THE OFFICIAL BLOG OF THE SBS DIVA

It's at these times when I'm HERE and a fair amount of people are THERE and I'm not going THERE but am interested in what is happening THERE that .... okay... I'll admit it that I break down and start following Tim's Twitter feeds to see what people are up to ....

Twitter / timbarrett:
http://twitter.com/timbarrett

Yeah I know... sad....

So okay Twitter works when you want to follow an event and you aren't going to be there. 

So on my Windows Live wall I got a private message the other day from someone I had no idea who it was.  And that's when I found out that the new facebooky Live page does not default to privacy.

When you visit your Profile, you see your view of your Profile - which will always include all of the information you've entered about yourself, and all of your activities.

You decide who is allowed to see each piece of information on your Profile (and when they visit it, they'll only see what you've given them permission to see).

To manage permissions, see all of the links below:

So once I did that I found the settings that were concerning:

Yeah we're going to make that one just be people on my network.  Honestly that should be the default anyway in my opinion.  I think we are growing a generation of folks that are a little too open and loosey goosey with sharing information if you ask me.

I'm n Windows Live Messenger 9 here at home and a friend said "oh stick the file up in the shared folder and it will sync up overnight".  So I went into Live Messenger to move the file and found that in version 2009 of Live Messenger the Sharing Folders feature is gone.

The Sharing Folder feature has been discontinued in the latest version of Windows Live Messenger (2009), and replaced with access to Windows Live SkyDrive instead.

The big problem with the Skydrive is the upload file size cap. 

50 MB is the file transfer cap.  Try transfering a large image file with that cap.

This is another reason that I'm not sold on cloud solutions.  I am a little people.  A vendor can yank a feature and I have no say whatsoever.  I had no idea that they yanked shared folders and didn't tell me.

They even are a bit cagey about how it's been removed as a feature.

I had to go to wikipedia to confirm that they were gone.

Frank McCallister - February 27, 2009

http://msmvps.com/blogs/kwsupport/archive/2009/02/27/frank-mccallister-in-memoriam.aspx
http://blog.sbsfaq.com/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?List=269e4081%2Dac58%2D42a6%2D9a54%2D383a6a3fb0d8&ID=301

At a time in one's life that everyone else would be slowing down, Frank was always the one speeding up.  I don't remember when I first saw Frank post in the newsgroups, but I'll probably not forget how I found out about his passing. His daughter let his friends know through a post in Facebook and we all started checking with each other on IM and email to confirm what we hoped wasn't true.  Unfortunately it was true.  That big heart of his finally wore out. 

I'd always get these IM messages from him that would start out "Hi, Susan!".  Sometimes it was a quick ping to clarify something, sometimes it was a "are you seeing this" kind of question.  He'd start out with a "don't want to bother" comment and a ping from Frank was never a bother.  He just helped people. 

So when I went to go searching in google groups to see if I could figure out when the first time I met Frank in the newsgroups, I wasn't at all surprised to find out that he had a Novell family that cared about him just as much as a Microsoft one.  It showcases how much he's been in community all of these years and how long he's been in technology.  Yet he wasn't a kind of guy that stayed in the past.  He did more on Facebook that I do.  He was always one to ask if a Service pack could be tested on real boxes, if we could get access to some beta to better help out, he was always the quiet voice on the conference call asking if he could do more.  And he usually did.

Yes indeed.  Thank you Frank, you were a diamond to us all.  Set Saint Peter up on Facebook while you are up there will you?

"The upgrade process is ugly on a 3 year old system"

"Upgrade path can be ugly"

Windows 7: Trouble on the upgrade path - Apple 2.0:
http://apple20.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2009/02/25/windows-7-trouble-on-the-upgrade-path/

First off, only geeks, people that love to torture themselves and Computer magazines that have turned the corner on "I want to drool about Windows 7" to the "Now I'm ranting to get a headline" UPGRADE to Windows 7.  The rest of the reasonable universe buys new systems. 

When the information technology guys discover how painful it can be to upgrade their current PC hardware to Microsoft’s (MSFT)  Windows 7 — the successor to the much-maligned Windows Vista — they may be tempted to switch to Linux or Apple’s (AAPL) Mac OS X.

When all of my applications get up in the cloud call me.  When all of my line of business stuff runs on anything but Windows, call me.  When any of you guys running these reviews and articles run a BUSINESS instead of a journalism shop where you've been on the Mac platform for years, call me.  Don't give me this "it will run on WINE" crud either.  Or the "oh you can use this alternative Quickbooks killer", no we don't kill off Quickbooks, it's the 800 pound Elephant in the room that we embrace because it's where our business sends out invoices to our customers in.  And the Mac version pales in comparison and the Ubuntu version is non existent.

Oh but you can use Parallels to run Windows on top of your Mac.  Okay but then I'm back to running Windows, aren't I?

Yes, upgrading is hard.  Yes it will be many years that people will be running Windows XP.  It's officially supported until 2015 in fact.  But this idea that tomorrow entrenched businesses are going to move lock stock and barrel to a new platform and buy all new support tools in this economy?

Exactly what are you guys smokin'?

Want the best experience for Windows 7?  You buy it with the hardware.  End of story.  You do not take 3 year old systems and upgrade them.  Only us geeks that want to prove a point do that.  In the meantime all of us who have Vista deployments now will be a good year to two years in our IT knowledge ahead of you guys in your Win7 deployments.  That's why the best path to Win7 is still through Vista. 

But folks, when 7 comes out, your best experience is still, and always will be, with a nice shiny new machine.

- Intuit Community:
http://community.intuit.com/wikis?cid=a7fadd6a3f7a23fffb5e37109a5785dd83b95fa7

Check out the announcement about Online Banking updates for the 2009 QB.

Online Banking 2009 Updates

Background

In redesigning the online banking feature in QuickBooks 2009 we were hoping to provide an easy to use experience for new users to the feature. We are dedicated to listening to your feedback and updating the feature so that it is as easy and efficient to use as previous versions. Please continue to check this page for announcements.

We will be posting announcements on this page. If you any have questions or feedback you would like to share please go to our Online Banking Community Forum or Email Us.

Latest Information

Thank you for your patience and understanding as we work to improve the online banking experience in QuickBooks 2009. We are happy announce that the following updates will become available in late March for QuickBooks Pro, Premier, and Enterprise 2009 solutions:

• You will be able to access other areas of QuickBooks while you have the online banking “Add transactions to QuickBooks” window open. For example:

•  
  • You can go to other QuickBooks forms to create matching transactions. Then when you return to online banking, the downloaded transaction will be matched.
  • If you need to use Items you can go to Write Checks or Record Credit Card Charges to create a matching transaction.
  • You can also refer to your register while you have the online banking window open.

• Performance Improvements

•  
  • For customers with larger files, Online Banking will run faster.

• Other minor changes relating to customer feedback:

•  
  • Full downloaded amount will automatically appear when opening splits and deposits for you to edit.
  • Adjusted screen layouts to correct problems with scroll bars and buttons.

These updates will be available in an automatic update or manual download in late March. For more information on how to turn on automatic updates or manually download this update please see below.


We are continuing to work on updates to the online banking feature in QuickBooks 2009 and will provide more specifics on timing closer to the release date.

How to Get the Updates

• Here’s how you can get the updates (automatically):
  
  1. 1. From the QuickBooks Help menu, choose Update QuickBooks.
  2. 2. Click the Overview tab and click Update Now.
  3. 3. Select the desired downloads in the Update Now window.
  4. 4. Click Get Updates to download your selected updates.
  5. 5. When the Update Complete message appears, click Close.
  6. 6. From the File menu, choose Exit.
  7. 7. Start QuickBooks and click Yes to the message to install the update.
• When the updates are available in late March, you can manually download the updates you can visit our QuickBooks Support Site and selecting the “Updates & Downloads” tab for QuickBooks 2009.

Solve the Quickbooks 2009 Invoice Sending Problem | The OSM Blog:
http://theosmblog.com/2009/02/24/solve-quickbooks-2009-invoice-sending-problem/

The players:

64bit Vista (or Windows 2008)

Quickbooks 2009

And a certain PDF printer that can drive you insane.

Check out that post and bookmark it.

(and a special thanks to Alison Ball of Intuit for the heads up!)

A note from Tony:

Some information for your after using yor blogs for years for help and assistnace...

If you happen to have old DOS / Netware applications that use data off  a network share... yes they are still out there.... and work in vista....

By defualt SBS 2008 has 8dot3 filenames turned off and these old applications will not work..

run cmd as Administrator

fsutil behavior query disable8dot3   ( result of 1 is on  o is off )

fsutil behsvior set disable8dot3 0

REboot required.... but to reset the filenames the data has to be copied off the server, deleted and copied back...file by file...

robocopy to the rescue again...

Thanks for your Help
Regards
Tony

Shout out tonight (this morning) to Shane Scanlon from Comcity Technology in Melbourne Australia. He apparently tortures his staff by making them read my blog.

He passed this along:

Thought Id share this one with you as its a nice tip for the young players: 

If you shutdown the SBS2003 before the demote and remove exchange part. Then restart the SBS2008 server the Exchange Store 
will not mount and the following errors are seen in the Event Logs: (Note name has been changed of the server:domain below
for security reasons)

Note once you demote and remove exchange on the SBS2003 server as per migration guide these errors no longer occur. 

Log Name:      Application
Source:        MSExchange ADAccess
Date:          24/02/2009 7:44:42 PM
Event ID:      2114
Task Category: Topology
Level:         Error
Keywords:      Classic
User:          N/A
Computer:      OCS.Our.local
Description:
Process MSEXCHANGEADTOPOLOGYSERVICE.EXE (PID=2556). Topology discovery failed, error 0x80040952 (LDAP_LOCAL_ERROR (Client-side internal error or bad LDAP message)). 
Look up the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) error code specified in the event description. To do this, use Microsoft Knowledge Base article 218185, "Microsoft LDAP Error Codes." 
Use the information in that article to learn more about the cause and resolution to this error. Use the Ping or PathPing command-line tools to test network connectivity to local domain controllers.
Event Xml:
<Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">
  <System>
    <Provider Name="MSExchange ADAccess" />
    <EventID Qualifiers="49156">2114</EventID>
    <Level>2</Level>
    <Task>3</Task>
    <Keywords>0x80000000000000</Keywords>
    <TimeCreated SystemTime="2009-02-24T08:44:42.000Z" />
    <EventRecordID>16873</EventRecordID>
    <Channel>Application</Channel>
    <Computer>OCS.Our.local</Computer>
    <Security />
  </System>
  <EventData>
    <Data>MSEXCHANGEADTOPOLOGYSERVICE.EXE</Data>
    <Data>2556</Data>
    <Data>80040952</Data>
    <Data>LDAP_LOCAL_ERROR (Client-side internal error or bad LDAP message)</Data>
  </EventData>
</Event>

Log Name:      Application
Source:        MSExchange ADAccess
Date:          24/02/2009 7:45:29 PM
Event ID:      2501
Task Category: General
Level:         Error
Keywords:      Classic
User:          N/A
Computer:      OCS.Our.local
Description:
Process MSEXCHANGEADTOPOLOGY (PID=2556). The site monitor API was unable to verify the site name for this Exchange computer - Call=HrSearch Error code=80040a01. 
Make sure that Exchange server is correctly registered on the DNS server.
Event Xml:
<Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">
  <System>
    <Provider Name="MSExchange ADAccess" />
    <EventID Qualifiers="49156">2501</EventID>
    <Level>2</Level>
    <Task>1</Task>
    <Keywords>0x80000000000000</Keywords>
    <TimeCreated SystemTime="2009-02-24T08:45:29.000Z" />
    <EventRecordID>16998</EventRecordID>
    <Channel>Application</Channel>
    <Computer>OCS.Our.local</Computer>
    <Security />
  </System>
  <EventData>
    <Data>MSEXCHANGEADTOPOLOGY</Data>
    <Data>2556</Data>
    <Data>HrSearch</Data>
    <Data>80040a01</Data>
  </EventData>
</Event>

Log Name:      Application
Source:        MSExchange ADAccess
Date:          24/02/2009 7:45:29 PM
Event ID:      2601
Task Category: General
Level:         Warning
Keywords:      Classic
User:          N/A
Computer:      OCS.Our.local
Description:
Process MSEXCHANGEADTOPOLOGY (PID=2556). When initializing a remote procedure call (RPC) to the Microsoft Exchange Active Directory Topology service, 
Exchange could not retrieve the SID for account <WKGUID=DC1301662F547445B9C490A52961F8FC,CN=Microsoft Exchange,CN=Services,CN=Configuration,...> - Error code=80040a01. 
 The Microsoft Exchange Active Directory Topology service will continue starting with limited permissions.
Event Xml:
<Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">
  <System>
    <Provider Name="MSExchange ADAccess" />
    <EventID Qualifiers="32772">2601</EventID>
    <Level>3</Level>
    <Task>1</Task>
    <Keywords>0x80000000000000</Keywords>
    <TimeCreated SystemTime="2009-02-24T08:45:29.000Z" />
    <EventRecordID>16999</EventRecordID>
    <Channel>Application</Channel>
    <Computer>OCS.Our.local</Computer>
    <Security />
  </System>
  <EventData>
    <Data>MSEXCHANGEADTOPOLOGY</Data>
    <Data>2556</Data>
    <Data>&lt;WKGUID=DC1301662F547445B9C490A52961F8FC,CN=Microsoft Exchange,CN=Services,CN=Configuration,...&gt;</Data>
    <Data>80040a01</Data>
  </EventData>
</Event>

Log Name:      Application
Source:        MSExchangeIMAP4
Date:          24/02/2009 7:46:33 PM
Event ID:      2011
Task Category: (1)
Level:         Error
Keywords:      Classic
User:          N/A
Computer:      OCS.Our.local
Description:
ServicePrincipalName.RegisterServiceClass returned error code -2146892976. The process will exit.
Event Xml:
<Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">
  <System>
    <Provider Name="MSExchangeIMAP4" />
    <EventID Qualifiers="49156">2011</EventID>
    <Level>2</Level>
    <Task>1</Task>
    <Keywords>0x80000000000000</Keywords>
    <TimeCreated SystemTime="2009-02-24T08:46:33.000Z" />
    <EventRecordID>17013</EventRecordID>
    <Channel>Application</Channel>
    <Computer>OCS.Our.local</Computer>
    <Security />
  </System>
  <EventData>
    <Data>-2146892976</Data>
  </EventData>
</Event>


Shane Scanlon
Comcity Technology 
Melbourne Australia

Okay so our elected leaders don't have to live in Facebook, or in Linked in, nor do they have to twitter.  But when you hear that they asked for the web site's "number" one does wonder exactly how often they use the computer.

Biden Asks for Web Site's 'Number' - First 100 Days of Presidency - Politics FOXNews.com:
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/first100days/2009/02/25/biden-slips-asks-websites-number/

I do find that people don't know exactly what a blog is.  Lately due to the word 'twitter' being so thrown about I'm having to explain what it is. 

"Uh well, you do a very short blog post"

"Do these people have nothing better to do?"

"Uh, well, sometimes I do wonder."

One of my coworkers went to twiitter search and found that while he wasn't listed as being 'twiittered" by anyone, my name was.

Something about Mountain Dew and Susan Bradley.  Imagine that coming up in a search.

You really will want this patch if you use Outlook 2007 ...

http://blogs.technet.com/hdavy/archive/2009/02/26/outlook-2007-february-cumulative-update-now-available.aspx

The February Cumulative Update for Outlook 2007 has been released – it contains a significant number of new performance-focused improvements. 

The Outlook team say they especially focused on the areas of starting up and shutting down Outlook, switching between folders with large numbers of messages, calendar reliability and consistency, and general responsiveness of the application when performing common tasks around managing your e-mail, calendar, and other information. In short, they believe your daily experience with Outlook will be greatly improved with the installation of this Cumulative Update.

You can find more info here: http://blogs.msdn.com/outlook/archive/2009/02/25/announcing-the-february-cumulative-update-for-outlook-2007.aspx

The download is here: http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=961752

A whitepaper here: http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=968009

SeanDaniel.com - Small Business Server and Other Technology: How to Synchronize the DSRM password with a Domain User:
http://sbs.seandaniel.com/2009/02/how-to-synchronize-dsrm-password-with.html
KB Article 961320 talks about what’s needed to download (you’ll need to call CSS for the download today, it might be included in server SP2), and then the command line that you need to run to choose which domain account to sync it too.

Actually you don't have to call.  All you need to do is to click on the Hotfix icon and then you can request the hotfix to be emailed to you.

It's still VERY confusing that it just says Vista but remember that Vista and Server2k8's codebase is the same.

Literally within seconds you get your hotfix.

Hotfix download link you requested!

"From a revenue perspective, we are introducing a new low-cost, low-price, low-functionality Windows Server SKU. If you take a look at it, as server prices, hardware prices have come down, we don't exactly have a netbook phenomenon. But if somebody can buy a $500 server, they're a little loth to spend $500 for the server operating system that goes with it. So we have something that's akin to netbook at the server level, and we'll be introducing our Foundation Edition over the next month or two."

Microsoft Watch - Corporate - Foundation Server Is Foundation for What?:
http://www.microsoft-watch.com/content/corporate/foundation_server_is_foundation_for_what.html?kc=MWRSS02129TX1K0000535

In the newsgroup someone posted in a post similar to this:

My program crashed.  Any ideas of a fix? 

Okay one can not really begin a diagnoses with that.  The people in the managed newsgroups are not mind readers and can't conjure up what application you installed, what change you made, how long it hasn't been working, when it was last working or any sort of reasonable beginnings of troubleshooting.

Remember to make sure you explain what you were doing when it broke, when it last worked, what did you change since then.  And don't forget that antivirus can update on you as well.

But here's some tips for gathering the information to make a good diagnoses.

For the quickest resolution to your posted issues, please remember the following:
 
1. Include the following details about the Computer exhibiting the Problem:
    Version installed:
    Service Packs Applied:
    Affected application version and Service Pack:
    Other applications on the box:
    Antivirus Software / Version:
    Processor:
    Memory:
    Hotfixes Installed

2. Details about **other** Computers, for example a client machine, if applicable
    Operating System and Service Pack:
    Applications:
    Antivirus Software / Version:

3. Details about the Network, if applicable:
    Internet Connection Type:
    Number of NICs in the server:
    Firewall/Proxy:
    Network Topology particulars:

 
4. Details about the issue:
    Full, complete error message wording or screenshot:
    When did the issue first occur?
    What changes were made around that time?
    Steps to reproduce if any:
    Any Additional Information you think would be helpful
 
* * The fastest resolution is a targeted diagnosis of possible causes. * *   

Join the movement to phase out Internet Explorer 6 (IE6) forever. Upgrade your browser and tell your friends.:
http://www.stoplivinginthepast.com/

Don't you think it's about time to kill off IE6?  And if there is a vendor holding you back... ask them why are they holding you back?

In order to remotely manage and patch Vista, you need to tweak and reenable the remote registry service.

To do this via group policy, build a policy that turns it on like this:

The group policy setting is under computer configuration, Windows settings,
Security settings, System services.

Scroll to "remote registry", define policy setting, choose to make it
automatic.

Voila.

You'll need to do the same for Win7

https://training.partner.microsoft.com/plc/details.aspx?publisher=12&delivery=260615

Wednesday, February 25, 2009 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM
Time Zone : (GMT+10:00) Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney

The other day Eric Ligman posted this to his blog and I waited a few days to see what the responses would be.  In my opinion, not enough comments have been made.  The biggest problem I see with community these days is that sometimes the loudest voices (including mine at times) are too negative.  Sometimes I worry that because only the loudest voices carry, that the real community, that of the quiet ones that don't speak up, aren't being properly heard.

Even if you think you aren't impacted by community, if you read only this blog, you are.  I'm impacted by community and thus so are you.

So do me a favor, and let Eric know how you've been impacted by community.

http://blogs.msdn.com/mssmallbiz/archive/2009/02/19/9434463.aspx

“Community” is one of those interesting words that gets used in many different places and many different ways. When you look at your business, how important is “Community” to you and your business? Also, how do you define “Community?”

For instance, there is the Microsoft Small Business Specialist Community (SBSC). This is a “community” setup by Microsoft for Partners focusing on SMB around the world. Also, many of you belong to SMB, Partner, or SBS Groups in your areas. Those too are types of “Communities,” would you agree? Or how about the online “Communities” I see so many of you in where you go for information, support, or to converse with your peers? Then there are the social networking types of “Communities” as well.

When you look at the world of business, most every business exists to make money in some way (even non-profits “make” money, they just spend what the make and break even, ideally). The concept of “Community” does not often have that direct correlation to revenue generation though, yet it shows up in so many different business models and environments and there are so many differing opinions on it.

So what I would be very interested in hearing from you is, how do you define “Community,” and how important has “Community” been to your business so far (in any regard, whether growth, startup, revenue, people, etc.) and how important do you see “Community” being to your business today and in the future? For those of you who know me, I am sure you know my take on this; however, this is about your input and thoughts.

There was an interesting post on smbitpros blog the other day:

» When did sales become a dirty word? smbITpros.com : a resource for managed service providers and other small business IT professionals:
http://smbitpros.com/2009/02/19/when-did-sales-become-a-dirty-word/

And I was reminded of it today.  Why is it that overt 'selling' is seen as slimy?  Don't we all "sell" to a certain extent?  Aren't we all 'slimy vendor' to someone out there? Is slimy selling like P_rn?  You know it when you see it?   

I think we all are.  I just think we need to be a bit more sensitive to how we are all vendors to someone and we all sell.