10 critical things you should know about Small Business Server

We have just released an extensive report detailing 10 critical things you should know about Small Business Server.

The report was developed from the most common questions we are asked about networking with Small Business Server and doesn’t just contain information about software. The report will provide relevant information about what hardware to buy as well what other considerations you need to make when thinking about networking. If you want a reliable and flexible Small Business Server network then you need to have this report.

This report also contains many resources (webs sites, books, etc) that can be used to gather more information about networking with Small Business Server.

For more information about how to obtain the report click here or email robert@saturnalliance.com.au.

Better hope you don’t get this one

Here’s an interesting blog post about the latest in Trojan technology that is specifically targeting internet banking. You’ll find the post here :

http://www.symantec.com/enterprise/security_response/weblog/2008/01/banking_in_silence.html

If you take the time to read it you’ll shudder at the sophistication of the thing. It can manipulate DNS entries, HTML code, track cookies and more. Nasty, nasty to say the least.

It shows how much effort the bad guys are investing to getting your banking details. Why? Simple, that’s where the cash is – they are a business after all.

Gear up with Sharepoint

The drum beating around Sharepoint from Microsoft seems to be increasing (yeah!). They have just produced the following Gear Up web site that contains a whole host of information about driving adoption of Sharepoint within a business. If you are keen to get Sharepoint adopted in your business take a look at the Buzzkit available on the site.

On the site you find a huge amount of resources (videos, whitepapers, links, etc) that will help you through every stage of a Sharepoint implementation.

Hopefully now businesses will begin to understand the power that Sharepoint can unleash in their business. If you don’t contact me (director@ciaops.com) and I’ll explain why.

Search Server Express 2008 is now available

Man, have I been waiting for this. Microsoft has finally released an RTM version of Windows Search Server Express 2008. Better yet they haven’t changed the price! It is still free. Yes free.

Why have I been waiting for this? Simply because, not only can I improve the searching ability of my Sharepoint sites BUT I can also now index every document in file shares on my network. How helpful is that going to be? You don’t have to make any changes to your filing system, you simply tell Search Server Express 2008 to crawl you network file shares. It will index not only the documents but also the contents of these documents (ie Word, Excel, Powerpoint, etc). So now you can use the Search Server interface to search for files as well as the contents of those files. How handy is that? Now all that information won’t remained buried.

When you combine the power of Search Server 2008 and Windows Sharepoint Services you have a really powerful solution to help you find and collaborate with the information in your business. Best of all, both products are FREE to download, you can’t get better than that can you? All you need is a Windows 2003 server to run them on.

Now that Search Server Express 2008 is available I’ll be downloading and implementing it internally. I’ll post my findings here and maybe even consider doing a video. If you want to download Windows Search Server Express 2008 you can do so from :

http://www.microsoft.com/enterprisesearch/serverproducts/searchserverexpress/download.aspx

Wireless insecurity

I was recently visiting some friends and needed to check my emails. Sure, I know they have a broadband hooked up to a PC in their den but I’m enjoying being outside so let’s just fire up my Windows Mobile Device and see what’s around.

Sure enough when I enabled the Wifi connector on my little Windows Mobile device I find a wireless network and guess what? It is unsecured! What does that mean? For starters, free access to the Internet. Even worse they had named their access point after themselves ( ie Susan’s wireless). So I asked my friends if they knew any Susan in the street. Sure enough she lived two doors up. So now I know a few things, One – which house has a wireless LAN running, Two – that house is providing FREE internet access to anyone in range and Three – chances are there is a PC also in the house (since something has to be connected to the Wireless/Router to be used with the Internet connection).

If you are providing free Internet access to the world chances are that you haven’t secured your router or your PC. So I do a quick check and find that I can browse to the routers configuration page. It is brand I know and guess what? It is still using the default password. So, not only have you allowed someone to access your internet for free, you’ve also given them access to your wireless router. They can change it’s password, change its IP address, do all sorts of wonderful things because you haven’t changed the password. You haven’t even been bothered to implement basic security.

Next, I have a poke around a bit more and find a PC connected to the router and find that it isn’t secured as well. Oh man, given enough time anyone could not only copy all the data from the PC but also view all its keystrokes. Understand what that means? FULL CONTROL! Every email, web site, every keystroke you type could be captured. Think the bank is going to give your money back if funds are withdrawn with the CORRECT password even though you say it wasn’t you? I doubt it!

All it takes is one simple mistake like not securing your wireless with WPA and you have potentially let anyone in range into your system and depending on what else you have been too lazy to do, have potentially given them access to everything that happens on that PC.

I see it everywhere I go. Wireless is great as long as it is SECURED. Out of the box it isn’t!

Microsoft joins the cloud

Well you know that it has been coming but Microsoft has announced that it is going to be offering hosted services. What is it going to offer? Firstly, things like Exchange, Sharepoint and Office but eventually I’m sure that you’ll find all of Microsoft’s software online.

So where does that leave distributors and resellers? As I have said for a while here, simple GONE! Microsoft writes the software, Microsoft hosts the software and eventually Microsoft collects the money directly. Sure, initially it may chose to resell through resellers but in the long run why would you bother? If they are doing everything else except send the bills doesn’t it make sense to cut out the middle person and do everything directly with the customer? Makes a hell of a lot of sense to me from a business perspective.

If you think that this ‘hosted software’ is a fad I believe you are ignorant. If you are not changing your business models and skills to cope with this changing landscape then you are naive. But hey, that your choice but to me the IT world is clearly changing and there isn’t going to much room left for the small companies that try and sell shrink wrapped computers and software to customers any more. Soon you’ll only be in business if you can add VALUE to what is available from the big boys like Google and Microsoft.

To see what Microsoft is now offering online see http://www.microsoft.com/online/default.mspx

I’d heard this whisper

Recently I came across someone who told me that many top Microsoft executives were having their machines rolled back to Windows XP because they were having all sorts of problems. Now the source was reliable but you do have to treat these sort of rumours with a little caution.

Well, today I read the following article which says much the same thing. It basically says that Microsoft Executives had experienced all sorts of problem trying to get things to work with Vista. As I have said previously, this is no surprise since finding drivers for Vista has been a challenge.

Now the whole issue isn’t something that can be totally blamed on Microsoft, even though they do deserve a fair share. The problem appears to be that many other companies didn’t have much faith that Microsoft was going to deliver Vista on time so they hung off as long as they could before attempting to develop drivers. As we all know Vista did take a long time to reach market and thus we’ll be waiting an even longer time for drivers. Why? Well, other suppliers won’t develop Vista drivers until there are enough Vista machines out there to make it worthwhile. A self fulfilling tale if I ever heard one.

So, where does that leave the poor old consumer? If they listen to me I’d say stay on XP as long as you can but if you gotta go to Vista be prepared for some pain.