Category: Uncategorized

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.

A century of subscribers

Well, no sooner did I say that my YouTube video subscribers were approaching 100 than it has blasted past the mark! (well by at least 1, but hey it’s still triple figures). It must have been that last video I did on restoring Exchange emails that did the trick.

The next target is to reach 100,000 views which is still a ways off (given that it is only approaching 60,000) now. However, it is pleasing to see that the number of views is increasing by about 2,500 a week. Obviously, if I put more videos up then there will be more views and the quicker I’ll get to my 100,000 target.

As I have said previously, it is getting tough to squeeze stuff into the ten minute YouTube enforced limit. The only other option is to start splitting them into Part 1, Part 2, etc which I would prefer to avoid if I could. I know there are other video hosting sites out there ( video.google.com ) for one that doesn’t have these limits but of course YouTube is by far the most popular. anyway, I’ll be giving that some consideration as I plan my next video presentation.

Roll on 100,000 views.

Video 40 now available

Yes, I have uploaded a new video to YouTube. This one covers the basics of restoring emails into Exchange Server using the Exchange Recovery Group. It is fast becoming a case that the maximum 10 minutes that YouTube allows for videos is proving very restrictive. Many subjects I am now covering can’t really been given justice in 10 minutes and perhaps the only option is to start breaking them into multiple parts. You’ll notice a few editing cuts I had to make to get the production under the 10 minute limit. I know that other “more commercial” YouTube users have videos of > 10 minutes does anyone out there know how I can get access to this as well with significant additional cost? If so please let me know.

You’ll find the latest video directly on YouTube by clicking here, otherwise visit the Support Web Video library for the complete list of all the videos I have created.

I am also heartened by the fact that the numbers of subscribers to my videos is approaching 100 (98 and counting). I would have never thought that anyone would continue to be interested by the content I create but then the Internet is an amazing place isn’t it? To all those subscribers I just wish to again say thank you and to let you know that you are the main reason that I do keep dong these videos. As always if you want to see me cover a specific topic or technology please let me know so I can schedule it into the upcoming production (just a a good movie/tv producer would say eh?).

Enjoy.

Offline Microsoft Updates

Now many years ago I used to like WSUS. That is was when I ran it on a server separate from my Small Business server. When Microsoft incorporated WSUS into SBS2003R2 that’s when my relationship with WSUS turned sour. Personally I found WSUS on SBS caused all sorts of problems from failing to update correctly to downloading content that was not requested and finally being impossible to uninstall once it is on the system. So, bottom line, I no longer install WSUS on SBS2003R2. Typically, we use Shavlik to apply updates to all our networks for so many reasons which I am not going to go into here (maybe a later post if enough people out there ask me).
Problem was, when we get a new machine in that needs to be run up, typically, it is missing heaps (last count 94 for XP Pro) of updates. So we’d get the PC working, connect to the Internet and then do all the updates, reboot do ’em again and so on and so on until the system is fully patched. Also, when you go out to new client and check their machines, typically updates haven’t been done for a long, long while and the only solution is to fire up Windows Update and download from the Internet. This can be a really painful experience, especially if they have lots of out of date machines and a slow Internet connection. Sigh.
That is now a thing of the past since I have discovered Heise Security DIY service pack. simply download the latest version of the software (which is a whole swag of clever scripts), expand into a directory on a machine and then run the update program. when run you’ll be asked what downloads you desire :
Select your desired Windows Updates

also select you Office updates

ensure you have the option selected to create an ISO image and hit the Start button. The program will then go off and download all the selected updates (even service packs if you selected that). It will obviously take a while the first time it runs as it has to download a lot of updates for all packages selected.
Once the download process is complete it will create a separate ISO image for all the products you selected like so :

Here you can see I have Office 2003, office 2007, Office 2000, Office XP, Windows 2003 Server, Windows XP and more! Burn the ISO’s to media and now you have your own offline update library.
Now simply pop the CD/DVD into a machine which you want to update and run the installer program (which auto launches as well). Simply select the desired options :

and press the Start button. The installer will firstly determine what updates need to be apply and then start applying and rebooting automatically if you selected that option. So now you can walk away from the machine while it continues to do all its updates – MAGIC.
I tried this out on a new original XP Home system OEM installation without Service Pack 1. I popped the Windows XP DVD into the drive, selected the reboot option (it gives you a warning that this may not work all the time) and pressed Start. The installer dutifully installed Windows XP Service Pack 2, rebooted, installed more updates, rebooted and so on till completion. At the end of the process I have a full patches XP System that I only had to attend once and didn’t have to expose to the Internet before it was updated.
Best of all with this offline updater is the fact that when you run it again it downloads any new updates that Microsoft has brought out and adds it to a new ISO image it creates. So, I’ll be running this after every patch Tuesday to create a new set of offline update CD’s that are going to save me HOURS and HOURS both in house and on client sites.