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4月29日 How to get Companyweb (Windows SharePoint Services v2) to work with Office 2007I experienced a few problems today using our internal Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2003 R2 server and it's Sharepoint v2 implementation. The first issue was that files weren't checking in and out properly - as when I checked a file out, Sharepoint didn't recognise me as the correct user - instead flagging the file as being checked out by an odd variant of my own user account (i.e. richard.tubb@netlinkit.co.uk instead of richard.tubb@netlink-it.com) So I 'phoned my "go to" guy for Sharepoint issues - Mr. Sharepoint himself, Andy Parkes. Conveniently, Andy was with fellow Sharepoint guru Vijay Riyait and both were on their way to a Sharepoint Seminar in London - and what's more, Andy himself had tackled a similar problem to my own that morning! The fix? Within companyweb, use the Site Settings menu > View Information about Site Users > Click Username > Edit User Information - where I updated the e-mail address of the account in question, and after logging off/on the workstation I was using, the correct Check In/Check Out procedure worked! Andy also suggests that deleting and re-creating the user account will also work if the above doesn't. Then I had to tackle some issues using Sharepoint v2 with Office 2007. Specifically when browsing to a companyweb Document library, no icons were being displayed for Office 2007 files, when you went to open those files from Sharepoint - Internet Explorer prompted you to save or download, and most irritatingly, you couldn't edit those files directly from companyweb - the error... “Server document: A newer version is available. To modify this document, open the latest version or save a copy” ... appearing every time. Thankfully, the ever helpful Dave Overton had already drawn together all the bits of information I needed to fix these issues over at his excellent blog under the article "How to get Companyweb (Windows SharePoint Services v2) to work with Office 2007". The only things I'd add to Dave's document are:-
Huge thanks to both Andy Parkes and Dave Overton for their assistance - it's really appreciated guys. Why am I suddenly taking an interest in using Sharepoint internally at Netlink IT anyway? All will be revealed shortly - let's just say I'm having to radically change my way of thinking about how I store useful information, as it isn't necessarily me alone wanting to view this stuff anymore... :-) IT Consultants - Get Cheaper Car Insurance!One of my favourite sites is Martin Lewis' excellent MoneySavingExpert.com - a veritable information overload for anyone looking to save a few quid here and there on anything from Insurance to eating out. Martin recently published an article on getting the cheapest Car Insurance, which included a tip for subtly tweaking the Occupation you list when applying for Car Insurance to make sure you get the cheapest deal. You can take a look at your own potential savings by using the web-site yourself! For instance - I usually list my occupation as "IT Consultant", but if I tweak that a little to become a "Computer Engineer", my Insurance premium drops by pounds! It's worth remembering that listing an inaccurate occupation may cause you future problems (I doubt I could be considered a "Lighting Technican" for instance, even thought this would give me a further discount still...) but frankly, I'm happy not to be a Consultant if it means paying less. :-) 4月28日 Asus Eee PC 900 With XP And Bigger Display Hits UKThanks to Andy Parkes for teasing me with some geek p0rn that he knew I simply couldn't resist... My baby yet with more memory, a bigger screen AND Windows XP instead of Linux? All I can add is.... 4月24日 Channel Expo - Birmingham NEC - May 21st/22ndA date for your diaries if you are an IT Consultant and/or IT provider. Channel Expo at the Birmingham NEC on 21st - 22nd May has an impressive line-up of vendors and some interesting subjects for their free seminars. You can register here for free. Once you have registered you can use an online appointment booking system to arrange a meeting with any of the following exhibitors: • 3A Distribution Ltd • Net @ Work If you're going to either day, drop me a line - it'd be great to meet up and say hello! 4月22日 London Marathon ThoughtsI've not blogged for a while as I've recently been in London for an extended break to support the GG as she ran the Flora London Marathon! Catching up on the backlog of e-mails, voice-mails and other tasks upon our return to Tubb Towers has kept me busy since then, so no blog posts until now. As for our trip itself - I couldn't be prouder of the GG, as she ran the Marathon in 3 hours 15 minutes and 17 seconds - just 17 seconds shy of an Elite Ladies time! For someone who has only been running a couple of years, I think you'll agree that is a fantastic time! She finished 102nd Female overall (yes, overall!) and 24th female in her Category. Amazing! The Marathon route was obviously packed at every spot, but we did manage to see Linda a couple of times and cheer her on, thanks to the excellent London Marathon Mobile web-site which allowed you to track runners progress around the course. As a result of people sponsoring her run, £160 has already been raised "on-line" and another couple of hundred pounds "off-line". There is still time to donate yourself, as you can easily give to the Running Rabbit's charity of choice - Mind, The Mental Health Charity - by visiting this page. As for myself - thank-you for all the kind words and concerned e-mails - but yes, I did manage to visit London Public Houses at nearly all 26.2 miles of the Marathon course, and yes, I do know it's a stunning, nay, Herculean, achievement. Thank-you everyone for your support of my efforts whilst the GG did her short jog. I notice that whilst I've been away some wags have been teasing me about my apparent shift of loyalties from Microsoft to Linux in the form of my new "baby", an Asus Eee PC. I can assure everyone (including Microsoft CEO Steve Balmer who apparently had a panic attack and bad-mouthed Vista in a fit of rage when he heard of the news of my alleged betrayal) that I am not about to defect to the Penguin Camp anytime soon. However, my love for my Eee PC is nothing to be ashamed of, and in celebration of that, you can find below a series of photographs when I took it sight-seeing in the Capital. Sadly there was no space left on the Digital Camera memory card for any photographs of the GG, but she's very understanding in these matters.
Yes, the last bit *is* a joke. <grin> Well done Linda on such a fantastic achievement, and more importantly, continuing to put up with me in spite of everything. :-) 4月8日 Asus Eee PCIt's been a tough few weeks here at Tubb Towers - new clients coming on-board, projects aplenty running me ragged, and as much admin and red tape as ever. So earlier this week I decided it was time for a little reward and so I treated myself to a new toy to feed my inner geek - that toy being an Asus Eee PC 2G Surf.
You expect the unit to be small, but unboxing it I was still surprised at how tiny it is - it's not much larger than a standard DVD case and weighs around the same as a large mobile phone - around 100g. The enclosed Power-Charger is equ ally tiny and won't take up much space in a carry bag. The unit I bought, a 2G surf, is White in Colour and sports a 7' display (running at 800x400). The CPU is an Intel Celeron M running at 800Mhz. It comes with 512MB RAM (which I understand is upgradeable) and a 2GB SSD Hard Disk. Setting up the unit is simplicity itself. Pop the battery in to th But before you can use any of those applications, I needed to get the unit connected to the Internet. As well as a standard Ethernet socket, the unit has 3 x USB 2.0 sockets and in-built Wi-Fi. Clicking the Wireless icon, a few seconds later I was connected to a WPA-PSK protected signal and I clicked "Web" to load Mozilla Firefox and began surfing the web! It's at this point that the first downside of this tiny PC becomes apparent - and that is that... well... it's tiny! Each of the keys on the keyboard is about the size of a fingernail and if you struggle with a normal sized laptop touch-pad then you'll hate the Eee PC's equivalent tiny pad. For a bloke with sausage like fingers like me, initially using the keyboard/mouse was a struggle - but I soon got used to it. I wouldn't like to work on the unit for lengthy periods, but it's fine for what it is. As well as Firefox, the unit comes with an Instant Messenger client that immediately connected me to both Live Messenger (MSN) and Yahoo Messenger with ease, and Skype fired up and let me call my brother via VoIP to boast about my new purchase with no problems at all. Sound quality was absolutely fine - no headset required. Talking of which, using the in-built File Manager I connected to a Windows server SMB share with no difficulty and seconds later was playing MP3's through the in-built speakers. The speakers are hardly going to enable you to hold a house party with booming tunes, but they are fine for background music as you work. Also included on the unit are Open Office, an Internet Radio application (which again, just works!), the Thunderbird e-Mail client, a Dictionary, some basic games and a raft of Administration tools. Battery life is about 2 hours in continuous use from my experience. Once the initial excitement of owning such a tiny device had worn off (although I still find myself glancing at the unit at smiling a few days later...) thoughts turned to how I could use the Eee PC in the real-world "on the road". Being as small as it is, you could easily pop it into an overnight bag - and as I've got a trip to London coming up in a few days, I began to consider what I'd find myself wanting to use in the way of software/devices away from home. Now, I consider myself an advanced computer user and know my way around most systems. If, however, you've spent the last few years in the warm fuzzy walled garden of the Microsoft Windows world... you may (as I did) initially panic when you want to install new software. Let me explain... In my case, I wanted to install the Sun Java VM to enable me to use Remote Control software LogMeIn. So I fired up Firefox, visited www.logmein.com and was told I needed the Java plug-in. No problem. At this point on a Windows system would have automatically pulled down the update, installed it, asked you to restart and voila. Not so this version of Linux. I was presented with a series of files and some very patchy instructions on how to use them. By patchy I mean the instructions said, and I kid not, "Install Sun Java VM"... exactly how though?! At this point the thought of zapping the system and installing Windows XP (which Asus actually promote as being possible to install in the attached literature and many others have documented) became tempting - but I was determined to use this as a learning experience. One thing I'll say for the Linux community is that they have a ton of freely available documentation and are obviously a very helpful bunch - you can immediately see that from looking at resources such as EEEguides.com and EEEuser.com, but they sure don't speak in plain terms a whole lot! Maybe (and I'm sure this is the case) I'm used to Microsoft Knowledgebase articles that literally walk you through the instructions like a dummy, but there was none of that to be found here! Around an hour later I'd sussed from various (sometimes contradictory) web-pages that I would be better off switching from the Eee PC's "Easy" mode into "Advanced" mode (which then presented me with a "proper" GUI Desktop as opposed to a series of buttons). Once this was done, I discovered the Synaptic Installation GUI and the concept of "Repositories" for downloading new software. 30 minutes later I'd got Sun Java working and I could remote into client servers using LogMeIn. Huzzah! Next up - would my Three 3G USB modem work with the unit? Guess Here you can see a picture of my new Eee PC - surround by my USB Modem, iPod Touch and Windows Mobile 5 phone - it should give you an idea of comparative size. In conclusion - I've only had a few hours to play with the unit this week but I simply do love it! Once you move outside the realms of simply using it as a bog-standard Web Browser/E-Mail/IM client, you do need to be prepared to put your Geek hat-on and get your hands dirty (on the upside, I'm attending my next local Linux User Group meeting as a result of this experience!) However, some Linux crash-learning later I now have a fully functioning "laptop" PC with 3G and Wi-Fi connectivity that I can literally throw into an overnight bag and take anywhere with me, unlike my now seemingly "bulky" Dell Inspiron laptop! The acid test will be taking the unit to London with me and seeing how I fare out of the office with just the EeePC for company! Before then though I'm taking my new baby with me to this evenings AMITPRO meeting to see if any of the hardcore Microsofties in attendance coo over it like I have all this week... :-) 4月7日 Growing a Small BusinessMany of the clients I work with are smaller businesses looking for assistance in growth. Obviously, Netlink are able to help these clients from an Information Technology perspective - we wouldn't be much of an IT Consultancy if we didn't - but we're also a Small Business ourselves and so face many of the same non-IT challenges and barriers to growth that our clients do. Two sources of information I've personally found useful as I plan my own businesses growth and thus I suggest to clients looking for answers to similar questions are Business Link and Shell Livewire. Shell Livewire is aimed at 16-30 years old who run their own business. They have some very good forums for discussing business with fellow business owners, and they provide some local business advisors and mentors. At 31 years of age, this business owner is now actually too old for the site - but it's proved very useful in the past and I can still pretend I'm a "young person" I guess... :-) Business Link is the UK Governments support service for Small and Medium Sized Businesses and has dozens of offices across the UK - each targeting their local community. I've sporadically used Business Link's services ever since I started-up Netlink IT a few years ago, and I recently sat down with a Business Link advisor who was very helpful in helping me formulate a plan to grow the company. They also have an excellent web-site with tons of easily accessible information on everything from Insurance and taking on your first employee. Business Link are also a good starting point if you are looking for grants to enable business growth. I recently put one of my clients in touch with Business Link West Midlands about their "High Growth" scheme, where a large grant may be offered to businesses expecting to reach a turnover of £200k in Year Two of trading. The client wasn't aware of this scheme and Business Link will openly confess they don't "reach" everyone they'd hope to - so this was a good referral for both and generated good-will for us too. Both of the above services are free - but if you're serious about growing your business (be it a startup or an established business) then I'll pass on some of the best advice I myself was offered when I first started up, and that was to find yourself a business mentor. If you're lucky, you'll find someone willing to give you the benefit of their time and wisdom out of a sense of philanthropy - but if you're not that lucky (and most business owners aren't) then it's worth paying for someone's time in this role. It took me a while to appreciate the value of paying somebody for their advice, but as a business owner, it's all too easy to work "in" your business and not "on" it. I've found that my business mentors have helped me gain some direction for my business and help me focus and concentrate on what is important when I'm in danger of simply working for the sake of it. Finally, I've today come across a site that purports to offer free and impartial online support for businesses and entrepreneurs called Venture Navigator. First impressions are it may well prove useful, and as it's free there's no excuse for not checking it out! |
If you've been living in a cave on Mars and haven't heard of the 
e space at the back of the Eee PC, plug in the PSU and power on. After realising that yes, the unit is on (there is little or no noise) a familiar BIOS screen greets you and disappears quickly. Around 20 seconds later, the Operating System (a custom |
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