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I can’t believe it’s 2009 and we still have issues with DST and calendar items! Several of us just discovered (here on Feb-10-2009) that an event we are entering for August 2009 in Outlook 2007 is showing up an hour earlier on our WM6.1 phones. I’ve downloaded the latest WM/DST patch and installed it on my WM6.1 phone, but appointments are still showing up an hour earlier. I tried rebooting the phone, but no change. AFAIK, Outlook and my Exchange/SBS 2003 box are up to snuff with patches. Very frustrating …

As most of you know, last week there were widespread reports of Seagate Barracuda SATA 7200.11 drives failing. Initially only the 1TB disk drives were thought to be the issie. But later it was determined that the problem also existed in some of their other 7200.11 drives. I know, as I got hit with an SBS 2008 server that had four 750GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 drives! Seagate has since come out with a free firmware upgrade and utility. The download is in an ISO format as you must create a bootable CD to run it. However, please note that this firmware utility will … Continue reading Experience with the Seagate disk drive fiasco

Just a quick survey directed to those folks running Windows Vista: Do you enable and use a sidebar? If so, do you use the Vista sidebar? Or do you use one from another vendor (Google, Yahoo, etc.)? What sidebar apps/gadgets do you find most useful or helpful? Here are some early responses from some of my SBS friends: “Using Vista Sidebar with Google tool add-in … mostly so that the format of the Applicaiton is forced back to a usable 3:4 ratio” “Vista. I use a full month calendar, and the weather gadget. Starting a week or two before traveling, I add … Continue reading Vista Sidebar survey

So, this is a bit off the SBS highway. I started using Kaspersky’s 2009 Internet Security Suite for many of my non-server (family and friends) clients. I like it a lot. But a couple of times recently, I had an issue where Kaspersky would lock up while I was trying to use it or install it. In each case, once it locked up, I could do nothing but stop it from task manager.  remember many years ago when I did a lot of software debugging to always reduce a problem down to its Lowest Cost Denominator (LCD). Well, I finally had time to … Continue reading Kaspersky Lockup Solved

I know I am not the only one who has considered completely disabling the User Account Control (UAC) in Windows Vista, or actually gone ahead and disabled that sucker! Recently I had a situation where UAC was preventing me from completing a project, and I had to disable UAC long enough to install and run a new app. Since then I have discovered tow possible workarounds to this issue. Both solutions take the approach of letting you flag often-used applications and the level of security required to run them. It then stores that information so that the next time you execute the application, it … Continue reading Making Vista UAC Workable

I opened up a Facebook account earlier this year. You can imagine the shock on my daughter’s face when she discovered that Dad had a Facebook account! So, I’ve used it and like many of the social networking features. However, it’s not second nature to me to logon to Facebook to update my status or see new posts. So, I just discovered a free Facebook add-in to Outlook called FBLook. This product is certainly in it’s infancy, but it already makes it easier for me to do two things (see screenshot here): I can update my Facebook status directly from the Outlook toolbar. … Continue reading Facebook add-in to Outlook

You can call me slow, you can call me old. You can call me what you will, you can call me over the hill. But it’s still nice to discover something new … and free! This post is for those of you with small users (10 or less employees). I know that MailFoundry has been around for quite awhile, but I never had a reason to look for a anti-spam solution until this past week. I have a customer (non-SBS) who uses the local Outlook junk mail filter for his office, and it works reasonably well. However, he also has … Continue reading MailFoundry and the small user

SBS 2008, as you know, will only run on a 64 bit platform. But there’s more processor terminology out there than I can keep up with. We have Xeon, Core Duo, Core 2 Duo, Quad this, Quad that. Makes you wonder what happened to Core Single? And then you wonder if your system will support virtualization (Hyper-V in Microsoft’s world). If you have had to ask yourself whether a machine you are working on is capable of supporting SBS 2008, YOU ARE NOT ALONE! Steve Gibson, from Gibson Research, has a great little tool caled SecurAble – it will tell you whether you computer … Continue reading Will my computer support SBS 2008?

Two great friends and fellow MVP’s – Amy Babinchak and Eriq Neale – have combined forces to start ThirdTier, a new business venture providing support to the IT professionals in the SMB marketplace. Here is their press release: Eriq Neale and I have launched a new company today. It’s called Third Tier. The company formalizes the remote support services that we have both been offering from some time. We will be adding subject matter experts to cover a wide variety of software in use today at the SMB.     Support Services for IT Professionals   Press Release Contact: Amy Babinchak Phone: (248) … Continue reading ThirdTier Press Release

I never thought I would find myself recommending the Windows Desktop Search utility to anyone. But, perhaps with version 4, they finally are getting it right!  The prior version (Windows Desktop Search 3) is now named Windows Search 4. And this is from someone who used the Lookout product for years- that is until Microsoft bought the product, and tried to turn it into MSN Search. I then switched to Lookeen when I moved over to Vista and Office 2007 last year.  I’ve been running WS4 on my Vista SP1 box for all of 24 hours, but already I can say the improvement over the prior … Continue reading Windows Search 4 (WS4)