Everything Else – Covered

So for those of you who think you are cute in saying…  “Where in your blog is that written?” or “Did you blog that Dale?”  Well here it is – everything.  All the answers to anything you can ask and will ask.

This is very much related to the “mystery spot” phenomena scene on the highways and byways of America typically around Tennessee for some reason.  If you don’t see the answer here it is due to a shift in the time continuum as explained thoroughly in the ABC thriller series, LOST.  You are welcome.

Rosetta Stone discovered – Microsoft Speak unraveled

Speaksy English?  YES! – TYVM Eric

What did he say? Deciphering “Microsoft speak”

On Friday, there was an email thread going around amongst some Partners trying to decipher what an answer they had received from Microsoft really meant. Why? Because the people from Microsoft responding to the question fell into the trap of using “Microsoft speak” or “the excessive use of acronyms to see who can say the most with the fewest letters possible.” I’ve even heard rumors we have some teen cell phone texting champs on campus to help us get even more efficient and completely rule out the use of any full words… No, just kidding! 

Well, to try and help out, I thought I would take the acronyms included in that email, as well as several others, and post the REAL meanings up here so that they can hopefully help you in the future in the event one of us Microsoft folks start throwing out random multi-letter acronyms again in a conversation (and let me apologize in advance on behalf of all of them). Of course, you could just slap us and say, “ENGLISH PLEASE!” to snap us out of it. (Maybe you better skip the slapping part since I am not sure who from Microsoft you may be speaking to)

…translations, babble and more here:  ->Microsoft SMB Community Blog

OpenDNS – Why? Can something free be good?

OpenDNS – I use it and like it and yield it like a Zen master:  OpenDNS

Regardless if any blocking is used, the tool still provides an auditing/oversight function. OpenDNS is a high availability DNS service; it has a very proven track record of dependable service. If there were a cost it would be sellable; however, it’s ‘free as in beer’ so that is an even easier sell. If for nothing else it could be used as an introductory mechanism to helping your client discover the value of such web oversight of his office staff. Some would rather not bother; some will require access to this information on a as-needed basis, some are overreaching power mongers. It’s not a one size fits all thing.

As for if you trust them in their expressed intention of being a good neighbor in the ‘net’ as to their reason for providing this FREE service, that’s for you to sort out. As a skeptic looking for my clients best interests, I’ve not been given any telltale signs of any bait-n-switchery or other less than forthright underpinnings. It seems legit.

One downside I’ve discovered with OpenDNS is with optionally your logo integrated; when done your logo is displayed on an informational html page whenever something doesn’t resolve or is blocked. Although at first I thought this good in that I’d have a track back mechanism for people who were false-positive blocked that would enable finer adjustments, white listing, …etc. However, instead it put me in the position of a web ‘door-man aka bouncer’ of sorts. I really don’t advocate putting yourself in that front and center thug/gate-keeper position unless you have a service agreement in place as well as some pre-existing expectations, instructions, and explanations as to the who?, what?, and why? of web filtering in writing and distributed to all under your wise and almighty judicious power.

OfficeLabs.com – Innovative Business Applications

Found this today while doing some research on Microsoft OneNote – there are some great ideas and innovative concoctions available for your own download and discovery – think of it as the business process focused version of Live Labs:

Microsoft Office Labs

 http://www.officelabs.com/Pages/Default.aspx

SBS 2008 Product Launch Tour Visits Cincinnati

SBS 2008 Launch Tour visited our windblown and powered off (580,000+ outages) city yesterday.  We had to scramble and relocate the meeting so we didn’t have to run a PowerPoint presentation via candles. It was encouraging that a descent crowd found the changed last minute gathering spot.

Can’t say anything revolutionary was learned that I hadn’t already seen from using the SBS 2008 RC code but it was nice to converse with someone from the development team and marketing team.  It was also fun to throw out some suggestions to the guys who can implement them or directly influence those that can.  One suggestion that got good reception was for a web based matrix in order to provide a simple guide of upgrade options based upon licenses and CALS presently owned.  Bernardo Munoz, Microsoft Director of Marketing, took particular interest in surveying with raised hands how many current clients would likely upgrade during the next year.  The popular estimate was that 30-40% of businesses would upgrade and the remaining market for SBS 2008 would be new purchases.

There was quite a lot of conversation over the changes to the emerging licensing non-enforcement ‘honor code’ system and how that would play out in the competitive marketplace; it should be interesting to see if everyone plays fairly.   When things aren’t concrete there is uneasiness and that was revealed in spades.

We did learn that there will be a short term period in which Open Value Subscriptions might be leveraged to get a current SBS install qualified for an upgrade; however, as always the devil is in the details and we weren’t presented with those.  There is a licensing boot camp coming next week from the Heartland PCM, Brad Rozen, so I hope to learn more then.  My guess is that Eric Ligman will also have great and timely licensing and Open Value resources to support us during launch if they aren’t there already.

We were told that SBS 2003 R2 SKU’s will continue to be listed for sale through the end of October; so if you want to take advantage of SA rights and getting the extra software such as ISA 2006, an extra Server 2003 R2 license, Outlook 2007/Entourage, …etc and cheaper prices, the window is quickly closing to take advantage of the deal.

By the way, I would be remiss if I didn’t call attention to some nice rebates and incentives that have come in place such as the Big Easy 2.0.  Brad Rozen, Heartland PCM, touched on this and as always was very well heard; he can deliver and be understood throughout a crowded room.  Also Brad called the Partners’ attention to upcoming licensing boot camps including next Tuesday’s in the Cincinnati Microsoft Corporate offices.  Additionally others are scheduled in other cities in the upcoming weeks.