Welcome to MSMVPS.COM Sign in | Join | Help

January 2006 - Posts

What does and does not apply?

Going through the KB articles and blogs tonight (uh doesn't everyone read KB articles for fun?) and there was something that I noticed that I thought I should point out.... First off...while I consider this just taken for granted ..sometimes it's Read More
posted Tuesday, January 31, 2006 10:58 PM by bradley | 0 Comments
Filed Under:

A beta release of IE 7 means....

Beta -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Development_stage#Beta When a beta becomes available to the general public it is often widely used by the technologically savvy and those familiar with previous versions as though it were the finished product Read More
posted Tuesday, January 31, 2006 7:41 PM by bradley | 0 Comments
Filed Under:

So?

Okay so why does this page http://blogs.technet.com/ link to this page.... http://blogs.msdn.com but that page http://blogs.msdn.com doesn't have a link back to that page http://blogs.technet.com/? Just wonderin..... Read More
posted Tuesday, January 31, 2006 7:39 PM by bradley | 2 Comments
Filed Under:

Dear Live Communication Server people:

Dear LCS people....just saw this blog on the demise of Netmeeting in Vista and just wanted to remind you folks that I do love your Live Meeting server that allows me to have internal only messaging in my firm, allows me to track who's in the office and Read More
posted Tuesday, January 31, 2006 7:27 PM by bradley | 1 Comments
Filed Under:

Know your marketplace?

Doing some research today on Small Businesses and some interesting links... http://www.usatoday.com/money/smallbusiness/columnist/abrams/2004-05-06-success_x.htm "The lesson? To greatly increase your chance of success, find out as much as you can BEFORE Read More
posted Monday, January 30, 2006 9:44 PM by bradley | 0 Comments
Filed Under:

Feedback worth listening to

I was reading a post on the coding horror blog and the post about "good bugs versus bad bugs" reminded me of a company that seemingly takes feedback and does nothing with it.  No, I'm not talking about Microsoft here...but rather one of my LOB Read More
posted Monday, January 30, 2006 9:22 PM by bradley | 1 Comments
Filed Under:

MyWife Malware

 This alert is to notify you of the release of Microsoft Security Advisory (904420). Microsoft wants to make customers aware of the Mywife mass mailing malware variant named Win32/Mywife.E@mm. The mass mailing malware tries to entice users through Read More
posted Monday, January 30, 2006 7:59 PM by bradley | 0 Comments
Filed Under:

Hey did you see this on Brian's blog?

What do you get for the price of CPE but is more than CPE?  An offer from K2 for software and CPE! Forward this link to your CPAs that are your clients (and remind them to sign up for the MPAN program and get the action pack while you are Read More
posted Monday, January 30, 2006 7:44 PM by bradley | 0 Comments
Filed Under:

A blog should not have email

The RSA Security Conference is coming up and if you remember last year's conference Bill Gates made two announcments.... one was that IE 7 was going to be released for Windows XP and the second was that Antispyware was to be free to individuals.  Read More
posted Monday, January 30, 2006 7:08 PM by bradley | 0 Comments
Filed Under: ,

The ugly truth about small businesses and POP

There's a group of small businesses that are small and paranoid.  Or paranoid and small.  But the point is they like two things.  Not having a server and they love POP accounts.  It's funny because the official stance of the SBS var/vap Read More
posted Monday, January 30, 2006 6:45 PM by bradley | 4 Comments
Filed Under:

Poor man's DFS

Need a way to share files?  I know that SeanDaniel.com blogged about this before..it's a way to share folders between computers...and if this is the service/product I'm thinking of, someone is using this between a SBS box and a remote server. www.foldershare.com Read More
posted Monday, January 30, 2006 6:35 PM by bradley | 0 Comments
Filed Under:

Apparently paper competes?

I was in Office Depot and it's like every paper stock sold there is now whiter or brigher...but whiter doesn't mean brighter... so make sure you have your terms right.  Apparently there is guildelines...or competitive grades of paper... and North Read More
posted Sunday, January 29, 2006 11:14 PM by bradley | 1 Comments
Filed Under:

Alabama... have you got something special coming your way or what?

Forget the Crimson Tide.  Forget the Football.  Forget...forget all manner of sports events.  They all pale in comparison to the event that is going to be in Alabama on the 31st. The Alabama SMB User Group (ASMBUG) will hold its first Read More
posted Sunday, January 29, 2006 9:43 PM by bradley | 3 Comments
Filed Under:

I think it's going to be like the Maytag repair guy...pretty lonely...but..

Today on the WSUS console is a new category...and yeah... given the current need for patching this product (no patches for the 2004) and only one or two that I can think of off the top of my head for the 2000 platform...this is going to be a bit like Read More
posted Sunday, January 29, 2006 6:41 PM by bradley | 1 Comments
Filed Under:

Checked out Small Business + yet?

So I'm out on www.microsoft.com/smallbusiness and I signed up for the Small Business + that the Microsoft Monitor talks about....and well... I wanted to see if there's a real human being on the other side... Welcome to the Microsoft Small Business Helpdesk Read More
posted Sunday, January 29, 2006 6:13 PM by bradley | 3 Comments
Filed Under:

Looking for some small business marketing blogs?

Small business marketing toolbox: http://h20325.www2.hp.com/blogs/jantsch Duct Tape Marketing Blog - Voted Best Small Business Marketing Blog: http://www.ducttapemarketing.com/weblog.php Duct Tape Marketing Blog Channel - powered by FeedBurner: http://feeds.feedburner.com/DuctTapeMarketingBlogChannelDan Read More
posted Saturday, January 28, 2006 10:09 PM by bradley | 1 Comments
Filed Under:

Trend and the dog file

  Problem:   After deploying new OfficeScan clients, the user sees small executable files on the WINNT\Temp or Windows\Temp folder of the client machine. The size of the files is 169 KB and has random names. Also, the files have a Read More
posted Saturday, January 28, 2006 4:24 PM by bradley | 6 Comments
Filed Under:

Trend and Compression issues

So in this corner is Trend...recommending that you uncheck "use compression" on the IIS web sites because otherwise the install will not go well..... ...but in this corner is Microsoft with their WSUS install info that "does" check "use compression" Read More
posted Saturday, January 28, 2006 4:17 PM by bradley | 0 Comments
Filed Under:

Trend.... v2 or v3?

Les Connor has always been our "Les is More" guy... and when he posts...this is not done lightly...   Folks, I've been using Trends's products on SBS since 4.5 - it's been a pretty good trip.   CSM v2 was(is) the icing - very very reliable Read More
posted Saturday, January 28, 2006 3:52 PM by bradley | 7 Comments
Filed Under: ,

Missed any webcasts and there's no Football this weekend?

 -+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+- Susan Bradley has invited you to view a Microsoft Office Live Meeting recording. View Recording Recording Details     Subject: KYSBSUG - Jan 2006 - CRM Read More
posted Saturday, January 28, 2006 3:40 PM by bradley | 0 Comments
Filed Under:

Dear Mr. Cook and Mr. Bennett:

January 27, 2006 Scott Cook Chairman, Executive Committee Steve Bennett, President and CEO Intuit, makers of Quickbooks Dear Sirs: Just thought I’d type up this official blog post to let you and other firms like yours know that there’s some resources Read More
posted Friday, January 27, 2006 10:22 PM by bradley | 0 Comments
Filed Under:

JeffM says......

To update our blog readers...Jeff is back home in New Orleans (NOLA) where things are getting better...but as he put it..."not quite where some of us would like yet..." Messages you type here are delivered to a mobile phone or pager. The recipient Read More
posted Friday, January 27, 2006 8:24 PM by bradley | 1 Comments
Filed Under: ,

There's a Small Business Summit that's a snap to attend

So the tag line talks about a webcast with Entrepreneur extraordinaire, Maxine Clark, is the CEO of the “Build-A-Bear Workshop™,” a teddy bear-themed experience retail store combining the appeal of plush animals with an interactive assembly line where Read More
posted Friday, January 27, 2006 5:26 PM by bradley | 0 Comments
Filed Under:

Okay so how is this a "worm"?

When reports of this "worm" (and the word should be used loosely) came out it was impacting over 700,000 computers because there was a counter on the site... well now it comes out that there was a script running to up the count...so it's not 700,000...but Read More
posted Friday, January 27, 2006 12:34 PM by bradley | 1 Comments
Filed Under:

Now's your chance to say what you think

Microsoft Small Business Community Blog : Small Business Partners, tell us what you think - What do you want from Microsoft? What have you liked or hated so far? And more.: http://blogs.msdn.com/mssmallbiz/archive/2006/01/26/518006.aspx There's this Read More
posted Thursday, January 26, 2006 10:53 PM by bradley | 0 Comments
Filed Under:

Network install instructions for QB 2006

When using QuickBooks 2006 or QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions 6.0 in a multi-user environment, *the one best thing to know* is that the new QuickBooks database requires new installation procedures with all machines running on Release 3 or above. To help Read More
posted Thursday, January 26, 2006 10:13 PM by bradley | 2 Comments
Filed Under:

How do you get the Industry journalists to care?

Earlier today I was called by a journalist for my industry to ask some follow up questions about some statements I had made to an author... and it showcased to me just how far we need to go to get people to care about Computer Security. --------------------------- Read More
posted Thursday, January 26, 2006 12:23 PM by bradley | 2 Comments
Filed Under: ,

Do you use Disk quotas?

I'll be flat out honest, that I disable Disk quotas on every SBS box under my control.  I watch the daily email and ensure that things never get out of hand [they don't] but with the price of harddrives these days... no matter if you have SATA to Read More
posted Wednesday, January 25, 2006 10:34 PM by bradley | 4 Comments
Filed Under:

Some old fashioned guidelines about Fax

It's funny...faxing is such old fashioned technology ...but some firms just can't live without it.  For my firm, we don't use centralized fax, but for others, the fax solution that SBS provides is exactly perfect.  But the one thing I've noticed Read More
posted Wednesday, January 25, 2006 8:20 PM by bradley | 4 Comments
Filed Under:

Converting a 2000 KB to a 2004 KB

"Connection Error: 10057” error message when you try to connect to the Lacerte Web site or to download updates of the Lacerte Tax program in SBS 2000 or in SBS 2003: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;839503 So that KB is written Read More
posted Wednesday, January 25, 2006 7:10 PM by bradley | 2 Comments
Filed Under:

Blame the fruitcakes in Calfornia on this one....

A followup post about the issue of Access and Excel   You cannot change, add, or delete data in tables that are linked to an Excel workbook in Office Access 2003 or in Access 2002: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;904953  Read More
posted Wednesday, January 25, 2006 12:08 PM by bradley | 1 Comments
Filed Under:

Want $100 off an accounting program?

SEATTLE: Microsoft Corp unveiled a new rebate and free service offer for its small business accounting software today, aimed at luring customers away from rival Intuit Inc in the months leading up to tax season. Jeff Raikes, president of Microsoft's Read More
posted Tuesday, January 24, 2006 11:42 PM by bradley | 2 Comments
Filed Under:

Quickbooks 2006 - non admin rights instructions

So you are now installing the 2006 [the R3 version of course] and you want to run without admin rights on the 2006 version? Here's the updated instructions: QuickBooks Community - Running QB 2006 without Power User or Admin Privs.: http://www.quickbooksgroup.com/webx/forums/install/385 Read More
posted Tuesday, January 24, 2006 11:32 PM by bradley | 1 Comments
Filed Under:

SBS KBs of interest

Error messages that you may receive when you try to download and install updates from the Windows Update Web site, from the Microsoft Update Web site, or from a WSUS server: "0x800704DD," "0x80240020," or both: http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=910341Naming Read More
posted Tuesday, January 24, 2006 9:08 PM by bradley | 0 Comments
Filed Under:

SBA 2006 Knowledge base articles

Error message when you install Small Business Accounting: "Small Business Accounting requires File and Printer Sharing to be enabled": http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=911761Error message in Small Business Accounting when you save a journal entry that Read More
posted Tuesday, January 24, 2006 9:04 PM by bradley | 0 Comments
Filed Under:

So how can small firms share?

Greg asks about the concept of partner groups in a follow up to my post about the first Fresno meeting... and there's a couple of ground rules about the Partner group that was discussed at the meeting I didn't blog about. First off, let me state again, Read More
posted Tuesday, January 24, 2006 7:57 PM by bradley | 0 Comments
Filed Under:

SMBTN Fresno first meeting

The first meeting of the SMBTN Fresno Partner group met last night at the Fresno Airport Holiday Inn.  Graciously making the long trip up from San Diego was Roger Otterson, the smaller trip up from Bakersfield was Ed Roberts, and the trip down Read More
posted Tuesday, January 24, 2006 12:44 PM by bradley | 1 Comments
Filed Under:

So what's the ratio of Lawyers to Software Engineers these days?

An email was sent to some folks saying that they needed to ensure they were on a certain Office service pack.... and it looks like it's another case of Lawyers and Patents going overboard again.... Thanks to Mr. Amado, you can't link Access and Excel Read More
posted Monday, January 23, 2006 7:01 AM by bradley | 1 Comments
Filed Under:

So what do you want?

I want a SBS best practices tool.I want a automatic GUI domain migration.I want a ISA log that doesn't track the first 'unauthenticated and then authenticated' log in the log file.  Pick one,  I don't need both.I want a tool that goes into a Read More
posted Sunday, January 22, 2006 6:05 PM by bradley | 5 Comments
Filed Under:

In case you wanted to get a command line thrill today....

 Useful RUN Commands To Access…. - Run Command Accessibility Controls - access.cpl Add Hardware Wizard - hdwwiz.cpl Add/Remove Programs - appwiz.cpl Administrative Tools - control admintools Automatic Updates - wuaucpl.cpl Bluetooth Transfer Wizard Read More
posted Saturday, January 21, 2006 1:39 PM by bradley | 2 Comments
Filed Under:

What do you do with old batteries and computers?

From the web.... All batteries are considered hazardous waste in California when they are discarded. This includes all batteries of sizes AAA, AA, C, D, button cell, 9 Volt, and all other batteries, both rechargeable and single use. All batteries should Read More
posted Saturday, January 21, 2006 11:31 AM by bradley | 3 Comments
Filed Under:

BCM and SBA service pack 2

Service pack 2Service Pack 2 for Business Contact Manager Update and Small Business Accounting provides the latest updates to Microsoft® Office Small Business Accounting 2006 and Microsoft® Office Outlook® 2003 with Business Contact Manager Update. This Read More
posted Friday, January 20, 2006 6:44 PM by bradley | 0 Comments
Filed Under:

Just call it "Sam the SBS Server"

It's funny.... there are times I don't get marketing.....and there are times I don't get customers.... ...take this for example... a guy complaining about the mailing about the "New" Small Business Server 2003.  It struck me funny for two reasons... Read More
posted Friday, January 20, 2006 6:28 PM by bradley | 1 Comments
Filed Under:

So where's your media?

I sure hope Merv is wrong...but it sounds like he's not. JRittley is stuck.. he can't find cdrom1 of his SBS 2003 media set that he got with the OEM Gateway server that he got. And what's the only way that he can get a replacement? Buy an entire new Read More
posted Thursday, January 19, 2006 11:28 PM by bradley | 3 Comments
Filed Under:

Is that where WSUS puts the IMF updates?

No wonder I'm not getting the Exchange IMF updates offered up to me on WSUS... I didn't have the box checked.  Or at least I think that's where they should be triggered from... but it's not clear is it?  On the WSUS blog it sounds like Read More
posted Thursday, January 19, 2006 10:51 PM by bradley | 4 Comments
Filed Under: ,

...and as your domain admin, I'm not going to let you delete that

The IE7 blog talks about a feature that you can delete your IE 7 history. Well first... delete is a relative term because in operating systems unless you write over it, it's not deleted, and secondly, I as an Admin will want that 'feature' turned off. Read More
posted Wednesday, January 18, 2006 8:55 PM by bradley | 4 Comments
Filed Under:

Patching risk

SANS - Internet Storm Center - Cooperative Cyber Threat Monitor And Alert System: http://www.incidents.org/diary.php?storyid=1052"Before he turns it off though he tells me something very worrisome. It went like: "We turned off the windows automatic updates". Read More
posted Wednesday, January 18, 2006 8:40 PM by bradley | 2 Comments
Filed Under:

Exchange Best Practices Analyzer updated

2.10.0.1 - Minor enhancements and fixes. Enhanced support for Small Business Server, Exchange Server 2003 SP2, and third-party antivirus products. Download details: Exchange Server Best Practices Analyzer Update: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=4f2f1339-cbcd-4d26-9174-f30c10d7ec4c&displaylang=en Read More
posted Wednesday, January 18, 2006 12:32 PM by bradley | 1 Comments
Filed Under:

The Non Admin white paper is out!!!!

This technical white paper describes the least-privileged user account approach and provides information on related tools and resources. Whoo hooo the LUA paper is out!  LUA...you know ... LUA.. Least privilege and non admin and all that.  Read More
posted Wednesday, January 18, 2006 12:22 PM by bradley | 0 Comments
Filed Under:

Looking for WSUS resources?

Need resources to get your brain around WSUS? Here's my recommendations Books - as far as I'm aware there is no WSUS only book...but I do have WSUS info in the SBS Unleashed book WSUS on SBS whitepaper - download here WSUS wiki - linked here Read More
posted Tuesday, January 17, 2006 10:15 PM by bradley | 2 Comments
Filed Under: ,

Rotations of Backups

At the MCPmag Handy Andy chat earlier today the conversation came up about tape/disk rotations....and the interesting comments surrounded the number of rotations depended on the clients needs for retaining data.  Many took a special backup once a Read More
posted Tuesday, January 17, 2006 9:46 PM by bradley | 2 Comments
Filed Under:

So why do people think you need something special for restoring?

I find some of the comments to my "Drive monkey" posts funny... for one... I personally think that the robustness of USB drives versus tape is tied to whether the server natively supports USB 2.0 or you have a good USB card.  Then comes the follow Read More
posted Tuesday, January 17, 2006 9:18 PM by bradley | 1 Comments
Filed Under:

So how do I track RWW?

A commenter [I'm too lazy to go link it up as I was in the office at 6 ungodly am this morning to ensure that a Tax Webcast training seminar was working properly and right now I'm blogging as the Earl Grey tea attempts to clear the grogginess from my Read More
posted Tuesday, January 17, 2006 7:50 AM by bradley | 2 Comments
Filed Under: ,

So what does your Tape monkey change ...when you don't use tape?

Speaking as the office monkey here... I use Lacie harddrives now and as the 'drive monkey' I swap out the drives by turning off the power and unplugging the usb cable and power cord and swapping the devices out.  This ensures that I don't have that Read More
posted Tuesday, January 17, 2006 7:30 AM by bradley | 9 Comments
Filed Under:

There's this little problem with authentication, John....

So John asks if folks are exposing their sharepoint to clients and putting up invoices and stuff up there for clients to look at. There's one problem. It's the authentication issue.... you see for those folks to privately get into your Sharepoint and Read More
posted Monday, January 16, 2006 8:35 PM by bradley | 2 Comments
Filed Under:

Hey... the antispyware thingys are going to be in WSUS

WSUS Admins: Today you will see a new product category and update classification in your WSUS Synchronization Options dialog.  Windows Defender, formerly Microsoft Windows AntiSpyware (Beta), will as of today’s synchronization show up as a new Read More
posted Monday, January 16, 2006 8:31 PM by bradley | 2 Comments
Filed Under:

The thing we need to do more of

Flatten. You heard me.  We need to flatten the boxes we get from the OEMs and rebuild them as we see fit.  Without the junk.  The add ons.  The third party crud.  We also need to purchase the right boxes.  Yeah... it's hard Read More
posted Monday, January 16, 2006 12:36 PM by bradley | 4 Comments
Filed Under:

While you are installing... do you 'value add'?

Gregg brings up a wonderful point in the blog comments..... do you look for ways to introduce Sharepoint into the firms you install SBS in? Do you look for ways to help someone learn how to use their SBS box better?  To increase the use in the firm?  Read More
posted Monday, January 16, 2006 12:07 PM by bradley | 0 Comments
Filed Under:

So what do you use Sharepoint for?

I use it in my office to share out Word documents that I want to ensure are kept intact and not rewritten over again.  I use it to keep our employee manual and other resources that I tend to go...dang.. now where did I save that?  I put things Read More
posted Sunday, January 15, 2006 10:46 PM by bradley | 5 Comments
Filed Under:

The spyware guys know we don't care.

In a spyware listserve I hang in... comes a sad but true story.... in the registry log file of a malware and spyware'd computer was this line....  HKLM\..\Run: [I downloaded pirated Software from P2P and now I post my Hijack log whining] C:\WINDOWS\system32\Fifa Read More
posted Sunday, January 15, 2006 10:23 PM by bradley | 0 Comments
Filed Under:

Do you use RWW?

RWW.. you know Remote Web Workplace? One of my new SBS admins that just migrated into SBS I don't think knew what RWW was and man... it's the killer APP of SBS. It's a way to connect securely to my SBS box.  And in my case I chose to not use remote Read More
posted Sunday, January 15, 2006 10:18 PM by bradley | 4 Comments
Filed Under:

The connect computer and one Nic and the MCE problem

In the mssmallbiz yahoogroups, a post reminded me that you need to make sure you only have one active NIC alive and kicking when you run that wizard as I've seen that wizard fail when two or more nics are active [even vmware network adapters]. Place Read More
posted Sunday, January 15, 2006 3:47 PM by bradley | 0 Comments
Filed Under:

Career or a Job?

For those of you that are consultants... is this a career to you.... or just a job? If it's a job... all you will need to do is just 'act' like you know what you are doing and take on any jobs that come your way.  If, however, this to you is a Read More
posted Saturday, January 14, 2006 9:35 PM by bradley | 0 Comments
Filed Under:

Knock it off Apple

Matt blogs.... Ever try to JUST install Quicktime recently? You cant.  If you want to download the new version, you have to download Quicktime WITH Itunes.  Yea, you can uninstall ITunes later on...but, why is apple forcing me to do this? Read More
posted Saturday, January 14, 2006 10:44 AM by bradley | 8 Comments
Filed Under:

AICPA names top 10 technologies

In today's Consulting Insights.. Bob Scott reports that the AICPA Top 10 Technologies is out..... and look what's number 10! AICPA NAMES TOP TEN TECHNOLOGIES.The American Institute of CPAs has named information security as its No. 1 technology issue Read More
posted Friday, January 13, 2006 7:56 PM by bradley | 0 Comments
Filed Under:

Ensure tinfoil is in place please?

Quick you may need this protection..... especially if you go and listen to the latest Steve Gibson podcast about the 'rogue developers of Microsoft' who placed 'an intentional back door' into the operating system.  In the meantime you may wish Read More
posted Friday, January 13, 2006 7:06 PM by bradley | 1 Comments
Filed Under: ,

Okay so you heard all the horror stories about Quickbooks 2006 and you'd like to install the R3 version directly?

In addition, if your clients have purchased QuickBooks but have not installed it yet, and want to use R3 to install, please visit the link for the appropriate product to download directly to your computer.QuickBooks Direct Download Links.If you would Read More
posted Friday, January 13, 2006 5:20 PM by bradley | 0 Comments
Filed Under:

So what about coffee shops?

So in the comments of a previous blog entry about remote access, comes the question about 'coffee shop' access. That is indeed in a different section, along with the information that before an employee takes a company laptop and is anticipated to use Read More
posted Thursday, January 12, 2006 8:18 PM by bradley | 1 Comments
Filed Under:

Taking the server for a spin...

So Michael pings... I'm wondering if you could reccomend a book about SBS to me.  We were running SBS on NT 4.0 and have recently installed SBS 2003 Premium so I'm after a book that will explain the possibilities of SBS 2003 Premium to me.  Read More
posted Thursday, January 12, 2006 7:58 PM by bradley | 2 Comments
Filed Under:

The checklist before the transition pack

On the heels of the 'black hole' post, we have an update and a checklist guide to ensure you 'transition pack' deployment goes well... Damian [the guy with the funny accent] is on the SBS blog with the recap.... http://blogs.technet.com/sbs/archive/2006/01/12/417350.asp Read More
posted Thursday, January 12, 2006 7:08 PM by bradley | 0 Comments
Filed Under:

"You have successfully updated your computer"

.... yup...no reboot this month.  Did everyone catch that? SBS aka 'the kitchen sink' normally has at least one patch that causes or forces a reboot...but not this month.  All of the patches that came down on this Patch Tuesday [excluding 06-001 Read More
posted Thursday, January 12, 2006 6:47 PM by bradley | 2 Comments
Filed Under:

What's in your remote access policy?

Here's a section of mine..... In general:   When you are accessing the Firm’s network from a remote location, you must pay the same attention to security and privacy regarding client files that is required at the office.  Those employees Read More
posted Thursday, January 12, 2006 12:47 PM by bradley | 3 Comments
Filed Under:

Top tips from the Partner newsgroup

RECENT ISSUES AND TROUBLESHOOTING TIPS-----------------------------------------------------------ISSUE #1=========When generating a Server Performance\Usage Report via SBS Monitoring, the reports are generated properly and when viewed through Server Management, Read More
posted Wednesday, January 11, 2006 11:14 PM by bradley | 0 Comments
Filed Under:

A conversation on Malware

Microsoft TechNet Radio: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/community/tnradio/default.mspx Steve Santorelli spent most of his career in Scotland Yard, so what is he doing at Microsoft? Steve is putting his sleuthing skills to work for you. Working with Read More
posted Wednesday, January 11, 2006 11:11 PM by bradley | 0 Comments
Filed Under:

The black hole of the transition pack

SBS 2003 has a 'transition pack'.  A method that you can upgrade from SBS 2003's restrictions to the full fledged products of it's big brother servers...and big brother price tag.....and as SBSers go through this transition pack, invaribly they Read More
posted Wednesday, January 11, 2006 7:47 PM by bradley | 9 Comments
Filed Under:

KB articles of interest

Error message when you try to reinstall Windows SBS 2003 in an existing domain: "This server has a trust relationship with <Domain_name.local>": http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=909639Error message in an NDR when you send an e-mail message in Read More
posted Tuesday, January 10, 2006 10:55 PM by bradley | 0 Comments
Filed Under:

All port scan attacks in ISA

On a listserve today someone indicated that their client had shut off VPN because they were concerned about the 'intrusion' alerts they were getting and thought their server was compromised. First... don't panic.  Many of these are false positives. Read More
posted Tuesday, January 10, 2006 10:43 PM by bradley | 0 Comments
Filed Under:

Can Bob the System Builder Swing a bit?

Today comes the word that BOB the System Builder will be doing a swinging good time on January 12th! Join Sterling Jones [aka BOB] and Jeff Middleton doing a bit of 'swinging' this Thursday. Microsoft US System Builder Technology Team is doing web Read More
posted Tuesday, January 10, 2006 10:16 PM by bradley | 1 Comments
Filed Under:

Dana points to Eric who updates us on "Brett the Blogger"

Dana points to Eric's update on Brett'sforay into blogging: http://silverstr.ufies.org/blog/archives/000899.html To follow more of the saga.... see here... Read More
posted Tuesday, January 10, 2006 12:04 PM by bradley | 0 Comments
Filed Under:

An ISO for the patches?

Download details: January 2006 Security and Critical Releases Bulk Update: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=27eb2d43-5f8e-4c93-b2dc-7954d7624758&DisplayLang=en Alun just emailed..... Tales from the Crypto : Not quite "SUS on Read More
posted Tuesday, January 10, 2006 12:03 PM by bradley | 1 Comments
Filed Under:

Two bulletins today

January 10, 2006 Today Microsoft released the following Security Bulletin(s). Note: www.microsoft.com/technet/security and www.microsoft.com/security are authoritative in all matters concerning Microsoft Security Bulletins! ANY e-mail, web board Read More
posted Tuesday, January 10, 2006 11:26 AM by bradley | 0 Comments
Filed Under:

So what communities do I hang in?

So Keith asks...what is my choice of a newsreader and what newsgroups do I follow? I'm weird.  [yeah like that's a surprise] in that I compartmentalize my newsgroups.  I am partial to Thunderbird for my MS public newsgroups and honestly only Read More
posted Monday, January 09, 2006 6:59 PM by bradley | 1 Comments
Filed Under:

My server broke

Happyfunboy showcases every tech support person's dream. A knowledgeable person who doesn't say things like "my server broke" Taking the time to gather the information ahead of time means that your call to support is as good as can be expected with Read More
posted Monday, January 09, 2006 6:56 PM by bradley | 1 Comments
Filed Under:

This struck me funny...

So on Vlad's site it reminded me that I hadn't linked to his SMB book podcast with Beatrice Multzer and he has a link to his podcasts... that says.... and I quote... "Listen to Vlad's soothing voice" unquote. Now... we really and truly love Vlad...but Read More
posted Monday, January 09, 2006 6:48 PM by bradley | 4 Comments
Filed Under:

Dear Tip Top Equities

If you think for one moment that I will even think of buying anything from you after you've spamming my Pacbell account for the last few hours.... guess again folks.  And why in the world would I want to buy a penny stock called HLV Capital anyway? Read More
posted Monday, January 09, 2006 6:25 PM by bradley | 1 Comments
Filed Under:

Okay I'm leaving WMF's blocked

The other day I put in place blocking of WMF files in my network.... and I'm not going to adjust that setting one bit. There is no need for my users to have or need that file and today's update on the MSRC blog proves that indeed. http://blogs.technet.com/msrc/archive/2006/01/09/417198.aspx Read More
posted Monday, January 09, 2006 6:20 PM by bradley | 1 Comments
Filed Under:

You in Fresno and want to join a SMB Partner group?

Join us January 23rd for the first meeting of the Fresno Branch of the SMB Technology Network. SMBTN [www.smbtn.org] is a growing group of computer consultants and professionals in California and we are starting a Partner group in the Fresno Read More
posted Sunday, January 08, 2006 10:26 PM by bradley | 2 Comments
Filed Under:

Don't have a copy of SBA and want one?

Want a copy of the Small Business acccounting? Apparently you have to ask for it? Microsoft Partner Blog - Stephen Cracknell - Your Southwest TS2 Presenter : Acquiring SBA Through The ActionPack: http://ts2community.com/blogs/stevencr/archive/2005/12/06/477.asp Read More
posted Sunday, January 08, 2006 10:19 PM by bradley | 0 Comments
Filed Under:

So I was on the MS Partner site...

And I was looking for SMB partners... so I started with the site how your clients would see you.... and I gotta say... now maybe this is Fresno or something... but have you truly looked at how professional you look to a client from that MS partner portal? Read More
posted Sunday, January 08, 2006 9:33 PM by bradley | 0 Comments
Filed Under:

Okay so you have your Action pack SP1 media..but...

You get to the part where it asks for Outlook and you don't have it?  Go grab the previous Outlook from the first non SP1 version of SBS.  Even though it's dated November of 2003 it is the same media as before and there is no difference.  Read More
posted Sunday, January 08, 2006 9:25 PM by bradley | 1 Comments
Filed Under:

So what tools do you use?

So a bit back I asked what tools that SBSers should have on hand and here are some answers... www.sysinternals.com www.dnsreport.com Besides www.Eventid.net and www.Experts-Exchange.com and the othersmentioned by Susan I find having a Bart's PE Builder Read More
posted Saturday, January 07, 2006 9:09 PM by bradley | 3 Comments
Filed Under: ,

Over my dead body

On a couple of listserves and blogs the idea that now that this patch got out so quickly that all patches can get out this fast.  First off, I think that's a simplistic view as not all patches are created equal.  This one was a small file.  Read More
posted Saturday, January 07, 2006 8:34 PM by bradley | 0 Comments
Filed Under:

Are you ready for the Home Network?

CNN has a podcast about the Apple effect on CES and it reminds me of my visit to my friends.... at home they have a replay TV and a media center and numerous machines all peer to peer together and now they have a HDTV in the bedroom and have customize Read More
posted Saturday, January 07, 2006 4:22 PM by bradley | 1 Comments
Filed Under:

I say it looks like a trapezoid

It's all David's fault... okay so I changed the logo on my blog to be this: From what it used to be...like this... And I'll admit it was a bit scrunched up and icky.... but what I was pointing out to David that was driving me crazy was that all Read More
posted Friday, January 06, 2006 10:05 PM by bradley | 7 Comments
Filed Under:

Outgoing VPN connections having issues?

So Mike asked..... Hi, I was wondering if anyone else has a problem with outgoing VPN connections after uploading SBS SP1. Everthing works as before with ISA 2000 but I have a VPN connection to a friend I support and this is now being blocked by ISA2004 Read More
posted Friday, January 06, 2006 9:30 PM by bradley | 0 Comments
Filed Under:

So why aren't 98's being patched?

Microsoft Security Bulletin MS06-001: Vulnerability in Graphics Rendering Engine Could Allow Remote Code Execution (912919): http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/ms06-001.mspx A question that even I had came up on a listserve... why isn't Read More
posted Friday, January 06, 2006 9:04 PM by bradley | 0 Comments
Filed Under:

Updating a a/v subscription apparently takes a village

...or at least a fellow SBS MVP who's done this before [thanks Steve] Well it started out that my Trend 2.0 was indicating that it was expiring and so I contacted my vendor and they sent me a form to fax back.  So I'm waiting for 'something' to Read More
posted Friday, January 06, 2006 8:42 PM by bradley | 2 Comments
Filed Under:

Newsflash at 11....the sky will continue to fall....

In our continuing saga of keeping secure online...just wanted to update everyone that even though I'm fully patched the sky will continue to fall. Why? Read this. In particular ...this..."Patches are always likely to be necessary because software will Read More
posted Thursday, January 05, 2006 9:22 PM by bradley | 3 Comments
Filed Under:

Fixing up a little annoying OEM Exchange error

Mark reminded me that I never followed up on that Exchange error issue I get on a preloaded OEM image. The solution is that it's missing two reg keys... Start by looking under  HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\MSExchangeIS\ Read More
posted Thursday, January 05, 2006 9:01 PM by bradley | 0 Comments
Filed Under:

What I learned from this

First read a good blog post from Mike Nash on why this came out early. And here's what I learned from this.... This is my firm and only I can decide the risks.  It got to the point yesterday and today that I was about ready to yell "enough" Read More
posted Thursday, January 05, 2006 5:57 PM by bradley | 1 Comments
Filed Under:

...so you didn't get an email until hours later...

...well then you don't have instant paranoia now do you? First off we should understand that mail servers take time... so don't expect the Microsoft security email to get to you immediately.  Next you can easily sign up for 'Instant Paranoia Alerts' Read More
posted Thursday, January 05, 2006 5:44 PM by bradley | 3 Comments
Filed Under:

Security bulletin 06-001

Microsoft Security Bulletin MS06-001: Vulnerability in Graphics Rendering Engine Could Allow Remote Code Execution (912919): http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/Bulletin/ms06-001.mspx Gentlemen start your testing on the real patch Read More
posted Thursday, January 05, 2006 12:11 PM by bradley | 4 Comments
Filed Under:

ONE OUT OF BAND PATCH HEADING OUR WAY

 Important Information for Thursday 5 January 2006 Microsoft announced that it would release a security update to help protect customers from exploitations of a vulnerability in the Windows Meta File (WMF) area of code in the Windows operating system Read More
posted Thursday, January 05, 2006 12:03 PM by bradley | 0 Comments
Filed Under:

Welcome new MVPs

In the Small Business Server category ...so far we have Kevin Royalty Eriq Neale Stuart Applegate Tobias Redeleberger Oliver Sommer In other product categories Dana Epp - Security MVP Amy Babinchak - ISA MVP Larry Lentz - CRM MVP Vlad Read More
posted Thursday, January 05, 2006 7:06 AM by bradley | 4 Comments
Filed Under:

SBS KBs of interest

You experience slow system performance when you run a program that uses the WMI service on a Windows XP SP2-based computer or a Windows Server 2003 SP1-based computer: http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=911262Internet Explorer may delay up to 10 seconds Read More
posted Wednesday, January 04, 2006 10:41 PM by bradley | 0 Comments
Filed Under:

The sky must be falling

We have truly gone insane around here..... Tonight comes this comment.... Is this blog payed for by Microsoft? This was the strangest thing I ever read. The 3rd party patch you're advicing people not to install is made by a very respected programmer Read More
posted Wednesday, January 04, 2006 1:03 AM by bradley | 3 Comments
Filed Under:

SBS kbs of interest

Error message in Windows Small Business Server 2003: "Debugging is not supported under current trust level settings": http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=910665Windows SharePoint Services components may be deleted after you reinstall the Intranet component Read More
posted Tuesday, January 03, 2006 11:51 PM by bradley | 0 Comments
Filed Under:

ISA server team blog opens up!

ISA Server Product Team Blog : Welcome to the ISA Server Product Team Blog: http://blogs.technet.com/isablog/archive/2006/01/03/416787.aspx Very cool....   Read More
posted Tuesday, January 03, 2006 11:14 PM by bradley | 0 Comments
Filed Under:

The risk

So as we get back to work all of us have to evaluate the risks… do we deploy a third party patch or do we check our other defenses to see if we have enough in place.  There’s been a couple of interesting threads on this that I wanted to capture. Read More
posted Tuesday, January 03, 2006 4:49 PM by bradley | 7 Comments
Filed Under:

Patch on the 10th

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/advisory/912840.mspxWhat's Microsoft's response to the availability of third party patchesfor the WMF vulnerability?Microsoft recommends that customers download and deploy the securityupdate for the WMF vulnerability Read More
posted Tuesday, January 03, 2006 9:36 AM by bradley | 2 Comments
Filed Under: