8 Technology Investments to Help Small & Medium Sized Businesses Dominate the Recession
When the economy takes a turn for the worse most business try and make swift budget cuts to give themselves a better financial runway. Usually these cuts impact 
Marketing and IT with great severity, when ideally these are the two areas you should be at the very least maintaining budgets. With that in mind over the next couple weeks we will be highlighting 8 areas where you can make relatively minor investments in technology to help your business Small or Medium sized business dominate in the recession by doing more with less to gain competitive advantages.
The 8 Technology areas that we will be highlighting:
1. Communications
2. Data Deduplication
3. Cloud Computing
4. Learning how to use the tech that you already have
5. Electronic Document Storage
6. Virtualization
7. Hardware Upgrades
8. Going Mobile
Active Directory Tip: Access External Website With The Same Domain Name As Your Internal Domain
It is often the case that companies use their external domain (i.e. enirtia.com) for their internal Active Directory domain, and this is completely fine, except when you want to access your website which is hosted on an external server.
Active Directory automatically sets up an internal DNS server for use on your network, and assumes that it is the Authorative server for the domain you used, which in our case here is “example.com”. When clients on your internal network ask your Active Directory DNS server for a lookup on example.com it is going to direct them to one of your domain controllers. If you request”www.enirtia.com” and you happen to have IIS running on one of those domain controllers you will see whatever the default website that is running on that server.
To get around this we need to add a redirect to your IIS server, a Host record to your internal DNS server, and a delegation to your DNS server, all of which are simple to do. These changes are based on the assumption that your external website is setup on external DNS servers with an “A” record pointing”www.enirtia.com” to the IP address of the server that is hosting your website, and that example.com without the “www” is setup with a CNAME record pointing at”www.enirtia.com”. If it is setup in the opposite manner this will not work.
Host Record:
First find out what the IP address is of the external web server if you do not already know it. Go to Start > Control Panel > Administrative Tools > DNS and locate example.com. Right-click and choose “New Host (A or AAAA)”. Type “www” into the name field, and the IP address of your external web server into the IP Address field. Click the “Add Host” button to save.
IIS Redirect:
To redirect “http://enirtia.com” to “http://www.enirtia.com we need to create a redirect in your IIS server. Go to Start > Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Internet Information Services and locate the Default Web Site. Right-Click on the default web site, and choose Properties. Go to the Directory tab and setup a redirect to point to”www.enirtia.com”.
DNS Delegation:
To create a DNS Delegation you must know the names of external name servers servicing your domain name. Go to Start > Control Panel > Administrative Tools > DNS and locate example.com. Right-Click and choose “New Delegation”. Type www into the Delegated Domain field, click next and provide it with external authorative name servers for your domain name.
Your Big IT Vendor Does Not Understand Your Business
Recently I have come to the conclusion that Big IT Services, Software, & hardware vendors do not understand small-medium sized companies. Most IT vendors seem to fall into one of two categories, the first is Big Enterprise Vendors that think you are or want you to be larger than you are, and fast. The second type is the Small Time Vendors that do not understand what business goals are and how they impact IT, and are quite fine fixing your desktop computer when it breaks, which is fine for the very small company, but they do not scale well. Rarely have I seen a company that can fit comfortably in the middle.
You may be asking yourself, “What constitutes a Big IT Vendor?” These are the companies that you would expect that make hardware or software such as Cisco, HP, and EMC. Big IT Vendors are also the “Value Added Resellers” such as Insight and CDW, as well as your local/regional “Enterprise Consultants/Vendors” that resell hardware & software, in addition to offering consulting services.
Next, you may be asking yourself “What constitutes a small-medium sized organization?” This one is a little harder to pin down, as it is not always dependent on a headcount of staff. I know of several smaller companies that have only a few employees but require networks and systems on par with companies that have 60 employees, due to the nature of their businesses. In general I would say these are your non-tech based companies that have less than 150 employees, but more than 15. Most companies in this category are happy with their infrastructure as it stands, no matter how broken and inefficient it is, because they do not know any better. They do not have IT Goals, they usually have a loose idea of what they want or where they would like to be, but those ideas are always at the mercy of what else is going on in the organization.
Most Big IT Vendors are fundamentally sales organizations, or at least the departments that you will get to interface with. This is true even with companies that “make” hardware and software, you usually only get to deal with the sales dept. rarely get to talk to anyone that is technical in nature, or if they are they are a Sales Engineer. A Sales Engineer is essentially a sales person that has a better understanding of the technology, but is still fundamentally a sales person. This is bad because sales people are typically paid on commission, so they are usually more interested in pushing units than finding the best solution for your company.
Without sounding like Jeff Foxworthy, you can tell that you are dealing with a Big IT Vendor that does not understand small-medium sized businesses when you starting hearing them say things like:
- What is your annual IT budget? – What they are really asking is “how much money can I try and get from your company?” This is a way for sales people to size your organization up. Again this is something that most small-medium sized companies do not have formally established (but arguably should).
- What is your budget for this project? – This is essentially the same as the previous one. Most small-medium companies would answer this with “what is it going to cost us? If we like the number that is our budget”
- What projects are you working on that we may be able to assist with? – This is question that goes along with the IT Goals question; rarely does an organization in this category take on large long-term projects. Projects that would normally be considered a large undertaking for bigger companies, such as deploying a new IP Phone system or Exchange Server, are fairly short-term projects simply due to the size of the organization.
- We will get a quote put together for this. – This one is a pet peeve of mine. If these companies would just publish a standard price list and not sell their products as a million different components there would be no need for formal quotes. Personally, I am fine working with rough ballpark numbers until I am ready to commit to buying the products. This is a classic way for Sales people to maintain contact with you to try and push you into committing to buy the product or service.
Furthermore Big IT Vendors tend to push Microsoft & Cisco, with some RedHat or Novell Linux peppered in, centric solutions. They believe that everyone needs a SAN, a web filtering system, a full Unified Communications Solution, and they look at you funny when you say you allow your users to use *GASP* Macs.
These Big IT Vendors have their place in the world, which is servicing large Enterprises. However, with the economy in the toilet shareholders pushing for ever larger market share these vendors have no choice but to try and convince small-medium sized companies that they need to have the latest and greatest enterprise-level technology to make their business run more efficiently. The fact is that most small-medium sized companies do not need an excessively complex IT Infrastructure to run their business, the need a simple, stable, inexpensive environment.
Unfortunately, without Big IT Vendors, that leaves many smaller companies to deal with the small-time IT Vendors previously mentioned, which is often not a better situation.
Windows 7, Now With Less Internet Explorer
On the MSDN Windows 7 Engineering blog, Jack Mayo – Program Manager for Windows Docs & Printing group – has an interesting post about how the forthcoming Windows 7 Public Release Candidate will feature an “On-Off” switch for many Microsoft applications that have traditionally been bundled with previous Windows releases. One of these applications is Internet Explorer 8.
Unlike the traditional Add/Remove Windows Components functionality, the switches will not fully remove the applications do to internal Windows and developer dependencies on components of the applications. Instead it merely deletes the “.exe” and any shortcuts for the applications. Should the user decide that they actually need the applications they can flip the switch back and regain full functionality.
The other applications & services that can be switched off are: Windows Media Player, Windows Media Center, Windows DVD Maker, Windows Search services, Handwriting recognition, Windows gadgets, fax and scan, and the XPS viewer and some other misc services.
This move is most likely to appease those examining Microsoft for Antitrust issues in the EU. Microsoft has long maintained that they are unable to extract the browser from the OS due to the way it is built, which was one of the sticking points in their US Antitrust case nearly a decade ago. While I do not agree with those that are claiming the bundling of IE with Windows is anti competitive, I do applaud Microsoft for giving users a choice, for a change. I think that it is their product and they should be able to do anything they want with it, short of putting technical roadblocks for 3rd parties developers to make their applications run on the OS. Users are fully capable of installing alternative products if they choose to do so.
Zimbra has 40 Million Paid Mailboxes
Venture Beat is reporting that Yahoo’s Zimbra has 40 Million Paid Email boxes, which is gives it more paid mailboxes than Google’s Free Gmail and it’s paying Apps (Gmail) For Your Domain customers, and puts it close behind AOL and Microsoft’s Hotmail services. While Zimbra’s users are not the same type of users as Gmail, AOL, and Hotmail’s users, in that Zimbra is not offering basic web mail services like the aforementioned services, they are offering something more significant in a full Groupware system with Calendaring, Email, Contacts, etc., and they are getting companies to pay for it, whereas the others, not so much. Much of Zimbra’s new found user base is due to the fact that Comcast has deployed Zimbra as it’s new email system for all of it’s broadband subscribers.
While Zimbra has made significant headway in aquiring new customers, they still have a lot to do to compete with Microsoft Exchange, with their biggest hurdle being acceptance by non-technical “office-type” users of using their own web mail interface over the traditional Outlook Interface. I ran into this head on when I replaced our existing Exchange 2003 Server with Zimbra. While the system was fairly stable, but less so than our Exchange server, their Desktop Connectors that linked with Outlook, Entourage, Apple Mail, and Apple iCal left much to be desired. These connectors were down right buggy and feature incomplete. With that said, if you can get your users to use their Zimbra Desktop Client or Web Client, the system was rock solid, and their Connector for Active Sync worked flawlessly.
I hope this milestone gets them noticed within the Yahoo corporate structure and gets them some more resources so that they do not get lost in the current Yahoo re org mess. I am still not convinced that Yahoo’s acquisition of Zimbra was a good move for either of the companies. As I have said before I still think that Apple should have bought Zimbra instead of creating their iCal Server.
It should be noted that I own stock in Yahoo.
Google Sync, Killing MS Exchange One Beta At a Time
Today Google launched their new Google Sync Product that allows you to sync your Google Calendar and Gmail Contacts to your Windows Mobile and iPhone devices. To do this they have licensed Microsoft’s Activesync protocol, just as Apple did to allow the iPhone to sync to a Microsoft Exchange server.
This is significant because it immediately opens up the majority of existing smart phone owners to functionality previously only offered to corporate users of Exchange servers, at no cost. Which makes the service ideal for smaller companies and Independent Consultant/Freelancer types. What is even more ideal about the service for these types of people is that it also works with Google Apps for your Domain. Can you say free Exchange Server?
The second reason that this is significant is that it virtually negates the need for Apple’s MobileMe service, as it provides virtually the same functionality at no cost. I am sure Apple is not pleased about this.
As great as this service is, there are some downsides:
-The Activesync protocol only allows you to setup one Activesync account per mobile device. So if you have a Smartphone that is already syncing to your corporate Exchange server, you cannot setup another to sync to Google. This is not Google’s fault, nor is it the device manufacturer’s fault, this is the way Microsoft designed Activesync. In many of the comments on Google’s blog posting about this new service people are laying blame at Google and Apple’s door, when it does not belong there.
-It does not use Activesync to deliver email. At this time Google is still using IMAP or POP to deliver mail to devices. This is a downside because it makes the process of getting all of your data to your device more convoluted, possibly more problem prone and bandwidth intensive.
-By using Activesync there is no way to sync Google Docs. While this may not sound significant it would be helpful to be able to sync documents and files over to your mobile device. This is functionality that Microsoft will be making available shortly through their Live Mesh service that is currently in beta.
-It does not sync Tasks. One of the core functions of any personal information management system is the ability to create and organize tasks. Activesync already has functionality to sync tasks from an Exchange-based account natively, but Google has not implemented functionality to sync your Gmail tasks as of yet.
-It does not work on Google’s own G1 Android phone. While it appears that Google has licensed Activesync for pushing data to mobile devices from its services, it has not implemented Activesync on the Android platform, which means that Android users are out in the cold on this one.
None of the downsides listed are deal breakers in my mind for the average user, and following in the grand Google tradition of release then iterate, I am sure that they will be able to work through many of these issues in short order.
Cloud Computing for Novices
This is a presentation I recently gave to a Freshman Computer Science class at UAT on Cloud Computing. I was actually very surprised at the lack of knowledge, or even awareness in this area. After talking to some Instructors at other schools this seems to be the case at other schools as well. It seems that colleges are pushing so hard on the Microsoft curriculum and are still trying to play catch up to teach basic Linux that they are not even touching on Cloud Computing. What a shame since this will be part of the future of IT.
Internet 101
This is a presentation I gave earlier this year to some of the staff at Off Madison Ave on how the Internet works. It covers the History and basics of the Internet.
Maximize Productivity Through Tech Spending
Many companies spend money on IT projects to fufill their need to have the latest and greatest toys and systems. However most do not evaluate how these projects impact their productivity. Often there is a direct relationship between Tech Spending and Productivity enhancements, however it is not the only thing that can enhance productivity.
The below presentation I have given on this very topic. It is somewhat incomplete, as it is meant to be narrated, but you will get the idea.
Migrate Windows User Profiles to a new computer
One of the common problems that IT Staff run into is transferring Windows users’ desktop profiles from one computer to another while mainataining all of their customizations, files, settings, favorites, emails, and whatever else. One would think that Microsoft would give IT Pros the tools to transfer this kind of data since they made it so critical with the advent of Windows NT & 2000.
Fortunately there is a tool put out by ForensIT that makes this a relatively trivial task. You can download it here. After you download it, follow these directions to use it to transfer your profiles seamlessly.
- Load the computer fully with the appropriate software, including MS Office if needed.
- Login and create the account of the user that you wish to transfer.
- Either remove and hook up the hard drive from the old computer to the new computer or connect to the computer’s default share (i.e. \\computername\C$)
- After hooking up the drive or connecting to the default share open launch a Windows Explorer window and navigate to “C:\Documents and Settings” folder.
- Copy the Folder for the user that you wish transfer to the new computer.
- On the new computer paste the folder to that same respective folder.
- After copying the folder to the new computer, open up the Windows Control Panel, double-click the System icon, and go to the Advanced tab. Click on the “Settings” button under the User Profiles section.
- Check the “Show Unassigned Profiles” checkbox.
- Choose the folder relating to the folder that you wish to assign, and click assign.
- Type in the username of the user that you wish to transfer.
- Log out and log back in as the migrated user
After following those steps you should have a fully migrated user profile. Keep in mind this dows not migrate programs, Windows is still incapable of doing this.
Enjoy!
