Well I passed the 70-282 Exam today, so that with the action pack should clear me for Small Biz Specialist. It's good to be an MCP again, and even better to have something that can help separate Solar from the rest of the small shops out there.
From Clark's Website:
Don't get a Dell, dude
Dell Computer continues to take it on the chin. The company now faces a lawsuit from the state of New York for cheating people on rebates and financing offers. New York alleges that Dell conspired to cheat people in those areas, and Clark has received a lot of calls to that effect. People were expecting some kind of rebate or service and Dell failed them over and over. Dell vigorously disputes the charges. But the bottom line is that you’re going to be in trouble if you buy a Dell, dude. Consumer Reports recently rated which computer companies are best in support after the sale. No one was even close to Apple. The company got a top rating in all categories. The worst rating went to Compaq in all categories. Dell got a poor rating on average wait time and a fair rating on solving problems. But calls to Clark’s show tell a different story. So, which computers break the most and which break the least? In desktops, Apple computers break the least while Gateway breaks the most. In laptops, there was a five-way tie for worst between Dell, Toshiba, Gateway, HP and Apple. That’s right. Apple did not do well with laptops, a category where Sony got the best rating.
Think you will get the best support with the big boys? The truth be told, it is the small boys that give better support. Why? Becouse they are small, they care about you. They also have a better understanding of computers and your setup. Also Asus makes a large selection of Sony laptops, which Solar Sales, so if you want a good laptop, Get Asus!
There is a company called StorageCraft that has a backup program I have been meaning to try for a while now. I finely signed up for their demos and partner program only to see them listed a few times from some of my vendors.
So, a few weeks ago I put it to a simple test. Backup a system, and restore it. It worked just as I expected. Then last weekend I was working on a Server. It was a Small Business Server that didn't have any of the service packs installed. I thought, well now is a good time to test it again. So I made a backup of the system before I did any updates. Then installed all the updates, and as luck would have it, everything worked.
I put the system back in service and haven't heard any bad news. So I didn't get to really test the software in a real world test. Well this weekend (yes Mothers day weekend) I had a workstation giving me problems. I thought I would again use the Software. I made a backup, then reloaded the workstation. Everything is working great on the reload (which is good b/c I thought there might have been a hardware issue).
So again I didn't get to really test the software. It has given me more choices when working on computers though. But I really wanted to test the software, put it though it's paces. Well Luckily I did install the 30day trial on one of my Virtual Servers. So I decided it was time to do a restore.
I shutdown the Virtual server made a copy of my server hard drive (since it is virtual, it is just a simple as doing a file copy). Then booted off the ShadowProtect CD. It loaded up, complete with Nic card. Took a little bit to get a drive mapped over so I could see where I was storing my backups, but once I got that going, the restore was simple and WORKED.
One of the best parts of ShadowProtect is how it backup's and restores. You can set it to do a full backup, then incremental every hour during business hours. That's not the best part though, when you restore, you only select the time of the last backup you want to restore. It will then do all the work for you. In the past to restore an incremental backup you would restore the last full, then each backup till the date/time you wanted. That's a lot of work. With ShadowProtect, it was just a few minutes (about 45) and I was backup and running just like before.
I have not put it though every test I can think of yet, nor have I played with all the advance features, but it does work, it is simple to use, and it is my backup of choice from now on!
With all the changes Microsoft has done over the last few years to change how people view their OS, something's just remain the same. They have preached this "Secure by Design" and how they are taking steps to get patches out faster, easier to install and maintain, and better tested.
Even with all that, what do we see? Well we see broken patches, Surprised patches, and patches that just plan don?t install right. This should sum up the problems with patching, just read what "The Outspoken Wookie" said, That should give you an example of the problems IT admin's face in order to keep their computers up to date and working.
Even if you are not an IT person, its a good read. If you don't do patching than you really need to start or you need to let Solar take care of the patching for you!
Hey, can't do an IT blog without doing a shameless plug!
Ok, I hear all the time about how things in IT won't work together. Well if you been trying to get your different devices to work all together you have two choices. First is to call Solar Networking, Second is to get one of these.. Blended IT
The choice is yours. There is really a lot of cool videos on there, I now want a blender, but not for the kitchen. I want it for the garage!
I'm a big fan of SharePoint. Not that it is perfect, but I love the idea. There is still a lot that needs to be done though before it is a real killer app. I do plan to use SharePoint for all my clients to hold their network information.
Now, Microsoft with all their wisdom released a patch that hosed a test SharePoint install I had. Not to bad, no data there I cared about, but I did want to start using that as a production SharePoint site, so I needed to get it back up and going.
The error seemed to be somewhat common, there are a lot of Google groups post about it and there was a reported fix that was helping everyone! Here is the problem I was having:
404 and Page Not Found error on SharePoint Site - microsoft.public.sharepoint.windowsservices Go
Ok, sweet, seems easy enough (Yeah should have known then it wasn't going to work). Sure enough I already have that patch... Well found out here that's somewhat common as well, you have to extract the patch first.
404 and Page Not Found error on Sharepoint Site - microsoft.public.sharepoint.windowsservices Go
Still no fix though, Ok, time to start fresh, lets just uninstall SharePoint and start over, I mean, there isn't any data there I need anyway. What?! I cant install? Now what?
hello its liam (trainbloggin) More WSS v3 Errors on my VPC!! (Might Just Rebuid it!!)
Oh THANK YOU! Wasn't sure what I was going to do, now with this I can uninstall it by hand, Sweet. Then we reinstall and um.. Hrmp, same error.... SharePoint is now ShareCrap.
Why why why... Uninstall again (hey at least this time the uninstaller worked, must be doing something right). Ok, lets look over the system, make sure there is nothing left behind, Ah... The database (what is causing all the problems) didn't uninstall. So how do I get SQL Embedded removed, there isn't a uninstaller for it, it's not even in add/remove programs.
Connex' Copper Coins Uninstall SQL 2005 Embedded Edition SSEE
What would I do without Google? Is there any other search that can give you this kind of data? Now I have All of ShareCrap uninstalled, We can try the install again.
WTF, another error, "The language is not supported on the server", What language is it trying to use? Hmm, Hello Google, haven't seen you much today...
Matthew Cosier's Blog The language is not supported on the server - Office SharePoint Server2007
Ah, well seems I Might have gotten a little delete happy when I uninstalled ShareCrap by hand. Ok, added the Reg key and now we should be off... Um, Nope, Crap! Uninstall again... Uninstall SQL again... Add Reg key (just for good measure), Install Sharepoint, and...
Wait for it...
Wait for it . . .
Yes, It works! ShareCrap is once again SharePoint! Now there is one tiny little thing, There is still that patch out there that needs to be installed. So, how luckily do I feel, it has been a long week. Ah well its only software!
Guess what... Shhh! Dont let anyone know, But um... It worked :D
Think your password is secure? Well lets find out, I found a few links that have some great infomation on passwords, how long it takes to crack them, and how to make good passwords. It all started with this article.
Hacking Weak Passwords
From there I learned a few of thier tricks, like something called Rainbow Tables
How Rainbow Tables work Now that is for people that really understand math and advance computer crap, I got the jist of it, but some of it went over my head.
Latly, be sure to check out just how good your password is, Microsoft has a website that does just that... So how does your password stack up?
Password checker
This Saturday my kids and I will be doing the first annual TB awareness walk. I got con' ed into this from my mom who works for GA training health departments on TB and other fun things. Anyway everyone should come out and show their support, at the time of this writing there are 532 walkers! If you live in the Atlanta area then make a point to come to grant park and enjoy a short walk around town!
Ok, there has been a few threads on Community Servers website about having the bulk upload tag the images based on the tags the image has already (did that even make since?). I took some code off codeplex that showed how to read the tags from an image. I quickly made up a form that uploaded an image, then displayed the tags.
To my surprise when I tried an image I had tagged in Digital Image Suite (DIS) it didn't show any tags! After some research I found out why. DIS doesn't store tags the same way Vista and most other apps do. It's not in the XMP data where it should be. Now vista does see DIS tags and Photo Info does as well. If you edit a tag in either vista or Photo Info, it will copy the tags to XMP, and then it does show up in my little test app.
The question is where to go from here, I would like to turn the test app into a CS Module that will auto tag images as they are uploaded, but it wouldn't do DIS images correctly. Since I use DIS I'm at a standstill.
I hope to find some good info on how to pull the keywords from DIS. Then I might can have it support both DIS and XMP tags. Till then I will just need to learn how hard it is to make a module and how to grab images that are being posted up, and how the tags are stored in CS. Lots to learn for someone that doesn't think of themselves as a programmer.
Since I have been using vista on my everyday PC, I have been playing around a lot with gadgets. Gadgets are nice little mini app's that run on your system. They can run anywhere on the desktop or on the side of one of your monitors (Sidebar).
Right now I have tried 30 or so of these little things. Most don't stay longer then a few seconds, but a few have just blown me away. So far the 2 I use the most would be the Live writer (lets me blog quicker) and remote desktop. I think that might change as today I downloaded Google search (which just rocks so far) and one for MSN Messenger that finely does what I expect.
So what gadgets do I have going right now? Well there is the 24 theme clock, Weather, CPU/MEM meter, Network Meter, Calendar, MSN Msg, Google Search, Remote desktop, Live Writer and Live Traffic. Some of these are new, so will do a follow up on which ones I really like and use and will provide some download links at that time.
Any gadgets you just love? Let me know! I'm also thinking of gadgets that work with accounting systems, VOIP, and other services that are more business related.
Ok, After about 2 mins, I made the switch to google reader. I was using feedreader, but now that I work of 3 different computers, I wanted something that could "follow me" better. So I gave google reader a try. Now I'm hooked, why diddnt I switch sooner? really now this is a great reader. I then spent about 20mins looking at add-ons and other infomation about it. So far only the Google Reader Notifier am I using (it was a must have since I try and stay on top of my news and my emails).
Since I have now made the change, I will try to support some of googles other features, Shared items and "add to google reader" being the 2 I will start off with.
Hmm, might be a good time to write up how to use Blogs, readers, etc for my family, get them on the Web 2.0 Bandwagon!
Yesterday I had to go to the bank. I made a deposit in the night deposit box and it wasn't showing up. The first lady I saw I didn't know, the normal person I deal with was helping someone else. I explained what happened and the Commercial Teller told me to come see here (she just overheard me talking). By the time I Got down there and told her my company name, another tell had looked up my account and saw the deposit had just went though.
To recap, I walked in, told 1 person my problem and 3 jumped on it to find the answer. Now that is service! And from a bank, I thought getting good service from a bank was long gone. Do you provide that same level of service where you work? I know I try to go above and beyond at Solar, but this has really opened my eyes. I want my customers leaving with the same feeling, Great service from a IT company!
~Dal
Windows Vista bus came though Atlanta, and I missed it! I checked it Tuesday morning and it was in Macon. That afternoon, North Atlanta. I really wanted to drop in and check it out, but work wasn't allowing me to break away and drive to north Atlanta in time to catch it before it was gone.
Oh well, I am sure there will be another road trip I can catch later!
~Dal
A few weeks ago I was talking to some Big enterprise IT people. We where just comparing some of the problems everyone has no matter how big or small you are. The question came up about IT budgets. How much should we spend on IT?
The answer? Well they told me that they tell their clients to spend about 3% of their annual sales. So, one of my customers has sales near 80 million, so that would be $240,000. Do they spend that much? No, but lets be fair, this includes all IT related services. Phone, Cell phones, Internet access, Personal, and anything else that deal with IT and communication. Add up what they spend (rough numbers) and I get about $192,000. That also doesn't include any hardware, which you would really need to look at over a few years to account for servers and upgrades. I can say though, they don't spend $50,000 in hardware, but they do come close to the 3%. In fact, there are a few things I didn't count for, webhosting, E-com, some of the accountant's pay (since she does some of the IT work).
I challenge everyone, Take 3% of your sales and look at using that for IT. Add up what you are currently spending, are you underspending or overspending? In fact, if you are a Solar Customer, call us and we will help you add up your IT spending and help come up with a budget for the future!
One of my new years resolutions was to blog more, not only on IT stuff, but also for my family. With 3 kids there is allways something new going on and I'm not one to share, well I hope that will change. With this I also have sorted out where some stuff is going to be blogged at. Please check out the guide to find what it is your are looking for. For anyone not in my family, this is the only real blog you need to see, you can also check out my company's website at www.solarnetworking.com. For family members you might want to read the guide to get a better idea on where I am putting things.
Guide to Dalamar.org
~Dal