THE OFFICIAL BLOG OF THE SBS "DIVA" : Oferized

Ofer Shimrat, you can just look at him to know that when he builds a server, it's there to last.

bradley — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 06:22:00 GMT

Ofer Shimrat, you can just look at him to know that when he builds a server, it's there to last.
Join us on Thursday to talk about hardware, servers, and what it means to build an Oferized server.

VARvid - Video for Microsoft Partners: Ofer Shimrat from SoundOff Computing speaks with Aaron Booker of Varvid.com - SMB NATION 2008:
http://www.varvid.com/2008/10/ofer-shimrat-from-soundoff-computing-speaks-with-aaron-booker-of-varvidcom---smb-nation-2008.html

When: Thursday, Mar 19, 2009 6:30 PM (PDT)
Where: 
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The Oferized view of Microsoft Support

bradley — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 23:04:00 GMT

Ofer Shimrat, whom I am excited and honored to be giving a presentation with at www.smbnation.com in October always has such wisdom... here's his view of the change in support that Microsoft just announced:

Ofer Shimrat - BSIT, MCPS, MCNPS

SOUNDOFF Computing Corporation

TEL: (858) 569-0300

FAX: (858) 569-0303

EML: ofer@soundoffcomputing.com

URL: www.soundoffcomputing.com

"We welcome the opportunity to be of service"

Aware of Microsoft’s SBS support announcement “changes” I read with interest Karl's post, Susan's incisive thoughts and Vlad's lavishly worded follow up.

I must say with all due respect that once again I disagree with Karl and whole-heartedly agree with Vlad and Susan - but for differing reasons.

My take - the proliferation of TOO MANY Action Packs, too many MPAN and other “resources” have hit CRITICAL MASS.

There is no more FREE LUNCH.

The amateur’s house of cards is tumbling and along with $ 5.00 per gallon gas (here in Southern California) its panic time.

To the amateur, ANY and ALL situations that require technical prowess to rectify are a potential SERVER DOWN – it’s like crying WOLF.

So Microsoft said NO more. They too have to run a business – and now WITHOUT Bill Gates.

The perception that this profession is SO easy that anyone can do it sprinkled with over-dose marketing that anyone can MANAGE it (as in services) thereby being profitable at it WITHOUT having the technical prowess and expertise is – like $ 5.00 gas - NOT SUSTAINABLE.

To put it a different way - too many SALESMAN and too few EXPERTS.

Allow me to reiterate an observation I made back in May 2007 titled The Symphony of SBS –

http://msmvps.com/blogs/bradley/archive/2007/05/19/the-symphony-of-sbs.aspx

“Too often in the field I encounter previous deployments of SBS from people who had NO business even attempting to install it let alone deploy it – bad hardware, enterprise MCSE’s mindset, NO wizards, poor business judgment, just in it for the money, geeky friend-of-a-friend, apprentice-in-training, or SMB charlatans that simply do not take the time to learn and MASTER their trade and do not rise up to their own lack of knowledge.

It’s the $ 399 servers – it’s the lets-not-install-all-the-features syndrome because they won’t use it yet so I-can-make-more-money-later – it’s the hardware/software/networking corners they cut at every juncture to maximize the almighty profit – it’s the ATTITUDE that they are in business JUST to make money and the client be damned – it’s the lack of imagination when confronting a tech support problem that almost ALWAYS has been confronted by someone before and SOLVED, and if not at minimum, addressed already in abundant detail in blogs all over the Internet.”

I view this Microsoft announcement as a good thing – a good thing for the SALESMAN that is part of a technically proficient organization that is attuned to their client best interests – a good thing for the EXPERT to redouble his/her efforts in following Best Practices and building robust scalable solutions for their clientele – all involving SBS that will continue to serve the SMB space well – as long as it PROPERLY implemented by COMPETENT consultants.

In short - GOOD NEWS for the professional and technically proficient consultancy.

The symphony of SBS

bradley — Sat, 19 May 2007 23:35:00 GMT

It's time for another Oferized blog post The pearls of wisdom and thoughts of Ofer Shimrat.
Ofer talks about his views on Karl's post - http://smallbizthoughts.blogspot.com/2007/05/death-of-sbs.html
With his kind permission, I've reprinted his post to the SMBTN yahoogroup listserve here:

Greetings:

With all due respect to the author and my colleagues in this group – below is one man’s opinion.

SBS is not dead. Lets drop ALL pretenses here. Allow me to digress.

Take a moment to think of your metropolitan symphony orchestra at the city where you live. Think of the violins, the violas, the cello, bass, trumpets, clarinets, oboes, the percussion, the piano, et al. Imagine how hard it is to MASTER just one - ONLY one - of those instruments your whole life so that you can be good enough to play at a metropolitan symphony level organization. Now imagine knowing EVERYTHING there is to know about those instruments and when EXACTLY they come in or when they stay quiet, how subtle their tone or how inflective their cadence.

Are you imagining all this?

Good – because that is what the orchestra conductor does – and in addition, he has to know the entire ORIGINAL symphony composition, as the composer WROTE it, by heart in order to REALLY excel at what he/she does.

Rhetorically, what sets symphony conductors APART? Why is the New York Philharmonic Orchestra better than the Fargo Philharmonic Orchestra (no offense to North Dakotans)?

Why?

Among other things, talent, practice, mastery of the subject matter, humility and passion - the conductor has to know it ALL – and it HAS to be BY THE BOOK – or score, in this case.

By the book.

Metaphorically speaking, as consultants in the SMB space selling, installing, deploying, implementing and maintaining SBS – we ARE conductors. And as good SBS consultants we are akin to good symphony conductors. We have to know MUCH more than the average MCSE in a single particular area of expertise. There are MANY more fields that we have to have robust knowledge of in order to be considered good at what we do.

On a business level we have to determine the business need, the desired outcome and the methodology to get there. On a technology level we have to master not ONE server product, but SEVERAL server products bundled in SBS. We have to master not ONE piece of hardware but SEVERAL pieces of hardware to corroborate the desired outcome with SBS. We have to master not ONE piece of software but SEVERAL pieces of software in order to make the client machines function PREDICTABLY with SBS – you get the picture.

Rocket science, perhaps.
RTFM, definitely.
Profit, no doubt.
Common sense, for sure.
Humility, always helpful.
The customer’s best LONG TERM interest at heart, YES.

What makes good SBS consultants like good conductors – what separates application developers from code monkeys – what differentiates people that are GOOD at what they do versus people who are charlatans?

What?

It’s the innate ability to recognize when the technology you are offering does NOT match the NEED of the customer NOR the outcome they desire. It’s the silly and somewhat unethical compromises that unfortunately many SMB consultants make in order to sell themselves so that they can cement the DEAL, irrespective of the LONG TERM interest of their client.

It’s the $ 399 servers – it’s the lets-not-install-all-the-features syndrome because they won’t use it yet so I-can-make-more-money-later – it’s the hardware/software/networking corners they cut at every juncture to maximize the almighty profit – it’s the ATTITUDE that they are in business JUST to make money and the client be damned – it’s the lack of imagination when confronting a tech support problem that almost ALWAYS has been confronted by someone before and SOLVED, and if not at minimum, addressed already in abundant detail in blogs all over the Internet.

Too often in the field I encounter previous deployments of SBS from people who had NO business even attempting to install it let alone deploy it – bad hardware, enterprise MCSE’s mindset, NO wizards, poor business judgment, just in it for the money, geeky friend-of-a-friend, apprentice-in-training, or SMB charlatans that simply do not take the time to learn and MASTER their trade and do not rise up to their own lack of knowledge.

That counter-productive behavior will yield lots and LOTS of tech support calls to Tier 1 support at Microsoft – lots and LOTS of frustration at spending HOURS with someone in China, India, the US or Belgium to de-construct BAD decisions made by the consultant EARLY on in the planning phase – decisions, TIME and resources that would have made all the difference had it been done early on PROACTIVELY instead of late-after-the-fact REACTIVELY – decisions that should have been tested in development before being put in production.

In a perverse kind of way it’s PAYBACK for poor judgment.

How?

As good consultants, we have to be able to correctly match the needs of our clients with technology offerings, stay within a reasonable budget and subsequently equal or in most cases strive to EXCEED the prevailing expectations – that enhances our reputation, brings us additional word of mouth business and sets us APART from other run-of-the mill consultants in our SMB space – or ANY space for that matter.

And for the MOST part, if we have followed Best Practices, did it by the book as Microsoft intended, had good hardware and had our client’s Best Interests at Heart – for the most part – the SBS deployments and server/network operation are flawless. Again, stuff happens, hardware fails, software get corrupted - when it does the good consultant will exhaust the plethora of available resources – Susan, Wayne, Jeff, Andy, Chad, Anne, Vlad, Mariette, etc – before even THINKING about soliciting formal tech support from Tier 1 level from someone who is alarmed – ALARMED – at the fact that there is no users in the usual AD hive as part of the “troubleshooting” process in SBS.

I manage, by MYSELF, more than 70 servers in over 50 SBS customer sites with hundreds of workstations and I do it by the book – as the designers, planners, developers and programmers intended it. Just for kicks, at the risk of eliciting all kinds of comments from the community, I even have one customer site where their SBS 2003 SP1 server (Gateway hardware) has been up for 504 days – that’s a year and half – without ever being rebooted or going down – yes I did patch it for DST.

So I will have to agree with select previous posts from Susan, Tony, Anne, Jeff, et al and say that MOST of the issues encountered REACTIVELY are as a result of poor PROACTIVE initial deployment. Because just like a good conductor pays homage to the ORIGINAL composition, a good SBS consultant pays homage to the original designers by planning, deploying, installing, configuring and maintaining SBS by the book.

Can you imagine an SBS installation that is NOT done by the book and then what a surprise – needs tech support.

Can you imagine a conductor of an orchestra that is playing a Mozart piece suddenly digress and play Stravinsky?

Do you think the AUDIENCE or the MUSICIANS would REQUIRE tech support at that juncture?

SBS is not dead – it’s here and thriving Thank-You-Very-Much - what should be retired ASAP is the concept of poor implementations, lets-wing-it, bad judgment, incompetent work and arrogance.

My diatribe concludes by saying that it’s all about the BOOK, the WORK ETHIC and PRIDE OF WORKSMANSHIP – all of the other components will magically FALL into place and you WILL make money to boot – RARELY needing formal tech support.

Which is what separates a cacophony from a symphony and a bad SBS consultant from a good one.

Regards,
Ofer Shimrat - BSIT, MCPS, MCNPS
SOUNDOFF Computing
TEL: (858) 484-0400
FAX: (858) 484-0491
EML: ofer@soundoffcomputing.com
URL: www.soundoffcomputing.com

"We welcome the opportunity to be of service"

The Ofer report on Outlook 2007

bradley — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 05:32:00 GMT

There is a certain person... who will go unnamed... that when he emails a short email to a certain listserve, a certain corporate domain flags his email as spam. Due to the fact that he too, is like Ofer and agrees that having a 'tag' line on his emails is "good business", he runs the risk these days of bouncing emails.

There's even a program to help you design a mail signature... http://www.symprex.com/products/msm/ but folks... don't use too much HTML stationary in an email.... don't go overboard on the signature line.... don't make your emails so noticable that spam folders bounce you......

But these days you can tell who is running Outlook 2007 and who isn't... all those font emails we get...

But without further ado... today's Ofer report.... on Outlook 2007

My Weekend with Office 2007 - Rendering Engine in Outlook 2007 (!)

I took the plunge last weekend and deployed Office 2007 on my machine at my office. On an INTEL 3.2 GHz P4 with 1.00 GB of RAM and SATA RAPTOR hard drives with Windows XP Professional machine I followed my own Best Practices and:

Disconnected my machine from the network
Logged in as local Administrator of that machine
Turned OFF my Symantec Corporate Antivirus 10.1.5
Uninstalled Office 2003 Professional and all other Office 2003 software from Add/Remove Programs
Rebooted and ran the OFFCLN.EXE application to further remove ANY vestiges of Microsoft Office in the system and registry
Uninstalled ACROBAT Professional 7.0.9 , defragged the machine and rebooted
Installed Office 2007 Enterprise and all the other Office programs that I had (i.e. Visio, Project, Expressions Web etc)
Updated Office 2007 from the Microsoft Update site
Rebooted and installed the Microsoft SAVE AS PDF add-in
Reinstalled ACROBAT Professional 7.00 and patched through 7.0.9 (Adobe forces you to reboot between each patch – 4 of them – very annoying)
Turned ON Symantec Corporate Antivirus 10.1.5
Reconnected to the network

Overall the installation experience went smoothly except very ambiguous and confusing procedure when installing Microsoft Project 2007 Professional.

Then I proceeded to open all the Office programs and was in awe for most of the changes and productivity enhancements. As a database developer I am familiar with MANY of the menu items in the Office Suite because I programmatically automate many features in the database applications that I write using COM objects in other Office programs – but because many of the features were in the previous drop-down menu structure I venture to guess that most users never saw the full breadth of options available to them.

With Office 2007 it is VERY intuitive and I am impressed with the level of detail and though that went into it.

Then I proceeded to set up Outlook 2007 – VERY intuitive and compelling interface. After looking around and setting up all of my email accounts I decided to, as I usually do, to personalize my settings.

I admit – I definitely DO use stationary and include my company logo, Microsoft MCP logo and SB specialist logo – all comingled in a 8k GIF – its GOOD BUSINESS.

So as I usually do when I deploy Office software and specifically Outlook, I went looking for the settings that allows me to use OUTLOOK as the default editor and use HTML and NOT Word – well, much to my surprise, it is not there – as in it is NOT available. Microsoft Word 2007 is now the DEFAULT editor for Outlook 2007.

I went searching for that and found http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/HA100926831033.aspx

Bloated I thought, but OK – I will try that.

So after all my settings changes, stationary, logo, spelling, Deleted Items…etc…etc…etc were complete (or so I thought), I proceeded to start USING the new slick interface. I began emailing and replying like I normally do – like we ALL normally do.

Well, it was about 4 hours into it that I realized that my clients are NOT responding to my emails. MMMMmmmm - So I called some of them. Did you get my email I inquired? What email they replied – how about YOU, did YOU get my email – NO was the answer.

So I checked and double checked my settings, SMTP settings, IP, PTR, reverse DNS …etc…etc…etc – all look normal and EXACTLY what it was PRIOR to the Office 2007 installation.

I tried emailing again, this time to some dummy accounts I set up on a couple of client servers – NOTHING – not one email from me.

WOW ! - No non-delivery and no error emails coming back to me

So after some introspective thought I decided to change the IMF settings on these servers (set to 6 and 6) from DELETE to ARCHIVE. I restarted the SMTP service on those servers and tested again hoping that MAYBE my emails were being tagged as SPAM.

Well, using IMFCompanion, to my SHOCK – there were my emails in IMF – with a value of 8.125 !!! – it’s not like there was VIAGRA or STOCKS attachments to my email – just the usual email with stationary and logo in my signature.

So I went back to my signature and formatted all my outgoing messages as TEXT and resent – email got there fine – no logo, no stationary and plain text.

OK I thought – let’s bring this up a notch:

• RTF with no logo – emails went and received fine

• RTF with logo – received fine but logo was an attachment (!!!!) and not in the body of the email

• HTML without logo – emails went and received fine

• HTML with logo – FAILED – stuck in IMF

• HTML with GLACIER stationary with logo – FAILED – stuck in IMF

More research into this yielded information about a new feature in the Junk Mail settings of on Outlook 2007 called E-mail Postmarking (last check-box):

Looking into this new feature I encountered this tidbit from Microsoft called How Outlook E-mail Postmarking helps reduce spam:

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/HA100625921033.aspx

Since I had several of my client servers already exposing the spam in IMF as a test I decided to test the difference that checking that last checkbox would impact.

So I proceeded to test the consequences – sending my email:

• With POSTMARK box checked, WITH stationary WITH logo in signature elicited a WHOPPING value for the SCL of 8.125

• With POSTMARK box un-checked, WITH stationary WITH logo in signature elicited a lesser, but still WHOPPING value for the SCL of 7.931

So at this point my options are remote in to ALL my server installations and WHITELIST my domain and call it a day – WAIT I thought, what about the emails that I am sending to OTHER clients or prospects that will NEVER get there and I will NEVER know !!!

Time for more research. I read the following:

http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=229

http://www.sitepoint.com/blogs/2007/01/10/microsoft-breaks-html-email-rendering-in-outlook/

Not good. It looks like Outlook 2007 needs help on REDUCING spam – postmarking or no postmarking.

I tried EMBEDDING my 8k GIF logo in my HTML signature using the new Microsoft Expressions Web – SAME result. Quite frustrating - so for now my “workaround” is HTML, Verdana font text signature, NO stationary and NO logo – BAD BUSINESS but pretty interface.

I am wondering if SP1 of Office 2007 will address this and if not, what workarounds exist besides the ones that I have already contemplated – should I go back to Outlook 2003, Outlook Express?!!@#@!?

Ofer follows up with...

After endlessly playing with the email settings in Outlook 2007, and SERIOUSLY considering going back to Outlook 2003, I have decided to forego my logo (8k GIF) an leave my outgoing emails in HTML and with just text – if I try changing everything to RTF, the recipient gets everything in the signature DOUBLE SPACED and it looks funny, and when they reply I get the signature back in QUADRUPLE spaced…

Ofer-ism of the day - Gotcha when changing ISPs in SBS 2003

bradley — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 20:15:00 GMT

Ofer had an issue where a setting that was manually done in the SMTP settings didn't get changed by the CEICW wizard...the reason? It's not a setting that the SBS wizard 'touches' or sets, so when the wiz was wiz'd .. it didn't make the change. Conversely, if you have placed in the SMTP smarthost connection information the username/password for outbound smarthost authentication, you rerun that wizard and because the wizard "touches" that part of the SMTP information, it will remove it.

http://msmvps.com/blogs/bradley/archive/2005/03/22/39368.aspx

The issue was with email delivery ...and that blog post above was what was specially done to the SBS box but is not part of a CEICW wizard.... so now.... without further ado....

Our Oferism of the day:

Very recently I had the opportunity to assist one of my larger clients in migrating their entire Internet related presence from one ISP to another. That is, new ISP, new static IP address, new DNS, new gateway, new web host, new Mail Exchanger, new Name Servers etc. - in short, The Works.

For purposes of identification, this is a large rack mount SBS 2003 Standard installation I performed exactly three years ago in December 2003 - it is dual NIC with a hardware firewall and currently it is fully patched to the latest and greatest.

After much planning, meetings, consultations and countless emails to all stakeholders in this process - over the course of 4 weeks and following Best Practices - I had scheduled the changeover be implemented over the Christmas Holiday weekend which in 2006 allowed us 3 full days (Sat, Sun & Mon) for all of the above items to propagate - as they say, when changing name servers allow anywhere from 24 to 72 hours - A record, MX records, mail queue, DNS propagation, RWW, wildcard email account, PTR records, reverse DNS, FTP uploads, FTP downloads etc.

After all the planning, earlier in that week prior to the switchover I once more confirmed all of the necessary information with the new ISP and was ready with all of the pertinent zone information for proper entry at the exquisitely right time on Friday afternoon in the Network Solutions panel.

The goal was that by the following Tuesday, all services would be fully propagated and the web site, incoming mail and DNS would work smoothly.

So as scheduled, on Friday afternoon at close of business - early that day at 3:00 pm because of the holiday - I showed up at my client site to start the changeover from the previous ISP router to the new ISP T1 CPE device.

I logged into the hardware firewall, changed to the new public static IP, subnet mask and gateway - changed the DNS settings on the firewall to reflect the new DNS servers from the new ISP. I then connected the hardware firewall to the new ISP's T1 CPE device and after recycling the firewall was able to connect to the Internet right away from the server - GREAT, I thought - all that planning and I have Internet right away.

Now it is just basically a 2 day waiting game until all Name Servers and services propagate and everything should work.

So I proceeded to run the CEICW and followed the wizard and plugged in the new DNS server information from the new ISP - I went ahead and also proceeded to run major maintenance on the server, updates, memory and disk optimization, reboots, etc.

Since I knew that the web site and email would not really start resolving until Sunday night into Monday (all holidays), and users would not resume work until Tuesday, I did not check back on it until mid day Monday - and at that point I checked the web site in its new home (worked), DNS (worked), RWW (worked), A and MX records (correct) - I sent test mail to the Administrator account (worked).

Great, I thought - all that planning paid off.

Then about 2:00 pm on Tuesday afternoon, I get a call from one of the managers (25 users at the site) stating that they did not think that their emails were going out - they definitely confirmed that their internal emails were working in both directions - they definitely were RECEIVING email from the outside, but they were pretty certain that their emails to the OUTSIDE were not going out.

Are you getting non-delivery reports I asked? - no was the response - ANY message as to the error - no they said.

So I logged onto the server remotely, went on OWA from the Administrator account and sent an email to myself to my business email - I waited 5 minutes and never received it - so I went looking around on the server in Services to make sure everything Automatic was started, poked around in the server AntiVirus software settings to see anything out of the ordinary and then went to System Manager in Exchange - and there they were - over 2,000 messages sitting in the queue - including the email I just had sent myself.

MMMMmmm I thought - perhaps the PTR or reverse DNS is not set at the new ISP yet - maybe they are blocking port 25 because my client had not yet filled out the "I-am-not-a-spammer" application, maybe it was still a holiday and things were slow.

So I logged into the Network Solutions panel, called the new ISP and we started troubleshooting everything possible to get to the root of why the messages were not leaving the Exchange server. After more than an hour of testing and confirming that everything at the new ISP, was in fact, correctly set I came to the realization that this was an internal issue on that server.

I got off the phone with the new ISP and proceeded to log onto other multiple SBS server I had to see if I could "divide-and-conquer" and look for exceptions in other configurations. After much tinkering and lots of trial and error, I found the culprit - but I was not sure at first because the other servers and this server showed one exception - but it had to be the reason, I thought - and it turned out to be correct.

The culprit is the old DNS values get updated EVERYWHERE in the SBS 2003 server if you use the CEICW wizard - everywhere EXCEPT the SMTP virtual server. Additionally, after making the changes described below, you have to put it back the way it was - EMPTY - at least that is the way all of the other SBS servers that I manage are set to.

So you have to do this MANUALLY - CEICW does not, for some reason, do this for you. In Exchange System Manager, or the SBS Server Management Exchange Organization - do the following (*-screenshots at the bottom of this post):

click on the SERVERS hive
click on the name of the SBS server
select PROTOCOLS and expand
select SMTP and expand
right click on the Default SMTP Virtual Server
choose PROPERTIES
click on the DELIVERY tab
click on the ADVANCED command button
click on CONFIGURE next to Configure external DNS servers
you must REMOVE the OLD values for DNS in this window
then ADD the NEW values for DNS for your new ISP
click OK three times and exit the MMC
restart the SMTP service
go back to Exchange System Manager and go the QUEUE section
highlight ALL of the messages in the queue that are outbound
right click and choose FORCE CONNECTION
go get a cup of coffee or otherwise wait 20 to 30 minutes
go back to the DNS settings in Item 10 and REMOVE the NEW settings for DNS
leave that section BLANK
click OK three times
get out of the MMC
restart the SMTP service
You are done

That server has been fine since - so the Gotcha When Changing ISP in SBS 2003 should really be titled SMTP Gotcha When Changing ISP in SBS 2003 and I am now wiser for it.

*-here are the pertinent screenshots for the procedures above.

75 gigs later and.... (our first Oferized)

bradley — Thu, 14 Sep 2006 05:53:00 GMT

Ofer and I were chatting over email about how he likes to ensure that folks don't get out of hand with their email accounts....

I said that now with Exchange at 75 gigs and the fact with SBS default setting up the Outlook mailboxes to grow greater with OST files ...but he was making the point that he want's to put limits on some folks and gets frustrated when he can't easily do what he wants to do...

So without further ado... here's our first "Oferized" post... here's what he does to better control his client's mail:

He's said his quest for this started with a couple of blog posts here:
http://www.planetmagpie.com/itconsulting/technotes-120905.aspx

and then he said that Paul wrote back regarding the same issue and sent him a link to
http://www.petri.co.il/setting_mailbox_limits_over_2gb.htm

Ofer says:  But for people like me that absolutely, positively set 
disk and mail quotas at the volume and root mailbox store level, 
respectively, the inability to set individual mailboxes (usually 
VIPs, owners, COO, CEO, etc) size beyond 2 GB at the server 
level is very frustrating since I definitely do not want those 
mailboxes size to go out of control - which is what would happen
because there are no possible settings in those three text boxes 
if the OST is bigger than 2 GB, it has to be set to null.

In other words, once I set an SBS server with Exchange SP2 
and BEFORE I actually populate AD I do a variety of things 
- among them:

(1) change the initial root Mailbox limits from the default
150/175/200 MB to 450/475/500 MB, depending on the organization
(2) change the default user disk quota on the user templates and 
on the AD tab from 1 GB with 900 MB warning to 10 GB and 9.9 GB 
warning
(3) change the default SharePoint user attribute from Contributor to 
Reader
(4) plus more settings....

That way I can then populate ALL of my AD users and ONLY have 
to come back and edit the EXCEPTIONS in terms of more space, 
more disk, Contributor with SharePoint etc.

Just FYI In all my SBS 2003 SP1 since Exchange SP2 came out 
I set the Exchange partition or disk to be 100 GB - leaving it plenty 
of room to grow 
Private and Public and I set the registry to be 36 GB for Private 
and 18 for Public plus 25% free space for defragmentation - 
headroom, headroom, headroom.

So when I want to give the company VIP more room, I do not want 
to give them UNLIMITED room - I want to say, give them 4 or 5 
GB room on THEIR particular mailbox and STILL have a quota, 
albeit a HUGE one at that.

Oferized

bradley — Wed, 13 Sep 2006 07:03:00 GMT

Stay tuned to a new section in the blog... a section we're calling "Oferized". It's about taking your server to the next level... kicking it up a notch... and doing some best practices and stuff that you may not think a SBS network can do.

But Ofer knows it can.

Stay tuned.... you'll see what I mean.