I didn’t expect to be asked that

I was recently talking with someone and they started quizzing me about Microsoft Azure. Don’t know what that is? Well, it is Microsoft’s recently announced ‘Windows in the cloud’. Although it is still early days I get the impression that it far more developed that most people think. Anyway, back to my conversation. What was amazing was this person wasn’t a ‘techie’ by any stretch of the imagination, yet it was very clear that they had already started trying to work out how their world would change with the advent of Azure.

 

Another recent conversation around technology stopped me in my tracks again recently. Someone else asked me about Windows 7. Again, even though it is in pre-beta the word is already out on the street. People are wondering what are the benefits and what it will means for them.

 

I find of these conversations extremely interesting because it highlights a number of issues. Firstly, IT is now mainstream. No longer is the knowledge locked up with geeks, people use technology everyday and they want to stay informed. Secondly, the power of the Internet means that their ability to be informed (correctly or incorrectly) is much greater than it ever was. There are so many businesses who make money from disseminating information, it isn’t long before everyone’s heard the rumour for some dark obscure corner of the globe. Thirdly, it demonstrates that people want to know what the direction of technology is and how it is going to affect them? How can they benefit from what’s not only available now but also in the future.

 

Gone are the days when the ‘techie’ was the only who knew what was going on. Now days, everybody is far more informed and interested. If you are in the technology game then you are going to have to work hard to stay up to date because it’s all changing so rapidly now. Ignoring or denying the change is likely to be painful but not nearly as painful as not altering strategy to accommodate. When the ‘average’ person in the street starts asking about cloud computing you know it is here.

Further evidence of the coming of cloud computing

Microsoft announcement 31 October 2008

“As part of a strategic companywide shift toward embracing web-based solutions, Microsoft today announced plans to deliver Office Web applications – lightweight versions of Office – through web browsers.”

and


“Microsoft will deliver Office Web applications – lightweight versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote – through a browser. With these new applications, people can use a browser to create, edit, and collaborate on Office documents.”

and


“we will offer Office Web applications as a hosted subscription service and through existing volume licensing agreements.”

and


“Together, these new tools enable new styles of community-based collaboration where multiple people can contribute simultaneously to various work through the internet.”

So there you have it. Before long Office will be available from the cloud as subscription from Microsoft. Interestingly, it is my understanding that the same web technology will be available to be deployed inside an organization. Thus, instead of Office on every workstation, you’ll have a server providing Office Web products. Won’t know until the product ships but that wouldn’t be half bad I reckon.

If Microsoft are making a “strategic companywide shift toward web-based solutions” are you? Even if you are only dipping your toe in the water, that’s better than nothing! If you need assistance with what’s available or what suits your business then just contact me.

Great cloud apps

Here are some applications available in the cloud that I have come across recently and think are pretty good.

Slide Rocket –  www.sliderocket.com

A PowerPoint competitor. It has some really nice effects. There is a free version that does all the basics but for a fee (which I think is a little pricey) you get additional features like being able to webcast your presentation.

Zamzar – www.zamzar.com

A great online tool that allows you to quickly and easily convert between different formats. Great when you need to quickly convert Office 2007 back to Office 2003 and you can’t access the software but it does so much more!

iDrive – www.idrive.com

With this free software you can store up to 2GB of data in the cloud, encrypted with your own key. Even better for US$50 pa you can store 150GB. The iDrive software allows you to configure scheduled backups, appears as a ‘standard’ drive on your Windows machine and can even recover deleted files. Best of all it uses SSL to transfer the data and encrypts it in storage. So what’s the problem with storing data in the cloud now?

Picnik – www.picnik.com


Use this site to edit your digital images. For most people this site is going to do everything they require without the need for expensive desktop software. If you pay a small annual fee you get even more features. You can even work on images sorted in places like Picasa, Flickr, etc (which I note are also in the cloud).

These are but a few but I’ve certainly added them to my list of favourites. This stuff is just better and better all the time.

Just gotta love VoIP

A while back I converted to naked ADSL. This meant that I could do away with the standard phone line and the normal line rental. Problem was now no normal phone line to make voice calls. Solution was to get an ATA and enable VoIP over the new naked ADSL broadband connection. Apart from not having to pay line rental I’m only billed on the calls that I make, which are at a cheaper rate than Telstra anyway. So I’m miles in front.

 

Now the other day I was umming and erring as to whether I should join in a conference call to the US in which I was interested. I finally decided that it would be worth it so I dialled in using my VoIP phone line. I was expecting to pay $10-15 for the call which lasted about 45 minutes. Boy was I surprised when I received the bill.

 

image_6_0B479E77

 

As you can see, that 45 minute phone call to the US cost a total of 91 cents! Yes 91 cents, even at 8.30am in the morning. Now I’m sure there are even better plans than that available but I gotta say I’m impressed and if I was a traditional phone company I’d be shaking my boots when VoIP becomes mainstream. In these economic times VoIP can really save you some bucks.

Intro to Search Server Express 2008 video

I have just completed a new video about what I believe if one of the most “unknown” technologies from Microsoft – Search Server Express 2008. It provides such a great capability and is a FREE download from Microsoft but no-one seems to know about it. I really can’t fathom this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dkycMN4RsE

The video will take you through the basic installation and setup procedure that should allow you to get Search Server Express 2008 running in your business. This is also another example of a technology that you can virtualize quickly and easily.

 

Search Server Express 2008 will allow to to search any SharePoint site, network file share, Exchange Public folder and web site in your organization. It is based on the same technology used for SharePoint so it looks like a SharePoint site. So if you have network shares that are chock full of all sorts of files in which no one can find what they are looking for, rather than going through the whole share file by file simply drop in Search Server Express 2008 and index the suckers. Once indexed you’ll be able to search the contents of most of them (Office, HTML, Text, Acrobat, etc) so to find all the business information you need now all you need to do is like what you do on the Internet – run a search.

 

Search Server Express 2008 is featured in my Windows Sharepoint Operations Guide (http://www.wssops.com) which has a whole section dedicated to installing and configuring the product.

 

Sure Search Server Express 2008 isn’t prefect. I’d like to be able to integrate directly into SharePoint search, I’d like to be able to have external results displayed from Google rather than Live.com but these are small gripes compared to the functionality your receive. I have configured Search Server Express 2008 to run previously and it was invaluable assistance when attempting to location information inside a document I ‘knew I had created’.

 

If your or your customers business is struggling to find digital information in a maze of network shares and public folders why not drop in Search Server Express 2008? For the price there isn’t much out there that can beat it.

Google claims the cloud is more reliable

Now this recent post by Google claims that their cloud computing email solution, Gmail, is more reliable that companies that have on premises email solutions like Exchange server. They then use that to tout the superiority of cloud computing (especially their own).

You have to take a report from Google touting the superiority of their products with a grain of salt, as you would with something from Microsoft, however I believe it does indicate the way things are moving.

I would seriously ask any customer these days why they want to have an onsite mail server. There are so many hosted solutions that do it better, cheaper and more reliably. E-mails are a constant source of issues within a business for the simple reason they let something in from outside the network. You can neither really control the flow in or out of e-mails. Many more SBS customers I speak with no longer run Exchange on SBS, they out source it for the simple reason it is too complex to maintain internally without dedicated staff. Also when it comes to things like Blackberrys and Windows Mobile Devices most businesses don’t have the expertise to make it happen.

So if the trend is for email to move to the cloud I’m sure it won’t be long before all the other components follow.

As an aside you know what I’d really be interested to see? How Microsoft’s hosted Exchange stacks up to Gmail. Personally, I reckon it would be just as reliable and probably have a much richer environment than Gmail because Exchange already incorporates, tasks, calendars and so on. However, the  bottom line is that its all moving to the cloud. Are you? 

Don’t check emails, process emails

Has your email taken on a life of its own? Is it the nexus of everything you do? Is it your to-do list, calendar, task scheduler and more? If it is then you are not doubt in a world of pain. My advice? You need to make a mental shift and realize that email is simply a medium for things to do, nothing else.

 

Everyone I know says that they “check” their email. No wonder their inboxes are overflowing and they feel constantly overwhelmed. Why? Because emails are required to be processed. That means after you have checked an email DO SOMETHING WITH IT! Don’t just leave it sitting there in your inbox. Process the damm thing and move onto the next thing you need to get done. Convert emails to actions. When you read an email ask what actions you need to take as a result of this email? Whether you delete the email, archive, respond or even defer it make sure that you have a system that allows you to process emails.

 

In reality you should aim to process your inbox to empty by the end of the day. Sure not always possible but none the less a good target to aim for. Your inbox is simply a container for emails as they arrive, it is not a container for saving them for all eternity while your procrastinate with how to best handle each one. Deal with it and move on. It is far more satisfying to finish the day with an empty inbox. You know you have achieved something!

 

You may have a laugh but have a look at your inbox right now, now look at anyone else’s inbox and I’ll bet there are many, many emails that have sat there for month even years. If you want to recover your productivity you need a system to process emails effectively and efficiently. I’ll write something about a system that works for me soon but for the time being, if you REALLY want to master your emails, start thinking PROCESS not CHECKING.

Utilizing SharePoint to improve your business

Well, as promised, I have uploaded the final draft of the presentation I gave recently at SMBNation on SharePoint. You will find the document at:

 

http://supportweb.ciaops.net.au/Shared%20Documents/SMBNation2008-GS1.pdf

 

if that link doesn’t work try

 

http://snipurl.com/4ruus

 

The document is in PDF format, 22 pages in all and approximately 1.5MB. I hope that it has been able to cover my presentation faithfully and I welcome any feedback (or corrections) anyone has on what I have written.