Looking the Virtual Gift Horse in the mouth

Posted: 7:36 pm
March 29, 2006
IT Business
9 Comments

There are some indications that Microsoft will release the next release of Microsoft Virtual Server, the VS 2005 R2 Enterprise absolutly free next week. Ain't competition grand? Remember that "R2" was actually Virtual Server SP1 that Microsoft got free beta testing for then decided to make it a for-pay product. Lot's of angered customers but the guys in Redmond didn't budge: "shoulda bought SA" Fast forward a few monts. Free Xen virtualization is picking up. Vmware released a free Vmware Server which is considered a superior product by almost everyone. Not just that but it also comes without the overhead of the Microsoft Windows Server license – it can run on top of Linux, free. Incentive to use a Microsoft solution: none. So when Virtual Server R2 launches I will perhaps be the only one on earth downloading it. I realize nobody cares and I am fine with that. However, our friends in Redmond should care and care a lot. I spoke to a Microsoft friend of mine about Virtual Server 2005 R2 and how people were upset about it not being free and his comment was "Oh well, what are they going to do – use Novell and Vmware?"; See how little it takes to displace Microsoft? Hopefully they learn, quickly. Microsoft Vista and Microsoft Office 12 will require a drastic amount of re-training… and if you're throwing a ton of money to retrain the workforce, upgrade hardware for Software.Next, virtualization of servers and apps is apparently free… I wonder how many people lose sleep in Redmond thinking about Vista launch becoming as big of a non-event as Virtual Server 2005 R2? Not that wild of an idea folks, how many of you though you'd get a free $5,000 virtualization server last March?

Pulse Check, SBS-PSS-SBSSHOW-TS2

Posted: 7:38 am
March 28, 2006
Events, Podcast
11 Comments

Yeah, I'm still alive. I had a little two hour talk with fellow MVP Dana Epp and we ended up talking about something completely opposite of why he called me in the first place. Long story short, I've spent past four days working on learning how C# and mono integrate on Linux. Why, do Microsoft tools servers suck that bad? Not at all. The problem is application infrastructure sticker shock – and on the SQL side only. While I have no problem paying SQL Server fees for high traffic, high fault tollerance solution there are simply sites that do not need massive scalability or business intelligence or stored procedures – but they need to be up – always. Microsoft does not differentiate on size or feature set, one size fits all. So if you want to have a cluster with a 20 meg database you'll be paying the same as the big boys. Maybe they'll recognize that soon, it surely put IBM and Oracle into obsolescence for lower-end db driven sites. I also took some time off to gather some energy for the SBS Show. We're on verge of launching #20 and our audience is so huge that there is more pressure to put on not just informative but entertaining shows. Mark Stanfill has been blogging like a mad man over at SBS PSS lately and they have two webcasts with TS2. They are brave enough to put up a live webcast and answer questions on the fly 🙂 Call em up and ask for a concise solution to ActiveSync Error: 05010014. I recently had a shaming with them over this error, will blog about it soon. On the TS2 front there is a new Community Server. They even have a live blogroll aggregator to which they have added the SBS Show! Thanks Fred! Now if we could only get JJ to blog more 🙂 Tonight: If you've got a $100 and want to improve your IT business please check out my presentation to Washington DC SBS group, live at 7PM EST. The presentation is free but I'm going to show you how to blow $100 on eliminating some of the points that make SMB IT shops suck.

Support Local Business: Git-R-Done

Posted: 10:34 pm
March 26, 2006
Misc
3 Comments

Now I hate to do an almost fictional post back to back like this but folks… I took some time off this weekend. Katie took me to see Larry The Cable Guy's new movie "Larry The Cable Guy: Health Inspector". Larry is our neighbor in Orlando and we thought we'd support another local businessman 🙂 We're fans of his and thoroughly enjoy redneck comedy having gone to college in the south. So it was a double break: I took a weekend off from work and from attempting to replicate Netflix's DVD library 🙂 It is amazing how entertained you can be when you have your expectations set low enough. I loved the movie if not for the depth of plot and the acting skills then for the fact that the entire movie was filmed in about 3 square miles of Downtown Orlando. Go check it out, we sure have a beautiful town here.

Insider Tip: Huge Microsoft Acquisition Soon

Posted: 9:02 am
March 24, 2006
IT Business, IT Culture
11 Comments

It's Friday folks! Here is a little bit of humor for your weekend, enjoy! Eat your heart out Mary Jo Foley, you've got nothing on me! It no news that plenty of chairs have been flying around Redmond lately. These have been caused by yet another delay to Microsoft Vista, and now to Microsoft Office. Better known as "Microsoft's Cash Cows" these products literally run the business world. The announcement of delays into 2007 has affected the Microsoft stock price, knocked down Nasdaq three days in a row and consequently hurt not just Microsoft but its partners in software publishers, hardware makers, people lonely at Christmas. It has not been a good week for Microsoft. However, I just got off the phone with Steve Ballmer (we chat every friday, I ask whats new there, he asks when OWN is going to offer shell access) and he shared some info with me that he wanted to give Vladville an exclusive crack on. Wow, you are still reading this? Please tell me you get that its a joke? Ok, so here is the skinny: The recent executive changes at Microsoft are nothing more than a cleanup operation. The "new" exec reshufflings have really been high level janitorial appointments and are in process of cleaning up the offices prior execs have been in. I know, I know, they should be able to clean this place up in 10 minutes – oh no, not true. If you've ever been around a high power executive you know they are full of it. However, when required to be accountable for missed deadlines and lost money with a chair coming at their face they tend to explode. Massive cleanup. The rumor? Microsoft has hired George Broussard to run the Microsoft Platforms & Services division. According to Steve what had attracted him to Broussard was his superior management of the Duke Nukem: Forever game and he felt that Broussard gives the company that much needed PR edge. George was not immediately available for comment but did send an email reply saying "Vista will be done when its done. Vlad, STFU imo!"; Coincidentally, Bill Gates also released a press release a few minutes ago titled: "Hail to the King, baby." – apparently 90% of the subsaharan Africa and major parts of SE Asia fell to their knees. Update: Just spoke to George Broussard and we talked at length about the true reason for delays of Vista. There have been many speculations over why the delay was neccessary but George simply said it was the rendering engine behind Vista. Forget about Glass, its all about Unreal rendering technology. He estimated that roughly 60% of the code will have to be rewritten and the switch will likely be completed in six weeks. On the topic of further relases he did mention that we will see a new beta at E3. Update 2: Ok, just got off the phone with Bill (Bill Gates, we're on the first name basis you know) and he mentioned that Broussard is really just the first in the line. He is actually hiring Al Lowe to handle the release of Vista and provide management of the MicrosoftBS unit (Microsoft Dynamics) and take personal ownership of Microsoft SBA. You see, Al Lowe gained fame by claiming they lost a version of Leisure Suit Larry back in the 90's. Gates hopes the same management style can be a win-win for Microsoft who does not seem to get its act together until version 3. Al has been a Microsoft consultant for a while now, as a matter of fact he is the brilliant soul behind R2: "Guys, guys, guys. Instead of releasing a new version lets just bundle all the old crap thats already out there, throw it into a new box, and tell them its the next release?" Hey, it worked before and it worked again!

Washington DC Strikes Again: Welcome Back Ma Bell

Posted: 9:10 am
March 23, 2006
IT Business, IT Culture
Comments Off on Washington DC Strikes Again: Welcome Back Ma Bell

Ah, I really don't want to say this but it serves having some context. I try to avoid political posts because I feel its usually impossible to have a rational argument on politics. People tend to be too wrapped up in their own definition of morality, freedom and whatever their church/family/tv brainwashed into them as an absolute truth. One thing we can all agree on is that election and appointment of total morons is nothing new to Washington DC. However, W really takes the cake with the new chief of the fellas at the freakin' FCC. So, say goodbye to innovation on the net. Comments disabled, I don't care what your opinion on me/W/FCC/telco is. Just RTFA 🙂 Or enjoy the Family Guy movie 🙂

DDoS Welcome!

Posted: 10:46 am
March 22, 2006
Podcast, Vladville
Comments Off on DDoS Welcome!

You know you're big when you DDoS yourself with a podcast announcement. I'm currently shaming the front-end server that provides Vladville.com, check this out: -bash-3.00# uptime 10:42:57 up 21 days, 8:32, 2 users, load average: 113.25, 80.87, 86.13 -bash-3.00# netstat -na | more Segmentation fault Dual Xeon 3.0, 8 GB ram folks. There really is not a whole lot more I can throw at this. Please be patient.

SBS Show #15 – Managed Services with Mobitech

Posted: 9:39 am
March 22, 2006
SBS Show
16 Comments

SBS Show #15 on Managed Services is the most anticipated SBS Show episode ever – we taped four shows after we decided to go back and redo #15 to give this important topic the fair attention it deserves. Joining us are Amy, Chad and Steve and they talk about all aspects of managed services that have made Mobitech successful. You've seen these folks share details of their business and process in the newsgroups before but you've never seen it to this extent. 2+ hours of recording, you will want to set some time aside, break out a pen and a paper and listen attentively. There are no show notes for this one, we simply asked everything we could think of and the scope and length of answers will surprise you. If you are not thrilled with this show I will give you your money back! When you are done listening to this show sign up for the MobilizeSMB tour which is coming to a city near you. The event is completely free and will give you a chance to discuss managed services and strategies with the Mobitech team in person. Seating is limited so register today. For more on managed services software and concepts please Scharag this wiki. Download the SBS Show #15 http://www.vladville.com/sbsshow/sbsshow-episode15.mp3

Developer worlds collide: Atlas & CentOS

Posted: 10:14 pm
March 21, 2006
Microsoft, Programming, System Admin
2 Comments

While the two are not similar in any perceptive way I feel these announcements mark a day on which two closet technologies really matured. First Microsoft releases Atlas, an IDE for AJAX web based applications and CentOS releases a stable Enterprise Linux distribution backed by the community. First on CentOS While not the first or the new Enterprise Linux project by any means, CentOS made a major step today with finalized 4.3 release. You see, for years there was no such thing as a stable Linux distribution. It was always in flux living on the whim of individual package maintainers. Many opted to put together their own by compiling the OS and tools from the ground up with Gentoo or trusting Debian's stable yet technologically obsolete distribution. Then RedHat sunk in a lot of money into a commercial distribution of Linux that is backed by a vendor with standards and support for at least five years. Then Whitebox Enterprise Linux and CentOS started a community initiative of recompiling Redhat Enterprise Linux and offering it for free. Today marks a day on which the CentOS distribution is not just stable and reliable as it has been for quite some time, but also widely supported by plenty of mirrors and multiple architectures. Community is the key here, it eliminates any political or legal restrictions on packages that are available. So if you are looking for a free and stable development platform… you don't have to look any further. Microsoft releases AJAX This was covered with a lot of excitement during PDC last year and has now launched over at Mix 06 where Microsoft is pledging its committment to web services. Good for them, really. Now look up. Story on Linux. Story on Windows. If a something like this was posted two years ago the person writing it would get skewered and burned by both camps. Truth of the matter is both audiences have matured by leaps and bounds. Microsoft no longer looks at Linux and other technologies as trash and is very accepting of the platforms their customers choose to develop applications on. If you've seen R2 you will have to agree that the Interop possibilities are just amazing. Likewise, I know a lot of people that will jump for joy for a streamlined interface for Ajax development. Until now you were almost forced into notepad, textpad and nano of the world to make javascript mods and test them in a browser. A mature tool to streamline development and testing will not just lead to more code, it will lead to better code because it is now easier to keep track of whats going on. This is why Microsoft is so respected by developers (a heck of a lot more than it is respected by us sysadmins) — they really make the job a lot easier with their tools and are very accepting of new ways of doing things. It's a good day, a very peaceful united day in the cyberspace. 🙂

The more things Vista, the more they Longhorn the same

Posted: 7:27 pm
March 21, 2006
IT Culture, Microsoft, OS
6 Comments

So the name changed but not the products cronic delays: Vista Launch Delayed I'm happy to see this and I'm sure everyone who has alpha/beta tested Vista so far will agree it needed a lot more time to be the next Microsoft platform. Not sure about it n eeding only "a few more weeks" though, they must have 5x as many Indians/Chinese working on it as I imagine. The product looks amazing but the performance piece is simply not there and there are simply too many issues with it that I have personally been bugging and I have not even made it to the server-side yet. Wonder what this does for the server lineup? Not sure yet but almost certainly a delay there as well. The server piece for its part looks a whole lot more stable than the Workstation component and it pretty much must. So strap on and wait about another year for the official Vista launch. Update: Oddly, even though they are citing the need for more time to tweak security, business editions will available to volume licensing customers before the close of the year… Lots of emails asking me about the cause for the delays. Honestly, I do not know the reason. I can speculate however from being on the beta team. The amount of feedback and scenario voting on the February CTP is simply insane. I think Microsoft is stepping back.. looking at the scenario and bug report and opting to really deliver a rock solid release from the ground up. Thats my guess, others would be integration of the new file system perhaps? 🙂 Ah, wishful thinking 😉

Advanced Mobility and Stalking with WM5

Posted: 8:19 am
March 21, 2006
Mobility
4 Comments

So in an attempt on shaking the stupid off I figured I should post a few resources on mobility that I use as a resource every day. For example, if you're creating a reliable and redundant messaging platform with Exchange 2003 for a larger organization there are good odds you will not find a wizard. The SBS Mobility will not help there. First, there is an awesome document on deploying mobile messaging over at Jason Langridge's blog. Start there. It is the only document out there that goes in great detail on MSFP. That will get your Exchange talking to your phone in more ways than one. Second, this mobility stuff is new (to Microsoft at least) so there is a lot of undocumented behavior in devices and ActiveSync that only developers can see. Microsoft is trying. In addition to the central mobility blog from the Windows Mobile Team, there is also a documentation leaf blog. When you are ready to really dig into Windows Mobile and all it involves you pretty much have to deal with developers. Start with Marcus Perryman, bookmark the MSDN Mobility Library, sign up and live on xda-developers forums and do the improbable task of not crippling your system with the WM5 emulator and dev kit. If there is one thing, one thing, you should del.icio.us out of this whole post its the Channel9 Mobility Wiki. But I don't like to read… Now I know there are a lot of you out there that just cannot read a whitepaper. Something about lots of words and scribbles on white paper without pictures is just not appealing. No need to despair, you can always resort to stalking. You sort of have two options here. You can stalk Peter Galagher who is the mobility expert on the SBS PSS team but he is a pretty tall guy and might kick your ass. The more attractive (sorry Peter) alternative is in Vanitha Prabhakaran who is on the Exchange PSS team. If you're in Europe there are always mamaich and Tuatra from xda-developers.com. So there you go, for developers and stalkers, those are some resources to mobility. Hope it helps.