impressive. Just… impressive.
  10. Backup tool: Impressive.

These are my initial thoughts and I went through them as a user. I have to admit that as a user I am really not interested in WHS at all,  I have a far more sinister commercial interest in WHS… WHOS to be precise (Windows Home-Office Server) but I wanted to look at this solution through the users eyes and frankly I would be a little confused because it is a little rough around the edges.. I’d probably return it to the store. It’s not an Xbox, that’s for sure, and frankly, home users are the ones with questions like “Should I be installing those Microsoft things it nags me to get (software updates)” – they wouldn’t figure this out.

However, assuming a proper setup and better OOB (out of box) experience, this is one solid puppy. It could have had a bit more of an Apple or even Xbox touch to be a killer product – for example, it follows the broken Microsoft El Generico disease they have had since friggin clippy “Learn more about Remote Access to computers” on the front page, with a stock Microsoft image. Just how many lines of code would it have taken to pluck an image from my library and make my first impression of the remote console a little bit more personal? Going to the picture library gives me the same 1996 look and feel of upload, download and search… how about preview? How about thumbnails?

Extensibility. The real appeal of the WHS solution to me is in its extensibility – this beast already has the ability to run a DHCP server, Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, and even manage home appliances and automation tasks. But, you wouldn’t know about those. Why? Well, the add-in section of the Windows Home Server site looks like a high school science fair report while the promotional site looks like a million bucks.

So to sum it up, my first impression is that this is absolutely amazing and has a ton of potential but I hope they spend money to polish it instead of spending money trying to sell it because as-is, my parents would return this to Best Buy. I am really looking forward to playing with it some more.

Welcome Brianna to our family

Posted: 2:57 pm
December 10, 2007
Friends
Comments Off on Welcome Brianna to our family

Untitled document

SMB blogging, for all intents and purposes, is a family. Small, worldwide, dysfunctonal family. The epicenter of that family is the msmvps.com network, or better known as yoda.msmvps.com, the lone server that nearly all of you have hit either directly or indirectly. Susan hosts a ton of MVPs that blog about just about everything and over the past two years little yoda has gone from a single virtual server, to a full Pentium 4 server, to a Pentium D dual core and.. well.. spammers combined with a horrible blogging platform have made the old yoda a little slow.

So today we welcome a new member to this family.. brianna.msmvps.com will be the new Core 2 server dedicated solely to the SQL server backend of the www.msmvps.com

briannabradley

The server is just a small token of of appreciation and a Christmas gift from me to Susan. Susan is the one up there on the left. I host a number of SMB blogs at Own Web Now and frankly, without Susan you never would have seen those nor would Vladville have ever come to life. Susan is the person that encouraged me to blog and honestly, she singlehandedly runs msmvps.com with only the microscopic input from the peanut gallery. She also gets 210% of the crap and complaints about it from the "community" so I figured that with my latest posts on supporting the resources you like the least I ought to do is hook Susan up with some decent hardware.

The msmvps site remains as the most dominant independent source of information and insight into the Microsoft technology, receives $0 funding from anyone, and runs 100% out of Susan's wallet and the blog posts are all put up by the Microsoft MVPs, who also happen to put them up there for free. When you're having a problem, thats the first place that will likely show up in Google. So if thats where you get your info from, take a moment and at least send them your thanks this holiday season.

Merry Christmas Susan! 🙂 

Failure Point: Where innovation meets old habits

Posted: 12:05 pm
December 10, 2007
IT Business, Microsoft
1 Comment

As Mick Jagger would say, old habits die hard. Unfortunately for SharePoint, arguably the biggest piece of innovation from Redmond in 5 years, this leads for further commoditisation (it’s a word if I say it is) of the Microsoft value proposition and the premium price it carries.

I love SharePoint. I think it is the most awesome file management and portal software on the market. My customers seem to agree on the surface, but when it comes to actually using it in business… “eh, not so much” would be the positive way of putting it. Not that we haven’t tried to position it, offer it, extend it and mask it into the business process either. People just don’t use it.

The core problem with SharePoint, shockingly, is licensing. You see, people tend to revert to their old ways when they have to fall back on their old ways because the new way doesn’t work 100% of the time. Small and medium sized businesses do as much work internally as they do with agents and customers outside of the company. Now while SharePoint does have ability to create public / external portals with anonymous access, SharePoint lacks that ability to easilly allow selective external/anonymous access to a private document library – the process that people have relied on for over a decade: email attachment. Now, what’s simpler – attaching a file or managing permissions, roles and access rights of the portal? Assume a babysitter turned CIO level of technical expertise. Attachments. So what they end up doing is saving the file on their desktop, forwarding it via email, managing it on their own and when someone else needs the file it gets emailed as well.

Microsoft’s cycle of innovation (core business value) breaks the first time user is forced to fall back on the proven way of doing things – no matter how much better the new one happens to be – all due to the way the product is licensed/restricted.

Don’t expect Microsoft to fix this anytime soon, as far as they are concerned this is not a technology issue, its a user-training issue. Unfortunately for Microsoft, their licensing and restrictions along with feature tiers and editions only seem to restrict the users ability to adopt the new technology, not embrace it.

This impacts us as well, because instead of deploying new technologies that solve problems we are moving to a business of facilitating the processes already in place and finding ways to automate them instead of innovate them.

It has been a big part of OWN in 2007, betting 2008-2012 will be even bigger. Along with that we’ve seen the drop of the traditional desktop and server, in favor of mobile devices, laptops, phones, tablets, Apple’s, hosted servers and even more hosted services. The Microsoft-centric office is disappearing in SMB, in both participation and brand awareness, and Microsoft only has itself to blame.

P.S. We sell more FTP accounts than SharePoint accounts. Considering that SharePoint is half the cost and twice the storage allocation, that’s saying something. Oh, and FTP/SSL runs on Linux so there goes another product line.

How do I come up with blog post topics?

Posted: 10:16 pm
December 8, 2007
WordPress
2 Comments

One of the most frequent questions I get from new bloggers has to do with the concept of developing topics and stories. How do I come up with blog topics? What should I blog about? What makes a good post?

I come up with blog topics by reflecting on what I’m doing that day or thinking that week. The longer posts are the ones that have been on my mind for a few days and I just haven’t quite figured it out yet. The shorter posts are spur of the moment posts, just something that I’ve been discussing with folks that day and figured I’d offer it up.

It is not labor or intensive creative work that goes into writing articles and producing media (audio, video, documentation), it is actually more of a process of organizing thoughts, validating decisions and having some peace with what I’m doing. Truth is, if you’re an entrepreneur you already have enough pressure and your every waking moment is taken up with work and thinking of work. And if you let it bottle up and completely consume you, it will either kill you or completely exhaust you. So blogging is a great outlet as well.

Robbie Upcroft once asked me if I had an opinion on everything. Then he picked up a fork and asked “What do you think of this fork?” as I’m sure he expected me to break out into some sort of utencil analysis. I really am not that full of it! But when it rains it pours: I keep a flat text file on my desktop with blogging ideas. They are really just random thoughts that come to mind at odd moments and it’s more of a “Oh yeah, I’ve been meaning to mention that” kind of a thing.

Here, I’ll share with you my “Bloggable Crap” list:

How to create compelling video product walkthroughs
Got a PocketPC blog writer software to recommend?
Scott Adams Book: Stick to drawing comics, monkey brain!
Worst Book Ever Excreted: The 4 Hour Work Week
Arguments for or against web advertising schemes for content creators
 – ads, block digg/netscape, if you don’t click on my adwords you are a thief
 – but, remember if there is no commercial stuff, the projects die
Time to upgrade Web 2.0 – financing of the entire genre is dependant on infinite FAD and consumerism
How to staff a tech company in the down economy
 – Overpriced housing, no industry / unpopular
– Is Florida over?
– Where do you find the time to ___?
– How can you get a link on Vladville? – Simple domain, one dot.
– What makes those worn out silver marks on Dell Laptops?
– for entrepreneurs, Conservatism leads to failure. “contradiction, don’t decisions to pursue uncertain future nearly guarantee failure? Let me ask you this – how did you decide to become an entrepreneur, what exactly warranted that move. Do you not regret it? If not, you need to feed it, not starve it.
– Dont let emotion throw your focus on customer service.
– Why do techies collect computer trash? 4eee PC
– Why Vista is failing? Because it’s change, and people hate change… to web site layouts, to web browsers, to… well, anything. It should always come in just as the current one is, with the ability to turn on the insanity on demand. People consider things to suck when they cannot cope with the change – what sucks about Outlook? The fact that it doesn’t do what I expect it to do. When I find out the right way, if it ain’t my way, I get angry.
– Affordable SMS/Paging Solutions In The 21st Century


Notice that not everything is a headline, it’s not like I sit there and brainstorm blog posts. I just jot down ideas as I come up with them and I eventually put them together to answer a question that someone asked (or at someone ought to be asking).


This works for me because I don’t care about your critical literary taste – I don’t even bother spell checking the post. I just type as I go along and wish you the best of luck with understanding where I am heading. Truth is, it takes longer to proof and organize a body of text than to create a rough draft / stream of consciousness or lack thereof (the porn posts). Sometimes this is brilliant, sometimes it backfires terribly and leads to misunderstandings and hurt feelings.


The idea behind blogging is that you offer your view as you would face to face with someone you knew. This isn’t the state of the union or a testimony to the grand jury, it’s just me reacting to something. It will never end up in the newspaper, it will not become a fatwa or a book but it helps stay in touch with people and it starts conversations.


At the end of the day, thats what this stuff is all about – continuing the relationships you established or meeting new friends and coleagues online. Kind of how you know me.


(Pardon the post quality, typed in the back of a rental car as I tried to get an extra hour of sleep due to my phone being stuck in the wrong time zone.. when that failed to materialize, I typed this up)

He-15-man

Posted: 10:01 pm
December 8, 2007
Misc
Comments Off on He-15-man

Go

Tebow-721890

Gators

How To Get Free Airline Seat Upgrades

Posted: 11:42 am
December 8, 2007
Deals
5 Comments

I fly. A lot. That has allowed me to become an expert psychopath that can only come about through extended exposure to the airline customer service.

I always get a free upgrade to those “more leg room” seats that the airlines sell for a hefty fee during checkin. More legroom! Leave it to the airlines to make it a benefit to feel a sense of responsibility as the plane potentially plunges to the ground in a fireball from 37,000 feet.

Case and point, my flight from Dallas back to Orlando. The round trip cost $233 but the one way upgrade was $90. One way! Not even to the first class with the Denny’s class breakfast. For an emergency exit.

Nobody is dumb enough to upgrade to that, and those seats are always empty. And after you spend a few flights from LA to Orlando with your body so contorted that your balls are behind your ears and you’re scratching the small of your back with your eyelash you start to notice things…. Like how nobody asks to see your ticket? Yet as you sit on your 90 minute delayed flight they won’t let you move up to the emergency exit row seats until all 32 passengers have boarded the 757.

So I act like the airline. Show up late. You know how they fake the feeling of an overbooked flight by calling for passengers in stages and groups determined by the random numer of times they will kick your luggage down the tarmac? I ignore it. I try to be behind the dude waving the ground crew off behind the airplane. Why? Because in their illusional sense of departure they don’t show you the Cirque de Soleil production that is happening in the tunnel leading up to the damn plane. When they are doing last call and calling my name they aren’t also mentioning how an elderly woman who just got out of a wheelchair is holding 20 people in the tunnel hostage while she tries to muscle a grand piano sized box of sudoku puzzles into an ashtray of an overhead compartment.

So as the control tower gives the pilot their runway information, I run onto the plane looking like just finished a marathon: “Phew. Phew. Ok. Thank god I made it.”

And then I sit in that vacant $90 upgraded seat like my name was embroidered into the headrest. 34B, kiss my ass!

 

(Typed on a BJ from 18D, E and F!)

The cost of doing nothing at all

Posted: 8:04 am
December 7, 2007
Uncategorized
1 Comment

Gotta love Global Warming, Dallas is 64 at 6 am and expected high of 83 in December.

I wanted to share something exciting with you as this marks the second time I stepped back from the fire, put down the napalm and the rocket launcher and restrained myself. You see, the other day I said the naughty 5 letter G word and the floodgates opened – partners, press, competitors, Microsoft… why Vlad? why not Office Live? what, why, how.. So I figured, let me sit down, explain myself, detail the 5 year plan and our statistics and KPI and..

.. and then I thought: who would this benefit? My competitors, who are at best three years behind us, guys with fiber and static IP in their garage with an eBay server in the colo, disaffected Microsoft partners who are too lazy to put up their own blog?

And as I sat there trying to tone down my post to the point that there still may be one Microsoft employee willing to talk to me, I looked at my constituency above. Then I looked at my feeds, who else is talking about this? And as I sat there puzzled on whether I a just a brilliant visionary who is seeing how all this will play out or just the dumbest guy to speak on behalf of those who choose not to speak out.

Then St. Bradley herself popped up, and St Dansey and reminded me of my post about the SMB needing a new messiah.

So I did nothing.

Welcome to the grownup world where opinions and guidance matter. I happen to run a company driven on feedback and my partners and customers tell us every time we make a mistake. I do not know how Microsoft disaffected you and frankly I dont care. If you say nothing, do nothing then nothing happens and you get exactly what you deserve – nothing.

But you are too busy to blog, right? Good news on that front. The world is changing, fast, and if you arent talking about it, you just might find yourself with a whole lot more time on your hands than you used to.

Remember, Microsoft people arent evil (except Dave Overton, who kills kittens and makes USB thumb drive holders out of their tails) but without the custmer guidance in the open they will continue down the path set by someone far up, or far out of touch. Just how do you think that company works? Do you really think some entry level person at Microsoft you talk to is going to march into their bosses boss and bitchslap them and tell them they got it all wrong and they should listen to some lamer that cant even figure out a blogger account but thinks he can dictate the direction of multibillion dollar product line?

Come on.

Yes, come on. You dont matter. But if you cant stand up for yourself you never will. Nobody else is gonna do it for you.

Am I off the hook now Scott?

Posted: 12:32 am
December 7, 2007
ExchangeDefender
3 Comments

If you’re lucky enough to get friends in this business, from time to time they will pull you aside and tell you that you’re heading in the wrong direction. Since ExchangeDefender 3.0 (and consequently 3.1) launched my partners have noticed what would politely be referred to “lack of documentation” but in last months org-fix we really stepped up the documentation efforts and communications channels. It’s not perfect yet but at least Scott won’t be able to rag on me for having better documentation on my products than I do – I got videos now, biaaaatch!

During the spring we held a number of conference calls with partners and customers that brought together the current OWN offering and I slipped something about training videos that we use for internal training. That seemed to really excite people and I promised training videos. As one of my partners put it, “they watch enough YouTube so this will help. Check them out here:

http://www.exchangedefender.com/support.php

So far I’ve cut four videos for User Guide (19 minutes), Admin Guide (15 minutes), Service Provider Guide (13 minutes) and Troubleshooting ExchangeDefender Delivery guide (20 minutes).

Expect to see more, these have been very successful for us internally and partners seem to like them. Really, in under hour and a half you can have a completely trained ExchangeDefender employee pushed through the process by the dude that designed it. How cool is that?

I’d like to acknowledge that this didn’t just happen – the result has been molded, criticized, shaped and produced in thanks to Dave Sobel, Karl Palachuk, Howard Cunningham, Tim Barrett, Erick Simpson and designed by Stacy Johnson.

So, Scott, am I off the hook yet?