Can YOU Fit 2,700 Floppy Disks In Your Hand?

So, CAN you fit the data storage equivalent of over 2,700 floppy disks in the palm of your hand?

I can!

I call it… “My Precious“ 😉

Props go to Kevin Royalty & Brad Green from CiNPA for the heads-up on the deal. Thanks guys!

Mfg: MicroGEM
Make: QuickiDrive 4GB USB 2.0 Micro Drive
Model: QD4G

• Rubberized protective coating
• USB 1.1 & 2.0 compatible
• Dimensions: 3.5 x 2.2″
• Weight: 1.4 oz.
• Data transfer rate: Up to 480 Mbps
• Regular Price: $149.99
• Sale Price: $79.99

Where? BestBuy.com. Better hurry!!

Why Become a Microsoft Small Business Specialist?

There is a really nice article on the Microsoft Small Business Specialist designation, the SMB market itself, and a success story on the MCP Magazine website:

Microsoft’s Small Business Specialist Designation:
What’s in It for You?
http://www.mcpmag.com/features/article.asp?EditorialsID=538

One nice quote from the article:

“I see a great need out there for people to delve into the business aspect of solutions and not just the technical angle,” says Chris Fraser, business consulting manager at Cherry, Bekaert & Holland, a Richmond, Va.-based small business tax and accounting consulting firm with some 20 offices throughout the Southeast. Both a Certified Public Accountant and Certified Information Technology Professional, Fraser still decided to earn an SBS shortly after it was announced. He believes his new label will boost his company’s business. “Clients depend on me to educate them about what they need,” says Fraser. “I’m more of a partner than a technician.”

Managed services anyone? 😉

Recent and Upcoming TS2 Webcasts

There is some great content avilable online from the TS2 Wednesdays On the Web (WOW) Team:

Recorded Webcasts:

• Visual Studio Tools for Office (VSTO) 11/16/2005 12pm
• Upgrading to SQL Server 2005 11/16/2005 3pm
• Buy Local Windows Campaign 11/16/2005 5pm
• Advanced WSS Customization in SBS 11/23/2005 3pm
• Competitive Resources (Part 4) 11/23/2005 5pm
• SBS Support Engineer Brain dump (part 1 of 2) 11/30/2005 3pm
• SBS Support Engineer Brain Dump (part 2 of 2) 11/30/2005 5pm
• Best Practices for Selling Windows XP MCEdition 12/7/2005 5pm
• Microsoft Media Support – Can you see me now? 12/14/2005 3pm
• Office 12 – Native XML File Format? 12/14/2005 5pm

Future Webcasts:

• SQL Server 2005 & Disaster Recovery 12/21/2005 3pm
• Service Contracts: Growing Your Business with Recurring Revenue 12/21/2005 5pm
• Patch Management for the Windows Platform 1/25/2006 5pm

(all times are Eastern US GMT -5)

Free Office 2003 Training Presentations

Now, at Office Online, you can obtain free training presentations about the 2003 versions of Microsoft Office programs. These are great for employee or customer training sessions.

Created by the producers of Office Online Training, these compact courses are delivered in Microsoft PowerPoint. You’ll find them all here: Training presentations. Which training presentations are the most popular?

Here are the top five:

• Outlook 2003—See and share multiple calendars
• Excel 2003—How to use lists
• OneNote 2003—Get to know OneNote
• FrontPage 2003—Create a Web site with FrontPage
• Outlook 2003—Organize your Inbox

  More training presentations will be added regularly. All training presentations are compatible with PowerPoint 2003, PowerPoint 2002, and PowerPoint 2000.

  Source:
  http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/assistance/HA011618161033.aspx

Is Wardriving Illegal?

From the “It’s-A-Small-World” category:

After last night’s KYSBSUG meeting, the question came up, “Is Wardriving Illegal”? And I don’t think we reached a consensus.

Coincidentally, there is a pretty heated discussion on Tech Republic going on right now about this exact same question. 261 opinions at last count. They make some very valid arguments on both sides of the fence. The conversation morphed to mainly leeching someone else’s WiFi connection to surf the web, rather than actual Wardriving. But the debate rages on.

If anyone wants to verbally arm-wrestle this one with me, look me up at UofL after Tech Night Live tonight. 😉

The SBS 2003 Unleashed Book is Finally Here!!

At long last, the new “Microsoft Small Business Server 2003 Unleashed” book is finally in my hot little hands!! To prove the authenticity of this photo, many of you will recognize my infamous ‘giant‘ wristwatch and the 3 Stooges poster in the background. 😉

A huge thanks goes to lead author Eriq Neale who really did an awesome job, and to Loretta and all the great folks at SAMS Publishing for all the hard work in getting the book published – plus an additional ‘mega-thanks’ for getting me a copy on Launch Day! Woo-hoo!!

The books’ contributing authors and editors are a world-wide team of Microsoft MVPs and folks from the SBS newsgroup and user group community who really know their stuff: Amy Babinchak, Susan Bradley, Frank Clark, Henry Craven, Javier Gomez, Chad Gross, Anne Stanton & Edward Walters. Plus, they let me write some too 😉

If your pre-order hasn’t shown up from Amazon.com yet (ISBN 0672328054) be sure and come to the December KYSBSUG meeting in Louisville tomorrow (12/14/05) and check the book out in person. We’ll have free pizza and soft drinks at the book launch party, and you’ll get a virtual tour of the book’s contents. We’ll also talk about Windows Server 2003 R2 and Exchange Intelligent Message Filter (IMF). Lotsa geek fun!

I don’t know about you, but I’m completely in nerd-vana. And my weekend is now officially spoken-for! Happy reading all!

Video – Microsoft Across America Truck

The video interview I shot with Michael Voorhees on the Microsoft Across America Truck on November 10 is available for download. Here are the details:

Run time: 17:04
Download size: 125MB
Format: QuickTime
URL: http://www.vladville.com/MSAM_Truck_Barrett.MOV

If you click on the link above it will launch in QuickTime Player (which doesn’t let you save videos). But if you right-click the link above and choose “Save target as”, you can download it to your computer and save it.

A special ‘Thanks’ goes to Vlad for the web space and bandwidth.

Note: If you know of a good QuickTime to WMV or AVI converter that will shrink the file size of the video, you’re welcome to post it in the blog comments. Thanks!

Zero Hour meets Zero Day

I find it humorous (in a masochistic sort of way) that the winds of fate would coincide Microsoft “Zero Hour” (the XBOX 360 launch) on the same day as a “Zero Day” exploit (#911302) for Microsoft Internet Explorer.

All humor aside, this security update is mandatory reading folks!!

KB Article – 908372 “Access Denied”

KB Article ID: 908372
Last Review: November 16, 2005
Revision: 1.0
URL: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;908372

You may receive an “Access denied” error message when you try to join a client computer to a Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2003 domain by using the ConnectComputer Wizard

Symptons: You try to join a Windows 2000 or XP Pro client computer to a Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2003 domain by using the ConnectComputer Wizard and get a “Access denied” error message.

Cause: This problem occurs if the client computer was previously joined to a domain that had policies that disabled SMB signing.

Applies to: SBS 2003 Standard, Premium & SBS 2000

Got Root?

Microsoft has announced that they (among others) will treat Sony’s XCP (Extended Copy Protection) software as a threat and will offer a tool for it’s removal in December.