Tim goes Gem Digging

Posted: 9:21 am
May 24, 2006
Events
3 Comments

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My PR consultant, Tim Barrett, is doing a TS2 Wednesday's on the Web seminar today at 3 PM EST. If you have the moment to join us today you'll find out about the more advanced features of SBS. I'll be there!

http://www.msreadiness.com/WS_abstract.asp?eid=15004161

Ron will be joined by Tim Barrett (Microsoft Small Business Specialist and leader of the Kentucky Small Business Server User Group) to look at extending SBS beyond the wizards with value-ads such as the OWA Administration tool, Monitoring SBS with MOM Workgroup Edition, and demonstrating how to easily document your SBS network configuration with OneNote. We’ll take a look at some SBS best practices, tips & tricks, and the webcast Q&A will be manned with SBS-MVPs & SBS User Group Leaders. If you're an SBS-er, you won't want to miss this!

Crazy Ligmans Summer Savings Sale

Posted: 5:38 pm
May 23, 2006
Deals
6 Comments

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Now this has to be the funniest blog post I've read in quite a while. I like the numbers breakdown, too. Here is my take on it:

Get your unbeatable bottom price on SBS, SBE Office, XP Upgrade deals this weekend at Crazy Ligman's software sale. All business platform SKU's must go! We got a huge shipment from the factory and ALL must go before June 30th. $922? Forget about it. $800? No way! Just $797 gets you in a seat of a brand new SBS CAL, XP Pro Upgrade Cal and SBE Office. $797, fully loaded! You'll be cruising your office documents – anywhere. Don't have a PocketPC? We'll throw that in too! Everything but the kitchen sink! Come and see us at the corner of 1 Microsoft Way at Crazy Ligmans where our volume means savings for you! We finance eeeveryone! (guarantee not a guarantee, must be a small business and qualify for the financing. all tax, tags and financing charges excluded)

Now all joke aside this is a pretty good deal. First off, you can stack all the discounts described in the blog, standardize on a platform for the next 3 years, get a free upgrade to R2 when it comes out and probably get Vista in there. They'll even hook you up with a phone and financing. If you've got a business thats been avoiding an upgrade they will not see this good of a deal anytime soon. Plus the time is just ripe to get in before the Vista upgrade cycle. If they don't sign the dotted line for this you likely just have a lost hope on your client list, cut them loose and go win some business with this one. 

Office 2007 Beta 2 Available (Weasel Edition)

Posted: 3:35 pm
May 23, 2006
Beta
Comments Off on Office 2007 Beta 2 Available (Weasel Edition)

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Without going through connect.microsoft.com as well. Follow this link to either download a copy or have them mail you a few disks. Now, watch out because they are really being weasels about this:

In software development, a "beta release" of a product is one that is still in development but is published for testing purposes. Evaluate the next release of Microsoft Office products for testing and planning purposes with 2007 Microsoft Office system Beta 2. The beta release contains all the functionality of the regular release, but is not the final product."

Oh god I hate PR weasels. What they fail to mention in the above text is that Beta, Microsoft for "broken", is a mirracle of software development when software actually works. Should you be stupid enough to test their hypothesis and destroy your system Microsoft will send you to a newsgroup where you will have to rely on kindness of strangers to get yourself back to normal. Or perhaps it will work flawlessly the first time. Thats the risk, feel free to gamble if you wish.

Now that I've covered this for end users, if you're an IT Pro I'm sure you're already brewing that image of XP to try this on. The interface, interaction and behavior of 2007 is drastically different and in two simple words – kicks ass. Downloading as we speak!

Underestimating Human Complexity

Posted: 9:06 am
May 23, 2006
Programming, Shockey Monkey
5 Comments

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For the past month I have been embarking on a task of replacing myself with a shell script. This isn't as complicated as it seems, turns out I'm very predictable in terms of how I manage the business. The problem is that in the world where there are only 24 hours but I need to work 30 hours there is a need to hand off certain responsibilties to another monkey and hopefully with minimal training be able to delegate some of the responsibility without affecting the result (network up).

So about a month ago I set out to code the NOC management system for Own Web Now and man, did I underestimate just how much stuff happens transparently without really thinking or documenting it. For example, last night I spent nearly two hours writing the function to calculate ticket age. The function itself took about 10 minutes, the debug/test/what if took just shy of two hours. Why? Well, time zones. Leap years. SLA plans.

Here is the context. No client should be knocked out for more than 0.1% of the day —  If the monitoring system notices a downed state it opens a ticket. So far so good. Now, the system calculates the time between the initial outage and service restore and if that period is less than 0.1% we're delivering on our SLA. Now let's say the system goes down at 11:58 PM but comes back at 12:04 AM. How is the outage logged? Uhh, it was just down Bob! But, the panel that shows the client flawless performance throughout the week will now have two orange fields instead of just one red one if we dropped the ball.

That makes me look bad even though they were only down for 6 minutes – maybe they were not even down, maybe it was just timing out on my monitor because we only do ping checks for this client. Hrm. Ok. Now, let me widen the range. If the time crosses two calendar days but we meet the SLA on the total outage I only count that as one down, not two separate incidents (as it appears in the overview panel). Ok, now calculate which day had a longer outage and stick the report into that calendar day. Woo! Oh, the field of when the outage happened? Ok, 11:58 PM. But wait, the other function calculates the time by subtracting the resolution time from the open time. Outage interval: -23:54? Ok, throw in another consistancy check.

So as a monkey I really only had the server out for 6 minutes in my head. On a logical evaluation and reporting mechanism I have 200ish lines of code to explain that to the computer. So who is smarter, the monkey or the computer? And people wonder why I keep on calling myself and my staff the monkey force. There was literally a moment last night / this morning where I felt like the gorilla at the opening of 2001 Space Odyssey, thank god there were no bones around me or that monolith would have been beaten.  🙂

But here is some value-add for you to thank you for reading all this text: Here is a blog post off digg.com where someone made cheatsheets for web development. Now I've never been accused of being a great developer so this is a total life saver for me. I honeslty do not spend enough time in JavaScript to justify learning all the parameters that XMLHttpRequest object takes. Digg it!

iLoser: When income is inversely proportional to IQ

Posted: 5:33 pm
May 20, 2006
IT Culture
Comments Off on iLoser: When income is inversely proportional to IQ

Picking on people that make poor IT decisions is a hobby of mine. Picking on Mac users used to be a fun practice but lately its just becoming sad. Case and point: this weeks release of MacBook Pro. Mac faithful have a way of being blisfully ignorant about computing in general and take up arms at anybody making fun of their little toy computers. Even when their world is turned upside down, when their treasured platform is switched to the one that they just a few days ago swore was awful and substandard… they turn their arguments on the dime and persist that they, an always right minority, are somehow enlightened by their messiah in jeans and a turtleneck. Everything is, everything always have been and everything will always be just a poor immitation of something that Apple pioneered.

One thing that Mac users can’t explain is how they can be so right yet remain on the edge of obscurity for nearly two decades and have a digital walkman as their only claim to fame.

Here is a typical conversation with a Mac user:

Of course a successful consumer electronics gadget, leading ecommerce storefront and a brick and mortar business of selling overpriced commodities makes the Apple platform an excellent substitute for real business needs. Duh! Stupid Vlad, haven’t you seen the commercials? Thats where the truth is! Commercials! Like in 1995 when they pushed a switch campaign by claiming Windows 95 runs faster on a Mac. And yes, over the last 11 years everyone switched to a Ma.. say what? They are not even 10% market share? Why.. How..

Oh, yes, its that devil Microsoft again, yes, they control the adoption, needs and desires of people worldwide. That monopolistic criminal that closes their source and makes it proprie.. Whaaa? MacOS made the stuff they stole from FreeBSD proprietary? Ok, ok, let’s regroup here. They did this to protect us, only Microsoft steals.. shine up that halo and throw it on a thorned iLife logo, quick!

But back to evil Microsoft. Those bastards. Don’t you just hate it how they keep on locking people out? I can’t do half the things on a PC that I can do with my Mac. We both run Office. Oh, we don’t get Outlook? Entoura.. IMAP? Are you serious? No wait, how can the flexiblity of Exchange be available through IMAP? Oh, it isn’t? Umm. Ok, well, scratch that, I can always use Gmail and my .Mac. Yes, yes, its a bit of a long shot but I’ll pretend I don’t need any of those server collaboration things. I can share my tunes though! What? Thats locked down to iPod’s only? Well, serves them fine, why should Apple open up iTunes to others? Screw France! Apple is the innovator, it doesn’t have to be open. But those Microsoft bastards! Now thats a completely different story. How? Oh. Um. Let me check my iLife and I’ll let you know.

No lie, that is the conversation you can have with nearly any Mac user, and yes, all well into their adulthood. Why the disclaimer? Well, it sounds like you’re bargaining with an 8 year old in a 24 hour glass toy store.

But Jimmy, why do you want a Mac?
..Because its shiny and plays mp3’s.
But Jimmy, it won’t play with your other toys (software) and costs almost twice as much!
..I want it, I want it, I want it!
But Jimmy, it has a 4x DVD drive, that technology is ancient!
..I want it, they call it SuperDrive, it must be better.
But Jimmy, you can buy that same computer with an OS thats more than a flashy clipboard!
..But daddy, I’m 8! I saw the commercial, the person in the commercial was hip! Commercials don’t lie.

Now most of my audience is IT Professional so its fair to pick on Mactards and beat up Microsoft on Vista delays, lack of features and ignoring partner/customer feedback. But come on! As bad of a rep as Microsoft has they are not even close to Mac’s ignorance of business, backwards compatibility, platform access and OEM systems that actually give you a choice. Maybe Microsoft just needs to get a better marketing department but in the meantime I’ll just keep on laughing at the Apple commercials. Suckers.

So, The SBS Show

Posted: 12:59 pm
May 19, 2006
SBS Show
23 Comments

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I have to admit I'm a little puzzled about the lack of feedback on the changes to the SBS Show. I realize people are busy but since we crossed the 10,000 download mark I feel obligated to ask:

How do you like it?

How do you like the web site?

I've only received one you sold out note from Amy Luby about the sudden commercialization of the SBS Show but honestly it was neccessary. No, I don't like the disclaimer either but truth of the matter is that most people do not download the SBS Show from us or through us – very small part of the population goes to www.sbsshow.com. Most downloads are coming via Odeo, Podzinger, iTunes, Yahoo Music, Tivo and a number of other syndication services. I have no way of telling these people that what they are listening to is not hardcore business IT consulting. Unfortunately, its really just for the stupid ones that we have to put up the disclaimer to begin with… but stupid people hang out in groups and the most eloquent of idiots become lawyers so then we have to put up with liability for something that we gave away for free? Disclaimer stays.

On the ad thing. I thought about that for the long time and here is the deal. If the SBS Show was mostly listened to by the SBS Community this wouldn't be a big deal, we could serve this out of the simple web account. However, Vladville now has 10,000+ daily visitors, tens of thousands of SBS Show downloads and the premium bandwidth costs a lot of money. I've paid up front for the SBS Show to grow but I sink 5+ hours an episode into organizing, producing, editing and publishing the best so it's not like another mindless blog post that you're reading right now. You guys are awesome, many of you have offered to contribute to the show in terms of donations, buying tshirts, etc and most of you said to just make people pay for it. There are three problems with this:

  1. SBS Show gets the enormous distribution because its free and easy to obtain.
  2. Guests are willing to come on for free because they can get great exposure.
  3. It would be against the spirit of why I started the show in the first place.

I'll level with you, I'm doing alright. I do not want the SBS Show to become a business or yet another job – it is a service to the community, the channel for people who have a story to tell it to the others that are in the same role. I don't want to flip it upside down, sell advertising spots, kiss babies, shake hands and have demographics discussions to justify doing this. I'm just a geek. Really, everything else is just a success based on applying the strict work ethic and hardheadness towards what I'm involved in. The SBS Show is an extension of that but if you've listened to the show you know I don't have a bright career as a commercial DJ 🙂 Furthermore, if you've met me you can testify that I've got the face for radio so there goes that TechTV show some of you think I ought to be on.

Point is, this is a free show and I want to keep it available for anybody that is willing to learn and make something of themselves in the SMB world. It also has to cover the costs of at least distribution, so I outright do ask you to support my business which has financed every penny and kb spent on getting every SBS Show episode to the day. If you're getting anything out of the SBS Show I don't think its too much to ask you to consider that when you line up OWN's solutions against the competitors. As always, thank you for your support of the SBS Show and please let me know what we can do to make it better.

Vista Minimums Announced

Posted: 1:45 pm
May 18, 2006
IT Business
7 Comments

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The new legalese from Microsoft came out today quoting the minimum specs for Windows Vista . I've got to admit that I'm not on the same page as most diggers , these numbers are far more acceptable than anything I imagined having seen the performance of Vista through several beta's now. The minimum Vista Requirements are almost in-line with the minimums to comfortably run Windows XP so the upgrade is still a possibility for most modern stuff considering that nearly anything bought in the last year or two has at least double that. Perhaps they'll need more ram and a dedicated video card but thats roughly $50-100 more and lets face it – in business they are not going to benefit from Aero to begin with:

Minimum Requirements (Vista-Capable PCs):

* 800 MHz Intel-compatible processor
* 512MB of RAM
* DirectX 9.0-Capable Graphics Processor
* 20GB HD

Recommended Requirements (Premium-Ready PCs):

* 1 GHz Intel-compatible processor
* 1GB RAM
* DirectX 9.0-Capable Graphics Processor, with 128MB graphics memory. (64MB of graphics memory to support a single monitor less than 1,310,720 pixels [no more than 1440×900]; 128MB of graphics memory to support a single monitor at resolutions from 1,310,720 to 2,304,000 pixels [no more than 1920×1200]; 256MB of graphics memory to support a single monitor at resolutions higher than 2,304,000 pixels [more than 1920×1200]).
* 40GB HD with at least 15GB "free space"
 

So what do you think? I'm hearing from partners world-wide that its the cost of the workstation OS that is impacting the sale of the server (SBS and W2K3) and in my conversations with some Microsoft PM's they didn't quite put it together that the mobile devices & gadgets sell SBS, not the other way around. Perhaps they'll put two and two together and make Vista more affordable for small business though the BK6-0002 like bundle? Ouch, I said bundle, now it will never be seen by anybody at Microsoft. 🙂 But in case it does, come on guys.. throw a bone to someone other than a thief …

When Piracy Pays Off

Posted: 5:24 pm
May 17, 2006
Legal, Microsoft
3 Comments

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So you got in the office one day and that xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-PRVMG XP Pro key is no longer working for you. Ouch, thats awful, now you have to pay for software like the rest of us. But wait, Uncle Bill has some good news for you. Unlike the legitimate Microsoft customers who are ripped the full $245, you as the criminal (or an unfortunate customer of a criminal) are rewarded! Yes, you get Windows XP Pro upgrade to a full legitimate copy for $100 less than the people that legitimately purchased Windows! No questions asked!
 

 
I was a firm supporter of what Microsoft has been trying to do with licensing compliance when they gave free copies to people that turned in crooks but this latest move ENCOURAGES piracy, not the other way around. "Yes Bob, that PC is $399. However, if you run towards the door with it and steal it we'll only charge you $299 for it! It's our way of controlling theft." 
 
More screenshots and details on this at Daily Tech. 

Google Desktop 4: Gadgets Galore

Posted: 4:23 pm
May 15, 2006
Beta, Google
3 Comments

Untitled document Google Desktop 4 is out and in one hit takes out 50% of the eyecandy that Microsoft is promising with Vista when/ever it comes out. Gadgets (similar to side dock, Yahoo Gadgets, Widgets, Mac OS X stuff) are new and allow you to detach parts of your Google Desktop sidebar and smack them on your desktop. Pretty nifty but fairly useless and annoying for anyone over 13. It is somewhat interesting to see how Google is taking Microsofts hints and teasers and turning them into actual, free, downloadable (albeit beta) quality software. 

Free outbound Skype justifies Net neutrality

Posted: 11:57 am
May 15, 2006
Deals
2 Comments

Untitled document

Yet another post in the Gooback category on net neutrality. Today Skype announced that they will no longer charge Americans and Canadians for placing calls to land lines (or cell phones) in USA and Canada. No strings attached, it will be a free call from now on.

This is why the telcos are fighting so hard to tier themselves and eliminate the possiblity of their customers dollars going to the competition or anywhere else but their pockets. I know that Google is the favorite posterboy for the Bell vs. Civilization but their successful separation from common sense and ethical business will guarantee that things like the above free calls never happen. They are still pissed they can't charge you $0.25 per minute anymore, but now they have people just giving it away? Well, without net neutrality that will not be a problem because you will never be able to send packets to the Skype network unless it pays hefty fees to connecting to the Bell network. Think it will be free then too?

Update: Hold the celebration, looks like a good part of IP addresses are unable to reach SkypeOut specifically between 70.x.x.x – 79.x.x.x.x; Take out 10 class A's, ouch. Oh well, I'm not on that range so it's all good Skype.