If any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me (contact info at Contact in navigation above)!

For the vast majority, only Windows 7 will be important. But it is a major change. Those who have been using Vista and its on-and-off annoyances, Windows 7 will be a breath of fresh air. In my opinion, it is what Vista should have (and could have) been. It is far more stable and more refined than Vista, and has some incredible new features.

My personal favorite: the new taskbar. It is no longer the old taskbar that we’ve had since Windows 95. Rather than a bar that simply shows what programs are running, it is morphing into a dock, with auto-previews of the open windows of those programs.

If you would like to check it out before October 22nd, let me know–I have the RTM (release to manufacturing–the actual finalized program) installed on my laptop, and would be glad to demo it.

While Microsoft mades significant strides in Win7, Ubuntu is slowly gaining ground. For those unaware, Ubuntu is a major Linux distribution. And while Linux is used for many server applications, it is making inroads into the desktop world.

What are the benefits?

1. For one, Linux is free, as is almost all Linux software. For some, that is a huge benefit.
2. Performance on the same hardware as Windows is usually significantly better.
3. Security: in part because it has a smaller market share, in part because it is designed completely differently, it has virtually no risk for viruses or malware.

However, Linux is not for everyone. Many businesses run line-of-business applications that are specific only to Windows servers or workstations, eliminating the possibility. But for those using computers for basic office applications, Ubuntu may be a great fit. And once the new version is released, I will be running on my laptop on a second drive and will be more than happy to demonstrate.

For 64-bit

Is a 500MB standalone download, so take into consideration. Review will be posted later today.

The businesses that will be listed here are ones that I myself have dealt with in some capacity, whether that is professionally or personally. These are businesses that I trust. These are people that I want to refer to you.

The listings will begin to be populated over the next few days, but will be ongoing. If you would like to be considered, please go to the Join page and submit your information!

Also, the use of categories and tags will be changing, since the new layout uses those differently that the previous…so stay tuned!

Years ago Microsoft came out with the Intelligent Message Filtering for Exchange and SBS, but it has continually fallen short for desired results. It bases its filtering on the SCL (spam confidence rating) of an email message, where the content of a message is “read” and given a rating based on content and its likelihood of being spam. Results, as the advertising world would say, vary–but in general, it isn’t reliable.

Other vendors–both hardware and software–have begun adding services designed to combat spam. A particular one I like is a gateway anti-spam service for Watchguard firewalls, mostly because I like the idea of a gateway device doing so before the spam hits an Exchange or SBS server.

But even so, I very recently came across a solution to add much more effective filtering into SBS/Exchange. So much in fact that with one client, it reduced their spam problem to almost nil. Was so effective that I immediately applied the same to two other clients with SBS 2003 and then emailed them. In both cases, they saw a huge difference…and both sent emails thanking me for the proactive response.

Best of all, it required no additional software or hardware, just some configuration. If you would like to know more, or would like assistance in getting the spam under control in your SBS-based network, please contact me!

And when the internal spam filtering just isn’t cutting it, check out this spam filtering service that ITSW uses with clients!

For some, the answer will be yes…whether by size or industry requirements. But for others, there are new options that provide similar functionality with far less financial and technical  burden. Hosted Exchange is one of those options, Google Apps is another, and others are beginning to come into play.

The cost for these other options most often is a flat monthly or yearly fee per mailbox, and tend to be relatively low. Google Apps also offers a free version with limitations on space, is ad-supported, and doesn’t provide for archiving/message security. But for many small businesses, it provides what is needed.

An additional benefit to hosted email? Disaster recovery…since it is hosted elsewhere, and most often across multiple geographically-diverse data centers, you have the safety that your email/calendars will be available if something happens locally.

Any questions? Feel free to email me at scott@itserviceworks.com

–S.

First surprise: installed quickly, despite the virtual environment. 13 minutes to the first reboot, then another 5 minutes to complete the install of other components. The install itself was strikingly similar to Vista’s otherwise.

Once in Windows the first noticeable feature is that of the redesigned taskbar. Would love to say it’s revolutionary, but it’s really not. It’s barely evolutionary. But it is a good redesign, and users will find it quite useful. But again, it’s only a small, incremental change that’s really more worthy of a service pack-level change, not a new OS. (click to enlarge)

Next let’s take a look at the next thing to be noticed: the Start menu. Again, small tweaks. Good tweaks. See the changes below…especially the new Shutdown.

One cool change…yes, I said cool. Rather than having the Recent items as a separate entry, each program has its own. See the Paint entry below as I snagged screenshots.

The surprising thing (in a positive sense) is performance: even in a VM with only 512MB RAM assigned to it, performance was actually very decent.

We’ll take a look at the new Ribbon features in many of the included programs in the next part of this review…

Executive SPOTLIGHT

Editor’s Note: Executive Spotlight is a profile of an individual, business or local industry here in the South Sound. The feature will appear in the print edition of the Business Examiner as well as its online sibling; the BE Daily. Candidates from this feature are chosen from print and BE Daily subscriber lists. To subscribe, visit www.BusinessExaminer.com.

New small business owner ready to provide support
After 12 years working as an information technology consultant for several South Sound companies, Scott Kuhn took his own one-man IT support firm full time just last month.

Kuhn’s firm, IT Service Works, is based in Tacoma, though he works on-site for companies across the state and beyond. A Navy veteran, Kuhn got a degree in Church Ministries before focusing on the rapidly growing local technology sector.

He does wish he had taken more of an interest in the bookkeeping side of business ownership earlier in his career. “I’ve always been adverse to the back-office financial aspect,” Kuhn said. “I wanted to take care of the client and fix the issues, not generate invoices and manage billing. That being said, I now find myself having to.”

Kuhn said supporting local IT needs isn’t what he dreamed of doing with his life, but he understands his attraction to it. “It isn’t too much of a shock” he said. “I get to have the balance between technical issues and dealing with people that I’ve enjoyed for years.”

Kuhn advises others interested in a career in the technology sector to understand that most issues aren’t purely technical. “Have people skills,” he said. “Have patience. Have more patience.”

Kuhn said he chose to work with small businesses because of the economy. “When times are tough, the companies hardest hit are the larger ones:’ he said. “Small business owners, by and large, keep going because they have to. Just like me, they’ve got families to feed.”

Kuhn said, if he could do anything over, he would’ve taken the daunting leap into small business ownership earlier in his career. “I would have gone out on my own sooner, despite the risk and uncertainty,” he said.

for /L %z in (1,1,254) do @ping 10.0.0.%z -w 10 -n 1 | find “Reply”

Change the “10.0.0.” to appropriate local network.

If any of the local paths of the shares change (for example, E:\Data to F:\Data), the locations can be edited in Share Management on the target server.

Then use Robocopy to transfer the files from old to new share and maintain file/folder permissions!