Philips Live Messenger Phone

Posted: 11:49 am
June 3, 2006
Gadgets
5 Comments

LivephoneDear Susanne,

It’s your penpal Vlad from the third world of consumer electronics. I need your help. Here in America we don’t get consumer electronics unless Walmart can enslave a village in Taiwan to make phones and gadgets for $0.015 a piece. So I would beg for you to order one of these and ship it to me so we can chat over Live Messenger. And none of that silly British VAT crap either.

We really need an alternative to Skype. It’s cute for one-on-one, yes, but get a few people in a conference and the voice quality goes downhill quick.

-Vlad

Exchange IMF v2 Operations Guide

Posted: 11:48 pm
June 2, 2006
Security
4 Comments

IMF v2 operations guide is out and packed with 33 pages worth of goodness for you cheap bastards that won’t pay for ExchangeDefender  Joke aside, very decent entry level effort, and if you’ve got nothing to beat away spam, don’t be lazy, configure this free spam filtering that comes with the Exchange 2003 SP2 for free anyhow. What do you have to lose, you already know you qualify for a Ph.D in Nuclear Physics based on your life experience.

At the very least check out pages 25 – 28, they show you the most common errors and ways to get some monitoring and reporting back from IMF.

SBS Show #20 – Web 2.0 for an IT Pro

Posted: 11:16 pm
June 2, 2006
Podcast, Web 2.0
11 Comments

Sbsshow-little-763868Can you believe we’ve banged out 20 of these so far? I’m impressed. The little SBS Show has grown from “Man, how do I stop these illiterate people from shooting themselves in the face with SP2” to one of the only places in SMB where you can get the whole story. Even though its an expensive and time consuming process I have to admit its totally worth it. I get so much mail thanking us for putting this together, telling us how successful they have been with the info they got from the SBS Show, how much they enjoy listening, how they listened to all the episodes back-to-back during their drive to Vegas, how they had to buy an MP3 player because of the SBS Show. So thanks guys, thanks for the support and well over a million listeners that tuned in to the SBS Show. Thanks to all the awesome guests and cohosts that put their time into making the SBS Show such a success.

So go and get #20. Joining us this week is Bob Rebholz from Microsoft to discuss the Web 2.0. You know, we in the “dev” roles know what Web 2.0 means because we’ve been dealing with it for such a long time. But if you’re over 19 and in IT odds are you don’t know what Web 2.0 or Ajax or DOM/DHTML or any of these things mean. Digg what? Bob is the guy behind theworkingnetwork.com blog and recently transitioned over to microsoft.com to make information discovery easier for IT Pro’s digging around microsoft.com for solutions.

Sarah Perez (www.sarahintampa.com) is cohosting this week because she is my web 2.0 go-to person. I’m not sure how the heck I found her but she has been a constant inspiration as she constantly lives on the bleeding edge of web services. Plus she’s an SBSer! Little known detail is that she inspired the SBS Show with her own podcast. I thought about the podcast for a while before doing it but without her help and all the advice I never would have pulled it off. So thanks for the inspiration Sarah and thanks for the help with #20.

I’m just incredibly proud of our little SBS Show. Honestly, I hope this inspires you. I can’t tell you how many people have told me “I was thinking about doing that but you beat me to it!” – beat you to what? It’s not like we’re the 8PM show on NBC that you need to bump to get the attention, if you’ve got something to say and think you can contribute then go for it. This is not a competition guys, this is sharing and collaboration. Just do it.

Best business advice for a workaholic CEO

Posted: 10:51 pm
June 2, 2006
Vladville
Comments Off on Best business advice for a workaholic CEO

Got some great advice today from a dear friend:

“Just because the plate is full it doesn’t mean you have to finish it”

Something to take into the weekend and going forward. I’m taking it easy this week, going to think of what to do next Saturday, it’s going to be a one-year anniversary of the Vladville blog.

Why is Vlad not doing enough for the community?

Posted: 9:48 am
June 2, 2006
IT Culture
10 Comments

Untitled document

Yes, I do get these messages every other day. Dude, where is my SBS Show. Dude, where is my whitepaper. Dude, your guide didn’t fix the problem, could you walk me through it? Uh, no.

Such is the saga lately of the 7 days of SBS R2. I’ve received perhaps over 100 requests for this thread, including one on a Microsoft webcast. I made it to day one and then on day two I went to see JJ and the TS2 event and well, he did a much better job than I did. So no sense in writing the other 6 days if you can go see a TS2 event and see it live with a demo and screenshots and a bunch of other stuff Microsoft won’t let me say or show. So check out the slide deck for TS2 and go see them live.

I also don’t feel right promoting the notion of SBS R2 since we as a corporation decided against further testing, support and eventual rollout of SBS R2. I don’t feel right recommending the product that we don’t intend to use ourselves.

They teached me how to reed good at the Masters of Engrish at University of Rolling Tide, Drown ‘em Tide

Chris again fights the notion that people in the South can’t read. Numbers that is. He reviews this free 500 page book on fundamentals of TCP/IP which by the way is a free download at Microsoft.com. Yup, free. Did I mention it’s free? No, it can’t fix the table but it can help you understand how your network functions. Chris breaks down the guide into essential, helpful, ipv6 and skip because we all know stupid people fear big numbers so at least he’s helping you go right to whats important and what you need to know. 

To patch a patch

Posted: 9:23 am
June 2, 2006
Security
2 Comments

Microsoft releases an update to WSUS, Windows Software Update Services.

Honey, did you remember to patch the patch machine? Well, the SP is out, RTFM then plow away. As for what is in it, here is an overview from the readme:

  • Windows Vista client support: Computers running Windows Vista can be updated by WSUS SP1 Server.
  • More client language support: Support for all Office and Windows Vista languages.
  • New version of WMSDE: The WMSDE instance will be upgraded to WMSDE SP4 by WSUS SP1 (WSUS RTM uses WMSDE SP3).
  • Performance improvements: WSUS SP1 includes various performance improvements to accelerate user interface response times.
  • All hotfixes: WSUS SP1 includes all changes and hotfixes that have been released since WSUS RTM.
  • Support for SQL Server 2005.

For the newbies, RTM means Released to Manufacturing. Same as going “gold” (burned on a CD) and so on and so forth. So go patch yourself.

Vista Advertising Machine Starts Its Engine

Posted: 9:51 am
June 1, 2006
IT Culture
7 Comments

How badly can Microsoft make you  want something they can’t deliver? Does http://www.seewindowsvista.com; This is perhaps the most negative thing I have ever written about the Microsoft Corporation and I sat on it for about 24 hours to see if I really feel about it this way or if something was just temporarily pissing me off. No such luck, after months of testing Vista and seeing where its going.. beh, enjoy. 

Three years ago when Longhorn was supposed to be on the brink we were promised many things. New file system. New command shell. New way of computing and collaborating. Three years later with release date more in question and argument than ever, we’re delivered not the Microsoft vision of the next OS but more of John Carmack’s wet dream. The features of Windows Vista read more like a concept of the next Quake rendering engine than a modern Operating System. True, its shiny and glossy and translucent and Microsoft is running with it.

Take a look at the latest marketing site that launched at http://www.seewindowsvista.com — does it excite you? In all my years as a Microsoft shareholder, partner and customer I have never been this underwhelmed and disappointed by a Microsoft product.

OneCare Live Ships

Posted: 11:31 am
May 31, 2006
Security
4 Comments

Microsoft ships Windows Live OneCare and you might have a free copy waiting for you.

OnecareliveSometimes beta testing, or pretending to, pays off. Such is the case of Windows Live OneCare, the all-in-one security and safety service from Microsoft integrating the antivirus, antispyware, maintenance (defrag) and backup functionality. This is Microsoft’s first significant push into the retail security space with a consumer product, according to the blog, available in dozens of US retail outlets and at http://onecare.live.com site. 

Site seems to be broken so you can’t quite buy it or try it, but suffiice to say this is a preview of Microsoft’s software-as-a-service strategy as this service will run you $49.95 a year. Intended for the home users of course, this is different from the Antigen product I’ve recently been showing you folks at Florida Technet events.

Who is your (mobile) daddy?

Posted: 11:44 pm
May 30, 2006
Uncategorized
4 Comments

Vlad becomes a Windows Mobile Training Small Business Specialist.

Sales exams really make my day. It’s nice to get asked questions that require absolutely no thinking and get an attaboy congratulations every time you guess the right answer to the common sense question. Now I’m already a Windows Mobile Training Specialist but the program launched a *gasp* Small Business Specialist program today. With a name like that it was just asking for a whopping. And that it did receive, in record time. I saved some time by skipping the “educational” part of the experience, call me arrogant but I feel I have a solid understanding how Pocket Internet Explorer works, thanks.

Mobile
I think I’ll sleep better knowing that if one of these heavy racks ever falls on top of me and plows me through the raised floors… and I come out of it alive but severely mentally incapacitated.. I can still fall back on a career as a Windows Mobile sales drone: “Oh that one. That one is a phone and a computer!”

First Tech Support Question To Ask

Posted: 3:14 pm
May 30, 2006
Beta
7 Comments

Are you experiencing this problem on a beta or pre-release program?

One of the particularly unpleasant parts of my job as an ISP/ASP is the fact that since about 1996 every problem my clients experience is my fault, until I can prove otherwise. The tradeoff is to tell them that there is nothing wrong with the systems and that there is nothing more you can do for them as you cannot replicate the problematic behavior. This is not great customer service and practically impossible to say to a long time or VIP customer. One such case woke me up today:

Vlad,
 
There is something wrong with webmail.
 
It kicks you out after 10 seconds and you have to re-login.
 
Also, I set my reply address to sean@domain.com and the e-mail messages arrive with only sean@domain as the reply address.
 
Please let me know when it is fixed so I can let people know.
 
Thanks
Now just looking at this I know its not my fault, if it was, there would be several thousand messages in my Inbox because I can’t even fart without a few hundred people noticing that I dropped the ball. But I humor him, login with my profile, his profile, two browsers, no problems. Perhaps just a stale session? Either way, restart the web service and fire off a response to try again – nothing wrong over here.
 
Vlad,
 
I guess the problem lies with me at MMMM.  What could be causing me to be disconnected from webmail so quickly from inside MMM?
 
When I connect from the outside my session is not terminated like it is from inside MMM.
 
Thanks
When in doubt, blame ISA. Or CRM. Or any other enterprise crappleware that is easilly misconfigured by anybody that didn’t actually write the code on their own in Bangalore or Bangladesh. But I humor him again: try another web browser? Try dumping your cookies, files, etc. Try rebooting? I know this one is looping right back to me and I’m all ready to wrap my head in a towel and start beheading the next response… where is it, come on, any second now:

Vlad,

Perhaps its an IE 7 issue.

I’ll just wait to see if the next beta version fixes things.

Thanks

Oh you mot*%#%*%*&@!*% son of a $%($$ co#$ su@*#%, fu%*$$ you and your piece of @#%* Internet Explorer 7 beta testing.  Now do I start the beheading process first or do I send an invoice to my buddy Steve for letting people blame IE7 problems on me? I’ve said it before, I will say it again – Do not beta test on production networks and if you do have suicidal tendancies please keep them to yourself and to your own applications and blow up your own network. Don’t install it on the production network and then blame someone else because third party can’t write a decent browser.

Otherwise you’ll just waste my time, piss me off, and likely get yourself fired when you nuke a production network. And yes, you bet I’ll take 70 virgins over debugging Internet Explorer 7, any day.