Installing Small Business Server Video series

We have just uploaded the first YouTube video is a new series we are creating that will show you how to install Small Business Server on new hardware. This first video will show you how to boot to the initial blue screen (DOS) environment, then partition your hard disks and commence the Windows Graphical User Interface (GUI) installation. Click here for a direct YouTube link to our video or click here to go to our Supportweb site for a listing of all our video creations.

As always we welcome any feedback or questions you have have on our videos. Please stay tuned for more videos in this series.

If you find our videos at all beneficial we ask you to consider supporting us directly by making a donation via http://donation.saturnalliance.com.au. All donations allow us to devote more resources to the content we provide as well as improving its quality.

Web site security threats

We recently attended a security seminar presented by Trend Micro where they said that most of the security threats faced by computers these days are being delivered by web sites. Note how we didn’t say malicious web sites, why? Well, the example that Trend gave was that the web site for the Miami Dolphins football team in the US had been hacked and a small piece of code had been added to their front page that when opened would download a trojan to the viewers computer. Once the trojan was downloaded, it would then execute and download more malware, ultimately allowing the PC to be controlled by hackers for whatever purpose they deemed.

Now you might think that this is all a bit far fetched and only happens in places like America, well think again! The following report in the Sydney Morning Herald highlights how the same thing happened to the web site of the Sydney Opera House. According to the story :

The code would infect web browsers that were not patched with the latest security updates with Trojan software, most likely designed to capture sensitive information such as internet banking details from victims’ computers.

and

Ms Swaffield says NSW police were informed of the security breach, the incident was documented but no action was taken. The Sydney Opera House site is visited by more than 300,000 internet users every month.

Hmmm..interesting eh? If you want a reason to ensure that your workstations are up to date look no further than this story because as it says the trojan would “infect unpatched machines” and that up to 300,000 people use this legitimate web site every month.

So don’t just think that it is your emails that are your biggest security threat, it is all those network users surfing web sites on unpatched machines that can cause major problems.

For the full story see : http://www.smh.com.au/news/security/hackers-infected-opera-house-website/2007/06/11/1181414219766.html

Removing personal information from Office 2007 documents

We just came across this great little tip to remove all your personal information from Office 2007 documents when you are preparing to publish them. In some cases, this is information such as comments and revision marks or information that was hidden and then forgotten. This type of information usually doesn’t pose a security risk but it might not be information you want distributed when you send out the final Office document.

Office now provides an inbuilt tool called the Document Inspector which can identify and purge this unwanted information. To use the Document Inspector in Word 2007 say :

1. From the File Menu (or Start ball), select Prepare, then Inspect Document.

2. Clear the check boxes next to any items you don’t want the inspector to scan for, and then click Inspect.

3. A results page will display the type of items found and a Remove All button next to each type of item to clear it from the document. Simply press this button to purge the information required from your document.

SBS 2003 Installation Part 3 video

The next video in our series of installing SBS 2003 is now on YouTube. To view the video simply click here. This video covers the installation of the premium components of Small Business Server that being SQL Server 2005 and ISA server 2004. If you are installing SBS Standard then you can skip this video because it is not relevant to that product.

SBS 2003 Installation Part 2 video

We have now uploaded Part 2 in our series of installing Small Business Server. You’ll find it on YouTube or clicking here for the direct link. This video takes you through the process of installing the basic Small Business Server 2003 components such as Exchange and Sharepoint. After this phase you should have a functioning SBS 2003 machine.

Videos still to come will include; installing the Small Business Server 2003 Premium Components, installing the R2 technologies and finally how to initially configure the Small Business Server via the ‘to do’ list and the wizards.

As always please provide your feedback directly on YouTube, which has ratings but you can also send us an email to let us know what you think of our videos as well as what you would like to see.

Couple of interesting Microsoft KB articles

We haven’t seen this one ourselves but thought it may crop up :

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/937625 – Error message when you use Outlook to open an e-mail message that contains a PDF attachment from an external mail system: “There was an error opening this document. The file is damaged and could not be repaired”

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/937028 – The Microsoft Firewall service does not start after an ISA Server 2004 SP3 installation fails

We reckon that you should keep an eye because they seem very likley to happen.

Completed 70-631 – Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, Configuring

Well we are happy to announce that we have just passed this exam from Microsoft. Yeah, this means that we are now a Microsoft Certified SharePoint Professional (we believe that’s what it’s called anyway).

A while back we were never really keen on the whole Microsoft Certified Professional thing but since completing the Small Business Specialist certification we must admit that we have come around a little. In this day and age you really to have as many points of differentiation as you can between you and your competitors. Although we don’t necessarily believe that having Microsoft certifications makes you any better or any worse at least it show that you have jumped a few hurdles and passed some exams. That in some way does show that you are willing to go that little bit extra to improve your business knowledge.

So what do you need to know if you want to pass the exam? Well we would suggest that you spend a little time learning the basics of Windows load balancing. Why? We suppose that it is because in many instances SharePoint will be installed on multiple servers and in this case there is going to be a need for resource sharing and optimization. So spend a little time learning the basics about Windows Load Balancing. Also, ensure that you know how to configure SharePoint via the Central Administration site. Would also suggest that you spend a little time understanding the role of IIS in SharePoint, i.e. application pools, web sites, SSL and what not. You don’t need to know low level nitty gritty stuff but you need to have a good general understanding as well as the role these play with SharePoint. Also, if you are from the normal one server world of SBS then you’ll have to broaden your horizon and learn how SharePoint functions with multiple servers ( front ends, content servers and so on). Again, not difficult but Sharepoint DOES operation on more than a single server.

Microsoft has some good online learning courses at www.microsoftelearning.com. We would recommend :

Collection 5403: Implementing Microsoft Windows Sharepoint Services 3.0

Which includes 6 sub courses that will cover everything you need to pass exam 70-631. As for reading material we would recommend :

Microsoft Office Sharepoint Server 2007 Administrator’s Companion

Which is a little more focused on MOSS than Windows Sharepoint but is still a pretty good book. We’ll have a full review here soon.

In summary, if you have set up a few Sharepoint 3.0 sites, done so research into Sharepoint and if you then brush up on Network Load Balancing and IIS you should be able to pass the exam, just like us !

SBS 2003 Installation Part 4 video

We have now released the fourth part in our series of installing Small Business Server 2003 R2. This video covers the installation of the R2 technologies onto SBS 2003. The R2 technologies include applications like Windows Server Update Services 2.0.

You will find our video by clicking here.