James Moody: Geek in Paradise

As I posted earlier, Honolulu happened to be graced with a TS2 seminar 2 days ago. It’s about time!

Woody Walton was the presenter for the topics that included Managed Services, System Center Essentials, Exchange 2007/Communicator/etc. and Forefront line of products. He did an excellent job of getting the pertinent information out to the attendees.

He demo’d System Center Essential 2007 for us, and although I have it in my Action Pack, I haven’t had the chance to install it and play with it yet. The demo got me drooling however, so that may be on the list to do once I finish an office move for one of my clients.

The majority of the Forefront presentation was on the Client Security offering. Since I’ve been using it in the home office, I had a good working knowledge of it already, and managed to net me a SBS 2003 neoprene CD holder for answering the only question presented to us. I r smart. He did let us know that the next line of Forefront products being developed are under the code name "Stirling", for those fascinated by code names.

He also gave us a live demo of the automated voice attendant used to access his e-mail, calendar, voicemail, etc. back in Redmond. I had only read about the feature so seeing it in action was pretty impressive. He did run into some problems with it recognizing his voice input since he was using speaker phone, but I got the gist of the usefulness of the offering. He also ran a video of a "Devil wears Prada" spoof demonstrating the power of the complete offering. Great display of the possible uses of the technology, and funny to boot. The Roundtable hardware looked very cool for those that teleconference with multiple people present in 1 room. Availability is very limited for the Roundtable device though.

Also covered were various VOIP phones, including the Catalina USB Phone and a phone with Communicator embedded, which traverses firewalls. He stated he has a co-worker that’s taken the phone overseas, plugged it into the hotel internet, and was then able to access his information back at the office. Very cool technology.

During our 1 break, I made it down to introduce myself and see if he recognized the Blue Monster, which I use on my business card. He hadn’t, so I explained to him the basics and gave him the info to find more on it. He was very intrigued, to say the least and said he’d definitely get more info on the little guy. I also made him aware that "Centro" had been given a name that morning, which he wasn’t aware of at the time. He probably wished I hadn’t told him, as he referred to it by the full name the rest of the seminar instead of "Centro" (luckily, he had covered what he needed of "Centro" before the break, so it wasn’t much). Sorry!

All in all, a great experience start to finish. Some of the attendees (Microsoft Partners) were making snide remarks and chuckles as he covered some of the material, so I can see now where Vlad gets his "riff-raff" from. A minor annoyance, but nothing that detracted from the entire experience.

On the way out, I talked with one of the guys that sat at the table (didn’t get the name as they were packing it up) and he said TS2 had plans to make it out at least twice a year now. Good news considering they hadn’t been out since I became a Partner over a year ago.

Here’s to seeing more events in Hawaii!

I have another post coming soon covering something I found very interesting in the IT market here in Hawaii. Surprised the hell out of me, for sure.

Tags: Microsoft TS2 Exchange 2007 Communications Server Communicator Forefront Managed Services Action Pack Stirling SBS 2003 VOIP RoundTable Catalina Centro Business Essentials Server Blue Monster Honolulu Hawaii System Center Essential

Craziness.

Microsoft is actually making their way out to Honolulu for a TS2 Event this coming November 7th at the Dole Cannery Theater. I’ve always wanted to attend one of these and see what Microsoft has to offer in events like this. It’s only a half day event and will cover Business topics, as well as SBS, Systems Center, Operations Manager, Vista and Security.

It would have been cooler if they had Mobile technologies on tap now that I have a Dash to play with. It makes me feel even more geekier once I found out Steve Clayton has the same phone as I. Geek in Disguise….Geek in Paradise…maybe we’re cosmically linked somehow…

So, if you happen to be in Honolulu Nov. 7th, make sure to head over to the TS2 Registration page and reserve your seat.

Maybe they’ll treat us to a free movie afterwards…

Tags: Microsoft TS2 SBS Systems Center Operations Manager Vista Dole Cannery Dash Steve Clayton

I’m sure most businesses that provide Technical services have had this experience. The company has an “IT Guy”, you know, the one that setup an XP Pro box to serve files for their small business. He’s a genius to the company because of this. What happens when something comes up that he doesn’t understand? He calls in an outside consultant to get their take on the issue.

I happened to get one of these calls recently. So I arranged a meeting with the “IT Guy” to see what was going on and offer my services.

It started out straightforward. Meet and greet, etc. He comes across as knowledgeable enough. I ask him what issues he’s having.

It turns out the small business has grown quite a bit. The network is now 20 computers strong and people can’t access the file shares. I ask if he checked the permissions for the users on the share to ensure they were allowed access. He didn’t understand. Bells went off in my head.

What OS are you using for the file server? XP Pro.

Perfect, an opportunity to set this growing business up with a Server box that could scale with their growth. We talk some more and I explain why they’re seeing the issue and what I can do to correct it for them. We take a walk through their network. Consumer level router, multiple 4-port switches connecting the 20 machines. It’s a mish-mash of cabling. I talk to a couple of engineers and they talk about slow network performance on the file share. More goodness, they need more work than just a file server. I talk to the owner, and contrary to the “IT Guy’s” statement, the owner wanted to be able to access files from home. I’ve yet to meet an owner that didn’t want that capability. Terminal Services. Good stuff.

I let him know I’ll draw up a proposal for the file server since that is their most pressing need at the time.

I drop it off and check in with him a couple of days later. He lets me know that he’s going to do the work himself. HUH?

Sensing the impending doom to that company’s network, I send the owner an e-mail and arrange a meeting personally with him. I talk to him about his “IT Guy” and what certifications he’s obtained, etc. It turns out that the “IT Guy” was an engineer just like everyone else, who happened to know a little about Windows. We talked some more and I explained in detail what was happening in the company network, why they were experiencing certain issues and the solutions that could be put in place correctly to better enable his company going forward.

They are now working on arranging funds for me to perform the Server installation and get them on a “real network”, followed in the future by new network infrastructure, remote access, firewall, managed services, etc.

Some may think it’s not the right thing to go around the “IT Guy”, but if something doesn’t feel right, it’s in that company’s best interest to step in and take over. The owner in my case was unaware of issues in the office, other than the fact that he could never access the file share for 6 months and worked from his data locally. It’s not like I’m making the “IT Guy” lose his job either, as he’s still an engineer first and foremost, he just doesn’t have the knowledge to run a proper network.

I’d love to hear any stories others may have had and how they managed to get around the “IT Guy”.

Tags: IT Guy Network Server Microsoft XP

I received a Partner e-mail this morning touting the all new Microsoft Solution Finder to better connect me with customers. That’s good! Heading over to the new search page, I got an immediate sinking feeling that they just made it a lot harder to connect me with customers. There is no option whatsoever to search for Solution Providers by Zip code. Big no-no in my humble opinion. To search for solutions by Zip Code, you need to go to the Advanced Search page, where the user can then search by Zip code.

 Here is where it all falls apart.

If I search for the Zip code where my business is registered, I turn up on page 3 of the Partners tab behind all the Gold and Certified Partners. Not bad, just what I’d expect. Being a solo businessman, I fully expect to be listed behind the big players.

Now, if I search for the next zip code over from me, I can be found on page 22 behind such Microsoft solution providing powerhouses as the YMCA, a Bail bondsman, tons of CPA’s (no way to tell if they’re MPAN cert’d or not) and just plain person names with no profile listed whatsoever. I think it would be pretty easy to tell which “registered members” are just using the Partner Program to get basically free software for their own use with no intention whatsoever of using it to provide Microsoft based solutions to customers.

The new Solution Finder pretty much stinks. On the old one, it sorted results by qualifications so I could be found on Page 2 no matter what zip code was searched for on the island. Now, it weights the results on location, qualifications be damned. I’m sure Mr. Bail Bondsman would gladly setup a SBS Box for your new company!

I also came across Chris’ rant on the new finder over at welcome to the funcave regarding the same thing. There are probably more to be found out there.

Update: Tim Long weighs in with his take on the matter.

Tags: Microsoft Solution Finder Small Business Specialist