This client’s dislike of hosting Exchange in house was justified - his previous consultant had sold them an overpriced glorified desktop with Windows Small Business Server, no backup system, ineffective antispam, and the server resided under their reception desk.

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Understandably many small businesses are looking for alternatives. OpenOffice (free, open source) is the leading alternative and is quite suitable for many businesses…but lacks a product like Outlook.

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1) Groupware flexibility - Microsoft Exchange only supports Outlook and Entourage for groupware (email, calendaring, etc). With NitixBlue Outlook users can continue to use Outlook and won’t notice the difference - and there is cross platform support by using the bundled Notes for Windows, Linux, and Mac.

2) Webmail for everyone - Microsoft’s Exchange webmail works great…on Internet Explorer 6 for Windows. NitixBlue’s webmail works not just on Internet Explorer but Mozilla’s Firefox - which is free and runs on every major platform.

3) Security - NitixBlue is secure out of the box, unlike Windows Small Business Server. Company emails can be encrypted with no additional setup, all email server communication is encrypted, every message can be logged, and antivirus and antispam come ready out of the box.

4) Backup - anyone who’s ever had an Exchange Server crash will tell you its a painful system to recover from backup. Unlike Windows Small Business Server, NitixBlue comes out of the box with a fully equipped backup hardware/software solution. Furthermore NitixBlue’s backup can take snapshots of your email system as often as every hour - narrowing the window of data loss. Furthermore NitixBlue’s recovery is fast - we average two hours for a “bare metal” recovery.

5) Less maintenance - ever seem like your Exchange server needs an expert babysitter? NitixBlue is smart enough to self-manage most tasks and delivers only the options small businesses need - most of our clients actually handle adding and changing users themselves!

Perhaps more important is don’t try to install Vista on your current PCs unless you bought really high end systems last year - Vista needs a lot more resources than XP. Some are arguing the practical minimum is a dual core processor and 2GB RAM - something few PCs have.

Long and short of it is there isn’t a compelling reason to upgrade yet and plenty of opportunity for problems. I recommend waiting and giving Vista time to mature - Vista’s time will come, just not right now.
Lights Out
Last month’s power outages reminded many of us how dependent we are on power - I can’t even make a phone call without having power. I went looking for practical emergency power and found the Powerpack. The Powerpack is a battery backup (like a UPS) but is designed for emergency use - it has AC and DC power outputs, charge and load monitoring, a light, and radio. The PowerPack can charge off household AC or off the lighter jack in your car when you drive around. It can even jump start your car.

Obviously the PowerPack won’t run the fridge or furnace, but is great to keep a laptop running, cable/DSL modem, cell phone and other small electronics for days. At about $130 its a bargain for a bit of comfort in an outage. PowerPack is available at Amazon.com
Cookies, Defrag, and other Old Wives Tales
Cookies and de-fragmenting the hard drive are common “household remedies” many people use when encountering unknown issues with their computers. Unfortunately these rarely solve any problems and can create others. The threat of cookies was long ago over-hyped and somehow they’ve become in the eyes of many to be a threat to security, privacy, and will cause the sun to go nova. The truth is cookies are an important and safe tool on the web - cookies are benign files which help web pages know your customer ID or shopping cart contents. Cookies are rarely the source of computer problems.

De-fragmentation in the process of “organizing” the hard drive in a more efficient manner - think of it like re-alphabetizing a bookcase. While fragmentation hurt performance of older operating systems, new ones like XP, Vista, and Mac OS X don’t suffer significant performance hits due to fragmentation. Its not bad to de-fragment and you may get a temporary boost, but it won’t solve any problems.

When things go awry the best thing to do is write down exact error messages or conditions and either google them or email us. And definitely skip the matzoh ball soup.
Utility of the Month
While there are many dangers of smoking, there’s one benefit of regular smoking breaks - getting away from your computer. Overuse of a computer without a break can cause injury and hey, people can’t buy new computers if they’re injured. So having said that, download a copy of Workrave for Windows or AntiRSI for the Mac - its safer than smoking and gets you needed time away from your computer.

1) The de-facto standard implementation
In the technology business certain products and techniques have reached de-facto standard status. However the question is who’s setting the standard? The tech industry as a whole is only discovering the tremendous opportunity and need for small business technologies, most of their focus has been largely
on bigger business or consumers.

As the “small business” technology market emerges I’m seeing many enterprise products repackaged and claiming to be designed for small businesses. While its great to have the same power as big business - those businesses also keep full time staff to maintain these systems. Some people dedicate their careers to just one component of a computer network (exchange, firewall, backup, etc). But small businesses can’t afford full time staff or specialists for each component of their systems…which often leads to option two…

2) Blow it
Its not a technology option we consciously choose, but sometimes by under or overdeveloping our systems we end up putting ourselves at risk. Too simple of systems leave us open to being hacked, wasting time, or losing data and too complex of systems put us at risk of having what one can only call a boondoggle. If only there was something just right…

3) Pick a simpler system
Ask yourself “what do I really need out of technology” and use the products that provide just what you need without the frills. Ultimately a limited, simpler system that always does what its supposed to is far better than a system that can do anything but can’t seem to do anything easily or reliably. A few technology companies have dedicated themselves to making products specifically for small businesses - and those products really work better and cost less.

4) Use managed/hosted services
Instead of investing in equipment, let external services “host” the functionality you need. In other terms if owning your own equipment is like having a kitchen and cooking dinner, hosted services are like dinner delivery. This is particularly appealing for services that require a significant amount of regular tweaking, monitoring, or maintenance - like spam filters. Hosted services sometimes can save money, but sometimes can cost a lot more - if you need more bandwidth (internet speed) to utilize hosted services the TCO will be higher than in-house options as serious bandwidth costs serious money (though selling it makes me seriously happy).

For most small businesses the best options usually are simpler systems and managed/hosted services as these will provide the necessary functionality with the lowest total cost of ownership. These two fields will increasingly be our focus this year as I think the greatest value we can offer small businesses are unique, smarter options for their technology needs.

Using Windows SBS is basically a guarantee that things won’t be done right or will blow the budget, neither of which was my goal as a computer consultant. So I went looking for an alternative which “just does the right thing” - and I found Nitix. Nitix is a autonomic Linux derived server designed from the ground up for small business.

Here’s how Nitix handles the “core functionality” small businesses need:

File Storage and Sharing
Though Nitix is a form of Linux, its able to transparently network with both Macs and Windows PCs. Unlike Windows SBS, when you setup a user or group in Nitix, it automatically creates a directory, sets up proper permissions, and can setup mapping the share on login. That last bit is very important - mapping drives makes it easier for users to put their data on the server where its backed up.

Backup
Nitix comes bundled with Intelligent Disk Backup, better known as IDB. IDB automatically backs up your data to reliable and inexpensive hard drive cartridges in increments as often as 15 minutes. IDB eliminates nearly all user intervention - all that needs to be done is to hot-swap IDB cartridges once a week. But here’s the killer, IDB actually backs up everything by default - and I mean everything. If your system crashes IDB is able to restore the system to exactly the way it was in just an hour or two - instead of days or weeks with Windows SBS.

User Login Authentication
Nitix integrates smoothly with Windows desktops, so when the computers startup they are prompted for a username and password which validates with the server. This helps keep control over who can access network resources - Nitix makes this extremely quick and foolproof.

Calendar Sharing and Email
Though Nitix’s calendaring and email isn’t quite as advanced as Windows SBS, it does a great job. The nice thing is Nitix doesn’t have the history of security problems like Exchange and comes integrated with Vircom Antispam and Kaspersky Antivirus (optional, but we always include it). Windows SBS’s Exchange is so complex careers and magazines are dedicated to just this topic - Nitix’s email and calendars just works right out of the box.

Firewall/Remote Access
Nitix actually started out as a firewall product which grew into being a full fledged small business server. Without question its a secure product - the firewall self configures, is ICSA compliant, self defends, and its built on a hardened Linux core. By self configuring and self defending it eliminates the concern of technician error and need for constant oversight.

Nitix’s remote access is a cinch to setup, enabling the a remote user VPN is just two clicks. Easy, secure, reliable - no question Nitix wins here hands down.

No Integration Problem
One of the other joys of a Nitix Server is it comes from the box complete, tested, and ready to go - no need to install a tape drive, antispam, etc because its all integrated. Furthermore one company tests the whole package - meaning no concerns that an update to one component will interfere with another. Best of all Nitix supports the whole package - no blame game where vendors start pointing fingers - the rare problems with Nitix are easily solved.

Nitix also gives us more power when solving problems. Sometimes to solve problems efficiently we need to get the vendors involved - Nitix actually gives us personal attention from a dedicated support team included with your server. Small businesses simply couldn’t afford that kind of attention from Microsoft.

The Real World
Superiority really means nothing if normal companies can’t use this system effectively. In the last three years we’ve installed Nitix in a variety of firms - consultants, lawyers, mortgage, real estate, contractors, non-profits - and its worked great. Not only has it been able to fulfill their needs, the Nitix systems have required nearly no maintenance - meaning a low total cost of ownership and happy customers.

The first question any small business should ask themselves when looking at a server is what functionality are you seeking? The reality is most small businesses use their servers for a few simple tasks - file storage and sharing, backup, user login authentication, calendar sharing, maybe email (often they use the webhost), and firewall/remote access. Lets look to see if Windows SBS actually fulfills these needs efficiently.

File Storage and Sharing
Windows SBS does a fine job of serving up files, but is lacking in ease of setup. It seems obvious that if you add a user you’d want to give that user straightforward access to their file share, Windows desktop does that by mapping the drive - but Windows SBS doesn’t make that a simple option! The same goes for groups to share data. Making using the server more difficult to the end user leads to people not storing data on the server but rather their desktop - meaning its probably not being backed up.

Backup
Windows SBS backup is largely worthless. I’ll give one simple example - Windows SBS backup can’t even backup Exchange data properly - and Exchange is integrated in the system! Don’t even get me started on SQL, open files, etc. Realistically recovery from a hard drive crash is days of work and thousands of dollars. Of course this can be solved by integrating third party hardware and software, at additional cost.

User Login Authentication
Windows does fine here, Active Directory is certainly complex and overkill, but not too difficult to manage or full of pitfalls.

Calendar Sharing and Email
This falls under the loved and hated Exchange component of SBS. Exchange is both powerful and complex, so much so that some people’s careers are dedicated to just Exchange administration and multiple magazines focus solely on this component. My favorite example of the difficulties of Exchange is the article “My Thirteen Days in Exchange Hell” detailing Outlook Power Magazine’s own experience in restoring their backups after their Exchange server crashed. If a magazine dedicated to Exchange power users can’t prevent or recover from a crash in a timely manner - what chance does an average small business have?

Of course no email system is complete without antivirus and antispam, which means more third party integration.

Firewall/Remote Access
Windows SBS Standard doesn’t include a firewall and while Premium does, I wouldn’t recommend trusting any security issue to Windows given the poor security history of the product. In which case if you use a third party hardware firewall, most include great VPN remote access capabilities - so while Windows SBS does include VPN remote access its best left to the firewall.

The Integration Problem
In cases of backup, antivirus and antispam, and firewall you’ll need to integrate third party systems to make everything work - thats where the costs and risks multiply. Third party solutions mean more setup time, more testing time, and a greater risk of conflicts. No longer is Windows SBS an off the shelf solution but instead a do-it-yourself project. Since no one vendor is testing the whole custom package, you end up paying your consultants to do this work.

The Real World
What we see in the real world is most Windows SBS installations have serious problems. In most cases they start out with the best intent, but the project snowballs and gets cut off, because unfortunately few consultants really know how to do Windows SBS right (or quote accurately) and fewer companies know what to expect or desire to pay so much to get it done right.

The often humorous oversights, lack of valuable integration, and overwhelming ability to do things wrong with Windows SBS makes it truly impractical for most small businesses. Windows SBS gives you nearly unlimited ability but at high cost and risk - ultimately limited ability that small businesses truly need in a secure and integrated package is far more desirable.

Turns out ACT! and Microsoft Office 2003 didn't realize what millennium we're in. If you have Outlook 03 with the Business Contact Manager installed, it royally messes up ACT!'s ability to do all sorts of things. Why? Sounds like something to do with the Microsoft Desktop Database Engine. The cure? Don't use both. 

When will they learn to just make stuff that works?