SBS 2008

While Small Business Server 2008 is really getting pushed hard these days, after dealing with it I would stay away as much as possible unless you know there is a feature there that your users would value greatly - just for the mere convenience of having new software is not a good excuse. SBS 2003 is still an excellent product, and will run on far less expensive hardware, and also allows an additional member server to add extra capacity - great for any small business from 2-40 users with outsourced IT. I know there are several great features in 2008, but some of my clients dont even use the features of 2003 - why push something that is going to cost more in hardware and maintenance in the long run (more importantly - try not to call me when its broke).

If you have full time in-house IT staff and a larger small biz (SBS has a 75 user limit) then moving forward with 2008 is probably in your best interest to minimize future upgrade needs.

We have visited server 2008, and have a few clients on SBS 2008, so I have been waste deep in it so far battling some issues that have thus far been no easy fix for myself or other MS experts that we have consulted with.

So just as a pointer my fellow "techies" that do dabble in the dark territory - the SBS2008 Newsgroup is an excellent resource (I know - ewww a newsgroup, but its web based also):

https://connect.microsoft.com/SBS08/community/discussion/richui/default.aspx
Open for viewing, register your Live ID (eww) to post.

And the SBS2008 repair guide:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/sbs-2008-repair-guide(WS.10).aspx

Rant on Google and another reason why they just plain suck in laymans terms

Hail Google

Google has been like a blessing in so many ways - however not to be ungrateful but they have done some stuff that just plain sucks lately. Today (to pick out a point in time), they have removed FTP access to blogger articles (in case you didnt know Goog realized Blogger had a big audience and bought them up some time ago).

This may not be that big of a deal - but it was my "door out" - my plan was to FTP copy the blog to a blog on our new website when its done.

Blogger just plain sucks for an editor - adding images and other content is like jumping through the fiery hoops at the circus - if you dont do it right, just forget about it. It does not support linked video like so many other blog system do so simply. Formatting is kind of "at their mercy", you have a real hard time making paragraphs flow in a way that is easy to read.

If you try to edit in raw html (they think they are being so accommodating by giving you this option), blogger will reformat your html to best screw it up for your viewers.

I guess I missed the boat on the announcement (as a blogger customer you would think they would email me directly), last week they completely removed the FTP option from the control panel. There is a nifty export feature - oh so cool - it exports your blog to an xml file - doh! wheres all my pictures - oh, well those are conveniently left linked to the blogger image links in the xml file. How about all the links - well we ruined any links you put in your articles by not spacing them correctly in the xml file.

Their excuse was that FTP just took up too many management resources they just realized this after over 10 years of Blogging and 10+ million users - isnt this a design flaw you would notice in the first 2-3 years / 1 million subscribers?

This doesnt even get into their buyout of Gizmo5 which is burning me at the moment.

Managing Gmail size issues

Do you have "size issues"? Well if its with Gmail we have some tips to help you today!

Many of my clients are coming to me saying they can no longer send or receive email, a quick glance at the bottom of their gmail web page tells me they have reached the mailbox limit - something must be deleted!

Many people run Outlook as a client to their gmail, luckily that is about the only good solution at the moment. Here is a quick "for dummies" guide on how to clean up those big emails (click to enlarge):

Once you have moved messages to the trash folder you can then wait 30 days for gmail to delete them permanently to free the space up, or login to your gmail web page and empty the trash manually.

Simply clicking delete on mail in Outlook will not actually delete them from your gmail, they go to All Mail.

This procedure will only work if your Outlook is configured as an IMAP client, and will work similarly with any other program that connects to your gmail using imap.

Unfortunately if you are using just the gmail web interface there is no easy way to delete large messages, but there is a page where you can vote for this feature (PLEASE DO):
http://mail.google.com/support/bin/static.py?page=suggestions.cs&issue=116865&bucket=16935

Under Organization look for: "Sort messages by size, date, sender, etc." and Suggest it!!!

It is easy to avoid this situation - zip any files over 500 kb (just right click and Send to Compressed Folder, then attach) use programs like Picasa to send images, send other large attachments using a web sending service (some may not be completely private) such as:

• http://www.box.net/ (I highly recommend this secure sending service, with free options)
• http://senduit.com/
• http://www.yousendit.com/
• http://rapidshare.com/
• http://www.mediafire.com/
• http://www.filemail.com/

With some of these services someone could possibly guess the weblink - it is highly unlikely as links are usually complex, but possible, using a link that expires is a good way to minimize this risk. You can however upload them using an encrypted zip file (or use box.net), there are dozens of programs for making password protected zips like Power Archiver, Winrar, Winzip... Or use PGP to encrypt the files - only someone with the PGP key can open it http://www.gnupg.org/ There are dozens of other options if you look, tons of them completely free, and loaded with features!

When reading those funny forwards - consider deleting them after you read them especially if it has one of those funny video attachments!!

Buying more space is NOT an option - if you have managed to fill 7+ gigabytes of gmail, you will eventually fill even more - you must change your ways, and its much simpler than a 12 step process!!!

UPDATE: On another note - if you have Small Business Server on your network you should be taking advantage of Sharepoint server - it comes ready to go on your SBS server - Microsofts' full fledged document library and collaboration tool - you can even give users outside your domain secure access to this free tool. Simply upload files to the document library and start sharing - it even has version tracking so multiple people can collaborate and edit a project, and you can see who created which version of the file.

A rant on Lexmark

I have in the past been a big proponent of Lexmark printers, they have been often 1/3 the price of HP, Xerox. Ricoh - etc, and with great/better performance to boot - however this time I cannot stand behind them, they have provided a subpar product, and subpar support to boot.

I have a client with several X500n color laserjets, so far the oldest 2 have failed CPU fans - the genious of Lexmark engineers chose an extremely obscure fan that appears to be only manufactured by 1 or 2 companies - a 24 volt 50x50x10mm fan with speed sensor - most of the small electronics and computer industry uses 12 volt - why 24. After removing the fans from both printers they were simply cooked, the label was cracked due to heat, but there was no dust - the fan simply failed.

After calling lexmark, they said such a shame, the unit is out of warranty, but the part is available for a mere $65 - SIXTY-FIVE DOLLARS FOR A 5 CENTIMETER FAN!!!!!!!! - I think the radiator fan in my truck cost less and its about 50 centimeters!!! Come to find out - Lexmark more than likely does not even have this fan in stock!

Another company supposedly sells the same fan to spec for a mere $25 - not quite highway robbery - probably Lexmarks supplier - hmm 200%+ markup - sounds about right - but go figure they are out of stock also - probably because Lexmark drop shipped the last one out like some small time computer supplier.

Since nothing matched the exact specs of the original I finally just decided to find some other fan and adapt it - I found this slightly larger 80mm fan for a mere $9.95 - is Lexmark trying to pull the wool over someone's eyes???? I needed some longer screws and a couple small zip ties to secure it.

Being that this is mid-range model, I hope it doesnt trickle down to any of the higher end models - I have another client with the X642 with easily 500,000 pages on it, and it still cranks out 15-20,000 pages per cartridge without fail.

New Aastra IP phones attack both ends of the spectrum

This year Aastra has come out with some impressive new phones - the 6739i and the 6731i.

I will start by highlighting the 6731i - their latest budget model, which really packs a punch compared to the previous 53/51i models which where usable as nothing but kitchen or hallway phones - this new model actually has 8 custom programmable hardkeys - coming in at around $100, its a steal.

The 6739i is the new flagship, VIP, "Geek Delight", super executive set with a full color high definition touch screen display, bluetooth, USB, and even a builtin Gigabit switch.

Yes - I know, Cisco, Polycom and Snom all have similar models, but what they don't have is Aastra's powerful XML interface with dozens of pre-built applications, easy deployment and use - and some real bang for your buck at around $500.

And of course both models are compatible with Smpl PBX - our powerful Asterisk based phone system.

UPDATE - A couple of excellent videos reviewing the 6739i and HD voice are now on the tube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vc5MEA3zN04

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wiSIulBpto0

Dripping geek

ok, goggling this new release from Samsung tipped my brow - built in pico-projector - yes I will be doing board room presentations from my cell phone soon - hope it doesnt have one of those 3 minute batteries. Read more here.

Free calling with Google Voice - myth or mystery?

Is it myth or is it a legend - so far its a fading truth - free calling with Google Voice - several solutions have surfaced and sunk over the past months.

- forget Gizmo5 for the moment, Google bought them and nixed them with word that they will re-release it better and badder sometime this century.

I have been snooping around, and it looks like Sip Sorcery (yes its magic if it works), has been designed with Google Voice in mind - here is a guide on where else but Google docs

There is also a code site dedicated to it:

http://code.google.com/p/google-voice-sipsorcery-dialplans/

I will try it out when I get a chance - but a word to the wary, this is definitely not for business calling, more for personal use. Also from my experience SIP over wifi - BLOWS - the biggest problem being that if you dont have control of the wifi access point/firewall more than likely you will get calls with no sound because the firewall is not able to properly forward the ports.

If it were IAX it would work nearly everytime regardless of firewalls- maybe someday the VoIP gods will get hot on that idea.

Dell's trying to get 'cute' with their new 6Gb RAID controllers

Was just reading the docs on Dells new H series Perc RAID controllers. What a nice new feature:

Blocking of non Dell certified drives being used with PERC H700 or PERC H800 

So Dell is going to tell me what hard drives to buy now - I cant go to my local computer supplier to replace a failed drive, I have to wait for Dell. I cant expand my storage with inexpensive high quality drives off the shelf, I must buy Dell's over priced "certified drives".

Isn' t that cute. Oh and by the way, these are next generation SAS RAID cards supporting 6GB/sec data throughput.

MS Security Essentials

MS Windows Defender got a face lift and turned into a real tool when it got re-released as Security Essentials. We first pushed it out in the lab last May as you may have read in this post.

Now I have had it running for a couple of weeks on a couple of client computers - after removing Norton Internet Security (slug of an AV program), the user was mildly impressed with the speed of his seemingly new PC. Security Essentials has a very low foot print and so far it has not gotten clobbered by any viruses. I am going to test it one of my really shady clients in a couple of weeks (they call at least twice a month with viruses).

Google Voice on Android

So due to some nasty billing at Sprint I decided to try out Google Voice on my Android phone. I got a 3rd party app called GV dialer (the native google voice one seems to be unstable at the moment).

I have been making some calls over wifi on my Samsung Moment, and it actually sounds crystal clear. The app is very simple, has an on/off button, and will make calls over data if available or cell if data gets too choppy. And I get free calling to any US or Canadian number (A shoutout for my Canookian cousins!).

No google does not own my life yet, I am resisting it all the way!

UPDATE: I was wrong - the Wolf pulled the wool completely over my eyes - the GV Dialer is misleading in its description - it in no way uses data for calling, its all cel network. I checked my Sprint bill the next day, and the calls finally did show up.

After  reading some other guides on using Gizmo5 and google voice for Android voip, I have been completely let down as Google bought Gizmo5 and removed the Google Voice integration settings from the Gizmo5 site - word is Google is going to re-release Gizmo5 with full free voice integration in the near future, but this could be months/years. Another possible solution we will be exploring is Sip Sorcery... coming soon to a blog near you.

Samsung Moment greatly improved by CL14 update

I recently got a Samsung Moment with Android and to say the least I was utterly disatisfied. The battery life was severly poor, I had to carry my charger with me everywhere. Its hard to complain since this phone has 4 seperate radios in it - wifi, bluetooth, GPS and cell of course - so its like running 4 phones off one battery, what more could I expect of it - well, at least to be useable as a "cordless" telephone!

Running the GPS would take the battery from full to dead in 30 minutes or less.

Roaming the web - dont do that for more than hour - thats right dead!

Phone calls - well it had about 1 hour talk time, standby was about 10 hours if you never touched it.

I went to the Sprint service center to get the much awaited new firmware - marked as M900.8.0s.CL14 - to my amazement its a whole new phone. I can now browse the web over 3G or Wifi for 2-3 hours and even make phone calls. I placed about 30 calls the other day, some of them quite lengthy and the phone got all the way to 6pm without popping up the "eminant disaster if I dont plug in fast warning".