SBS Live

Bye Bye Blogger

2006-01-19T04:25:00.000Z

My blog is now over at http://www.swifttrain.com

Finally bit the bullet, this will be my last post on Blogger.
Found it ok to use but difficult to do anything but post text so I have followed Rob
http://spaces.msn.com/members/knowledgebyte onto MSN spaces which seems to be very rich in features but not totally convinced performance is quite as good as blogger.

Anyway catch you over on the other side

Mark :-)

XP Class Links

2005-11-22T15:53:00.000Z

XP Class Links

Ad-Aware SE Personal Edition - Reviews and free downloads at Download.com
DNS Stuff DNS tools, DNS hosting tests, WHOIS, traceroute, ping, and other network and domain name tools.
Download details Windows AntiSpyware (Beta)
DriverGuide.com (printer drivers, cdrom drivers, modem drivers, sound drivers, mouse drivers, monitor drivers, etc.) - DriverGu
Grisoft Freeweb AVG Free Edition
makeITsecure
Marks Site (Xp Training)
Microsoft Windows Server 2003 TechCenter
Networking TCP-IP - My Tech Blog
Security Essentials for Windows XP Service Pack 2
Welcome to MCSEworld by Daniel Petri
Windows Server 2003 Home
Zone Labs Download & Buy

TCP/IP Subnetting Example

2005-10-27T10:50:00.000+01:00

IP SUBNETTING – MANTRA ********

1) What Sub-net Mask Should I use ?

How many subnets are required ? = 27

Convert this number to low order Binary = 00011011

How many bits used to represent number ? = 5

Convert number of bits used to high order binary and convert to decimal = 248

2) How many subnets do I actually get using this mask ?

128 64 32 16 8 4 2 1

1 1 1 1 1 0 0 0
How Many bits were used for the subnet mask = 5
25 - 2 = no of subnets = 30

3) What are my subnet IDs

128 64 32 16 8 4 2 1

1 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 = 8

Starting at this number jump in increments of the same value (eg 8,16,24,32 etc..)
Until 1 below the subnet mask value ( i.e upto 240) There should be as many Ids as your calculated subnets figure.

4) How many HOSTS do I get per Subnet?

How many bits are remaining for Host ID? = 3 from third octet and 8 from fourth octet ie = 11 bits

11111111 11111111 11111000 00000000
255 255 248 0

2 11 -2 no of hosts per subnet = 2,046

5) What other HOSTS are on my Subnet ?
What value did you increment by {see 2) } = 8s
Which range does the subnet portion of your IP address fit into ?
Are the other hosts in the same range as you ?

Example
If your IP address is 131.107.26.10 with a subnet mask of 255.255.248.0 you fit in the range
Between 131.107.24.1 -> 131.107.31.254

Are these hosts in the same range as you
131.107.24.12 = yes
131.107.35.1 = no
131.107.56.20 = no
131.107.31.254 = yes

Tech Links

2005-10-20T15:31:00.000+01:00

Intro to Tcp/IP http://www.yale.edu/pclt/COMM/TCPIP.HTM

Ireland ISP Point of Presence

2005-10-20T13:59:00.000+01:00

Irish Free Dial-Up ISP Settings - Software
Eircom Net FreeAccess number - 1892 150 150Username - eircomnetPassword - eircomnetPrimary DNS - 159.134.237.6Secondary DNS - 159.134.248.17Incoming mail server (POP) - mail2.eircom.netOutgoing mail server (SMTP) - mail2.eircom.netnntp (news) server - news1.eircom.netwebspace ftp server - homepage.eircom.netftp server port number - 21default web folder - public_htmldefault web page - index.htm

IOLFreeAccess Number - 1890 924 042

Username - free
Password - freePrimary
DNS - 194.145.128.1Secondary DNS - 194.145.128.2Incoming mail server (POP) - pop.iolfree.ieOutgoing mail server (SMTP) - mail.iolfree.ieProxy - proxy.iolfree.iePort - 8080OceanfreeAccess Number - 1890923204Username - OceanfreePassword - OceanfreePrimary DNS - 194.72.6.51Secondary DNS - 194.72.6.52Incoming mail server (POP) - mail.oceanfree.netOutgoing mail server (SMTP) - smtp.oceanfree.netMore settings can be found at FreeDialupIsps on IIU Wiki

Exchange Service Pack 2 lands

2005-10-19T17:12:00.000+01:00

Finally, Exchange SP2 for Exchange 2003 is available for download here
http://tinyurl.com/8gbq4

David Houston who manages the SBS Ireland Users group site http://www.sbsireland.com was the first person to let me know.

So what! I here you say, well firstly it gives us the ability to increase the information store from 16GB to 75 Gb in size which has to be welcome as I am sure a lot of us and our customers are coming close to the 16GB limit.

The update also includes support for SenderID http://tinyurl.com/8gbq4
which could potentially give us a decent tool to limit if not prevent someone spoofing a mail from our/your smtp domain.

Hands up how many of us are getting automated emails from Anti Virus software stating that a mail which we never sent contained a virus.

Good deed for today, please convince all those sys admins you know to turn off the email response that most AV products send to the sender of an infected mail because let's be honest in most cases the email address is spoofed.

The best post I have seen which both details the installation and the benefits of Exchange's new Service Pack has to be Vlad's on his blog.
http://www.vladville.com/articles/exchangesp2sbs2003.asp

who I had the pleasure to meet in SMB Nation in September but unfortunately I didn't get a chance to talk to properly, great article Vlad.

Regards Mark

APC Java issue causes Services to Hang

2005-10-18T02:50:00.000+01:00

Thanks to Rob for this one.

Believe it or not the APC software usually version 6.x of Powerchute which a lot of IT shops run which provides the monitoring function for the UPS can cause a Windows Server to be become extremely unstable.

Basically the problem stems from an issue with the Sun java runtime which causes an event ID 7022 Service unresponsive.

Basically if you have a Windows 2000 / 2003 server that is extremely unresponsive before you suspect DNS / Active Directory or any other core service just check if are running a version of Powerchute prior to Version 7 and this just might be your issue.

As I was browsing for something else I came across Mark Wilson's great blog http://www.markwilson.co.uk/blog/ and a very detailed posting on how he resolved the issue

http://tinyurl.com/c6348

Regards Mark

Where has the M: Drive gone in Exchange 2003

2005-09-17T02:25:00.000+01:00

Thought this would be interesting to anyone who works with Exchange. Exchange 2000 had a nice feature where you could access a virtual M: on the Exchange Server and access individual emails using explorer or even triggering events based on the existence of an email or not.

This feature is turned off by default in Exchange 2003.

Link to Microsoft Exchange Technical Library
http://tinyurl.com/d5ue8 Take a look at the M: drive section of this linked document it's a Microsoft link shortened with http://www.tinyurl.com

In fairness there was good reason to turn this off, as using an anti-virus product to scan this directory or even restoring to this directory was likely to cause corruption

Even without enabling the M: drive you can still access the virtual file system by using the following syntax.

dir file://BackOfficeStorage/mail.swift.local/mbx assuming your mail server’s FQDN was mail.swift.local this would list all the mailboxes in the information store

Hope this helps

Regards Mark

Really appreciate you attending the Exchange Session

2005-09-13T12:36:00.000+01:00

A big thanks to everyone who attended the Exchange Deep Dive session on Sunday in SMB Nation. I had wanted to cover a lot more but as someone described to me after the session I am a bit more of a marathon runner then a sprinter when it comes to presenting.

Anyway I promised I would provide links to more information particularly areas that I didn't get to during the presentation.

More information on Disaster recovery for Exchange written earlier this year if you scroll down the page there is an article on setting up MX records to allow you to get away from the pop connector , the blog isn't too big so if you check the archives you will see more exchange related articles.

http://sbslive.blogspot.com/2005_03_01_sbslive_archive.html

Please feel free to email me or comment here with your suggestions or questions or feedback

Mark

Blackberry Versus Windows Mobile

2005-09-04T10:31:00.000+01:00

Came across Susan's post on her blog http://www.sbsdiva.com
http://msmvps.com/bradley/archive/2005/09/04/65168.aspx.

Have to say I agree, the Blackberry concept and the various handsets are attractive to the end user and to say the marketing is slick is an understatement.

However without the Blackberry Enterprise Software the functionality is very limited.
Basically without the BES installed on or near your internal Exchange Server you only have access to email not wireless synced calendaring and contacts you also do not have the famous push email instead you have a 15 minute pop3 polling action only.

Now I would be the first to agree that a full Installation of BES and a proper configuration is very appealing as we then get true push email, in the windows world we are almost there but not quite until Windows Mobile 2005 hits the shelves.

But as Susan makes the point the handset cost is not the problem as a blackberry device or a windows mobile Smartphone can be bought for roughly the same money.

The big cost at the moment is the BES (Blackberry Enterprise Server) software which must communicate with your Exchange Server, in Europe this software up to recently has cost € 1500 to € 1700 Euros just for a five user licence.

Also remember with the Windows Mobile devices we get a much richer application set
MSN Messenger - Works great to keep in touch much cheaper to run then texting
Internet Explorer - Can browse actual websites unlike the cut down browser on Blackberries
Media Player - Business and easy listening
Built in Camera - On most Smartphones
Huge number of third party applications to expand what you can do on your Windows Smartphone or Pocket PC.

Just my two (euro) cent

Mark

Not really Techie feature in Word

2005-09-04T10:24:00.000+01:00

Sorry about this everyone, but although it's about Word (2003) I thought it was useful enough to blog about this. I wouldn't usually include information on Word on my blog but when I came across this posting from Sean Daniels blog I had to try it.

Basically if you hit ALT and then Right Click (Mouse) on any word you then get the option to use the thesarus to find it's meanings or to translate it into one of a dozens languages.

If you highlight a whole page in a Word Document and then ALT Right Click it jumps online and it only takes seconds to translate it into French or German or one of a dozen different modern languages.

Try it, great for translating those postings in newsgroups in other languages.

Mark ..

Blogging and Spam

2005-08-28T23:07:00.000+01:00

Strangely enough I am not going to talk at least not at lenght anyway about some blog comments being little more than spam. We have all seem the like, some spammer takes the opportunity to use your blog as a means to advertise his wares.

No believe it or not you can use a free blogging product http://www.bloglines.com to help you reduce the incoming spam into your inbox.

How, well first things first bloglines allows you to subscribe to all your favourite sites using xml RSS or atom or blogger feeds, fair enough nothing too exciting there, although it is handy because you can check your feeds on any pc.

I know your not impressed what else, well there's more, we can create email subscriptions.

How does this help us with spam, well say you want to subscribe to a secondhand car website but you don't want to give out your work or personal email address.

Now you don't have to because you can create unique email address (Email Subscription) for each mailing list you need to subscribe to and have it managed by the bloglines service.

So if you decide you don't want to receive any more updates you don't need to go through the third partys unsubscribe process you simply delete the bloglines pseudo email address and happy days you no longer recieve the emails and more importantly your own email address(es) were never compromised.

Bloglines has loads of other great features worth looking at.

Feel free to comment

Regards Mark

Issues setting up Activesync with a Windows Mobile

2005-07-26T17:27:00.000+01:00

Came across a post on Susan's blog http://www.sbsdiva.com where she was setting up Activesync with a Windows Mobile so instead of cluttering up her blog with my experiences thought I would throw the information here.

I agree it should be easier to setup Activesync with a Windows Smartphone. I had similar problems with my phone last year. Although it's an Imate it's the same family of phone as the Audiovoxx.

Anyway as you guessed you need to sort out your internet explorer on the phone first as this will prove whether your phone is correctly connect to it's web access point using GPRS (2 / 2.5G)

From the Start menu it's 8 for Settings, 9 for More, 2 for Data Connections, You need to then have an Internet Connection setup, this may already be pre-created on the phone.
You then need to choose Menu and choose edit connections and then 4 for GPRS connection.

Settings would be as follows
Connects to
The Internet
Access Point
proxy (Should work for cingular but you might need to check their support forum)

Often this set incorrectly is the problem as most of the auto configuration scripts set
this to a WAP access point which will cause Pocket IE to fail as well as Activesync.

Set the remainder to automatic and you should be up and running.

ACTIVESYNC -
The FQDN as daniel mentioned is your external facing host name, so as per the Microsoft rules I set my internal domain to domain.local and whether I am using dynamic dns or not I purchase a .com for a couple of bucks and create a host record to point to it so my http://domain.tzo.remote now points to say access.domain.com.

The fact that I am using com instead of local doesn't cause a problem and the fact my server is called sbs01 and not access doesn't matter either.

Anyway instead of taking too much of your blog space I pull together all my notes and put it on my blog if anyone is interested.

Late night musings

2005-07-16T00:31:00.000+01:00

Up late and feeling guilty for not posting for nearly two weeks.

REMOTE ACCESS
Anyway couple of things come to mind. Susan B on her blog http://msmvps.com/bradley/archive/2005/07/15/57416.aspx mentioned http://www.logmein.com remote control service. Well like the ad says " it does exactly what it say on tin" in this case allows you to login to any windows pc or server from any internet location using almost any webrowser. I hear you say but Mark we have RWW (Remote Web Workplace) ahh but how many times do you have control over port 4125 to allow you to establish an RWW connections or what if your customer has 1 or 2 pc's and doesn't have SBS.

Trust me this is very cool software, even the free version works well enough to manage a couple of client pc's. Susan refers to a good security article on the strenghts and weaknesses of the product well worth a read tiny url link here http://tinyurl.com/8xzt5

Skype
Playing with the best father's day pressie I have ever got, a skype usb phone handset manufactured by a company called yamamoto http://www.yamamoto-group.com/silver.htm
This phone works like a treat, I made a skype out call to a landline in California from my broadband connection in Ireland and the quality was excellent and the handset performed as if it was a standard phone.

So you still think you need to bring your laptop with you or at least a pocket pc with wifi and skype on it think again. Skype have promised to support the U3 smart drive platform as soon as it's available, basically it allows you to run Skype or any other U3 supported application like Zonealarm directly from your usb pendrive and your usb skype phone, imagine plug in your pendrive, plug in your headset and double click, your preconfigured copy of Skype software which will not need to be installed on the host pc but simply run directly from the pen drive.

Take a look at http://www.skype.com/company/news/2005/u3_smartdrive.html
for more details this really could open up a lot of possibilites to extend the functionality of pendrives from mere file storage devices.

Back soon Mark

Links worth a look for Windows 2003 MCSE Study

2005-07-03T12:27:00.000+01:00

Guys,
Thought I would note a couple of links that are worth a look. Firstly on understanding the
Microsoft exam philosophy.
http://www.cramsession.com/articles/files/inside-the-microsoft-exam-9102003-1225.asp

Also I reckon it's worth subscribing to the cramsession question of the day, link is here and they will email you a question everyday, questions are not that tough however it might highlight a concept or area for you worth studying that you hadn't thought off.
Take a look at the general MCSE link on cramsession and then choose the exam you are interested in and you will find on the right hand side a link to free questions which will allow you to subcribe.
http://www.cramsession.com/certifications/microsoft/mcse-2003.asp

Microsoft Shared Computer Toolkit

2005-06-29T00:35:00.000+01:00

Thought this was interesting, the Microsoft Shared Computer Toolkit has been released in Beta.
This tool is primarily designed for small businesses in order to help them lock down their shared computers even if they don't have Active Directory.

Download and information from here http://tinyurl.com/a8vdm

The main tools are as follows.

A Windows Disk Protection Tool designed to protect the core operating system and program files from being permanently modified;

A Windows Restrictions Tool that allows for the tailoring of individual users' profiles. Among the variables that can be locked down: access to the command prompt, Internet Explorer settings and the Registry Editor;

A User Profiles Tool that enables the simple creation and deletion of user profiles on a shared computer;

An Accessibility Tool that lets users customize their environments with things like high-visibility backgrounds, StickyKeys, etc.

The toolkit will work with the Windows XP Service Pack 2 release of XP Home, Professional or Tablet

HP/Microsoft Worldwide SMB Nation Dublin Style

2005-06-23T01:29:00.000+01:00

Have to say, I really enjoyed today's (yesterday at this stage) presentation. I found what Harry B had to say about passive income and trying to move away from the sole proprietor model very interesting.

If you are providing services around SBS or even considering it I would reccomend attending this one dayer if it's in your locality http://www.smbnation.com/smbWorkshopTrack1.shtml

The idea of being able to use the solution accelerators to provide a teaching framework and maybe even act as an operations manual to a new staff member is very appealing.

Link to solution accelorator from Microsoft http://tinyurl.com/745v5

I have to say the highlight for me was meeting a lot of like minded individuals and getting some really get ideas from everyone I managed to talk too.

Not to say the free drink and food wasn't welcome at the end of the night, thanks Jordan from IPromptu. http://www.ipromptu.com/ I want at least 1 NFR copy of vonexus http://www.vonexus.com/ or I'm moving to the dark side (funny I always thought the dark side was the M guys and not the L guys if you know what I mean.

Nick http://msmvps.com/thenakedmvp/ true to his word has already setup the listserver for SBSIRELAND.COM which hopefully can act as a jumping off point for an SBS Usergroup that could benefit all of us.

Colin thanks for hosting the event and thanks for the kind offer of a room in Microsoft to host the Usergroup Meetings.

Harry http://www.smbnation has also given us some of his books to provide as prizes during our first year, great stuff.

Don't worry guys I have already gone chasing the DVD with the SBS SP1 VPC image that Harry mentioned with the hope we can give this away to attendees at the first meeting.

Don't usually have my commercial web site pointing here but to be honest I would like to at least temporarily make this blog my focus on the web and would love to hear your comments and would love to get any contributions that you think would be worth sharing.

Unfortunately have not managed to get a Beer sponsor yet but trust me I'm working on it :-)
anyone got a pub as a customer ?

Please throw comments, suggestions abuse as you see fit

Regards Mark

Exchange 2003 SP2 I Can't wait

2005-06-06T22:53:00.000+01:00

It's time to go to sleep here in Ireland, but I had to blog about this, What's the excitement about a service pack I hear you say well simply this, as soon as you apply Service Pack 2 for Exchange 2003 http://tinyurl.com/boew3 scheduled for release second half of this year

the single mailbox store limit in Exchange which has always been 16gb will increase to 75 GB that's a huge increase I think you will agree, does this apply to SBS http://www.microsoft.com/sbs well yes it does, will this make a huge difference you betcha it now means more SBS consultants can with confidence chase larger clients knowing that Exchange will not be the weak link anymore. Lets be clear 16GB 7 years ago was more than enough for 50 or 60 users however given how we use our mailboxes today it's not enough and to be honest this limit has stopped me on more than one occasion putting in SBS and I am delighted to see Microsoft http://www.microsoft.com have addressed this issue finally. Michael Klein in the new Advanced Windows Small Business Server 2003 Best Practices book http://www.smbnation.com/smbPubsSBS2003.shtml published by Harry B's SMB Nation highlights this as a major squeeze point for larger companies.

Talking about the book I am really impressed how detailed and techie the content is, coming from an enterprise background I expected the content to be good but I didn't expect to be pushed hard technically, boy was I wrong, I have to say all the chapters I have read so far have been fantastic, Kevin's on faxing was spot on, Susan's on security blew me away http://www.sbsdiva.com very detailed and a huge number of great tools mentioned. Susan I think you managed to teach and catch that fish !. Michael's exchange chapter gave me loads of new material and made me really enjoy learning new tricks with Exchange.

To be honest I cannot seem to get away from SBS and how working with it and it's users still manages to keep my enterprise skills sharp. To be honest I beginning to think an SBS consultant has to work harder for a living than his or her large enterprise peer.

Comments. heckling any feedback all welcome

Mark

Blogging now I get it!

2005-05-29T13:16:00.000+01:00

I think the penny has finally dropped for me in relation to Blogs. Ok I have known for maybe a year that they allow someone to easily publish their ideas and thoughts.

But what I didn't get until today as I was browseing around at least a dozen blogs looking for new information and wasting a lot of time looking at blogs / sites which hadn't updated since the last time I browsed them that there is a better way.

RSS feeds, ok I knew about RSS feeds and even played around with a newsfeed reader but until I stumbled upon IntraVnews which puts the feeds (Any website which supports an RSS feed)you can subscribe to and you are automatically notified if there is any updated content.

Finally I can unsubscribe myself to all of those techie newsletters and subscribe to the sites and blogs I want and then choose to read or disard, tune in tomorrow for details

Mark

Great utility for Data Transfer USB style

2005-05-28T00:05:00.000+01:00

Once in a while you come across a gadget that just works and really helps you do your job. The device I am talking about is a USB 2.0 easy sync cable. Basically it allows you to connect 2 pc's over USB.

Those of us a little bit longer in the tooth might remember using Serial Null modem cables to do this kind of transfer especially when most laptops didn't have network cards however with the volume of date now needing to be transferred serial cables don't really cut it any longer being too slow most top out at roughly .5 mbits .

The UBS cable I use happens to be from trust at the link below but there is loads of different versions out there. http://www.trust.com/products/product.aspx?artnr=13840

Anyway what's so neat well data transfer speed is a respectable 12 Mbits and the driver for Windows 98,ME, 2000, XP will fit on one floppy.

Best of all you can setup a virtual network card on both pc's or if you have problems with the networking setup on the older pc, there is a built in data transfer application that will work even if TCP/IP is not working.

All in all it's a great tool that is worthy of space in my already too heavy laptop bag.

Regards Mark

Exchange Disaster Recovery and an Apology

2005-05-11T17:17:00.000+01:00

Firstly apologies for not updating this blog for the last couple of weeks, I can only sit in wonder at how people like Susan http://www.sbsdiva.com manage to update their blogs so timely, if you want to keep really up to date with everything SBS make sure you pay Susan's site a visit.

Anyway down to business, thought it would be a good idea to share some thoughts and experiences on a Exchange and SBS 4.5 (That's NT 4 and Exchange 5.5 Standard to the rest of us) disaster recovery.

Normally at this stage I would start to step through all the detailed steps you need to carry out to recover from a server crash assuming you manage to get an intact copy of priv.edb (priv1.edb sbs 2000 or sbs2003) off the hard disk

Summary of the steps are below - however there is another way check bottom of posting

You would firstly need to build a brand new NT4 or preferably a 2000 Server using the same name as the old Exchange Server.

Then install Exchange using the same Organization name and Site Name (Yes we can still do it if the customer does not know their Org Name and Site Name.

Then stop the exchange services and overwrite the empty priv.edb with your salvaged copy from the customers exchange server.

Then the fun really starts. ISINTEG - patch and ISINTEG test and then possibly ESEUTIL if there is corruption

Assuming this all works and you haven't had heart failure in the meantime you still had update the exchange Directory to match the new grafted priv.edb.

Your still not finished - you then have to export all the mailboxes out of the temporary exchange server and then reimport into your new SBS 2003 server - You weren't going to put the customer back on SBS 4.5 (NT) were you ?

When I get a chance if people are interested enough (just post a comment ) I will put together a detailed procedure on all the above.

The above probably will take you at least 8 if not 12 hours and more if you have a large information store - I have had to carry this out on a 200 user Exchange site and from start to finish the process took 24 hours.

Anyway what if I told you there is program that can read the raw PRIV.EDB or PRIV1.EDB and can export the mailboxes to PST and could maybe save you 10 hours work.

Well it exists and it's available from Ontrack and it works like a dream
http://www.ontrack.com/powercontrols/

The trial version is still useful although it will not export the data out of the rescued priv.edb it will allow you to quickly verify if the priv file is intact before you potentially waste 8 hours of your life carrying out the recovery procedures described above.

The poduct is a bit expensive about $ 950 for up to 100 mailboxes however if we could convince them to do an SBS version maybe a 10, 20, 50, 100 mailbox version as it can do double duty as a brick level mailbox agent however it would be backing up to pst files which we could use to recover in a disaster.

Let me know if you would like more detailed info on Exchange Recovery

Hope this helps

Mark

Windows Smartphones are they really smart

2005-04-22T11:35:00.000+01:00

Well firstly what do I mean by a Windows Smartphone. Basically we are talking about a Windows CE like operating system running on a device which attempts to be as easy to use as a standard mobile phone.

For the last 5 months I have been using a Imate Sp3i Windows Mobile 2003 2nd Edition smartphone. The goal was to see if I could give up my Nokia business phone and IPAQ in favour of a single all in one device.

Is this device similar to the O2 Xda well yes and no. The functionality is very similar however the form factor is much smaller and there is no touch screen.

Does it work, well yes in my opinion, firstly every 5 minutes my outlook email and just as importantly my calendar and task information is wirelessly being synced from my SBS Exchange Server using GPRS.

Is it expensive ? Well the average cost appears to be around 15 per month which is nearly half the cost of running the Blackberry and unlike the personal Blackberry the smartphone is not just giving me pop3 email.

Do I need to install any software on the SBS server, well unlike the Blackberry you don't need to install any software on your Exchange server as Exchange activesync is built in.

What about typing large emails ?
Well if you need to type large messages or even if you use MSN Messenger on the run you can purchase a very affordable Bluetooth keyboard which makes typing easy.

Any downsides ?
Currently in Ireland there is no Windows Smartphones available on contract so it means at least in Ireland purchasing the phone without a contract.

Battery life is ok but nothing special at about 1 to 2 days depending on use.

Can't switch off the phone and have the phone turn on automatically with an alarm.

Other then the above the phone and it's ability to provide you with almost instant access to your emails when combined with Microsoft Small Business Server 2003 provides a very compelling mobile solution.

Mark
Comments always appreciated.

What If you need Remote Access without RWW

2005-04-17T16:49:00.000+01:00

Finally made time to put up another post. Anyway you might already be aware that we can use Remote Web Workplace to among other things remote control a client computer in an SBS network.

But what if port 4125 is blocked. If you try to remotely connect to your server or one of your SBS Network's desktops the location you are connecting from must allow port 4125 traffic as this is used to proxy a connection to Remote desktop.

Basically if you need to connect to your desktop from a site where you cannot open port 4125 you cannot use Remote Web Workplace to complete the remote desktop connection.

A very useful tool that a colleague showed me will allow you to connect to a remote computer over port 80 / port 443. Take a look at http://www.logmein.com this free service will allow you to setup up an account, from which you can download a control to any pc you wish to control.

This applet will run on the remote pc and will allow you to connect to any of your remote pc's by using a secure web site.

Cost for this service is free, well worth a look, also I would also reccomend disabling the applet on the remote pc when you will not need to connect.

Check back soon Regards Mark

Windows 2003 Service Pack 1 don't do it

2005-04-03T01:48:00.000+01:00

If your running SBS 2003 don't install Windows 2003 Service pack 1. Yes it will integrate ok with the underlying Windows 2003 os in SBS however it will break a lot of SBS functionality.

Watch out Windows Update will push this down as a update if you are automatically updating.

Another good reason not to have your server set to automatically update but instead to
"Automatically download updates for me but let me choose when to install them".

Take a look at the known Issues with Microsoft Service Pack 1 http://tinyurl.com/4o6zr

Thanks to Susan Bradley for her detailed and timely posting on this one.

Susan's blog is a great source of info http://www.sbsdiva.com

Something to add to your toolkit

2005-04-02T23:17:00.000+01:00

Like a lot people out there I am starting to use external USB hard drives for things like backing up my own SBS Server and also on client sites to allow me to transfer or move data.

Most of you are probably aware that you can buy a kit that allows you to take a standard 3.5" ATA ide drive and convert it into an external USB 2.O hard drive.

For example this link shows a typical kit that comes complete with a power supply and a box that you place an ordinary internal IDE drive into
http://www.usb-ware.com/ads-usb-2-hard-drive-kit.htm

Now that's pretty good because it allows you or me to choose the drive and capacity we need and most of these kits are less than 60 Euros / Dollars

However what I think is even neater at least for your toolkit is a simple IDE to USB 2.0 adaptor with a power supply so you can basically hook up any IDE device externally using USB temporarily.

http://www.cwol.com/usb/usb-2-ide-adapter-ud200.htm

What could it be used for, well I have a customer who clones / ghosts his pc's over the network when he has a hard disk failure, wouldn't it be much easier to have a cheap 100 GB drive with 7 or 8 build images on it and hook it up via USB 2.0 whenever he needs to rebuild a production pc instead of relying on a slow network connection.

Comments anyone ?
TTFN Mark

No single mailbox restore with Ntbackup!

2005-03-30T22:58:00.000+01:00

You gotta be joking you mean we can't restore an individual mailbox using the supplied backup program with SBS2003.

I'm afraid guys that's still the case if you use the supplied SBS 2003 backup program you cannot carry out a single mailbox restore from tape or any other media for that matter.

Yes it is possible to recover the mailbox to another server, but hang on guys this is SBS let me spell it out Small! business server.

So what's the solution, buy a third party backup program that gives this function !
Have to admit, maybe I'm a bit mean but I don't want to shell out for another backup program and to be honest having seen to many full recovery restores of Exchange going wrong because of third party vendor's backup software (you know who you are guys) I prefer to use NTBACKUP.

So what's the answer, well a couple of things can help us.

1) Deleted Item retension can be set at the store level, so even if a user deletes a mail and then removes it from their deleted items, they can still recover it using Tools, Recover Deleted Items.

How long should you retain deleted items, well that depends I have to admit I set it to 90 days on most sites however you need to be careful as this obviously impacts our mail storage capacity of 16GB for the private mailbox store usually C:\programfiles\exchsrvr\mdbdata
comprises of 2 files priv1.edb and priv1.stm.

2) Recovery Storage Group - Now this is new to Exchange 2003 and allows us to create a separate directory on the server into which we can restore a previous copy of the private information store.

Ah so does this mean we can access an earlier version of a person's mailbox, yes it does but we need to be careful.

Firstly you cannot access this recovery store from outlook you can only access the contents by exported the mailbox(s) / mails you need by using a utility like EXMERGE but it does give partially solve the problem.

Let me know if it's of interest and I will post up the full procedure (or at least a link) and also if you would like to take a look at exmerge you can get it here.

http://tinyurl.com/58luz (By the way this is a link to a Microsoft site but by using the
http://tinyurl.com website you can shorten any cumbersome links to something easy to manage

Please jump on in with comments, and if you have any tips or info you'd like to put up on the site please let me know (won't be able to pay you though ,,,,,,,)

TTFN Mark

Setting up your SMTP Server

2005-03-28T23:16:00.000+01:00

Hopefully everyone is recovering from the Easter Break. Well that's my only excuse for not posting on this blog, that and sheer laziness.

Anyway thought I would throw in an answer I posted to question concerning getting Exchange in SBS 2003 setup as an SMTP server.

I think your asking how to setup Exchange email.
You nearly have everything. I am going to assume you want to use SMTP
(Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) asyou have your own domain and 30 users.
You need a DNS MX record created to point to your static ip.
It depends on who you have your internet domain hosted with, you may be able to use a webbased control panel to change it yourself or you may have to contact the registrar (supplier) and ask them to create 2 records.
1) An A or host record defining a host name for your IP address for example something like SRV.YOURDOMAIN.COM pointing to the static IP address.

2) Then an MX record which points to the host defined in step 1 (An MX record allows other mail servers on the internet to find your mail server and send email)

3) Once you have the above in place you should run the Configure Email and internet Connection wizard accessed from the To do list in ServerManagement.Mike take a look at this link an archived post by Javier which explains the full process very well

http://tinyurl.com/5chf6

If you need any more help just post back here.Hope this helps Regards Mark (The Irish MCT)MCT,MCSE,MCSE+I,CNA,INET+

Ronan - Maintenance Required to keep SBS oiled

2005-03-22T16:27:00.000Z

Thanks Ronan for the comment,
As soon as I get a chance I will throw up a full list of Daily, Weekly and Monthly tasks which should be carried out on SBS to ensure a smooth running network.

In the meantime checkout the following link on Harry B's Websitefor a list of best practices documents http://www.nwlink.com/~harryb/sbs/

Ronan Mc Namara said...
Hello Mark,Well done on setting up your blog "living with an SBS Obsession". I believe that it will be of great use to all of us out here in cyberland to help identify and share more benefits and questions that we may have for you on SBS etc. I would like to ask this question.... Could you name 10 best practices for Maintenance of SBS2003 which could be carried out including remote access and methods of informing the customer/IT representative on site of helping this to be best achieved.

Wap is dead, Long live Wap (OMA)

2005-03-20T20:56:00.000Z

Contrary to popular belief WAP is not completly useless. You might remember a couple of years ago there was a lot of hype about accessing the internet using a subset of HTML for mobile devices namely Wireless Access protocol.

Unfortunately the reality never lived up to the hype and WAP was really outshone by it's less hyped sibling SMS.

However thanks to the built in mobility features in Exchange 2003 Standard Edition included in SBS we can use Outlook Mobile Access (OMA) to access your inbox, caledar and even your contacts when you are on the move even if you don't have anything fancier than last year's mobile phone.

Smartphone not required, as long as your mobile supports WAP then you are in business, configuring OMA is straightforward and will allow all employees quick access to their mailboxes whether they are on site or in the car.

Take a look at this really good article from Daniel Petri (MCSE) http://www.petri.co.il/configure_oma.htm

Hope everyone had a great Paddy's weekend

A shot in the dark !

2005-03-16T00:31:00.000Z

Well to be honest that's what it feels like when I use Outlook and attempt to use the built in search.

Outlook 2003 is a great email and calendaring application however the built in search function leaves a lot to be desired. Found this great free addin for Outlook called LOOKOUT.

Lookout can be downloaded from here http://www.lookoutsoft.com/Lookout/ and it adds a really powerful free text capability to all your mail folders, check it out.

Just a quick blog this time ! Mark

How to find out if your Mail server is an Open Relay

2005-03-13T20:53:00.000Z

As more and more small businesses have started to use their own mail servers I thought it would make sense to limit the impact spammers can have.

Basically if your mail server is an open relay spammers can use your mail server to distribute thousands of junk mails.

Not only does this contribute to other users problems with junk mail it also impacts the realibility of your mail server and ultimately could cause your mail server to be blacklisted.

Best practice to make sure you are not an open relay use one of the free open relay testing sites like this one http://www.ordb.org/submit/

How to quickly check if an email has been sent to the right address

2005-03-13T12:26:00.000Z

It often happens to me, a customer calls and is worried the email they sent to their supplier or solictor or whatever hasn't been sent.

Our usual response is to tell them to wait a couple of hours and call us if it still a problem.

Doesn't sound like a very logical troubleshooting approach I think you'll agree.

Well there is a better way. If you take a look at a web site called http://www.dnsstuff.com and scroll to the bottom of the page there is link in the centre of the page which will allow you to run a mail test. Simply plug in the email address that the customer spells out for you and away you go, not only will this tell you whether the mail servers for the detination are up and working but it will give you a fairly good indication if the receipient is spelled correctly (Not always I admit) however armed with this information and if you also get the customer to send an email to an auto-responder for example echo@esat.net which will normally bounce back a response in less than 5 minutes you can give your customer a much less vague answer and pretty much prove their email is working and possibly also spot if they got the destination email wrong.

Any other ideas out there how the above tip might be further improved ?

And it began !

2005-03-13T00:19:00.000Z

Hello Everyone,

Let me introduce myself my name is Mark Mulvany and I hail from Dublin in Ireland, I am a self-confessed technoholic, as can be evidenced by the fact I have created this blog after midnight on a Sunday morning.

My primary purpose of writing this blog is to share my obsession with you for all things technical but in particular SBS (Small Business Server) 2003 and other technologies that can be employed by SMB.

Some of you might be aware that SBS 2003 is Microsoft's small business server and like a lot of techies from a large enterprise backgrounds I initially felt that this product was a cutdown backoffice product especially my first experiences with SBS 4.5 (NT 4.0 and Exchange 5.5) were let's just say less than satisfying.

I have spent almost 15 years working with Microsoft products and networks although in the early days I have to admit I preferred Novell Netware to the earlier versions of NT.

Coming back to the present I would like to share my experiences with SBS 2003 and at the same time learn from other peoples forays into small business networking.

Having spent the last 5 or 6 years teaching Networking this is really my first practical attempt to express my views outside of a classroom having found in the past websites didn't suit by let's just say free flowing writing style (fell free to add laughter / derison at this point)

My first tip or to quote a favorite author of mine "BEST PRACTICE" if you are interested in what makes SBS 2003 tick take a look at Harry B site http://www.smbnation.com
Harry has some great books on SBS and a free monthly newsletter which is well worth a look.

Yes I freely admit this blog will be techie but I hope I will be able to provide some useful tips
and maybe share some of my expierences and learn from anyone else who would care to share their insights or even their questions.

I'd better sign off blogs are supposed to be sharp and straight to the point !!