In business and in life communication is the key to everything that we do, without it everything else falls down. In the modern age of the Internet and mobile phones it has never been easier to communicate with someone, for example you can communicate with someone via

• Phone
• Email
• SMS
• Facebook
• LinkedIn
• Twitter
• Letter

This is just a few of them. But what actually happens when communication between a two parties actually breaks down?

This happened to me recently personally and it has been a very frustrating experience to put it mildly. Last summer we decided to have some work done in the garden, a job the to be quite honest I have not got the time to get done but really wanted done as it would be much better for the kids. So I did the natural thing and asked around if anyone knew of someone to do the job and sure enough someone was put forward. So he came along, I explained the job to him and we agreed a price. In mid Autumn we finally gave him the go ahead and off we went. Since he agreed to do the work he had got a new job and was training but still wanted the work so it was agreed that it could be fit around his new job. So on the first day it all went well and a lot was done, before leaving he said when he would be back and sure enough he was back again working on it. After he left again, I couldn't recall when he said he would be back so I texted him to check and he let me know. After the third visit again he left but did not say when he was coming back so again I was chasing to find out when he was coming back. This pattern continued until the fifth day on the job where he hit some problems that was causing some major issue. He said he need to go off and have a think about it. That was in November 2011, since then I have repeatedly attempted contact without out success. The just before Christmas I had a reply to say he would be on it ASAP. I then chased it up a couple of days later but no reply. I chased it up again after the new year and got a reply back to say work had been manic and I had not been forgotten.

Now the work itself does not need to be finished until spring as the garden is not used in Winter but the issue is I have not got a clue what is happening. When my partner says 'is it always going to be a building site?',  'It was better before he started' and 'so when is he coming back' I have no idea what to say as I am not being told anything. The point is that all of the stress and aggravation could have been alleviated by setting the expectations at the outset and along the way. While I may not have been happy with the time frame I would at least know what to expect and more importantly be able to explain what is happening to other people when asked.

The moral of this story is just keep talking. When working with clients I always try to keep the client up to date, whether personally or via one of the team, on what is happening and when they can expect the next action to take place. Always remember; failure to communicate is a communication of failure.

- Rob

C:\Users\administrator>w32tm /stripchart /computer:time.windows.com /samples:5 /dataonly
Tracking time.windows.com [65.55.56.111:123].
Collecting 5 samples.
The current time is 05/09/2011 16:47:27.
16:47:27, error: 0x800705B4
16:47:30, error: 0x800705B4
16:47:33, error: 0x800705B4
16:47:36, error: 0x800705B4
16:47:39, error: 0x800705B4

Since this was showing an error trying to get the time, I checked it against one of the UK time servers and got the following result:

C:\Users\administrator>w32tm /stripchart /computer:0.uk.pool.ntp.org /samples:5 /dataonly
Tracking 0.uk.pool.ntp.org [195.59.148.18:123].
Collecting 5 samples.
The current time is 05/09/2011 16:49:46.
16:49:46, -661.4346981s
16:49:49, -661.4415467s
16:49:51, -661.4392247s
16:49:53, -661.4351922s
16:49:55, -661.4401522s

This showed that there was a clear time skew taking place. So the best course was to reset the time source to a known good source using the following commands:

w32tm /config /manualpeerlist:0.uk.pool.ntp.org /syncfromflags:manual /reliable:yes /update

net stop w32time

net start w32time

Now a quick check shows that now that we are keeping much better time:

C:\Users\administrator>w32tm /stripchart /computer:0.uk.pool.ntp.org /samples:5 /dataonly
Tracking 0.uk.pool.ntp.org [109.74.206.120:123].
Collecting 5 samples.
The current time is 05/09/2011 16:49:47.
16:49:47, +00.0726604s
16:49:49, +00.0008012s
16:49:51, +00.0017108s
16:49:53, -00.0007301s
16:49:56, +00.0486631s

Not too sure if this is affecting everyone but there does seem to be a trend, hopefully this will help others.

- Rob

Essentially we setup our new SBS 2011 Standard server using all of the MS consoles and wizards including the wizard to created the email address domain. After a few days I found that we could not send any outbound emails from devices that were using AirSync, these included Windows 7 Phones; iPhones; Windows Phones; iPads as well as a host of other devices that connect to Exchange using AirSync (formally ActiveSync). There is a great deal of information about this but all of it related to having an invalid character in the domain name. However, having checked through the setup there were not illegal characters in the domain name yet we continued to get the same error.

What I found was that when you setup an ‘Accepted Domain’ the wizard will ask for a name as part of the wizard. This has traditionally been a descriptive name however this is where the issue seems to lie. In our case, what I did was changed the name to be the same as the domain name and it now works correctly.

Hopefully this should help others.

- Rob

As you may be aware the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has begun to issue fines over breaches of the Data Protection Act (DPA). Since there has been a large number of published data losses it cannot come soon enough for the general public.

Last week another set of fines were issue to Ealing Council at £80,000 and Hounslow Council at £70,000, you can read the full story here. What is so special about this case is that it involved the loss of two unencrypted laptops, one from each council, containing the details of around 1,700 individuals from an employee’s home. Ealing Council provides an out of hours service on behalf of both councils, which is operated by nine staff who work from home. The team receive contact from a variety of sources and rely on laptops to record information about individuals. Ealing Council was found to be in breach of the DPA as it had issued an unencrypted laptop to a member of staff which is in breach of it’s own policies. This process had been established for a number of years and insufficient checks were made to ensure that relevant policies were understood and adhered to by employee’s. Hounslow Council were found to have breached the DPA as they had failed to have a written contract in place with Ealing Council, they also did not monitor Ealing Council’s procedures established to operate the service securely.

You may be wondering why this changes everything? As an outsourced IT service provider there may be occasion where you may have to remove a laptop/desktop/server from site in order to action a repair of the equipment, a normal everyday IT activity. What this could mean is that if that device is then lost or stolen while in your possession and it is not encrypted then you will potentially share equal liability for the data loss. Since that liability can include a rather hefty fine of up to £500,000, not too mention the bad press that would go with it, then the impact on your business could be catastrophic.

The question now is, what are you going to do to mitigate your risk? Please feel free to drop a comment in on this as I would love to hear your thoughts

- Rob

1. Go to Start > All Programs > Microsoft SQL Server 2005 (or 2008) > Configuration Tools > SQL Server Configuration Manager
2. Now navigate through the tree on the left side to “SQL Server Network Configuration” and select “Protocols for MSSQLServer”
3. From the right pane ensure that “Named Pipes” is enabled
   
4. Once it has been enabled then you can restart the service “SQL Server (MSSQLSERVER)”
5. Now check the Sharepoint website to confirm that it is working again.

These steps resolved the issue on our server so I hope this will help others resolve their issue.

- Rob


Add-PsSnapin Microsoft.SharePoint.Powershell -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
try
{
  $today = (Get-Date -Format dd-MM-yyyy)
# Created the a new directory with todays date and store in a variable
  [IO.Directory]::CreateDirectory("F:\sp_backup\"+$today)
  $backuppath = "F:\sp_backup\"+$today

# This will iterate through all of your sharepoint sites and create a backup with the site URL as the name 
  Get-SPWebApplication | Get-SPSite | ForEach-Object{$filepath = $backuppath + "\" + $_.Url.Replace("http://","").Replace("/","-").Replace(":","-") + ".bak" ; Backup-SPSite -Identity $_.Url -Path $filepath}

# Edit this address to suit your own needs 
  $emailFrom = "Sharepoint@server.local"

# This is the address that the notification email should be sent to 
  $emailTo = "administrator@server.local"

# Subject for the notification email. The + "$today" part will add the date in the subject.
  $subject = "The SharePoint sites Backup was Successful for "+"$today"

# Body or the notification email. The + "$today" part will add the date in the subject.
  $body = "The SharePoint sites Backup was Successful for "+"$today"

  # IP address of your SMTP server. Make sure relay Is enabled for the SharePoint server on your SMTP server
  $smtpServer = "1.1.1.1"
  $smtp = new-object Net.Mail.SmtpClient($smtpServer)
  $smtp.Send($emailFrom, $emailTo, $subject, $body)
}
Catch
{
  $ErrorMessage = $_.Exception.Message
  # Configure the below parameters as per the above.
  $emailFrom = "Sharepoint@server.local"
  $emailTo = "administrator@server.local"
  $subject = "The SharePoint sites Backup Job failed on "+"$today"
  $body = "The SharePoint sites Backup Job failed on "+"$today and the reason for failure was $ErrorMessage."
  $smtpServer = "1.1.1.1"
  $smtp = new-object Net.Mail.SmtpClient($smtpServer)
  $smtp.Send($emailFrom, $emailTo, $subject, $body)
}

This script can simply be copied into notepad and saved onto your server as a ".ps1" file. This can then be run straight from the servers "run" command by entering "powershell {scriptname}.ps1" and it will create a backup file, this in turn can be used to created a scheduled task on your server to be run each day/week etc.

Credit where due though, this script is a combination of the following 2 sources:

http://thecommunicator.co.cc/2010/12/07/automated-powershell-script-to-backup-sharepoint-farm-or-site-collection-with-email-notification/

http://www.toddklindt.com/blog/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?List=56f96349-3bb6-4087-94f4-7f95ff4ca81f&ID=191&Web=48e6fdd1-17db-4543-b2f9-6fc7185484fc

Hopefully this will help others out there

- Rob

Having configured it for remote use it was great but it was still a little clunky as I needed to be online to do anything (I could work through Outlook but it is not too pretty IMHO)..then I discovered Microsoft Sharepoint Workspace, formally Groove. The only real drawback about it is that you can only get it with Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2010 which is only available through Microsoft Volume Licensing, a real over sight by Microsoft in my opinion. That said, if you do have it then use it!!

As standard, Sharepoint Foundation 2010 does not work when you click the link in the library that says "Sync to Sharepoint Workspace" you get the message:

SharePoint Workspace was unable to interpret the SharePoint location. Please check and ensure the location contains no typing errors.

This is due to a change which needs to be made on the Sharepoint server to make it work, follow the link below to resolve the issue:

http://weblogs.asp.net/jeffwids/archive/2010/05/06/configuring-sharepoint-foundation-2010-for-sharepoint-workspace-2010.aspx

If you have Sharepoint setup on a none standard port then ensure that you have it specified at the end of the URL.

- Rob

She told them again she had not got time now so the person reluctantly left their name, Steve Williams from Win PC Technologies, along with a phone number of 0141 4163986.

As soon as she asked me about it a quick google search on the phone number revealed a number of people who had received similar calls from this 'company', many of whom had been charged a great deal of money to sort out so called 'problems'. One person on there claimed to have worked for this company and they had the following to say about them:

THEY ARE A TOTAL FRAUD SHOWING MALWARES AND VIRUSES THAT NEVER HAVE EXIXTED IN UR PC

So please be warned that if someone calls from this company claiming you have corruptions on your computer, there is no way that they can know this without having looked at your computer first. You should also never let anyone take control of your computer unless you absolutely know who they are first.

You should always check the credentials of any IT supplier and look for one that is affiliated with an industry body such as CompTIA or TCA. No matter how pushy they are, do not be taken in.

- Rob

From: Abuse Department [mailto:abuse-uk-irl@ripe.net]

Sent: 24 September 2010 14:32

To: XXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Subject: ISP DISCONNECTION WARNING - ADVISORY ABUSE NOTICE

From: <abuse-uk-irl@ripe.net>

Date: Fri, Sept 24, 2010 at 12:44 PM

Investigation Number: 1171

Subject: ISP DISCONNECTION WARNING - ADVISORY ABUSE NOTICE

For The Attention Of: The Bill payer/Owner of this ISP account.

Our investigations have determined that your Internet Services account has been used to scan, flood or attempt to gain unauthorized access to another computer, (please see the details of the incident(s) attached to this e-mail). This activity is a violation of our Internet Services Acceptable Use Policy and the our Internet Services Account Agreement, under which you have been provided service.

THIS NOTICE IS TO ADVISE YOU THAT FURTHER ABUSE OF YOUR INTERNET SERVICES ACCOUNT MAY RESULT IN A SUSPENSION OR TERMINATION OF YOUR ACCOUNT, WITHOUT FURTHER NOTICE TO YOU. We are empowered to take such action if, in our sole determination, you have violated the terms of our Acceptable Use Policy or our Internet Services Account Agreement.

The alleged incident originated from the local IP address of 192.168.1.100 which, at the time of the incident, was assigned to a device with the unique physical address of 00:13:10:24:45:F8. This address identifies the network adapter or router connected to your ADSL/Broadband modem.

If you are unaware of this type of activity coming from your account, you may wish to inquire with others who may have access to your account and/or change the password to your account to ensure that only authorized users have access to it. IT IS ALSO POSSIBLE THAT YOUR COMPUTER MAY BE INFECTED WITH A VIRUS OR YOUR COMPUTER SYSTEM MAY HAVE SOME OTHER SECURITY PROBLEM SUCH AS AN UNSECURED MAIL OR PROXY SERVER WHICH COULD ACCOUNT FOR THIS ACTIVITY ORIGINATING FROM YOUR SYSTEM.

In the event you are not able to attend to the situation immediately, please disconnect your computer from the ADSL modem to prevent further abuse.

A full description of the incident including realtime IP addresses and web traffic can be found in the attachment.

Any questions of help can be obtained from out staff during office hours 0900-1700 Monday to Friday.

Our complete contact information can also be found in the PDF report.

Kind Regards

The Abuse Team

Attached to the email is a so called 'report' which is a 'RAR' file. Inside of the 'RAR' file is another file which is named 'Incident-Report-201009241171.pdf.exe'. So far it all looks like an elaborate hoax as the network the client is on is not on the range mentioned in the email and since when is a report sent as an executable file?

Any which way I will be putting it through the lab machine later to see what comes out, either way it will be interesting.

If you do hear of anyone receiving this tell them not to open it.

- Rob

When they arrived the first to be commissioned was the file & print server as this was a straight forward migration to Windows 2008 from Windows 2003. This went fairly smooth, and apart from printers, it didn't really cause us any hassle. The other server run's the clients line of business (LOB) application which was not compatible with Windows 2008, but as the client planned to upgrade we went ahead and ordered the new server anyway. Various meetings took place with the LOB support company and the client did not progress this despite making it clear that we *really* needed to do this as by now the hardware it was on was almost 7 years old. Before we completed this the business was sold, and while our services have been retained, this LOB application is still on the old server.

Now it was time to push, so I explained that we had to move this project forward and given that the LOB upgrade was not on the short term plan the best route was to virtualize the current server onto the new one using Hyper-V so that it is then on new hardware.

So this is where I find myself now and we are moving along great. The whole process has been made simple with the use of Paragon Drive Backup Server Edition, which the client already had, as it has a P2V Copy tool. Without this it would not have been so straight forward. So I will continue to 'sup' tea and eat my biscuits while we continue.

- Rob