Needless to say, The Weekly Geek was not a happy camper. Four different experienced technicians (with 5 to 20 years experience each) could not get these systems running. I had made up my mind to order prebuilt servers at noon on Monday and send the parts back if we could not get them running by then.

Step back in time with me. The first server a dual CPU Xeon 5500 series was built by our least experienced tech but he does have over 5 years experience. He had been in and out for 3 weeks with a tooth infection and now a cold. The server just would not start. Alright, no big deal we don’t need to deliver it until the Monday before Thanksgiving. Our senior office tech and manager was building 5 or 6 desktop computers for the same project. Now forward to the Thursday before Thanksgiving, the server still does not work. The tech manager gets involved. The Weekly Geek does not worry, he and the other owner are very busy with service calls and the tech manager is a master of figuring out “stuff” and issues with computers.

Now comes Monday morning, “Hey, why is the server in parts on the bench, it is supposed to be delivered for training today.” It seems that we could not figure out what was going on. After a few phone calls it turns out the wrong type of RAM was sent by the parts house. To make matters worse the parts house was 3 days away. Ok, don’t panic, there is a parts house one day away, cancel the RAM at the farthest and return it and order RAM from the closer parts house.

Now we need to rush to the customers and make an older PC a server for training, install Server 2003 setup yadda yadda, a full day’s work.

Tuesday the RAM comes in, and we still have the same issue. Funky BIOS post (2 slow, 3 fast, 2 slow or 2 slow 3 fast or 2 slow and 1 fast) beeps were inconsistent. Now THW is getting into boss mode (those who can fix things are assets and those that cannot are expenses and businesses only cut expenses). The first tech is still sick off and on and told to keep away from the project (too many hands) so tech manager and owner 1 are to get on the phone with Intel and get things done. Remember it is now Tuesday before Thanksgiving, people are just not answering their phones. Intel decides we have the wrong type of RAM again. So no more trusting the parts house, we order from Crucial the part numbers from Intel and pay 2 day delivery. That means Friday before the RAM will come in.

Wednesday the RAM from the first parts house that is 3 days away comes in. Yes, the tech manager was supposed to cancel the order but in the mayhem of business forgot to. It is the right ram from Kingston, yeah! It is of course 3:30 on Wednesday before Thanksgiving. New RAM same issue, TWG is now in ticked off mode but decides to let the other owner take care of it. Thursday, instead of Thanksgiving the other owner is on the phone with Intel for almost 3 hours. Their decision, bad motherboard. Tech support from another country assures owner that a motherboard will be shipped today and arrive Friday, owner questions this due to the Holiday.

Friday, no motherboard, Monday no motherboard. Monday 4:30 Owner calls Intel, Intel’s response “oh, we have that on hold for some reason, don’t know why, we will get it out tomorrow.” How about today says owner, “can’t truck left already”. Miracle of Miracles, Tuesday comes and the board does show up. Same issue, motherboard starts POST and the BIOS screen comes up with the Intel logos but nothing else, no keyboard response, no mouse, just an Intel logo screen. Another series of calls and hours on the phone with Intel, “Must be two bad CPUs, well send them right away.” Wednesday the new processors come and the issue stays.

Fast forward to Monday the 7th. Still no working server. TWG requests that tech manager build server 2 now just in case there is an issue. With owner 1 out of town on business and tech out sick it is tech manager and TWG only this week. Guess what, same issue.

Thursday TWG and tech manager have a series of interviews for a full time tech. One, a very young kid who is extremely bright comes into the shop after the interview for a tour, he sees the server and asks a couple of questions and then pops off “it’s the monitor”. Yeah right says TWG to himself, we have built 8 or 9 PC’s during this time on that monitor and bench repaired 5 or 6 more “silly kid”.

Sunday the 13th during church, TWG decides, we have changed every other part, we will swap monitors first thing Monday if that fails we will install a different motherboard in the first system (TWG had ordered a different model board the previous week just in case) and of course if neither worked by noon then pre-built servers would be ordered (yuck!). That evening the other owner calls to say he missed his flight and asked the status of things. While explaining the server dilemma he suggest (without being prompted), “Well if the keyboard and mouse don’t respond and we have swapped every other part, how about the monitor…”

Monday morning arrives. The current monitor is a 17” CRT (tube type) 1280 x 1024 resolution for testing we put on LCD 17” with same resolution and get the same beeps BUT there is text at the bottom of the screen <esc> to continue, f2 to setup … WHAT!!!! So tech manager and THW press f1 and we can get into the BIOS, set it up and begin RAID build. Yes, we did try those keys even when we could not see them!

So lessons learned, Intel’s newest 5500 and 3300 series motherboard will not POST with CRT monitors (we have build several servers this year on the same monitor but they were series 5000 and 3000 motherboards), another lesson, Intel has not heard of this and denies that it could be the problem (yes, I have a lump in my breast, yes the Doctor said it is cancer but I don’t believe it therefore it does not exist mentality) and the final lesson, sometimes a newbie gets a lucky guess (or maybe he knows something The Weekly Geek and staff don’t hmmm… that could not be).

Well, until we meet again, have a virus free week.

There are several benefits to using a Windows Home Server in your house or small business (10 or less computers). First are the backup capabilities, if all your data is on one PC and you have a backup plan then you know it was backed up. Let’s say you have an external NAS (Network Attached Storage), you will backup the home server to the NAS. Windows Home Server is itself a backup device. You can backup from your desktop computers to the Home Server (ok, from now on WHS = Windows Home Server). WHS comes with the software and you can schedule what to backup. So we have your local computers backup to the WHS and then redundantly you backup the WHS to a NAS (or off site location such as Mozy.com).

What else can WHS server do for you? In my home, I have ripped not only all CD‘s, moved all family home videos and pictures but I have also ripped my favorite DVD’s to the home server. Now any computer in the house can play any of the movies at any time, no searching for the DVD. At the same time, in another room music can be played from the WHS to the computer in that room while on a 3^rd computer the photos are being edited for scrapbooking. Keep in mind that I have a gigabit network in place BUT the WHS only has a 10/100 NIC so data streaming could be limited but thus far has not. I can play 2 movies at once without issue but 3 movies are choppy, this could be the network cards limit of 100MB or the hard drives data streaming limit.

One of the many features that I like about WHS is the ability to add hard drives if, no when, I run out of space. The naming convention is different but basically every drive I add is an extension to drive D:. There is not trying to remember what data is on what drive in which folder, it is all just there.

Another fun but seldom used feature is web site hosting. No, I don’t mean a web site for the world but rather one for your small office, an internal web site. All of the capabilities are there.

Moving on to the “issues” I have encountered with WHS. My only current (Windows updates and patches have solved all the others I previously experienced) issues are watching ripped media content. It seems that only XP Media Center and Vista Ultimate (I have not tried with Windows 7 Ultimate) have a listing called “DVD Library”. My Vista Home Premium machine and XP machines don’t display or play them quite so easily. Yes, they can be played, I just have to select the video files of the movie first, not the DVD title like I can with the Ultimate and Media Center versions of Windows). This issue however should be attributed to the other operating systems and not directly to WHS and this has little effect on businesses but can be frustrating for the home user at first.

I have installed WHS in several businesses as a backup solution and once properly implemented, it has proven time and time again an excellent backup and recovery strategy.

Overall I give 2 thumbs up to the WHS. If you are interested in one, you can have one built but IFix Computers or some major manufactures have prebuilt machines. More information is available at Microsoft.

Until we meet again, have a virus free week.

During my research I came across the PC Magazine article and I feel it pretty much hits the spot, so here is the link.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2345579,00.asp

Over the last 18 months or so, several readers have asked me my opinion on Vista and or if I was going to write any tips about it. My personal responses have varied but were basically  “I’m testing before I recommend”. You see, too many people “test” products then give wrong reviews. For example my Palm Treo 700 phone is quite frankly a piece of junk but the reviews in the first 3 months of its release said it was gold. The same with my HP iPaq Travel Companion with Tm Tom GPS, “oh goody it’s the best think since Star Trek” – WRONG!

Unfortunately I have also given reviews that came back and bit me, the Ricoh 220 series of color laser printers is one example. I took the history of the 210 series (which still is a great printer) and applied it to my limited testing of the 220 series and wrongly concluded.

Enough of the yammering, do I recommend Windows Vista? Yes, the Business edition or Ultimate edition, not either version of “Home”. I have been using it (Vista Ultimate) exclusively for 13 months (Since May 1st 2008) and have had none of the “OMG this is junk” that some others are stating. Yes, it is disappointing that some of my printers don’t work or cannot use their full functions (such as duplexing), yes the UAC (User Access Control) does pop up more than I would like, however it is a security feature not a operating system failure.

Microsoft Windows Vista does have some shortcomings, the biggest is compatibility with hardware that was made 18 months prior to its release and older, especially printers. I do not like the thought of replacing perfectly good printers, so don’t, just add one that is Vista compatible. Printers can be inexpensive, and if you have a business a great laser printer can be had for under $500 and it is a tax write off.

With this in mind, Vista is significantly more secure that Windows XP, it also has more powerful searches and backs up my data faster and more reliably than XP does. Most all software manufacturers that are still in business have released patches or versions of their programs that run reliably with Vista, yes this does mean you cannot use QuickBooks 99 (Unless you install Windows Virtual Machine and then a legal copy of XP but that is another article that won’t be necessary).

The so called problems with running network based programs are easily resolved by the software writers who are not too lazy to secure and update their programs. The issue of using 10 to 15 year old DOS based programs is not Microsoft or my fault. Upgrade people, its called technology!

If your programmer thinks anti-virus is an option, replace them and their software.

Now the next question is which do I prefer, Windows 7 or Vista, so far Vista. Would I wait until October to buy a PC with Windows 7? If you can wait 5 more months then I guess so.

Ok enough for now, until we meet again, have a virus free week.

Well, you would think I was back in college with all of the research I have been doing lately. In this weeks fun and exciting column I want to talk about the latest project I have finished, calendar sharing programs. Since a lot of my work is for businesses, many of my customers want and need a program to track each others schedules.

Over the last few months I have grabbed several programs and add-ons from the internet and run them through their paces.

My fist requirement was no spyware and this immediately eliminated over half of the contestants. My next requirement was ease of use, in which most all of the remaining programs passed. The final two requirements were system stability and use ability. If it crashed my test PC’s AND the response from the program developer took more than two business day’s, off the list they went. The usability was from a standpoint, if I downloaded a copy of your program I do accept “this feature is available only in our full version, please enter your credit card number…” WRONG, off the list with you.

Now let’s skip the other gory details and get down to the final three.

Our third place winner is…Yahoo Calendars!

Pros:

• If you have internet you can reach, read, modify, share and use it anywhere.
• It’s FREE.
• There is no software to download, buy or maintain, they do it all for you.
• Works with any PC that can connect to the internet (Linux, Windows 98, XP…)
• You can have a private appointment that no one sees, a “busy” appointment so no one tries to schedule that time frame and a public appointment which everyone in your “buddies” sees.

Cons:

• For multiple users multiple calendars are best.
• Multiple calendars means switching from screen to screen.
• I am paranoid, if the Government want’s the data Yahoo will hand it over.
• Not a lot of flexibility.
• Everyone will need to have a private yahoo account (not the one their spouse or kids use to check e-mail) to prevent unwanted viewing of the calendar.
• The internet must be up and running to be used even if you are all in the office, the calendar is actually on a computer somewhere else in the world.
• Navigation around appointments is a bit difficult.

Our runner up is… Office Calendar!

Pros:

• Integrates nicely into Microsoft Outlook.
• Microsoft Outlook is very stable.
• Being an “add-in” to Outlook means that removal from one or more computers is fairly easy and does not pose a security issue.
• Easy to add and remove users and computers.
• Flexible security to all “read” only, “write and read” or “write, read and delete”.
• The built in “Help” is better than average.
• Many people already use Outlook and are familiar with entering appointments and editing them.
• Synchronizing and sharing with multiple users is fast and easy.
• Working “offline” from others is not an issue.
• Security is very good.

Cons:

• You must have Microsoft Outlook 2000, XP or 2003 (an additional cost if you don’t already have this on EVERY computer using the product).
• Only works with Windows 98 or newer.
• Cost $99.95 per copy PLUS $15 per year maintenance.
• Every computer with the calendar being used must be on to “synchronize”, the data shown is only as up to date as the last synchronization.
• There is no viewing over the internet from your house or Panera Bread (Actually this can be done with extra hardware and settings not related to the program – Additional cost)
• One computer is the “server” which means that it simply coordinates the calendars so it needs sufficient horse power (CPU and RAM).

And our First place winner and “Shared Calendar Program of the Year” is…

MultiCalendar!

Pros:

• It is a “Stand alone” program, no additional software is needed.
• It is set up specifically to be a shared scheduling program. Showing employees names and appointments.
• You can make an appointment private where only the person whose appointment it is sees the details, everyone else just sees it as blocked off time.
• There are lots of ways to customize the look and feel of the program.
• You can connect from the internet (does require some additional set up and a static I.P.)
• No annual fee, the version you buy is the version you get to continually use (If you buy version 1.1 you get updates all the way to version 1.9 free, version 2.0 would cost you – just like most other software).
• You can buy a “Personal / Professional” edition where an “administrator” sees everyone’s calendars and the users only see their calendars.
• Works with Windows 98 and newer and only needs a 486 processor.

Cons:

• During my testing it was easy to forget I was “on” Betty’s calendar when I was trying to schedule an appointment for “Mike”. Practice/Use did solve this.
• If you need multiple users to see each other calendars you need to buy the “Client/Server” edition.
• This is still less expensive than the first program mentioned above.
• Not friendly with Linux or any OS other than Windows.

Well, That’s it for this edition of The Weekly Geek. Until we meet again, have a virus free week.