Get your mother what she really wants!

Posted: 6:28 pm
May 14, 2006
IT Culture
1 Comment

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NewEgg.com , my traditionally favorite company and everpresent resident on my monthly Amex bills is really stepping it up today with their whimsy advertising. Now I'm sure many will probably see it as a travesty (as the nation with no history really takes its fake holidays seriously) but I'd really pat them on the back for making this holiday about more than flowers, cheap jewelry and "one day a year to be nice to your mom" thing. Check out the ad:

Classy, very classy. Even the tagline is brilliant, "The Newegg way." Oh, stay away from ASUS though, I guarantee your mom will not appreciate that as a gift. If you must get ASUS go with Asrock, the offbrand brother that generally costs half as much because it only comes with a few cables and without the shiny ASUS badge. 

Social Networks attract half of the web users

Posted: 3:12 pm
May 13, 2006
IT Culture
6 Comments

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Found this interesting stat over on digg about how social networks are attracting nearly a half of all the web users. Not a big surprise, I tend to find out most of what I need to know from blogs, vlogs, podcasts, webcasts. Today it really takes a lot for me to hit Google to find answers and even then it takes a little longer before I just find a forum where someone breaks down the exact same problem with no solution in sight.

So social networking is big on the net. Our next SBS Show guest is Bob Rebholz who works for a small blue logo software company based out of Redmond and we'll take a look at how the social networks are making an impact in how IT Professionals discover and organize information. 

And yes, you whining babies, the SBS Show will make its triumphant return tonight. I've had to battle lawyers, food poisoning, Microsoft and myself to finally start this beast back up. Give me about two hours and I'll pop it up there.

Update: Well, here you go #19 is out .

Meet Bob, Licensing consultant

Posted: 8:12 pm
May 12, 2006
Legal
1 Comment

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Recently I asked our local IT Pro group about Microsoft sales folks getting more and more desperate. I can't blame them, with their options wasting away through product delays they have to move more product. I brought this story to my ITPRO group and asked how local consultants engaged their clients to provide them with a liason with Microsoft's ever-confusing licensing. How do you make your clients understand their need to comply with legal software licensing? Todays response, completely attributable to Robert Belon, nearly knocked me out of my chair:

Hi I am all that stands between you and the "JAWS" of the software police. Your next stop on this License roller-coaster is a jail cell occupied by Luther "the ass-monkey" Smith.  Can I exercise some of your corporate dollars from the bank vault now??? – Robert Belon

Now thats what I call an elevator pitch! Eric, the domain is still available 🙂

When Stupid Persists

Posted: 4:52 pm
May 10, 2006
Misc
8 Comments

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We all have our "moron for a day" events every now and then. Today belonged to me.

You see, we recently started allowing customers to pick hostnames for their $99 hosted SBS plans at Own Web Now. We call people up, tell them that their server will be up shortly and we ask them which hostname they prefered. You see, not everyone appreciates SERVER. Customer reasoned that because this is the center of their network the server computer name should be called NETWORK as well. It failed for the first monkey that did it. Then the second monkey supervised the first monkey. Then both monkeys turned over the box to me saying it "might be a hardware problem." Oh no, no siree. No piece of trash PCB from Taiwan is going to punk me, I will beat this box into submission.

Considering that I was fresh off the allnighter related to the Microsoft patching I just looked at the docs and did the same monkey procedure. Didn't notice the NETWORK part at all. Two reinstalls later (one from OPK other by text-based + F6) I finally pinged Mark from SBS PSS. Explained that I ran it in multiple ways, ran dcpromo manually, all the hardware and all the system logs checked out normally – the dang domain just isn't standing up! Why oh why? I still haven't told Mark what my server name was so it was a case of blind leading the blind for a little while. He suggested I get dcpromo.log and dcpromoui.log. So before looking at them (I know, brilliant) I first tinkered with the box to make sure I had USB working. 30 minutes later I got the file and decided to look at it first. Probably the first good decision of the day:

"Error – The promotion failed because the name of the local computer is the name of a predefined security identifier."

What the heck is my server name? Ohhh. Thats right, NETWORK. I'd say this is grounds for termination, not only because I'm an idiot but because I'm an MCSE on top of that. Holy crap, what was I thinking. NETWORK. NETWORK? How that didn't register through two reinstalls I will never know.

Update: Just FYI, the SBS installation wizard never warned me. It went through the full install and configuration and didn't even blink. Now that is not an excuse for my stupidity in naming the box NETWORK as client requested. The SBS setup actually went through all the way until it asked me if I wanted Exchange – to which it screamed that it didn't have a domain name.

The Joy of Patching

Posted: 9:02 am
May 10, 2006
Security
6 Comments

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Sometimes I find myself living in the future while the problems of the present still flood my desk. Case and point, last nights patch cycle. I have a lot of servers I'm responsible for pretty much everywhere from continents to data centers down to regional offices we manage. The patching process is, in short, a fun way to test your ironman instincts as you test, plan, deploy and clean up.

I tend to be optimistic about Microsoft and patching software, IE being a huge exception to that since it does not belong on the Internet. It's convenient to just push a few buttons and get things taken care of – when they work. Last night was a not so fun experience with Windows/Microsoft Update and WSUS. Our corporate policy is to test and patch, ask questions later. Here are some of the fun that happened last night:

  1. Sysem just wound not patch. Automatic download + apply + reboot simply did not happen. Is the process running? Yup. Did it download an apply patch according to schedule? Nope.
  2. Windows Update crashing with no really identifiable cause. windowsupdate.log doesn't show anything out of the ordinary.
  3. Why can't SUS client successfully terminate the notepad.exe process? Its as if its immortal. It shuts down everything except notepad as if it is holding the task scheduler in it 🙂
  4. Windows Update and Microsoft Update just spinning arund with the progress bar completing endlessly with no real progress. No entry in the logs either.
  5. My absolute favorite. Something broke, please reboot and try again. And again. And again.

Now this is nothing new, I've encountered these on previous occasions but they have been very limited. Overnight though, ouch. We've really been giving our WSUS a workout and shifted a lot of the stuff that was not centrally managed through WSUS back into it. Talk about a bad experience encouraging product adoption.

If you've run into these problems please join me today in the Microsoft Technet Webcast covering May 9th Security Bulletins. Starts at 2 PM EST.

Microsoft Patchday: Exchange Troubles

Posted: 8:15 pm
May 9, 2006
Exchange, Security
1 Comment

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Second Tuesday of the month and yup, you've got patches to deploy. It's a pretty nasty month in patchville with real products getting exploited instead of the usual IE problems. This month it's Exchange on the chopping block:

Microsoft Exchange Server does not properly handle the vCal and iCal properties of email messages. Exploitation of this vulnerability may allow a remote, unauthenticated attacker to execute arbitrary code on an Exchange Server. (CVE-2006-0027)

Unauthenticated attacker to execute arbitrary code. Ouch. Check out the Microsoft Security Bulletin Summary for May 2006 and get to patching.

Welcome back: Postconference Followup Tips

Posted: 10:20 am
May 9, 2006
IT Business
9 Comments

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So you just attended a large conference where you met a ton of people that can help you grow your business or connect you to future opportunities. Awesome, but wait.. wait.. wait.. Do not cold call them yet unless you are in the business of selling time shares and you just must close while they are still brainwashed. Here are a few tips on what to do when you make it back from a conference and what you should have done already:

  1. Organize all of your business cards into little piles according to what the business does. How do you know? Well, the day you got the business card you should have gone back to your room and scribbled down just who and what the person that gave you the card did and what the opportunity in it was. Were they a client? A vendor? A partner? Someone that just helped you out with your speach? Someone that recommended you to their peer? This is why business cards have a blank back, so you can write on them. This is also why the back is usually not glossy, so you can write on it. Point is, you should already have these categorized now you just need to put them in an order.
  2. Now that they are in the order stick them in your CRM. Or contact list, or spreadsheet. If you're still in the stone age and must put them in the rolodex hold on just one second because you still need to look at them before you file away. This is generally done while waiting for the plane in the airport or while in the flight to begin with.

So you're organized, now what?

  1. First and foremost get a stack of thank you cards and start writing them to the people that helped you. If you were a speaker write a note thanking the person that organized it. If you were a part of the roundtable or a focus group that got you closer to the important people, write the thank you note to them, to the person that got you in, etc.
  2. Thank anybody and everybody that gave you a prize. I know, I know, why should you give a shit about some marketing person and their $0.005 swag they got Made in China? Well, marketing people are the ones that deal with the customers – and thats you. Show a little appreciation as you may one day be the first one to get to try out a product or find out about an important incentive.
  3. Research the businesses you connected with, find out what they do and where. This allows you to have a better way of knowing what your opportunities are and where. Business cards rarely list everything that the business does, perhaps you're competitors in some way? Perhaps there is an opportunity that you were not aware of? Either way, research before reachout.
  4. Finally, order a new stack of business cards. You likely gave out a lot at the conference to begin with and you need to restock. Remember to always bring twice as many cards and promo stuff as you think you may need. Think about it, how often does someone want to give you their info but they just ran out of cards?

Now that you do know what to do, here are things you should avoid doing: 

  1. Do not call them the day after the conference. As a matter of fact, avoid even calling them the first week. They just missed several days of work and even if they are interested in talking with you they may not. This is why you deal with the unobtrusive forms first – cards. If they are available, they will call you.
  2. Do not spam them or dare add them to your mailing lists. Here are what some people that will neeever ever earn my business do: "Hi Vlad Mazek, We recently talked/emailed/chatted and I was wondering if I could add you to my newsletter to keep in touch." Sniff, thanks for making me feel very special with your canned CRM email. No, really, I am honored that you added me to the list with probably 200 other people. Who the f*** are you again? Thats right, someone that just went on my blacklist, goodbye.
  3. Do not call them unless you intend to be there when they return the call. So if your job requires you to be in meetings all day don't just get it out of the way before 9AM and hope to play voicemail tag. Nobody wants to talk to you that bad.
  4. Do not hand the cards off to someone else to follow up. Do not call just to kick s*** around unless you had a very romantic and intimate encounter the other person still looks at you as a business contact. Do not avoid the phone call of someone you do not want to do business with, it is far better to be honest and up front about your concerns and work through them than to upset the other person that is trying to get in touch with you.

There you go, a 5 minute MBA on post-conference followups from a guy that doesn't have one. Hope it helps you win some business.

SMB Nation Day 3: The Wrap

Posted: 12:57 am
May 8, 2006
Events
6 Comments

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So here I am at JFK getting ready to head home and I wanted to update you on everything that went down at SMB Nation yesterday and a nice look back at the great event that it was. No pictures, just text. 

As I mentioned, SMB Nation day two for me was all about the business track, working with the vendors and trying to find yet another way to involve IT professionals with the gurus that can help them grow the business and enhance IT skills. At one point during the day I was chatting with the guy in charge of CA’s products for small business and he was surprised that when he went into the tech session people were talking about business but when he went into the business session they were talking about technology. Paradox? Not quite. This is what its like working with the business consultants. When your professional role is recommending and supporting technology you have to evaluate both the technology and the implications it will have on the business where you will deploy it in. So when we’re talking about CA suite the guys in the room are not completely clueless as to what the product does, they are just trying to find ways to fit it into the business environment of their clients. When we’re in a business session like one Arnie gave on ConnectWise and consulting the questions tend to go in the way on how to implement the technology. IT Consultants are good at recognizing the problem because they have to deal with it every day but they are first and foremost going to have to deploy it before they take full advantage of all the process automating tools. One head, many hats.

I’ll be seeing Jeff at TechEd so I decided to skip that speech and go into a session with Ramon. Useful and very entertaining because he spoke about many personal skills everyone needs to have (or develop) to become successful. The question from the audience that really caught my attention was in regards to being personable and able to relate to people on more than technology. One of the attendees described himself as very shy and nervous when facing big crowds. He was not sure if he spoke too soon and wanted to know if these “personal” skills are inherent (something you’re born in) or if they are skills that can be developed. The response: absolutely, you can do it. 

If my personal experience will make you feel any better, I was always and perhaps will always be a systems engineer that ran networks, not people. I dealt with business people but I was first and foremost an engineer. When I was asked for advice I looked at it as an engineer: there is a problem, I am looking for a solution and I have to provide a specific response with both positive and negative impacts that are obvious. Yes, I’m shocked nobody tried to knock me out because I work with people like this today. The answer is yes, yes you can become personable. Yes, you can relate to people on more than technology. The answer is ALWAYS it depends, it is not an if..then..else..elseif {}. You do need to be persistent about it. If you doubt that, look at all the mumbles, punctuation and grammar errors and my unwillingness to use spell check. Think it stopped me from writing 500+ posts on this blog? Think its not successful? Well, you’re reading it.

After this presentation I went on to tape a few videos with the SBSers around the world. I was in some videos, they were in some of mine. Same principle as the SBS Show if you recall. The reason we even had the SBS Show to begin with was because so many people were shooting themselves in the foot with Exchange 2003 SP2 simply because they didn’t read the documentation. Well, Inside SBS by Microsoft PSS guys probably could not  level with people as effectively as we can in public: Hey, dumbass – RTFM. But we knew it wouldn’t work, so I figured “Hey, if they can’t read perhaps they can listen.” – few hundred line tests with Chris Rue and we pushed the first podcast out the door and it turned out to help thousands and thousands of people. Now I’m going to try it with video. Karl Palachuk was taping as was Beatrice Mulzer as was Harry Brelsford – I hope that you get to see these live, sooner than later. Look for the first one at some point this week. 

After lunch more business sessions followed. Arnie from ConnectWise talked about consulting. After his presentation Arnie had a dozen or more folks in front of his booth watching the ConnectWise presentation – what an amazing product. Alex from CA talked about the SMB Bundle product. I have to say that CA had almost a flawless performance until Alex started talking and he put it right over the top. I told him earlier that day to cut out the BS: “Do you think there is anybody in here NOT deploying an antispam, antivirus, antimalware solution for their customers? Cut out the BS and show them the product, you have to impress them to have it move to their customers” and he did. Matt did an encore presentation of his SLA which during the first presentation was packed and standing room only.

As I mentioned, CA was a nearly flawless host. Here are the complaints we had just to give you an idea. This is a security company – there was no Wifi – but it gave Bill from D&H to come in as a hero and give everyone that asked a free CAT5 cable. There was some confusion over which exits were to be used, but every time we had a question there was a CA person to escort us around. Could have used a bit more protein with the breakfast but I didn’t come here for free food so that’s a copout. Everything else was incredible. As I’ve mentioned over and over, this is the best SMB Nation I’ve been to. I mean, where else can you get this many experts to speak for $350 and get all the time you want to ask them followup questions, network with professionals all over the place. I was impressed. The size was just right. The location was even better – Dana and I even hiked back to the hotel one day instead of waiting for a bus – and we’re not little guys. CA guys were so nice. Honestly, for a security company they were remarkably hospitable and helpful. I wanted to record Andy Goodman and we couldn’t find a spot – CA guys gave us a room to use for the SBS Show taping. The network was down and they brought the whole thing up. Pretty much everything we asked for we got. 

The other upshot – this conference was so incredibly social. It was business by day, party by night. CA and ASCII treated us to an excellent launch party on Wednesday night. Amy celebrated her birthday here as well. Schrag beat up teenagers in trivial pursuit at a bar. Harry treated us to dinner in Manhattan. There were people crowded around talking and having a good time at every turn. I don’t think anybody was thirsty or hungry the entire four days we were here. There were productive conversations… everywhere and about everything. Got to learn a lot about technology, about business, about video recording, about mixing audio from a radio pro and I bet you don’t know what the fellow Security MVP Dana Epp is good at in addition to security? No, not pool. $5 to the first one that can guess it.

All in all, this was well worth the time and a priceless experience to take back to Own Web Now. If you’re in SMB as a consultant, as a programmer, as a techie or even as a vendor – you can learn something from this bunch.

SMB Nation Day 2: Back to Business

Posted: 1:25 am
May 7, 2006
Events
1 Comment

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SMB Nation NY wrapped up a few hours ago and today was a return to business related subjects. The value of consulting. The value of SLAs, twice. The value of respecting your time and your business. It's way past my bedtime and I have a lot to say about SMB Nation East but I will leave it at the following two points which I do not make very lightly:

  1. Pound for pound, this was a more valuable conference than SMB Nation 2005.
  2. Even if you were not here, you will get to see it soon. 

I'll post more pictures, videos, descriptions and insights later but right now its bed time. If you were not here make a plan to be here next year and make sure you join us at SMB Nation at Redmond in September.

SMB Nation Day 1: NYC Schraged

Posted: 1:20 am
May 6, 2006
Events
7 Comments

Untitled document

Day two in New York and the SMB Nation East conference finally started. As I wrote earlier today, I don't want to give you the wrong impression that SMB Nation is all about drinking and partying because it is absolutely about business (at least for me). I am quite a fan of the East event so far because it is far smaller than the big show in Redmond and really gives you a great opportunity to network, meet people, have a decent discussion with people without feeling like you're missing a ton of stuff or lost in the crowd. I'm a BIG fan of the East event, to say the least. For example, I got to speak to the CEO of Connectwise for about 15 minutes today, thats worth the price isn't it? But hey, at the end of the day this business is all about the relationships and people and Harry is THE MAN when it comes to getting that together.

The Bad 

TS2. Honestly, I'm probably the biggest fan of the TS2 seminars on this planet but I have never been more embarrassed of it in my life. Perhaps I'm spoiled by the excellent TS2 guys that I've met while working with Microsoft in Florida but I've never seen a Microsoft employee be so incorrect and so corrected (loudly) by the audience.. so many times. On the flip side, Microsoft really pulled off the representation well. They brought the bus. They brought the PCM. This was a bit of a joke subject early on and honestly, I'm not sure if the guy was new or just had an off day but TS2 presentations are generally several levels beyond what you saw today. Go out to a local event and see what its all about.

The Good

It's all about the size. In more than one way. 

Vendors –  Being a software publisher and an IT services business I'm particularly salesman-agnostic. The nice thing about SMB Nation East is that it was small enough that you really got the chance to talk to people and really have a conversation on what the products do, how they can benefit us, etc. Spent a lot of time talking to Bill Hersh of D&H and on behalf of at least a dozen of us huge thanks to Bill for hooking us up with CAT5 cables so we could get some network connectivity.

Presentations – Would you like to be able to ask a question while Dana is going through the security conversation? Do a live poll and get opinions in a room full of your peers? Well, thats what the size really allowed for today. I was a part of the MVP panel and basically fielded questions left and right and got a really good idea for what everyone is doing. Talked to several dozen people during the day and not just the biz card exchange either, we really got to chat and everyone got to talk to the presenter while the presentation was still rolling. Very smooth. 

Food –  You will not walk away from SMB Nation hungry. 

Fireside Chat – Now for the most part I had no idea what this was going to be. What it sort of turned into (for those of you that attended the presentation with Harry Brelsford and Dean Calvert at SMB Nation 2005) was quite good. To be honest, it really made the day for me and moreso made the trip worth-while for me in just one hour. It was basically senior management from CA and Harry Brelsford fielding questions from the crowd. Let's face it, its uncanny to get that much honest sharing from that high of a level and the discussion was awesome. CA got Scragged and to their credit they were quite up front about what they are trying to do, what they see as threats for us, what they see as opportunities. There was a lot of talk about the future, which is great, it shows that partners are planning. The exchange went back and forth for quite some time and it was amazing. 

The Aftermath

So with day one under wraps it was time to get together and hang out. Again, got a chance to network over dinner and catch up with some people and talk both shop and geek stuff. One of my current pains is scaling the ExchangeDefender infrastructure as it grows past the charted teritory. We were promised a party and the turnout was quite impressive. Again, more networking, more sharing.

Now how do I put this nicely… read up. Good, now read back down. If you are not here, if you are not networking and exploring partner opportunities to serve your customers in the areas where you may not have a really strong footing and experience… well… you just may not be in business long enough to see my next blog from the SMB Nation West. And look up there – this is all DAY 1! This trip was worth-while for me in less than one hour and the presentation is not even half way through.

But you want to see it, huh? Well, here are some pictures, enjoy. 

 Pictures above (you can click on them to pull up a bigger one) are of the SBS security (Firewall Dashboard and ISA 2004). To the right is a group picture of a few CEO's you might now. From left to right: Me, David Schrag, Karl Palachuk, Jeff Middleton and Amy Luby. Yes, Schrag exists. 

 

 Dinner time: Dana Epp, Andy Goodman, Chad Gross, Jeff Middleton. On the left, Arnie Belini of Connectwise and Steve Luby of Mobitech. 

 

 Steve Luby and Scott Buchanan. On the left (starting with just a piece of her face) is Paula Kingsley, Barbara Dove, John, Chad Gross, Jeff Middleton.

 

 Above is a pic of me and Paula Kingsley,fellow Exchange MVP. Yes, Exchange MVP(s). Yes, very cute. Very geeky.

Picture of Chad Gross and David Schrag. Me and Schrag. To give David full credit here, he took the time to introduce himself to me first thing in the morning and handed me a brand new business card, fresh off the inkjet.

 Off to the party. There is a pretty funny story here (apparently they had to reroute the bus to an alternate location because the first one fell through)

 

 Beatrice Mulzer. Matt the SLA man.

 

 Pool party. You know these folks by now.

 

 Pretty picture of Nancy for the Vladville audience. Enjoy. And ladies, ladies, ladies. Don't say I forgot you. Here is some eye-candy for you, me and Dana. You know you love it, come on.

 

 Beatrice making fun of me. Harry Brelsford calling the evening festivities to an end. Not quite "You ain't gotta take the bus, but if you miss it you can walk back to the hotel."

 

 Now so far this is the pic of the conference for me. It's funny in a few ways. First, notice how happy Karl and Jeff are – completely oblivious to whats going on. I'm obviously cracking up, both inside and with the shirt out of my pants, having dragged Amy over to take a pic with Schrag. Finally, Amy sizing up Schrag. Ding, ding – Let's get ready to ruuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuumble!