SeanDaniel.com

Apple iPad vs the Blackberry Playbook

noreply@blogger.com (Sean Daniel) — Fri, 25 May 2012 23:21:00 +0000

So I own an iPad (Hey, the Windows 8 tablet’s aren’t out yet, it’s ok!), and I recently acquired a Blackberry Playbook (thank you, the community, for that!), and I thought it would be great to do a little bit of a comparison now that I’ve played with it for a bit.

So full disclosure here, I’ve played with a Playbook once prior to owning one, for 5 minutes. Having gone to school at the University of Waterloo, I basically lived in the heart of RIM town. In fact I have a few friends that work at RIM, one specifically who works on the Playbook [software]. When I saw the Playbook for the first time, I thought “Now here is a tablet that can take Apple off it’s high horse”. I still think it’s the closest tablet to the iPad (I have not tried a Kindle Fire, but believe it’s in the same ranks). I have tried a multitude of other Android tablets, and I dislike all of them.

So let’s get down to business, my impressions and comparisons between the iPad (3rd generation) and the Playbook 2.0. The two latest tablets from these companies that are on the market. Note that the Playbook hardware was not updated for Playbook 2.0, so technically I should compare it to the iPad2 hardware wise, for it to be fair, although I’m not going to focus in on the hardware all that much, there are plenty of other sites that do hardware comparisons, like this one at PC Magazine.

	iPad	PlayBook
Unboxing Experience	A Beautiful exiting experience that puts the device front and center, all other accessories under the device and set as background.	A similarly great unboxing experience, except the Playbook is in this neoprene case. I’m glad it came with a case, but it should have been tucked away.
Form factor	Has a larger screen which is nice to look at, but after time this can get heavy (reading Kindle for a long time). It also only has a mono speaker, and I’m not a fan of the dexterity changes between the screen and hardware button	Smaller screen, which for me means different purpose. I was disappointed to see the “Blackberry” brand on the front of the device, as it’s always upside down how I hold it, but it is lighter, and the buttons are off to the side
Battery Life	Every time I pick up my iPad, there is plenty of battery to do whatever I want. I don’t even notice that it runs off of batteries until I see a notification, even after the notification I can use it for a long time before it dies.	The PlayBook boasts a 10 hour battery, but I don’t see it. My first usage of it the battery was drained to 30% and I was barely using it! Since that first experience, it’s been a little better, but I’m still weary that I won’t get a fully 10 hours out of it.
Operating System Software	An app-launching platform that has tacked-on task switching gestures, which I ultimately turn off as they just irritate me and I always do them by mistake.	Also an app-launching platform with brilliant task switching. While not intuitive, an introductory video you watch explains all you need to know. This factor alone makes me think that the PlayBook has a fighting chance against the king.
App Store	“There’s an app for that” is actually really true. The size and support for this app-store is giant. I have yet to be disappointed when looking for an app.	PlayBook’s biggest arch nemesis; getting apps in the app store. The Playbook comes with some apps pre-installed which I thought was fun, only to find out that those apps are usually among the top 10 apps available on the platform. RIM needs to incent developers. Moving to QNX and supporting the Android platform will probably help here, but there is a lot of work to do. I was also pretty disappointed with the Android side-loading. I was hoping for another marketplace icon that allowed you to view into the Android marketplace, but instead you have to go into developer mode, and side-load these types of apps. End Users aren’t going to do this, RIM shouldn’t advertise it outside of developer channels. I did like that I didn’t have to hand over a credit card for a payment, I can just pay via Paypal, one less company that has their grubby hands on my credit card #.
Build in Applications	Apple’s Mail client is beautiful, and makes doing email fun. The Calendar app is beautiful as well, although less functional when it comes to using against Exchange (don’t touch those series meetings or you’ll just loose data).	PlayBook 2.0 finally has a mail and calendaring client. I find them functional, but they lack beauty. They seem to be based on RIM’s attachment to text from the pager days. I also found the clients slower than on the iPad, but the functionality is at least finally there without the bridge.
Enterprise Use	My iPad struggles to connect to Microsoft’s corporate Wi-Fi, it’s always asking me to accept certificates, and such just to get online as I switch buildings.	The PlayBook does enterprise Wi-Fi right. It seems to always be connected, without irritating pop-ups.
Multi-tasking	iPad will suspend non-Apple apps when they are not open	PlayBook gives you the choice if you want to suspend or keep them running
HDMI Out	iPad requires that you have a dongle to get to the HDMI out functionality	PlayBook has a mini HDMI out port directly on it.
Blackberry Bridge	not available, but I wish I had it for my phone.	While this feature was not shown in good light due to the missing built in email and calendaring clients, the Bridge is actually a great feature. You can share tablets (not that you’d have to at $199) without sharing your personal data.
Connect to a PC	I can’t vouch for what it’s like with a MAC, but iTunes pretty much is the worst app ever, and it’s the only way to get things on and off your iPad without using crazy apps like “Buzz Player”. Getting a video into the built in video player is painful because of iTunes.	The device just shows up as a well organized drive on the PC (similar to a thumb drive) and you can just copy what you want onto it. Videos, pictures, etc. You can even use it as temporary storage while you travel.
Browser	Safari is pretty good, although doesn’t support Flash, and no browser on the iPad does. Not that huge of a problem, unless you’re shopping for a car.	The PlayBook browser is pretty awesome, and does support Flash.
Messaging	iMessage is pretty slick, as it’s both on the iPhone and iPad.	BBM is obviously missing as far as I can tell. One of the reasons I wanted a Playbook was to BBM with my buddies who work at RIM and live in that area, and all still have Blackberry’s.

So all in all, I think the PlayBook is a great tablet. Especially now since I’ve found *some* apps that I like (post coming on that soon). The form factor is pretty convenient, with 2.0 it has the essential mail, calendar, contact syncing to the mail provider of your choice. If RIM were to be able to ramp up their app world and get some more apps that are mainstream like Skype, Evernote, Words with Friends, Kindle, Rdio, Flixster, etc… I think it would take off more than it has.

I’m also not alone in thinking that this tablet is great. This article from High-tech Dad talks more specifically about the hardware and why he enjoys his Playbook.

I still favor the iPad for the beautiful screen, mail app, and plethora of apps to launch, and I can’t *wait* to try a Windows 8 tablet! However as a good friend of mine put it, “for $199, it’s in the price of a toy, so if I don’t like it, that’s ok!”.

Thanks again to the community who voted for me in the SMB 150 community awards, I’m honored to have placed in the top 150, I’m glad my blog and the resources that I share has been beneficial to you.

How to Sync Folders to the new SkyDrive without moving them to the SkyDrive folder

noreply@blogger.com (Sean Daniel) — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 00:48:00 +0000

So the new SkyDrive is out today, you can read about the awesome new features here (on the Building Windows 8 blog). The SkyDrive team really amped up their battle with DropBox in this new version. With Windows Phone, iPad, iPhone support, along with MAC and PC support, it really is pretty cool, and now completely accessible. Also with HTML5 support, it’s super fast on the PC and MAC for browsers that hardware accelerate HTML5 based graphics.

However, I will miss Mesh. I wasn’t asked to un-install it, as part of the upgrade, but I can see it coming (no I have no details here, speculation only)

Mesh had this ability to sync *any* folder to the cloud, which is now gone from this version of SkyDrive. Apparently all the DropBox fans have forced the hand on this one. Fortunately, on Windows (and I’m sure this works on a MAC too, but I can’t test it, any mac fans post how to do it in the comments and I’ll add it to the post) you can create links to folders to have things sync to your SkyDrive that aren’t actually in your SkyDrive folder!

To do this you’ll need to bust out the ol’ Command prompt, in Administrator mode, because a symbolic link just isn’t enough for SkyDrive to pick it up, you need a hard link.

Click Start, and type in CMD, right-click on the cmd.exe and choose Run as Administrator
Change to your SkyDrive folder, mine is c:\users\<username>\skydrive (so cd /d c:\users\seanda\skydrive)
Next we’re going to make a link to a directory that lives in My Documents Folder, I’m going to do that with this command to sync my “tools” directory: mklink /j “Tools” “c:\users\seanda\documents\tools”. You’ll get a line that says "Junction created for Tools <==> c:\users\seanda\documents\tools.

You’ll notice a new tools directory being created, and it looks exactly the same as the other directory (contents and all, you didn’t need to copy anything in). Now you can simply drop stuff in your c:\users\seanda\documents\tools directory, and SkyDrive will pick it up. (You might need to restart the SkyDrive system tray app for it to pick this directory up, although I didn’t.)

Additionally, if you’re trying to get this to sync between two computers, you’ll have to set up the Junction before SkyDrive can drop files in there (meaning create the folder locations manually with the junction in place. I only use the one computer, so I didn’t test this.

Extreme Make-Over–Take 2: Cincinnati Housing Partners Increase Efficiency

noreply@blogger.com (Sean Daniel) — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 21:48:00 +0000

Well, Microsoft and HP are at it once again, performing an extreme make-over of a not-for-profit company. In this case they are helping lower income families get their first home, Cincinnati Housing Partners. Once again, Microsoft came together with HP lots of awesome technology including Windows Small Business Server 2011 Essentials running on an HP Proliant Microserver and Windows MultiPoint Server running on an HP ML110. as well as some other great hardware from HP (Printers and UPS devices!).

Check out the video:

Find the Official HP Blog post here, and the Case Study here.

If you were wondering for previous Extreme Makeovers, you can see the first one here.

Learn more about Kevin Royalty and his company here.

How to Configure a Vanity Domain on Hotmail

noreply@blogger.com (Sean Daniel) — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 22:44:00 +0000

The Oatmeal, one of my favorite comic sites, has an info-graphic on what your e-mail address says about you. While I disagree about the @gmail.com and @hotmail.com priority in life, I’m in pretty much agreement on using your own domain for your e-mail. Especially for business, and quite possibly also for individuals (or *home* e-mail addresses as you might call them.)

Why do you want to have your own domain name for your e-mail address? Because it gives you long term flexibility without having to update your friends. using my @seandaniel.com email address has helped me over the years as I first obtained it in University. This meant I could just point the email domain to the university mailbox, then I moved it to my own SBS 2000 box, then SBS 2003, then SBS 2008, and then I moved it to GMail for a short period of time (which I discovered I didn’t like GMail at all), and now I actually have my personal e-mail hosted on Hotmail, and through all that, I didn’t have to notify my friends once about an email address change.

Naturally I get spam on my account, but Hotmail is so good, I never get any in my inbox, it just goes into the junk email folder, which I pay no attention to unless someone tells me to check my junk email folder.

Side note here: I find that with most spam filters these days, they are “learning” filters. If you abandon your email account, it can’t learn your preferences with new spam so you end up with some in your inbox. This is the same for Hotmail and GMail.

So let’s get started. First you need a domain name. If you’re in the US or Canada, I strongly suggest using eNom Central or GoDaddy. Both registrars are incredible, but offer different experiences. eNom is slightly more expensive, but I consider their UX cleaner and easier to understand. GoDaddy wins for price though, you just have a gauntlet to run to check out. So it’s up to you which one you choose. Outside of the US and Canada, these domain registrars are still phenomenal choices, but there are some “local” registrars (particularly in Germany or Australia) that offer more local offerings you might want to check out.

Once you own a domain, you can do all sorts of things with it, but this post is focused on setting up your email address on Hotmail. Let’s get started:

Navigate over to Domains.Live.com, and sign-in with your LiveID (which is probably an existing Hotmail address)
Click on Add Domain
On the Create a Windows Live Experience for your domain page, type in the domain name you just bought. For me it was “seandaniel.com”, and ensure that Set up Windows Live Hotmail for my domain is selected, and click Continue.
Click I Accept on the agreement…. after you agree of course. :o)

At this point you need to prove ownership of this domain name and you get a page that walks you through all the settings you need to configure in your DNS provider’s website.

This is a screenshot for one that I created called “foobar21.com” which of course I don’t own, this is just an example.

In a different browser window (since you’ll need to copy and paste from this one), you’ll want to navigate to your domain registrar’s website and log in.

Once logged in, you’ll want to find the host record management or Email/MX record management, that’s where you’re going to make the changes to your domain name.

Since I use eNom Central, this is how I do it. eNom has the MX (Mail eXchange) or email records separate than the host records

Log in, and go to Domains, and then My Domains.
I click on the domain that I want to manage, in this case, seandaniel.com
on the next page, I click on Email Settings.

Now I’m ready to set up my email record to match the first item in the list on the Windows Live page. the “@” record is the root of the domain (i.e. if you want your email address to be @seandaniel.com, that’s the root of the domain instead of @mail.seandaniel.com, which would be under the “mail” host name. Here is how mine looks:

All I did was copy and paste the Live configuration site into the eNom too. Once the MX record is done, I hit Save and move onto the next record in the Live webpage’s list above. The rest of the items are done on the Host Management page, so I switch to that. Here is what mine looks like (I have a lot more but I stripped it down to just the mail records to make things easy to understand):

Again, just a copy and paste above from the Live site into the eNom or your own GoDaddy tool. Just a few things to note here

My TXT record above is a standard (mostly adopted by Microsoft is my opinion) that tells mail servers that receive your email, which mail servers have permission to send on your domains behalf. So you’re telling other servers that hotmail.com can send mail on your behalf.
The SRV record is for using Windows Live Messenger, it’s listed at the bottom of the live page (which is cut off in the screenshot).
The CNAME for mail, is one that I set up myself, which you also have to configure on the domains.live.com (under “custom addresses”), which automatically redirects mail.seandaniel.com to Hotmail’s logon page. Kinda slick, but not necessary.
The URL Redirect for * isn’t on all domain providers, it’s another neat DNS trick that eNom does, so if you type in FluffySlippers.seandaniel.com it redirects to my webpage. Also optional.

Make sure you hit SAVE on your domain registrar’s page.

Now, the next part can take some time. If you have a domain that’s been around for a while, it’s probably going to finish replicating in < 6 hours or so. If your domain is new, it could take up to 2-3 days for it to get into all the systems around the Internet. Regardless, you can keep returning to domains.live.com and refreshing to know when it’s complete.

Now that you have your domain set up, let’s create an account!

At this point, you again to to your management console and hit up the Member Accounts link. This is where you create your mailbox(es) (I have some domains that I host family email on so in those cases I have multiple email addresses).

On the Member Accounts page

Click the Add button to add your first user
Give this user an account name, first name, last name, and a password, you can require them to change this when they log in.

That’s it, the account is created. Now simply go to www.hotmail.com (or mail.domain.com if you set that up!) and log in as this user account. The mailbox will be created for you upon log in. The user will set up their new Hotmail account as if they were setting up a new Hotmail account on @live.com or @hotmail.com, complete with security related questions.

That’s all there is to it. Mail starts flowing to your new Hotmail account with your own vanity domain name. Create up to 500 email accounts.

Now when Hotmail adds the ability to add “aliases” to vanity domain names, I’ll be even *that* much more happy with the situation.

Oh, and one more thing, that Hotmail account that you signed into domains.live.com as? be sure to link it in the options to your new Hotmail account, then you can use either to log in. You can also get the mail from one Hotmail account into another, so you only need to check one place as people learn your new vanity email address!

You can do this with GMail too, but they classify you as a business and I believe charge you $50/year, with Hotmail this functionality is free! The link to get started on Gmail.

Wiki your way to Small Business Server knowledge & Best practices

noreply@blogger.com (Sean Daniel) — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 22:33:00 +0000

The Home and Small Business Server team has posted a forum post with links to the separate Wiki articles they are maintaining to help you get the most out of your server platform. The Forum post with all the links (looks like it’s being updated over time too!) is here.

What appears to be currently missing from this article is the Router Wiki links

Other items are copied below for your ease of browsing (note this might be outdated, check the actual link for an up-to-date version)

Server Deployment and Platform Configurations

Troubleshoot Windows Small Business Server 2011 Essentials, Windows Home Server 2011, and Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 Essentials Installation Issues (June 2011) - http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/3342.aspx
How to repair certificate issues in Windows Small Business Server 2011, Windows Home Server 2011 and Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 Essentials (July 2011)
- http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/3940.aspx
Default input language is set to English on the Spanish versions of Windows Small Business Server 2011 Essentials, Windows Home Server 2011, and Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 Essentials - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2639424
How to Change the Password Policy in Windows Small Business Server 2011 Essentials - http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/6829.how-to-change-the-password-policy-in-windows-small-business-server-2011-essentials.aspx

Client Deployment

Troubleshooting Client Deployment Issues when using Windows Small Business Server 2011, Windows Home Server 2011 and Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 Essentials (July 2011)
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/3941.aspx

Remote Web Access

Manually install existing SSL certificate into Small Business Server 2011 Essentials
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/manually-install-existing-ssl-certificate-into-small-business-server-2011-essentials.aspx
Remote Web Access Deployment Guidance - http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/remote-web-access-deployment-guide.aspx

Media and Workgroup (Windows Server Storage Server 2008 R2 Essentials and WHS 2011 only)

Media streaming known issue and workaround with Windows Home Server 2011 and Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 Essentials (August 2011)
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/media-streaming-known-issue-and-workaround-with-windows-home-server-2011-and-windows-storage-server-2008-r2-essentials.aspx
How to change workgroup name on Windows Home Server 2011 and Windows Storage Server 2011 R2 Essentials (August 2011)
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/how-to-change-workgroup-name-on-windows-home-server-2011-and-windows-storage-server-2011-r2-essentials.aspx

Data Protection (Server and Client Backup)

Server Backup FAQ (August 2011) -
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/faq-for-windows-home-and-small-business-server-backup.aspx
The "Recover your server wizard" crashes in Windows Small Business Server 2011 Essential, Windows Home Server 2011 or Windows Storage Server 2011 Essential
- http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2639956
How to fix the Server Backup Service exception "One or more services are not running” for SBS 2011 Essentials, WHS 2011 and WSS 2008 R2 Essentials -
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/6828.how-to-fix-the-server-backup-service-exception-one-or-more-services-are-not-running-for-sbs-2011-essentials-whs-2011-and-wss-2008-r2-essentials.aspx

Office 365 integration

Error message when an SBS 2011 Essentials user signs in to Office 365 after they change the password for their user account: "Microsoft Online Services ID or password is incorrect" - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2652040
The Office 365 Integration Module for SBS 2011 Essentials does not work as expected - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2652021

Extensibility

How to list your applications on Microsoft Pinpoint? How to make your applications discoverable - http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/6886.listing-your-applications-for-discovery-in-microsoft-pinpoint-for-small-business-server-windows-home-server-and-windows-storage-server-2008-r2-essentials.aspx (Posted here last week)

Developers! How to List your Small Business Server and Windows home Server Apps on Microsoft Pinpoint

noreply@blogger.com (Sean Daniel) — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 23:32:00 +0000

Are you a developer or developer firm that’s built an application for SBS 2011 Essentials, SBS 2011 Premium Add-on, Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 Essentials, and Windows Home Server 2011? Then you should list your application in Microsoft Pinpoint. Listing here will give you greater awareness of your application to your target audience.

For example, these links are inside the product:

Over on the Small Business Server Wiki, there is a how-to guide on how to go about doing this. You can find that link here.

Before you can begin listing your applications:

You must join the Microsoft Partner Network. Before you can begin listing your applications on Pinpoint, you must create an account with the Microsoft Partner Network (MPN) and create a descriptive overview for your company. It can take up to five business days for your new account to activate in Pinpoint after establishing your membership in the Microsoft Partner Network.
Already a member? If so, then you can proceed to create your profile in Pinpoint. If you are already a partner but are not listed on Pinpoint and believe you should be, contact the Pinpoint team.

Sign-in using your MPN LiveID
Click on the Dashboard in the upper right hand corner
Click on Add or Edit Profiles in the nav bar
Click on the Apps + Services tab
Click the New button
Follow the rest of the wizard to create your listing
Wait for the application to be published in the marketplace

What are you waiting for? The complete guide is here, and you can jump to Pinpoint here.

I protest the protect IP act

noreply@blogger.com (Sean Daniel) — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 19:17:00 +0000

Many websites are blacked out today to protest proposed U.S. legislation that threatens internet freedom: the Stop Internet Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA). From personal blogs to Wikipedia, sites all over the web — including this one — are asking you to help stop this dangerous legislation from being passed. Please click the link below to learn how this legislation will affect internet freedom.

LEARN MORE

How to Enable Auto-Logon for your Server

noreply@blogger.com (Sean Daniel) — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 17:42:00 +0000

WARNING: This Post reduces the physical security of your server, leaving the server open for anyone for a brief period of time after reboot.

So, you are still reading after the warning above. Excellent. Unless you are physically controlling access to your server, and aren’t worried in the least about theft or any other loss of server, or access to server, then please continue reading.

Last year, I wrote a post about using my Home Server for more than just storage, backup and remote access. This is not condoned by Microsoft or supported for Windows Home Server, as Windows Home Server licensing doesn’t enable you to run Line of Business Applications on your server, just security type applications. This also depends on your EULA you’ve entered with your hardware OEM as well as Microsoft, so be careful you’re not voiding a warranty or locking yourself out of support here. That might be more important to you than this little hack. You should also see if your application can be run as a service, either by contacting the app provider, or by testing with the SRVANY.EXE command you can find from here. This wouldn’t reduce the security of your server, but still get you the end result.

Now that we’re through all the warnings, let’s get started.

I have some end-user applications that I want to run (as the different, non-admin user), that aren’t services. This means that if the box reboots for patches, or a power-outage, the apps don’t start until I connect into the server and kick them off. Naturally I put all the apps that need to start in the start-up group, this includes my iOS printing app, among others. So ultimately I just need to log-in, and then I’m good to go.

But… I can automate the logon with the System Internals (sysinternals).

STEP 1: I simply download the AutoLogon tool. When I launch it, I elevate it to the administrator account (ie UAC), and then accept the EULA. I’m then presented with the simple UI:

I simply enter the username, domain and password I want to auto-login as, and hit enable. To disable this in the future, run the tool again and hit disable.

STEP 2: This is the most important step, to secure things again. It’s super simple, you simply enable the screensaver (I chose the “Blank” screen saver), and On resume, display logon screen is checked, and the screen saver will come on after 1 minute.

This of course will get irritating if you’re working on the server. So in those cases I change the wait time up to 15 minutes, and then back down to 1 minute when I’m finished working. I never turn off the screensaver, because if I forget to turn it back on, then the server will be indefinitely unlocked, which is bad of course.

That’s all there is to it. Use this wisely and only if needed. You’d also be wise to see if your application can be turned into a service. Microsoft has a tool for that too, it’s called SRVANY.EXE.

Sean’s Top 10 Recommended iOS apps for Productivity

noreply@blogger.com (Sean Daniel) — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 18:48:00 +0000

Before the slew of Windows 8 tablets come out, most folks have an iPad or iPad 2. If you go online looking for popular apps, you’ll either get a list of games or a list of apps without a description of what they do.. I’ve spend a lot of time trying to figure out the best way to use my iPad, and not just for games.. Below is my list of non-game apps and why I like them.

iTap RDP – iTAP RDP allows me to get to Windows clients via RDP. Sure there are free ones like iRDesktop, but this was the only one that did TSGateway so I can get to clients behind a proxy from outside the network. I also think that with the different mouse modes and special keys that come up on this app, this is the most functional.

You could compare this to CloudOn, which allows you to get to your MS Office apps, which uses DropBox to get to your documents. Pretty good solution, if you trust DropBox.
There is also OnLive, which let’s you RDP to a hosted version of Windows 7, but using a web browser to upload and download files seems hoaky to me. Plus with it being free, how are they making money? what are they selling?

mWOL – Mocha WOL is a free app in the iTunes store. It isn’t anything other than a Wake-On-LAN client, I picked it over the other ones because it’s free. The end. My laptops have an aggressive sleep schedule to keep power consumption down. My Home Server is the always on PC. Unfortunately this won’t wake up my clients if I’m out of my home.
Buzz Player – Buzz Player is a Media player and media copier. I like it because all of that media that I have sitting on my Home Server, this app can stream it to me when I’m in my home. That’s 2TB of videos and music that I can just use anywhere on my LAN.
Lync Mobile – Lync Mobile is Microsoft’s Lync IM client, on the iPad. Given that these days I don’t take my laptop to the couch for after hours surfing, this client allows me to stay in touch with co-workers that are world-wide. I can answer a quick question from Shanghai.
OneNote – Microsoft OneNote is another essential Microsoft app. If you use OneNote on your PC, and I do extensively, then this gives you access to any notes stored on your SkyDrive. This has revolutionized how I manage my soccer teams. I simply create the notes on my PC, and then update them on the phone or iPad
Grocery IQ – Grocery IQ is really only useful if you also have the app on your phone. My wife and I sit down with the iPad and make our grocery list and what we’re going to eat for the week. Then, because we have the same Grocery IQ account, when we hit the grocery store, the list is just in our pocket on our phone.
Feedler – Feedler is a less popular RSS reader that syncs with Google Reader. As far as I can tell, Reeder is the most popular app for this, and certainly is more beautiful looking; but it’s missing a key feature: mark older than X days read. I get to my RSS feeds as often as possible, and for the most part, I read them in entirty, although trying to catch up on Mashable, or Engadget, after being away for a week is next to impossible, but I do want to read a few days worth. Hence Feedler is my preference over Reeder for RSS reading
Kindle – The Kindle app is handy because it means on business trips, I only need the one device, and long plane waits etc, I can just continue on my book.
Skype – Skype I am only looking forward to. Sure I can use it on my iPad 1 for text chatting, but without a camera it kind of sucks. I sure do love it on my phone though, and can’t wait for this communication powerhouse to become fully operational once I get an updated iPad 3!
BlogPress – BlogPress is my mobile blogging app. Blogging from the PC is my preferred method, and I actually use the combination of the first two apps in this list to do 90% of my blogging, but if I’m travelling, it’s a secondary way for me to get the data out to the web, without having to wait.

Those are my top 10 favorite, non-game, iPad applications to boost your productivity and enjoyment of the iPad aside from a $700+ gaming tablet.

Restoring Files from SBS 2003 to SBS 2008/2011

noreply@blogger.com (Sean Daniel) — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 18:34:00 +0000

I thought I had blogged about this prior, but it has been brought to my attention that I haven’t to date. So I wanted to make sure it was covered.

As you recall, Small Business Server 2003 used Windows NT Backup (or NTBackup for short). With the introduction of Server 2008 (and hence SBS 2008), NTBackup was removed from the product (with good reason! Trust me!). With this came the introduction of the Server Backup, built by the same team as the Data Protection team.

This server backup and restore utility doesn’t know what to do with NTBackup (.bkp) files. So instead, you can download the Windows NT Backup and Restore Utility for Windows 7 (KB 974674). Be sure to choose the version you need based on what operating system you’re running on.

Another IMPORTANT note to realize, is if you use it on your server, and then attempt a bare metal restore of the server using the Windows Server Backup, the box gets stuck at a black window and doesn’t boot properly.

So the correct steps are

Install the NT Backup and restore utility
Restore desired set of file(s)
Un-install the NT Backup and restore utility

Happy Restoring from Old backups!

How to use your Home Server as an AirPrint server for only $10

noreply@blogger.com (Sean Daniel) — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 19:47:00 +0000

As I move more and more of my computing and data to the Cloud with services like SkyDrive. I am reducing the amount of computing power I have in my house. I have an iPad (v1), a Laptop, and of course my Windows Home Server.

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m looking for more ways to take advantage of my low-powered Home Server to do more for me as an *always* on device.

Over the holiday’s we had a few visitors, which of course means printing boarding passes prior to leaving for the airport. It was frustrating to have to take out the laptop when the iPad is just right there. But without a compatible AirPrint printer, you can’t print from the iPad….

Or can’t you?

I found an application for Windows (and Mac OS) that installs on your computer that shares almost any printer connected to the computer, to the AirPrint service.

There was an old version that doesn’t work with iOS5 that is free. But obviously, I have iOS5 on all my devices, so that wasn’t an option. I’m also not a big fan of Jail-Breaking (I guess I know too much about security to allow a hacker full access to my device).

This application, called FingerPrint by Collobos Software, will share out any connected printer, as well as DropBox locations to the AirPrint service. I started with the trial to make sure it worked first.

To get it set up, I downloaded the FingerPrint installer, copied it to the desktop of my Home Server and installed it. Then of course ran FingerPrint on the server. I also had to add my network printer to a printer on my Home Server, just by going to Control Panel and adding a printer as I normally would on any Windows machine.

However, it didn’t initially work. I had to make two changes to the configuration for it to work, probably specific to my network. I’ll share them here incase you have the same problems.

Enabling Multicast on my router

First, I discovered that my DLink DIR-655 router wasn’t allowing Apple’s discovery service, Bonjour. This is not always the case with routers. But I discovered that I can enable MultiCast, on the router, which seemed to allow it. I did this on the DIR-655 by going to Advanced, then Advanced Network, and at the bottom, selecting to Enable Multicast Streams:

This required a router reboot, which took down my network for 30 seconds, and then it took another approximately 5 minutes for my iPad to discover the services running.

This enabled me to see the list of printers connect to my Home Server

Opening an Additional Port on the server

Per Collobos support page, I had to manually open the port 6631 on my Home Server to allow AirPrint to send the document to FingerPrint. To do this I simply:

Logged into the Home Server
Clicked Start, then Run, and ran the wf.msc firewall configuration utility
I clicked on New Rule
In the wizard that opened, I selected Port, and clicked Next.
The port is a TCP port which was the default, and I typed in the specific port of 6631
I also chose to Allow the connection even if it’s unsecure (this might not be available in SBS 2011, in which case you’d also need to make a group policy change)
On where does this rule apply, I ensured that it only apply to Private networks, meaning that I unchecked Domain (which doesn’t apply to WHS anyways) and Public. (Note for SBS 2011, you’d have to select Domain)
Finally, I gave it a friendly name. I used FingerPrint Port 6631 so I could easily find it in the list again if I ever wanted to remove FingerPrint, and clicked Finish.

At this point, the printing just started! woo hoo! Of course I can play around with this for 7 days on trial, then I’ll have to get a license key for FingerPrint.

Additional Bonus!

As an additional bonus, you can manage all the documents printing from the Home Server’s print queue. So I think it’s worth the $10 to be able to print directly from the iPad. Plus Collobos has support if you ever get stuck.

As a final note, I have noticed that you don’t want your iPad to go to sleep before the print has happened, and it’s not exactly the fastest thing/

[Note: This is untested on Small Business Server 2011, but I don’t see why it wouldn’t work, changes are noted above, leave a comment if you try and have modifications]

Blast from the Past: The BackOffice Server 4.5 Daily Cycle

noreply@blogger.com (Sean Daniel) — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 22:11:00 +0000

Lots of old friends in this video. Unfortunately I only worked on BackOffice 2000, the last edition of BackOffice Server (excluding Essential Business Server of course). Back Office Server 4.5 released in January 12, 1999, and I joined Microsoft in January, 2000 (as an Intern).

Enjoy the blast from the past!

This video talks about what it was like to build BackOffice 4.5, the BVTs, daily meetings, all that seemed to stay the same.

Introducing a new line of Network Storage Servers for SMB

noreply@blogger.com (Sean Daniel) — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 00:52:00 +0000

Only yesterday, a third product that I worked on over the past little while called Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 Essentials was announced, on hardware provided by Western Digital.

Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 Essentials is a mid-way point between Windows Home Server, and Windows Small Business Server 2011 Essentials. And by in between, I mean you have a business class Home Server. So you have media streaming, but no domain controller, and a limit of 25 users instead of 10 that Home Server has.

One other unique feature it has is the ability to join a domain, that Windows Home Server does not have. You can join any size domain, but limit (via AD security group) the number of users down to 25 who can use the NAS box. You can only use it for up to 25 users.

This is a great solution if you want to add client backup to 25 clients on any SBS 2008 or SBS 2011 Standard networks, or just a standard server network. Furthermore, it does have RWA with it, which means you can add an RWA solution to your standard server network if you want.

The WD Sentinel DX4000 looks pretty awesome from a hardware perspective as well. You can jump on over to the Western Digital WD Sentinel DX4000 website to learn more.

Home Server and SBS Add-in to Automate Client Backup of your MAC

noreply@blogger.com (Sean Daniel) — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 17:41:00 +0000

One of the most popular posts on my blog is how to enable Apple’s Time Machine backup to backup to your Windows Home Server 2011 or Windows Small Business Server 2011 Essentials. As it turns out, a company named Orbital Technologies has decided to build an add-in that enables this functionality without the need for you to walk through the steps of creating those confusing sparse files.

That add-in has been reviewed over on the famous UsingWindowsHomeServer blog, specifically in a blog post here, covering the preview of the Orbital Backup Configuration for Mac. They additionally covered the add-in again when it was available.

Simply install the add-in, open up the dashboard on the MAC client and go to add-ins, Orbital utilities and follow along. All you need to know is your username and password to the server. easy right? also free!

Keep in mind that you can still do the manual steps provided in my post if you prefer not to install anything as all this add-in does is the configuration pieces for you.

You can download the add-in directly from the Using Windows Home Server Forums, or We Got Served forums. The add-in should work fine on Windows Home Server 2011, Windows Small Business Server 2011 Essentials, and also Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 Essentials. If you’re using any other Windows product, the manual steps are for you.

Using your Home Server for more than Storage, Backup and Remote Access

noreply@blogger.com (Sean Daniel) — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 18:26:00 +0000

Back in 2006, I was without power for 4 days in November. It was cold, but I had friends, and an offline Small Business Server 2003 R2. Of course I ran everything out of my house, why wouldn’t I? Being offline my server started sending NDRs and I didn’t have access to anything, as it was all offline. While I had been toying with adopting the cloud for the amount of spam I was getting, this pushed me over the edge. It was at that time I decided to adopt the cloud. My email and most things that I own are all hosted in various cloud services so if the power goes out at my house, my stuff keeps running.

Trust me, I did a cost benefit analysis and in order to keep things running for me at home, I’d have to pay for hosting services anyways, and given I was running a “business class” server, I was forced into “business class” prices. I am not a business, I am a consumer.

However, there are certain things that I don’t trust the cloud for, and hence I want my own cloud storage that I run and have total control over. Enter Windows Home Server stage left. Home Server has been my personal cloud storage location since 2007, I now run WHS 2011.

Enter Cloud computing.

My Windows Home Server is perfect device to do computing for me, and it can just chug away on it all the time. The one draw back is that there is only one account “Administrator” that has total access to the server. this obviously isn’t good computing practice, so let me show you how to create a working account that you can have do things for you.

First step, let’s create a new user account on the server. We’ll do this using the normal Add User Wizard in the dashboard. I’ll call the user Working User. I gave the user access to the shared folders it needed access to (where I can interact with Working User’s storage), and nothing more. I didn’t even give this user remote access.

Now, by default all users created don’t have access to log into the server, we need to grant this permission. This will make the user a standard user on the server, so it will have access to do things the same as a standard user would have access on a client PC (running applications, a /user folder with full control, and access to those folders you gave it. it won’t be able to mess with the OS or install things. PERFECT!

On the server console, click Start, then Run, and type in gpedit.msc to edit the local policy on the server
Expand down Local Computer Policy, Computer Configuration, Windows Settings, Local Policies, and click on User Rights Assignment
Scroll down the list on the right until you find Allow log on locally and double click to open the property page
Click the Add User or Group… button and type in the username that you created in the first step inside the Add User Wizard.
Click OK and then OK again and close the local group policy editor.

Now this Working user has access to log in to the server locally. Of course it can’t do any administration of the server as it’s not a member of the administrators group.

Next I want to use something as this user, say the command prompt. I simply use a command line like the following: C:\Windows\System32\runas.exe /USER:SERVER\Working /savecred "C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe"

The /savecred will save the credentials you typed in as Working User (alias “working” in the above) and will remember it for future runs. I actually just created a shortcut with this command in. Now that you have a command prompt open, anything you run from this command prompt will run as the Working User. So you can load up any application and have it work in the context of this non-administrative user. So if you do hit something that wants to modify your system, you’ll get a UAC pop-up or an access denied (I haven’t hit anything like that yet in my set up).

Just be careful what you do, because there is no free Anti-virus for your server, and I highly recommend getting an anti-virus for your server if you plan on connecting this user up to the Internet to do anything directly on the server. I have Antivirus on my system.

Seattle Interactive Conference: Learn the Cloud

noreply@blogger.com (Sean Daniel) — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 20:01:00 +0000

Technical Content, Technical Experts

The Cloud Experience track at SIC is for experienced developers who want to learn how to leverage the cloud for mobile, social and web app scenarios. No matter what platform or technology you choose to develop for, these sessions will provide you with a deeper understanding of cloud architecture, back end services and business models so you can scale for user demand and grow your business.

Register today using the promo code “azure 200” and attend SIC for only $150 (a $200 savings).

Attend a full day of technical sessions and learn more about leveraging the cloud for mobile, web and social scenarios. View the list of confirmed Cloud Experience speakers. Sessions include:
- Great Mobile Apps Make Money – Intro to Cloud Experience Track
- Mobile + Cloud, Building Mobile Applications with Windows Azure
- Zero to Hero: Windows Phone, Android, iOS Development in the Cloud
- Building Web Applications with Windows Azure
- Building Social Games on Windows Azure
Cloud Experience speakers and technical experts will be available to provide technical assistance and resources for developing, deploying and managing mobile, social and web apps in the cloud.

Seattle Interactive Conference (SIC): November 2-3, 2011, The Conference Center at WSCC

How to remove G+ and add proper sharing buttons to your Blogger Blog like Facebook, and Twitter!

noreply@blogger.com (Sean Daniel) — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 22:32:00 +0000

If you’re not one of the few that uses Google+, then Google’s Sharing defaults inside of Google Blogger aren’t necessarily for you. The scream Google sharing only. The e-mail button is an icon of GMail, Google+ is the biggest sharing button. Sure you can get to the others, but they are little buttons. Don’t you want to be mainstream?

Here’s how I changed it with a little help from A Consuming Experience.

Getting your sharing code snippets

First, before I even touched my blog, I went to the appropriate sites to obtain my sharing buttons. For me, that was the Facebook Like Button, Twitter’s Tweet Button, and LinkedIn’s Share Button (although I don’t use this one on my photo blog). From these pages, you should use the UI to decide how you want the button to look for your site. Make sure you specify a URL to Like, Tweet, or Share, this is a temporary URL, I used http://foo.bar.com. This is a placeholder for later.

I saved each of these code snippets into Notepad for copy/paste later.

Adding the sharing code to the Blogger blog

Inside your Blogger Dashboard, select the blog you wish to add your sharing buttons to, then click the “template” modification and choose to Edit the HTML:

Choose to Proceed when you edit the HTML, and then make sure you select Expand Widget Templates that’s at the top:

Scroll down until you find the <b:include id=’shareButtons’ var=’post’> tag. I deleted everything between that tag, and </b:includable> and replaced it with my own sharing code.

This is where things get fun.

You need to replace that http://foo.bar.com with the URL of the blog post. Google puts that information into a variable and replaces it at the time the page is rendered. So we simply need to do this as well. Let’s take a look at the twitter code, because it’s the simplest.

Here is what Twitter gave me:

<a class='twitter-share-button' data-count='horizontal' data-via='seandaniel' data-url=”http://foo.bar.com” href='https://twitter.com/share'>Tweet</a><script src='//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js' type='text/javascript'/>

note that I have bolded the temporary URL we need to replace with the URL of the blog post. With the help of the above website, this is what I changed it to:

<a class='twitter-share-button' data-count='horizontal' data-via='seandaniel' expr:data-url='data:post.url' href='https://twitter.com/share'>Tweet</a><script src='//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js' type='text/javascript'/>

Note I have added the expr: phrase which tells Google there is something to replace after the “=” sign. I then put in the URL variable data:post.url, and also changed the quotes from double quotes to single quotes. Google interprets that code and inserts the actual URL of the individual blog post. Thus if they tweet on the main page with all the posts, they still only tweet the one that they are intending to, instead of the entire feed of posts.

So yeah, a little harder than their previous format where you had just put in <$BlogPostPermanentURL$>, but not too difficult all the same.

Now on my blog you can see the following at the bottom of each post, without having to put that Google + link there.

Cleans things up and standardizes them all in one. Enjoy.

HP/Microsoft do an Extreme Make-Over of a Not For Profit Organization

noreply@blogger.com (Sean Daniel) — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 20:20:00 +0000

Earlier this year, I had the pleasure to be able to participate in a very heart warming story. Families For Effective Autism Treatment of Washington (or FEAT WA), was the first winner of the HP & Microsoft Extreme technical make-over. FEAT really does a lot of work for children with autism, and were struggling with their hobbled together IT infrastructure.

Microsoft and HP came together to set up the IT Infrastructure backbone running Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2011 Essentials on a maxed out HP ProLiant MicroServer. And for the children and office workers, Microsoft Windows MultiPoint Server 2011 Premium on an HP ML 110 G7; to be connected to with the HP t5749e thing clients and HP EliteBook 8460p Notebooks. HP also improved their networking infrastructure with the HP ProCurve 1810G-24 switch.

It was so awesome to meet and help out Brenne and Amanda at FEAT of WA to do their job and help children with autism. Check out the video:

Outlook 2010 Speed Tip: Using the Quick Step Box

noreply@blogger.com (Sean Daniel) — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 00:19:00 +0000

Outlook 2010 has been out for a while, but one of the more recent features I started to depend on to make email faster for me is the Quick Steps box on the dialog:

The Quick Steps bar allows you to make quick and customized operations on pieces of email that you have in your inbox. There are a bunch of default ones that I use all the time, and I’ve also created a few new ones myself.

Let’s first talk about how to use it, it’s pretty simple. If you have a message you want to take action on, simply make sure it’s collected and select the one you want. If you want to reply and delete it, simply click that button. A reply message is opened to the individual, and the original message is deleted. It’s that simple.

Let’s say we often move mail to a specific folder in our inbox, and it involves selecting the message, dragging it to a folder that may or may not be collapsed in the tree view, and then dropping it there. Instead, we can create a new Quick Step for this. To do that simply:

Select the Create New Quick Step
Give the Quick Step a name like “Move to Follow Up”
Select Move to a folder, under the Actions drop down.
Then select the folder in the drop box that appears that you want to move the message to.

And that’s it. You can additionally assign a short cut key, give it tool tip text if you have complicated rules, or even add additional actions.

It’s made my life easier, with the amount of messages I get each day, I highly suggest checking out the Quick Steps. Allows you to cut through email pretty fast.

New SBS Marketer!

noreply@blogger.com (Sean Daniel) — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 00:03:00 +0000

Well… not so new, as he’s been around as an external content vendor forever. Welcome David Fabritius to the Windows Server & Cloud marketing team here at Microsoft, with a focus on small and medium businesses. David is very familiar with the Windows Server family since he’s spent most of his time at Microsoft creating technical readiness material for the last few releases of SBS and other SMB-focused server products. David has a lot of experience as an ITPro deploying and managing server infrastructures.

David is from the Pacific Northwest and has been doing computer stuff since before college. He’s been a fan of SBS since he first bought a copy to run his own local small business. Since 2008, he’s been spending the majority of his time making sure you, the Microsoft Partner, are ready to sell SBS and have the training and resources you need to be successful.

Obviously with his new role, he’ll be helping to decide the direction of the product from within the marketing org!

Thank you BizTech Magazine – SeanDaniel.com is listed in their top 50 Must Read IT Blogs

noreply@blogger.com (Sean Daniel) — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 20:46:00 +0000

I was rather surprised last night to be browsing my @Mentions on Twitter only to find out that @BizTechMagazine listed me as one of the “50 Must-Read IT Blogs”. I first saw it when I was mentioned in their tweet. Today I was able to visit BizTech Magazine’s blog post to see that I’m not even at the very bottom!

It’s a great honour to even get a mention in a top 50!

Obtaining a Domain Name in SBS 2011 Standard and Essentials

noreply@blogger.com (Sean Daniel) — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 19:09:00 +0000

So my second video that I did with the HP/Microsoft Coffee Coaching is now live. This one is near and dear to my heart as it’s a program that I built almost from the ground up (admittedly I had a little help from my friends at the start). I dive into the nuances of obtaining a domain name for your Remote Web Access website in these two products. The “Essentials” side of the fence also pertains to Windows Home Server (except in the view I talk about .remotewebaccess.com, where in WHS its .homeserver.com, but it works the same way)

Additionally, if you are interested in some corny video footage and want to learn a bit more about me, you can view my rather embarrassing bio video. I swear it didn’t feel this corny when I was filming.

Learn about how Multi-Point 2011 Premium works with SBS 2011 Essentials on HP/Microsoft Coffee Coaching

noreply@blogger.com (Sean Daniel) — Sat, 30 Jul 2011 03:22:00 +0000

I managed to finally get my schedule coincided with the HP/Microsoft Coffee Coaching filming crew. When I was with them I managed to create my first video which talks about how awesome MultiPoint 2011 Premium server is when you have Small Business Server 2011 Essentials already running in your network (details here). Check it out, it’s only 6 minutes of your time.

Using the new Office365 with SBS 2011 Essentials

noreply@blogger.com (Sean Daniel) — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 18:31:00 +0000

Over on the Official SBS blog, they have a new post about how you can use Office365 with SBS 2011 for a better together story.

SBS 2011 was designed from the ground up to work with hosted versions of Exchange and SharePoint, such as Office365, or BPOS. But you don’t need to wait for any integration pieces to be in play, you can get started today. Check out these videos for more details:

What you can do Today

What you can do with the Office 365 integration module

The Basics of Local DNS for Small Business Server 2011 Essentials

noreply@blogger.com (Sean Daniel) — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 16:53:00 +0000

[Post idea courtesy of Robert Pearman, MVP]

If you’ve used Windows Small Business Server in the past, you’ve probably figured out exactly how DNS works. With the SBS 2008 and SBS 2011 the Connect to the Internet Wizard would analyze your network and determine a static IP address to use, and then ensure you like it before making it the server’s IP address. Then as we all know, the DNS server runs on SBS and resolves local network addresses, like “domain.local” or “server” or the internal fully qualified domain (FQDN) “server.domain.local”

Since SBS 2008 and SBS 2011 are DHCP servers by default, that means they hand out IP addresses, and the server’s IP as the DNS server. DNS works flawlessly in such an environment. Internet based addresses (such as Microsoft.com) are first sent to the SBS box for resolution, and then forwarded on to the ISPs DNS servers for name resolution.

Ultimately SBS is a middle man in the peer to peer DNS infrastructure and gives the full power of DNS to the local network

So how is SBS 2011 Essentials Different?

SBS 2011 Essentials doesn’t assign itself a static IP address, and it doesn’t have a Connect to the Internet Wizard. Essentials will automatically connect to the Internet just like any client computer, using the DHCP assigned address. It does however use its local DNS server to resolve both local and Internet based names by overriding the DHCP assigned IP address to 127.0.0.1 (localhost). If you dig into the DNS settings, you’ll notice that the DNS Server picks up the routers IP as a forwarder. Routers by default will hand out their own IP as the DNS Server and proxy DNS out to the WAN configured (usually DHCP but sometimes services like OpenDNS) DNS servers. This means that if the server were to ask for an Internet based address, like technet.com, it would forward that request to the router, which would intern forward it to the ISP, which could hopefully resolve it for you.

Clients on the network also still need to use the SBS DNS Server in order for Active Directory to work, or to resolve the server and other services on the network (for example, client backup doesn’t work unless DNS is operating correctly). Clients *also* get their IP and DNS Server from the DHCP server, which in Essentials, by default, is the router. This means that the DNS server is the router, essentially skipping the SBS name resolution step. Once the client goes to http://server/connect, a service is installed called LAN Configuration Service. This service monitors client IP address changes, when the client gets a new IP (ie, it turns on, or it changes locations) it immediately sends out a UPnP query looking for the server (note, this only works on single subnet environments). If a server is found, the DHCP assigned DNS address is overwritten by the server’s IP address (obtained in the return call from UPnP). If no server is found, the DHCP DNS assigned address is kept.

This means that client computers get the SBS DNS address within the SBS network, but the DHCP assigned address at a place like StarBucks. Clients can always resolve the Internet, and inside of the SBS network, they can also resolve the SBS server and Active Directory domain.

Now, for those paying attention, you’ll have recalled that the SBS server’s address is also DHCP assigned, which means it can change if the router deems it necessary. There is a similar service on the SBS server that will broadcast when it’s IP address changes, the clients on the network pick this up and update DNS, the clients off the network will just re-do the process above to get the right IP address.

A side-effect/pro of this design over the SBS 2008 or 2011 Standard design is that if the server is down for patching (we all know how long those reboots take), or another reason, the client will revert back to the DHCP assigned address after a short period of time and can continue to resolve the Internet until the server comes back online.

Can I set things up the old way?

Of course you can. SBS 2011 Essentials is still a full blow copy of server, and all the power that you’re familiar with is there. You can just jump into the NIC settings on the server and give it a static IP address of your choice. No problems there.

Additionally, if you absolutely wanted to run DHCP on the SBS Essentials server, no problems there either, simply open up the Server Manager, install the roll and configure DHCP. Don’t forget to turn off DHCP on your router, and away you go. If you’re not familiar with DHCP settings though, I suggest you leave it the way it was.