I'm off to Prague in the Czech Republic for a friends Stag "Do" this weekend - so naturally thoughts turn to where to drink, where to eat and... where to pick up a free Wireless Internet signal!

Even with the EU's recent bullying forcing Mobile Phone operators to lower their frankly outrageous roaming charges, prices are still ridiculous. 50 pence per minute to receive a phone call on your Mobile Phone sound reasonable to you? Nor me - so thoughts turn to using VoIP to cut the costs of calling loved ones back home in the UK.

Armed with my MDA Vario II in PDA only mode - the web-site Free-Hotspot.com lists several Wi-Fi hotspots to use in and around the Wenceslas Square area where we are staying in Prague. I've also taken advantage of Skype's current £8 for five months offer on it's Skype Pro product - so hopefully those quick calls back home should no longer mean Chez Tubb is in danger of being repossed when I get back to blighty!

See you all in a few days! :-)

Whilst trying to create a new drive image of a Windows XP Home Edition SP2 installation, using Microsoft's SysPrep tool updated for SP2 and Acronis TrueImage (which incidentally, I find far superior to Symantec Ghost. Better network drivers, good support and the fantastic "Universal Restore" function - a big thumbs up!) I came across a curious problem that had me scratching my head.

After completing the Sysprep routine, creating the disk image and rebooting - instead of the "Mini Setup" you'd expect to find after running SysPrep in this way, Windows error'd with "The system is not fully installed. Please run setup again".

A quick search of the Microsoft Knowledgebase found an article that explained the problem, how to reproduce it and how to workaround it - of a fashion.

The article refers to changing the registry on the problematic machine to enable the machine to boot properly. Instead of the Parallel Install suggestion the KB article mentioned, I used the excellent AVG Rescue CD to edit the registry - which took all of 3 minutes as opposed to the lenthy Parallel install routine. The upshot was the machine then booted - albeit to my pre-sysprep image, no Mini-Setup ran at all.

I ran SysPrep and created a new image again, only to come to the same result. Frustration.

Finally, I stumbled across a blog entry from David Douglass where he describes the same problem and suggests un-installing Windows Media Player 11 as the culprit. Low and beyold - one uninstall of WMP11 and the whole process worked!

I can't find any "official" Microsoft documentation of this bizarre bug, so kudo's to David for saving many frustrating hours of trying to find the issue!

Yahoo report that SKY are dropping the £10 per month subscription fee for it's SKY+ PVR from July 2007 onwards.

This has come about a year too late for me, as I wanted the facilities of a PVR without having to pay for the privelege and so moved away from SKY to Freeview early in 2006.

At the time I was unsure whether I was getting good value from "Pay" television through SKY, and so did the geeky thing and kept a diary of my television viewing for a month. The results were surprising - despite the fact I was paying around £420 a year for the privelege of dozens of premium channels and a PVR facility, 95% of the programmes I actually watched were available "Free to Air" without the need to pay for them.

But I still wanted a PVR, and did like SKY+ and it's features. However, SKY weren't budging - they said if I cancelled my channel subscription, the SKY+ PVR feature went too. So I cancelled, and suddenly SKY were able to offer me the SKY+ facility for £10/month. Too late, Mr. Murdoch! I said "no thanks" to all further offers. I really resent this sort of practice - why not just tell me I could indeed subscribe to the PVR service for £10 per month, instead of pretending it wasn't possible until they were sure they'd lost my business? This was also the culmination of a ridiculous number of anti-customer practices I'd experienced from SKY - including the fact that when I 'phoned to cancel my subscription, I was told I could only cancel on certain days of the month. "Can't you just use your computer to diary my cancellation for those days then?" I enquired. "No Sir, you'll need to 'phone back on that day". Superb example of trying to use technology to hide what is simply a really poor customer retention policy SKY!

Anyway, SKY were history and so I started looking at the Freeview PVR options - of which there were many. The clear winner appeared to be the Topfield TF5800 PVR (pictured below). It allowed the recording of two channels whilst watching an existing recording, it featured a 300GB Hard Drive, and also allowed the use of TAPS - Topfield Application Programs. Think extensible applications for your television viewing and you'll get the idea! This was a "killer" feature for me, and a year on I am still loving the ability to modify my PVR software how I want it. I can record entire series of programs, program my PVR by SMS text message, record programs by search key words, skip advertisements, set bookmarks in show playbacks, automatically organise my television recordings into structured folders, export my recordings for conversion to MPG, and much more.

The "Toppy" as it is affectionately known, also has a thriving community where you can get help and discuss problems. You can also find a more detailed review of the TP5800 here - what I would add is though, whatever "niggles" in the software or personal preferences you find not catered for by the bog standard Toppy box - you can simply upload a TAP and work around them!

Whilst I've used my laptop connected up to my Toppy via it's USB port to do my "tinkering" up until now, I've recently bought a Linksys NSLU2 box which will enable me to put my Toppy on my home network for even more functionality!

Now - I can see the allure of Windows Vista's Media Centre features, and how they might enable you to achieve the same level of functionality as my Toppy - but I think the experience works out much more expensive. You'll be lucky to build a ultra-quiet slimline PC that you can leave on 24/7 in your living room for less than £400 including a Vista license. However, if you have done exactly this, do leave a comment and let me know how you got on!

The Topfield TF5800 cost me £300 for the box, and I also had a new television aerial installed at a cost of £100 to enable a strong signal for Freeview. Total cost = £400. A year in, I'm enjoying all the features of my SKY+ PVR, and nearly all of the television shows I used to watch (with DVD rentals and purchases to cover the gaps) but am now saving £420 a year to boot!

Quick shout out to my good mate, Matt Barton of Ostrich IT, whos new Tuesday Night "Totally 80's" Radio Show on Bay FM in Devon begins tonight, and then every Tuesday night from 9pm.

You can listen to the show live through Bay FM's streaming Internet feed - go to www.bayfm.co.uk from 9pm every Tuesday!

Good luck Matt - am looking forward to hearing my favourite, "Take On Me" by A-ha! :-)

How do you change your Windows Live ID?

1. Go to http://account.live.com/ - login with your existing Live ID.
2. Click Settings > under "Your Information" - click "change" next to your ID
3. Enter your new ID details by following the on-screen instructions
4. Wait for the confirmation e-mail to come through to your new ID address > respond and voila!

There's a ton of other options for changing your details at http://account.live.com/ too!

I've never come across the site before, and without Tim over at Tigra Networks humouring me and holding my hand through the process like the newbie I was, I doubt I ever would have!

I have to question how non-techy end users might find this site if I can't! (Queue flood of comments from my customers telling me they knew where to find it...)

I've already had a rant voiced my opinions about Microsoft -Vs- Symantec Support this week, so I thought I'd turn away from the big players for a moment and give some attention to the companies that provide software and services that you might not be aware of. These are the companies that you won't find at the top of Google search rankings, but whom have a small but loyal user-base who appreciate the committment these companies make to providing software updates and ongoing support for them, and let anyone who is listening know this!

The first is UK based Paul Smith Computer Services (PSCS) who amongst other offerings, sell their own e-mail server software, VPOP3. VPOP3 started out as a solution for users wanting to make more of their POP3 and SMTP e-mail over dial-up, way back in the mists of time. As times have changed, and Broadband has become more popular, VPOP3's feature base has grown but the underlying principle to the software has remained the same - powerful features, but simple to configure and use. It's certainly not Microsoft Exchange, but I've installed VPOP3 at half-a-dozen different customer sites, including a customer with over 250 voracious e-mail users, and it copes admirably. It's very easy to administer (so easy in fact, that one customer has it installed on their SBS 2003 installation in preference to SBS Exchange), is reliable and very very cost-effective. But the real kicker for VPOP3 is the support offered by PSCS. As well as some superb support forums where enquiries and problems are usually responded to within the hour, and an excellent Knowledgebase that is easily searchable and delivers answers - PSCS offer the fastest bug fixes I've ever come across! Report an issue to them, and if they track it down to a code bug, you can expect a fix within days - sometimes hours. Paul Smith and his team show the levels of support that all companies, however big or small, should strive to achieve.

Moving away from the UK, Icelandic based Emco Software offer a variety of products to help you manage your network. These include Network Inventory, which is quick and does a superb job of auditing small networks, MSI Package Builder, which is an easy to use and inexpensive MSI software creation tool, and Remote Deployment Kit, which is invaluable for non-Active Directory environments or for sites where Group Policy knowledge isn't high but where a need to roll-out new software easily is required. As well as offering English Speaking Live Support through their web-site, Emco respond to e-mails quickly and regularly release updates to their software.

Over in Slovakia, Quality Unit provide a number of tools for WebMasters - but also offer a wonderful Helpdesk packaged called Support Center. Support Center can be purchased for running on your own server, or can be rented as a hosted application on Quality Unit's own servers. It's function is to provide a Helpdesk application to businesses who's own Support function works primarly through e-mail. Users drop you an e-mail, Support Center logs it and allocates it a ticket, and all actions on that ticket are recorded and actioned within Support Center's Ajax-based Web Interface. You've then got a full audit trail of how you dealt with an issue from the user reporting it to you closing it off as resolved. If you're an IT Department or Support provider with no formal Helpdesk in place yet (and an Excel spreadsheet doesn't count as a Helpdesk...) then Support Center is low-cost, easy to implement, and will help you manage your Support offerings very quickly. I recently undertook a Group Test of Helpdesk applications for a customer, and Support Center came out as my pick based on it's ease of use and cost. Again, Support is superb - a good standard of English speaking and with no language problems - e-mails are responded to very quickly and bug fixes (and even feature requests) are implemented at a stunning speed.

Finally, across in Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam, HiTech Software offer a number of packages including an e-mail encryption solution and e-mail auditing software. The company have a mixture of Western and Vietnamese staff and Support is once again, superb. New feature requests are actioned within weeks, not months, and e-mail response time is good, despite the time difference between the UK and Vietnam.

So - four small companies from different parts of the world, all with one thing in common - they offer great support to good products. This proves that it's not language barriers or location that is the barrier to receiving good support from some of the bigger companies, just that they need to remember that selling a bit of software to someone isn't the end of their relationship with that person or company, it's the start.

I've been using my new Windows Mobile 5 device (a T-Mobile MDA Vario II) for a few months now - and let's just say I'm never going back to "normal" mobile 'phones again!

Much more to come on the Vario and T-Mobiles 3G service soon, but I thought I'd bring two competing applications to your attention.

Google Maps for Mobiles (shown on the right) and Microsoft's Live Search for Mobiles (browse to both URL's directly from your mobile device for instant download and install) both perform similar functions. Both allow you to view local maps and scroll around nearby locations, and both allow you to find local services and directions.

In use, Google Maps is superb - it's very fast indeed, and it's search facility is excellent. Live Search has a way to go yet - it feels slow, and the search facility isn't good - but I still carry both applications as they are less than 500k each.

I've used them both more than once recently when I've been in town centres without my Sat-Nav to hand - beats carrying an A to Z with you! Live Search also helped the GG and I find an Italian restaurant recently, so thumbs up for that (and the meal was excellent too!)

Last weekend's Bank Holiday was meant to be a time of relaxtion - a chance to go for nice walks in the Countryside, enjoying Ice-Cream beside the river, or at worst, a good book and a glass of wine in the back garden.

Sadly, the majority of my weekend was spent dealing with a series of server failures at two customer sites.

Whilst the bulk of the work was completed by methodically working through the issues over a couple of days and when needed restoring data from backups, two problems stubbornly refused to be resolved and so one server remained off-line.

The server in question was a Domain Controller. The issues were that Windows Server 2003 refused to boot (complaining of Active Directory issues) and when it did boot into Directory Services Restore Mode, it wouldn't log in.

It's at this point when it's very late at night (or very early in the morning) and you've been working all day, you're tired and you've got a server down business critical issue... that you turn to Microsoft Product Support for assistance and a fresh perspective. Being a Microsoft Partner allows you to go down this avenue without any costs associated - and so after giving my details to the nice American 1st Line Support lady, I was put into a Queue and after waiting five minutes... was promptly cut off.

So I hang-up, dial Microsoft again - explain I was cut off - and the nice Microsoft Representative apologises and stays on the telephone with me to make sure I get through to somebody properly. I start speaking to a chap in Delhi, and whilst there are some language barriers, he understands my issue and we work through a couple of solutions. Forty Five minutes later, we've solved the problem. But he doesn't finish there - he helps me to check for any other issues too, and then says he'll call me in a day or so (he does) to check all is well.

Over the next 24 hours I receive an e-mail documenting the issue and it's solution from my Microsoft Support Rep and further 'phone calls from my Microsoft Support Rep to make sure everything is still ok (it is) and from another Microsoft rep to make sure I'm happy with the service I've received (I am).

So with the server back up and running - there's just the small matter of restoring lost data. The customer uses Symantec Backup Exec 11D - the industry leader in Backup solutions. Therefore this should be a snap. Except Backup Exec doesn't work - it's become corrupted. Fine, I'll do a repair install. Drat - that doesn't work. Ok - I'll do a re-install. Nope, you can't re-install because the product is already installed. Odd, but ok - I'll un-install and re-install. Nope, you can't un-install because the product is corrupted. Well, I know that part - but how can I fix this if I can't un-install, repair, or re-install the product!

I turn to the Web. Unlike Microsoft's excellent product support newsgroups, where Microsoft MVP's work through issues and document their final outcome for future reference, the Symantec offerings are rather less impressive. In fact, finding anything outside Sales Literature and Hotfixes (and in some cases, Hotfixes for Hotfixes, I kid you not...) is seemingly very difficult - especially so when you are tired and irritated with search engines that nearly always belch out bloated .PDF documents as results.

After a couple of hours hacking the registry and numerous reboots (and boy, Domain Controller reboots are the slowest of 'em all) I finally tap out and telephone Symantec Business Support for assistance. The phone rings, and I wait...

... and wait...

... and wait...

Some twenty minutes later I get through to someone who takes my details and puts me through to the Server Support team. I speak to another chap in Delhi, only this time the language barrier is much worse and regardless, whatever language we are speaking, this chap is not very chatty. So quiet that in fact I was forced to ask "Hello" after every few minutes of silence, and even then didn't get a respones. "Hello - Is anyone there?" followed, at which point I'd get a brief response of "One moment". And so the circle of silence and worrying continued.

Now I know that working in an Call Centre isn't the easiest of jobs. I've worked in a Telephone Helpdesk environment myself and so realise some of the issues being faced - therefore unlike some others - I'm very patient and like to think I'm polite. But that patience can be stretched to a limit, wherever in the world the call centre is!

Two hours and forty five minutes of being on the telephone later (of which, we'd spoken for approximately fifteen minutes - the rest was silence) we'd got Backup Exec re-installed - for which I'm thankful. I had the nagging feeling that if I'd been able to use Symantec's Knowledge Base properly I could have come to this result on my own, but anyway. Problem was Backup Exec re-installed but it still didn't work - for which I was frustrated.

So Mr. Symantec goes away with his quiet routine again and I start to sweat, realising the sun is starting to rise and staff are going to start wandering into the office and logging on in an hour or so.

It was at this point that I realised that I needed to restore that data through another route. I found another server with Backup Exec v11D installed upon it - restored the business data, and used Robocopy to move it to the correct server - all the while still listening to the silence from Symantec India.

Minutes into the start of the working day, the data is restored - and the users are non the wiser to the issues. Phew.

It's now a week on, and Backup Exec still doesn't work - and each day I get e-mails from my Symantec Rep asking me if they can close the call because they've not heard from me. Each day I say no - I need to fix, and each day we exchange e-mails and move at a snails pace forwards. I know where this is leading - a complete server re-build - surely defeating the object of a Backup package providing protection!

So a contract of two support experiences with very large companies. Whilst the Microsoft Support Team apologised for the delays in my call wait, thanked me for my patience, and then checked I was ok when they'd finished helping me - the Symantec equivalent seemed to be oblivious to the fact this was a Business Critical situation, and seemed annoyed when I asked if he was still there after every few minutes of silence. Perhaps he was struggling to use the Symantec web-site as I had earlier!

Now I'm sure many of you have had much better dealings with Symantec (and please, leave comments with any and all of your experiences, good or bad) but just one incident like this can sour you on a company permanently.

I'd already recently taken Symantec UK and my Symantec Account Manager to task for their seeming indifference towards the Small Business Market and in particular, their failure to work with their SMB Partners like myself - I think they are starting to address that. But after this incident, I'm afraid to say that I've just added a new date in my diary for the near future - that date being a workshop evaluation of the current Backup Software market and in particular, the non-Symantec offerings.

Spent the evening discussing Technology (or "talking geeky stuff" as the GG put it) over a couple of drinks and a curry with fellow Birmingham based business owners Tim from n7 Studios and Paul from 4Mation IT last night.

We concluded that...

• The latest release of Ubuntu rocks
• Adobe's $1=£1 UK Sales policy sucks
• We're not sure we understand Software Patents fully, but we think they are bad
• ... but we do know Patent Trolls are the lowest of the low
• Microsoft *aren't* evil
• ... their Small Business software offerings are excellent value for money
• ... the Action Pack is fantastic
• ... but aspects of their development range are still grossly over priced
• Windows Vista's upgrade program for XP owners was slow and overpriced
• .... Vista seems to have more driver issues than Ubuntu with older hardware
• Windows Desktop Search is better than Google Desktop Search
• Renting On-Line Applications is the future
• Microsoft Office 2007 is great, but a resource hog
• The Mac -vs- Windows debate is pointless
• ... as is Open Source -vs- Commerical - just use whatever is the best fit!
• DRM is ridiculous but Piracy is bad
• Movies should be released in Cinema, On-line and on DVD on the same day
• ... but whichever way you paid to watch Superman Returns - you'd have to demand a refund
• Open Advantage in the West Midlands are brilliant
• There should be more local user groups
• Blogging has changed the way big companies can interact with customers

and finally, drinking bottles of "King Cobra" can leave you with a significant hangover the next day...

Ever since Broadband speeds have jumped from the useful (512k) to the boggling (10mb for £35 a month!) I've been aware of the fact that during a week, I must only use 1% of the bandwidth available to me here at Tubb Towers.

Sure, there are times when 10mb comes in handy - but these are usually for "burst" applications, not continuous use - downloading an .ISO, a large Service Pack or streaming media. Generally however, I wouldn't notice the difference between a 4mb connection and 10mb connection.

So what to do with that extra bandwidth?

For a long time I've entertained the idea of providing a free Wi-Fi hotspot. Anybody passing by could use a portion of my Broadband to do some casual surfing, and I'd still be left with enough bandwidth to do everything I wanted to do.

But there are, of course, downsides. Sharing your Broadband may make you more vunerable to intrusion on your own LAN, what if the person using your Broadband does something he/she shouldn't do - dodgy web-sites, etc, how do you log who is accessing your hot-spot so they don't hog the connection?

From a technical point of view, I'd like a Wi-Fi Access Point that does 3 things:-

1. Plugs into my LAN as an addition AP without any problems. I want to continue to be able to use my exisiting high security Wi-Fi AP for myself.

2. Allows Wi-Fi connections that are separated and unable to access my existing LAN, only have access to the Internet and are only allowed to use a certain portion of bandwidth - perhaps even dependant upon time of day.

3. Requires a registered logon to track and protect me against the Police banging at my door asking to speak to me about that web-site "I" accessed last week.

When I heard of the Fon service last year, I was intrigued.

Initially for Spanish users only - Fon now provide registered users of their service worldwide with a low-cost Wi-Fi Access Point to plug into their existing Broadband. Once plugged in, your Broadband is shared amongst other Fon users who can use your Wi-Fi connection by logging in with their registered details. When you are away from home, you can use other Fon Wi-Fi Hotspots to access the Internet yourself.

My initial reaction last year was that this was a good idea, but wouldn't take off. ISP's would step in to enforce their Conditions of Service (no sharing!), users wouldn't get involved, and the service wouldn't last.

But it's been a good while now, and looking at Fon's Service Maps shows that there are plenty of other users involved - even locally to me. So I've taken the plunge, registered for the service (at no cost) and ordered a Fon Router and High-Gain Antennae (total cost around £60) to see how it all works. I'll report back when I've received the equipment and tested the service.

Are you a Fon user? Do you have your own ideas, suggestions or warnings for "Community Wi-Fi". Leave me a comment - I'd be interested to see what others think.

Late last year, Microsoft announced that their Microsoft Office Live product would be available within the UK. Contrary to what it sounds like, Office Live isn't a web based version of Microsoft's Office Suite including Word and Excel - rather it's a hosted solution aimed at providing Small Businesses with the means to get on-line with a web site, e-mail setup, shared contacts and calendars, and collaboration tools.

At the moment, Office Live is still in beta and so there are no charges for any of it's services. Even when it comes out of beta, it's basic service (including a free domain, web-site hosting and e-mail) will come without charge.

Netlink now have a listing in the Microsoft Office Live UK Marketplace (with thanks to Christian Longstaff and Tim Kimber of Microsoft for their help setting that up) - the aim being for us to provide free Consultancy to businesses who may want to use Office Live to dip their toe in the technological waters.

So why is Office Live a good thing? Well in my experience, small businesses fall into two camps - those that understand that technology is an enabler, that technology can be an investment, not only saving them money and making them more efficient, but helping them make money too. These businesses usually already have a web-presence to promote their services. They use e-mail heavily. They use eBay, Yell.com and other sites every day. They may not be technology whiz-kids, but they know that understanding how to use a computer is every bit as important as understanding how to use a telephone these days.

The other camp sees technology as a cost. They understand that people expect them to have a computer in the office, but what was wrong with a filing cabinet and anyway, their customers don't use the Internet (so they think) - so they wouldn't use any web-site they had either! No - it's all just a cost, and by keeping costs low, I'm saving money.

Of course, I'm simplifying and perhaps exagerrating the situation. But I have had customers who are in the "technology is a cost" camp. Our first contact is usually when the sole office PC grinds to a halt. I'm called in specifically to fix that problem and nothing else. Then we get chatting - I make suggestions and they listen, but the old "it sounds good, but it's going to cost me" comes up. Over time, usually a very long time, we chat some more and they slowly take on-board nuggets of advice and move forwards. Some more forwards faster than others. Some of them are almost at the Technology Evangelist stage now - they go around telling other Small Business owners what they are missing out on by not utilising technology!

So where does Office Live fit into this? Well it's my opinion that the product itself immediately removes the initial objection every business has ever had to suggestions that they explore utilising technology - cost. If a product is free, they've got nothing to lose by investigating it! It also goes some way to removing the second objection that comes up - complexity. Office Live, in it's basic form, is simple - anyone can get to grips with it.

So it's simple, and it's free. "Ah" they go on "But I'm a COMPLETE dullard with computers, even I could break it! Where can I turn for help?". And that's where Netlink fit in. By offering free Consultancy and Support, I think there's no excuses for not seeing what Office Live can do for your business.

What do we get out of it if we're not getting paid? Well, I'm confident that once you've started seeing the benefits of a solution such as Office Live, you'll see the benefits of Technology as a business enabler - and hopefully it'll be the start of a long term relationship between your business and Netlink. Plus, we'll get a warm glow inside knowing we're helping others. :-)

If you're a Small Business who is interested in Office Live - take a look at our Office Live Solutions Page - or get in touch. What have you got to lose?

Netlink aren't the only Microsoft Small Business Specialist offering no-cost Consultancy alongside Office Live - if you are a business in Wales and the surrounding areas, then speak to Tim Long over at Tigra Networks for more information. Tim was the first person I spoke to in depth about Office Live and what could be achieved with it - so huge thanks to Tim for helping me on my way!

If you've setup an Office Live web-site recently, or do so as a result of this blog, feel free to post a comment with the address so everyone can visit and see the results!