Computer Service Business Success and the Need to Focus

Do you own a small business computer service business that needs better marketing results?

Many computer consultants start out thinking the home user, or B2C (Business to Consumer) market is the right place to be; but they quickly realize the difficulty of making a profit as a one-person (maybe two-person) operation catering to the needs of home users.

If you own a computer service business that wants to provide solutions to small businesses, you need to realize that there are a lot of different types of small businesses out there.

#1: Know About Home-Based Businesses and Micro-Small Businesses. A home-based business typically just involves 1-2 computers and an individual. A micro-small business is just one very small step up from that in size, with 5-10 employees and that many or fewer computer systems. If you focus too much on home-based businesses and micro-small businesses, you’ll have a hard time selling a lot of ongoing services agreements. While both types of businesses are technically within the definition of “small business,” they may not be the best clients for your computer service business.

#2: Avoid Targeting Micro-Small and Home-Based Businesses. First off, these kinds of small businesses often have lots of consumer-grade PC’s, which will not be a big help for implementing sophisticated client/server networking solutions. Second, these kinds of small businesses often use pirated software, which will give you major problems when you start to develop long-term technology plans and complex networks. Third, most of these kinds of small businesses will be reluctant, and often unable, to pay for your sophisticated, high-end professional services. Fourth, these kinds of tiny small businesses often believe that IT is not that important to their company, so they don’t need the benefits you are offering. And finally, these kinds of tiny small businesses are usually too small to afford a real, dedicated server and a real client/server network, making your solutions overkill.

#3: Great Computer Service Business Success Resides in Small Businesses with 10 or More PCs. Computer service business owners that target companies with at least 10 PC’s are generally more successful at building strong businesses. At that point, small businesses cannot continue to run peer-to-peer networks. They also cannot afford to wait for volunteers and moonlighters to get around to responding to needs or emergencies. Small businesses services that have 10 or more systems start to get really serious about putting in real client server networks, dependable back-up solutions, reliable power protection and secure firewalls. At this size, small business decision makers usually understand the need for more sophisticated total business solutions.

Source: http://www.itworld.com/channel/58897/computer-service-business-success-and-need-focus

New Security Issues Raised by Server Virtualization

Many organizations are relying on the IT policies, processes and toolsets established in the “pre-virtual” datacenter to manage and protect virtual servers, which makes sense. However, virtualized environments do face the same operational threats and risks as traditional servers. But, there are also some specific server security implications that must be considered.

New Operating System

The virtualization layer, is effectively another operating system in the data center – the first in a long time that brings configuration and patching issues.

The good news is that hypervisors tend to carry a much smaller footprint than a traditional operating system with a correspondingly lower potential for security holes. And you will not find a hypervisor surfing the Internet and downloading code. But at the same time it is still relatively immature product, and vulnerabilities are continually found. These vulnerabilities are usually quickly fixed, but should be monitored and tracked.

The maturity of hypervisor technology also shows in its vetting and certificating infrastructure. Plug-ins and add-ons, for the most part, do not go through the testing and certification processes that we see on standard OS’s which can be problematic.

New Target in the Datacenter

Given its access to multiple Virtual Machines (VMs), the hypervisor is an obvious target for attackers, which if compromised could potentially provide access to a range of servers rather than a single “physical” server. And, you only have to look at the buzz coming out of the Black Hat conferences to understand how much of a target the hypervisor represents.

Intrahost threats

A successful guest breakout, would result in an attacker gain access to all traffic from the virtual machines. This was an attack in a lab, but you can bet these researchers are not the only ones in this race.

Referred to as “Hyperjacking”, an attack like this would lead to a compromised platform, allowing full access to all hosted guests. Malicious software could also disguise its presence from traditional security tools that reside in software layers above the hypervisor.

While from a pragmatic point of view, we have not yet heard of a working prototype or found a virus in the wild that attacks the hypervisor yet; - the writing is on the wall and it is only a matter of time before we do.

Existing Security Tools

The traffic inside the host effectively occurs on a “private LAN”, meaning that traditional network server security tools cannot see it, making it impossible to inspect or protect traffic inside this “dead zone.”

Also, many types of security and monitoring tools need to know what they are protecting and where it is in order to be effective - the mobility of VMS can be problematic here.

Other security technologies like IDS, IPS, Data Leak Prevention and Malware Prevention also can be impacted. The constant change enabled by virtualization can place dynamic demands on any “static” types of security solutions, in even small virtualized infrastructures.

Increased Risk of Sprawl

With virtualization we are now dealing with environments where traditional control systems and processes does not work very well, where IT staff is having to plug the gaps with manual process and tracking, and where new VMs can be deployed in minutes. This means a much higher risk of sprawl in the virtual world than in the physical.

In working with customers we have found that most organizations with reasonable control systems will still have around 30 percent of the VMs in their environment that are unnecessary or obsolete, but it takes an audit to figure out which ones and where they are.

Sprawl also increases complexity. Running more VMs in the environment than you need make it

* More difficult to spot the dangers
* More difficult to maintain configurations, and
* More difficult to troubleshoot

Source: itworld.com/virtualization/59445/new-security-issues-raised-server-virtualization

How To Create an MS-DOS Network Startup Disk in Windows Server 2003

Windows Server 2003 does not contain an equivalent to the Network Client Administrator tool that is included with Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0. You can use the Network Client Administrator tool to create an MS-DOS network startup disk. You can run the Network Client Administrator tool for the x86 platform in Windows Server 2003.

Set Up the Network Client Administrator Program

• 1. Create a folder that is named Ncadmin in the root folder of drive C.
• 2. Copy the following files from the I386 folder on the Windows NT Server 4.0 CD-ROM to the c:\Ncadmin folder you created in step 1:
• Ncadmin.cn_
• Ncadmin.ex_
• Ncadmin.hl_
• NOTE: You also must have access to the CD-ROM drive letter:\Clients folder on the Windows NT 4.0 CD-ROM.
• 3. At a command prompt, change to the C:\Ncadmin folder.
• 4. Type expand -r ncadmin.*, and then press ENTER.
• 5. Double-click the Ncadmin.exe file in the c:\Ncadmin folder, and then follow the instructions on the screen to create an MS-DOS network startup disk.

Via: support.microsoft.com

some important features in Windows Server 2008 R2

Microsoft plans to release an R2 edition of Windows Server 2008 in 2009 or 2010. Here are the key features of the R2 release that you need to know.

The most prominent is that Windows Server 2008 will solely be an x64 platform with the R2 release. This will make the upgrade to x64 platforms not really a surprise, as all current server class hardware is capable of 64-bit computing.

There is one last window of time to get a 2008 release of Windows still on a 32-bit platform before R2 is released, so do it now for those difficult applications that don’t seem to play well on x64 platforms.

Beyond the processor changes, here are the other important features Windows Server 2008 R2:

Hyper-V improvements: The Hyper-V is planned to offer Live Migration as an improvement to the initial release of Quick Migration; Hyper-V will measure the migration time in milliseconds. This will be a solid point in the case for Hyper-V compared to VMware's ESX or other hypervisor platforms. Hyper-V will also include support for additional processors and Second Level Translation (SLAT).

PowerShell 2.0: PowerShell 2.0 has been out in a beta release and Customer Technology Preview capacity, but it will be fully baked into Windows Server 2008 R2 upon its release. PowerShell 2.0 includes over 240 new commands, as well as a graphical user interface. Further, PowerShell will be able to be installed on Windows Server Core.

Core parking: This feature of Windows Server 2008 will constantly assess the amount of processing across systems with multiple cores, and under certain configurations, suspend new work being sent to the cores. Then with the core idle, it can be sent to a sleep mode and reduce the overall power consumption of the system.

All of these new features will be welcome and add great functionality to the Windows Server admin. The removal of x86 support is not entirely a surprise, but the process needs to be set in motion now for how to address any legacy applications.

Source:zdnetasia.com/techguide/windows/0,39044904,62048917,00.htm

Windows Server 2008 Evaluation Enterprise Edition and Server Core Virtual Hard Drive Images

The Microsoft VHD format is the common virtualization file format for Virtual PC, Virtual Server 2005 and Hyper-V that provides a uniform product support system, and provides more seamless manageability, security, reliability and cost-efficiency for customers.

This VHD release is available in English only and is for evaluation and testing purposes. Evaluating Windows Server2008 software does not require product activation or entering a product key. Any edition of Windows Server 2008 may be installed without activation and evaluated for an initial 60 days.

If you need more time to evaluate Windows Server 2008, the 60 day evaluation period may be reset (or re-armed) three times, extending the original 60 day evaluation period by up to 180 days for a total possible evaluation time of 240 days. After this time, you will need to uninstall the software or upgrade to a fully-licensed version of Windows Server 2008.

As this installation requires Hyper-V, you will need to have a base install of Windows Server 2008 (64bit edition), running Hyper-V.

Both virtual machines available here are running Windows Server 2008 Enterprise Edition Evaluation. One is the default full installation, and the other has been configured as a default Core installation. For more information on the difference between full and core installation please see the Windows Server 2008 Editions Overview pages. For download options please see the IMAGE SELECTION section in the instructions below.

As both virtual machines do not have anti-virus installed, they should not be connected to any network until it has anti-virus installed. In addition, the operating system and programs installed were patched with all updates as of May 8, 2008.

The following download is for Hyper-V deployments. If you are looking to evaluate Windows Server 2008 on Virtual Server 2005 then please visit: Windows Server 2008 Evaluation VHD Images (for VS2005).

Via:dabcc.com/downloadfile.aspx?id=650

Microsoft updates SMB server line

Microsoft Corp. has updated its all-in-one server for small businesses, and added an additional product to its server line for mid-sized businesses with up to 300 users.

Windows Small Business Server accommodates up to 75 users, while larger businesses now have the option of Windows Essential Business Server 2008, according to Constanza Zalba, product manager for SMB servers for Microsoft Canada.

“Canada is primarily a small and mid-size country,” Zalba said. And Canadian SMBs tend to view IT differently from their American counterparts; while only 30 per cent of U.S. SMBs have an internal IT staff, 60 per cent of Canadia SMBs do, she said.

“Technology takes on a much more strategic importance in the company (in Canada),” she said.

Steve Tong, manager of information systems for Toronto Grace Hospital, said the hospital had been running the 2003 version of Small Business Server. The central management window for SQL, Exchange and SharePoint servers “made the difference” in the decision to go to EBS.

“It almost gives me a dashboard view in the morning” of the status of the network, Tong said. Using the single server package means a 30 to 40 per cent savings, and a reduction from seven servers to three.

Grace’s IT staff of three – supporting 275 users on about 100 machines -- had only a week to migrate the system onto the new platform, but since it has a similar look and feel to SBS 2003, they were confident they’d be able to go live on time, Tong said. The migration took place in 10 to 12 hours over a weekend.

An included migration tool checks for active directory and DNS issues and the like, then graphically designs the new network, saving the design as an XML file.

The server was deployed on an Intel Modular 5000 server with an integrated storage area network donated by Intel Corp.

Via:itworldcanada.com/a/Daily-News/6eaf3a92-63af-4191-98f9-b26ca224a050.html

Microsoft Demos Windows Server 2008 R2

Bill Laing, vice president of Windows Server and Solutions, and Rob Williams, Microsoft's senior program manager, presented and demonstrated Windows Server 2008 from the small business to the enterprise. Specifically, they presented Windows Server 2008 R2, which will tentatively be released in 2010.

The keynote started with a presentation of 24 categories of Windows Server 2008, from home server up to enterprise class server flavors.

The first product presented was the upcoming Small Business Server and Essential Business server updates to Windows Server 2008. These will be presented on November 12 on the Microsoft Web site, hedreamserver.com. Essential Business Server is aimed at small- and medium-sized businesses that need server functionality but don't already have a server.

The meat of the presentation was several demos of the upcoming Windows Server 2008 R2. R2 is currently in pre-beta, and the full beta is expected next year. As previously announced, R2 will be 64-bit only, with support for x64 and Itanium. R2's features include streamlined management tools, integration with Windows 7, an enterprise class foundation, and enhancements for virtualization and consolidation.

Windows 7 support will include the seamless integration of Windows 7 PCs with the corporate environment, whether that PC is on the corporate LAN or on the Internet.

Laing and Williams demoed a Windows 7 PC that was connected to the Internet and the Microsoft corporate network, even though the PC is physically in Los Angeles and the corporate LAN is in Redmond, Wash. The PC connected seamlessly without the need for extra VPN software. The Windows 7 PC was also subject to corporate group policy updates, in this case a mandate that external USB drives be encrypted with BitLocker.

They also demoed enterprise-class scaling with a SQL server running 192 logical cores (combination of "real" silicon and HyperThreading). R2 will be scalable up to 256 logical cores, up from the current 64 core support in Windows Server 2008.

Last but not least, there was a demo of Hyper-V, the latest in Windows Server virtualization. Hyper-V was shown running instances of Vista, Windows Server 2003 with multi-core and 64-bit support, and Linux. The last demo was when Williams moved a running VM from one physical node to another, without any hiccups or having to reboot the VM. To the end user, this would've seemed like nothing had happened.

Source:pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2334055,00.asp

Microsoft announces Windows Server 2008 R2

Microsoft has released details of the upcoming second release of its Windows Server 2008 operating system at its Professional Developers Conference in Los Angeles this week.

The updated OS includes a range of new features, including support for web applications, better virtualisation and improved scalability and reliability.

Virtualisation will be a key feature of the new OS, with Microsoft announcing that Server 2008 R2 will include 'Live Migration', a feature which allows users to move a virtual machine between two computers running Microsoft's Hyper-V hypervisor. Microsoft said that the new version of Hyper-V shipped with Server 2008 R2 will include better management features.

Microsoft also said that Server 2008 R2 has many features specifically designed to work with client computers running the upcoming Windows 7, including better usability and accessibility.

According to the reviewer's guide published on Microsoft's website, Server 2008 R2 will be available exclusively as a 64-bit OS.

Source: zdnet

Configure Server 2008 with these handy shortcuts

Windows Server 2008’s interface is quite a change from the familiar interfaces of Windows Server 2003 and Windows 2000 Server. Find out how you can get the most important configurations via a command line.

You may see blank stares when administrators try to accomplish tasks in the new Windows Server 2008 environment. When a simple MMC (Microsoft Management Console) snap-in won't do the trick, try my most frequently used command lines for Windows Server 2008.

• ncpa.cpl: The additional clicks to get to the Manage Network Connections configuration are among the bigger learning curves for new installations. Simply running ncpa.cpl will take you right to the interface's configuration.
• desk.cpl: The display and resolution configuration are also buried in different areas, but you can quickly access the resolution by running desk.cpl.
• appwiz.cpl: Skip the visit to the Control Panel and simply run appwiz.cpl to jump into the Programs And Features applet.
• sysdm.cpl: It is not as easy as right-clicking My Computer anymore, but running sysdm.cpl can take you to the system properties screen to perform server renames, domain joins and device manager access and enable remote desktop.
• CompMgmtLauncher.exe: You can quickly access this server manager (which is much different than in Windows NT 4 version) by running CompMgmtLauncher.exe.

These handy shortcuts can help you make the transition to Windows Server 2008 quickly and, in some cases, perform tasks in the same fashion as in previous versions of Windows Server.

Microsoft exec touts technology for rural business

The chief research and strategy officer of Microsoft Corp. sat in a conference room of the company's Fargo campus and talked about technology that could help small business in rural states.

Mundie has spent 15 years leading Microsoft's campaign to improve wireless broadband capacity in the United States and around the world. For the last several years, he's been working with government regulators on the possibility of using the unused spectrum between television channels to deliver broadband access.

The so-called "white spaces proposition" could help rural states like North Dakota, where companies don't find it economical to build cell towers because of the small population.

"To me, the power of this white spaces is that if you want to build a community alternative, where you could at least have the equivalent of a cell phone walkie-talkie capability just to make local calls in Fargo, that would probably make a lot of people happy," Mundie said. "It at least creates an alternative."

Once the broadband problem is solved, Mundie expects people in rural areas to demand technology that will allow remote working capability. That means communication systems will have to be linked, he said.

"My belief is that the cost of these technologies can be driven down and novel ways of programming them from a software usage point of view will allow them to become more integrated," he said.

Mundie was in North Dakota to speak at a technology conference and visit the Fargo division, which handles software for businesses and other operations, including customer support, payroll and information technology. He cited his relationship with Doug Burgum, the former head of Microsoft's Fargo operation, and Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D.

"I think the two of them conspired to decide to ask me to come and talk (at the conference)," Mundie said. "And I wanted to visit the Microsoft Fargo campus, so it was sort of a 'twofer' at that point."

Mundie joined Microsoft in 1992 to create and run the company's consumer platforms division and eventually became a chief technical officer. He was promoted to his current post after Bill Gates announced he was giving up day-to-day duties of running the company.

Mundie, who reports directly to CEO Steve Ballmer, currently oversees technology and research projects and works with government and business leaders around the world on technology policy and regulation.

"It's startling how often somebody would come up to me or Bill Gates and say, 'Well, this software thing, I guess we've kind of seen it all,'" Mundie said. "It's just hilarious because we're just at the tip of the beginning of this thing. We haven't seen it all."

Source: seattlepi.nwsource.com

Top 10 Reasons to Use Windows Small Business Server 2003 R2

Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2003 R2 (SBS 2003 R2) is an advanced solution for productivity and security, designed to help you keep businesses like yours up and running, so you can do more with less and connect with customers more effectively. SBS 2003 R2 provides many of the features used by large companies, all in one affordable, integrated solution.

1. Protect your business and prevent data loss

A more secure infrastructure protects your business from unauthorized users and data loss with:

• Built-in firewall protection and security-enhanced remote access.
• Tools to manage and monitor Internet access, block spammers, and automatically remove dangerous e-mail attachments to help prevent virus attacks.
• Automatic data backup and the ability to retrieve and restore previous versions.

2. Get the "green check" of software health

Automated patch and update management tools keeps PCs and servers up to date, and a daily report is e-mailed to you (or your IT consultant) so you can identify issues before they occur. A green check indicates that your system is healthy, or the report details actions necessary for attaining "green check" status.

3. Keep your business up and running with a reliable network

Built on Windows Server 2003 technology, the most reliable network operating system Microsoft has ever produced, SBS 2003 R2 delivers an operating system you can depend on.

4. Optimize your Windows investment

Built on Windows technology, SBS 2003 R2 enables you to benefit from efficiencies and savings inherent in having an integrated network.

• Reduce training with familiar Microsoft products and tools.
• Run your application of choice: a powerful database in the Premium Edition supports the largest selection of business software applications.
• Microsoft products are designed to work together, so applications and hardware integrate effortlessly.

5. Increase productivity with one central location for company data

SBS 2003 R2 provides a central location to store your company data, so employees can:

• Quickly find the right information.
• Share record keeping.
• Communicate and collaborate on group projects.

6. Access business information and resources from virtually anywhere, anytime

Be productive, whether you're out of the office, at home, or on the road.

• Securely access your e-mail, internal Web sites, network files, and even business applications from any PC with an Internet connection.
• Easily access e-mail, schedules, and contacts from virtually anywhere, at anytime using a Microsoft Windows Mobile-based or Smartphone device.
• Communicate in real time to stay current with your company and customers.

7. Reduce costs by sharing printers, Internet access, faxes, and more

As a complete network solution, SBS 2003 R2 enables your business to get more done with what you already have.

• Share resources, like Internet access and business software.
• Share equipment, including printers and fax machines.
• Fax with fewer phone lines and send faxes directly from PCs.

SBS 2003 R2 is easy for your IT consultant to install and maintain, helping to lower the costs of network management.

8. Present a more professional image

Get the tools you need to help create a strong brand, including a customized Web site that resides on your server – no sharing of your domain name with a Web hosting company. And with your own e-mail domain hosted on your server, there's no sharing of your address with an Internet service provider. SBS 2003 R2 helps you build credibility with your customers.

9. Stay connected to your customers and serve them better

With SBS 2003 R2, you can stay more connected, present a professional appearance, and manage your customer relationships more effectively. Server technology can streamline customer communications, allowing you to:

• Access the facts you need in real time.
• Respond to customer inquires more quickly and accurately.
• Stay connected while on the road with remote access capabilities.

10. Get a platform that is easy to grow for today and tomorrow

SBS 2003 R2 is a robust, flexible platform that can be customized to your needs. Affordable today and scalable for tomorrow, it provides a solid "technology building block" for future technology enhancements to your business. SBS 2003 R2 has the flexibility to grow with your company. As your business expands, you can add additional servers and migrate seamlessly to the full line of Windows Server System products.

Source: microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/sbs/evaluation/top.mspx

IBM Seeks To Push Blade Servers To Small Businesses

International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) will seek to push its blade servers to small and medium-sized businesses with the release of a package of multiple storage devices on a single blade-based box.

Blades, which IBM has manufactured for some time, have become increasingly attractive because they are considered relatively cost and energy efficient.

"We already had a blade chassis for small to medium-sized businesses, but what we've added is the ability to share the storage between all the blades," Alex Yost, vice president for IBM BladeCenter, said.

IBM, along with other hardware manufacturers, is banking on the growth of the blade market. It has already created blade.org, a program aimed at providing development help to start-ups which target this space. Yost said the market for selling blades to small businesses was largely untapped.

IBM was the world's largest server vendor globally in the second quarter of 2008, according to data from IDC, which tracks market share data, although Palo Alto, Calif.-based, Hewlett-Packard Co. (HPQ) was the world's largest blade server vendor, with 53.3% market share compared with IBM's 24.8%.

Source:money.cnn.com

Microsoft Launches New HPC Server

Windows HPC Server 2008 is designed to enable quicker deployment of high-performance capabilities and scalability from workstation to cluster. This is more evidence of the continued trickle-down of high-performance computing capabilities to enterprises and small-to-medium-size businesses.

More evidence of the continued trickle-down of high-performance computing capabilities to enterprises and small-to-medium-size businesses came Sept. 22 from a company not exactly well-known for HPC: Microsoft.

At the 2008 High Performance on Wall Street Conference in New York, Microsoft announced that it has released to manufacturing its newest server, Windows HPC Server 2008. The new server will be available for general distribution in about two months.

Windows HPC Server 2008, available now for evaluation download, is designed to replace Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003. It is based on Windows Server 2008 and designed to simplify the deployment, administration and management of a system while ensuring interoperability with existing infrastructures.

Windows HPC Server 2008 also is optimized for rapid HPC application development through integration with Visual Studio 2008, which already provides a comprehensive parallel programming environment. The new server supports standard interfaces such as OpenMP, MPI (multiprocessor interconnect) and Web services, in addition to third-party numerical library providers, performance optimizers, compilers and debugging toolkits.

"We've seen the advanced technologies that HPC had tackled over the last couple of decades now becoming mainstream," Kyril Faenov, general manager of Microsoft's high-performance computing group, told me.

"This is driven by two factors: One, on the technology side, with the prevalence of parallelism -- multi-core [processors] -- all systems are becoming parallel. And that's something that's been a very challenging technological subject that requires a lot of non-trivial innovation to make it easy to use. Microsoft is hiring some of the luminaries of the HPC field to bring that expertise to more mainstream products."

The second driver, Faenov said, is that HPS is becoming a fundamental part of innovation in sectors such as SMB and academics, which was unheard of only a few years ago.

Windows HPC Server 2008 evaluation copies are now available for download here. Pricing for Windows HPC Server 2008 will be $475 per node. More information is available here.

Source:eweek.com

Cost-Savings Key Driver to Green IT in Small Businesses

Vittesh Kalambi, research analyst at Access Market International, says cost-savings is the key driver to small businesses becoming convinced about the positive outcome of Green IT.

While small businesses do not have similar scale as large businesses, they can still go green by choosing EnergyStar rated appliances, low power consuming electronics, blade servers and virtualization technologies, says Kalambi.

Here’s some Green IT initiatives small businesses could take:

– Choose energy-efficient PC. HP and IBM have begun to manufacture low power consuming servers and PCs which utilize roughly 66% of the power requirement of older systems.

– Use power-saving servers such as blade servers which provide the same computing power with much lower power utilization.

– Be more efficient in the use of computing resources. Thin clients, which uses half the energy of desktops, saves space, is easier to secure and could reduce costs due to lower IT management expenses.

– Use basic power management techniques on computers, which can result in substantial energy savings.

– Recycle. Paper waste can be minimized by double-sided printing, reusing single side printed sheets of paper and other methods. For e-waste such as electronic hardware, retailers such BestBuy have e-waste recycling program for consumers and all their stores have recycling centers for cell phones, batteries, PCs, TVs etc.

A Quick Look at OpenOffice.org Writer 3.0 Beta 2

OpenOffice.org 3.0 beta 2 is available in preparation for an official September release. Here are some quick first impressions of the Writer word-processor program.

While I am a die-hard Linux and OO.org user, I must admit that I have been using Microsoft Office 2007 frequently - and I like it. That is, I like its features but dislike its closed nature. After much research, I decided that the best solution for the task of writing my master’s thesis was the combination of Word 2007 and EndNote. The main driver for choosing this combination was management of scientific citations. The Word-EndNote combination has saved me tens of hours of work in this area. The other driver was cost. I was able to obtain the entire Microsoft Office 2007 suite for $37. I would never pay the ridiculous full price that Microsoft demands.

Now, with some fresh Word experience under my belt, I thought I’d give OO.org Writer 3 a look.

While I was hoping that Writer 3 would adopt a Word-like interface, with its tabbed menus, but this is not the case. Although the icons have been updated, the overall look and feel of OO.org is not radically different from its predecessor.

Nevertheless, you can now import Word 2007 documents into OO.org 3, which is critical to its continued success and relevance.

Some other new Writer features include

* The ability to view multiple pages simultaneously
* Support for ODF 1.2 and PDF/A
* Native Mac OS X support

As mentioned above, citation management is a deal-maker or breaker for me. How does Writer 3 stack up there? Unfortunately, citation management in Writer 3 remains deficient for at least three reasons. First, the database fields in the bibliographic database are incomplete and non-standard in relation to how things are done in academia today. Certainly one could spend much time customizing the database fields, but the cost-benefit calculus doesn’t make sense to me. It appears that OO.org folks just whipped up something they thought looks reasonable. Second, when you insert a bibliographic citation, neither does it appear in a format typical for a scientific journal (e.g. “(Smith et al. 2006)”), nor is it editable. Third, Writer will not create a real-time (or any) bibliography at the end of your document as EndNote and other citation-management programs do. You have to create your bibliography by hand. Thus, if I were to start my master’s thesis over today, unfortunately I would skip Writer and choose the Word 2007-EndNote combination once again.

So, is OpenOffice.org Writer 3 worth the upgrade? Given Writer 3’s new features, such as support for Microsoft Office 2007 documents, ODF 1.2 and PDF/A, as well as the ability to view multiple pages simultaneously, the answer is a certain “yes”. However, if you are looking for a quantum-leap upgrade from OO.org 2.4 – or if you need to write a master’s thesis! - this is not a ‘write home to Mom’ release. Version 3.0 is a solid, incremental upgrade from Version 2.4.

Source:linuxjournal.com

Microsoft Small Business News & Events

But when I asked him directly, Blossom surprised me by concluding that it wasn’t the consumer side of search Microsoft was going after, but the enterprise. He sees Powerset as a compliment to Microsoft’s purchase of Fast earlier this year. “Powerset offers Microsoft a new leg up in value-add search applications using semantic analysis to extract content related to a topic. It's most useful application is likely to be in enterprise search, where there are going to be many documents with a structure that would feed well into semantic analysis tools.”

Blossom thinks the open web would be a greater challenge for a semantic search tool because it involves interpreting all of the nuances of the different types of online content through a common filtering system, but he also sees potential for this technology in mobile applications using voice-activated response to natural language queries. “Whichever the application,” Blossom says, “being able to answer questions triggered by natural language queries is becoming increasingly important in content services."

But who is director market intelligence at AIIM, and recently finished a study on the effectiveness of enterprise search (described here in my EContent article AIIM Study Finds Enterprise Search Still Lacking) isn’t so sure that natural language query is really all that. “From a “pure” search experience, people can barely be bothered to enter more than 1-3 search terms – what would make us think that users are going to type in fully formed questions as a query?” He points that in fact, most search engines have trained us *not* to enter fully formed questions.

In any event, Keldsen is simply not impressed with this move. “All the acquisitions or investments (such as into Facebook) that Microsoft has made in the consumer-facing, public web search market - as interesting as the techniques that Powerset uses are (Semantic Web, where art thou?) - this is much ado about nothing. It’s one small, subtle capability that is going to take quite some time (if ever) to make a significant impact on this aspect of the MS search business.”

I’m not so sure I agree completely with Keldsen here. I think the semantic web is the next frontier. People didn’t take Web 2.0 very seriously for a long time. Social networking was for teens, but today it’s on everyone lips. I have the feeling the semantic web or Web 3.0 as it’s been called could change the way we interact with web sites, but I do agree that it’s true potential is likely well into the future.

For now, I think Microsoft was wise to be forward-thinking. I’ve written before that Microsoft has always been a company to stand back and watch, then react to trends. In this case, they are getting ahead of the curve, and even if Keldsen is right and it’s well off into the future, I think Microsoft should be applauded for taking an educated risk. After all, what have they got to lose?

Small Business Events

What is a Microsoft Connections Live Event?

Microsoft Connections live events are designed to provide you with an opportunity to learn more about what Microsoft and its partners have to offer small business owners. At a Microsoft Connections live event, you can:

• Interact with a Microsoft Small Business Solutions adviser to learn more about how technology can help you and your small business
• See live demonstrations of the latest Microsoft solutions for small business owners
• Understand how technology can have an impact on how your business runs
• Learn from the experiences of other small business owners in attendance
• Meet representatives of local Small Business Specialist Partners who can work with you to implement the technologies you see

Who Should Attend?

Microsoft Connections events can prove to be a valuable investment of your time if you:

• Are a small business owner
• Make technology purchasing decisions at the small business where you work
• Are starting up your own small business

What to Expect?

Microsoft Connections events begin at 8am and finish at 12pm. During our free event we generally try to expose you to one or two new technologies, spending the rest of the time digging deeper into products or services that have been available for some time and are likely to already be a part of your technology landscape. You'll walk away with some new products to consider, some tips and tricks you can implement today and resources that can help you continue your research.

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