Google Desktop leaves Beta

Posted: 5:52 am
March 15, 2006
Google, Web 2.0
2 Comments

Google Desktop is supposed to leave the beta stage and go live today. I initially got GDS for search purposes but what made me stay is the near infinite number of widgets that are developed by others – most even share the source code. Certainly something for Microsoft to take note of and excite developers for their search platform at launch. It's not all about "finding" it, its more about organizing and making it available. My GDS includes news, scratchpad, todo, quickview, weather, search and RSS from places I still browse to. So go get it. Make sure you do not enable search across workstations or Google will copy your files to their servers. Big no no!

Best Buy now Gold Certified Partner

Posted: 9:37 am
March 14, 2006
IT Business, Microsoft
8 Comments

Best Buy is now a Gold Certified Partner in addition to being trained by Harry Brelsfords books. There has been relatively little interest in this by IT consultants but having dealt with Microsoft Partners for over a decade I can tell you I'm not surprised by the lack of concern. There is always the "we're better" attitude in the low-end consulting world.. you used to know these as your local system builders, Y2K experts, webmasters, web hosting companies and support engineers. Todays flavor is "Managed Service Providers" but inevidably only the best will survive. Many shots have been taken at Best Buy and their incompetence, but if they all read all of Harry's books they will be at least as good if not better than half the partners I see out there. Make no mistake, job and wage losses due to open markets and globalization are nothing compared to what Best Buy & Microsoft can do to diminish the need for the small business consultant. But hey, its another day and probably not a big deal to you. As the famous story goes "nothing of significance happened today"…

Ewic Wigman Hunting Piwates

Posted: 7:44 pm
March 13, 2006
IT Business, Microsoft
8 Comments

Just a quick update on all the piracy talk we had on Vladville a little earlier last month. It seems that a number of meetings that Eric was in have taken some fruit and there is at least some stronger wording on their commitment to fight piracy. I think we'd all like to see some enforcement soon. So if you're unlicensed/underlicensed or just a plain pirate its wabbit season! But seriously, you know you are. I've got the stats here, 6% of you hit this blog searching for illegal stuff I talk about! Google tells me what you're looking for and Elmer Eric up there is your worst nightmare. Hope you enjoy jail.

Gentlemen, start your leeching!

Posted: 7:21 pm
March 13, 2006
Misc, Web 2.0
4 Comments

Ah, today feels like 1994 with a T3 and a leech account on a warez site. Today marks one of the most exciting days for download junkies in quite some time. Endless ways to destroy your computer with poorly tested software and get the glimpse of the future! So first there is the guide that tells you just what your SBS server can do. But thats old news, how about some technology that will absolutely cripple your laptop? Susanne did just that this weekend so try it too, Office 2007 B1 is available. To be fair, they did release some stable code too, take a look at MMC 3.0 especially if you've got a religious objection to R2 and won't be upgrading. Wuss. But before you blow yourself up to smitherines, check out the Google GDrive. For those few not paranoid about Google taking their files over there is now a more manual way to do! Sarah actually has a link to the business model and to be honest, Google sounds more and more like a used car salesman as each day passes by. How do we do we do it Crazy Sergei? Volume!

SBS Show #18 – ISA & Firewalls with Amy Babinchak

Posted: 2:03 pm
March 10, 2006
SBS Show
22 Comments

SBS Show 18 is an adult and with the age of maturity we look at a responsible topic of protecting your network with a firewall. Amy Babinchak (ISA MVP) joins us for an hour of basic questions about firewalls and general security in small business: what is a firewall, why do you need one, what does it do, which one to get and so on. This is the show you can send to your customers and give them a second opinion by an ISA expert, MVP and an author. 01:00 Who are you, what do you do? 04:00 What is a firewall? 06:00 What is ISA? 11:00 Small business threats: What does ISA stop, do I really need it? 14:00 Am I too small for a firewall? 15:00 What do firewalls do? 17:20 How does ISA compare with other solutions? 19:00 Why should I upgrade to ISA 2004? 22:50 Different ISA versions? 24:00 How do you sell ISA? 29:00 Case Study Time. 39:50 ISA Controversies: Safe on SBS? Appliances? 47:00 Will you help me configure ISA? You can find out more about Amy Babinchak at her web site (www.harborcomputerservices.net) and more about her ISA work on her blog (isainsbs.blogspot.com) Download the SBS Show #18 http://www.vladville.com/sbsshow/sbsshow-episode18.mp3

More Office, Less Vlad

Posted: 3:24 pm
March 9, 2006
Vladville
Comments Off on More Office, Less Vlad

I am not sure how people get the idea I work for Microsoft but let me again state that despite the countless shiny blue, green and purple Microsoft logos and acronyms I do not work for Microsoft. Microsoft works for me. Opinions here are my own and heavily influenced by the feedback from my partners and customers. Few Microsoft folks wondered how I can be so happy with Microsoft one minute and take an axe to it the next. Let's see, how do I put this plainly. Think about Microsoft Outlook. Happy feeling, isn't it? All mail in one place, contacts a click away and its mobile too. God bless Bill Gates! Now think Software Assurance. Think Genuine Advantage and MAPS on eBay. Think WMF exploit unpatched for two weeks. Think Origami. What type of a feeling does that evoke? Thats right, honey string up the guillotine! So there you go. Microsoft technology… good. Microsoft Licensing… bad. Microsoft legal… worse. Microsoft Financial… evil. Microsoft Dynamics… *^&$^%^&*& Same company, different people. You cannot judge the whole company on the behavior of just one of its arms and you cannot expect admiration and love for the entire company, especially when you spent six hours in the line waiting for the Xbox. I will set my bitterness aside for a second and leave it at the fact that not all decisions Microsoft makes are good ones. Now on to the brighter side of the equation, new screenshots for Office 12 are up there! Check them out, sadly no Outlook.

Gmail Calendar – Where do you live?

Posted: 11:29 pm
March 8, 2006
Google, Web 2.0
6 Comments

There are more than a few screenshots over at TechCrunch talking about Google's new calendar software. Ajax based, integrated into gmail, portable, yada, yada, yada. I'll spare you the tech details, suffice to say its yet another web calendar. Nothing new here, all portals have had sucky web based calendars for ages. What is more interesting is the amount of interest and need people have for a Google-delivered calendar software. This is, by far, the most expected and desired feature since Outlook Web Access back in 2003. I have never seen more people look forward to a product this much and desire it so bad. Now if Google is smart enough to build in sharing to this calendar it may be a defacto winner on the day it launches. Why? Full integration. Look at Gmail. It integrates (albeit sucky) chat client, file storage, pop3 access, group subscriptions, tagging, flagging and no advertising on outbound or inbound mail (unlike Yahoo). So basically with a calendar this is a lightweight Outlook Web Access with more features and pesky side-text ads? Now as a standalone this is no match for Outlook or OWA. But if it gets any level of management, sharing and policies…. Well, it becomes a fight over the desktop (yes, again) and where you spend your day. I spend more time in Outlook than any other app. If that app suddenly becomes a web page does it take a lot of people away from the Office suite by default? Thats a big question. What is interesting is the amount of people that say "Hey, check out Google *.*, I use and love it." – Thats what everyone was saying about Outlook 2003 when it launched and now those words are associated with Google. Would you switch? or have you already? And yes, sucky is my new word of the day.

Lamborghini Laptop?

Posted: 4:39 pm
March 8, 2006
Gadgets, IT Culture
2 Comments

How much would you pay for a $1200 laptop that has a shiny coat of paint on it? If your answer is "about three times that much" I have some great news for you. Asustech will be making a new Intel laptop in collaboration with Lamborghini. This is great news for rich idiots everywhere, but it also marks a day in which Intel departs for obsolescence and starts following not just good but also bad AMD ideas. We're seeing a big change of guard here. Google. Apple. Linux. AMD. IT is certainly a lot different today than it was even four years ago.

Hands off my youngin’ Microsoft!

Posted: 11:18 pm
March 7, 2006
IT Business, Microsoft
8 Comments

My Golden Boy has a very interesting post of Microsoft going around him to reach the client he nominated for a promotion. Ouch. So not only are Microsoft partners completely abandoning the hope in Microsoft of ever developing secure software, combatting piracy, direct competition on ISV and service fronts but we must now even filter out the promotions we participate in? Bad PR move guys, very bad PR move. You can play dirty with your customers all you want, but if you go against your partners they just might find alternatives you so desperately do not want them to see. But why a bad PR move? Well, if you're going to mess with someones business I'd expect you to pick on JimmyBob Budlight, the Action Pack pirate. I would not expect you to go after an influential Gold Certified Partner that reaches over 20,000 partners a week. Update: Now I wish this person had left their name so we can follow up on this, so at the time I am going to call this BS. But anybody else with experience similar to below:

I had the SAME thing happen and my client conferenced me in. Apparently they wanted to make sure that the work they needed done was taken care of by a partner with the most competence in that field. They were going to take my customer and send them over to another partner. Great.

SBS & Mobility Whitepaper

Posted: 11:08 pm
March 7, 2006
Mobility
Comments Off on SBS & Mobility Whitepaper

The SBS & WM5 whitepaper has been released earlier this week. Download it here. I was on the edit team and was not paid so if you don't like it…. $245 to answer questions. Really its quite good, the only missing thing is the part about the ISA 2000 paper. I guess they were really aiming for the sales-side and ground-level technicians and assumed people didn't use ISA 2000 in SBS which is why you won't be able to use this document to get push mail to work. As a slightly higher end resource, check out the Inside SBS podcast on mobility which aired recently. Peter was also on the edit team and was the first one of us to get MSFP so if you've got $245 he is the man to call. I'm installing the new PBX so I probably won't pick up the phone 🙂 Update: Apparently I did not get the final published doc, in which the stuff bounced between me, Mike, Vanitha and Lawrence ended up in the doc. Thanks to Michael Cocanower for bringing this up to my attention.