Some Selling Points for Cloud Based E-mail Security and Continuity Services: ExchangeDefender

We see a variety of attack vectors at work when it comes to inbound e-mail.

One cannot discount the social engineering aspect that the bad guys utilize to get someone to click on a link. This type of vector can only be exercised out of users by extensive training: “Don’t click on any unknown links!”

Here are some thoughts on why having an external Cloud based service sanitize e-mail _before_ it gets to the edge device:

• Attack vector via SMTP authorization attacks. To eliminate this vector we employ SMTP filters on all Cisco SA520 security appliances to only allow ExchangeDefender’s subnets inbound.
• No SMTP service access means no more authorization attempts.
• E-mail is archived on the Cloud services for one year (or more if needed).
• Access to archived e-mail can be had from virtually anywhere.
• E-mail can be read and/or replied to via LiveArchive Outlook Web App access.
• If the in-house server is down for whatever reason folks can keep working with their e-mail.
• Outbound e-mail can be encrypted end-to-end.
• From in-house Exchange via TLS to ExchangeDefender.
• [Encrypt] tag in the Subject means that the recipient will need to click on a link that takes them to the ExchangeDefender Encryption site to log on (password and PIN would be set up if the first time).
• ExchangeDefender sends daily reports.
• Can be mid-day and first thing too for folks with more e-mail volume.
• Online portal provides the ability to whitelist addresses and e-mail domains.
• Manage all spam types via both the report and online management portal.

The small monthly cost for the ExchangeDefender service is minor relative to what our clients gain in the way of e-mail security, sanitation, and continuity.

We have had great success with ExchangeDefender and OWN so we do not plan on switching to other vendor’s Cloud security products at this time.

• ExchangeDefender Network Operations Blog
• Ongoing status updates and reports on the service.
• 
• ExchangeDefender NOC Twitter Account
• 

Yes, we have seen some issues with the service in the years since we signed up and started reselling their services. But, on the grand scale of things their service and support team have been second to none on communicating with us whenever we have had a question or there was indeed a problem.

After the last NOC based outage in Dallas the OWN team committed to restructuring their redundancy between LA and Dallas to allow for a failover to happen if one of the NOCs experienced some form of outage. So far they have been following through on their commitment to implement these changes.

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

Just Another Day – Carpe Diem

Today is just another day, and yet it is one that has great significance for my family.

Dominic Jacob Elder was born and died one year ago today. Rest in peace my son.

Life is both precious and fragile.

Carpe Diem! :)

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

Quick Link: HP Universal Print Drivers for Windows

We are in the process of troubleshooting why the HP LaserJet Pro P1606dn once worked through Remote Desktop Services connections for remote connections to a Windows 7 machine but now does not. It works for remote to RDS sessions, but not for desktop RDP connections to this one machine.

• HP Universal Print Driver Series for Windows

The above link is good as of this writing. It has links to all versions that we may need to work with:

We already ran through the process of disabling the setting in Group Policy for the Remote Desktop Easy Print driver to be chosen first. Doing this has not changed anything so far. :(

• Microsoft Forums: How to Disable Easy Print service

From what we can tell, the print driver fails to install on this particular machine where on machines the driver seems to work as expected. So, we now know that the situation is isolated to this one machine.

Hopefully after we ground zero (wipe) the spool service setup including all drivers that we can get things to work as expected.

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

System Builders: May Need to Stock up on Hard Drives. Flooding in Thailand is Hurting Production

It looks as though flooding in Thailand is causing problems with various hard drive manufacturer’s hard drive production.

• Flooding Thailand Hard Drive Facilities (Bing Search)
• Flooding Thailand Hard Drive Production (Bing News Search)

So far, pretty much every hard drive manufacturer has indicated that their spindled products are impacted by the flooding.

We were made aware of the situation by one of our local suppliers that has indicated that prices are on their way up.

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

Cause for Pause: My SBS Backups Are Gone?!?

We were asked to recover a folder set for a client from the beginning of this year.

When we went to the backup destination media that should have that backup set on it we were greeted with the following shock:

In this particular circumstance the SBS in question was deployed just about a year ago. The backup destination happened to be the first disk in their three drive rotation (we rotate every two weeks and test their backups for this client).

We were fortunate that the folders needed were found on Disk 2 in the rotation. But, anything beyond that would have been useless to us as the files that were changed beyond the Drive 2 date set were still needed.

What does this mean for us?

Well, for starters any client with less than three drives in their rotations will be bumped up to at least 3.

We will be implementing a grandfather clause into the backup structure to allow for one drive to have file and folder access for the last year.

In this particular case we pulled Drive 2 out of the rotation immediately so as to use as an archive just in case.

We will be digging into this server’s logs around the time of the backup drive being blanked to see if there are any indicator log entries that we can use to flag and e-mail us. There may be cases where we would want to pull that drive right out and leave it alone for 6 to 12 months.

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

Angry Birds? It’s a Really Neat Game!

I have not played any sort of game on a computer or other device in _years_.

Zuma was the last one that came to mind on MSN’s game site back when.

After seeing all of the discussion in various groups about Angry Birds I downloaded it to my HTC HD7 now Mango phone and played a few levels. It took all of 10 minutes before the game was purchased and levels were unlocked.

My kids love watching while I run through the various levels. We have even collaborated on them too! :D

The game is so successful that it has spawned an entire stuffed toy and t-shirt industry from the looks of their Web site.

Good on them as the game is an awesome brain buster.

It’s even available for PC!

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

Intuit QuickBooks 2012 is on the way!

Apparently our new version of QuickBooks is on the way:

But it won’t get to us since the town is missing in the above e-mail.

We chose to receive all future versions of QuickBooks, we are on a subscription, via electronic means at least a couple of versions ago. So, we are not 100% sure why we are being told that a CD will be shipped to us.

A quick call into the 800 number overseas support folks has hopefully updated our address correctly.

Either way the most important element in all of this is our key codes which we can call in for if we do not see an e-mail or letter in the mail at some point.

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

Intel Desktop Board Executive Series DQ67EP: PCI Serial Port Unrecognized

The reason we were digging into the Intel Download site as indicated in our earlier post was because the systems we are building have the following problem:

• Intel DQ67EP: PCI Serial Port
• Device Drivers not loaded.

After digging around to try and find the driver for the SOL component (device showing) we ended up calling the Intel Support hotline for Resellers.

After talking with the support technician for a few minutes, being put on hold for a few more, he came back and indicated that the current AMT/MEI driver was bad.

• Current Intel DQ67xx Series MEI Driver: 7.1.20.1119
• Previous Intel DQ67xx Series MEI Driver: 7.1.13.1088

We ended up installing the previous version of the driver, 7.1.13.1088, and voila:

• Intel(R) Active Management Technology – SOL (COM3)

So, for now make sure to avoid the current version of the driver!

Applies to:

• DQ67EP
• DQ67SW
• DQ67OW

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

It’s Cloudy On the Internets!

We are on a deadline.

And we always know what happens when we are on a deadline right?

As hard as we try to be prepared ahead of time for any project we are working on there are times where something happens and we are dependent on someone else or some other service to get our jobs done.

As we can see, the service we require is not available. The Intel download site has been temperamental at best this morning when the above finally happened.

Our clients with BlackBerry devices had their fare share of issues this week as well. BlackBerry’s outages are something we are all very aware of as far as their impact worldwide for _days_ at a time.

Risk Analysis

As with any IT Solution we always need to weigh the risks versus the benefits. This is a must-have discussion with business owners.

One of the biggest risks with the Cloud is service outages or local Internet connection outages.

With the number of service interruptions that Microsoft’s online services have experienced along with others we can’t help but draw a comparison to _all_ of the in-house solutions we have deployed over the many years we have been in this business.

The one telling detail in that experience is that in 99.9% of those solutions _NO_ downtime was experienced at all. None. Nada. Zippo. Zilch . . . you get the picture. :)

We are willing to wager that this has been the experience of most any client of an IT Solution Provider that has a properly configured SBS/SMB/SME IT Solution deployed _and managed_ in-house.

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

Patching SBS 2008 and SBS 2011

We are noticing that some of the recent updates are requiring several auto reboots of the server along with a seemingly long hang at a blank or green screen.

• SBS 2011 Setup Guide

In our Setup Guide at step 24 as of this writing we outline how we go about patching our SBS servers:

• Update to the latest SBS Update Rollup first.
• Run updates according to the following product groups:
• Windows Server 2008 Standard R2
  • Run OS Updates at around 10-15 per reboot cycle.
  • Run OS Security Updates at around 5-10 per reboot cycle.
• Exchange SP1/2/3 or Exchange Rollup RU1/2/3/etc 
• .NET
  • If .NET v1 is present update first.
  • Do .NET v2 and v2.x updates one at a time.
  • Do .NET v3 and v3.x updates one at a time.
  • Do .NET v4 and v4.x updates one at a time.
  • Reboot between each cycle as requested.
• SQL
  • Start with 2005 versions.
  • Next to 2008 versions.
  • Next to 2008 R2 versions.
• SharePoint Foundation, WSUS, and others.

One of the things to be mindful of is which updates are selected when opening the Windows Update console for the first time. We are seeing that while most updates are selected by default some _are not_.

Why are they not selected?

To hazard a guess probably because there are patches that need to be in place prior to their being applied.

So, take note of any patches not selected and run them last.

We follow the above patching guideline religiously. For a server that may have 20, 30, or more patches waiting our method could mean tacking on an extra hour or more of time to get that server up to date.

We balance the risk versus the reward. Would we prefer to spend some extra time running updates on the server or take even more time restoring the server from backup because something blew up?

And, in this case out of all the update runs we have done over the years we have only had one bad patching victim on SBS 2008. SharePoint service pack 1 killed the Companyweb on a newly installed server.

From what we understand .NET updates somehow compile themselves on the fly. This is one of the causes of a long update cycle. Note that we update .NET patches in family first and only two or three at a time!

On SBS 2011 note that there is an extra manual step for SharePoint Foundation updates!

Make sure to run that command afterwards.

• Official SBS Blog: You Must Manually Run PSCONFIG after Installing SharePoint 2010 Patches

The command:

• PSConfig.exe -cmd upgrade -inplace b2b -force -cmd applicationcontent -install -cmd installfeatures

Remember to run a backup of the server before starting any updates (yes, in between too!) and be prepared to restore that server!

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

How To: Adobe Acrobat: Rotate Pages and Save Them

We received a document that was scanned into PDF upside down.

When we saved the PDF into our SharePoint site and opened it we then went to View –> Rotate View –> Clockwise. We then saved the PDF and re-opened it. But the pages were upside down when we opened it.

After some searching we came up with the following method for Acrobat X:

1. Open the PDF document.
2. Click on Tools
• 
3. Click on Pages to open its menu.
4. Click on Rotate.
• 
5. Set the Direction for the rotation and click OK.
• 
6. Save the PDF.
7. Close it then re-open it.

The pages will now display correctly.

Hat Tip: AcrobatUsers.com Save rotated page.

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

Hyper-V Performance: Appropriate Disk Queue Length

We are in the process of taking some performance metrics on a Hyper-V standalone host to get an idea of how things are performing.

One metric we have been watching is the Disk Queue Length:

This particular Hyper-V host has a four drive RAID 10 using 300GB 15K SAS drives connected to a battery backed Intel RAID Controller.

The snip above was taken while three VMs were online. One of the VMs was SBS 2011 running its OS install routines.

It took a little searching to find some information on just what the right Disk Queue length is.

• MSDN Blogs: Monitoring Hyper-V Performance by Tony Voellm

Close to the bottom of the blog post we find:

Inside the “Physical Disk” counter set I tend to monitor only three things. The first is “Current Disk Queue Length” which gives one an idea of how busy the drives are. The “Current Disk Queue Length” should be around two per drive. If you have a RAID 10 volume with 4+4 (total of 8 drives). Then a queue length of 16 is reasonable. A queue length of 32 might indicate this disk is saturated and is the bottleneck in the system.

Well, since we have a 2+2 RAID 10 volume a queue length of 8 or less would be reasonable. So, our high of 5 turns out to be a good thing.

We will keep monitoring things as we go along to see what happens when this particular solution goes into production.

• Intel Server System SR1695GPRX2AC.
• Intel Xeon Processor X3470, 32GB Kingston ECC, Intel RS2BL040 + BBU, RMM
• 300GB 15K Seagate SAS x 4 in RAID 10
• NIC 0 + 2 = Management Team
• NIC 1 + 3 = vSwitch Team (VMLB)
• NIC 5 = RMM bound.
• Virtual Machines:
• Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard 1 + 1 (host and guest).
• Windows SBS 2011 Guest
• Windows 7 Enterprise Guest

There are 13 users on this network with a custom LoB delivered via RDS RemoteApp to the local users as well as a few satellite locations around the province.

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

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy thanksgiving all!

Enjoy the long weekend. :)

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

Synchronize Zune Music Between 2 PCs Successfully

Out of the box we left the Zune software to synchronize the downloaded music and playlists to the default locations.

This has proven to be a bear to manage as the device then locks a portion of its storage to the PC the downloaded content came from originally.

So, we needed to come up with a method where the path to the downloaded music was the same on both PCs (home and office) and have it synchronize between them.

Enter Windows Live Mesh:

In order for this process the following must be kept in mind:

• The path to the root Zune folders _must_ be the same!

So, since the profile names on both PCs on both PCs are identical we set up the following paths:

1. PC1:
   1. C:\Users\UserName\Downloads\Zune\Music
   2. C:\Users\UserName\Downloads\Zune\Photos
   3. C:\Users\UserName\Downloads\Zune\Podcasts
   4. C:\Users\UserName\Downloads\Zune\Videos
2. PC2:
   1. C:\Users\UserName\Downloads\Zune\Music
   2. C:\Users\UserName\Downloads\Zune\Photos
   3. C:\Users\UserName\Downloads\Zune\Podcasts
   4. C:\Users\UserName\Downloads\Zune\Videos

We then directed Live Mesh to sync the root Zune folder between the two PCs.

Once the synchronization process has completed between the two PCs we will wipe both of them and start fresh.

NOTE:

• If there are files already on both PCs named the same then Live Mesh will create a copy with (PCName) appended to the file name. Once the synchronization has completed it is safe to delete them.
• On PC per device must be the sync master for that device’s Zune software.
  • We will set the HTC HD7 to sync from the office PC and the Zune HD to sync from the home office PC.
  • Any new content will be synced to both devices eventually!

This methodology is certainly better than what we started to do. The reason why we looked into a different setup was because all of the music downloaded last night to the HD7 refused to be recognized by the Zune software on the office PC.

Windows Live Mesh can be downloaded from here:

• Windows Live Mesh 2011

UPDATE: Do _not_ seed one side. It Live Mesh will push those files _back_ to the second PC.

So, the best thing to do is to make sure all of the music needed is on one device and one PC and have that sync to the second PC and the second device.

Since Live Mesh has a remote desktop feature built-in we will be using it to connect to PC1 to download any additional music.

Thus, this method, while it will work, requires a bit of self control over music downloading on PC2. :S

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

Installing DaRT 7.0: Finding Debugging Tools for Windows?

Microsoft Diagnostics and Recovery Toolset:

We are installing the Diagnostics and Recovery Toolset on our back shop system to run a password recovery. We will be dropping the DaRT ISO onto a bootable flash drive but prior to doing so DaRT wants the Debugging Tools for Windows:

So, off we go to search for the correct download:

• Microsoft Download Center: Microsoft Windows SDK for Windows 7 and .NET Framework 4

Unfortunately the link is to a bootstrapper that then goes on to download what we need by selecting Windows Debugging Tools under Windows Utilities:

Once we have completed the install process the Debugging Tools directory goes live and we can then move on to downloading definition updates for the Standalone System Sweeper:

We can then install any needed drivers into the bootable ISO image and choose a directory to drop the newly created ISO into.

Once complete we mount the ISO using Virtual CloneDrive and copy the files onto the bootable USB flash drive we will use to boot the server with.

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

Zune Error: Can’t Play C00D11D6 (C00D278F)

We finally managed to get a Zune Pass yesterday by signing up for the one month subscription and then switching it over to the full year.

Once that was done it took a few runs at the Zune software on the PC to get the music and videos to show up as available for download.

Finally, we had music coming down!

Today, we plugged the phone into our shop PC that will be used to manage it for now. Our four (4) devices will be:

1. ZuneHD
2. HTC HD7 Windows Phone Mango
3. Shop PC (switched to office depending on work type)
4. Home Office PC

After plugging in the Mango into the shop PC we received the following:

CAN’T PLAY

The media rights system on your computer has encountered an error and needs to be manually reset.

To see if there’s more information about this error, click Web Help.

ERROR CODE: C00D11D6 (C00D278F)

The link did nothing to help.

A search on the error turned up the following Microsoft Answers page:

• Microsoft Answers: Media Rights system on your computer has encounted (sic) error - C00D11D6 (c00D278f)
• Points to: KB 929642: Error message when trying to sign in to or play content from the Zune Marketplace.

We need to click on: Security component upgrade found in the KB above.

But:

The button is indeed greyed out. So, after closing all IE instances we opened an elevated instance and ended up in the same place: No button.

So, off to the manual steps found in the KB:

1. Click Tools, and then click Internet Options.
2. On the General tab under Browsing History, click Delete.
3. Click all checkboxes in the window and click Delete.
4. Click the Security tab, click Trusted Sites, and then click the Sites button.
5. In the Search box, type *.microsoft.com, click Add, and then click Close.
6. Under the Security tab, click Custom Level.
7. Under Reset custom settings, select Low, and then click Reset.
8. Click OK.
9. Click the Privacy tab.
10. Click the Sites button.
11. In the Search box, type *.microsoft.com, and then click Allow.
12. Click OK.
13. Click Apply.
14. Close all browser windows.
15. Try signing in to Marketplace or playing your content again to see if the problem was fixed. If not, go on to Step 2: Reset the DRM.

Okay, so nothing worked as of yet so off to step 2:

1. Close all open programs.
2. Open a web browser, and then click the following link to run the DRM tool:
   http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=203950&clcid=0x409 (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=203950&clcid=0x409)
3. In the file download dialog box, click Run.
1. Click Save and and then Run As Admin to get this software to work.
4. Accept the Microsoft Software License Terms.
   1.  
5. Click Yes when you receive the following warning message:

   Reset Windows Media DRM now? WARNING: Licenses for purchased Windows Media content and protected recorded television will be lost.

   1. 

6. After the tool finishes, Notepad will open to display a message indicating completion. Scroll to the bottom of the window, and then verify that the message states: “CleanDRM succeeded.” If the Notepad window states: “CleanDRM failed,” follow these steps:
   1. Restart the computer, and then press F8 to start in safe mode.
   2. In Windows XP, click Start, click Run, type %programfiles%\ResetDRM\CleanDRM.exe –v, and then click OK.
      In Windows 7 or in Windows Vista, click Start , type run in the Start Search box, click Run under Programs , type %programfiles%\ResetDRM\CleanDRM.exe –v , and then click OK .
      Note A Notepad widow that contains the text ”CleanDRM succeeded" should display.
   3. Restart the computer.
7. Open the Zune software, sign in, and then try to play DRM-protected content.

It says it succeeded. So, off to reboot we go. Well, after the reboot we could now download and stream content to the shop PC.

Now to figure out how to get the Zune software on this PC to see the music already downloaded to the phone?!?

IMNSHO, DRM is like .NET for patching, the bane of our existence. :(

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

Finally! Zune Pass is Available to Canucks?!?

Microsoft announced last week that we would be getting the new Zune Pass today. After checking earlier this morning the old page was still there.

October 3: 1030Hrs

Not any more!

Oops . . . click on the Get Zune Music Pass link and we get:

Just in case, we signed in using the LiveID that is hooked into both the ZuneHD and the HTC HD7 devices.

And we waited:

And waited . . . and waited. :(

Eventually we saw the first page above with the get it button. And then back to square one: Country not supported.

October 3: 1500Hrs

We now see the following after a long wait:

After selecting the 12-month option and clicking next we were presented with a credit card verification page. We verified that everything was correct and then after waiting yet again:

There must be more than a few Canucks attempting to get one their Zune Passes as the servers are seemingly overloaded! :(

We will try again later on tonight. Hopefully things will not be so overloaded.

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

From Microsoft Canada: An IT Pro Message

Microsoft Canada asked if we could post the following to our fellow IT Professionals and we agreed. Many of the links to Microsoft resources are ones that we use on a regular basis.

Note that we edited the original to reduce the amount of marketing fluff. :0)

Our comments are italicized.

NSAT IT Pro Messaging for the Community

1) Help and Support from Microsoft

The following links are a great resource that Microsoft provides to help us find the answers that we need. One of the things that we notice, especially from the MVP perspective, is that if we don’t go and post our issues/problems on forums or phone in to initiate a support incident with PSS that the issue/problem may slip under the radar . . . even if we see it _a lot_ at other forums like Experts-Exchange.

So, when it comes to situations that Microsoft needs to address, they _are_ listening. We need to do our part to follow through.

Help and Resources

• Microsoft Product Solution Center – Get product support information for the majority of Microsoft products.
• Microsoft Answers – Ask questions and get answers from real people, or search for answers others have received.
• Microsoft Fix it Solution Center – Find automated solutions for your issues.
• @MicrosoftHelps – Follow Microsoft Customer Service and Support on Twitter. Experienced customer service agents respond to your questions in real-time tweets.
• Enterprise Business Center – Access resources for enterprise customers.
• Microsoft Small Business Center – Find resources for small and medium-sized businesses.

Other Resources You May Find Useful

• Microsoft Virtual Academy - For Free Training To Help Improve Your IT Skill Set.
• TechNet Evaluation Center - Try some of the latest Microsoft products like Office 365, Windows Intune or System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012 for free, before you buy.
• TechNet Newsletter - Sign Up To Receive The Latest IT News and Developments, Product Releases, Expert Insights and Support Services with Microsoft's complimentary biweekly newsletter for industry professionals.

2) Security – How to Help Keep Your PC Protected

Even though we wear many hats, keeping our client’s networks secure is a priority. There are many ways about keeping a network secure, but since our primary foundations are Windows Server and Desktop based we need to be aware of Microsoft’s resources for us in the Security field.

If you feel your system has been compromised or has a computer virus – you can call Microsoft's Security and Virus FREE support line at 1-866-727-2338.

Security Resources

• Microsoft Security Essentials – Free Anti-Malware software from Microsoft, great for Small Businesses and Home PCs alike.
• Security Bulletins by the Regular IT Guy – A monthly podcast to help simplify details about the monthly Security patch releases.
• Security TechCenter – Find top tasks, get the latest news, find a wiki article or download a featured tool.
• Windows Update Services – Businesses of all sizes can help manage and control the rollout of updates in their organizations.

Other Resources You May Find Useful

• Springboard Series - Your destination for technical resources, free tools and expert guidance to ease the deployment and management of your Windows-based client infrastructure.
• AlignIT Manager Tech Talk Series - A monthly streamed video series with a range of topics for both infrastructure and development managers. Ask questions and participate real-time or watch the on-demand recording.
• Microsoft Virtual Academy - For Free Training To Help Improve Your IT Skill Set.
• TechNet Evaluation Center - Try some of the latest Microsoft products like Office 365, Windows Intune or System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012 for free, before you buy.

3) Licensing Simplified – at Home and at Work

Licensing. Microsoft Licensing. This is probably one of the biggest areas of struggle for all of us that provide Microsoft based solutions. Just when we think we have what we need in the way of information and direction on how to license a particular solution the SPUR changes or something else changes to throw a monkey wrench in the mix.The links below will help to mitigate those experiences. :)

To add to the links below, the number one licensing site that we visit is the following:

• Microsoft License Advisor

The above linked licensing tool gives us access to all of Microsoft’s licensing programs, the ability to pick and choose which products we are trying to license, and the necessary guidelines for choosing the right program.

FYI: We always license our clients using Open Value Agreement (not subscription) as it provides the best value over the long haul for our clients. Payback is seen in the fourth through six year in SA renewal over OEM.

The link in the paragraph below is to the following blog post:

• Virtualization Team Blog: Beware the VMware Memory vTax Part 2…

Speaking of licensing – I often get asked if I can back up our claims at a more cost effective Virtualization solution for your server rooms.  I dug up a great – no nonsense breakdown on recent licensing changes in the industry and how our offering stacks up.

Licensing Resources

• Licensing FAQs: Frequently Asked Questions About Product Licensing.
• The SMB How to Buy Portal:  receive clear purchasing and licensing information that is easy to understand in order to help facilitate quick decision making.
• Microsoft License Advisor (MLA): Use MLA to research Microsoft Volume Licensing products, programs and pricing.  
• Volume Licensing Service Center (VLSC) – Already have a volume License? Use the VLSC to get you easy access to all your licensing information in one location.
• Windows 7 Comparison: Compare versions of Windows and find out which one is right for you.
• Office 2010 Comparison: Find out which Office suite is right for you.

Other Resources You May Find Useful

• TechNet Cloud Hub - Get the latest news and find great resources to help you jump into the Cloud.
• TechNet Evaluation Center - Try some of the latest Microsoft products like Office 365, Windows Intune or System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012 for free, before you buy.
• Microsoft Virtual Academy - For free training to help improve your IT skill set.

4) Free Online Training and Resources from Microsoft

Training. It is the key to our success. We utilize Microsoft’s resources as well as other third party vendor’s training sites on a regular basis.

Knowledge in untrained hands is a dangerous thing. Being trained, evaluated, and certified on the products we work with goes beyond employability. It is a matter of necessity as we are _responsible_ for our client’s IT solutions.

Having a lab capable of running the various IT solutions we implement is also critical to our success. By building out the solutions in a lab setting we can blow them up, attempt to destroy them, pressure test them, and so much more without killing a production environment.

A TechNet subscription whether direct from them or via the Microsoft Action Pack Subscription is an important part of an IT Solution Provider’s in-house licensing and Microsoft products based lab.

Microsoft has a number of great resources to help you in areas of professional development and access to software.  The Microsoft Virtual Academy contains some fantastic FREE online training on hot topics for IT Professionals.  Once you’ve stopped by and tried out a course or two — head on over to the Microsoft Eval Center to download copies of their server products to try out in your lab environment.  And while you’re at it, check out this free Microsoft Office 365 ebook by Katherine Murray, it shows you how you can use cloud computing to help get more done and help improve ease of collaboration.

***

Hopefully there will be some nuggets of information in the above to help!

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

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Some Awesome Security MVP Reading For Monday’s Coffee Break: Mobile Security Risks

Security MVP Harry Waldron has some great blog posts linking to various information on mobile device security or the lack thereof:

• Harry Waldron – Computer Security News: Android banking malware increases in wild
• Harry Waldron – Computer Security News: Mobile Malware - Increased Attacks during 2011
• Harry Waldron – Computer Security News: Android Malware - Design Strategies using Staged Attacks with User permissions
• Harry Waldron – Computer Security News: Android - Malware turns phone into a proxy relay device

Okay, so maybe these will be good for this afternoon’s coffee break! :)

Man, how the time has flown by this morning!

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