- Load Balancing SMB IT
- Zoho becomes a better spreadsheet
- More Open for SMB
- SMB Tech News Today; INTEROP Day 4
- Interop NOC Splunk Day
- Microsoft & Unisys do Free Hosted Exchange 2007 Trial
- SMB Tech News Today; 4/18
- SMB Tech News Today; 4/10
- SMB Tech News Today; 4/4
- REVIEW: FreshBooks Means E-Invoicing on the Web
May 08, 2008 | Comments: (0)
On Tuesday, I had an interesting telephone interview with Kevin Mahon, CEO of KEMP Technologies. I have to admit that I don't usually think of load balancers as SMB product, but KEMP has been making a business in SMB load balancing for several years, now. In talking with Kevin, I started to understand a bit of why SMB IT folks look at load balancers, and why the balanced SMB isn't such a strange idea, after all.
First, Kevin says that there have been changes to the profile of "average" KEMP customers. In the group of first customers, most were very small companies with 2 – 3 servers, companies that were looking for a mechanism to provide high availability to the company's critical data. As time has gone on, SMBs have grown to require 10 – 15 servers. With the growth in server count comes growth in functional needs, and the load-balancing technology has moved from round-robin to resource sharing with weighted distribution based on server activity. Kevin also pointed to terminal server load balancing as an area that customers have expressed great interest in--an area that speaks to the needs for simplified desktop deployment and consistent performance (not to mention some significant security implications).
When I asked Keving about virtualization, he said that virtualization is coming to the SMB market because SMBs can see a lot of benefits from the technology. He said that KEMP already has a couple of customers that have begun deploying virtualized servers and resources. He said that, even with virtualization, he still sees the load balancer used in its principle role of providing high availability and SSL. High availability is a clear need regardless of the size of the companies in the market space. Beyond the availability, Kein said that performance isn't the key, with customers instead focusing on they fact that they want to maximize the utilization of the resources they have. When I asked about the differences between SMBs and enterprise customers, Kevin told me that enterprises want to maximize their connectivity -- get them most out of the pipes that connect them to the Internet. The basic issue for SMB is the same, but the size of the resource changes – cable modems or T1 versus the T3 and up of the enterprise.
It was a fascinating conversation, one more in a series of discussions with vendor execs in which I'm hearing that SMB IT is the same as enterprise IT in everything but scale -- SMB owners want the same sort of functionality and quality in their IT services that enterprise CIOs take for granted. From security to virtualization, to taking advantage of software as a service, SMB organizations are demanding serious IT -- and getting it.
Speaking of that last point, I was in a long meeting with a vendor today -- you'll hear about it next week when I fill you in on some new products and talk about a review that's now under way in the Test Center.
Posted by Curt Franklin on May 8, 2008 09:01 PM
April 29, 2008 | Comments: (0)
Zoho becomes a better spreadsheet
I've found that there are several applications out there that can be a huge help for small businesses that need to economize on office productivity suites or more easily collaborate with partners, vendors, and customers. One of the suites is, of course, Google Apps. These get better all the time, with the off-line Gears functionality a major move in the right direction, but they're still fairly limited in functionality for those of us who are used to Microsoft Office or OpenOffice.org feature levels.
Zoho doesn't get the amount of press that Google gets, but the Zoho suite of applications is quite good, and could easily be the only set of apps you need if (1) your requirements fall into those of the majority of business users and (2) you're pretty much always on line. This week, Zoho announced two improvements to their spreadsheet app, and both are important for business users. First, the Zoho spreadsheet now features pivot tables. If you're doing "what if" work, this is critical. Next, Zoho now understands Visual Basic scripts. For many business users, this is the principle stumbling block in many Office alternatives, and Zoho is right on the mark to take care of this in the spreadsheet first.
If you've been wondering whether there are cross-platform tools that can replace Office, take a look at Zoho. The price is right for SMBs, and the functionality is on a steady path of improvement.
Posted by Curt Franklin on April 29, 2008 10:55 AM
October 29, 2007 | Comments: (0)
I haven't gotten a lot of feedback from readers on the first few SMB IT blog entries (I figure everyone's too busy trying to stay in business to spend time writing to me), but the feedback I have received is in favor of more open-source software. That pleases me -- I'm a big fan of open source solutions where they make sense.
I've been spending more time with OpenOffice, and I have to say that I continue to be impressed. I've heard from small businesses that are running on OpenOffice, and I don't think they're suffering from their choice of software. My happiness with OpenOffice has led me to take a new look at more open source business applications, starting with OpenProj, an open source project management package. I have spent many hours wrapped around a Gantt chart, so I'm always pleased to take a look at any software that promises to make managing a project a bit easier.
Now, let me start with an obvious statement: OpenProj isn't Microsoft Project. Project has become the center of a software solar-system, with tons of plug-ins, extensions, and separate applications based on the central project. OpenProj isn't like that. Even the basic product is not nearly so feature-rich as Project. If your work life involves coordinating armies of workers in intricate gavottes of well-regulated activity, with regular reports to partners and executives, and automated task assignment through Outlook, then you really should plan to write a check to Microsoft. If, on the other hand, you're a small business manager who needs to manage small business projects, read on.
OpenProj has all the basics you need to manage basic projects with as many assets (both human and material) as you're likely to need. There are views set up as top views and bottom views, and if you've used any major project management product you'll have no trouble creating and managing projects in OpenProj. Now, here's a warning: If you haven't used project management software before, I'm not sure I'd recommend that you dive into OpenProj because the documentation is, well, minimal.
OpenProj, like OpenOffice, can easily pass information back and forth with the Microsoft equivalent. OpenProj can read mpp, .xml and .mpx files from Project, and write .xml files to be read into Project.
The bottom line? If you have a small business and want to manage your projects, OpenProj is worth a look. To give it some context, I'd be very comfortable using OpenProj if I was a sub-contractor on a residential or small commercial construction job. If I was the general contractor, I'd probably want a different product to keep up with all my subs. The good news is that, with the document interchange that's possible, the general contractor can use Microsoft Project while the subs use OpenProj. That's a win-win situation, especially since a sub can take what they learn with OpenProj and apply it when they move up the project scale and have to move to other products.
What are you using for project management? Which applications are you using that are based on open source licensing? Let me know, and we'll work on building suggestions for full suites for the cost-conscious small business.
Posted by Curt Franklin on October 29, 2007 08:19 PM
May 24, 2007 | Comments: (0)
SMB Tech News Today; INTEROP Day 4
I'm out of here in a few hours, and I'm one of the few press nerds who stayed this long. As a result, they're aren't many brand-spanking-new today press announcements this late in the show. So here are a few more SMB news bits from earlier this week.
* Netgear into SMB hardware spewage, too. I blogged on how D-Link was spewing out new SMB hardware, but they're not the only ones. Netgear is pumping out new products, too. They've got a new ProSafe Wireless Switch (OEM partner is rumored to be Trapeze who do this REALLY well), they hyper-COOL ReadyNAS that Negear got off its Infrant acquisition (this thing is fast, does 1-3TB and can be setup by almost anyone, tho probably not Sasquatch Venezia) and they announced a partnership with Avaya to provide a custom end-to-end VoIP bundle to SMB customers via their reseller channel. Not to mention some new stackable gigabit switches, updated WiFi access points and some other goodies.
* Samsung does SMB voice comm appliance. The family is the OfficeServ line and has both 7100 & 7200 model numbers. Basic specs for both are complete voice-in-a-box. VoIP and/or POTS, wired or wireless handsets, voicemail, PBX functions and even some unified messaging features like syncing vmail with users' Outlook inboxes. To be available near the end of Summer 2007. Price is apparently TBD.
* Raritan shows off new KVM super-box. These guys make some of the best keyboard/video/mouse (KVM) controllers in the biz. The new Dominion KX II does KVM over IP, has a new browser config/mgmt UI, a slick new virtual KVM desktop and supports things like remote USB on managed end points. Way cool, and they're even offering a trade-in discount program for existing Raritan customers.
* Wedge does SMB security appliance. It's called the BeSecure NDP-2040NX. Does gigabit-level networking, scans for AV and AM, does deep packet inspection, handles mucho protocols, etc. Real sweet little box with a price that's nice, tho most likely more for the MB set.
Posted by Oliver Rist on May 24, 2007 09:46 AM
May 21, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Brian and Cathy are partaking of Padre's real estate generosity as well as me--hey he's rich and it's a big house. That's cool on the one hand because Brian makes fancy coffee every morning. That's uncool on the other hand because Cathy tortures me every morning--before I'm really ready. Hey, she's sweet but she really is the incarnation of evil.
Today, however, all three of them were dressed identically in black t-shirts with 'Splunk' one one side and an almost-witty sentence on the other. You might think 'Splunk' refers to the sound Cathy's shoe makes when it rebounds off my skull, but it's actually a tres-cool IT log aggregator. (The semi-witty sayings on B&C's shirts didn't do anything for me, but I later saw a cute one: "Splunk: Taking the SH out of IT.")
What is Splunk, really? Don't think "knowledgebase for IT." The site looks like that, but it's actually a log manager. This thing takes all your logs--and I mean ALL your logs--and indexes them. But not just for keyword searching, it also aligns them temporally and with a graphic representation so you can see and track trends and then drill down to specific log entries right off the graphic.
There's a free version and an enterprise jobbie, so check 'em out.
Posted by Oliver Rist on May 21, 2007 04:12 PM
April 20, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Microsoft & Unisys do Free Hosted Exchange 2007 Trial
Maybe you're thinking about Exchange 2007 for your SMB. But perhaps you're not sure how all those new features are going to work in real life. Unisys and Microsoft have your back.
Sign up for the trial and you get a temp account on a Unisys-hosted Exchange 2007 server farm. From here you get full access to Ex2007's features, including the ability to get email, manage contacts, schedule meetings and access your box via the latest OWA interface. You can even sync with compatible mobile devices.
You can sign up for the free service here.
'Course you can still apply for the regular Exchange Eval Software, but the hosted service lets you start exploring Ex2007 right away.
Posted by Oliver Rist on April 20, 2007 11:38 AM
April 18, 2007 | Comments: (0)
* IBM announces new Web 2.0 portal. IBM is announcing a WebSphere Portal redesign with new tools designed to let businesses do quick mashups with disparate software, including both Web-based and enterprise silo-type software. Testing to follow. (Source: IBM)
* Ray of hope for Vonage? Vonage is in trouble with Verizon over patents. But now, third-party telecomm experts (who admittedly still have ties to Vonage) are questioning the validity of Verizon's patent claims. Maybe Vonage won't need to find a workaround. (Source: InfoWorld)
* Porn on 1 in 4 corporate PCs. Rather surprising in this day and age of desktop audits and content filtering, but a new study shows nudie pix on 25% of corporate PCs. Definitely a case for corporate big brother. Then again, the study was commissioned by a software firm that specializes in keeping desktops clean. And 25% seems more than a little high. Grain-of-salt alert. (Source: InformationWeek)
* Adobe releases Creative Suite 3. It's out and about and rewritten for Intel Macs. Do it all from conception to final rich media presentation. (Source: IT Wire)
Posted by Oliver Rist on April 18, 2007 08:16 AM
April 10, 2007 | Comments: (0)
* 5 patches today. Microsoft is releasing 5 patches today, including four security patches one of them ranked 'critical.' There's also an update to the Malicious Software Removal Tool. Get 'em while they're hot. (Source: RedmondMag)
* Salesforce.com releases new tool. They're calling it Salesforce Content and it's designed to let workers do that all-powerful buzzword: collaboration. Share email, docs, videos, etc. just like the wiki folks or the SharePoint guys. (Source: InformationWeek)
* A coming inkjet revolution? There's some new inkjet technology on the horizon. It's called Memjet and could allow manufacturers to put out $200 inkjet color printers that can churn up to 60 pages per minute--30ppm for photo-quality color. Love the concept, but at those speeds, their cartridge disposal methods better be pretty green. And cheap. (Source: PC World)
* Sony comes out with mini-Vaio. The PS3 may be getting hammered, but Sony's still a power in notebooks. Just came out with a 12.1-inch sub-notebook, the Vaio Type-G, that's not only small but carries 32GB of flash storage instead of a hard disk. (Source: Gizmodo)
Posted by Oliver Rist on April 10, 2007 06:07 AM
April 04, 2007 | Comments: (0)
* The FBI's ongoing hunt for virtual crime. Seems the explosive growth in virtual worlds is prompting the FBI to check into gambling on Second Life. Maybe they'll check into illicit wagering on hobbit-tossing contests in World of Warcraft, too. (Source: CNET)
* Cisco oozing into Linksys brand. Seems Cisco is looking for new ways into the small biz market, so expect resellers to offer new 'synergies' between Linksys and Cisco-branded products aimed at SMBs real soon. (Source: InfoWorld)
* Microsoft expressing its love for Expressions. Seems the Redmondites originally decided to keep its Expressions Web dev tool from its mainstream developer community. And it further seems that the developers in that community expressed massive irateness at this obviously benighted move. So Microsoft has shifted back into the light and will offer Expressions to its MSDN developer community. Durn tootin'. (Source: ZDNet)
* Google debuts Mac tools. I should have reviewed this. Damn! Almost two years after releasing Google Desktop for Windows, the Googlers have just released the Google Desktop for the Mac. These guys do the hands-on I should have done. (Source: Ars Technica)
Posted by Oliver Rist on April 4, 2007 04:40 AM
March 22, 2007 | Comments: (0)
REVIEW: FreshBooks Means E-Invoicing on the Web
An old colleague, Jamie Bsales, just pubbed this review on FreshBooks, a solid online invoicing system for freelancer types--like me--or small businesses. In fact, I'm sure my managing editor would love me to use FreshBooks, since I'm about four months behind on that.
It's especially useful in that scenario since I bill InfoWorld for regular features, like my column and this blog. FreshBooks will let me set these invoices up automatically, so I don't have to remember (or not) to do it every month. You can even define recurring line items.
Bsales details more about FreshBooks in his review, but the key points include a dashboard so you get a quick view of all your billing (see screenshot below), a Time Tracking feature (see the screenshot below), and the ability to customize the default invoice (see screenshot) with your own logo and similar formatting.
Oh yeah, and it's free for fewer than three clients. Check it out.
SCREENSHOTS:
FreshBooks Dashboard
Posted by Oliver Rist on March 22, 2007 01:53 PM
February 09, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Trend Micro Adds More for SMBs...But No Vista
So Trend Micro's been sending out press releases announcing its big jump from Trend Micro Client Server Security for SMB 3.0 to Trend Micro Client Server Security for SMB 3.5. There's also a Trend Micro Client Server Messaging Security for SMB 3.0 to 3.5 jump (I'm not typing that again, dammit).
More of everything security oriented: more support for malware protection, more support for rootkit protection, more support for desktop coverage, more support for server-side protection, especially email servers if you're opting for the more expensive Messaging version of the product. (Client Server is $25/seat for 101 seats while the Messaging product is $46/seat for 101 servers.)
The sweet stuff next to the added security muscle is a networked administration interface that lets you install everything in one step (including the clients on the desktops and servers) and then monitor everything from a central management screen. Pretty cool for an SMB product.
Then I hit 'system requirements'. Desktops top out at Windows XP Pro and the server side is the same, Windows Server 2003 or Exchange 2003 or earlier. Only. Period.
Now I'm wrestling with how I feel about that. Part of me wants to say 'bite me'. But the rational part agrees with Trend Micro that most SMBs won't be on Vista or Exchange 2003 this early anyway--hell Longhorn and it Small Business Server version won't be out till the end of the year at the earliest.
So my official word is that non-Vista support really isn't that big a deal--as long as you don't have any Vista clients. But if you do, then you're stuck with non-centrally managed, individual desktop security clients. Trend's got one of those. Me? I wish they'd buckled down and just delivered support for the darn OS now. And the sure better make it a freebie upgrade at the end of this year when more folks will be deploying Vista. If they try and make us pay for it again, there's going to be some unhappy words here.
Posted by Oliver Rist on February 9, 2007 02:36 PM
November 12, 2006 | Comments: (0)
We were just having a lengthy editorial discussion on the merits of LinkedIn--fast becoming the social networking standard for those looking to 'socialize' business-to-business. Well, nothing gets successful without a little Microsoft competition.
So now, those developers who were using LinkedIn have another option. Microsoft is calling it Aggreg8. Lets developers and other geeky types create a profile, join discussion groups, find and add favorite conent lists, etc. It's got a definite geek business spin, but the atmosphere is supposed to be fairly casual.
Worth checking out if you're a custom programmer with a Microsoft bent looking for new clients.
(via BetaNews)
Posted by Oliver Rist on November 12, 2006 10:23 PM
November 08, 2006 | Comments: (0)
Does Vista Kill Third-Party Disk Encryption?
I'm dinging away at a hands-on of the Vista RTM release, but figured I'd hit this topic now because I've had some reader inquiries.
Vista has a new system accessory, a drive encryption utility, called BitLocker. It's not part of the integrated package unless you opt for the the Enterprise or Ultimate versions, but for those SDKs, BitLocker can offers encrypted folders or volumes--even using Active Directory and/or WIM files. Nice way to be able to spread out a secure desktop right off the image stage.
Only issue for IT admins looking to use BitLocker is that much like the rest of Vista, it wants new hardware. Specifically, it's looking for for an implementation of the Trusted Platform Module 1.2--which happens at the chip level. TPM is a hardware crypto key generator and password management system--IBM's (Lenovo's) was the last one I saw and they're pretty solid.
New notebooks are coming out with TPM-compliant motherboards and chipsets--though it's still something you should look for if you're about to buy a small fleet of new Vistabooks. Not guaranteed to be there.
You can run BitLocker without TPM, but then you're forcing your users to store their crypto keys and passwprds on USB tokens. More complexity: The system is going to want to look at that key prior to full startup, so the USB device needs to be read during boot. That's something that needs to be enabled under BIOS--yet another thing to check before buying your new Vistabox.
BitLocker setup is pretty easy--but surprising in some aspects. For one, it wanted to default direct to an encrypted partition. Not just an encrypted folder or set of folders. I tried making the partition as small as possible, but the smallest seems to be 1.5GB. According to the Microsoft BitLocker notes I finally found, this partition stores all the boot materials. The other partition is where everything else sits--Vista, data, MP3s, stolen credit card data, whatever.
Again, pretty simple, but you need to think about it prior to installing Vista--otherwise you'll need to repartition after installation. Time consuming and a pain in the booty. Best to make this part of an OS image and distribute it that way.
Do that, and BitLocker can talk directly to Active Directory, which can generate the crypto keys and feed them to the each system at network signon. Overall a pretty sophisticated setup. And it can handle partial or full-disk encryption.
No, I haven't tested ot yet to get an idea of system overhead or whether it works reliably for the road warrior set. Work on that over time. Even so, I've got to say that the partition installation piece means that certain third-party disk encryption products still have a future. TrueCrypt or Cryptainer, for example, simply create an encrypted file volume with an ultra-strong password. More individual, but definitely quicker on the setup front. Plus, they're free just like BitLocker.
On the other hand, for SMBs looking to centrally manage a whole series of encrypted drives, BitLocker offers a lot of sophistication right there in the OS.
Posted by Oliver Rist on November 8, 2006 02:13 PM
November 02, 2006 | Comments: (0)
Living With Office 2007 Beta Part III
And we're back again--gonna buckle down and get this freaking thing done. This time it's Access and OneNote.
ACCESS 2007
Last time I talked to Microsoft, I told them that as far as I was concerned, the best-redesigned app out of the whole Office 2007 suite was PowerPoint. Just love all that quick-preview/advanced graphics/ease of use stuff.
But when I asked them what they thought the most powerfully redesigned app out of this suite was, they said Access 2007--no question. Made me wish I used Access more so I might know what they were talking about. But I'm a resourceful guy, so I grabbed an employee of a customer whom I knew did a lot of Access work, and asked her what she thought.
According to her, the app is different right from the start. The ribbon is a big difference, but so is the initial startup screen that immediately drops the user on a icon-heavy short cut view towards common Access databases, a right-side history of recent work and a left-side connector to local or locally shared templates as well as Office Online.
Next, she fell hard for the Navigation Pane. This sucker is anchored to the left of the tabbed data view. Apparently, it replaces something that was called the Database Window in Access 2003. The Nav Pane organizes all the database objects and lets database architects create custom groups, assign names and add other database objects to the group. All in a nice tree format. It's easy enough that I may break down and learn to play with it myself.
She started messing with Embedded Macros, too. She says this is brand new to Access 2007 and should really enable amateur database developers to get some high-end performance out of their work. There's a bit of a learning curve, but she says that being able to do away with VBA code to do things like add shortcuts or buttons, is a real boon. (Cynic me, I'm wondering about security and reliability, but I guess only time will tell.)
She later emailed me some more impressions. Foremost is an upgrade to the Report Designer. As the rest of the Office 2007 suite has gotten a big boost to visual and layout tools, so has Access. The Report Layout View lets developers visually design a reporting front-end--placing controls, formatting text, all the good stuff. She likes it very much.
She did have a couple of downsides for folks looking to use older Access databases within the new 2007 interface, however. Both User Security and Replication are dead. You can still manage both of these if you stick with the old Access 2000-2003 formats, but if you go to the new Access 2007 format, you're out of luck. There are new tools to replace both in the updated file format, but backwards compatibility is shot.
OneNote 2007
This is one of the apps that didn't get a ribbon upgrade. In fact, OneNote didn't get too much of an upgrade in any sense--which has the upside that at least you won't be getting too many help desk calls on this one.
One new feature I really did like is the ability to import a presentation slide-by-slide--well, almost new. So when the PR guy whips out his presentation, you can ask for a copy off his thumb drive. Drop that onto your desktop and you can literally drag and drop it onto the OneNote notebook. Just check the 'print out' option when the drag-on dialog pops up:
This is doable in OneNote 2003, too, but the print-out always comes out in black and white. OneNote 2007 does the whole thing in color, so you can keep your presentation and your notes in one place like this:
Another new thing in OneNote 2007 is that Notebooks are much easier to manipulate as files. OneNote 2003 simply created a My Notebooks folder under My Documents and drops everything there in a semi-understandable hierarchy. OneNote 2007 lets you continue to store notebooks in this folder, but also lets you store individual Notebooks anywhere in the local file system, the network file system or on SharePoint file collab sites. Just right-click the notebook's tab and select Save As:
While this sounds great in practice, it can actually backfire. OneNote 2003 never required a save option. Close it and your notes are saved. But with the ability to save different notebooks in different places, there's a chance you can overwrite or modify notes you didn't intend to modify. That'll need a little training.
Aside from that OneNote is still a solid app. I was hoping for a more significant upgrade to the handwriting and tablet features, but I guess they've got leave something for Office 2009.
Posted by Oliver Rist on November 2, 2006 10:54 AM
November 01, 2006 | Comments: (0)
Living With Office 2007 Beta Part II
Apologies for the wait. I'll crank through the rest of these in the next couple of days.
As promised, this post is on Excel 2007 and Word 2007.
EXCEL 2007
Being a writer, I try to avoid Excel as much as possible. As a small business operator, however, that's a fruitless pursuit.
Fortunately, next to PowerPoint, I found Microsoft's new ribbon to be really effective under Excel (above). 'Course, that's probably because I don't use Excel so much, so a new interface won't bother me there as much as it would under other applications. On the plus side, I liked how the ribbon organizes all those parts of Excel that tend to make me scratch my noggin. Formulas, for example, are easily organized by type and placed into simple drop-down menus. The hover-help system really helped me here, too.
For Excel pros, Excel 2007 has a number of new features. Our local Excel users commented that they liked the formula auto-complete feature, which auto-suggest complete formulas based on both context and history. Larger spreadsheets, especially those to be used for reports and such, also benefit from a new Page Layout feature that lets you see what the final product will look like with all formatting changes applied--tho it seemed much like a print-preview funtion to me, it's easier to get to.
The real geeks also liked the beefed up support for PivotTables (now support hierarchical data) and User-Defined Functions, which can now fully support Excel 2007's increased column/cell count (1,048,576 rows and 16,384 columns--just enough for my credit card bills).
For us normal mortals, however, Excel 2007 is simply easier to understand. They've spruced up its graphics capabilities, too, making 3D-graphs and charts both easier and snazzier--once you figure out how to get to them on the ribbon, that is.
This extends to more than just charts and graphs, tho. The new Excel makes formatting a spreadsheet with a specific look, much easier. Values can be more easily organized, reports better formatted, you can even apply themes to entire workbooks--excellent way to spruce up those year-end financials.
After talking with Microsoft, there's one other thing that stands out about Excel 2007: We're all going to be touching it more. Excel 2007 is being used as a primary or alternative front-end for a number of Microsoft applications, including Accounting 2007, the Dynamics family, SQL Server and more. By adding features like CUBE functions, Excel has a much easier time importing, organizing and displaying outside data sets. I'm going to keep trying to avoid it, but I think it's a hopeless quest.
WORD 2007
Now this is where I live. And, yes, the ribbon bugged the hell out of me almost the entire two weeks. Once your mouse gets the new icon locations into its memory, it's admittedly a mite quicker to find whatever I'm looking for.
What's to like? If you're a blogger, then Word's new blogging feature might help you. I say might, because setting this up is still not a slamdunk. It couldn't handle publishing to a privately held blog like this one. It did manage to let me post to the Technology Filter blog, but there's still some issues to be worked out with photo uploading and similar details. Still it's at least as good as LiveWriter and you can take advantage of SmartArt right then and there.
SmartArt is available across the whole Office 2007 suite. It's a smart diagraming tool that lets you pick a basic diagram look, add you specific text additions and then modify the diagram (say, with more data) or change the entire look of the diagram (to another chart type, for example) without losing any of the data. Lets people collaborating on a document easily change everything, including the artwork. YOu can even add fancy diagram effects for a cooler overall look.
More Word 2007 tools: Academics will like the new auto-generation of bibliographies and content citations. Can even connect to online Web services to talk to online references--but all that wasn't yet enabled under the beta.
We editor/writer types get a host of new conveniences. Word count is enabled in the status bar, for instance. And Microsoft has included something called Building Blocks, which is a fancy form of the clipboard. Let's you store oft-used pieces of text in there so their easily accessible for future use--very handy for lawyers that constantly rebuild specific contracts, for instance.
Spell check has been noticeably improved. Microsoft has upped Word 2007's ability to examine the context of a word rather than simply the spelling. Seems to reduce the number of possible or wrong choices. I was skeptical that this would work through everything day-to-day, but so far so good. Me likey.
Great new selection of style sheets, cover sheets, templates and themes. Quick styles is another time saver--a way to organize all these new formatting views. Under Word 2003, you'd have to apply a formatting change, check it out, then hit Undo if it didn't appeal. Quick Styles lets select your text, then simply mouse over the formatting toolbar to see how things affect that text. This is a paradigm you'll find throughout the Office 2007 suite, especially PowerPoint.
There's much more to Word 2007 if you have back-end server support. Word talks to Microsoft Office SharePoint Server, Information Rights Server, and can do some really cool stuff in conjunction with InfoPath. We'll be looking at these capabilities in an upcoming Test Center review, where we'll put Office 2007 in front of a full complement of back-end servers.
The basic end-user Word experience is solid. If you're still confused about PDF and OpenDoc support, here's the skinny on that: Native PDF support is out, but after Office 2007 ships, users will be able to download a free add-in that will provide PDF creation support across the entire suite. OpenDoc is for the future. Microsoft is working with other developers to create a format that can talk to the new Office docx format--but that'll take a little extra time.
Meanwhile, day to day, no problems to report. Microsoft says it's increased reliability for the upcoming RTM version, but I never had a Word problem in two weeks--and I'm in Word about as much as I am in Outlook. Recommended all the way.
Posted by Oliver Rist on November 1, 2006 01:17 PM
October 27, 2006 | Comments: (0)
Living With Office 2007 Beta Part I
Been working on how to organize this without writing a post that's 5000 words long. So I figure I'm just going to break it out a couple of apps at a time. This post covers Outlook and PowerPoint 2007: the first because I live in it, and the second because, for me, it's the Blue Ribbon Winner for this version.
INSTALLATION
Because it's the first 'hands on' post, I've got to hit the install portion. Fortunately, not much to say here, even under Vista. For both RC1 and RC2 it went something like this: Insert CD, enter product key, click "Typical Install" and hang out for a while.
OUTLOOK
Microsoft did a rather noticeable redesign of the Outlook UI in Office 2003, so I think they took it easy this time around. The UI has been tweaked a bit, but for the most part, it's the same.
Install was a bit of a pain, because the free Outlook Personal Folders Backup Tool that I always use to swap my mailbox between PCs, doesn't work with the new verion as yet. Had to export the usual way and then import multiple PSTs.
Setting up my accounts was different, too. The New Account Wizard has changed as has the Account summary screen. Outlook is supposed to have some new smarts when setting up Exchange accounts against an Exchange 2007 server, but you'll need to wait for the upcoming Office 2007/Servers 2007 review for the real skinny on that. Meantime, the new Account Wizard does a good job of consolidating all your Outlook feed options in one place: Email, shared calendars, Sharepoint sites, and the much-ballyhooed RSS feed among others. Setting things up is as easy as dropping the right Internet address into Account Settings and then looking for the content on the left-hand tree pane.
Once you're all setup, you'll notice that Outlook Today is DOA. Instead, Microsoft has created a To-Do bar on the right side of the Inbox screen. You get a mini-calendar view with some color highlights for appointments, a summary of your next three upcoming appointments underneath that, and then what I thought was a Task summary. Only it's not a Task summary. It's a list of outstanding tasks as well as any emails that have the red alert flag and a completion date assigned to them. The size of my list shows you how much attention I pay to those. Oh yeah, and you can customize the To-Do bar to show only some of these options or do away with it entirely.
And while Outlook didn't get one of the cool new ribbon bars, you do see it when you create a message--probably because you're calling on Word as the email editor. But Office was kind enough to give you an email ribbon with a Send button and other Outlook-specific sundries.
Not too many other changes. There's a new Trust Center under the Tools menu--basically a quick way to setup all your email security settings in one screen--digital signatures, email encryption, download handling, inline HTML rules, etc. All there. Apparently, it's controllable as a Group Policy object from Active Directoy, but we'll have to test that in the server review--for us lone users, it's just a nice email security summary screen.
Day-to-day impressions are good. Outlook looks great in Vista and the only hiccup I had in two solid weeks of use was one instance where she refused to start without a system reboot--and that's beta software.
Is it a must-have upgrade from Outlook 2003? Actually, I'd have to say "No." Don't get me wrong; it's a real nice app and when it comes as part of Office 2007 I'll definitely install it. But if it were a one-on-one upgrade, I'd probably put it on the back burner.
POWERPOINT
The Blue Ribbon Winner of my two weeks. Not because I do a load of sales presentations (though I did a number of those as well), but because in the last year I've become a blogging slave. Blogging for money means finding mounds of little custom art elements to brighten up your posts. Microsoft has made Powerpoint the perfect tool for that because it's added some amazingly intuitive and super-slick-looking graphics processing tools to this version.
Drop a photo onto a Powerpoint 2007 slide and you've got a load of new options to tweak and customize it (above and below). There are new frames, picture effects, photo filters, a load of new Word Art effects and it's all done very easily. Just click on the icon in the format ribbon, and then hover your mouse cursor over a selection in order to see a full-size preview. Very slick. You can create a very cool and highly specific art bloblet in just a few minutes.
Only things I didn't like are the same reasons I move any little art creations I make here into an actual photo editor for final processing: cropping and resizing. Powerpoint has tools for this, but I can't stand them. Not at all intuitive, and certainly not as slick as the rest of the tool. Still need some work in the dept.
They've even redone the online Clip Art Web site. New look and a more icon-driven copy/paste function. Other than that, it's nothing earth shattering, but like most of the rest of Office 2007, it's fun to look at.
Office Beta Clip Art Site Full-Size Image
If I had a general complaint about PowerPoint 2007, then it's more a complaint about the way the ribbon works. Microsoft's intent with the ribbon was to keep things consistent. "The button you need is always there", yadda yadda.
However, the ribbon's options change depending on what you're doing. For example, dropping a picture onto a slide causes the Format tab to become available--that has all the effects options in it. De-select the picture, however, and the entire Format tab disappears. Or, create Word Art and you get one set of text effects, but you've got to remember to have the text itself selected to even see certain options.
It's not a killer, but it is going to frustrate your users until they make it part of their finger memory.
Even after two weeks I haven't fully explored PowerPoint 2007's new special effects capabilities--haven't done any animations yet, for instance. The app gets even more options when put in front of a SharePoint or the new Microsoft Office SharePoint Services (MOSS) server. More on that later. Meantime, if you have any questions on how something works, leave a comment and I'll check on it for you.
Next post: Word & Excel.
Posted by Oliver Rist on October 27, 2006 10:32 AM
October 25, 2006 | Comments: (0)
Living With Office 2007: Prologue
As I said in my column, after doing my little feature on living only in Web 2.0 productivity applications for a whole week, I just had to do one of living in Office 2007 beta (techie refresh). Besides, I happened to have a Dell Precision M90 super-notebook all decked out with dual core CPU hardware, 2 giggers of RAM and a CAD-capable 3D-accelerating hard disk with a couple of hundred megs of video RAM all to itself. In other words, and Aero paradise. So I figured, "Go whole hog. Office 2007 on Vista RC2 with all the bells and whistles."
It's actually been two weeks now and I may not stop using it all, which is most likely going to tick of Dell PR since I'm running it on their PC. Hey, a bunch of steak-eating Texan dudes coming up here to get what they want. What could possibly happen?
My experiences with Vista are in this week's and last week's column--tho I may flesh it out a bit more here in the next few days. I'll also have a shorter technical summary of Office 2007 on Tech Center Daily later this week. In the next few posts, I'll cover the most popular Office applications. Microsoft still owes me Project 2007 and Visio 2007.
So let's get to it. First thing's first: The ribbon. It's big, it's weird looking, why is it there? Basically, it's there to turn the traditional menu bar (File > Edit > View > etc.) into something graphic, intuitive and easy. When I asked Microsoft Office UI design team, they said that when they queried customers on what they thought of Office 2003, the complaint that came back most often was a difficulty in finding both new and old features in the ever-changing nested menu system.
The ribbon does away with that because every feature that an application can manage is organized and represented there graphically. Even when Office changes again and more features are added, users will still have an easier time finding old features because they'll be able to scan for its icon rather than hunt and click for its menu position.
However, only certain applications are getting the ribbon this time around. So far it's the most popular: Access, Excel, PowerPoint, and Word. OneNote, Outlook and Publisher have new features but retain the old menu system for now--and I haven't seen Project and Visio as yet. More on all those in Part II. Oh, and the official word is no changes to this setup in 2007's product lifecycle. If more apps are to get the ribbon, we'll have to wait until Office 200x? to see.
The ribbon summarizes Microsoft's feature goal for Office 2007. This version is less about sticking new features into its productivity suite than it is about making that suite more attractive to a customer base that has been sorely tempted by OpenOffice--and will eventually be tempted by online Web 2.0 applications.
To that end, the ribbon really is easier--it's just going to take you a couple of weeks to see it. And it'll take the average user probably a ltitle longer than that. But once they get used to it, I do agree with Microsoft that it'll take hold of their minds and fingers. Just make sure someone's decently trained in it and manning the help desk phones before deploying across the organization.
Microsoft's other goal for Office 2007 is to differentiate itself as much as possible from its new competitors. And in typical Microsoft fashion, that means doing something new while playing to its strengths. What's Redmond got that OpenOffice doesn't? One word:
Servers.
Microsoft's library of interlocking back office servers is as big as anyone's, and they're strongly trying to use that to their advantage. All the Office apps get new feature abiities when connected to SharePoint services and the MOSS server (aka the Office Server) adds even more. Further, for SMB customers who mayhap can't afford all that back-office mubo jumbo in house, Office Live will be serving up similar features in a hosted model--look for announcements and reviews on those services soon.
We'll be reviewing all that stuff in upcoming posts, including how it works with InfoPath 2007 and the new Groove 2007--a new shared workspace collaboration tool that comes in the client Office 2007 package because it works in P2P mode (no servers required). We'll also be looking at how SharePoint, MOSS, Exchange 2007, Project Server 2007 and Small Business Server all work together. Yeah, I'm looking to do that in Hawaii.
So that's the intro: Office 2007 has a cool new look and a bright future in collaboration. So how's the basic stuff work? Check the next post to see.
Posted by Oliver Rist on October 25, 2006 10:28 AM
August 21, 2006 | Comments: (0)
This shouldn't affect most end users because the OEM versions of Small Business Server 2003 R2 only went out in July. Means the software shouldn't have reached too many (if any) end users as yet. But in case you got your hands on it somehow and were thinking of upgrading...don't.
According to VARBusiness, Microsoft issued a recall of the upgrade after a routine audit discovered significant portions of the code were "non-final". Redmond says it plans to finish the non-final code, swap it for the crappy stuff and re-issue R2 later--no word yet on specifically what 'later' means.
But hey, they could have just let the crap go out the door and fixed it after we all started having problems. Better this way in my opinion.
(via Slashdot)
Posted by Oliver Rist on August 21, 2006 11:10 AM
August 02, 2006 | Comments: (0)
Off-site backup is a great guard against disaster recovery. Nothing protects your data when your office building gets melted by an alien death ray like not having your data in the office building. But usually, setting up an off-site backup, managing the wide area connection and interpreting the reports all required some new IT smarts on-staff. And the service wasn't cheap, either.
But cheap storage seems to have evolved into cheaper storage services, like DataPreserve. This company does off-site backup to a high-end data center (followed by yet another backup from there to yet another high-end data center) for total data redundacy...and it's priced for small businesses.
Additionally, the company is operating on a franchise basis. Hiring reps in specific locations and training them so you've got an in-area representative for questions, service and warm I'm-not-a-number fuzzy wuzzy feeling.
I haven't tested the service yet, but with storage being fairly standard on the data center side, your biggest variable here is likely to be your WAN connection. In the New York area, we're seeing problems lately even with dedicated T1 lines and DSL lines have turned into a regular crapshoot.
Oh, and DataPreserve is by no means the only off-site data backup company out there with an SMB-style service plan. Also check out:
BitLeap
Iron Mountain
US Data Trust
Intronis Technologies
And yes, there are a number of others, but I don't have time to list everyone. Shoot me.
Posted by Oliver Rist on August 2, 2006 01:43 PM
July 27, 2006 | Comments: (0)
Exchange Mailbox Restore for SMBs from OnTrack
Email recovery. Just saying the phrase can send chills down the yellow spines of many a network admin. Especially if that admin is really just the SMB office computer geek who is getting stuck with these tasks because there's nobody else.
Exchange used to be a nightmare to restore, with little caveats like not allowing access to the Exchange message database unless a working server was accessible. Microsoft has made some improvements on that with Exchange 2003 (and the SBS version of Exchange), but it's still not a lightweight task.
Other solutions exist, but are often expensive. Mimosa's NearPoint, for example has a base cost around $10,000; while Symantec's Enterprise Vault costs around $3,500 per license. And then there are cool smaller solutions like PowerTools from OnTrack.
This software has a base of $950 for a 100 mailbox license with additional agents costing about $500. But price isn't all that's cool about PowerTools. It's also easy and non-intrusive, because PowerTools doesn't really talk to Exchange. PowerTools installs on a separate machine and is really only interested in you Exchange backups. So you don't even have to modify your existing email architecture. As the diagram illustrates, Exchange-to-backup stays the same, with PowerTools simply installing at the end of the chain.
Even better, PowerTools is...powerful. It gives administrators the ability to read older email backups--even if you no longer have access to the backup programs that created those data files. It can grab personal as well as server-based backups of PST files, and can do full email database restores, full mailbox restores or single-message restores.
Very cool stuff for the money and pretty easy to use. OnTrack has taken pains to design the interface to be intuitive for folks who understand how to run backup programs. Find target backup, find restore location, initiate restore. There's more complexity than that, but its the basic process--nicely done and not too frightening to most folks.
Worth checking out.
Posted by Oliver Rist on July 27, 2006 09:35 PM
July 12, 2006 | Comments: (0)
I recently had a chance to do a phoner with the CEO of a company called Avalara. His name is Jared Vogt, and the discussion we had was one of those good news-bad news deals.
The bad news is that state budgets can no longer afford to ignore the revenue they could be making if they simply enforced the sales tax laws that exist today--to say nothing of creating new dollar-sucking legislation.
The good news is that while this morass of legal dollar disolving detritus is definitely bearing down on all SMBs, there are technical forces at work to ensure that this burden won't be that heavy--light enough not to notice even, though the impact on your bottom line is inevitable.
According to Vogt, there are over 75 separate sales tax jurisdictions that every business is technically subject to. Until now, states were forced to ignore most of these because enforcing them on all but the largest of companies simply wasn't feasible. Technically, for example, if a guy in Florida sells a guy in DC something on eBay, he's free and clear, but the DC buyer is supposed to what's called a use tax to DC. DC isn't going to chase him down, however, because it simply costs too much.
Enter the Streamlined Sales Tax Program [Project] (SSTP). This is legislation already finalized by our wondrous federal and state governments that dictates compliance with an internet tax program that will levy the full tax burden on all SMBs no matter where they're located. 42 states have signed up for the program and 19 are rolling it out in the near future.
The compliance burden here is a potential nightmare, provided it plays out the way Avalara says it will. Every transaction must be weighed against the sales tax jurisdictions of both buyer and seller as well as any third-party intermediaries. Screw it up and you're in hot water. They've got an interesting white paper on the topic of SSTP here.
That's the bad news. However, services like Avalara's AvaTax are the good news. And enough people seem to take SSTP seriously, as AvaTax is a Web service with over 2,000 SMB accounts after only 24 months in operation.
Do a Web transaction and AvaTax analyses the thing end-to-end an applies the proper sales tax on both sides of the transaction. It integrates with most accounting systems. And best of all, if there's ever a complaince audit, the feds won't audit you, they'll audit AvaTax.
So we're paying more money both to the states as well as Avalara, but at least it won't slow business down.
Posted by Oliver Rist on July 12, 2006 12:30 PM
June 07, 2006 | Comments: (0)
One 'Mo Vista Feature Goes to Boot Hill
See, this is one I was kinda looking forward to. Unless your whole life is on one PC, you've got the issue of keeping data current on more than one box--notebook and desktop usually. Vista promised to make this easier with a wizard-drive, dead-simple to use PC Sync feature that would keep data current on multiple PCs for any single user.
Cool, no? Too bad it's dead. Just got announced today, not going to happen--in the first release, at least. Maybe never.
Sucketh Majorus, but at least it's not something more critical, like the file system--oh wait, we already canceled that. What I'm waiting for is some announcement saying they're trimming some of the feature fat off Aero. That's what's rumored to be behind the release delay anyway.
Posted by Oliver Rist on June 7, 2006 06:03 PM
June 02, 2006 | Comments: (0)
Exchange 2007 Gets a Premium License
Exchange getting fleshed out. Seems that Microsoft is making some changes to what we've come to expect from Exchange 2007. So instead of just Exchange 2007 Standard and Exchange 2007 Enterprise, there will now be a souped up Enterprise version that will add new features, mostly security stuff like anti-virus and anti-spam. These will be available either in an on-site form or as hosted services via Microsoft's FrontBridge platform.
While I like the new features, especially the hosted options, I'm not so happy that we've got to get yet another higher-priced license for them. That's a higher-priced license plus the ongoing service charge. The story and Microsoft's press info isn't clear on that point. Have a call in to them now to ask whether the CAL gets you access to the AV/AS stuff for the life of the CAL or whether you're still paying a per/mo--per/CAL charge. Also want to know how this affects the new 'compliance' features, which seems to be another way of describing FrontBridge's archiving service. No word on how this is being priced next to the CAL question.
If it's the latter, then I'm cranky. I know they're maximizing profits, but for the SMB set, it would have made more sense to keep the basic license scheme the same and charge for the hosted services as standalone options. Forcing me to get another CAL simply to access them seems like insult on injury.
Posted by Oliver Rist on June 2, 2006 06:15 PM
May 24, 2006 | Comments: (0)
A Conversation with Oracle on SMB
So if it's one company I simply never associated with the SMB space, it's Oracle. Might have something to do with having to sit through several Oracle purchasing meetings and always starting off somewhere in seven figures. Well, Oracle has changed and to help me change with it, the company put me on the phone with Lenley Hensarling (vice president, application product strategy group) and Willie Hardie (senior director of database product marketing). And we talked SMB.
SMB IT: Why is your SMB marketing message so quiet?
Oracle Guys: We need to work on the strength of our marketing message. We'll own that. But the fact is that Oracle has been focusing tightly on the SMB market not just with product announcements but with new initiatives with our partner channel, too. And we're not taking our foot off the gas here anytime soon.
SMB IT: How do you define SMB?
OG: We generally think of them as $500 million or less.
SMB IT: $500 million in annual revenue?...!
OG: Yes.
SMB IT: Okay. [swallows a shot of Cuervo] So what's your SMB roadmap?
OG: We put out Oracle 10g back in January of 2004. A few months later we announced a co-marketing deal with Dell [ed: a big SMB channel partner] and also put out the new Oracle Application Server 10g vesion 1 to give the product line a standard set of middleware. That takes us into 2005. Then, a few months ago, we introduced a low-cost bundle of the database and app server that sells for a base cost of $238. Certainly of interest to SMBs. And this summer, we're putting out a business intelligence product suite, which will have a specific SMB version available at the same time.
SMB IT: Well that's SMB. So what are the specs on this lowcost version of 10g?
OG: For one thing, the $238 is for the bundle. If you just want the 10g database you can get it for as little as $149. That's for a fully functional version limited to two CPUs. But we've not only kept the full product functionality, we've added significant ease of installation. Instead of needing an expert to install your database, you now just have to answer a couple of parameter questions and then click "Start". 10g will install itself.
And if the $149 two-CPU version is still too expensive, we also came out with 10g Express Edition earlier this year. This is a fully-functioning single-CPU version that's completely free. It's not really aimed at businesses, however, more at developers and education.
SMB IT: Sounds like you really have done some product-side work on attracting SMB customers.
OG: Yeah, and you can tell. According to our numbers, fully 60% of standard edition 10g customers are new customers.
SMB IT: Okay. But I still have a gut reaction that always equates you guys with enterprise. Especially, your associated applications.
OG: Well that's a three-to-four yeear old market perception, and we need to work on changing it. But I think we definitely already have on the technology side. We think it's actually significantly easier to install and run ERP applications on our platform than on Microsoft's. With them you need BizTalk, AD, SharePoint, IIS, Identity Server and more. With us, you just need the database, the app server, a compatible Web server and that's it. We do ID management through LDAP and a BPAL solution to talk to third-party applications.
We've even added an eBusiness Suite for installing the ERP products, which is spcifically aimed at smaller customers with less in-house IT expertise. The new Suite uses accelerator technology for deployment--JD Edwards uses a similar thing. Deployment is based on answering a series of business questions and then runs mostly automated. We've had customers go live with this Suite in around 90 days start to finish.
SMB IT: Well, it sounds like you've done real work on the SMB technology goods, but you need to work on the marketing message.
OG: And we're doing that. You'll see a highly targeted ad campaign beginning in the next couple of months. We're aiming it at companies below $100 million in revenue, so right in the SMB area.
SMB IT: [Thinking while drinking] Wish my SMB did $100 million.
Posted by Oliver Rist on May 24, 2006 10:03 AM
May 16, 2006 | Comments: (0)
Beware the Free Blogging Sites
Marketing guys love blogs. "Blog this, blog that, blog your way to business success." Everyone wants a blog.
Best part is they're easy to setup. Fill in a few questions, make some basic graphic choices and then just start blogging stuff up. Easy peasy.
Even better than best is...they're free. That's right. MSN Spaces, Blogger, even MySpace--and there's plenty more. They're completely free. Just sign up and deal with a banner ad or two and that's all it'll cost you.
Okay enough fluff. That's the sales spiel that most of us hear and believe. But as loyal reader Kiltak discovered, it's not always that way. Kiltak is the proud owner of the excellently named Geeks Are Sexy blog. It's well written by guys who know what they're talking about and--most important--often link back to my blogs.
Predictably, they've become steadily more popular. More and more readers until one day, Kiltak tried logging onto his blog, only to discover that Blogspot seemed to have deleted his blog. No warning.
As expected, Kiltak sent a few salty emails and voice calls to the Blogspot folks, basically asking "What the @#$%?!?"
Sadly, it took them some time to figure out what he was talking about, but when they did the explanation went like this: The traffic going to Geeks Are Sexy as well as its content had risen to a level where Blogger decided it might be a possible source of 'spam' blogging. When that happens, it sticks the blog into a quarantine of sorts until they figure out what's what. Meanwhile the blogger no longer sees the site name in his blog management interface.
Be nice if they'd warn you first, wouldn't it? But the word to SMB (especially SB) guerilla marketing types is: Be careful. If your free marketing ploy actually becomes successful, there's a good chance it might just disappear one day. Read the fine print on your usage agreement and watch your traffic stats.
Posted by Oliver Rist on May 16, 2006 09:57 PM
May 15, 2006 | Comments: (0)
Finally broke down and visited MySpace just to see what the fuss is about. I suppose giving me, a 40-year old computer geek, the ability to filter MySpace browsing to women between the ages of 30-40, 20-30 or (hey!) less-than-20 to 20, might make some parents nervous. But for the most part, the whole surfing process really struck me as pretty boring.
What's more useful are business-oriented social networking sites like CollectiveX, LinkedIn or even Yahoo Groups. The latter is more of a dedicated discussion thread manager, but your do get to meet people with like-minded interests if you set it up properly.
CollectiveX and LinkedIn are more targeted. I'm actually a member of LinkedIn, though I don't access it as often as I should. It's been a great resource, however, in finding talented help. By putting your own profile out there, you get networked with like-minded, socially responsible folks upon whom you can draw for work, contract jobs, sales or partnership discussions.
CollectiveX goes a little beyond LinkedIn in the features department. They've got a similar intent, but also combine certain team collaboration features, including group emails, shared scheduling, shared file areas and even managed bulk email services.
You can get a free membership if you like seeing banner ads, or you can opt for $20- and $36-per month premium packages that offer more storage space as well as additional security, including 128-bit SSL session encryption.
I'm not sure of the value in this for a medium-sized business. Mainly for HR, I'd expect. But for a small business, especially one that deals largely in contractors, these sites can be invaluable because they not only hook you up with qualified people, they also provide a large network of folks who are willing to vet, vouch for and rate them. Almost built-in references.
Posted by Oliver Rist on May 15, 2006 12:40 PM
May 12, 2006 | Comments: (0)
Good Article on the Inner Workings of Spam
Lately, I'm getting more and more calls from customers with increasing spam problems. Not sure if that's just the gradual escalation of spamware or because the spamming community is realizing that its days are numbered.
Whichever, SMBers need to get a better understanding of how spam works to efectively pick a tactic to fight it. Fortunately, I just ran across this solid article on how spammer's eat up email directories pubbed by Kiltak from Geeks Are Sexy.
Nice job and worth the read.
Posted by Oliver Rist on May 12, 2006 03:53 PM
May 09, 2006 | Comments: (0)
I was quiet last week because InfoWorld trundled my geek booty off to Vegas for the Interop show. I'm not that big a Vegas fan to begin with and Executive Editor, Doug Dineley shamed us into going to the significantly cheaper Excalibur hotel for the duration. Turns out it's significantly cheaper for a reason. Think open beer bottles in the halls and elevators at 8am.
That aside, Interop 2006 was an interesting show. Much larger than last year's Interminiop, this year's fest had to be housed at the cavernous convention center in the Mandalay Bay. Took about 20 minutes of walking from the Manadalay's side door just to get to the convention center -- that's a honking hotel.
On the SMB front, Interop was a win. Seems there were two things on every vendors mind at this year's show: SMBs and security. If they weren't trying to sell something into the SMB space, they were trying to sell something that tracked, monitored, protected or filtered. My Big Brother alarms were going off all week.
Stuff I liked:
The Kaidea NASVault. Cool bit of hardware. It's your typical SMB NAS box, built for disaster recovery and disk-based backup. But really built for it, meaning the thing is also water, fire and shock-proof. Further, it's got a front-mounted authorization button that requires pressing in order to authorise deletions. And it starts at about $2500. It got a Best of Show award, though that usually doesn't count for too much with me.
Also liked another Best of Show winner, Sipera Systems. These guys brought their IPCS 310 box to the show, and it's pretty nifty. SBs are still looking archly at VoIP, but MBs are getting to the broad deployment stage. Chief problem here, however, is becoming security--especially as folks seek to employ VoIP's more advanced features, like collaboration, employee location monitoring and other stuff.
The Sipera box sits in front of the IP PBX or the call manager or maybe just at the perimeter of the VoIP network. From here, it starts managing all your VoIP security needs, including DDoS protection, ensureing clean SIP traffic and basic VoIP firewalling. Starting at $22K, it's definitely not an SB box, but it's certainly a boon to MBs looking to safely use VoIP as a competitive edge.
Also like the new alliance between Axis and EMC. Axis Communications makes some of the best Web-based security cams around, while EMC is a storage vendor extrodinaire. Not only did they buy me breakfast, the combo actually has some real usefulness if you're a hapless SMB technology VAR like yours truly.
If you've ever had to assemble an IP-based security setup outside your garage, you know that flexible storage is a core requirement. As is integration with other security systems, including alarms, motion sensors and more. Axis and EMC have gotten together in EMC's interoperability labs to manage this integration headache, which means they'll be able to offer much more robust turnkey security solutions. Looking forward to it.
Posted by Oliver Rist on May 9, 2006 06:37 AM
May 03, 2006 | Comments: (0)
From Interop: SonicWALL Does Email for SMB
Yesterday, SonicWALL announced the release of the software it acquired when it purchased MailFrontier back in February--fast turnaround if you ask me.
Here at the Interop show, I talked with Gleb Budman, SonicWALL's senior director of product management for the email appliance line, and got a few more specifics on the announcement. Overall it concerns new email security software (available now), email security appliances for SMBs (available in two weeks) and email appliances for larger enterprises (available in early June).
Right now, The SonicWALL Email Security 200, 300, 400, 500 and 1000 appliances carry the standard library of email preventatives, including anti-virus, anti-spam, content filtering and auditing. That last one is the best feature, in my opinion, allowing admins to get an immediate answer to the question of "Hey, what happened to this specific email? I never got it." And getting that answer through a Web management GUI rather than some ultra-dense ASCII log file.
Given SonicWALL's foray into smart disk storage via its Backup & Recovery disk-based appliances, the company has also promised that it's working on an email archiving product. Remember, that's what I liked so much about Microsoft's Frontbridge stuff. SonicWALL should be talking about that later this year.
For now, the SMB email appliances will start at about $1,395 and go up from there depending on number of users and which service subscriptions you're buying.
Posted by Oliver Rist on May 3, 2006 02:40 PM
April 25, 2006 | Comments: (0)
Okay, this caught me a little off-guard. My naturally pessimistic nature (some of you might call it 'cynical' or 'curmudgeonly' even 'damagingly suspcious') told me that even widespread adoption of grid computing for enterprises was a ways off.
But as several people have reminded me, just because a business falls into the category of SMB, doesn't mean it never requires higher-end computing resources. Big Blue has apparently picked up on that, which is why it rolled out Grid and Grow™ Express.
This is as much of grid-in-a-can product as you're going to get, including hardware, software and services. Take an IBM BladeCenter enclosure with 7 blades and add specialized grid software, including packaging and scheduler.
You'll still need IBM grid-aware software applications, but on the upside they're quoting a lease price of about $1400 for 36 months. Plus, you're set to expand the grid easily with just more BladeCenter enclosures.
All in all, considering what a pain it is to setup something like a Beowulf cluster, IBM may have a really cool platform here--provided it works as advertised.
Posted by Oliver Rist on April 25, 2006 09:36 AM
April 14, 2006 | Comments: (0)
Had a chance t'other day to talk to David Moll, CEO of Webroot. That's the company that makes one of the most mature biz-class spyware mauling packages, SpySweeper Enterprise. (While you're there, check out the stuff on Webroot's Phileas spyware research system.)
Moll and I talked less about SpySweeper, however, and more about the state of spyware in the business community. In case you're wondering, it's bad. The company actually publishes a quarterly report on the topic that you can download here.
Some of the disturbing trends that Moll says he's seeing this year include passive phishing trojans, which often work as keystroke loggers. These are new packages that squirm into target systems via nasty emails that often start as phishing scams. They then sit passively waiting for you to hit a certain Web site--like, say, your online banking site. Then they start recording all your key activity there and zap that off to whatever dastardly dastard wrote the thing in the first place.
"What makes these trojans so dangerous is the quality of information they send back to the bad guys," says Moll. Traditional key loggers would send back reams of keystrokes from a full day or even several days of PC activity. Often the damaging stuff got lost in this morass of casual strokes--but with passive loggers, the bad guys get exactly what they're looking for.
Another newly popular way for the dastardly set to install malware is via customized remote installation. So some evil email tells you to hit www.domedirty.com to download a PDF document on Making Your Life Shiny and New. You click 'Download' and an error dialog pops up saying the download was corrupted. You click the "OK" button and try to download again. What you don't realize is that the file wasn't corrupted and the dialog was actually a "Do you want to install this executable?" only with the text message changed to something innocuous...and you just hit OK. Ouch.
Bottom line: Spyware infections are growing. Worse, the nature of spwyare is moving from 'institutional' (the cookie that someone like Double-Click installs for managing Web ads) to 'criminal' (the key stroke logger that Joe Slimeball installs to snag your bank password).
Far worse for SMBs is that spyware installation scams are increasingly targeting small and medium sized businesses--specifically.
"That's because often they have just as much rich personal information as larger enterprises," says Moll, "but they don't have spyware expertise on staff nor do they have specific anti-spyware tools. Makes them very inviting targets."
Especially for spyware rings run by organized crime looking to get not one valuable password or credit card number, but a few thousand at a clip.
As a final question, I asked Moll what he thought about Microsoft's public advice to simply wipe machines folks believe are infected with rootkits and rebuild.
"It's a little comical, frankly," he says. "After all viruses are 20 years old and we're still fighting that battle. Spyware in its present state is only three years old, so to come out and say that this one attack form is so effective as to always warrant a complete rebuild just doesn't make sense. It's just another attack strategy for which we've already found a counter."
And the game goes on.
Posted by Oliver Rist on April 14, 2006 08:48 AM
April 07, 2006 | Comments: (0)
Okay, it's mostly a SoHo service, but it's a darn nice one...and it's free. Well, again, mostly.
The service is called AirSet and unlike all the big beta bombs that Google and Microsoft are shooting out of every orifice, AirSet is done. As in production code. Finished. Polished. Complete. Get the point?
Sign up for this service and you get way more than just a personal calendar. AirSet allows you to manage scheduling groups. That gives you the ability to set events or event alarms for single folks or goups of folks--also task lists with date reminders or simple agendas. There's even a blog you can run for every member of your group.
Next good part: It syncs with Outlook (remember it's still free). There's an upload wizard that guides your existing appointments onto the AirSet service and also keeps them in sync after that. Muy cool, no?
Slickest part, unfortunately, is the part that costs. If you own a Verizon phone with Web capability (and I'd recommend EV-DO here), you can get your full AirSet calendar delivered to your smartphone for about $6.50 per month.
So basically, AirSet does pretty much all that most people need from a basic shared scheduling service. Wish it had more cell phone compatibility than just Verizon, but let's hope that changes with time. For now, it's still darn sexy for something this light on your wallet.
Posted by Oliver Rist on April 7, 2006 09:22 AM
April 03, 2006 | Comments: (0)
SF startup Splunk is set to open a wiki for IT professionals hunting down system troubles. Sounds very much like a universal problem knowledgebase, but the company wants to flesh it out enough to be a universal encyclopedia for us IT types.
If it works it'll be a great SMB resource, not just for small-biz IT consultants like me, but also for very small biz personnel who can't afford an IT guy but have problems anyway.
Only hope that enough of us take the time to post content in order to make the thing worthwhile. And the first time some joker posts an erroneous fix there's going to be a flamestorm like no other.
Posted by Oliver Rist on April 3, 2006 06:52 AM
March 20, 2006 | Comments: (0)
If your marketing advisors are chanting "podcast, podcast, podcast" so much that you start hearing it even in the shower, then take heart. No need to invest in loads of software on lots of "Podcast for Tired Dopey Executives" books; just check out Gcast.
This is a Web service (and, no, it's not owned by Google) that makes podcasting as easy as making a phone call. Setup an account, pay the ticket and you can call Gcast's 800 number to do a phoner-cast. Best of all: It's free. Not bad, Chad, but not perfect.
See, 'cause once you record a phoner-cast, you can import into Gcast's sister site, Garageband.com--you may have heard of them. Sad thing is here, all you can do is add MP3 music overdubs and sound effects. You can't manipulate the podcast recording at all--other than to re-record a whole new one.
That relegates Gcast to mobile-only podcasts. Things like I might do as I walk through a trade show. Given the nature of the Garageband application, this brings only lower-quality podcasts into easy SMB reach. High-end stuff still means investing in a specialized software kit.
Posted by Oliver Rist on March 20, 2006 08:18 PM
March 13, 2006 | Comments: (0)
Stay off of McAfee Scans for a Day or So
This was discovered over the weekend, but INQ7 released the story this morning: Seems the last McAfee AV definitions file went a mite overboard.
I've never had much luck with McAfee, and when I asked our CTO about them he said, "I won't install McAfee on anything because McAfee itself is a virus."
He thought he was kidding, but this last AV definitions file actually makes him correct, as it incorrectly identifies a significant number of Windows EXE files as viruses. Kinda does a number on your OS installation.
The faulty release is 4715, and they've already released 4716, which they hope corrects the problems. But I'd still give it a day or two before running even 4716. Make sure there are no more outcries from the user community.
Weird thing is there isn't even a link off their home page to the fixed DAT file or a press release explaining anything. Hell, even Microsoft does that much.
Posted by Oliver Rist on March 13, 2006 10:53 AM
March 06, 2006 | Comments: (0)