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

Manyana is something that I have struggled with for sometime and I have tried a variety of methods to overcome this, from paper to-do lists, to electronic to-do lists, task lists in Outlook as well as many more. What all of these methods have in common is that they all rely on personal accountability, which basically means 'how do you keep yourself accountable for not achieving the work you set out to do?'.

The curse of the procrastinator is that they will put off whatever task or work that needs to be done until such a time that putting it off is more painful than actually doing it. So the question must be, how do I ensure that it doesn't come to this point? Well the answer to that is very personal and you must explore what works for you as there is no simple answer. For me the answer is to be accountable to others; being accountable to yourself works well for some people but not so good for others. The key for me is to make the statement on what I need to do to either friends, family, work colleagues etc, that way if I do not set out what I aim to achieve then I have to answer to others why not. Now that, for me, tends to have more pain than not doing what I set out to do in the first place. It's not a perfect system but it is as good as it gets for now.

I'd love to hear what other have done or currently do to battle their demons.

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

Another one of those devices, in my opinion, is the iPad. When the iPad first came out there was a 'gold rush' to own one and as keen as I was to own one I held back since I am practical by nature and have to justify anything I purchase. So I sat back and waited while I built a genuine case for purchasing one. This went on for a year until finally I came to the decision that I would get one and after a quick shop around I got an iPad 1 at the right price and I have not looked back since.

Over the last few months I have built up a good collection of apps that have made my iPad into the great business tool that I need. Last week though was the first time that I went off to a conference without my trusty laptop or netbook should I need to do some support etc. I have to say that the iPad held it's own throughout the day, admittedly I have remote access to a Windows 7 virtual PC for support. None the less it still was able to handle everything I needed to do with ease and was infinitely easier to carry around than the traditional tools of the trade.

This has made the iPad my most functional gadget purchase this year, if not of all time and I would highly recommend one to anyone

- Rob

So what is the title of this post all about?

Downtime is also the term that we use to describe our time outside of work where we relax and in this context downtime IS good. We live in a fast paced, always connected world where we are expected to always be available there is very little downtime. This is why it is more important than ever to plan downtime in your life. I have realised this more so this week as I have brought the family away for a break. This has been made possible by our good friends at TCG Computer Services and Data Systems who have been available to handle any issues that my business cannot handle. This has meant that I have been able to get some good quality downtime, what plans do you have in place for yours?

You can find some great tips here http://www.relaxfocussucceed.com

As always, your feedback is welcome.

- 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 some of you will see there has not been a post on this site for some time and the reason for this is that I have been so busy with work that I have just not had any time to get to this, a poor excuse I know but none the less that’s where I’ve been at. I have been finding it increasingly frustrating as there are so many things happening that before I know it the day is over. While it is still very busy I am having to make time to get off the hamster wheel and make time for these types of activity which I do enjoy.

So I guess what I would like to do is throw this post open to the audience to see what great practical techniques you all have on handling these times and getting control back of you time. If you have the time to post up your thoughts in the comments that would be great.

Thanks in advance

- 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