Am I a "Cesspool of Knowledge"?

I do not intend to use this blog to post about myself. However, I have receive a label that I find both hilarious and disturbing.

After finishing a wonderful IT conference in Redmond, Washington, I am at Seattle Airport awaiting my flight back to Phoenix. Individuals in my Phoenix users group told me yesterday that I have been very helpful and am a "Cesspool of Knowledge". After a hardy round of laughter, I was told that it was not derogatory term? Not derogatory? How about an unheard of term!

I hope they mean that I am like a junk yard. If you look long enough (or listen, in this case), you will receive a gem of knowledge. Well, guys, I will try to keep out the sluge and just bring you the gems.

BTW, if you are an IT professional, own your company, want to grow and/or better serve your clients, then get yourself to SMB Nation. You will not regret it!

** EDIT ** I got on my flight. The guy next to me was so happy to get in First Class, he drank 3 glasses of wine and spent the rest of the flight using an air sick bag.... Ughhhh!

Higher Roofs for Mailbox Limits

I have always believed that Exchange mailboxes were stuck at 2 Gigs maximum. What has supported this belief? The fact that 2097151 is the largest number that can be entered by using the GUI has always reinforced my impressions that the 2 Gig number was the absolute limit.

I got told tonight by Harold Wong, exceptional Microsoft Exchange expert, that the 2 gig limit did not exist in Exchange 2003. I have researched this tonight, and found that the GUI does have a 2 gig limit, but that limit can be set higher by using the ADSIEdit mmc snapin. Why set higher limits? To allow users to have more than 2 gigs in their mailboxes, but to have some control over maximum mailbox size.

"Increasing mailbox storage limits settings in exchange 2003" details how to do this.

Frustrated because you need to access the Console remotely, but don't know how?

Arrrgghhhh!&*#$ What do you do when you need to remotely access the console of a server? Maybe you have a program that you need to close... Maybe a installation prompt to click continue on... Maybe just double check before a reboot...

Kudos go to Keith at Tarosoft for putting me on to this.

Type "mstsc /console" at the Run prompt in Windows XP. Remote Desktop Connection will come up. Enter the URL or ip of the computer you want to access. Login and find yourself at the console of the remote computer, not in an Administrator TS session!

Boy, this has made my life much easier.

FACEOFF : Is SATA faster than USB2 for SBS Backups?

Ever wonder if using SATA hard drive enclosures instead of USB2 hard drive enclosures for external backups was worth the extra expense? So have I. A problem with a client's server backup of SBS prompted this FACE-OFF. Mind you, this is not a scientific experiment, just a rough test.

Setup : I utilized a combo exclosure from AMS called Venus (DS-2316SU2SBK). This one supports USB2 and SATA external interfaces and accepts a SATA drive up to 500 Gigs. I inserted a 250 Gig WDC hard drive into the enclosure. The tested server had a Asus P4P800 motherboard, 2.4 Gig Intel P4 processor, and a SIIG SATA Raid controller based on their 3112 chipset.

Results : I ran the standard SBS backup configurated by the SBS Backup Wizard. 55 Gigs in 100 minutes for SATA, 129 minutes for USB2. USB2 backup took 29% longer than the SATA backup. Here are the details for the USB test and the SATA test.

Conclusions : 1) SATA is far faster at the Verify function than USB2, twice as fast! 2) SATA does give some speed increase during backup of data 3) Your milage may vary, but SATA generally will give you faster performance.

You CAN have more than one person receive faxes by email in SBS 2003

I had a client that needed more than one person to be copied on faxes received by their SBS 2003 server in their email. I had email Microsoft on this issue, but the SBS expert that responded thought I was talking about something else. So, I set the issue aside to be answered at a later date.

I connected with the client today regarding another issue, and decided to try an experiment. I added 2 email addresses into the email address field, separated by a semicolon. The test fax went to both mail boxes! Hurray!

I know that some of you will say

Use a distribution list!

I did try a distribution list, but something wasn't right.

Intel finally kicks by in the Publishing Department

Well, it has taken some time. Intel finally got off their rear-end and bested AMD in every category!

Intel Core 2Duo Adobe Photoshop Tests

Maybe this will shut up those AMD geeks! At least, it makes it easier for me to continue selling Intel based servers and workstations.

A new blog

I did not set out to blog. I was just trying to answer Vlad at Vladville.Com

But here I am....

I do not know if I will blog in the future... But perhaps there will be future content.

Come back and see