Setting up Windows Home Server in the office

The stay at home server turns out to be the little server that could, with plenty of business friendly features.
Even the smallest business will find a server useful, whether it’s just for sharing files and connecting them to the Web or delivering applications.

Stopping Spam for Exchange Users

Spam doesn’t have to be a way of life; add to the built-in spam tools in Exchange Server with services that can almost banish spam from the inbox.

Unplugging the PBX to sell a VoIP installation or hosted VoIP

Unless your clients have just returned from a stint on Mars, there is every chance they will already have used VoIP, though they may not call it that. VoIP, or Internet telephony, has been one of the undoubted technology success stories of the last few years. Skype alone claims 200 million users, many of whom work in small and mid-sized businesses.

Controlling anti-social networking – a guide to blocking employees access to Facebook, MySpace and more.

Right now, your customers’ employees are looking at Facebook and surfing MySpace. If that doesn’t worry their employers, it should.

Social networking has only gained popularity in the last three or four years, but it is generating the same concerns that instant messaging did at the start of the decade.

Set up event subscriptions in Windows Server 2008

Set up an event subscription between two Windows Server 2008 systems

Open the Reliability and Performance Monitor console, right-click on Data Collector Sets > User Defined, and create a New > Data Collector Set. Name the Data Collector and choose to Create manually (Advanced).

Rebuilding a NAS appliance RAID array

Disks fail, and RAID arrays need rebuilding. Be prepared for the worst – and keep your clients’ data safe.

Get better security with Vista by implementing best practices for using User Account Control - UAC

Operating your PC when you’re logged in with an Administrator account is an inherently insecure thing to do. If you’re a user with highly-elevated privileges across multiple machines or an entire Active Directory domain, running your everyday processing with these privileges can be dangerous to the point of negligence.

SQL Server: diagnosing and fixing performance issues

Many SMEs have applications that run on SQL Server. In the more recent versions, SQL Server 2005 and 2008 is largely self tuning so it may well run for months unattended. However, performance issues can still raise their ugly head.

Hardware Recycling: Making money from green

Dealing with end-of-life hardware can be a burden for it consultants, but managing recycling and trade-ins for clients provides a business opportunity, as well as a chance to help the environment.

Types of Storage

There are three types of storage you can provide to your customers: Direct Attached Storage (DAS), Network Attached Storage (NAS) and Storage Area Networking (SAN). What you choose will affect the cost, the solution and the levels of support and services you can offer.