Thursday 30 August 2012

Microsoft/Live ID in Windows 8 Actually Says, "Your password has expired. It's time to choose a new one."

This is a nice change:

image

Instead of this:

image

And a, "There is a problem with your Microsoft account".

Windows Messenger says that there is a problem with the connection.

We have all of our Microsoft/Live ID accounts set to expire their passwords after 72 days. It is an option available when changing the password.

So, at least the Microsoft account integration in Windows 8 _tells_ us what the problem is and how to fix it.

image

Now to figure out _what_ characters are allowed. :S

It's not allowing spaces. Special characters are okay but spaces are not. Oh well.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

Tuesday 28 August 2012

Microsoft Windows 8 and Server 2012 SHA-1/MD5 Results and HASH Utility

We have fresh downloads of the RTM bits from the Microsoft Volume Licensing Center using the default Download Manager.

For some reason the Web site does not have any notes as far as checksum is concerned.

  • Windows Server 2012 Standard/Datacenter
    • SHA-1: 063BC26ED45C50D3745CCAD52DD7B3F3CE13F36D
    • MD5: FF95A8C5207C880B099B7F34DBA941B6
  • Windows 8 Enterprise x64
    • SHA-1: 4EADFE83E736621234C63E8465986F0AF6AA3C82
    • MD5: 27AA354B8088527FFCD32007B51B25BF
  • Windows 8 RTM x64
    • SHA-1: 1CE53AD5F60419CF04A715CF3233F247E48BEEC4
    • MD5: 0E8F2199FAE18FE510C23426E68F675A

Note that we used the following:

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Please use the Direct Download Link tucked under the big green button:

image

Also, when installing the utility make sure to uncheck the third party software (in this case Snap.do) tucked into the Terms And Conditions.

image

As always, YMMV. :)

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

Monday 27 August 2012

SMB Nation Fall: Taking My IT Support Business to the Next Level

It's official, I will be at SMB Nation's fall conference in Las Vegas.

image

The following blog posts are an outline of the planned discussion:

Believe me when I say that we have been going through a lot of soul searching in the last six to nine months. We MVPs were just as much in the dark about the goings on around SBS and the product group's directions as all y'all out there.

As of today we see a lot of opportunity for us in the current SMB IT environment for those that have honed their skillset and are continually working on them.

We see an even larger opportunity for the IT Support Shop that provides a consistent On-Premises IT Solution experience for their clients. Let's talk about that.

Let's talk about the real-world experience of Cloud, Hybrid, and On-Premises IT Solutions for our clients. While our client's preferences at this time are for On-Premises we do have a number of clients that are Hybrid and a few that are almost completely in the Cloud.

The goal for the session will be to have a fairly solid understanding of what our client's options are, what our options are as the IT Solution Provider, and to have a big to medium picture road map in place for us going forward.

  • On-Premises, Hybrid, and Cloud Solutions
    • What are they and how do they work for our clients and us?
  • Vehicles to specialize
    • Training, Certification, More
  • Business Plan
    • 1 Year, 3 Years, 5 Years
    • Where do I want my clients to be in 5 years?
    • Where do I want to be in 5 years?

With all of the angst over the changes, the Cloud being pushed really hard, and uncertainty all around we need some hope. And hope is what we intend to bring about in this session.

Thanks for reading! :)

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

Friday 24 August 2012

Active Directory Replication Status Tool

The Active Directory Replication Status Tool is definitely one that should be installed on all management (RSAT) machines that domain administrators use. It _requires_ .NET 4.0 and .NET 3.5.1 so may not be practical on domain DCs depending on security configurations for them.

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This tool along with the required .NET installer files are definitely required on the Technician's Thumb Drive (Blog Category - check it out as there are lot's of goodies in there).

Hat Tip: Susan Bradley

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

Wednesday 22 August 2012

Windows Server 2012 RTM Bits On The Way Down

We have Open Value Agreements that cover most of our server setups as the Action Pack tends to be behind on product release timing.

So, it was mentioned by fellow MVP Tim Barrett that we should see the bits available in the Microsoft Volume Licensing portal and sure enough the download is there:

image

Neat!

We have a few projects that were pending RTM bits that can now move forward.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

Tuesday 21 August 2012

Going to attend the Microsoft Exchange Conference in Orlando

As part of our need to develop our skill set on the various products we will be configuring for our clients going forward we are starting with the one that can be the most challenging: Exchange

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We will spend time on Exchange 15 (2013) learning how to install and configure the product. We will also be able to spend time with Exchange 2010 and its configuration.

We will also be looking to explore the built-in Exchange high availability features and their configuration. Multi-site Exchange configurations can be an important offering for a larger client with multiple sites looking to provide e-mail resiliency.

In the end, it is time to put some time and money on the line to gain skills.

Doing this is very important for both our company but also our clients.

When discussing the "Why" a prospective client should be dealing with us having a repertoire of training and certification demonstrates very clearly to them that we are serious about the solutions we deliver.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

Wednesday 15 August 2012

Windows 8 Client is Now Live on MSDN

We are in the process of downloading the RTM bits for Windows 8:

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So far, the downloads for the RTM bits only show on the MSDN site with RC showing on TechNet.

There are a lot of servers working these downloads so the downloads may or may not be available in other geographical areas.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

Tuesday 14 August 2012

Small Business Owners Take Risks - Huge Life Changing Risks.

Note that this blog post comes just after hearing the news about our attempts to secure a mortgage for the last couple of weeks so it may be a bit pointed in nature. :)

***

We just spent the last week and a half to two weeks in limbo not knowing whether we had a home or not to go to at the end of September. We had sold our home in anticipation of purchasing one just outside of the city.

We accepted a bid from the buyer of our current home and the seller of the place we were looking at accepted ours.

Of course we had "Subject to Financing" in our bid contract. But, needless to say we, that is Monique and I, did not count on the amount of pain securing the mortgage for the place we bid on was going to cause us.

So, we had a possession date for our home at the end of September with no ETA on financing for the place we were bidding on. If the financing did indeed fall through then we were in a _really_ bad place needing to be out of our own home with no destination set.

Banks, Lenders, and SMB Owners

It is a fact of life for the small business owner that the banks do not like us. We are too high a risk for lending.

The statistics of the number of failed businesses in the first three years relative to the number of successful ones make the balance scale look like a 1 tonne brick on the _fail_ side while the successful side has a few feathers.

That balance scale does not change much for the survivors of the first three years either. The number that make it to the six or seven year mark are but a sliver of those that made it past three.

So, here we are after ten years for MPECS being incorporated and my being self-employed and we _still_ hit the credit roadblock with the banks and some lenders.

The primary difference as we see it between us and someone that makes a salary or wage is that they have a steady paycheque every two weeks while ours fluctuates with the amount of work being done.

As we all know, cash flow is king in a small business. We see that as one of the main reasons for an SMB to _not_ put services into the Cloud.

Yes, the cash needed for an SMB IT Solution will be up-front. But, once that solution is in place the ongoing maintenance plan can be put on hold (depending on the MSP) if the economy slows down.

One cannot put the Cloud Service Provider on hold for payments.

It means that despite owning an incorporated company we SMB owners need to sign away our first and second born along with the contracts in our blood before we can get any reasonable amount of credit to work with (pun obviously).

Lenders prefer to secure credit against us personally, not our incorporated entities in our area of the world. The same may be true in other areas of the world. Say no to Personal Credit Reports and the lenders say no to any credit.

Indeed, just recently after having to sign away our firstborn for our first company credit card five or six years ago we had to go through the entire jump-through-the-hoop process to get a credit increase on that card even after five or six years of activity with balances paid off every statement cycle.

A perceived SMB cash crunch situation is one reason we get a plethora of "Canadian Small Business Grants" e-mails and phone calls from folks looking to take advantage of us in some way due to SMBs being more than likely cash hungry.

Securing A Mortgage

Now, besides getting married for life one of the biggest decisions one makes is to secure a mortgage on a place to live.

We had run the gamut of trying to secure a lender for the purchase of our first house (about 2-3 years after MPECS was born) with the end result being nada, zilch, zippo.

We were fortunate that our Realtor knew a mortgage broker, Phil LaRue, that pulled one out of the hat for us by securing a hand-shake mortgage with GMAC at a premium over the bank's rates back then.

He then did it again for us when we purchased our current home. But, not without a number of hoops to jump through yet again.

This time around we had to jump through _a lot_ of hoops before lenders would take us seriously. Yet, even after all of this time no banks would even consider looking at us.

So, here we are a week and a half later after signing the paperwork to get the ball rolling on the purchase and we have finally heard back from the mortgage insurer (CMHC was the final roadblock) that they will insure our mortgage.

Our Subject To Financing conditions are almost removed.

Can you imagine how stressful that last couple of weeks have been?!?

SMB "Experts" Know?

This constant fight with financing our lives for the last ten years is something that someone, or some SMB "Expert"organization, that has never owned a small business may never get.

Folks that receive a paycheque do not need to worry about whether they can get credit or not (barring bad exceptions to the rule of course ;) ).

One cannot know the taste, texture, and all-around goodness of an Anchovy Pizza unless one has actually eaten one. Period.

One cannot know what it is like to lose one's child (previous blog post) unless one has actually gone through that experience.

Someone that has spent their life studying a particular subject, even secured a PhD in it, may know a lot _about_ the subject but may have very little clue how it _feels_ until they actually _live_ through it.

We are not knocking those folks and their ability to help us out here. We have had some amazing professionals help us out throughout our lives. That's not the point of these paragraphs.

Our point is this: There are some experiences in life that one can know a lot about in so many ways but may have no clue about _living_ it and _experiencing_ it.

That's why "Experts' is in quotes here with regards to owning and running an SMB business or multiple businesses.

One cannot know the real risks involved owning and running a small business until one's family is hanging on the brink of being homeless. Or that next business need is sitting on the shelf due to not having credit available.

There are too many examples to list here but we believe that you, our readers, get our point. :)

Our Small Business

The all-around experience of owning and running a small business is much more rewarding as we are working on _our_ dreams and not someone else's dreams.

We would be very hard-pressed to find a small business owner that is not passionate about the products and services that they provide.

And therein lies one of the _most critical_ of elements of providing IT products and services to other small business owners that we have mentioned in this blog before.

A small business owner providing products and services to another small business owner _understands_ what it takes to purchase those products and services.

We understand the need to trust others to provide us with the best possible information and direction when it comes to aspects of our business we may have no clue about.

Thus, there is a connection between us that is not there for a large organization's sales people and technical support folks that try and provide products and services to small businesses.

This face-to-face connection is one of the main reasons that the Expert IT Solution Provider has done so well over the last ten to fifteen years.

We share the passion and can provide an excellent IT experience for our small business clients.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

Thursday 9 August 2012

Found: A Car Charger with Two 10 Watt (2.1A) USB Ports!

After a number of days looking around for a charging setup that can accommodate at least two devices that require a 2 Amp draw on the USB port we settled on the following:

image

The reason we ordered these units was that the basic USB chargers we have in our vehicles only support 500mAh draws. That is one quarter the capability of these units.

So, when using a Windows Phone like my HD7 or Monique's Lumia 710 while plugged in they were still losing charge if frequent calls were being made or we were streaming 8Tracks or listening to Zune content.

The HTC HD7 charger's USB port has a little over 1A at the port. The Nokia charger has 1.2A at the port.

So, we figure that 2.1A should be more than enough to provide a charge and run the phones at 110% _all of the time_ and not be stranded with a dead phone at our destination.

Next up will be to pick up their ISUBH4 wall wart (dual 2.1A USB port A/C charger).

We may also pick up a couple of the goBAT II - Portable Charger & Backup Battery units for those days when out and about to provide a backup power source while at a client site. They would be handy for long plane trips too.

Have any pointers to power accessories used to keep things charged up? Please do point them out to us!

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

Wednesday 8 August 2012

MPECS Inc.'s Entry Level, Mid-Level, and Premium Level IT Solution Sets

We have a number of IT Solution sets in our repertoire.

Here are three IT Solutions we have posted on our blog to give you an idea of where we can start through to a high end Hyper-V Failover Cluster based on the Intel Modular Server.

With today's Intel Server Systems, the Intel Modular Server, Promise Storage, and IBM Storage we can provide some highly customized IT Solutions for our clients and prospective clients.

For those that request on-site warranties from Tier 1 we would offer IBM Servers and their warranties.

With the advent of Windows Server 2012 and the awesome new Hyper-V features we can go even further with companies that have multiple sites using Hyper-V Replica as well as the now accessible DirectAccess feature that is in Windows Server 2012.

The On-Premises future looks very bright indeed! :)

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

Quick Links to MalwareBytes Program and Definitions Download

We sometimes need to use the MalwareBytes product to verify that a system is clean.

That site has links to both the program download on a third party site as well as the definition update file that can be important if a malware infection is afoot.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

Tuesday 7 August 2012

Mat Honan's Hack Odyssey

This is nothing short of a long read but worth every moment:

Hackers used a bunch of tricks to gain full control of Mat's accounts. From there they remote wiped his MacBook, iPad, and iPhone via iCloud.

Ultimately, their goal was his Twitter account which they did indeed manage to gain control of.

Please do read this article. It is food for thought.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

Friday 3 August 2012

Troubleshooting QuickBooks Network Connectivity

The following is a re-post of our post to the SBS2K Yahoo list:

***

First place to start would be with their Network Test Tool. It will give you the full host of things missing/broken between the client and the server.

  1. Make sure the database manager is up to date and the exceptions are in the firewall on _both_ the server and the clients. We use a custom GPO setup for QB/Simply/LoBs.
  2. Make sure that none of the previous QuickBooks user services accounts are running and/or installed in Services.MSC.
    1. QuickBooksDB19
    2. QuickBooksDB22
    3. ETC.
      • Whatever the latest one is should be the only one running.
  3. You may need to use the registry editor to DELETE any references to the specific QuickBooksDB19 entries under SERVICES only (ignore Legacy).
    1. We have disabled the earlier versions in Services.msc only to have QB Database Manager re-enable them.
    2. Make sure that the QuickBooksDB22 or whatever has Read/Write at the NTFS level (we set share to EVERYONE=FULL) for the QB company files.
  4. Direct the QB Database Manager to scan and set the folder(s) that the QB company files reside in on the server.
  5. Once the above steps are run through your QB should work as expected.

As a rule we have not had to mess with anything network related on SBS 2008/2011 Standard to get QB working.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

Some Credit Where It's Due - Thanks To Our Farmers

This is somewhat off topic for our blog but still relevant as we have farming in our families.

With all of the struggles we are facing with the changes in our own industry farming has been going through an upheaval for years now.

The loss of family farms across Canada and beyond has been an ongoing trend in the industry. And, its unfortunate as we all know that a family run business will, for the most part, produce their products and services a lot differently than the big corporate ones do.

This is also true of the small business IT solution provider. So, we share something in common. :)

Most of the food that crosses our table comes from local, regional, national, and international farms.

So, we say to our farmers, "Thanks for all of the hard work as it tastes great!"

It's a long weekend here in Canada! Happy break to our Canuck readers!

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book *Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN. Windows Live Writer







Wednesday 1 August 2012

A little SBS History Lesson. What SBS Has Been, Is, and Always Will Be

This post is my reply to John773 on the Spiceworks Forum.

***

John773: . . . The roadmap is about options, and SBS was synonymous with limits.

John,

Yeah, there were limits, but to the small business those limits were relatively _unseen_.

What small business did see was a server setup that gave them complete agility. They could be mobile, they could be in-house, they could be both. They could use any device they could throw at SBS to gain access to their e-mail, calendars, and so much more at that time.

SBS was _the_ platform to build a small business on. Period.

To folks out in the Enterprise and SME Space the "limits" of SBS could indeed be seen as such.

But realistically, to the small business owner the exact OPPOSITE was the case. SBS enabled them.

In 2003 with the release of the Remote Web Workplace we garnered attention from Enterprise because RWW was a Killer App. And it was. Now the business owner could have their cake and eat it too.

ISA for SBS 2003 Premium RTM/R2 was the cat's meow for dealing with many of the outlying threats of the day. All of our clients ran Premium with ISA providing needed edge protection.

Yeah, by 2008 that platform was indeed long in the tooth, but SBS 2008 gave us everything we already had plus access to our newly deployed RemoteApps via RemoteDesktop Gateway that was built-in to SBS 2008.

For 2008 RD Gateway was the killer app tied into the ability to deliver LoBs via RemoteApp.

Business owners liked the simplicity of one shortcut to open their bookkeeping anywhere or via link in the RWW portal. They liked RemoteApp for keeping data in-house while users were out and about.

For 2011 we gained the Folder Share feature in the newly branded Remote Web Access portal. We still had all of the goodness of the previous generations plus we could now download and upload files as required.

Now, here we are in 2012 and change is afoot.

What does that mean?

Well, it means that we can get Remote Web Access on a number of different platforms now (BBbyGramps for one).

We can virtualize the DC (Windows Server 2012 Essentials or Standard) and Exchange on two VMs to give us our 1 box solution but keeping things discrete.

No more BESx (if they are still around a few years down the road ;) ) blowing up the _entire_ platform! Or any other LoB running interference or hogging memory on the one box setup for that matter.

MOST IMPORTANTLY: It means _nothing changes_ for our clients!

We still provide the best IT solution that we can to enable them and their businesses! This whole situation is about our clients. That is why we do what we do. So, any Microsoft stack solution will need to address all of the features that our small business clients have been used to on the SBS platform but also incorporate some of the new ones like DirectAccess.

Enabling a small business was what SBS was all about and it hit a home run consistently for _ten years_ running! How many products can we look at in recent years can say that they have had a 10-15 year run of success?

In conclusion, in today's IT world I do in fact agree with you. SBS 2011 is limiting. There are just too many opportunities for customizing a stack based solution for our small business clients that were not there even three years ago.

However, historically I flat out disagree with you. From the moment SBS 2003 began to be deployed right through to the moment the last SBS 2011 Standard server is retired SBS will have more than met the small business owner's business needs built on IT Solutions.

***

Small Business Server met a specific need and met it very well. :)

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer