Increasing your screen size without hardware

I’ve mentioned here before that one of the greatest benefits I have found for my productivity has been the ability to attach multiple screens to my computer. I can leave a web page open on one while creating a document on another. With two screens I can easily refer to either. Very handy indeed.

So what if you haven’t the budget or the desk space to allow this? Well, the boys from Sysinternals have developed some software called Desktops that allows you to have up to 4 virtual desktops. As the site says:

Desktops allows you to organize your applications on up to four virtual desktops. Read email on one, browse the web on the second, and do work in your productivity software on the third, without the clutter of the windows you’re not using. After you configure hotkeys for switching desktops, you can create and switch desktops either by clicking on the tray icon to open a desktop preview and switching window, or by using the hotkeys.

As you can see from the above screen shot I have four desktops open, each with something running on them and by simply using Alt- I can quickly switch between each.

So now you can quadruple your screen space without the need for additional hardware. Let me know if it also quadruples your productivity.

Let me just put on my fire-resistant underwear

Ahhh, there we go, best to be prepared for what maybe coming my way after posting this.

Now David Williams has posted an article about “How Linux is keeping Microsoft honest (and why SBS sucks)” and has followed up with “The real reason consultants use Microsoft SBS over Linux”. There are some valid points in his argument but the articles are clearly designed to antagonize the SBS Community and entice them into a bare knuckle brawl over the also-ran issue of Microsoft vs Open source (read Linux) software. Yeah, yeah, been there done that many, many times.

The article has raise the ire of some well known SBS community figures including Dana Epp and Susan Bradley for some technical inaccuracies in the article. However, the gist of the David’s article is not about technical issues it is more about providing value to the customer. David’s argument is that if you remove the price of Microsoft software (and replace it with free Linux based software) you are doing your customer a better service. In response to that all I can say is that I don’t think that I have ever seen a Linux based small business solution installed in a customers site. If it is really that good you’d think that I would have seen it somewhere, wouldn’t you? Again, if SBS is so bad why is it installed in so many places? Look, there are lots of reasons why SBS is superior to Linux in providing business value to a customer but I am not here to discuss that. I’m here to propose something even more radical (cue dramatic music).

Following on from what David is saying, what if you were to remove the server hardware totally from the client’s solution? Wouldn’t that be doing an EVEN better service saving them even more money? Yes, ladies and gentlemen I am once again talking about ‘cloud computing’. The following article – “Does Windows still matter”, (although another subtle shot at Microsoft) shows that the technology world is changing. More and more people are beginning to understand that technology can be effectively deployed from the Internet and onto what it is deployed doesn’t really matter.

I think the average SBS site is 10-15 users. Why does a business like this need to have a server? Why does a business like this need to be running a mail server? Why does a business like this need to change backup tapes every night? And so on and so on. My contention is that there are now the tools readily available to achieve just about everything an on site server (be it SBS, Windows, Linux, Mac, whatever) can do at probably a reduced cost via the Internet. I agree that many of these solution have limitations and are not as functional in all respects but hey guess what? In a very short time they will be. You can count on that.

In my opinion the first application that should go is email. Get a hosted Exchange account, get a Hotmail or Google Mail account, just get it out of a business. Have someone else worry about screening out spam. Have someone else worry about how much space my mailbox takes up. As a business why should I pay money for equipment to hold data when I can use someone else’s? In many cases for free? What if after getting rid of email you also get rid of file storage what is left? Not much. Again, so why do you need a server on site?

As the landscape changes customers are going to become more savvy. They are going to talk with other business owners, their friends, read newspapers and so on. It is only a matter of time before they discover ‘cloud computing’ and start asking questions, wondering why resellers haven’t been telling them about the benefits it can provide. I believe David says – “I

argued last time that the consultants don’t know better. They don’t have experience with the larger range of Windows products – let alone Linux equivalents.” and I think that he is generally pretty right but I would also content that he is very limited (and bigoted) in his opinion that Linux is ‘the solution’. I’m sorry to say that I think ‘cloud computing’ is going to trump them both.

SBS is a great solution. SBS 2008 will provide many users with excellent results and achieve everything they require. I sorely doubt whether any Linux equivalent will ever provide a competitive advantage no matter what the bigots (aka David) say. I do however believe that the real challenge to SBS, especially in its market space, is going to be services delivered and provided by the Internet. I would simply say that before ANY server is installed at ANY business the question should be asked – Do we REALLY need to have this here? I am becoming more secure in the fact that I can confidentially answer – No, you don’t.

Basic web site blocking

Here’s a new video that I’ve just uploaded to YouTube that will show you two simple methods of blocking web sites.

<img src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-88EQnhkAOts/URObhHQ6GbI/AAAAAAAAIUI/-VoEZPpBwJQ/videob780095dd3e8%25255B5%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" style="border-style: none" galleryimg="no" onload="var downlevelDiv = document.getElementById('15ee794d-3975-47ba-a17c-df63f801541f'); downlevelDiv.innerHTML = "

http://www.youtube.com/v/Iw7QNkt_3CI?hl=en&hd=1“;” alt=””>

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iw7QNkt_3CI

The first method is simply to use your local router and a keyword. The second is to use http://www.opendns.com. OpenDNS is a far more elegant solution and allows you to block a whole range of sites as well as protect against phishing attacks. Simply create an OpenDNS account, attach an IP range to the account and then you can set up custom DNS settings. It is really great for home and business users.

Tech-ed SBS Preday Sydney

If you want to get up to speed with the latest SBS and EBS information from Microsoft and meet those actually using and testing the product then you really should be attending the SBS Pre-day at Teched Sydney.

Apart from that, for every attendee you also receive a FREE for sale copy of SBS 2008, which you can resell or use yourself. That is over $ 1,000 of value which is MORE than enough to cover the cost of entry into the SBS TechEd preday.

Aside from the free version of SBS 2008 and all the great information you’ll receive you’ll also get to network with the best and brightest SBS talent Australia has to offer. There’ll be MVP’s galore and a few other ‘celebrity’ SBS’ers.

I’ve already signed up, so if you are umming and ahhhing about attending then I can see no reason why you shouldn’t. To register go to:

http://www.microsoft.com.au/teched/pre_days.aspx

and join me in finding out what opportunities SBS 2008 and EBS 2008 will provide.

Countering disinformation

There is plenty of unjustified negative press out there about Windows Vista but the saddest part has been how Microsoft has let these myths perpetuate. Well no more! Take a look at the Mojave Experiment.

The best way to prove what a ‘croc’ most of the anti-Vista propaganda has been is to bring in some people who profess a dislike for Vista (although never having seen it themselves), show them a ‘new’ version of Windows (called Mojave), then tell them they are looking at Vista.

The results speak for themselves.

Romeo Charlie 1

Well, I’ve just finished installing SBS 2008 RC1. Again, it is such a piece of cake I don’t see how anyone is going to make money out of installing the software myself. All you have to do basically is provide a server, domain and login name and everything else is done automatically.

I did however notice that with this version you MUST have at least 4GB of RAM installed to allow the installation to complete. This is a little strange since you don’t really need that amount of RAM to get it running. Because I’m running SBS 2008 RC1 on a Hyper V machine I just allocated 4GB of RAM during the install and then reverted back to 2GB once the installation was complete. Geeze, I love virtualization (as you should know by now).

Apart from the RAM issue the other thing I noticed was that SBS 2008 RC1 wanted to set itself to the highest screen resolution it could. Simple enough to change back after the fact but a bit of a pain during the installation. I had a quick look at Sharepoint and all that looks identical but can’t be 100% sure until I have a more in depth look shortly.

It hasn’t been long between RC0 and RC1 has it now, also factor that SBS 2008 isn’t due for release until November (still 4 months away) and I’ll be interested to see whether any more releases become available. I’m guessing we’ll see RC2 but probably no more. SBS 2008 is going to be the most ready to market version of SBS I reckon we’ve had.