SMB Kitchen ASP Project Chat at 1700 MST - Join Us!

We are holding our last freebie author's chat this afternoon/early evening depending on where you are in North America or later for those of you across the Pond. :)

• SMB Kitchen ASP Project Webinar Lync Link

For Windows 8 and up please install Lync from the Store. Once installed and logged into the meeting hit the Charms --> Settings to verify both microphone and speaker settings.

We will cover some of the content we have published to date, some of the ongoing concerns for IT Professionals today, and what we are planning on publishing in the coming weeks.

If we have time we can have a Virtualization and Hyper-V Q&A session too!

Philip Elder
Microsoft Cluster MVP
MPECS Inc.
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

Chef de partie in the SMBKitchen ASP Project
Find out more at
Third Tier: Enterprise Solutions for Small Business

SMB Kitchen: Hyper-V Q&A Chat this Tuesday December 17th at 1800 EDT and 1600MDT

SMB Kitchen subscribers please join me on Tuesday to have a chat about all things Hyper-V.

Hyper-V Deployment and Clustering

It's time to ask Phil Elder, Hyper-V Deployment and Clustering expert, anything you ever wanted to know on the topic. He's been deploying this stuff since Longhorn (which for those not in the know was the code name for Server 2008) which is when Hyper-V really came into its own. He's shed a lot of blood, sweat, tears and lab hours to get these deployments down to a science. So if you want to ask an expert about your configuration, upcoming project, performance issues, BIOS settings, hardware selection, Phil is your man.

Need pointers in your deployment? Then this is the chat session you want to attend.

This would be a good time to jump in and get some guidance on the how/what/when/where and why Hyper-V.

Philip Elder
Microsoft MVP
MPECS Inc.
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

Chef de partie in the SMBKitchen
Find out more at
Third Tier: Enterprise Solutions for Small Business

SMBKitchen Project: Author's Chat on now!

SMBKitchen Project subscribers our Author's Chat is just starting! Check your e-mail for the link.

As an FYI, part of the SMBKitchen Project subscription is access to us authors on a monthly basis via Lync and also via the Third Tier ticketing system.

During the chat we do some presenting on new content in the SMBKitchen Project knowledgebase and a Q&A session.

Please use the full Lync client as the Web client does not pick up audio properly at this time.

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

Chef de partie in the SMBKitchen
Find out more at
www.thirdtier.net/enterprise-solutions-for-small-business/

Windows Live Writer

Live Meeting – Intel Modular Server Initial Start Up And Configuration

We have scheduled a Live Meeting for Friday morning at 0800Hrs Mountain Time.

We will be firing up a newly assembled Intel Modular Server for the first time, updating its firmware on all the requisite modules, and then doing some base configuration of the unit.

Items to be covered:

• IMS product configuration
• Intel Product Support site access and product downloads.
• Intel Unified Firmware Update v6.1 applied after initial CMM Boot.
• Various module firmware updates post UFU
• Storage Pool configuration
• Virtual Disk configuration
• IMS Q & A

The various processes for updating the firmware can take a bit of time, so we have scheduled 90 minutes for this broadcast.

If you have questions about the IMS, then this would be a good time to ask as the Q&A feature will be enabled in the LiveMeeting.

• Live Meeting: Intel Modular Server First Time Fire Up
• Friday July 9, 2010
• 0800Hrs Mountain Standard

A Live Meeting Attendee link can also be found on our Web site Calendar.

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

Live Webinars – When Is Good For You?

Please take a moment to fill out the following poll on our Web site:

• MPECS Inc Site Survey: Online Webinars

In an effort to give as many folks as possible the ability to be a part of our upcoming live Webinars, we would like to know when would be the best time to do so.

Please let us know what time is good and also whereabouts you are in the world so that we can begin planning our upcoming Webinar Schedule.

We have done some live Webinars for South Africa, Ireland, and India. So, if enough folks from any given region respond, we will make the effort to be present at a time convenient to you!

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 Modular Server Configuration and Live Migration LiveMeeting Tomorrow AM

Here is an invitation that has a little bit more lead time to it! ;)

We will run through some of the configuration processes that we went through to get the Intel Modular Server configured for a highly available Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 cluster.

We will have a highly available SBS 2008 VM as well as a Windows 7 Enterprise x64 VM running on the cluster to use for the Live Migration.

Where:

• LiveMeeting: IMS Config and Live Migration

When:

• January 15, 2010 at 0700Hrs Mountain Standard Time (GMT-7).

There is also a link on our Web site.

We will try and record the LiveMeeting.

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

Third Tier Webinar with Susan Bradley on Patching Tomorrow

Third Tier offers Webinars on various subjects as part of their ongoing commitment to the SBS/SMB community.

Tomorrow, Susan Bradley the SBS Diva will be speaking on WSUS and patch management and all that entails.

•  Third Tier with Susan Bradley LiveMeeting Link
• Outlook Calendar item for the event.

The Third Tier post: Third Thursday with special guest Susan Bradley.

Susan provided some awesome feedback and encouragement back in the early days of this blog. To this day, I can still remember the first time I saw her site’s referral link and my following back to her blog post and the really big smile that hit my face.

Along with Susan, there were others that provided some key encouragement that really helped to get past those moments of discouragement when I thought that this blog was going nowhere.

Thanks Susan!

And thank you all that have supported us here by your comments, encouragement, and of course, 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)

Windows Live Writer

SBS 2003 to SBS 2008 Live Migration Poll Results And ETA

The poll results were almost 50/50 for those that would actually watch the migration live versus downloading later:

So, we will be looking to schedule the live migration in for a day near the middle of September to give everyone a chance to schedule at least some time to visit.

Once the migration has completed, the recording of the event will be made available for download to view at your leisure.

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)

Windows Live Writer

Just finished an SBS 2008 Setup Webinar for the folks in Johannesburg South Africa!

Greetings to the folks in Johannesburg!

It is 0400hrs (4AM), and Harry and I just wrapped up a Webinar running through a Small Business Server 2008 setup routine as well as a few of the post OS install configuration steps using our SBS 2008 Setup Checklist.

We also went through some of the key new features in Group Policy, Exchange, SharePoint, and Terminal Services among others.

We have another big day ahead of us today too … though it will be shorter so as to catch up on some rest. :)

Thank you to all of those that participated in today’s Webinar. And, thanks for the questions and keen interest in SBS 2008!

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!

Windows Live Writer

SBS 2008 Setup Webinar Continued - Tomorrow

If you enjoyed last month's SBS 2008 Setup Webinar, then please join us tomorrow morning at 09:00AM Mountain Standard for the continuation of that SBS 2008 setup: SBS 2008 Setup Part II: Client-side.

We will run through the various Getting Started Tasks, connect a client or two to the SBS network, and run through some of SBS' new features.

Please join us if you have the time!

Sorry about the short notice, with my being down with the flu, things have fallen a bit behind.

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.

Missed the Vista or SBS Webinars? Download them

The end of last month was very busy for us.

On Wednesday October 29 I had a small part in the Winning with Windows Vista Webinar facilitated by Satish Kanwar and Matt Wolodarsky who is a product manager with Microsoft Canada.

Matt speaks about a new program for small businesses is being introduced here in Canada called the Vista Small Business Assurance Program. The program will provide one-on-one free high level support for new Vista users.

I spent a little time focused on how we Microsoft Partners can augment our Windows Vista skills and develop a passion for the product by knowing its feature set. One way to do that is to get Windows Vista Software Assurance and tack on the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack for our small I.T. company. Check out the Webinar for more info.

You can download the Webinar after logging onto the Microsoft Event's Web site.

The second Webinar that I participated was on Thursday October 30: SBS 2008 Setup Webinar.

With Harry Brelsford, my co-author for our upcoming SBS 2008 Blueprint book, we ran through an SBS 2008 setup from start to nearly finished. The setup was without an Answer File so everyone could see what the setup routine would look like.

While the install was running we fielded lots of questions from attendees ... and there were a lot of you! :)

Thank you for the great questions, and especially to those who challenged me on some mistakes that I had made in what I did or said!

All in all, the SBS 2008 Setup Webinar was a blast ... even with the stalled VM at the beginning.

Check it out. We had a blast, and judging by all of the feedback we received once the Webinar completed, so did a lot of you that listened live.

Hopefully we will have a few more Webinars in the coming months. I am certainly looking forward to it!

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.

Intel i7 Webinar

Intel is putting on a Webinar on the new i7 series processors here: Intel i7 Webinar.

The problem:

Logon Fail

Okay, so maybe the Internet connection here is behaving flaky which it very well may be since the connection keeps dropping.

Log into another one of our sites via RWW and try again, and we get the same result.

When the connection was eventually made, the audio portion of the presentation kept dropping.

The service was facilitated by Adobe's online services.

All in all, the whole experience was quite frustrating. This is very surprising considering that the presenter is Intel and they are utilizing Adobe for their online services.

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.

SBSC - Winning with Windows Vista Webinar in 15 minutes

Folks, if you have an hour to have a listen, we have a Webinar for you: Winning with Windows Vista.

I will be participating in the Webinar providing some feedback on how we are shaping our client's Vista options via our own passion for Windows Vista and it's features.

A little Partner perspective for Partners! :)

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 2008 - Setup Webinar this Thursday

I will be facilitating an SBS 2008 setup Webinar with my co-author Harry Brelsford this Thursday evening at 18:00hrs Mountain Standard: SMB Nation Webinars. The registration link is there.

We will run through the SBS 2008 setup process, talk a bit about the book and its contents, and address some of our SBS 2008 setup experiences to date.

It should be informative and give you an opportunity to see an SBS setup process live.

From the above link:

SBS 2008 Setup Webinar, October 30th 5PM PDT: Join Philip Elder and Harrybbb (we are writing the forthcoming Small Business Server 2008 Blueprint title) for a complimentary 90-minute Webinar sponsored by HP/Microsoft FLP on Thursday, October 30 at 5:00PM PDT (UTC\GMT-7 right now until early next month).

You will specifically witness the SBS 2008 server-side setup process, learn more about the pre-requisite step of configuring your router\firewall FIRST BEFORE YOU DO ANYTHING and the exact use of the answer file. There will be a presentation at mid-point by HP and then you will have plenty of time to ask all the questions that you have.

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.

Half an hour until Blog Talk Radio! :)

Coffee is on ...

Please join Stuart Crawford, Karl Palachuk, Amy Babinchuk and myself as we talk about what it means to be a small I.T. shop professional.

It's not like we have not expressed our opinions about being professional in this blog before eh? ;)

Link: Blog Talk Radio.

Thanks for reading! :)

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.

Blog Talk Radio- On Being Professional as SMB Consultants this Friday

Stuart Crawford hosts a regular discussion on Blog Talk Radio called Small Business IT.

This Friday, Stuart will be hosting:

• MVP Stuart Crawford
• MVP Amy Babinchak
• Karl Palachuk
• Philip Elder - um, me! ;)

We are going to talk about small IT shops and professionalism. How do we maintain professionalism and what do we do when we encounter IT consultants who do not operate in a professional manner.

The chat should be about an hour long. So, if you have an hour to spare, have a listen!

Here is the registration link: Being Professional as SMB Consultants.

UPDATE: Show is at 10:00AM Mountain.

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.

SBSC - Winning with Windows Vista Webinar

As much as the perception, and in our opinion it is a perception, of Windows Vista has been somewhat negative, we have had great results with Vista on a number of different fronts:

• Group Policy
• Search
• Security

We have an upcoming exclusive Small Business Specialist Community Exclusive Event that is focused on Windows Vista and I will be providing some of the feedback on our Vista related experiences.

The LiveMeeting: Winning with Windows Vista on October 29, 2008 at 14:00 Eastern.

Like or don't like Windows Vista? Now is your opportunity to give voice to those experiences.

Some of the points to be covered in the Webinar:

• Learn about the journey of Windows Vista since launch and get the facts that will prepare you for your SMB customer conversations.
• Find out about the programs and investments Microsoft is making to drive Windows Vista in SMB, including an update on a new offer called Windows Vista Small Business Assurance.
• Discover the resources and tools available to support you in landing Windows Vista with your SMB customers.
• Hear from another SBSC partner about successful strategies for getting SMB customers to adopt Windows Vista.
• Learn about Windows Vista and how it can help your customers.

Note the fourth point! That is where all of us SBSCs can chime in! :)

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.