Whilst bumbling through Birmingham City Centre at the start of December, ostensibly "Christmas Shopping" - in reality, annoying the hell out of the GG ("Are you finished yet?", "I'm hungry", "I need the toilet" - were all phrases I repeated over and over again...) and taking frequent breaks to the beer and snack tents at the excellent German market situated in Birmingham City Centre - I did what all bored geeks do (right?) and I searched for interesting Wireless signals on my Windows Mobile device.

As well as the usual overpriced public hotspots (grrr) I got my first look at Birmingham City Council's free new hotspot service - Birmingham Fiz.

Now before you get too excited, Birmingham Fiz isn't a free wireless portal to the Internet. You can't go browsing Google, Yahoo and eBay with it.

What you can do though, is freely access information on a number of public services such as:-

• Listings for local cinemas, theatres, music venues and sports events;
• Ideas of where to eat and drink;
• Train, metro and bus timetables;
• Where to park and where to find a taxi;
• Places to stay;
• Where to shop;
• Toilets and baby-changing facilities;
• News and sport;
• Local weather forecasts;
• Emergency services;
• Jobs;
• Schools, colleges, term dates and holiday clubs;
• Conference facilities and business support services.

In use, Birmingham Fiz is definitely a work-in-progress, but the initiative is to be applauded. Imagine wandering into any major UK City Centre and firing up your Wireless device to get free information about your surroundings.

Or in my case, giving you an excuse to sit down, eat another German Sausage-based snack, swig some more excellent German Beer, and tell your other half you are "working". ;-)

I've been to a number of presentations on various subjects this year, mostly from vendors/suppliers trying to sell me their product. Some have been good, some bad.

Some of the best presentations I've seen were lively, interactive events - the speaker enthused about the subject and his/her audience actively participating. One other presentation that I recall was completely the opposite though - the typical "Death by Powerpoint". You know the sort - presenter is monotonous in tone, presenting dozens and dozens of projected Powerpoint slides quoting statistics, the speaker seemingly more interested in telling you about how many awards the vendor has won rather than letting you know how their product can actually help you do business!

So it was with interest that I read about the phenomenon of "Pecha Kucha".

In a nutshell, Pecha Kucha is a method of giving a presentation in a concise snappy and fast moving manner. The "rules" state the presenter is allowed to present 20 slides, each being displayed for 20 seconds apiece. Total time for presentation = 6 minutes 40 seconds! No more, no less. All questions from the audience are to be taken at the end of a presentation.

I've yet to see an example of Pecha Kucha live, but the format sounds exciting! It's certainly been taken up globally - a quick Google search shows Pecha Kucha groups all over the world!

I'd love to attend a Pecha Kucha presentation(s) in 2008 - subject matter irrelevant, I'm happy to view anyone's 6 minutes 40 seconds on just about any topic at all! If you know of an event in the West Midlands - leave a comment below!

Like most people, I'll be closing Netlink Towers for a well deserved break today - returning on January 3rd. The temptation to respond to work related e-mails and voicemails during that time will be great, but I'm going to try and concentrate on something I rarely focus on... relaxing! It'll be a Christmas break full of seeing friends and family, over indulging in food and drink, and most likely some very heated Wii games with the GG, my brother and friends.

I've not sent any Christmas Cards again this year, instead making a donation to one of my favourite Charities, The Woodlands Trust. If you're feeling a bit bloated after Christmas dinner, why not take a gander at Trust web-site to see if there are any scenic walkways near to you that can be enjoyed!

I'll no doubt be blogging over the break (when the mood takes me!) but all that remains for now is to wish all my friends and family, clients, readers of this blog, fellow Small Business Specialist Community colleagues, and everyone else who knows me - a very Merry Christmas!

One of the freeware tools that has made it's way into my standard toolkit in 2007 has been the Foxit PDF Reader.

Unlike Adobe Acrobat Reader, which I find to be slow, bloated (28megabyte installation package just to read a PDF file!?) and constantly requesting updates, Foxit PDF Reader is a small install, lightening fast and reliable in use.

Foxit PDF Reader is free for Commercial use.

Don't get me wrong, Adobe Acrobat Reader is still a better fit in many situations (I have one client who loves the "Save as Text File" feature which Foxit doesn't include) - but for the majority of casual PDF file users, I think Foxit PDF Reader is a much better alternative.

EDIT:- No sooner did I publish this blog than I stumbled across Viral Tapara - Microsoft Technical Evangelist - blogging on the virtues of Foxit PDF Reader in a similar vein. Great minds and all that. ;-)

When I take on a new small business client, one of the first steps I take with that client is to help them organise themselves. They may own a hodge-podge of IT equipment, systems and service providers built up over many months or years - each with their own nuances and issues - and whilst ripping everything out and starting afresh may be an option in the big-bucks Corporate environment, in Small Businesses a more piece-meal approach is usually the way.

In the case of existing service providers (be it Broadband Internet, Web-Hosting or some other service) I often breathe a sigh of relief if the provider I've inherited with the client is a well known and respected name (moreso if it's a supplier I already partner with and have a good working relationship with) but tread carefully and with bated-breath when the provider in question is an unknown quantity to me or my peers.

On occasion this new service provider will prove themselves valuable, even finding their way into my A+ "Recommended Vendors" category - good reliable service naturally breeds referrals. In other cases, alarm bells can start ringing as soon as you start dealing with that provider!

I've inherited once such service provider from a client this week, the clients Web Hosting provider. During the process of changing my clients MX records to facilitate a new e-mail system, I'd usually expect to be able to log on to the providers web-interface and make any DNS changes myself. If anything goes wrong, it's entirely my fault for inputting the wrong details - and I'm held accountable.

In this case though, alarm bells started ringing when the company in question didn't have a web-interface. So I telephone their Support line up to find out how to action my MX record change, and am told I need to FAX the request on Company Letterhead paper where it will be actioned within 30 minutes.

I FAX across the MX record change, I get a 'phone call back from the provider to say the change has happened (good communication, I like that!) and I sit back thinking all is well. An hour later, I get a 'phone call from the client - e-mail isn't working! Panic Panic! I immediately start my troubleshooting checks and find out that the MX record has been updated by the provider... it's been deleted entirely! Eek! No wonder they aren't receiving e-mail!

So I telephone the provider, explain what I think is the problem, they check and agree that my findings are indeed the issue at hand, and they fix the issue with huge apologies.

Now I'll usually "name and shame" any company that gives me poor service, but in this case I'm not going to as the service provider involved dealt with my initial request and resolving my subsequent complaint quickly, efficiently and with impeccable manners.

The issue does highlight a very common problem with non-automated procedures though - that of human error. If I'd have been able to update a web-interface with the new MX record, I could have checked on-screen in black and white that all was well. With this providers "system", you have to rely on a terrible old technology (FAX) working well (imagine trying to read an IP address from a poorly photocopied sheet!) and then rely on a human re-typing that poorly printed page back into another system. You can see where problems may arise.

So as good as the Support service from this provider is, I'll be recommending that my client move their Web Hosting to one of the more "grown-up" providers I already work with and know to be reliable.

There's lessons I can learn from the experience too - I shouldn't have accepted that the MX record change happened without checking the results myself, and I could have timed the changes better so disruption was minimised in the event of a problem.

Life as an Small Business IT Consultant - it's all good fun! :-)

According to the marketing web-site for the new movie, "The Golden Compass", my Daemon type is a Dog. It's not much of an improvement, but better than the "Pig" the GG regularly calls me I guess!

UKSMBGirl discusses how marketing campaigns such as this one are very clever, getting other people to talk about the product in question in many different ways. It's certainly worked in this case! What's your Daemon type?

Had a head-scratcher this weekend with a Windows XP Home machine that repeatedly showed logon errors in the Security Event log at startup.

I rather foolishly dived in headfirst, checking all Scheduled Tasks, Services and then removing all the users on the system in an attempt to try to solve the problem - but still the errors persisted.

I then stumbled across Microsoft KB Article 305822 which explains that "Windows XP attempts a limited logon for each account that is displayed on the Welcome screen to determine whether to prompt the user for a password. An attempted logon is logged for each account displayed."

So if you're running Windows XP Home with the Welcome Screen enabled (as opposed to the CTRL-ALT-DEL logon sequence) then this behaviour is to be expected.

The moral of the story? Even when dealing with Home PC's, exhaustively look for solutions on-line before you start ripping the machine to pieces! I often advise people that nearly any problem they've experienced, someone else has experienced that problem before and found a solution which you can use - pity I don't listen to my own advice at times!

Sensibly I'd done a full backup of this PC before I started work, so rolled it back to the early state before I caused further botches! Phew!