Once again I start having more ‘fun’ with Micro$ofts flagship product – it seems to be the usual M$ release program:

1) Release buggy, untested software to the masses
2) Convince technicians that paying M$ to be beta testers for their software is a good thing.
3) Expect technical folk worldwide to solve the most basic issues.
4) Reap the rewards and make big Bill even richer…

Sigh…

This time it’s a stupid little error with the Windows 7 Desktop not refreshing ; By that I mean that the icons don’t disappear when you delete something, or appear when you create something new.
On to the fix…

• Click Start → Run (or press the Windows flag key and the ‘R’ key together)
• Type the word ‘regedit’ – without the quotes
• Keep clicking the ‘+’s and navigate to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{BDEADE7F-C265-11D0-BCED-00A0C90AB50F}\Instance (make sure you are in the exact value noted)
• Look for the ‘DontRefresh’ value and double click it
• Change the value from 1 to 0
• Reboot

Enjoy the rest of your life

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Unless you live in a cave without power and WiFi, you’ll be aware that the current chancellor – one George Osborne MP – has delivered an ‘Emergency’ budget statement.

Amongst some interesting measures, several will effect the UK SME market in some unsettling ways.

Upping the CGT (Capital Gains Tax) will have an impact for those who will hit the threshold, and those who have to fill out the tax returns; A rate change half way through the year makes for some interesting calculations

Upping the VAT rate from 17.5% to 20% will hit consumers mainly, and might actually fuel a buying frenzy, if people try to get things in before the rate hike. It’s also going to effect those with automated invoicing and accounting packages which will need to be updated.

There are a few other points, but this is a blog about Rochester & Associates Ltd not finance!

It seems from my vaunted viewpoint, that this budget will damage an already fragile marketplace.
We have found over the past year or so, businesses have been increasingly nervous about the future.

There is one huge positive in my eyes though – remember this: Broadband Tax and Unfair Broadband Tax?
Well, you’ll be glad to know that this ridiculous idea has gone the way of the dodo – kaput – ceased to exist.
GOOD!

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Chain Telecom are getting annoying at the moment – out of the blue, they decided to start charging for our 0845 number. Something that has cost neither us, nor our customers anything (other than the local call cost).
Despite being a ‘Communications’ company, and us being a long term client, they seem unable to communicate – threatening to cut our lines if the £14 bill isn’t paid.

All we want is clarification – something they seem unable to provide…

If suddenly our telephone number has issues, you’ll know why…

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Now I’m not one for having the ‘latest greatest’ phone, in fact, phone technology turns me right off.
Surprising for a techie gadget freak you may say, but the truth is that I have daily access to all the technology any über geek could want.

But the time had come to retire my old Nokia 6210 – a simple phone, that I kinda liked. It made phone calls, pure and simple, and the battery lasted for ever (having it consistently connected to the in-car-kit meant I never actually used the power adapter!).

Enter the HTC Desire, one of the new ‘Android’ based phones.
Android being the operating system, developed by the good chaps at Google.

So eagerly I await the delivery of the phone – one of our good friends at one of the other offices signed for it – scaring the pant off me! I thought that someone had nicked my new phone…

Getting my grubby mitts on the parcel; quite a nice little parcel it was too; the anticipation was building…
SIM installed – this was not a nice experience, you have to ‘pop’ the back off, and it feels VERY uncomfortable.
Battery in – simple enough, click the back back in to place.

Power on – connection to the mains for the initial charge – it’s playtime

I cannot express how much I am impressed by this phone!
It’s quick, simple navigation, and the way the interface is created in an intuitive manner makes the phone surprisingly easy to use.
Call quality and clarity is fantastic, as are the messaging functions (I connected it to our internal Exchange email server too – instant email on the move, as live and up-to-date as our Exchange server is).

Even the little ‘widgets’ and ‘apps’ are great – I have been playing with little post-it style notes (something I use all the time at my desk) and a great ‘app’ called ‘Shop Savvy’ which uses the camera (a 5M Pixel jobbie) to scan a product barcode, searches for it online, and gives you the best price!
Adding functions related to my job (network tools, WiFi scanners etc) makes this little marvel even more useful.
There are some great ‘show off’ type apps – I loved the wallpaper connected to the mapping functions (the phone has an integrated GPS receiver). drive about and the background shown a map of where you are, or the wallpaper which has little neon lights running about, press the screen to cause an explosion of light and colour – cute but essentially pointless.

There is one HUGE drawback though – all this technical magic takes power, and the battery life suffers immensely :(
For someone who was not used to having to actually charge the phone this proved a little hard to swallow – but turning off some of the wizardry brought some element of relief – now I only have to charge it around every 2 days…

I guess the final thought must be that I am hugely impressed by the HTC Desire – coupling the quality of the telephony and the connectivity makes this one useful gem, adding the widgets and apps to help me in the daily toil makes it indispensable…

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On a brand new Small Business Server 2008 installation, there are quite a few ‘tweaks’ to do before it decides to run smoothly.

Running the ‘Windows Small Business Server 2008 Best Practices Analyzer‘ tool produces lots of ‘problems’ to be fixed.
Nothing new there then – Thanks Micro$oft, most of these were reasonable easy to fix (some simply require you to run a command in a elevated command prompt), the recommended installation of Service Pack 2 for Exchange 2007 wasn’t very much fun AT ALL.

Basically it goes like this -

• Running the SP2 installation package itself, produces an error.
• Running the SP2 installation ‘as administrator’, gets a little further, but produces an error

It seems that the SP2 installation won’t work unless it gets a clean bill of health from the BPA tool – something which wont give you that clean bill of health because the Exchange system doesn’t have SP2 installed – Catch 22.

To fix this, and get SP2 installed, you have to:

• download the SP2 package, (at 870mb it’s more a rewrite than a patch!)
• unpack the SP2 files into a folder,
• download and run this Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 SP2 Installation Tool for Windows SBS 2008 (as administrator)
• Point it at the expanded SP2 files
• Wait about 2 hours

Voila – a SP2 version of Exchange
An ‘effin long day fighting just to install a bloomin’ Micro$oft patch!
Thanks LOTS…

P.S.
If you get an error about ForeFront not being disabled – stop all the Exchange services and uninstall it.

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Another Donkey Award – BT claim the prize this time…

Today was one of those installation moments I like – taking a client from a failing system. into a bright new future :)

Maybe not quite that dramatic, but I like it all the same…

Sadly the client has just signed up to use BT broadband. :)
This is NOT a good idea in my honest opinion – BT broadband itself is quite good, the service that comes with it is not.
Businesses that rely on their broadband, also rely on the service too, after all things do, from time to time, go wrong.
You need to know that there is someone willing to fix the problem should it occur.

Today I had to install an existing broadband connection with a new router – the previous router was not the BT Home Hub supplied, nor was the replacement.
The client has also opted for a change of email system; from a simple POP box on the Internet, to a local Exchange based system.
This necessitated requesting from BT a ‘fixed’ IP address (never mind the technical, it’s a VERY basic thing to ask BT, that’s all the knowledge required). This is something that MOST ISPs will grant you for nothing – no extra dosh required. BT however charge £5 +VAT for the privilege. Why they do this escapes me – it costs them NOTHING to do…!

Anyway, surprise surprise, this didn’t work – call to BT technical.
After the usual geological age on hold we finally got through to a ‘technician’ ← Note the single quote – this woman was about as much a technician as I’m Norwegian.
After being totally unable to help me she finally said “I’ve been told this call is not supported, and that if you wish support, there is a chargeable number to call”
Me: “Why is this suddenly not supported”
Her: “I’m sorry, I can’t tell you that” – Now I’m starting to get a little annoyed…
Me: “Why can’t you tell me? This is ridiculous!!”
Her: (agitated) “I cannot tell you that, if you want support it’s chargeable”
Me: “That’s unacceptable - if you can’t help me get someone who can, or at least tell me why this is not supported!”
About 7-10 minutes on hold again, no reason given…
Another person: “Hi what’s the problem” – this guy goes on to fix the problem

My client was sold the wrong package – BT charged £10 to ‘regrade’…

Just another example of why businesses shouldn’t stand for the extremely crap service BT provides.
If you run a business try not to use BT, it’ll save you so much grief in the long run…

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