Archive for May, 2009
SBS 2008 Build Day – Redmond
Posted by: | CommentsThe SBS 2008 build day road show continues with the next stop – Redmond on Saturday. Even if you can’t be there in person you can join the show via Live Meeting. http://www.clicktoattend.com/?id=137853
Amy will be giving a session on security considerations for SBS 2008 as part of this event. Please join us!
Eriq’s 5W/50 Presentation June 12
Posted by: | CommentsEriq will be the speaker for the June 12, 2009, 5W/50 presentation with a session titled Top Issues Seen in the Consulting World. The session starts at noon Eastern/9am Pactific and will run for an hour.
Registration for the session is open now to all Microsoft partners. If you haven’t registered yet, you can do so through the Microsoft partner site.
See you on June 12!
Amy & Eriq on SMB Conference Call
Posted by: | CommentsEriq and I spent a delightful hour rambling on about technical support, Third Tier, SBS, the future of our small IT firms, Eriq’s SBS Unleashed book and other topics with Karl Palachuk of Great Little Books. It’s always good to chat with Karl. We had a great time and after the show Eriq gave away a couple of books. The conference call is recorded and it available at Great Little Books.
Varvid Third Tier video
Posted by: | CommentsAaron Booker is Varvid and he managed to catch up with Eriq at SMB Nation East a couple of weeks ago. See the Varvid site for this short little video on what Eriq has to say about Third Tier.
http://www.varvid.com/2009/05/eriq-neale-speaks-with-aaron-booker-of-varvidcom.html
No Drives Found error installing CentOS 5.2 on VMWare
Posted by: | CommentsI was installing CentOS 5.2 on a VMWare Workstation image when I suddenly hit a wall with this error
No Drives Found
An error has occurred - no valid devices were found on which to create new file systems. Please check your hardware for the cause of this problem.
Now, this isn't the first time I'm installing CentOS on a virtual machine nor on a physical hardware but it definitely is the first time to install version 5.2. Back in the old versions, everything was pretty straight-forward and that I had never encountered this error message before. I was beginning to be tempted to use an iSCSI disk for the installation with another virtualized iSCSI disk but I wouldn't want to go down that road unless I will be configuring this virtual machine as a clustered server. Having searched thru a ton of newsgroup and blog posts on similar issues, a few of them mentioned changing the Operating System to Red Hat Enterprise Linux or Other Linux 2.4.x kernel to make it work. I did find a recommendation to change the virtual disk from SCSI (which happens to be the default setting when you configure your virtual machine) to IDE. That did the trick, although I needed to create a new virtual machine in the process which was the quickest way to do it.
So, remember - use an IDE disk in your VMWare image when installing CentOS 5.2
Webinar: Top Support Issues in SBS 2008
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Amy & Eriq will be presentation a special webinar tomorrow, May 21st at 1:00pm pacific time for Cloud Services Depot. All are welcome to attend. This event replaces our regular Third Thursday webinar this month. We’ll be back to the regular schedule next month. See you there!
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Amy & Eriq on SMB Conference Call TODAY
Posted by: | CommentsMay 20, 2009
9:00 AM Pacific Time
Amy Babinchak and Eriq Neale
Join Karl as he interviews two of his favorite people in the SMB Space — Amy Babinchak and Eriq Neale.
Amy and Eriq have a lot in common. Microsoft MVPs, authors, long-time contributors to the SMB space, AND now they’re off on a grand adventure called . . . Third Tier.
Third Tier provides advanced IT support services to professionals. Third Tier is staffed by experts with deep knowledge in specific areas.
Their expertise includes SBS, active directory, exchange, SharePoint, SQL, ISA, Macs and network infrastructure. Their staff currently includes, Amy Babinchak, Eriq Neale, Dave Shackelford, and Chad Gross.
They also provide support for vendors in the small business space looking to assist their customers with advanced implementation and support services.
Amy:
Amy Babinchak owns Harbor Computer Services (HCS) in Michigan. They provide local small businesses with quality IT services.
Amy was named by Microsoft as MVP in ISA Server twice and again in Essential Business Server.
Amy frequently speaks on security and firewall issues, both nationally and internationally at conferences and to user groups. She has contributed articles to ISAserver.org, SMBNation Magazine and chapters for SBS 2003 Unleashed and SBS 2008 Unleashed.
In 2008, she and Eriq Neale formed Third Tier to provide direct access to advanced support services to IT professionals.
Eriq:
Eriq Neale doesn’t like the use of the word "veteran" when it comes to describing how long he’s been working in the IT industry, but until someone comes up with a term that implies experience and expertise without grey hair, that term will have to do.
As the President of EON Consulting, LLC, and a partner in Third Tier, Eriq has been focused on providing solutions to small businesses and small business IT professionals for a number of years.
He is the lead author of two Unleashed books on SBS (2003 and 2008) and has been recognized as an MVP by Microsoft for the past four years.
On Third Tier:
Join us May 20th to discuss SBS 2008 challenges, what Third Tier is up to, and the roll of "upstream" I.T. Support can do to help you make more money.
Info:
- Email Amy: amy@harborcomputerservices.net
- Email Eriq: Eriq.Neale@eonconsulting.net
- www.thirdtier.net
Third Tier on SMB Conference Call
Posted by: | CommentsAmy and I will be joining Karl Palachuk on today’s SMB Conference Call to talk about Third Tier. The call starts at 9am Pacific time sharp. Register for the call at https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/632770144 . We hope you’ll join us today!
Backup on shared folders running on a local system account?
Posted by: | CommentsWhile I do not advocate such workarounds as it opens up additional security loopholes, it still is a workaround. And as I usuallly say, WARNING: This is not a recommended approach. Use at your own risk
Microsoft has a documented procedure to enable null sessions shares and while the KB article mentions Windows 2000, it does work for Windows Server 2003. This should be done on the Windows machine that hosts the shared folder. A word of caution if you intend to use this approach - document every step that you do and make sure you rollback any changes made after generating your database backup. Tasks like enabling the Guest user account (this is disabled by default), modifying the registry, etc. should be rolled back as soon as you're done, otherwise, you're opening up security vulnerabilities across your network.
