Between moving our residence and taking care of our clients, along with working on some prospects, things have been running at 115%.
So, blogging has been lite and may continue to be for the next week or so. At least until we settle in a bit. :)
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.
Lately, we have been putting a lot of time in to building up our lab infrastructure as part of our research and development for new business.
Because the R&D requires a heavy investment by us we reach out to the various manufacturers whose products we deal with to see if we can land any demo product to help defray some of those costs.
Those that have stepped up over the last couple of years include the following:
Microsoft has provided us with great support and great product team access over the years. Being a Microsoft MVP has really helped open the doors to key folks and their knowledge.
Though the advent of some absolutely awesome blogs on the products we are focused on has reduced the need to ask a lot of those N00b type questions. :)
Microsoft provides awesome resources within its Partner Program including the Partner Learning Center and now the Microsoft Virtual Academy.
The MVA is an awesome resource for getting a lot of the N00b type questions answered with a lot of hands-on and visual walk-through processes. It is also an excellent resource for answering more advanced questions.
There are certainly other little SWAG and SPIFF bits that we have received over the years. The list above covers some of the major items that have come across our threshold.
Thanks to Promise, LSI, and Intel for the great support and direction.
Thanks to Microsoft for the great resources provided to us both within the MVP realm as well as via the Partner Program and so many other avenues.
A special mention and thanks to Eric Ligman as he has been absolutely amazing when it comes to Microsoft Licensing questions.
The best is yet to come!
Thanks to all y’all for your support and for reading!
Have a wonderful weekend … especially you Dads out there!
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.
We are very fortunate to live close to some of the most beautiful mountains in the world.
Since we have been working so much lately we decided to take a little break during a short lull in business and drive the Jasper to Banff Icefields Parkway with stops and stays along the way. We were gone from Friday until late yesterday.
We spent time at Athabasca Falls, around Nordegg, and in many places along the way. We hiked the Valley of The Five Lakes short loop while we were in Jasper.
The short loop starts at P15 then we took 9a to the right and cut back via 9b. The hike was beautiful with the kids and us really enjoying themselves.
Here are some shots taken via my HTC HD7 while on the road and in no particular order:
There is absolutely no cell coverage anywhere in there except Jasper and Banff. So it was nice to be disconnected for a while. ;)
We are now gearing up for a number of standalone and clustered virtualization deployment projects that will be keeping us quite busy!
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.
One of the ways that we will be working on improving our client’s IT use experience is by creating both internal and public training videos.
This is our first public video how-to:
We step through the process of creating an encrypted e-mail. From there we go through the steps needed for the recipient of that encrypted e-mail. Included is the first time need to register on the ExchangeDefender site.
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.
The last three weeks have certainly had their fair share of ups and downs.
Today we are back in business, though it may take time to gain a full head of steam.
We have a lot to do to catch up with a long list of client requests that will need to be dealt with over this week and into the next.
We then have a few prospective deals that we are working on with some being close to being deals in principle.
So, posting may continue to be light over the next while as we catch up with everything and begin to work on new projects as well.
Thanks to all for your support both here and privately via e-mail and phone. We really appreciate it! :)
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.
This neat tip comes originally from Mariette Knap which we have modified for our own purposes.
After merging the above registry file we may need to restart all IE session for the change to take.
So, just what does the above do?
Well, let’s say we need to get to the Hyper-V Nehalem hotfix page really quick. Since we know the KB number off by heart we type the following in IE’s address bar:
Once we hit the Go arrow or Enter we end up at:
Okay, we now have quick access to Microsoft Knowledgebase articles that we know the article number for.
Now, we search our own blog _a lot_ as it is a knowledgebase for us too. Thus, we would love to see:
Give us:
After tweaking the registry entry a little we figured out how to get the above search results by typing the keyword “mblog” and our search terms.
The registry file can be found here:
Here are a couple screenshots of the registry settings:
These little IE tweaks will save us a huge chunk of time!
Susan Bradley also pointed out the following:
The above would have been very handy to get that link into this blog post! :)
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.
We were pretty busy this week so we did not have much time to spend on getting our new site online and configured for how we want to use it.
We are happy to say that the site is now online and configured with the basic foundation (no pun intended) we will be building the site on.
Our plans for the site are not too monumental! :)
Though, as time permits we will be developing the following site features:
We intend to keep the Wiki as focused as possible on current IT based solutions that we are working with at the time.
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.
Our Web site is in the process of being migrated to SharePoint Foundation 2010 on OWN’s servers as of this writing.
While the DNS A record change winds its way through the various DNS servers out there our original SharePoint v3 site or the new site may show up.
Please note that any Outlook connected SharePoint features from our site will be broken and need to be reconnected once we set up the new SharePoint Foundation 2010 site!
Our original site will still be available and anyone with a logon and password will still have access to our exclusive content:
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.
We had a family situation that came up late last week that required me to fly out of Edmonton early Monday morning.
I am now back and looking at all of the Microsoft announcements and product news that happened while I was disconnected. It will take a bit to process all of the news bytes, but they look to be really exciting!
So, once things have settled in, there will be more to come on all of the changes coming down the pipe for 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.
Folks, we have been running at 110% for the last two years straight.
We are fortunate that we have a bit of time in between now and our next series of large projects.
So, we are going to step back a bit for the next couple of weeks.
We will be spending time with our families and enjoying some of the beautiful weather as well as some neat surprises for our kids!
Thanks for your support and for reading this blog on an ongoing basis.
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.
For those of you that may have noticed the LiveMeeting event in the calendar on our Web site, I am not going to be able to follow through on it tomorrow morning.
I am just getting back on my feet after getting hit really heard hard with a flu bug that started to show itself last weekend in Las Vegas.
The plan is to set up some LiveMeeting events limited to 30 or so registrants so that I can open up the microphone to facilitate a conversation around SBS migrations or any other topics that may come up.
So, keep an eye on that calendar for upcoming events that I will be attending along with some LiveMeeting conversations.
My apologies to those that were hoping to get in on tomorrow’s event.
UPDATE: My brain is still a bit scrambled from the flu bug. :)
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.
Well, in an almost kinda sorta way. :)
The default SharePoint site is hosted by OWN, and we will be adding content as we go along.
One thing that we will try and keep up to date is the calendar of events that I plan on attending throughout the year.
From there, we have some ideas as to how to develop the site further along, but we have nothing concrete as of yet.
Thanks for reading!
Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book
*All Mac on SBS posts will not be written on a Mac until we replace our now missing iMac! (previous blog post)
Antec Skeleton
The image comes from Antec's site.
The first place this case can be used is for our data mule system here in our shop:
MPECS' Data Mule System
Currently there is an Intel DQ965GF with an Intel E6600 Core 2 Duo CPU installed running Windows XP for data tool compatibility. Notice the cables and essentially little organization around the system.
That is an old Compaq desktop case cover that everything is mounted to.
The system is setup in such a way so as to provide us with the ability to hook up 11 SATA drives to the system for backup, recovery, or DoD erasing needs.
Availability on the Skeleton is limited as of yet here in Canada, but once we can get them, we will be sure to put one on order.
Neat "case". :)
Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
*All Mac on SBS posts are posted on our in-house iMac via the Safari Web browser.
SBS Software Assurance Benefits
Notice that a TechNet Direct subscription is included. This means access to all of Microsoft's software products without a time-bomb for lab use. We take full advantage of our TechNet Plus subscriptions!
With the advent of call back support for SBS products (previous blog post), and no hint from Microsoft that we can purchase a support contract focused at the SMB I.T. Partners, we have a fall back for us and for our clients: 24x7 Problem Resolution Support.
With each Open Value License we implement at our client's sites, and now our own, we can at least turn to the folks in Redmond to get support if we do indeed hit a brick wall with the SBS setup.
We are fortunate in that we have only hit the wall 3 or 4 times in the history of our company. And, in all of those cases we were also fortunate to work with someone who actually knew the software product that had choked on us.
Something to keep in mind when quoting on new or soon to be refreshed SBS installations.
Also note, today is the last day before a price increase for all SBS Open Value Licensing SKUs.
Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
*All Mac on SBS posts are posted on our in-house iMac via the Safari Web browser.
Nothing yet, but it does mean that I missed the SBS 08 beta exam.
Going to spend the day supporting Monique.
Have a great weekend and thanks for reading!
Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
http://blog.mpecsinc.ca
Sent from an SBS integrated Windows Mobile Device.
