MOM 2005 article

I recently contributed towards an article on Microsoft Operations Manager 2005 for Redmond mag. http://redmondmag.com/features/article.asp?EditorialsID=475

Regular readers of my blog will have read the complete article here.

Redmondmag.com is a wealth of information for Microsoft technologies.

Not bad Allied Telesyn

I have posted a few blogs ranting and raving about various companies (not as many as I should have). But when service it good, it should be raved about more.
UPS - you hit the top spot for service again. Allied Telesyn, you hit third behind sonicwall, as you only managed to persuade UPS to arrive after 2 hours, insetad of 20 minutes like Sonicwall did.

When I worked for Pizza Hut UK as a waiter and pizza maker they had loads of corporate messages all over the staff area. One has stuck with me for ages:
"A happy customer on average will tell 7 people. An unhappy customer tells 20 people and doesn't come back."

It really is the case that bad work is more talked about than good. A friend of mine called a bar the other day and asked if they "by any chance had found a scarf left the other night?" The sound of surpirse when they said yes - we get so used to bad service and people stealing things nowadays.

So well done Allied Telesyn. But most of all, well done UPS for doing the job yet again.

10 Spam programmes reviewed

Spam is a pain for everyone. Here is an excellent article reviewing 10 of the spam programmes currently available on the market.

http://redmondmag.com/features/article.asp?EditorialsID=466

Hard drive reliability

Over the last few years I have used literally hundreds of hard drives on numerous systems, both for clients, work and for myself. Hard drives are usually the forgotten soldier, beavering away all the time and doing work behind the scenes. Its only when they go wrong that people realise they exist. Nowadays, hard drives and storage in general is so cheap that most people can impress their friends and boast the largest capacity.

The reason I am going on about this is because I serviced a PC for a client today. The computer would POST (the white text displaying specs when you start the system), but then it just looped in a continuous cycle of resetting itself. So it would not start.

Well blow me if it wasn't a Maxtor (Again!). It's an on-going joke with my partner and I about Maxtor. Whenever we see a hard drive with Maxtor written on it, we know we have got problems. Out of all the hard drives I have used, I can honestly say, that virtually all the problems I have had with hard drives turn out to be a Maxtor.

When we put an order into our distributor today, they offered Maxtor 80GB as they had run out of 40GB Western Digital. I said "Don't swear at me.", and explained my experiences with maxtor. Interestingly they told me that they ' receive more Maxtor returns than any other hard drive manufacturer. However, Maxtor are the best seller.'

I am not surprised by this. Maxtor, in my experince, are a temperamental animal, quite similar to an 80's Conservative politician. Prone to corruption, a failure in office and they get right up your nose.

I swear by Western Digital who have never let me down, have a 3 year warranty and they look far sexier.

No Microsoft security bulletins Planned for March

Microsoft is not planning to release any security bulletins for the month of March. This means that "Patch Tuesday" (2nd Tuesday in the month when security bulletins are released) will be alot slower or non existent.

There were 12 security bulletins in February, so I can only guess that most of the department went on holiday for some well earnt rest. Or there were no significant security risks identified?