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| Welcome to my blog site. Here you will find a fair brain dump of the various bits and pieces that I come across in my travels, consulting, training, and writing. I hope there's a few gems in there for you all. - SBSGuru |
14/05/2008Microsoft have today released the US pricing for Small Business Server 2008 and Essential Business Server 2008. The official announcement is here. In addition, they have announced changes in how they will deal with Client Access Licenses (CALs) for SBS 2008 in allowing the purchase of single CAL increments, therefore making it easier for clients to stay correctly licensed. Today Microsoft announced the following prices for the Windows Essential Server Solutions family: - Windows Small Business Server 2008 Standard Edition software, including five CALs, $1,089 (U.S.); additional CALs $77 each (U.S.)
- Windows Small Business Server 2008 Premium Edition software, including five CALs, $1,899 (U.S.); additional CALs $189 each (U.S.)
- Windows Essential Business Server 2008 Standard Edition software, including five CALs, $5,472 (U.S.); additional CALs $81 each (U.S.)
- Windows Essential Business Server 2008 Premium Edition software, including five CALs, $7,163 (U.S.); additional CALs $195 each (U.S.)
Whilst Australian pricing has not been announced as yet, it is hoped by the community that Microsoft Australia will look favourably on the current US$ > AUD$ conversion rates and ensure that the local pricing is more favourable than it has been in the past. Ok - so what else have they mentioned here that might not be clear? CALs - you only need to purchase Premium CALs for those users who access the Premium features eg SQL 2008 - this means that you can have 25 users in your SBS Premium network with Standard CALs and only 5 users with Premium CALs if those 5 users are the only ones accessing SQL server. That's a real cost saving for the Small Business owner. Outlook 2007 License - is not included in the SBS CAL anymore. This is primarily due to the fact that Exchange 2007 no longer includes it and the SBS product inherits this from their licensing model. Microsoft have statistical information to show that people are purchasing office which includes Outlook anyway, so this actually reduces the potential cost for the end user in the long run. The Outlook Web Access experience in Exchange 2007 is greatly enhanced too so this makes the user experience when away from the office far better than before. ForeFront for Exchange and OneCare for Server - they've included a 120 day trial version so that out of the box your server has protection from bad things such as SPAM and Virus infection. It's incomplete however as they provide no protection for the client computers and no way to centrally manage the entire operation. For me personally, I'll be replacing this with Trends's WFBS product due out shortly as this gives me all that I need to centrally manage my network. Ok - so that's a brief summary - I'll be writing more later this week. 12/05/2008 I picked up a 16G Corsair Flash Voyager when I was in the US last month from Frys. It worked fine on my laptop but refused to work on my desktop. Instead I got the dialog box on below requesting drivers for it. Naturally I didn't have drivers for it. 
I did some digging and found this article on their website. The Corsair website had some helpful FAQ's that I found at this link it had the instructions below. Please try the following instructions to get your USB devices working properly in Windows Vista: 1. Go to Local Disk (C)/Windows/System32/Driverstore/Filerepository 2. Go to usbstor.inf ( click the one that is newest) 3. Copy the usbstor.inf and usbstor.PNF files. 4. After you have copied the two files go to Windows/inf folder and paste the files in that folder. Now your USB devices should work. Now - in my case, I found that the usbstor.inf and usbstor.pnf files were both missing from the Windows/inf folder. I don't know why - but they were. Copy and replace as per instructions and it's working fine now. 11/05/2008It seems that this week is going to be a big week in SBS circles. At the SBSmigrations conference in New Orleans, the Microsoft SBS team are making a few announcements about changes to the SBS product. One of the key ones is that the famed Windows Home Server backup which was slated for release in SBS 2008, will not make it into the final product by release time. That's a shame really because I thought that this was one of the things that would give this product some "ZING". Microsoft say they will figure out how to get it in there at some point after release. Public Source for this info was http://crn.com/software/207601736?cid=ChannelWebBreakingNews Also to be noted is that SBS 2008's backup will NOT support tape drives. You need to look to removable hard drives as the media for your backup. This too was announced LAST year at the same conference. I think that maybe MS have missed the mark on this one though as removable hard drives are not at the same price point or capacity as tapes are. This means the customers will have to have a more expensive backup solution via multiple removable hard drives which is not so good :-( Watch the press this week as you never know what else might be said at the SBSMigration conference that might "slip out" ;-) 8/05/2008I'm still not sure about twitter as a business tool. For the moment, I'm seeing it more as a live discussion tool that I liken to overhearing conversations at a party, you hear scraps of it from the people next to you, but you don't hear the full conversation unless your following all the people in that conversation. Mack Collier has just blogged an article about some of the tools you can use to find and link up with people on twitter that might be part of a conversation you want to have with others. Check out his article here on Search Engine Guide 6/05/2008This only applies for my Australian and New Zealand readers, but if you've not gotten the email from Trend already, check out below for training coming to a city near you. This includes training on the upcoming CSM for SMB v5.0 (aka WFBS v5.0). I'm heading to the Sydney event tomorrow so hope to see you there.
Dear Partner, Please join Trend Micro for their quarterly partner training. This year, we're doing things a little different delivering both sales and technical training to all partners. To register for these sessions, please click the appropriate link - For more detail on these courses, please see below. In the meantime, we look forward to receiving your registration. Marie Evans Trend Micro
Small Business Worry-Free Sales and Marketing Overview - Worry-Free 5.0
- WFRM v1.6
- SB Hosted Services
This session will focus on the new Worry-Free Business Security (v5) release and look at major product improvements, licensing changes and how the new product impacts new and existing customers in the 5-100 node market. We will also look at the new Trend Micro Mobile Messaging Security Suite and the Trend Micro Messaging Archiver solution. Dates, Times and Venues:
Perth: 6th May - Hyatt Regency: 99 Adelaide Terrace - 8:45am to 10:00am
Brisbane: 6th May - Sofitel: 249 Turbot Street - 8:45am to 10:00am
Auckland: 6th May - Hyatt Regency: Corner of Princes Street & Waterloo Quadrant - 8:30am to 9:30am
Sydney: 7th May - Marriott: 36 College Street - 8:45am to 10:00am
Wellington: 7th May - Duxton: 170 Wakefield Street - 8:30am to 9:30am
Adelaide: 8th May - Stamford Plaza: 150 North Terrace - 8:45am to 10:00am
Christchurch: 9th May - Millennium: 14 Cathedral Square - 8:30am to 9:30am
Melbourne: 9th May - Stamford Plaza: 111 Little Collins Street - 8:45am to 9:30am
Worry-Free Technical Overview - Hints, tips and tricks for updating from 3.6 to v5
- General update/introduction to the new WFBS v5 product
Dates, Times and Venues:
Perth: 6th May - Hyatt Regency: 99 Adelaide Terrace - 10:00am to 11:00am
Brisbane: 6th May - Sofitel: 249 Turbot Street - 10:00am to 11:00am
Auckland: 6th May - Hyatt Regency: Corner of Princes Street & Waterloo Quadrant - 11:30am to 12:30pm
Sydney: 7th May - Marriott: 36 College Street - 10:00am to 11:00am
Wellington: 7th May - Duxton: 170 Wakefield Street - 11:30am to 12:30pm
Adelaide: 8th May - Stamford Plaza: 150 North Terrace - 10:00am to 11:00am
Christchurch: 9th May - Millennium: 14 Cathedral Square - 11:30am to 12:30pm
Melbourne: 9th May - Stamford Plaza: 111 Little Collins Street - 10:00am to 11:00am
Mid-Market/Enterprise Plug-Ins Technical Overview Plug-Ins
Plug-in architecture will now span the entire Trend Micro desktop/server security offering....... - What is it?
- How will it benefit you?
- How will it benefit the customer?
Dates, Times and Venues:
Perth: 6th May - Hyatt Regency: 99 Adelaide Terrace - 8:45am to 10:00am
Brisbane: 6th May - Sofitel: 249 Turbot Street - 8:45am to 10:00am
Auckland: 6th May - Hyatt Regency: Corner of Princes Street & Waterloo Quadrant - 9:30am to 10:30am
Sydney: 7th May - Marriott: 36 College Street - 8:45am to 10:00am
Wellington: 7th May - Duxton: 170 Wakefield Street - 9:30am to 10:30am
Adelaide: 8th May - Stamford Plaza: 150 North Terrace - 8:45am to 10:00am
Christchurch: 9th May - Millennium: 14 Cathedral Square - 9:30am to 10:30am
Melbourne: 9th May - Stamford Plaza: 111 Little Collins Street - 8:45am to 9:30am
A look at Web Threats - What they are
- How they work
- How Trend Micros Web Reputation technology gives us a competitive edge.
- Plus a quick look at our latest product updates/releases.
Dates, Times and Venues:
Perth: 6th May - Hyatt Regency: 99 Adelaide Terrace - 10:00am to 11:00am
Brisbane: 6th May - Sofitel: 249 Turbot Street - 10:00am to 11:00am
Auckland: 6th May - Hyatt Regency: Corner of Princes Street & Waterloo Quadrant - 10:30am to 11:30am
Sydney: 7th May - Marriott: 36 College Street - 10:00am to 11:00am
Wellington: 7th May - Duxton: 170 Wakefield Street - 10:30am to 11:30am
Adelaide: 8th May - Stamford Plaza: 150 North Terrace - 10:00am to 11:00am
Christchurch: 9th May - Millennium: 14 Cathedral Square - 9:30am to 10:30am
Melbourne: 9th May - Stamford Plaza: 111 Little Collins Street - 10:00am to 11:00am
2/05/2008Ok - so congratulations to Vlad and Katie Mazek on the birth last night of their first baby Tim Mazek :-) For those that don't know him, Vlad is the CEO for Own Web Now - a Florida based company that has done heaps to aid SMB resellers worldwide. Guys you won't know what's hit you now because for the next 20 years you'll be looking after this little guy feeding, changing nappies, teaching him to grow up. Having two kids of my own I can only say it is both stressful and amazing at the same time. Our two kids are 15 and 9 yrs old now - pretty independent, but they constantly surprise me. So what was interesting was watching Vlad and Katies twitter feed over the past 48 hours. Copy below... is this the first baby "born" on Twitter? What's cool about this (aside from the insight to Katie's thoughts) is that the variety of methods that Katie was able to update her twitter account, she used both the web and SMS to send updates to the twitter. Think of the possible uses that this could have in business to give quick status style information not just about a person, but an object such as a feed to your customers about the status of your web servers or something similar. 
Well - congratulations. What's even more impressive is that baby Tim already has his own twitter account - go ahead and make friends with him @timmazek watch him grow over the coming days and months and his view of his amazing parents. PS Vlad - you can have the password to the account when you cry uncle ;-) 27/04/2008Ok - so I've heard of twitter, and to be honest, did not get it. I mean what's wrong with email and IM as a means for communication? Then in the lead up to the MVP summit in Seattle a few weeks back, someone suggested we use twitter as a way to meet up with who was going where/when etc. Still - I did not get it. Email can do that right? Following the MVP summit, I went to the Small Business Marketing Unleashed conference in Houston, where I met a heap of new people. Social media was a big thing of discussion and in particular how you could use it to further your business interests. During the conference I noticed a number of people on twitter talking about things to people in other rooms. Hmm - I must check this out, so I did. What I found was that the discussions going on were adding immense value to the presentation being held both in this room and the one next door. Sure some people on twitter use it to tell people that they are heading out for a bio break and such (stuff we don't really need to know), but others use it to communicate some really useful information too - such as the time and meeting place for dinner tonight ;-) Is twitter useful to me outside of this environment? To be honest, I'm not sure as yet. I plan to give it a go for the next month and see what happens. I found a series of articles though that you may find useful. Jennifer Laycock has written them based on her experience, and whilst I was tempted to do the same, I thought I'd save the electrons and link to them here. http://www.searchengineguide.com/jennifer-laycock/part-one-from-twits-to-tweeple-why-i-emb.php http://www.searchengineguide.com/jennifer-laycock/part-two-from-twits-to-tweeple-why-i-emb.php http://www.searchengineguide.com/jennifer-laycock/part-three-from-twits-to-tweeple-why-i-e.php And one last one from Matt Bailey - he was a speaker @ the event too http://www.sitelogicmarketing.com/blog/04-soundbite-twitterbyte So - my advice, get on to twitter and give it a shot. Find out if it makes sense for YOU with your own requirements. It may and it may not - but only YOU will know for sure. Oh - and don't be an ostrich with your head in the sand either or else someone will register a fake twitter account and tweet on your behalf like Vlad did with Susan :-) All good fun in this case, but it could be worse. 24/04/2008Day 2 of the Small Business Marketing Unleashed event and I'm not supposed to be blogging or twittering about the content as much of it is so deep and personal to many of us - but hey - I can't resist. Naturally - I won't blog about anything that I should not, so here's my summary of what I saw and learned today. As part of today's workshops attendees were asked to submit their sites for discussion during each session. We only got to discuss two or three during each session, but the results were amazing. First up was from Heather Lloyd-Martin on Keyword and Content - Heather helped us understand how about Keywords, how they work and how the search engines find us. She went on to demonstrate some cool tools that will allow you to enter keywords and find out which ones are the words that people are using to search on. With this information you can better build the content on your site so that it hits more and more of the engines with the keywords that people want. End result is greater traffic to your site. One of the sites we looked at was a traditional IT support company. Heather had them explain to the group about their business. One of the key aspects of this company was that they were geeks with personality. This led to a discussion and resulted in them thinking seriously about all aspects of their business, including the uniform, and alternate domain names that they might use to point to their website. Amazing stuff... the room was buzzing with excitement as we collectively brainstormed on the issues at hand. Second was a workshop presented by Sage Lewis from Sagerock on Building Communities. Now this is not what I expected to be honest, it's showing me a different angle of what I have traditionally considered to be community. It positioned community, not as a support structure that most of us SBSers think of, but more as a potential audience for your product or service. It's giving me ideas that right now might not be directly translatable to the community, but are starting the thought process going so it's been really good! I'm planning to do a video interview later today with Sage and you'll be able to see that this guy is really on a different plane when it comes to vibe and excitement. Third workshop was a site clinic and was presented by Sage Lewis and Stoney deGeyter with contributions by Mack Collier. The aim of this workshop was that you would submit your pride and joy website and the experts would analyse it and provide useful input on how you could improve it. We looked at three websites including my own www.sbsfaq.com and one VERY large / well respected website in the Small Business market. It was very interesting for me to see the issues that I faced compared to those of larger more established sites. I had in mind a plan of what I was thinking to do with SBSfaq.com and after the somewhat brutal analysis of the site by these experts, I've thrown out more than 50% of it and will take on board their thoughts and recommendations to improve both the site and the content contained within it. I say that these guys were "brutal" but I mean it in the most positive context possible as all of their suggestions were VERY constructive. The Wrap Up This event was one of the best conferences I've been to in a long time. My hat is off to Jennifer Laycock and her team for organising was was a VERY smooth first event. It had none of the telltale signs of being a first run event either which was very surprising. The buzz around the event, talking to the delegates was amazing. Delegates ranged from Small Business owners wanting to make their own website do better in the rankings to other SEO and Web Design companies striving to learn from the masters in the industry. The range of talent in the speakers was incredible too, some of the information they conveyed was truly eye opening. Thank you and watch out for news of the next time this will be run. 23/04/2008On my last night here in Houston, I was privileged to be invited by Anne Stanton, the founder of the Houston IT Professionals group (HIP) to present at their group at Microsoft's Houston offices. I had just finished attending the Small Business Marketing Unleashed conference and was looking forward to getting back into the same community as I am familiar with. HIP is still in it's infancy and this was it's 3rd meeting, so it was great to see 10 people come along to the group. We talked about all manner of things affecting the SMB IT Professional, however the main discussion was on how to do troubleshooting, some of the techniques that I use and have developed over the years. The discussion around this moved into many different tangents at times including how to find good staff and related topics. I had a great time at the meeting and I want to thank Anne for inviting me to attend and present to this select group. Thanks also to Mike Whalen for picking me up from the conference in Cypress, TX and getting me to the Microsoft offices for the meeting on time. I look forward to visiting once again in the future - maybe around the World Wide Partner Conference in July 08. Ok - so this SBS Guru guy took my ID some time back, so last week while in Redmond, I thought I would drop by and pay him a visit.... Here's his view of my visit... Hijacked! |
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