Davesbs Blog

As some may know, I do work with Apple Mac stuff. Some may call it the Dark Side of the force, especially as some of their clients will be asking about the shiny new iPhone and linking it to Exchange!

I am not going to get into a Mac vs Windows discussion, each have their place and I try to specialise in having both work nicely together in a network situation. They are just tools really after all.

BUT…when setting up my girlfriends new 24″ iMac the other day, I just had to be reminded of how simple and dare I say it, enjoyable it was. Now this is not integrated into any Active Directory structure yet, it is hanging off a Netgear ADSL Firewall device for Internet access.

30 minutes was really all it took including taking out the Apple installed 2 x 1GB memory sticks and replacing with 2 x 2GB’s. The iMac has two slots and it is cheaper to buy memory yourself, keep the factory installed parts as spares and upgrade to the maximum 4GB, than to get apple to supply the machine with it!

The fun will be connecting it to my SBS 2008 Beta network, though I think I will have to bite the bullet and get a Mac Mini for testing. The new iMac is for her indoors work so I better not tinker too much

On that note, if anyone wants to get down and dirty with the Dark Side and who has never touched a Mac ever or not for many years, the Mac Mini is the ideal companion. I reckon there is a model refresh/update about to hit as all the other Mac computers have been done. Newer Intel chips and better graphics (Intel GMA X3100) are the order of the day even in the laptop range, so a new Mini must be coming soon. Watch this space as I think days or weeks rather than months and the tight lipped Cupertino will announce a new Mini. Rumours are abound about it being very small at half the size of the existing model as they will do away with any optical drive.

I have been accused of now liking the Mac by the missus as oppossed to seeing it as a necessary but attractive tool. Time will tell….I have spent most of the last few days in front of the iMac instead of any PC. Haven’t done that since I worked in the printing trade

Robbie Upcroft’s SBS Down Under blog announced that Suzanne Dansey has become Australia’s newest SBS MVP! Another SBS MVP joins the list in Australia

Well done Susanne. Keep up the good work

Congratulations to Nick Lloyd and Sirona Solutions, who recently became the latest member of the Microsoft Small Business Specialist Community.

If you know me or read this blog you will know that I am great supporter of SBSC and although there are many things which could be done differently or improved upon, I think it is invaluable to the partners who stand behind it.

Nick has even said that this blog contributed to his decision to start blogging about the community http://nickssmbblog.blogspot.com/2008/06/smb-and-sbs-blogs.html

Good on ya Nick!

The server (souped up desktop PC) I have been using for three years is frankly f***ed.

I bought myself an HP ML110G5 with dual core Xeon, four 250gb non-hot swap Sata drives of the new HP Midline range and bumped the ram up to 6GB. Also comes with a next business day 3 year on-site support contract.

This will be my new ‘production’ server once I also get an ML310 or 350 for testing with Virtual machines etc. At the moment it has SBS 2008RC0 on it running just fine, well apart from the DNS issues I blogged about!

The cost of this small but perfectly formed beast? All in just over £700! I might even get another with less drives and memory as the base machine with 1GB ram and a 160GB Sata HD comes in at about £180.

For those of you who do Dell (you know who you are   and not HP, take another look. Excellent build quality and for me, the killer is onboard Sata raid 1. Yes….I can hear the screams already But compared to the dell small servers which don’t have any onboard raid controller, this is a significant advantage. It is a proper and tested Adaptec controller chip. I do not need anything more. If I did, I could get the HP Smart Array E200/128 for £200 or any of the HP range of controllers. Remember this server only has 4 drive bays.

The debate about Sata vs SAS and onboard vs Raid controller card with memory and possibly battery backup will rage for a while if I have anything to do with it

Just a heads up regards SBS 2008 RC0.

I and a few others are having issues with DNS (have a look on Microsoft Connect at your dashboard if you have the public preview and check the bug reports).

Every couple of days internet access flakes out. Testing from the router is fine, Ping and DNS diagnostics run fine. In my case the router is a Netgear Prosafe DGFV338.

Restarting the DNS services on the Server or re-running the Connect to the Internet Wizard (CTIW another new anacronym!) fixes the issue for a few days.

I was about to put in a bug report but searched first and found it was already reported on 30th June. Please always search the bug reports first, it will help streamline the bug hunt! The issue is being looked at and MSFT have not found it to be in their code. We look forward to a fix.

Call me strange but this gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling, being able to download previews and betas, see updates and bug reports and join relevant newsgroups all from a central MSFT Connect site!

It also feels good to be able finally to help shape the upcoming and great looking SBS 2008 product. So far it feels like light years ahead of SBS 2003. Various little things… you get the picture, sign-up for the preview and test if you haven’t already.

Also keep up with David Overton’s blog as he frequently posts about SBS 2008 and has screenshots of installs etc.

Cheers and happy bug reporting!