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If you are into Group Policy... you MUST have this

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=7812c9cb-e6ca-4144-98ab-2d78587462c5&DisplayLang=en This is the combination between beancounter bliss and geek control thrill. An Excel spreadsheet of the Group policy settings for Vista. Check Read More...
Posted Friday, August 25, 2006 10:33 PM by bradley | 0 Comments
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IIS never remove.. repeat after me... IIS never remove

Was doing gardening this weekend and was listing to the podcast from the SBS gang on the "evil" pop connector and the "never remove IIS" part of the podcast reminded me of a blog post I have that is about as narly as you can get...but IIS is still not Read More...
Posted Sunday, May 21, 2006 11:25 PM by bradley | 3 Comments
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Okay so THAT's not a best practice anymore

The phrase "best practice" is like fingernails on a chalkboard to me sometimes.. why? Because it's like an excuse to shut the brain off and not think. Take for example.. this nugget of a 'best practice': http://www.sbslinks.com/SBS_45tips.htm + Single Read More...
Posted Sunday, May 21, 2006 11:09 PM by bradley | 5 Comments
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Well this is how my Friday morning started out....

...and being the geek that I am.. took a photo of my car and the other car with my Windows Mobile 3 Cell phone....long story short... she pulled out nose first right into traffic... I couldn't avoid/stop fast enough. But the minor impact reminded me of Read More...
Posted Friday, April 28, 2006 5:26 PM by bradley | 2 Comments
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Prove it....

To the IT pros of the world.. if you are recommending a disaster plan to a small firm.. can you do me a favor and test it out in a testbed first (and now with Virtual server being free you have no excuse) See if you guys see any problems with this plan.... Read More...
Posted Monday, April 03, 2006 12:24 PM by bradley | 2 Comments
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Building a box

Well it's beta season which means I have to decide which beta gets a real phyiscal box and which one gets a virtual one. While setting up virtual machines is getting easier and easier, I still sometimes like the old fashioned, real, physical box to test Read More...
Posted Wednesday, February 15, 2006 12:12 PM by bradley | 6 Comments
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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 as a VAR/VAP to argue with the cheap Read More...
Posted Monday, January 16, 2006 12:36 PM by bradley | 4 Comments
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The Screwdriver versus the Forbes Magazine Subscriber

This Christmas, I want you to buy yourself a present. A book . Now before you start reading this book, I want you to take this book and flip to the ending. Don't worry you won't wreck the storyline. I want you to start at page 287 under the section of Read More...
Posted Thursday, December 15, 2005 6:25 PM by bradley | 0 Comments
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The end of the year

The end of the year means a beginning of a new one... and for those of you running your businesses, this time of year should be when you start looking at your records and expenses in a new light. For in America, if your business year end is December, Read More...
Posted Friday, December 09, 2005 7:11 PM by bradley | 0 Comments
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The size of the logs

The default size. You probably haven't even looked at these have you? The default size for the event logs can be pretty small. And the size of this one in particular, the Directory Service event log of 512 KB means that I don't have any entry prior to Read More...
Posted Sunday, December 04, 2005 11:31 PM by bradley | 0 Comments
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Change Management SBS style part II

I forgot another person who may introduce 'change management' unknowingly in a SBS system. The LOB app vendor. Now this is where me and my fellow MVP Dave Nickason are lucky. We have pretty self contained LOB apps that don't need some add coder to go Read More...
Posted Sunday, December 04, 2005 4:47 PM by bradley | 0 Comments
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Change management SBS style.

Change management. The hardest task [I think] for a VAP/VAR/Consultant is “Change Management”. In a big firm change management is this multi tiered process where any change to the system is tested, reviewed, approved and then and only then Read More...
Posted Saturday, December 03, 2005 10:08 PM by bradley | 1 Comments
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Ensuring those foundations are there

When you build a house in California, you pour a concrete slab and then build from there. When you install a SBS 2003 system you install it on a server. The foundation. The slab. And as long as your foundation is good and solid, you are good to go as Read More...
Posted Thursday, December 01, 2005 8:36 PM by bradley | 0 Comments
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Computers on or off?

Quick question? Yes? [btw ever notice how quick questions usually end up not being quick questions?] Is there a way to stop a user from shutting down a machine? Yes...but....are they a local administrator on that box? Yes. Ah, well then if they are admins, Read More...
Posted Monday, November 28, 2005 12:01 PM by bradley | 1 Comments
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Making the case for upgrades

On the podcast gang blog today is this post .... and it reminds me of discussions about upgrading... we already find it hard to make a business case for patching, for service packs.... and the upcoming 64bit means we have to make a business case .... Read More...
Posted Tuesday, November 22, 2005 6:30 PM by bradley | 0 Comments
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So can I have an additional domain controller in my SBS network?

Yes, it's entirely supported, possible, doable to have a an additional domain controller in your SBS network... and in fact, it doesn't even need to be another physical Windows server. You can set up a virtual server 'inside' a workstation in your network Read More...
Posted Wednesday, November 02, 2005 9:53 PM by bradley | 2 Comments
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How much of a control freak are you?

Dan [name changed to protect the innocent and the fact that I'm going to rag on his boss in this blog post] in the mailbag today asked a question about 'hosted' Exchange. He said that his boss wanted him to look into hosted Exchange [asp] as an alternative Read More...
Posted Monday, October 24, 2005 7:28 PM by bradley | 1 Comments
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Don't do that... they mean really DON'T DO THAT

I'm listening to the SBS podcast they remind me of the uniqueness of SBS... don't ...don't ever...rename the domain and expect to live through the experience. Like the comments... active directory domain name does not equal your email domain name... and Read More...
Posted Saturday, October 15, 2005 3:51 PM by bradley | 0 Comments
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Are you excluding enough?

Since someone's blog is a bit ...well....undernourished.. I'm stealing a post from him from a listserve instead.....this all started when a fellow SBSer had a Event 13552 and 13555... you know ... these: The File Replication Service is unable to add this Read More...
Posted Friday, October 07, 2005 7:39 PM by bradley | 0 Comments
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Out of harms way

A bit off topic but if you want a live feed from the local New Orleans TV channel you can find it here . Jeff Middleton and SBSmigration.com are now far enough out of harms way but it certainly makes one think. As he said, his server and laptop was with Read More...
Posted Sunday, August 28, 2005 1:41 PM by bradley | 0 Comments
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About that defraggin....

Apparently defragging is a hot topic because it got a ton of feedback including this gem from David... so ya might not wanna be quite to quick to defrag folks.... Don't forget that unless you've taken special steps to prevent it, defragging a Windows Read More...
Posted Saturday, August 13, 2005 1:39 AM by bradley | 0 Comments

Emails and archives

The question from the mailbox today is about backing up email and searching for email... My questions are "what do you use/ have used, and being that I'm using USB Hard Drives for backups using the SBS2003 NTBackup utility, what you would suggest I look Read More...
Posted Monday, July 11, 2005 11:31 PM by bradley | 2 Comments
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To /3GB or not to /3GB that is the question

I don't. Some do. Most say they see no difference. SBS engineers have said don't do it. A KB says no....but there are enough vague ones out there that say ...yes do it... What am I talking about? The /3GB switch. I have 4 gigs of RAM and have never messed Read More...
Posted Saturday, June 25, 2005 1:21 PM by bradley | 7 Comments
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The best time for an upgrade

This morning underneath my door was a note that said “Today between 2 p.m. and 3 p.m. we're upgrading our phone system. We apologize for any inconvience”. So at first I'm thinking...gee...that's an odd time for an upgrade...but then it hit Read More...
Posted Friday, June 03, 2005 7:05 PM by bradley | 2 Comments
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Write them down, memorize them, two factor them, just pick better ones will ya?

Law #5: Weak passwords trump strong security The purpose of having a logon process is to establish who you are. Once the operating system knows who you are, it can grant or deny requests for system resources appropriately. If a bad guy learns your password, Read More...
Posted Wednesday, June 01, 2005 10:08 PM by bradley | 0 Comments
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