Archive for Events

<This is not an official Third Tier event.>

In this presentation, I will not be demonstrating how to use Twitter, Facebook, Facebook Fan pages, LinkedIn and Blogs but rather I will show how other businesses are using social media and provide a general introduction to the terminology and the technology. Hopefully in a manner that is not geeky but rather easily understood.

I have allocated an hour for this event. My discussion will not take up the entire time. There will be time available at the end for Q&A.

When: Thursday, Jul 23, 2009 12:00 PM (EDT)
Scheduled to Occur: Once
Duration: 1:00

Amy Babinchak has invited you to present an online meeting using
Microsoft Office Live Meeting.

https://www.livemeeting.com/cc/mvp/join?id=9FFTG5&role=present&pw=c7%7BP8QC%60b

Meeting time: Jul 23, 2009 12:00 PM (EDT) 

When: Thursday, Jul 23, 2009 12:00 PM (EDT)
Scheduled to Occur: Once
Duration: 1:00

Amy Babinchak has invited you to present an online meeting using
Microsoft Office Live Meeting.

https://www.livemeeting.com/cc/mvp/join?id=9FFTG5&role=present&pw=c7%7BP8QC%60b

Meeting time: Jul 23, 2009 12:00 PM (EDT) 

Add to my Outlook Calendar:
https://www.livemeeting.com/cc/mvp/meetingICS?id=9FFTG5&role=present&pw=c7%7BP8QC%60b&i=i.ics


So who wrote this blog and what do they do for a living anyway?

We’re Third Tier. We provide advanced Third Tier support for IT Professionals.
Third Tier Get Support BlogFeed Blog Twitter Twitter Facebook Facebook LinkedIn LinkedIN

Categories : Amy Babinchak, Events
Comments (0)
May
29

SBS 2008 Build Day – Redmond

Posted by: Amy Babinchak | Comments (0)

The 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!

Comments (0)

May 20, 2009
9:00 AM Pacific Time

Amy Babinchak                 Eriq Neale


Amy Babinchak and Eriq Neale

Register Now!

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:

See www.thirdtier.net

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.

Register Now!

Info:
- Email Amy: amy@harborcomputerservices.net
- Email Eriq: Eriq.Neale@eonconsulting.net
- www.thirdtier.net

Comments (0)
Apr
30

SBS Build-Day: Vegas

Posted by: Amy Babinchak | Comments (0)

Hey Vegas! SBS Build-Day is coming to your town on May 9th. Get signed up now!

Event Code: 137823 (http://www.clicktoattend.com/?id=137823)

5/9/2009

9:30 AM – 4:00 PM PDT

New Horizons CLC of Las Vegas

7674 W. Lake Mead Blvd., Suite 250

Las Vegas, NV 89128

United States

General Event Information


The Las Vegas Small Business Users Group is pleased to announce a special event for Microsoft partners – a one-day Small Business Server 2008 build event and technical education opportunity.
Event Cost: In-Person – $25.00 (includes breakfast & lunch) – Cash Only Please
Live Meeting – Please do NOT register using this link, email suzl@microsoft.com to register for Live Meeting only.
This event will showcase a live step-by-step SBS 2008 build, including joining XP Pro and Vista clients to the domain and a review of the other post-installation Getting Started Tasks. Interspersed throughout the build will be discussions of various topics such as:
• Minimum and recommended hardware requirements
• Use of the Answer File
• Network changes from SBS 2003
• The new Management Console
• Other highly useful information
Following the networking luncheon we will discuss:
• Migration tasks, experiences and caveats

• Edge-Security (Amy Babinchak – Microsoft MVP)

• Securing SBS 2008 with AuthAnvil (Dana Epp – Microsoft MVP)
• SBS 2008 Gotchas (Susan Bradley – Microsoft MVP)
• Licensing (Tim Carney – www.basbits.org)

Comments (0)

Dana Epp of Scorpion software (that’s AuthAnvil, RWW Guard, RWW Protect) is offering a free copy of SBS 2008 Unleashed to a lucky person that attends 2 excellent events happening on Third Thursday.

As you know at Noon, this Thursday is the next installment of our regular Third Thursday, Managing SBS 2008: Certificates. In this session Eriq Neale will educate us all on how to manage SSL certificates, whether self-signed or purchased in SBS 2008. He’ll be using live demo to show you how it’s done.

Immediately following Eriq’s presentation Dana Epp is hosting a round table: Selling Security to the SMB – Why trust matters and how you lose it when using FUD. Learn how to strengthen the trust relationship with your clients by providing educational based selling, helping you to identify potential sales opportunities driven by need… and not fear. The roundtable will be made up of Dana, Amy, Susan Bradley and Ben Yarbrough.

To be eligible to win Eriq’s book, you’ll need to sign up and attend both events. It’ll only take two hours of your time.

Here’s how to get signed up:

1. Third Tier. Managing SBS 2008: Certificates  https://www.livemeeting.com/cc/mvp/meetingICS?id=F2FGNW&role=attend&pw=w%242S%3BM%60Wx&i=i.ics

2. Scorpion Software. Selling security to the SMB https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/733132802

I’ll be participating in both events. See you there! It’s going to be a great Thursday.

Comments (0)
Apr
13

SMB Summit Postponed, but Why?

Posted by: Amy Babinchak | Comments (0)

You’ve probably heard the news that the conference has been postponed from elsewhere by now and rather than yet another post announcing the postponement, I was hoping to have some news to post on the postponement as to when the postponed conference would be rescheduled. :) But alas nothing yet.

It’s disappointing, for sure. We worked hard to gather up the best topics and speakers for the technical track that the conference has ever seen. But it is understandable. SMBTN, the organizer of the event, has to put out $250,000 before a single attendee shows up at the door. That’s a lot of risk for a group of volunteers. So when the attendance doesn’t look strong, events get cancelled. 

Why wasn’t attendance strong? That’s the real question here. Is it the economy? Well, that’s a good excuse but business owners need to continue to invest in their business even (or maybe especially) when it’s down. Or maybe it’s because there were so many events scheduled around the same time.

[Note: The following is Amy’s personal opinion.]

Where did these other events come from? Seismic, ConnectWise, AutoTask, TechData, and don’t forget the ever prolific Everything Channel, MS TechEd, MS WWPC…they are all having conferences. I know I’ve not named them all either. What’s different about these, is that they aren’t community led. They are vendor events. Not that they aren’t valuable but in our market space we have been blessed to have community led events like: SMB Nation, SMB Summit, MSPSN and HTG. IT Pros in the enterprise don’t have community events, they only have vendor led events. When you have the choice to attend a vendor event or a community event the choice should be clear. Choose community and the community gets stronger. A strong community means you as an IT Pro in this market space have a stronger peer group from which to pull. It’s all win-win. But if we don’t support community driven events, they will go away and vendors will win. I don’t want to work where my only source of information comes from vendors; I want to be better than that. So please support community events.

Categories : Events, SMB Summit
Comments (0)

Eriq is presenting a session on preparing for SBS 2008 to the Technology Wizards group in Salem, Oregon, Wednesday April 8 at 2pm PDT. The session covers the key differences between SBS 2003 and SBS 2008 that IT Professionals should be aware of when transitioning customers to SBS 2008.

If you’re interested in having any of the Third Tier staff present at your user group meeting, feel free to e-mail us and we’ll see what we can schedule!

Categories : Eriq Neale, Events
Comments (0)

An event occurred last week that made a lot of IT people some money and added to their desire to obtain 15 minutes of minutes of fame – the Conflicker debacle. Between the media and IT professionals, both desperate to survive in a slow economy, (witness lots of publications going online only, regular columnists moving down the ladder to freelance and small IT shops going under in droves) hyping their wares using Fear, Uncertainly and Doubt they managed to scare a lot of small businesses into spending money. But then what happened? Conflicker was a non-starter and those businesses now feel duped. They got played and they know it. Now they distrust the media and IT professionals even more than they did before. How is this good for business? It’s not.

Businesses shouldn’t make IT investment decisions out of fear. To thrive they need to invest in IT because it will further their business objectives. IT should make businesses money not cost them. Business should not have to fear the next Internet disease; they should rest assured that they have made the right decision in hiring a professional IT firm that understands their business and manages the network to avoid the mad scramble. If as an IT firm if your clients don’t view you as a trusted professional, then you are doomed to fail. If as a small business you don’t view your selection of an IT firm as a trusted advisor, then it’s time for a change.

Running a secure network that enhances and enables your business to be better than the competition is possible. It’s not costly because it pays for itself. The technology isn’t scary because you have trust in your IT person. Join us for a roundtable discussion between Dana Epp of Scorpion Software, Susan Bradley of TSH&B, Ben Yarbrough of Calyptix and Amy Babinchak of Harbor Computer Services and Third Tier on April 16th.

Register here: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/733132802

Categories : Amy Babinchak, Events
Comments (1)

While making a major product announcement on April 1st might not be the best move, the announcement of the new Windows Server 2008 Foundation operating system by Microsoft today is a legitmate product announcement. And Third Tier is proud to announce, again without any April 1st tomfoolery, that Eriq Neale will be presenting a session on Server 2008 Foundation at the SMB Summit conference in Dallas the weekend of May 15-17. 

The Server 2008 Foundation product will be an interesting addition to the SMB product offering from Microsoft, but there are some specific limitations on the product that will impact how it can be used in a small business. During his presentation, Eriq will be covering the basics of the Foundation product, its design limitations, and examples of how Foundation server can be used in both stand-alone implementations and as an additional server in an existing SBS or other Windows network.

If you want to learn how Foundation server may fit into the set of offerings you have for your clients, make plans to attend this session at the SMB Summit conference in May. If you haven’t already registered to attend, you can register on-line today. For additional information about Server 2008 Foundation, see http://www.microsoft.com/windowsfoundationserver.

Comments (1)

The Sacramento SMB IT Pros (SSMBITP) and the Bay Area Small Business Information Technology Specialists’ Users Group (BASBiTS) are pleased to announce a special event for Microsoft partners – a one-day Small Business Server 2008 build event and technical education opportunity.

Event Date: Saturday, February 28, 2009
Event Location: The Microsoft Sacramento office at 300 Capitol Mall, Suite 100 in Sacramento, California 95814
Event Time: 10 AM to 4 PM (Sign-in at 9:30 AM) 

Note: Due to the amount of information to be presented at this event, we will start promptly at 10 AM.  Please arrive as close to 9:30 AM as possible in order to sign-in and be seated in a timely manner.

Capacity: 50 In-Person Attendees & 50 Live Meeting Attendees

Event Cost: In-Person Cost is $20.00 (includes lunch/refreshments) – Cash Only Please

Live Meeting Cost is $0

Registration is required.

In-Person Registration: http://www.clicktoattend.com/?id=135646

Live Meeting Registration: http://www.clicktoattend.com/?id=135655

In-Person Food Selection: Please click the following link to send your food selections to Bob Nitrio: news@ranvest.com

Entrée Choices:

· Tri-tip sandwich

· Grilled chicken breast sandwich or

· A Caesar salad entrée

Side dish choices – select two, please.

· Potato salad

· Macaroni salad

· Mixed greens salad 

Beverages and light snacks will also be provided.

This event will showcase a live step-by-step SBS 2008 build, including joining XP Pro and Vista clients to the domain and a review of the other post-installation Getting Started Tasks. Interspersed throughout the build will be discussions of various topics such as:

• Minimum and recommended hardware requirements
• Use of the Answer File
• Network changes from SBS 2003
• the new Management Console
• other highly useful information

Following the networking luncheon we will discuss:

• Migration tasks, experiences and caveats
• Securing SBS 2008 with AuthAnvil (Dana Epp – Microsoft MVP)
• Edge security devices – Amy Babinchak – Microsoft MVP
• SBS 2008 Gotchas (Susan Bradley – Microsoft MVP)
• Licensing
• Mobility
• How to setup your own internal network

The presentation team of Tim Carney and Alan Helbush (BASBiTS) will be joined by Sharjeel Noor and Peter Gallagher from the Microsoft TS2 team, together with Amy Babinchak, managing partner of Third Tier and a Microsoft MVP. Remote presentations will be made by Susan Bradley and Dana Epp, both Microsoft MVPs.

Tim Carney, MCP & Small Business Specialist

Tim has been providing technical consulting services to emerging Bay Area businesses since 2002. Involved in Microsoft’s Small Business Specialist Community for several years Tim co-founded BASBiTS.org a San Francisco Bay Area users’ group for Small Business Information Technology Specialists. For the 15 years prior to starting his consulting business, he was the CFO and CTO for a 45 person Copier Sales and Services Business in Silicon Valley. Tim was the primary technical force in changing its sales focus from Telex to Facsimile, from Fax to Copiers, from Analog to Digital, and from Stand Alone to Connected. Tim’s technical passions include Small Business Server, Infrastructure Security and Mobility Enablement. Tim is an Eagle Scout and has a B.S. degree in Business Management. Tim blogs on http://sbs-mobility.blogspot.com and recently co-presented with Eric Ligman on Licensing for the Small Business Specialist for the 5W/50 Webcast Core Business Series http://www.mssmallbiz.com/training/.

Alan Helbush, MCP, & Small Business Specialist

Alan has over 25 year of Information Technology experience. Alan opened Where To Start, Inc. Technology Solutions in 1999, providing “Big Business” IT and Managed Service Strategies tailored for mid-sized businesses including medical centers and non-profit organizations. With his detailed and methodical approach, Alan excels at network design, integrating security, implementing best practices and maintaining a hands-on customer service approach. Alan co-founded BASBiTS.org a San Francisco Bay Area users’ group for Small Business Information Technology Specialists, and was one of the first Small Business Specialists in the region. Alan’s technical passions include Compliance, Small Business Server, Infrastructure Security, Response Point and Exchange 2007. While previously employed with premium high-tech companies within the Silicon Valley, Alan honed his IT skills to match technology to business requirements while maintaining an eye on the businesses mission and goals.

Peter Gallagher, Microsoft TS2 Team

Peter Gallagher joined Microsoft in October of 1998. He started out supporting the Windows 9x platform until the 2000 time frame. He then moved to the Small Business Server support team where he supported SBS 4.0 through SBS 2003 R2. Peter’s decision to join the TS2 team was a natural extension of his forming of the DFW SBS Users Group in 2004. He enjoys working with Microsoft Partners around the Small Business Server product. In Peter’s spare time he enjoys cycling, playing XBOX, drinking fruity drinks on sandy beaches (little umbrellas are optional) and goofing around with technology.

Amy Babinchak, MCP, Small Business Specialist & Microsoft EBS MVP

Amy owns Harbor Computer Services, a consulting firm specializing in providing IT services to small businesses. She is also Managing Partner of Third Tier, which provides advanced support services to other consultants and vendors. She has written articles, contributed to the SBS Unleashed books, is the technical editor for others, has been a speaker to many user groups, and conferences. Amy recently founded the EBS virtual user group. She can be founded on her blogs at http://securesmb.harborcomputerservices.net and http://www.thirdtier.net/blog as well as SBS and EBS newsgroups and mailing lists.
This will be an information-packed day and seating will be limited to fifty attendees. In order to accommodate as many people as possible, there will also be a Live Meeting connection for an additional fifty virtual attendees.

Susan Bradley
Susan has been a SBSer since the SBS 4.0 era (and has the old media to prove it) and blogs on SBS and other tech topics at www.sbsdiva.com. She writes articles on Patch issues for Brian Livingston’s WindowsSecrets.com and has been an author on Eriq Neale’s SBS 2008 Unleashed as well as an author on the Windows 2008 Server Security Resource Kit.  Susan was honored as the SBSer of the year at SMB Nation 2008 and is a Microsoft SBS MVP.

Dana Epp

Dana Epp is a security expert with the awarded designation as a Microsoft Security MVP, who focuses on helping to secure small and mid-sized businesses. He has developed a strong authentication and identity assurance solution called AuthAnvil that greatly increases the confidence and assurance business owners need when allowing remote access to their company assets when using Microsoft’s server solutions.  Epp is the author of “Computer Security Concepts: Managing Business Threats in a Wired World”, a book written to explain at an executive level how to handle the threats of online risk as companies move to the new digital economy, and is the author of the popular security blog “Dana Epp’s Rambling at the Sanctuary”.

Directions to the event: The Microsoft office is located on the southeast corner of 3rd Street and Capitol Mall and is accessible via I-5. 3rd Street is a one-way street in the southbound direction.
From the West – Take I-80 east and continue east on US 50. Options include Jefferson Boulevard (CA 275) and I-5 north to J Street. Please consult your favorite map tool for details.
From the North – Take I-5 southbound. Multiple options exist, so please consult your favorite map tool for details.
From the South – Take I-5 northbound and take the J Street exit. Stay in the right lane and turn right on to 3rd Street southbound to Capitol Mall.
From the East – Take US 50 west, transition to I-5 north and take the J Street exit as noted above.
Parking: The parking garage in the building may be available for attendees. The entrance is located on N Street. Metered parking is located on nearby streets (make note of time limits and park accordingly). Additional parking is available in a lot immediately west of the building, which is accessible via 2nd Street. Google Maps’ satellite view is the best way to locate this lot.

Comments (0)

SBS 2008 Unleashed

Image of Windows Small Business Server 2008 Unleashed

SBS 2003 Unleashed

Image of Microsoft Small Business Server 2003 Unleashed

Partners