iQubed Blog

iQubed Blog has moved

2006-08-27T20:54:00.000+01:00

The new blog is here and is powered by Wordpess now.

David Brent meets Microsoft

2006-08-23T21:58:00.000+01:00

You've got to check out this video, it's brilliant. David Brent from "The Office" meets Microsoft UK...result, very funny!!

BBC Technology News offers contrary view to Vista

2006-08-22T20:39:00.000+01:00

Wow, Bill Thompson, BBC Technology News reporter has quite an interesting article as to how Vista's potential security failings might in the end help Linux. He's really sticking his neck out on this one and taking a brave position. He talks of the closed-source and opensource ways of developing software and looks at the relative merits of these. One point he makes is that

Now it may be locking many security vendors out of Vista, and as a result it will be under extreme pressure to deliver a completely secure system. If it fails and Vista security is cracked we will only have Microsoft to blame.
There is another way of developing programs and dealing with bugs, one which has had remarkable success in building programs that are used by millions of people every day.

Microsoft offers help to Firefox!

2006-08-22T20:06:00.000+01:00

Yes, I know I had to read the headline twice! The story is in ComputerWeekly and Microsoft Exceutive is offering support for getting Firefox and Thunderbird running on Windows Vista. Could this be the fallout from the American and European Anti-trust judgements? No, surely not, they're just doing the right thing, honest!

The article also says that Firefox now has 14% market share with Internet Explorer with 76%. Now, if only they could make Firefox less resource hungry!

AMD Enterprise Online Event

2006-08-22T14:28:00.000+01:00

Here is an online webcast from AMD which is worth watching. It brings together AMD, IBM and Novell who are increasingly working togther. IBM are bringing out new System X servers based on AMD processors and working with Novell to get SUSE Linux Enterprise Server fully supported on these platforms.

Now who said Linux is just supported by a bunch of long haired bearded geeks!

Glorious Cornwall

2006-08-21T19:41:00.000+01:00

I've just got back from a holiday in Plymouth where we travelled around Devon and Cornwall. The picture is of Whitsands Bay just west of Plymouth along the coast. It's my first visit there and what a great place it is and weather was good as well. The Travelodge was good, clean and and had a wired internet connection in the room. I noticed a couple of RJ45 connectors one which was an internet connection to the little box of tricks which supplied the TV based entertainment. So, I just plugged in my laptop and hey presto I was connected!

Plymouth has a very interesting history and is home to the Royal Navy dockyards which are based at Torpoint. This is quite interesting to me as I used to work for Marconi Radar where the Seawolf missile system, used on many Navy destroyers and frigates, was developed. One thing I didn't realise was that Plymouth City Centre was burnt to the ground during the Blitz by incendiary bombing by the Germans. It was rebuilt entirely from the ashes.

Where has all the love gone for Dell?

2006-08-21T19:10:00.000+01:00

Nobody seems to be loving Dell! The Register is reporting that the mainstream press are coming down on it - big time!

Come and talk to us about IBM System X Servers, you know it makes sense and are competively priced as well.

Has Novell really got 30-40% of Server Market?

2006-08-11T22:35:00.000+01:00

I saw this article interviewing Markus Rex, General Manager of Novell's SUSE Linux Business Unit, and Applied Technology Strategist, Paul Kangro. It stated that

In the server space we have 30-40%, globally, and this is slightly more in Australia and New Zealand. In fact, since people have been able to download the software, Australia and New Zealand leads the world in downloads

Now, hang on, unless I've gone into a parallel Universe this is not correct. My understanding from Gartner and IDC figures is that Linux has about 20-25% of the global server market. The leader within the Linux server market is Redhat, so Novell might well have 30% of 20-25%, which is 6.5 - 8.5%. Are they counting the download figures as market share? If so, then that is very questionable and I think they know that. Why do companies play these games? Novell is caught between a hinterland of Netware and Linux. It needs to make it clear what its strategy is because it has actually got some world class products!

Digium gets VC funding

2006-08-10T22:03:00.000+01:00

The company that is behind Asterisk, the open source software based PBX, has just secured $13.8 Million from Matrix Partners. Now, VC companies are not known for giving money just for the sake of it. They'll want to be convinced of a sound business plan, strong management team and an exit strategy.

This article from O'Reilly gives the details and interestingly states that O'Reilly have switched to using Asterisk themselves. I currently use a version of Asterisk called Trixbox (formerly known as Asterisk@Home).

Hosted SBS

2006-08-10T13:49:00.000+01:00

I've been thinking about this recently and whether such a service could be provided and whether there is a market for it in the UK. My quick searches seem to indicate that there isn't such a UK based service, although one company (based in the US) did seem to cover the UK and one which was about to start in the UK. A quick chat with Rackspace showed that this wasn't something that was part of their main offerings. I know people like Vlad are doing this quite successfully, so it got me thinking.

The other option which seems possible is to use a co-location service, which would involve buying the hardware and commissioning it. Different co-location providers offer different service levels, so the right one would have to be selected. Technically this service is possible but for such a service a lot more is required than just being technically feasible.

I need to think this through some more...

All Hail Monty Panesar

2006-08-06T22:44:00.000+01:00

He's the first Sikh English Test cricket player and he's a superb spin bowler and during the current Test Series against Pakistan he's been arguably England's best attacking bowler. Here's a news story about Monty when he was to play against India, where his grandparents still live in Ludhiana, Punjab. People are talking about how he's a role model for integration in Britain. This is nothing new to Sikhs, who are one of the most integrated communities in Britain. Our whole religion and outlook on life is about being a part of the community we live and work in. This integration goes back a long way to when Sikh regiments fought in the the two world wars for the British Army. Sikhs come from very humble backgrounds, little villages in the North of India called the Punjab, but we can rise to the top of our professions.

Another example of this ability to rise, almost unnoticed, to great things is evidenced by the current Prime Minister of India, Manmohan Singh, a Sikh himself. I believe, India's moves to better relationships with Pakistan, were because of his faith as a Sikh. It is our Sikh faith that pervades everything we do!

*** UPDATE ***
Sajid Mahmood and Monty Panesar helped destroy Pakistan on the final day of play and they were all bowled out. Disappointing thing was that Mahmood was subjected to taunts of being a "traitor", which is something I cannot understand!

There is nothing but pride from the Sikh community for Monty Panesar making the English Test Side. Here is another article from the BBC News website about him!

A funny video from Microsoft

2006-08-04T22:14:00.000+01:00

This spoof video of SBS R2 based on the Da Vinci code movie made me chuckle. This should be the main marketing video! This goes to show that Microsoft does have a sense of humour.

PlusNet Emails gone forever!

2006-08-03T21:34:00.000+01:00

After weeks of trying to recover 700 GB of accidentally deleted email, PlusNet has finally admitted it can't be recovered. The gory details are here and here. What I can't still work out is why there wasn't a backup of the NAS device? Shouldn't that be standard practice?

I would not recommend PlusNet after this fiasco.

Leicester Asian Business Association wants to change?

2006-08-03T19:19:00.000+01:00

This one is close to home as I saw an article in the The Leicester Mercury that LABA (Leicester Asian Business Association) has a new president, Jaspal Singh Minhas, who wants to transform the organisation. Well, it certainly needs transforming and I speak as a member of it! It has been funded by various grants from EMDA etc, to support the Leicester Asian Business Community mainly in Objective 2 areas (which are socially and economically deprived areas). Despite the significant funding it has received it has achieved little in my view, hardly run any events, doesn't keep in touch with me as a member, it's Chief Executive, Jiva Odedra, has never replied to any of my emails. Just look at it's website and you will see what I mean!

Leicester is actually a powerhouse of Asian entrepreneurial spirit with companies like the LPC Group run by the Tejani brothers who came from Uganda with nothing and now have a £120 million turnover company!

The SBS Midlands Curry Night

2006-08-02T23:41:00.000+01:00

Yes, an intrepid few SBS Specialists from the Midlands met recently in Leicester for an Indian Curry at a Punjabi restaurant called the "Flamingo Bar & Grill" - sounds seedy but I can assure it's not. It was a good night with a few beers and good food, interesting conversation and sharing our thoughts on what we wanted from the Group. It was good to discuss things with people who are obviously committed in working together and driving things forward. Present were James Harbidge (Small Biz IT), Steve Wright (BMS), Simon Mitchell (Root IT) and myself and few of my other friends/colleagues.

If you need a damn good CISCO accredited networking consultant then Simon Mitchell is your man!

Thanks guys.

I'm moving to SBS 2003?

2006-08-02T22:18:00.000+01:00

I know I've been selling this solution for a while to small businesses, so it's time I started considering moving to SBS 2003 myself. I'm probably going to wait until SBS 2003 R2 becomes available, hopefully in the Action Pack. It will replace my current Linux Server running Debian Sarge with Samba 3 which acts as a PDC (Primary Domain Controller), so I do domain logons from my laptop running Windows XP Pro. Well, the Linux Server will become a member server of the new SBS 2003 Domain. I will also migrate to using CRM 3.0 SBE (Small Business Ed) from Outlook Business Contact Manager, which I currently use.

I do have a SBS 2003 server which is used as a test server but I also have a test facility at a partner company called CubeRoot in Central Leicester, where we run a SunFire v20z AMD 64 server running SUSE Linux Enterprise Server v9 and VMWare Server, so we can configure different OSes.

If you want to have a play let me know!

Linus Torvalds is not a happy chappy

2006-08-01T22:51:00.000+01:00

Linus Torvalds, the creator of the Linux kernel, is not happy with the proposed updating of the GNU Public License (GPL) to a new version which will be called GPL v3 and also with the process being used to draft it! He's saying that the Linux kernel will stay under the GPL v2, although I think he's using rather more colourful language than that!!

Hey, nothing like a good argument with expletives! I think he has a point about the FSF (Free Software Foundation) by saying that they are fundamentally opposed to anything that isn't developed under the GPL and also say that this is the only 'ethical' way to develop software. This is quite an extreme position and I never feel comfortable with extremism!

Trying to buy a Vodafone 3G Card - it's not easy!

2006-08-01T22:30:00.000+01:00

I've been trying to buy a Vodafone 3G card, which in theory should be easy, right? Wrong! My first attempt online failed, I went through the process and entered my payment details and was told everything was okay and the item would be delivered in a few days. Well, I got an email a couple of days later saying the payment had not been authorised! What? Can't they do realtime authorisation like any other decent online payment system and there's nothing wrong with the card!

Okay, so I thought I'd try again today but the link to the online store wasn't redirecting and just throwing up an error (it's now saying the online store is being redeveloped). I then tried to phone them just after 5.00pm and got an answerphone message saying that they were unavailable and to leave my name and number and they might consider ringing me back sometime if they felt like it, okay I made that bit up! In this 24 hour world, they're obviously just a 9 to 5 company.

How can the largest company on the FTSE 100 have service like this? No wonder its investors want heads to roll at the moment!

The SMB Hype Cycle

2006-07-28T22:52:00.000+01:00

This article entitled the SMB Hype Cycle on The Register is spot on when it comes to saying that small businesses are not in general "early adopters" of new technology. We are in a phase of new technologies being release especially from Microsoft, but with all their marketing, technical training to Partners, the reality is that very few small businesses will adopt these technologies anytime soon. One of the key points made by the article is :

Meanwhile, we must not forget that most IT procurements in the small business space are actually quite dull and boring as SMEs purchase commodity or low complexity kit and software on a piecemeal basis as part of the routine maintenance and everyday growth of IT systems - a PC here, a server there.

Now, as IT Consultants where all meant to be selling the latest and greatest. We're meant to be explaining to customers how their lifes and businesses will be transformed by implementing all this cool techy stuff, when really those business owners are all thinking "how much is this going to cost me"? You can't change a whole business culture overnight and as IT Consultants we have a lot to do to become trusted advisors to small businesses!

Ethereal is now Wireshark!

2006-07-26T11:45:00.000+01:00

A colleague of mine, Simon Mitchell of RootIT, informed me yesterday that Ethereal is now Wireshark and here is the press release. I'm not sure about the name change but it's the same great product which every IT Consultant should be aware of. It's a network packet sniffer so it can capture the network traffic on a LAN and decode it for you, as it has inbuilt knowledge of a wide variety protocols. It's cross platform and so can run on Linux, Windows, Unix and others and it's FREE!

Why you can't run multiple SBS 2003 servers?

2006-07-24T01:13:00.000+01:00

I've been discussing why you can't run more than one SBS 2003 server on the same network (subnet) on the Yahoo SBS Groups and there is a reply from Jeff Middleton MVP which gives a detailed explanation. I think it is so important that I'm reproducing his reply here. Does this guy know his stuff or what!!

Hi Gang,

I can clarify a couple of points of confusion in the thread.

I agree with what Vlad asked about and was supported by others, you can plug a bunch of SBS servers into the same subnet, not a problem. They don't mind being neighbors or sharing a gateway, whatever.

The more important question here I do want to clarify just so everyone does understand the Swing process and why the constraint of behavior is as it is.

MS provides for a brief period of time measured in hours and days during which you can quite happily have more than one SBS server in the same domain at the same time. After a period of hours, you begin to see nag messages telling you that you are in violation of the license agreement, but not much more happens. These messages get more aggressive, and then in a period of days later you will find that more aggressive things happen including shuting down at least one of them, the one without the FSMO roles. The FSMO roles are unique in a domain, so you can understand why there's a predictable outcome as two why one has a better lock on
authority.

Now, there's a misconception about what I say in my documentation as it was relayed in this thread. I do actually recommend that you install the TempDC and the FinalDC using the same media. This isn't because it accomplishes some magical solution, it's just a simple way to say "if it works to build the TempDC, it will work the same way for the finalDC".

It's also true that you can use non-SBS media if you like. No matter.

What you can't do, and this is the real key, is you can run a server installed from SBS media for an extended period (think days) without it
(a) being promoted to a DC
(b) having all the FSMO roles
(c) being the only SBS DC in the domain

Oddly enough, all three of those rules don't apply during the very initial period after you install from the media. That means, there's a period of hours and days applicable to the combination of those three things. I can assure you that after a period of weeks and month(s), you will find enforcement causes all SBS servers in the LAN to become non-functional for production use if they don't match that set of criteria.

On the CRITICAL point I make about not ever plugging the originalDC and the FinalDC into the same network together, this MAJOR PROBLEM has nothing to do with SBS. What it relates to is that the point of the Swing is that both these servers are identified in the AD by essentially identical characteristics in the AD, that's the point of the exercise. The differences are extremely subtle to the point of not mattering, but here's the issue: The believe as far as can be identified in AD that they are the same DC, and they are storing cloned replicas of Active Directory that at some point back (when you split off the TempDC) began a split reality in the life of their AD. Starting with identical AD conditions, you went through your offline construction process to wipe out substantial sections of AD (Think: exchange and the original DC) and those changes are present in the originalDC's view of AD. If you let these boxes see each other, there's a really good chance they will attempt to "play the transactions" from both AD experiences against each other and totally obliterate the AD from having a usable condition. They can effectively destroy it on both servers. It has nothing to do with SBS, it has to do with having violated a basic rule in Active Directory design: you cannot reconverge diverged AD realms without exceptionally complicated issues being addressed. Certainly you don't want to have major modifications to the very DCs in question as part of the changes.

Finally, the thing on the DHCP collision, you should expect that if you plug together (n) number of SBS servers on a common subnet, you will probably have (0) DHCP Service running in short order. I believe they will all shut down as soon at any two recognize the other. Of course, this can be a really amusing thing, sort of a brain teaser because I think I can also predict that it depends upon how you do the test. (Not that this matters to anyone) If you plug them in and turn them on one at a time, the last one to boot will run DHCP, the others will all cause one another to go off.

If you plug them all into a dead switch, then power it on all at once, they probably all shutdown. In other words, if any two see each other's DHCP service active by doing an announce and reply, they both shutdown.

The things that drive us!

2006-07-24T00:18:00.000+01:00

We all have things that drive us, that make us, that define us! The things that define me are my faith as a Sikh, a son of a migrant family (originally from the Punjab in India) with almost no formal education, who crossed 3 continents to make a live in Leicester. They did this to give their kids the best chance in life they could. This story is repeated many times over for many of my fellow sikh brothers and sisters who left thier homeland to make a life here! We are now doctors, lawyers, accountants, business people, software engineers and even Microsoft Small Business Specialists! Wherever we go we take our faith with us, but always contributing to the society we live in, never apart or separate from it.

I blogged about the Sikh Prayer from our holy book the Guru Granth Sahib ji, Japji Sahib, and a beautiful rendition of it from a young female punjabi singer called Harshdeep Kaur from a film called "Rang de Basanti" by A.R.Rahman. This is what Harshdeep said about singing this

It is not a song. In fact it is an extract from Japji Sahib, the Sikh’s Morning Prayer. I consider it an honor to sing Ik Onkaar. Since childhood I have been singing it. We recorded it at 4 am. It was a very special moment. It is believed that early morning is the time of God and I actually felt God standing next to me and making me sing,

Listen and enjoy, even if you don't understand it (just click on the link called "Ik Onkar" and listen past the advert for a "Rupee Chequing Account"). There are many people who do not have a faith in God which is fine as Sikhism is not a religion which advocates conversion, but it's about having a sense of spirituality, a sense of morality, a sense of ethics and putiing that in to practice in everything that you do.

Dell Profits down, down, down...

2006-07-21T23:21:00.000+01:00

Well, I did say they couldn't sustain their current business model. Lets make everything appear so cheap, blitz people with our advertising and endless offers! Let's compete on price, price, price. Do they innovate and do loads of R&D (like IBM) or do they just try and shift more and more boxes on wafer thin margins? It's just not sustainable! I like The Register analysis of this? Dell's excuse is that it's the weak global economy, so I know let's drop prices even more!

Don't get me wrong there's nothing much wrong with their technology but on the server side there's nothing much to get excited about. The problem is that within the small business market no one really cares about that anyway, so what if IBM servers use vectored cooling, lightpath fault diagnostics, onboard RAID 0/1 as standard, chipkill memory and sophisticated management software.

Do Dell have expert partners in the channel backed by an extensive support network and technical/sales training to deliver the right solution to your business. Not on your nelly, they are only interested in parting you from your hard earned cash and they're damn successful at it!

Just don't ever ring Dell and ask them how to network 2 computers together!

The UN and Open Source

2006-07-21T22:45:00.000+01:00

Well, the UN is powerless to stop bombs dropping on a certain country at the moment but hey it 's got some great resources on open source. So all is well with the world!

O'Reillynet has a good article on the UN and Open Source.

The International Open Source Network (IOSN) has some great resources including tutorials on Openoffice.org and end user guides for using the Linux Desktop (with Screenshots), which you can use under the Creative Commons Attribution License.

They are really very good!

Microsoft Q4 Financial Results Out

2006-07-21T01:28:00.000+01:00

Yeah, they made loads of money and you can pour through the figures yourselves (that's the limit of my financial analysis skills). Interestingly enough they spent $1.1 billion on certain legal charges! That is a lot, isn't? I have no way of knowing whether this is typical of a company of the size of Microsoft or not? They expect to make loads more money in the future, yes it's true, they say so in "Business Outlook". It's good for partners such as myself and bad for competitors because what this means is that their strategies just aren't working! The fines took a sizeable chunk, but who cares when you make so much money. Microsoft is a money making phenomenon which sometimes you just have to admire?!

We're far too technical !

2006-07-20T23:18:00.000+01:00

I was reading the new SMB Partner Community magazine, hot off the press, which I got from the West Midlands SBS Group Meeting, probably torn from the clutches of Harry Brelsford, SBS Guru, demi-god and small business consultant extraordinaire. One of the key quotes from the magazine (in my humble opinion) was from a picture of a Microsoft internal small business summit where it was aligining its small business partner and customer messages.

A key takeaway was the realization by many Microsoft managers that some SBS consultants are 'too technical' to be financially successful

Now, does it take such a summit to come to this amazing revelation? However, it's a constant reminder to us that we need to "walk a mile" in our customers shoes to understand their issues!

You know, sometimes I think I'm not technical enough. I'm the kind of person that when browsing through the excellent IBM developerWorks site feels like a child in a sweet shop! Oooh, which tutorial should I look at first, Ajax, XML, Apache Geronimo, DBA Exam Prep...

The ODF Saga continues...

2006-07-20T21:32:00.000+01:00

Yes, I know you're sick of it, who cares, so what! Well here is more on Groklaw and it just gets more interesting to me anyway, so there. I'm just going to have to download this damn plugin now and try it out just to see how bad it is. Look at this blog about the ODF called the An Antic Disposition.

*** TOP TIP ***

One of the best reasons to have both Openoffice.org 2.0 and Office 2003/2007 installed together is that you can load your office documents using Openoffice.org and convert to PDF! Where's the PDF support in Office? Well er, better not mention Adobe! Damn out it slipped!

The Virtualisation Wars

2006-07-20T19:13:00.000+01:00

There was a recent announcement that Microsoft and Xensource would be cooperating. I never understood what this was actually going to give us all. Yes, The Register has an analysis of this announcement and frankly it makes some sense to me. I'm a user of VMWare server and run a SunFire v20z (AMD64) server running SuSE Linux Enterprise Server v9 with VMWare Server which hosts SBS 2003 Premium Ed for customer demos, which works like a charm!

I tried to use Virtual PC but it just wasn't intuitive as to how to set up the guest OS and I just couldn't find any useful documentation, so I just gave up! On the otherhand VMWare Server is just so simple to set up, I could get my 6 year old son to do it, blindfolded and with one arm tied behind his back! Okay, may be not that easy but get the point! Just look at the image to see the range of guest OSes it can support.

I'm sticking with VMWare Server for now, although I think Xen looks interesting and as I'm an OpenSUSE 10.1 user as well (and it comes as part of that distribution), then I respect its open source background.

The fightback has started from VMWare!

PlusNet screw up gets nasty!

2006-07-20T18:55:00.000+01:00

The PlusNet accidental deletion of customer emails is getting nasty as reported by The Register. The Marketing Director of PlusNet has gone on the attack, which is bizarre! They delete 700 GB of customer data and are not able to recover it and expect people not to complain! I think they have just lost the plot. I am a customer of PlusNet and have one of my customers using their business service, luckily not using their email services! Here is their explaination of the data recovery process :-

We are currently awaiting the file directory of data which can be recovered from the data recovery company. A problem has been accounted when compiling this list.

The original data was seperated into 3 volumes. Volume 1 is the most heavily damaged, and is also where the master file table was located. Volumes 2 and 3 are where we expect to retrieve the majority of the data from. However this means that the data recovery company have to work backwards in a sense, building the file directory from the data. Once this is complete we can begin the restoration as described yesterday. We are in continous communication regarding this issue and will post regular updates on the progress achieved.

The answer is simple, if you can't run an enterprise class service then go and do something else but don't blame your customers. It follows on from a recent study that BT was the best consumer ISP service. Now there's something!

West Midlands SBS Meeting

2006-07-19T00:32:00.000+01:00

We had the West Midlands SBS Meeting and I have some photos to share on Flickr from the meeting. My friend Katy Smart of Cheeky Monkey Marketing did a talk on "Marketing to Small Businesses" and she did a good job. I always learn something new from her and I don't think she realises how good she is! All the best people have a good deal of humility about them. She's in to neuro-linguistic programming, so I keep thinking she's manipulating my mind in to liking her? Tom was back from the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference and the pre-event, Small Business Symposium, so was able to show us some interesting photos!

The group seems to be distilling itself in to a core group of people which is inevitable with any group of this kind. Could it be something to do with the fact that the Microsoft funding has now finished so we are having to pay our own way! Cynical, me! Never!

NxtGenUG Meeting

2006-07-16T21:53:00.000+01:00

I meant to blog about the NxtGenUG meeting on 10th July at Coventry Flying Club next to Coventry Airport that I went to. You didn't realise Coventry had an airport? Well the joke is that it's the only Airport with a cattle grid!

NxtGenUG is a Microsoft developer focused group which meets in the Midlands, alternating venues from Birmingham to Coventry. The main talk was by Benjamin Mitchell, a Microsoft MVP currently working for Lloyds on Insurance Applications, on Windows Workflow Foundation (WF). The purpose of this framework is to abstract the development of business logic and processes to a higher level, so that you're not having to worry about reinventing all the plumbing code. If you're not from a programming background then that's not going to make any sense at all! The interesting thing for me is that you'll be able to plug it into Microsoft CRM.

The good news is that I won a copy of the book "MOM" by O'Reilly which was cool!

Microsoft fined by EC

2006-07-16T00:39:00.000+01:00

Microsoft has been fined 280m Euros for failing to comply with an anti-competition ruling as reported by BBC News Online. Here is an interview with Neelie Kroes, Competition Commissioner for the European Union. I just hope that Microsoft learns from these lessons as these cases are not good for end customer views of Microsoft. The world demands interoperable solutions and we should all do our best to futher this cause, this should be a goal even above our allegiance to a particular vendor!

Groklaw is on the case, which is probably bad news for Microsoft!

Also, let's remember that the US took Antitrust proceedings against Microsoft as well.

What a Server does for a Small Business?

2006-07-15T23:30:00.000+01:00

Here is a good podcast entitled "What a Server does for a Small Business" which is brought to you by StartupNation. It's American but don't let that put you off!

Is the ODF Converter Tool a Microsoft Trap?

2006-07-15T22:49:00.000+01:00

When I initially heard that Microsoft was going to be supporting an Open Source tool called the ODF Converter as a Sourceforge project, I thought this was good. However, having thought about this and then seen a post on Dave Overton's blog, I'm not convinced anymore. As part of the discussion on Dave Overton's blog I posted a comparison of a simple document in ODT and Office 2003 XML format. What I was surprised to see was that the ODT format looked like it was far easier to extract data from than the 2003 XML format, and Dave's example seemed to reinforce the argument towards ODF! You can read a technical comparison here and have a look at an IBM developerWorks blog which gives a contrary view to Microsoft. Now IBM and Microsoft are not necessarily the best of pals and as a partner of both, it's interesting sometimes to see each other's views.

Sometimes, Microsoft chooses to fight the wrong battles and this feels like that. They spend a lot of time rubbishing things like the ODF and on the surface you accept these things (or at least many people do), but I'm not sure Microsoft's arguments are actually based in reality here. Now, I am no expert in XML or the various document formats but I have spent over 15 years developing software.

If we want the best end results for our customers then we all have to work together on common standards when it comes to data storage formats and networking protocols, there is no other way!

If you want to follow the ODF then look at the ODF Alliance.

You might want to read this Gartner article, which states that,

The future of Microsoft's proposed Open XML format is unclear. Microsoft only submitted this format for the European Computer Manufacturers Association's (Ecma's) approval in late 2005, after Massachusetts mandated that agencies use ODF for office productivity documents. Until Massachusetts' decision, Microsoft seemed to ignore growing support for ODF. Microsoft plans to submit its XML format to ISO after Ecma approval. But ISO will not approve multiple XML
document formats

VMware Server now generally available

2006-07-14T19:43:00.000+01:00

VMware server is now generally available and is a free download. I've not really got in to Microsoft's Virtual PC and Virtual Server (which is a free download as well). VMware server is a virtualisation technology which allows you to run multiple operating systems on a platform. So, you can run Linux on top of Windows or run Windows on top of Linux. It supports quite an impressive list of OSes. It's a really cool technology for testing, demoing and learning.

The Office ODF Plugin (contd)

2006-07-12T01:33:00.000+01:00

Dave Overton (Microsoft Head of Small Business Technology, UK) has a post on his blog about the ODF Plugin, which I welcomed in an earlier post on my blog. However, for an alternative view have a read of this post on the Groklaw website. Pamela Jones does have a point in some respects as Microsoft have spent a fair amount of effort in the past rubbishing the ODF and are now supporting it! Now, it is easy to see conspiracy in these things, but it is quite a turn around just as various governments seem to be growing closer to the OpenDocument Format. I'll let you decide!

Steve Ballmer's Keynote as a Webcast

2006-07-11T23:53:00.000+01:00

Here is Steve Ballmer's (Microsoft's CEO) keynote speech from the current Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference. Good start with the African Child's Choir and then you get the rather strange presenting style of Steve Balmer, which is a combination of shouting and screeching!

The interesting phrase is "coopetition" around things like security products and services, which must be rather worrying to some partners! Microsoft has a rapidly expanding portfolio of products and services on there way. I think it'll have to be careful it doesn't try to do too much and alienate a lot of people on the way and bring the wrath of anti-competitive legislation down upon themselves (again)!

Microsoft Small Business Symposium

2006-07-11T20:04:00.000+01:00

This is a pre-event to the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference which is going on right now in Boston, USA. Just to say Vlad has some coverage of this and one of our colleagues, Tom Crosbie, has been presenting along with Susanne Dansey and Mark Taylor as to the successes of the SBS Community in the UK. Before, Tom went he was at pains to say what hard work the trip was going to be. Sorry Tom, but your story's been blown by Vlad!

As I write this Susanne has updated her blog on the Small Business Symposium.

Windows 98 and XP SP1 Support Ends

2006-07-11T19:36:00.000+01:00

If you are still using Windows 98, then you need to upgrade as soon as possible. Microsoft is no longer supporting this operating system, no telephone support and no more security updates from today! If you are a small business then you need to upgrade to Windows XP Pro. It is estimated that 70 million people worldwide are still using this aged operating system.

The official announcement can be found here. Also Windows XP Service Pack 1 will no longer be publicly supported by Microsoft through incident reports and security updates. All XP machines should be running SP2.

PlusNet! What were you thinking?

2006-07-11T17:54:00.000+01:00

The Sheffield based ISP PlusNet has just lost 700GB of customer's emails while doing a storage upgrade! This follows hot on the heels of a broadband service loss which occurred earlier in the year and which effected one of my customers, while they were doing an authentication server upgrade. Also, I use PlusNet as well, although the domain name and email is hosted with 1and1. It makes sense to separate your domain and email from your ISP just in case you want to switch ISP. This has certainly got me thinking about PlusNet! Where's the backup the engineer should've made before doing the upgrade? Why do customers have to wait until Friday to find out whether their email has been permanently lost? Not good enough from a major ISP!

Vista Lives!

2006-07-10T10:58:00.000+01:00

I finally got my Beta copy of Vista which I had ordered as a DVD. The download sites were so busy that connecting and downloading from there was impossible. Here is the first look of Vista on my Samsung P28 laptop.

My first impressions are positive and I have to say that I like it in terms of the general look and feel. We have to remember that this is still Beta software, so it would be unfair to pick out problems in this forum.

I've loaded up some of the .NET Technology and the Express Visual Studio C# development environment, so I'll be seeing what types of applications can be developed for the Vista platform. I think a lot of new cool stuff is in this area, so I'm looking forward to that. You see, you just can't take the developer out of me!

Tribute to July 7th Victims

2006-07-07T11:51:00.000+01:00

Today is the anniversary of the 7th July bombings in London and the BBC News Website has an obituary of all those that lost their lives in that tragic event. The amazing thing is that these people are from all different religions, races and countries and some of them are Muslims. In life they were ordinary people, just like any of us, but in death they have become extraordinary representations of our desire to live and work together as one. That is the greatness of this country!

Fergal Keane (BBC Foreign Correspondent) in his now famous "Letter to Daniel" broadcast on the brith of his son said

In a world of insecurity and ambition and ego, it's easy to be drawn in, to take chances with our lives, to believe that we do and what people say about us is reason enough to gamble with death. Now, looking at your sleeping face, inches away from me, listening to your occaisional sigh and gurgle, I wonder how I could have ever thought glory and prizes and praise were sweeter than life.

Fergal is talking about his experiences in many war torn areas of the world and how we can lose perspective on life and that seeing the birth of his son showed him how precious all life is.

This is my own tribute to these extraordinary people.

Have a look at the "We're not Afraid" campaign, it's uplifting!

Waheguru ji ki Kalsa, Waheguru ji Ki Fateh!

Microsoft SBS Ignite Event

2006-07-06T22:39:00.000+01:00

Yes, I was there! As Shakespeare wrote in his play Henry V, Act 4, Scene 3

And gentlemen in England now abed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here

Okay, may be not so dramatic but it was a good event and pretty well attended with 16 people present. The Microsoft Ignite events have been Microsoft Partner events which have detailed how to position your business going forward in line with Microsoft Marketing campaigns.

The event was held at Spring IT, Birmingham and was presented by Julie Sherrington, part of Microsoft's Presentation team. She did a good job of presenting the key themes of Flexible Working and Collaborative Working and how this relates to SBS 2003.

One point she made that it was about "changing the culture" of small business management. How true this is! With pressures from many different areas and economies such as India and China growing at amazing rates, small businesses have got to skill themselves up and compete on a higher level, they've got to empower and trust their people and trust they will deliver. Technology is a key component of this and something that we can take a lead on.

Well done Microsoft!

2006-07-06T12:50:00.000+01:00

I like it! I like it! Please, more of this Microsoft!

Microsoft is to support the OpenDocument Format (ODF) via a Sourceforge project. The ODF is a rival document storage format and is Open Source.

As usual The Register has a slightly different slant on this!

Lightning Strikes Leicester, thank goodness for the UPS!

2006-07-05T22:48:00.000+01:00

There were storms over Leicester today, which left about 32,000 people without electricity. One of my customers rang me as one of their PCs wouldn't connect to the network. They informed me that they'd lost power a couple of times but the server had stayed online, thanks to the UPS we'd installed! However, after a bit of remote diagnosis i.e. asking lots of questions, it looks as if the network switch that this PC and central Printer are connected to is no longer working okay, probably due to the power surges! That's nothing in comparison to having your server blow up! I felt pretty good that a small charitable organisation running SBS 2003 was able to keep running in such an event!

Wasting Time?

2006-07-05T14:05:00.000+01:00

As a Member of the Institution of Engineering & Technology (IET), I receive a monthly magazine. There is an article in the July 2006 issue entitled, "Poor Use of Technology Wastes Working Time".

The article is presenting findings from a study conducted by NTL Telewest Business of 1468 people. Delays caused by waiting for responses to voicemail messages and emails are escalating.

An average of 27 minutes was wasted responding to voicemails or managing phone calls, and 12 minutes was lost trying to locate colleagues. It was concluded that 2 hours 10 minutes, was the typical amount that people wasted each day at work, with 1 hour 38 minutes attributed to poor communication.

I'm not sure what these studies are meant to prove except that if you buy NTL Telewest Business services that suddenly all these issues will disappear? How much time is wasted by NTL customers with NTL's customer service department? No one can work solidly at 100% efficiency for 7.5 hours a day. Let's face it, that's why we're humans and not some sort of automatons! Businesses should focus on giving their employees the right tools, the right information at the right time and then trust them to deliver. If your employees are not motivated and you don't have a vision of where your business is going and that isn't communicated to all the stakeholders, then no amount of technology is going to fix that!

Microsoft's Anti Piracy Tools hits BBC News!

2006-07-04T22:42:00.000+01:00

Oh dear, oh dear, it's not one of Microsoft's finest hours! Their new Anti-Piracy tool, Windows Genuine Advantage, has been found to be sending data back to Microsoft without full and proper knowledge of users and branding new copies of XP as 'counterfeit' even when the PC has been bought brand new from high street stores! Read the gory details and users experience. Also, someone in the US has launched a class action lawsuit against Microsoft because of the WGA tool.

Although this tool is not mandatory, it appeared as a critical update and you can't get certain updates if you don't validate your copy of XP.

There are a growing number of unhappy end users, which is not a good thing and goes against all the good things that IT Consultants do in trying to say Microsoft has your best interests at heart! Honest!

Pamela Jones, a blogging phenomenon!

2006-07-01T23:34:00.000+01:00

Following on from my previous post, I wanted to pay tribute to Pamela Jones who runs the Groklaw blog, which has been following the SCO vs IBM legal battle. Here is an interview with her. I admire people who are willing to challenge the status quo!

Rumour has it that the IBM and SCO legal teams regularly read her blog about the case. She has picked through the arguments of many supposedly eminent analysts' arguments with forensic precision. One quote that I picked out from her blog was :

There has never been an operating system picked over with such care and determination to find fault. And Linux has come through utterly clean as a whistle.

She is referring to the legal status of Linux as an original piece of work licensed under the GPL with the above quote. Not much is known about her except that she has a paralegal background. Whoever she is, whatever her background is, she is a remarkable person!

Do We Feel Sorry for SCO?

2006-07-01T22:57:00.000+01:00

If you don't know who SCO is, then don't worry, because they are a rather insignificant UNIX company. They have been embroiled in a legal battle with IBM over some rather dubious claims that IBM used SCO's IPR within the Linux Kernel. Well they just had about two thirds of their claims dismissed during the discovery phase of the legal proceedings.

SCO, bizarely, decided that it could start to charge license fees to anyone who was using the Linux Kernel. It sent letters to many major companies demanding license fees, eventhough it's claims have not even come to full trial yet. The SCOsource licensing has been a complete and utter disaster. SCO's share price has fallen, it's revenues are falling and it's paying heavy legal fees for a result which at this time looks heavily weighted against them (I'm being kind to them here and using diplomatic language!). IBM has deep pockets and a history of defending itself vigourously.

One positive outcome of this trial will be the legal test of the open source license, the GPL under which the Linux kernel is licensed. The GPL is a license like any other license except that it grants you some very important rights and freedoms. It protects copyright, which is something that is sometimes missed, as each contributor under the GPL retains his copyright but agrees to license under the GPL.

Ek On Kaar

2006-07-01T00:46:00.000+01:00

This is a very personal blog entry, so if you wish you can stop reading here!

The title of the blog "Ek On Kaar" are the first words of the Sikh holy book "Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji" meaning "There Is One God!", so now you know I'm a Sikh by religion eventhough I don't wear a turban and have a long beard! Don't worry, I'm not getting all holier than thou!

I listen to a short version of the "Mool Mantar", the opening lines of the Sikh holy verses by a young Punjabi female singer called Harshdeep Kaur (beautifully sung and one of the few things to bring me close to tears) and there are a couple of lines which always bring things in to perspective (my translation is probably not that accurate).

The hunger of the hungry doesn't depart, even though we may carry the world's valuables,
Man may possess infinite wisdom, but not one will go with him,
How can we be true and how can untruth be cast off

The Sikh way of life is all about community, not just about the Sikh community, but the community of the world and yes, the SBS community!! Welcome brothers and sisters!!

Read the Cheeky Monkey Blog!

2006-07-01T00:06:00.000+01:00

Cheeky Monkey Marketing is run by some cool people I know and I would recommend reading Katy's blog. She's seriously busy at the moment with her plans for world domination (...and I think she might just succeed!), so it's not as up to date as it normally is. Excellent humour and well written but you would expect nothing less from an English graduate! I have one thing in common with Katy, we both went to a Welsh University, so we are very well versed in the flora and fauna of Wales! Great place!

Whenever I meet up with Katy it reminds me that it can be fun to do business! She's seriously knowledgable about what it takes to run a small business although she would probably not admit it herself, just so modest!

Isn't it much more fun blogging about people than the ins and outs of SBS 2003?

Mad Penguin Website

2006-06-30T00:40:00.000+01:00

Check out the Mad Penguin website, it's got a review of Suse Linux 10.1. Also listen to the podcast from Jeremy Allison from the Samba Team.

Jeremy works for Novell and gives an overview of Samba and some of it's history. The networking protocol used by Windows Servers is SMB/CIFS (Server Message Block/Common Internet Filesystem) and was not originally developed by Microsoft.

Anyway, listen to the Podcast!

Do I really need a server?

2006-06-29T22:31:00.000+01:00

Many small businesses view having a server as something you only run as some large corporate company. Microsoft Windows Small Business Server is designed for small companies and we've successfully deployed it in organisations with less than 5 users.

However, what if you are just 1 or 2 people and want some of the features that SBS 2003 can give you but don't want the cost of deploying and managing hardware, is there an alternative? The answer is yes! A good option in this scenario is to look at hosted Exchange/Sharepoint accounts with providers such as OneAndOne. These allow you to have all the facilities of Exchange Server (shared calendars, contacts, folders and synchronisation with mobile devices) with you running Outlook 2003 on your desktop. If you combine this with Sharepoint Services hosted account, then you're away with document sharing, collaborative working, document management and more.

I like OneAndOne's services, they are excellent and affordable. A hosted Exchange account is £7.09 (inc vat) per month per user and a hosted Sharepoint account is £17.61 (inc vat) per month with support for up to 50 users! Now that's a bargain as it comes to £296.40 (inc vat) per year to get some real enterprise class features and work remotely in a small team. It also helps when you want to transition to a server because you're already using the same feature set.

Do small businesses understand IT?

2006-06-28T18:10:00.000+01:00

The Register has report on a survey conducted by Lloyds TSB Business and the Open University, that found that a quarter of companies found it hard to keep pace with changes in technology. Who can blame them? It's a major task for Technology Suppliers themselves. However, what small businesses need to focus on is what they want to achieve within their business and how they want to work. Should they focus on the technology? Absolutely not! Once you have these things clear in your own mind, then you can talk to Technology providers. It is their job to translate your vision in to the appropriate solution.

Lets face it, technology is only part of the business strategy and has to be integrated with the marketing, sales, operations and just basic day to day things. Remember, that businesses succeed because of "People" not computers or anything else. It is People that build relationships, win orders, solve customers problems and make the tea....!!!

How to easily access email from anywhere?

2006-06-26T15:14:00.000+01:00

You don't need an Exchange Server to access your emails from multiple locations, whether you're in the office or out of it. Many small businesses use POP3 mail accounts, which download all your emails to the mail client that you're using to access it. This may be Outlook Express, Outlook or Thunderbird, etc. Once downloaded to your PC, then that mail is only accesible on that machine.

A quick/effective way to overcome this is to use IMAP mail accounts. These accounts, in contrast to POP3, don't move the mail off the ISP/Hosting email server, they just copy it locally to your machine. Initially, they only display the header so you don't have the overhead of all emails being downloaded before you can start reading them. What's clever about IMAP is that once you read a mail, it remembers this and when you access it elsewhere it knows you read it and keeps its status. Any good ISP/Hosting should provide IMAP support and if they don't, then change to one that does. You shouldn't need to pay extra for this and a good provider is someone like OneAndOne. I use IMAP from OneAndOne and they have an excellent admin page and webmail support.

Also, IMAP clients are built in to most mobile phones, so you don't need fancy VPNs setting up to access email. Outlook Express and Outlook all support IMAP and if you want a free mail client look at Thunderbird.

We're not all driven just by profits?

2006-06-26T12:25:00.000+01:00

Dave Overton (Microsoft Head of Small Business Technology, UK) has an interesting piece on his blog on part of the reason why he joined Microsoft. I'm glad he thinks that way, because we are not just "commercial" beings but "social" beings as well. I don't think we should separate out our core beliefs when we suddenly go in to business! If we believe in certain things then we should apply those to everything that we do and say. I don't think "profit" is a dirty word but we need to understand that we shoud act with social resposibility in our businesses, large or small.

Here is an amazing story of a donation of an astronomical amount by Warren Buffet! Go Warren....!!

My Working Environment

2006-06-25T23:51:00.000+01:00

Have you ever wondered what sort of environments people work in? Well here's mine, not very inspiring I know but functional. The iCurve laptop stand is groovy. It's a simple design but very effective even if it was meant for Mac Notebooks. My two laptops are nothing special, they are Samsung P28's but are quiet and reliable. One laptop runs Windows XP Pro (of course!) and the other runs OpenSuse Linux 10.1, both on a wireless connection.

You can see my clear perspex "Microsoft Small Business Specialist" plaque which I received after successfully entering the programme. I also have my Dell Axim x50v PDA, which is synced with Outlook 2003 on my laptop. There's also a Grandstream Budget Tone 100 IP Phone, as I run my own VoIP server called Asterisk@Home (yes, it's an open source product and don't be fooled by the name "Home" as it's anything but. So you can see that I haven't turned completely to the dark side!). Also, just to the left of the pic is my Microsoft Action Pack, chock full of software goodies to play with...er, I mean to evaluate!

Linux No Threat to Windows on Desktop?

2006-06-23T21:08:00.000+01:00

I saw this article which was quoting Bill Hilf, general manager of competitive strategy at Microsoft, about how Linux is no threat to Windows on the desktop. The fact that he's saying he's not worried means he's worried! It's like a child who is scared of the dark and when lying in their bed in the dark they say, 'I'm not scared' over and over again to themselves when really they're terrified of the shadows. Otherwise why would Microsoft have put together their 'Get the Facts' campaign.

He's right in many things he says and the key quote is,

pundits have predicted for years that Linux will gain momentum on the desktop, but that won't happen because of the complexity involved in delivering a tightly integrated and tested desktop product

And there is the crux of it, because the Open Source model is distributed, getting various projects to cooperate for a common purpose is pretty difficult. Vendors like Novell and IBM are doing it in parts. IBM is basing its Lotus Notes client on the Eclipse framework and integrated components of OpenOffice in to its Workplace Services Express product.

However, one thing I disagree with Bill Hilf is where he says

Most open-source code is terribly inferior to commercial software code

What? How does he know that? Has he been pouring over Windows Source code and the Linux Kernel code? If so, he's got far too much time on his hands. Why when Microsoft Execs start to say something sensible over Windows vs Linux that they end up spurting such rubbish! If he really believes that, then open up the Windows/Vista source code right now and let everyone be a judge of that! Microsoft representatives like Dave Overton, Microsoft's Head of Small Business Technology in the UK have a healthy respect for other technologies and spend their time trying to highlight the real benefits of Windows/Office technology.

Microsoft, let Dave make the statements...!!!

Novell's CEO gets the chop!

2006-06-23T00:24:00.000+01:00

Well, this was bound to happen sooner rather than later. Novell's recent performance has been quite poor to say the least and I'm no analyst or accountant. It has struggled financially in its "damascus" like conversion to Linux. I think it has left people wondering what is it supporting? Is it supporting SUSE Linux, is it still supporting Netware, is it focused on the Server Enterprise or is focused on the Enterprise Desktop, does it actually care about small businesses? They are too many questions and few answers.

It's got good products and its SUSE Linux Enterprise Server v9 is far ahead in its manageability than Redhat Linux, yet Redhat keeps trouncing it in the Linux Enterprise Server market. It's current desktop Linux distribution, SUSE Linux 10 has many features which are being compared favourably to Vista. On the other hand it has got a strange product called "Open Enterprise Server" which is SUSE Linux Enterprise Server v9 with its Netware Services ported to Linux. The only major deployment of this I have seen Novell announce is the one at my local University, De Montfort, where it is going to be supporting 25,000 student and staff.

Let's hope the new guys can sort out its strategy because they just wouldn't be able to afford me!

Windows Live Tools to the Rescue

2006-06-22T21:14:00.000+01:00

I was trying out the new Windows Live tools and decided to run the full service scan and to my surprise it came back that I had a Worm virus (VBS/SM - relatively low risk virus)! I've been running the free version of AVG and was about to upgrade to the professional edition, honest! I had also been running recently with local administrator privileges (naughty, naughty!) and I guess the worm had slipped in then. I guess no virus program is perfect and had I not been running as administrator the worm could not have installed itself in the "C:\system volume information" area. This just goes to show you why you should run your day to day activities using a restricted user account. Do it now, you've been warned (see below)!

The Safey Live tools are pretty good (see below) and will also tidy the registry and check the local disk for defragmentation and then defragment it. I will be using this tool once a week to check my laptop from now on along with my resident anti-virus program.

Microsoft Partner Community Day

2006-06-21T09:28:00.000+01:00

I was at the Microsoft Partner Community Day yesterday at the Novotel Hotel, West London. It was a really interesting event as I got to see more of Vista and the 2007 Microsoft Office system. I'm always impressed by the Aero interface, with the Flip 3D features. I believe this will become more than just 'eye candy' and that new applications will have new ways of displaying and manipulating information. For a small business, if they can find information quicker and work more efficiently, then that is a big benefit. The 2007 Microsoft Office system (apparently it is not 'Office 2007' because Microsoft wants to convey that it's more than just Word, Excel, Powerpoint!), has a new interface with a 'ribbon' that goes across the top, a live preview system before you apply settings and a gallery of options which are context sensitive.

The question is that most people use between 10-20% of the features of Office 2003, then with all these new features how much will small businesses make use of the new functionality. Of course, it is up to IT Consultants like myself to support people to make the best use of their investment and to help organisations use technology to automate their processes. Microsoft's own research in to the small business marketplace identifies that only a small percentage of companies will embrace the newest technology straightaway and that the majority of small business owners just want to do the basic things well! As Office has about 90% market penetration, then it is not a question of 'if' but 'when' to migrate to the new offerings.

In the coming months, I will be looking at how these new technologies will aid the small business owner to do his day-to-day tasks better and faster!

Oracle for SMEs

2006-06-19T23:17:00.000+01:00

I was at a meeting of the newly launched UK IT Association at the Innovation Centre, De Montfort University today and Oracle was there as the first corporate sponsor. Oracle were talking about their SME solutions. At the moment vendors are rushing to supply and support the SME sector and these vendors are beginning to talk about organisations with up to 5 people! This is great news for small businesses because they are being taken seriously because SMEs are the ones which will show aggressive growth over the years to come. Vendors seem to be falling over themselves to occupy this space.

More choice for you as small business owners! Cool!

Bill Gates to Leave Microsoft

2006-06-18T22:19:00.000+01:00

Bill Gates will end his day to day role at Microsoft by July 2008 but will remain as chairman and the single largest shareholder. Ray Ozzie will take over as Microsoft's Chief Software Architect. Well, whatever you think of Bill Gates and Microsoft, that was some career! It shows to me that an apparent 'geek' without an MBA can suceed in Business against all the odds. Behind that apparent lack of social skills must lie a razor sharp business mind.

The question is, which people always ask at times like these, is Microsoft at the pinnacle or on its way down. Well, if you're at you're pinnacle then down is the only way! Remember that bell curve distribution for product lifecycles! Microsoft is entering a new phase and that new phase is Vista! Yes, it's late and yes, features were dropped, but it will set the standard for operating systems to be judged by. Novell is trying to tout that Vista delays are an ideal opportunity for its SuSE Linux desktop distribution to take advantage. I seriously doubt it, as much as I respect and use SuSE Linux. The reason for this is because of .NET 3.0 and most commentators seem to think that Vista is a 'pretty version of XP'. That's because they don't understand the underlying technology and they write about what they can see in front of them, i.e. the pretty user interfaces and think that's it. That's only the beginning!

.NET 3.0 combines the power of the .NET Framework 2.0 with new technologies for building applications that have visually compelling user experiences, seamless communication across technology boundaries, and the ability to support a wide range of business processes. Some aspects of this are available or will be available in the Linux/Open Source world but not in such an integrated way across OS platform and applications.

I'm not sure that Business pinnacle has yet been reached?

VoIP is coming...take cover!

2006-06-14T22:06:00.000+01:00

Voice over IP (VoIP) is a way of sending voice information over an internet connection and most people would have encountered if they have used Skype or used MSN Messenger's voice chat, etc. We think of it as being able to make free or very cheap phone calls. That sounds good, doesn't it!

However, VoIP is much more than that. It is about combining voice calls over the same medium which is used to carry our email traffic, our instant messenger chats and to be able to seamlessly integrate all these services together. This is called "convergence", which is like the holy grail for network operators both mobile and fixed.

So why can I be so sure that VoIP is going to be everywhere and the de facto way we may phone calls? This is because of BT's 21CN Project, a massive investment by BT to rip out all those legacy telecomms systems and replace them by nice shiny new IP systems.

*** warning, technical geeky discussion coming up !! ***
The problem with VoIP is the "IP" part of it. The IP or Internet Protocol was never designed to carry voice data effectively or to provide any guarantees as to the quality of it. Voice data is time sensitive and breaking voice in to little tiny data packets, jumbling them all up and reconstructing them correctly at the other end is pretty crucial as to whether we can understand what comes out at the other end! Today's IP routers (I'm not talking about your poor little wireless ADSL router but those big beasts that sit in some nondescript datacentre carrying the world's internet traffic between countries and continents) don't really priortise or provide any QoS (Quality of Service) and the fact that VoIP works currently is a major (not minor) miracle.

BT is changing this, they are introducing a completely new network infrastructure of routers which will use MPLS (Multi-Protcol Layer Switching) to carry this voice data and other services. They will provide QoS and priortise VoIP traffic and it will be managed by software systems that will save BT lots of money.

Forget Skype, it is only a point to point solution and uses a propietrary protocol which doesn't interoperate with anything else. So, the point is you need to learn about VoIP now as part of your business strategy. Go on, you know it makes sense!

Perhaps all is not lost for Linux

2006-06-13T00:41:00.000+01:00

This article on Computerweekly is a very balanced view of whether Linux is ready for the enterprise desktop. The view is that it is getting closer but it's going to be an incremental rise and probably a slow one at that. It correctly points out that key applications are still missing on Linux. I use desktop Linux in my business, namely OpenSUSE 10.0, but have increasinly started to use Windows XP Pro. There are a couple of things that have been drivers for this and they are Business Contact Manager (BCM) which is integrated in to Outlook 2003, click to dial to my Asterisk@Home VoIP Server fom Outlook, Calendaring in Outlook and the ability to synchronise with my Dell PDA running Windows Mobile, accounts systems such Sage Instant and Quickbooks Regular running on Windows, IE 6 (with ActiveX) so I can do remote management of SBS 2003 servers.

Oh! ...and one more thing the introduction by Microsoft of the Visual Studio Express Editions (free) and SQL Server Express (free). These are really easy environments to use and develop applications in. They were only free for 12 months but Microsoft has now decided to keep them free indefinitely. Great for developing bespoke applications for small businesses in.

This image show a sample tutorial that I worked through which allows you to develop a simple customer order database using SQL Server Express and then query the database.

Most of the code is generated automatically by dragging fields that you create and creating the table relationships.

What's the Advantage?

2006-06-12T21:10:00.000+01:00

Looks like Windows Genuine Advantage is causing a bit of a stir. For those that don't know about WGA, it is a bit of software from Microsoft which checks that you are running a legal copy of Windows XP. The WGA has been appearing as an update if you have Automatic Updates enabled. I came across this issue the other day when assessing the IT of a local charity. They had bought a new Dell PC with XP Home on it. When I started it up, it complained that this was not a legal copy of XP! Strange, since XP Home was preinstalled by Dell! Can't we even trust Dell these days? What's going on? Looks like Microsoft hasn't quite thought through this issue and there's going to have to be some tweaks to this tool. If this becomes a common problem, where valid copies of XP are deemed illegal, then end users are going to get quite upset! I know I would!

Dell Ships 25% Linux Servers

2006-06-10T02:04:00.000+01:00

ZDNet UK are reporting that Dell is saying that Linux makes up 25% of it's Enterprise Server Market. This growth is coming from Unix to Linux migrations and not Windows to Linux migrations. My understanding is that worldwide Windows Server shipments have remained pretty steady and Linux has gained ground at the expense of various Unix distributions.

This goes back to the earlier post about Linux in the small business market. It just ain't happening, well not enough to register on various indicators. Linux is essentially a solid Enterprise offering but is replacing the legacy Unix systems. Obviously, the learning curve is much smaller for staff who have been working using Unix to switch to supporting Linux.

Makes you wonder whether Microsoft should even bother with it's dubious "Get the Facts" campaign!

Working with Charities

2006-06-09T23:11:00.000+01:00

I provide my professional services on a pro bono basis to a Business in the Community Initiative called Leicestershire ProHelp. So, I was at a Charity today looking at their IT systems and generally being impressed by the services they provide to Young Homeless People. Many have to run the IT systems themselves or have volunteers support them. Unfortunately, none of these options tend to work particularly well in the long term.

Once Charities/Community Organisations are at a certain size, then they are essentially small businesses with all the things that go with that, filing accounts, human resources, client records, etc. It's a constant battle to raise money to keep the organisation running and pay the salaries of workers. Just like many other small businesses, IT is not seen as core to the organisation. What I mean by this, is that support of the IT systems are rarely budgeted for in the fund raising. You might say that, money spent on IT/Support, is money not going to front line services. Well, I would contend that an organisation cannot function smoothly without a well managed IT system and cannot deliver its front line services effectively. It's true, it happens, I've seen it. Project Managers/Coordinators loading anti-virus software, constantly restarting their dodgy ADSL router, setting up PCs, maintaining networks. This can't be the best use of their time?!

Entrepreneurial Seizure!

2006-06-09T22:19:00.000+01:00

I'm half way through reading Michael E. Gerber's book 'The E-Myth Revisted' - Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It. Eventhough I haven't finished reading it, I'm recommending it as essential reading for small business owners. There's nothing earth shattering in it but it gives you a way of analysing how you view your business and most importantly, how to view yourself! It gives you a way of refocusing yourself as an 'Entrepreneur', getting back that which first drove you to go it alone. As the back cover puts it "...Gerber draws the vital, often overlooked distinction between working on your business and working in your business."

It makes a lot of sense to me. They'll be no stopping me now!

Vlad 'The Impailer'

2006-06-09T16:17:00.000+01:00

Stop sucking me in to these Linux vs SBS wars! There's an article on Vlad Mazek's Blog comparing SBS and Linux. I feel compelled to comment because Vlad does have a point in regard to Linux for Small Businesses. It is the reason that I switched from mainly offering Linux as a Small Business solution to Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2003. The main issue for me is the Groupware available for Linux is overall disappointing when trying to integrate with Windows Desktops. Most Small Businesses run Windows Desktops and that is not going to change anytime soon. The closest equivalent to Microsoft Exchange Server that I have seen is Open-XChange. Whilst this is a capabale product, the integration with Outlook using the Outlook Connector is flaky and doesn't work with roaming profiles. Yes, you can use a web browser but why should a user have to go out of their email client to do some collaboration.

Vendors who support Linux such as Red Hat, IBM and to some extent Novell, have let Microsoft occupy the Small Business market with SBS 2003, which has stolen a march on Linux.

Choosing a Broadband Provider: A tricky business!

2006-06-08T11:53:00.000+01:00

Looks like Cable & Wireless, who own Bulldog, are pulling out of the residential market. They say they are going to continue to support their existing customers. They are focusing Bulldog on providing wholesale broadband to other broadband service providers as part of LLU (Local Loop Unbundling). This is where companies, other than BT, are taking over the line that runs up to properties and being able to potentially provide higher broadband speeds. Now, who do you think is going to be the priority for Bulldog? I think you know the answer!

Choosing a broadband provider for a small business, especially ADSL services, is not an easy thing. It's not just about cost. You have to consider whether the company you select is going to be around for the long term. That's not an easy thing to judge for a small business, so it involves a bit of research. But then, even large companies like C&W, do the above out of the blue!

More ISPs are also putting 'fair usage' policies in to place (mainly for residential customers), so you might be better going for a 'business service'. Also, look at getting static IP addresses. Many residential services provide dynamic IP addresses, which means if you want remote access back to the office, then this becomes more difficult to set up. There are ways around this but static IP addresses are so much less hassle for everyone.

What's more reliable, Windows or Linux?

2006-06-06T20:18:00.000+01:00

I promised myself, I wouldn't get in to the Windows vs Linux debate about which is better. I tried really hard, honest I did! However, I saw an article by the Yankee Group entitled "Reliability Survey: Windows Servers Beat Linux Boxes" and I just had to say something!

It is claimed in the article that only Unix distributions such as HP-UX, Solaris have a better uptime than Windows Server 2003. Now, the Yankee Group Analyst, Laura DiDio has a history of not being one of Linux's best friends!

What I can add is my own unscientific survey and real world experience. I have a customer who has been running Novell's SUSE Linux Enterprise Server v9 on an IBM x206 server providing file/print sharing to Windows XP Pro clients using Samba v3.x. The uptime of that box is 281 days! This is without almost any maintenance because they haven't bought any ongoing support.

The above screenshot shows the uptime on the Linux server.

The Microsoft Windows Small Business Server's that I manage, have not reached such uptimes because security updates, hotfixes, etc quite often require the server to be rebooted. Even if you were to patch a Linux server, you don't have to reboot it.

I know that Microsoft are planning "hot patching" on the Vista Server offerings so that they won't have to be rebooted. This would make a big difference in server availability as having to reboot the server for various updates is a fundamental issue in the Windows Server 2003 architecture.

I have to say that Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP Pro are pretty stable operating systems in my experience but I have to say that Linux still wins by quite a long way!

Sign-up for Small Business+

2006-06-02T22:24:00.000+01:00

The Small Business+ Service is a free resource from Microsoft which gives you access to free web based training on applications such as Word, Excel, Outlook, etc. There's webcasts on issues such as managing your cashflow and how to make effective use of your IT investment. Webcasts are a great way of learning and can be done from the comfort of your office and home. I use them all the time for learning.

It's FREE, which is my kind of price! All you need is a .NET passport login and if you haven't got one then it's easy to sign-up.

Finding that email?

2006-06-02T00:31:00.000+01:00

Yes, we all know the feeling, our Inbox has a million messages in it and you just can't track down that important email you're looking for. Why not try out Microsoft's Desktop Search tool which can index email, files, contacts, etc. Above is a screenshot of my installed version. It can index network drives as well, which is a big plus for me as the Google Desktop Beta did not unless you opened a file on a network drive, which is a bit impractical.

On-line Backups

2006-06-01T14:13:00.000+01:00

I was never quite sure of on-line backups! How could this work effectively, surely the bandwidth of the network and broadband link would be swallowed up whole! Well, after a bit of a trial, I've discovered that they work and work quite well. I tried a service from Safedatastorage where you install some software on your machine and select which directories to backup. The first backup is the largest as it has to upload all the new files. My critical data is about 500 MB, accounts info, quotes, contacts backup, etc. Thereafter, only changes or new files are uploaded and the daily backup takes about 5 mins now. The data is encrypted when transferred and stored in an encrypted state so it's quite secure and can only be unencrypted by yourself. Also, you can login to a secure website and check your files and recover files as well.

There are lots of services around now offering on-line backup and BT provides a service as well. As an IBM Business Partner, I've decided to offer a service using IBM's Express Managed Services (the flash animation of the 'lifts' is pretty cool or I'm just sad!). The cost for 30GB of storage for a single server is approximately £1600 (12 months contract) and £75 for the software agent to be installed on the server. I think customers would be more comfortable with having their business data being looked after by IBM managed data centre. In the event of a disaster recovery situation, your data is shipped to you on a NAS (Network Attached Storage) device and you can breathe a sigh of relief because you didn't opt for a tape based system where you had to remember to take those backup tapes home with you and then let the kids immerse them in all sorts of gunk!

'I Want to Break Free'

2006-05-30T11:01:00.000+01:00

Looks like Dell is going to be installing some Google stuff on its PCs. Some reports seem to be suggesting that this is the beginning of the end of its relationship with Microsoft. I think this is rather exaggerated and needs to be put in to context. Dell is going to install Google's desktop search tool and other bits and pieces. At the end of the day you'll still buy Windows XP and Microsoft Office, so I'm not sure how significant this is!

This is the least of Dell's worries as its revenues and profits have been sliding recently. Even this has to be put in to context because Dell is doing well but not as well as before. It has pulverised many other PC manufacturers in to submission and the likes of IBM have sold their loss making PC division to Chinese manufacturer Lenovo. Dell has a ultra efficient supply chain but if all you're going to do is compete on price, then there's only one way that is going to go! As small business owners we all know that all too well!

So, the Dell direct model is slowly giving way to some channel sales and the opening of some retail outlets in the US. There are already IT companies that I know that resell Dell hardware. I prefer to stick with IBM's System X Servers for two reasons. Firstly, they are technically better solutions and IBM is a leader in R&D and Dell is not! Secondly, buying a server means you are implementing a more sophisticated IT infrastructure and with that you need expert support, which is where IBM's channel model comes in its own.

Please buy Windows XP Pro!

2006-05-26T15:04:00.000+01:00

This is a plea from me to make my job easier and your server deployment smoother and to save you money as well! Don't buy a PC with Windows XP Home for business use, pay the additional £50 that Dell charge you to upgrade to Windows XP Pro! This way, we won't have that conversation with me having to say you'll have to upgrade all your machines to Windows XP Pro, and you saying do I really need to do that?

So what's the difference? The main one is that XP Home can't be a member of a domain and do a domain logon. In simple terms that means you can't create a user account at the server and then be able to login to any PC you have on your network and have all the associated rights and permissions set by the server. There are other important differences but this is a biggy!

Then, when you want that brand new Microsoft Small Business Server 2003 implementation, then things will just be so much easier!

Apparently, Microsoft Vista, will be available in even more flavours! Aaarrrggghhh!

Using Instant Messenging for Business Use?

2006-05-24T11:36:00.000+01:00

I was thinking about this issue yesterday as I started using MSN Messenger again to talk to friends and family. Then I started wondering about its use in Business. I know a lot of people use it for communicating with friends and family. I then saw this article on The Register about US Brokerage firms adopting IM mainly based on AIM (America Online's Instant Messenger). There seemed to be some unease from the Regulatory authorities about IM but they couldn't quite articulate what they are not happy about. They haven't banned its use, but just said that appropriate 'records' should be kept.

We happily use it for personal communication but we have that slightly queezy feeling when considering it for business use. In terms of security it is no less secure than email as email traffic is not encrypted in any way. We can open attachments in emails to spread viruses and worms. Conversations can be logged and archived as well in most Instant Messenging systems. May be the real reason for not using it in small businesses, is that we are afraid that employees will just spend the whole day talking to friends, family and colleagues about non-work issues. Well, I guess this already happens with email!

IM has long been a core component of corporate messaging platforms such as IBM's Lotus Notes/Domino and they swear by it! May be small businesses need to consider whether IM might be useful in their day to day communications? What do you think?

'People Ready' Business

2006-05-23T14:55:00.000+01:00

Microsoft have just launched a new approach to marketing its product and services, which has been coined the 'People Ready' Business. So, what's this all about? Is there any substance to it behind the glossy marketing campaign? I know there are a lot of people who are cynical about anything Microsoft launches.

However, this really does cut to the chase, because what is it that drives a business, any business? It's the people! Well, doh, isn't that a revelation! It seems obvious, it seems common sense but all too often Technology companies have sold the product based on its features. You need that new whizzy thing because it's got Active Directory with domain logons with kerberos security, Group Policy, Terminal Services, Sharepoint Services, .NET Technology and the list goes on... Do you understand all that? Well, most businesses don't and don't want to and why should they?

So the Microsoft Campaign is about saying give your people the right tools, information and opportunities to do the job effectively and efficiently. It's about empowering people. This sounds almost philosophical and in a way it is. The business owner that understands the value of technology, in making his employees more productive, is the one that's going to give them flexible working, send them on training and invest in the growth of his company. That's the person I want to work with!

All Change!

2006-05-23T14:08:00.000+01:00

I've decided to change my blogging system from Bloglines. There's nothing wrong with Bloglines except I couldn't work out how to enable comments. I think this is a one off choice that you make when you create the blog. If that's the case, then I think they need to change that!

Blogger.com was the first result that came back from Google, so here we are. I want to use this blog to give the latest news on iQubed, share my thoughts on business news and technology issues which are affecting Small Businesses. Also, want to get feedback on people using my website and services.

We shall see what the results are!