Jeff Dossett, Executive Producer and General Manager at MSN, is doing something amazing. He, and two other elite mountaineers, are heading up to the summit of Mt. Everest build awareness of (PRODUCT) RED and to inspire individuals to do amazing things. Windows is an Official Sponsor of this expedition along with Dell, MSN, MSNBC.com and several supporting partners.

A Windows Live Space has been set up called Everest Team INSPI(RED) for you to show your support for their endeavor and to follow their journey with blog posts, photos and videos. You will also be able to sign the guestbook and share your personal inspirations.

The (PRODUCT) RED Theme Pack is also available where you can download Windows Live Hotmail Signatures as well as Emoticons and Winks for Windows Live Messenger. You'll find the links to the downloads on the right sidebar of the Everest Team INSPI(RED) Windows Live Space under "Show your support!". And a desktop gadget is available for Windows Sidebar in Windows Vista to track the elevation of the expedition on their way up Mt. Everest.

As of yesterday - the team is at 16,000 feet! Hopefully their amazing journey will inspire you to do something amazing.

While most people are thinking of upgrading their computer, it remains that several preventive maintenance measures such as the usual hard drive defragmentation are still reliable if you sometimes wonder why your computer suddenly slows down. Similar to the old practices, we cannot avoid system crashes or sudden cases of lost files owing to unforeseen circumstances such as power failures or forced rebooting.

These instances are the main reasons why lost fragments are often present in computers. Improper shutdown of your computer will always provide problems and most of the time they will be identified once your computer starts to slow down.

We can always take the fast way out. Placing additional memory chips or upgrading to a higher processor is a good idea. But do remember, they are alternatives that you can save on if you think logical. Sometimes the problem is not in the hardware but the people-ware who do not know the standard means of maintaining their computer system.

It would be wise to schedule your defragmentation practices. They can really do a lot to improve your operating system and make sure that you get the best performance for your computer.

Defragmenting your hard drive is the process of putting all the scattered pieces of files back together. Microsoft Windows XP includes a tool that will defragment your hard drive for you. To keep your system performing well, it’s a good idea to have Windows XP automatically defragment your hard drive every week.

(Source) Microsoft

MVP, MCT, and Blogger Mitch Garvis has posted the first in a series of articles about new server solutions for small and mid sized businesses.

Essential Business Server: Coming soon to a mid-sized company near you!

For years I have been saying that Small Business Server was the best solution for small businesses that did not have huge IT budgets; it allowed them to take advantage of the same enterprise-level tools such as Microsoft Exchange Server, SQL Server, and SharePoint Server without having to purchase several servers with tens of thousands of dollars of software, not to mention a full-time IT department.

Several people and groups have challenged me with 'what if' scenarios intent on debunking the applicability of SBS to their specific business network scenario, and I have always been glad to address these challenges because most of them were based on myths.  The truth is that to date I have not heard of any scenario where SBS could not be deployed in a small business as the backbone infrastructure, with one exception: The Hard Ceiling.

of course I am referring to the two great licensing limitations of SBS:

1. You can only have a single SBS server in your network environment; and
2. You were limited to (on SBS 2003) seventy-five CALs (Client Access Licenses).  Once you hit that ceiling you had to transition off SBS onto the enterprise packages.

Of course the first limitation is also a myth; although it is a true enough statement, that does not mean that you are limited to having a single server, rather that only one of them - the primary Domain Controller that hosted all operation master roles (commonly referred to as FSMO, or Flexible Single Master Operation roles) - could be running SBS.  You could add as many servers (up to ____) to your network, they just could not hold the operation master roles.

The second limitation is real.  If your company grew past seventy-five users (let's not get into the device CALs versus user CALs discussion) you had no choice but to leave the safety and comfort of the SBS world. 

The allure of SBS was (and continues to be) not only the power of the tools offered, plus the fact that they could all be run from a single box (My first SBS which I ran from home for two years ran very reliably on an IBM Pentium III workstation with 1GB RAM)... but also the fact that everything was configured and managed by very intuitive wizards and tools.  Creating a user was a single process which would include all permissions for everything from Exchange to SQL to SharePoint Services.  Transitioning beyond SBS meant leaving those wizards - and the revered Remote Web Workplace - behind.

Enter Essential Business Server.

A year ago I saw Windows Server Codename: Centro for the first time and fell in love.  It was the solution for mid-market companies up to 250 computers, and it was in a word everything that SBS was not.  Not only did it break the seventy-five user limit, but it also addressed most (if not all) of the actual and perceived limitations of SBS... while maintaining the cohesiveness of the single package. 

We could easily steal for SBS the motto from the US Dollar Bill,  E pluribus unum - from many, one.  That is because SBS integrates a number of servers that in the enterprise are generally separate and hosts them all on a single server.  The Standard Edition of Essential Business Server installs on three independent servers: the Management server, the Security server, and the Messaging server.  (the Premium Edition of EBS adds a fourth for the Database server).

Now that Microsoft has lifted much of the veil of secrecy from both EBS and the next release of SBS (Windows Small Business Server 2008, formerly codename Cougar) you will find that I have a lot to say about both of these products.  I see four distinct groups to whom this series of articles should be of interest:

1. IT Professionals with an eye toward small and mid-sized businesses;
2. Small Business IT Professionals who have been working with SBS;
3. Small business owners or managers who need to make informed decisions about their IT and do not necessarily want to pay for consultants; and
4. People interested in becoming IT professionals.

While I am not promising to answer all of your questions, I do hope to introduce both products to you so that when they do release to manufacturing (RTM) there will be not only a proper and comprehensive understanding of the products (and often of the reasons behind certain decisions and the like), but also a complete library of information that will be available, from an interested and connected (and mostly objective) IT Professional who does not actually work for Microsoft.

Strap yourselves in... because here we go!

About Mitch Garvis:

Mitch is an IT Trainer with a passion for community. Having founded and led two major Canadian user groups for IT Professionals he understands both the value and rewards of helping his peers.

After several years as a consultant and in-house IT Pro for companies in Montreal, he now works with InFront Consulting Group creating and delivering training for Microsoft to its partners and clients around the world. He has contributed to the creation of several exams for Microsoft Learning. Mitch holds numerous Microsoft certifications and has lectured on the value of the program.

He is a Microsoft Certified Trainer, and has been recognized for his community work with the prestigious Microsoft Most Valuable Professional award.

What has booting to do with my computer?
The term booting is short for bootstrapping, which refers to a process by which a simple control system starts up a more complicated system such as an operating system. The term may have been taken from a story about Baron Münchhausen who pulled himself out of the sea by tugging on his own boot straps.

What is BIOS?
On PCs, the simple control system that starts up the operating system is called a BIOS. The acronym stands for Basic Input/Output System. When your PC starts up the first few things you see are managed by this BIOS system. It resides in a chip on the motherboard of the computer and manages the computer’s hardware. It is rare for anyone to have to do anything in the BIOS, and it is not recommended for the novice to fiddle with it. The most common change to BIOS settings that has to be made is to change the boot order; that is, the order in which the BIOS looks for an operating system on the various drives. Usually the main hard drive is top of the list, but if you need to reinstall Windows you may have to set the CD-Rom drive as the first port of call. Since different manufacturers use different makes of BIOS, you will have to consult a manual or the manufacturer’s website for details on how to access and change the BIOS settings on your computer. Sometimes, as the computer starts, it will show a screen that tells what key you need to press to access the BIOS or to change the boot order.


And flashing?
Flashing is the name of the process by which you can update the version of the BIOS your PC has installed. It is rare to have to do this; but if your computer is very old then you may have to update the BIOS to make use of new technologies. Since different manufacturers use different versions of BIOS the methods for flashing vary also, so you will need to consult a manual or manufacturer’s website for details on how to flash the BIOS. As with all these low level systems, the novice is warned not to make any changes unless it is absolutely necessary as you can easily cause major problems on your system that could damage the hardware.

Brandon Paddock, who works on the Windows Shell Team here at Microsoft, wrote a Windows Sidebar Gadget that displays the status of the Windows Search Indexer.

Download the Indexer Status Gadget here.

I don't know about you but I think it's kind of neat being able to see how many files Windows Search has indexed on my PC right from my desktop. For folks giving the Windows Search 4.0 Preview a try, you can enable "Index Now" functionality (which is reflected in the above screenshot).

Brandon Paddock developed this gadget on his own time and isn't officially supported by Microsoft. Brandon also developed the Start++ search add-on for Windows Vista.