The international SMB MVP Tour / Roadshow / Geekfest comes to Louisville, Kentucky next week. There’s even a video about it!

LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY

Date: Thursday January 19, 2012, 12:30 PM – 4:30 PM Eastern
Free lunch is provided by Penn Station.

THERE ARE STILL SEATS AVAILABLE!

Louisville registration URL for this FREE event:
http://mvptour2011.sbsmigration.com/event_selector.php?event_id=205

The presenters for Louisville are:

• Kevin Royalty [SBS-MVP]
• Tim Barrett [SBS-MVP]

The Tour will also be in Ohio a few days earlier…

COLUMBUS, OHIO

Date: Monday January 16, 2012, 9AM – 1PM Eastern

Columbus registration URL:
http://mvptour2011.sbsmigration.com/event_selector.php?event_id=208

See you there!

An international tour for SMB IT Pros is about to start rolling, and the first stop on the tour is in Cincinnati, Ohio next week.

Title: SMB MVP Community Roadshow Sponsored by HP and Microsoft
Date: Wednesday June 1, 2011
Time: 6:00 PM – 9:00 PM Eastern
Venue: Cincinnati State – Evendale
Address: 10110 Reading Rd, Cincinnati, OH 45241
Cost: FREE

Registration URL for Cincinnati: http://cinpa201106.eventbrite.com/

Topics:

• SBS 2011 Standard
• SBS 2011 Essentials
• Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 Essentials
• Windows MultiPoint Server 2011

Some of the MVPs presenting / attending:

• Amy Babinchak
• Jeff Middleton
• Kevin Royalty
• Tim Barrett
• Possibly more!

This is the first stop on a HUGE tour that will be hitting locations in the USA, Canada, Europe and down under in Australia! The tour will be coming to Louisville as well – more news on that date and time soon.

The Cincinnati Networking Professionals (CiNPA) SBS SIG is hosting a Windows Small Business Server 2011 LoadFest, and since our regular KYSBSUG event was canceled due to bad weather, we’re crashing the party!

Note: Even if you can’t attend in person, you can watch the LIVE streaming webcast. Scroll down to the bottom for info on the webcast.

In-person Event Details
Title: Small Business Server 2011 LoadFest
Date: Saturday January 29, 2011
Time: 9:00 AM – 6:00 PM Eastern
Venue: Hamilton County Community Mental Health and Recovery Services Board
Address: 2350 Auburn Avenue, Cincinnati, OH 45219
Cost: FREE, but registration is required
Map: Click here
Registration: REGISTER TODAY 

What to bring:

• A server (physical or virtual)
• dual or quad core processor
• 8GB RAM minimum
• 250gb drive (or a pre-prepared equivalent virtual environment)
• Monitor
• Power cords
• Power strip
• Keyboard
• Mouse
• Small network switch with CAT5 cable
• A copy of SBS 2011 Standard from the Microsoft Action Pack, TechNet MSDN, Volume Licensing, or the SBS 2011 Trial (available here).

Note: This is a 6+ GB download, so it’s best put it on a flash drive and not a dual layer DVD. Details for creating a bootable SBS 2011 flash drive are on the blog in a previous post.

Also bring your laptop for taking LOTS of notes.

Matt Hester from Microsoft is attending, and is going to pick up some of the food costs.

Streaming Webcast Details
Time: Sat Jan 29, 2011 9AM – 6PM Eastern
URL: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/kysbsug
Location: Your personal computer

Note: The remote streaming will happen in 2 parts (9AM – 1PM & 1PM – 6PM). We’ll try to answer questions via the Q&A as time allows. But please keep in mind that on-site attendees will get the primary focus and support, since this is a hands-on event. The streaming is a courtesy (not a remote lab)

I got an email this morning from the Microsoft MVP program, and it looks like I’ll be on the SBS MVP roster for another year.

This is the fourth year I’ve received the MVP award, which is really cool.

Congrats to all the folks awarded today. Once again, I feel like the least qualified person in the room. I always look to Despair.com to provide some humbling reminders to help me keep things in perspective. (A couple of really good ones spring to mind.)

INDIVIDUALITY

CONSISTENCY

And lastly, one I think about when writing my cartoon…
 
INEPTITUDE

You can view the whole collection of demotivational posters here. They’re really cool!

This should be an interesting year.

One sunny day while mowing the yard with the old John Deere I thought, “How cool would it be if I could mount a Small Business Server on this lawn tractor?"

The answer (as you already know) is “not very cool”. Nobody wants to see a lawn mower running Exchange and SharePoint.

Obviously, I need to drink more fluids when mowing the yard in the hot sun, but that’s neither here nor there. The proverbial wheels were turning, and I started brainstorming for something much faster and infinitely cooler than a green and yellow tractor…

Enter Matthew Snoddy – Microsoft Small Business Specialist and owner of Network Therapists in Lexington, Kentucky.

a.k.a. “The Stig” (nobody knows for sure)

Not only is Matthew a fantastic network engineer and wheelman, he’s got some beautiful muscle cars,
like this supercharged 2008 SRT8 Dodge Challenger:

 
A Challenger is much cooler than a John Deere, but it gets even better!

Recently, Matthew expanded his stable with the addition of a rare (one of only 20 ever made) 2010 Dodge Viper SRT10 ACR convertible. A street-legal race car.

(More pics of Matthew Snoddy’s Viper ACR here)

VIPER SRT10 ACR SPECS – BONE STOCK

• 8.4-liter aluminum V10 engine
• 600 horsepower
• 560 lb. ft. of torque
• 0-60 in 3.4 seconds
• Top speed 184 MPH (202 MPH w/o the rear wing, but you’ll die)

If you’re a gearhead, you know all about the ACR. Matthew’s red ACR is a convertible model of the car that broke the Nürburgring track record.

 
This video of a white hardtop ACR on the twisting Virginia City Hill Climb
(Nevada State Route 341) is pretty terrifying.

 
Suffice it to say, the word ‘awesome’ does not even begin to describe this car.

So one night Matthew and I discussed the viability of mounting a Microsoft Windows Small Business Server in the Viper, and “Project Daffy” was born.

“Why a goofy name like Project Daffy” you say? Check out what happens when you invert the Viper ACR logo:

Can you see Daffy Duck on the right? Thought so.

We took some measurements of the ACR and (shocker) it’s not really designed to hold a standard server like an HP ProLiant ML370 G6, or even a smaller one like the HP ML110 or ML150.

The trunk is so small, there’s not even a spare tire – just an air pump (left).

Enter Greg Starks – SMB Solutions Program Manager at Hewlett-Packard. Greg has been with HP and Compaq for over 20 years, has presented at over 10 SMB Nation events, and he really knows his stuff.

a.k.a. “Mr. Awesome” (of that we *are* sure)

We needed something that had enough horsepower to run a server OS, but not so big that it wouldn’t fit in the Viper. With limited space, heat and power requirements, it was a tall order. Greg hooked up Project Daffy with the brand new HP ProLiant MicroServer and got it to us in time to make it to the racetrack!

HP MICROSERVER SPECS:

• AMD Athlon II NEO N36L processor 1.3 GHz
• Supports up to 8 GB PC3 DDR3 RAM
• Embedded NC107i PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Server Adapter
• OCZ Vertex 2 200GB solid state SATA II drive*
• Cold boot to SBS 2011 login – 2 minutes 45 seconds
• Shut down – 14 seconds
• Operating System – Windows Small Business Server 2011 Standard

*We took out the stock 160 GB LFF SATA drive and used the SSD instead to mitigate vibration from the car. (The SSD isn’t a factory option.)

The HP MicroServer is physically small enough (10.5" x 8.3" x 10.2") to fit perfectly in the Viper trunk with room to spare. The MicroServer doesn’t come with a DVD drive, so we took an ISO of SBS 2011 Standard Edition and made a bootable flash drive and installed SBS 2011 that way – no problem.

After the OS installation, we did some testing with the UPS to estimate battery life (about 55 minutes). SBS 2011 runs on that SSD like a scalded dog!

The next step was powering it and mounting it in the car.

ADDITIONAL EQUIPMENT:

• APC Smart-UPS 1500VA battery backup
• Buffalo WHR-HP-G300N 802.11b/g/n wireless router with DD-WRT
• TP-LINK TL-WN722N USB wireless n adapter w/ SMA connector
• External 6” 2.4 GHz omni-directional magnetic mount antenna
• 2.4 GHz Yagi 20 dBi WiFi antenna w/ SMA connector
• Acer Aspire One ZG5 netbook (Windows 7)
• “The Boom” – inverted DirecTV dish mounting hardware for Yagi mast
• “The Surfboard” – various mounting hardware from Home Depot

Due to the irregular shape of the Viper trunk, we used a spare piece of cardboard as a template to map out the shape, and then transferred that outline onto a plank of 3/4” plywood (“The Surfboard”). After some lengthy trial and error moving things around, appropriate measurements were laid out to make sure that there was sufficient room for the equipment, padding, cabling, and tie-down equipment.

HEADING TO THE TRACK:

It’s a pretty long drive from Louisville out to the Mt. Park Dragway in Clay City, Kentucky (about 120 miles). When we got there it was so cold out that the grass in the shadows was still frosted even though the sun had been up for a few hours. Sadly, that morning one of Matthew’s friends lost control of his Corvette on the track and put it into the wall! Fortunately he’s OK, but the same can’t be said for the Vette. Even with safety equipment, racing is still a dangerous occupation.

Mounting the server and network equipment in the Viper trunk went surprisingly smooth. All of the planning and measuring paid off and it fit like a glove. We powered up the server and the router and ran some connectivity tests while Matthew drove around the track. As long as we kept the Yagi antenna (attached to the netbook in our makeshift pits) pointed at the Viper, we never lost a single ping. That’s pretty impressive considering that the antenna was INSIDE the trunk. The car body is fiberglass (except for the carbon fiber rear spoiler) so there was nothing externally on which to stick the antenna.

Side note: One of the coolest parts of the whole project was seeing the looks when people walked around to the back of the car to see what was in the trunk.

The phrase of the day was, “You put a *server* in a Viper!?”

Everybody thought it was cool! So did we. My face hurts from grinning.

Using the netbook back at the pits, we logged into the HP MicroServer via RDP and ran System Information for Windows (SIW) to keep an eye on the internal temperature of the CPU and SSD drive with the trunk closed. Since it was such cool day, all the temps stayed nice and chilly in the server. In fact, the only moving parts in the entire trunk were one cooling fan in the server and another one in the UPS. The rig doesn’t build up much heat anyway.

By design, the Viper ACR doesn’t have electronic traction control. On a cold day with cold tires, the lack of traction control meant that Matthew couldn’t safely punch the pedal to the floor without risking having the Viper suffer the same fate as the Vette. We know what the car can do in warmer weather, so there’s no doubt that that we truly have The World’s Fastest Small Business Server on our hands.

PICTURES OF THE COMPLETED PROJECT:

A view of the Viper SRT10 ACR 8.4 liter 10-cylinder engine.	The blue tape keeps hot tire rubber from sticking to the paint.
Left – HP ProLiant MicroServer Right – APC Smart-UPS	Behold! The World’s Fastest Small Business Server.
Close-up – You can see Buffalo wireless B/G/N router in the front and the “Surfboard” underneath. The APC and all other equipment is mounted rock solid and can’t move even 1/4”.	This is what happens when you burn too much rubber – they have to literally scrape it off the track! I think they’ve been saving this for a while at the track, but I’m not sure how long.

If you’ve got questions about the project, please feel free to post them in the comments below.

PICTURES – You can see the rest of the pictures on Flickr (test fit before tie-down and different views of the car, etc.)

VIDEO – Matt Hester (IT Pro Evangelist for Microsoft) shot some video of Project Daffy today, so you may see it on his blog soon. If he does, we’ll link to it here.

THANKS – Super-special thanks go to Matthew Snoddy (Network Therapists) and Greg Starks (Hewlett-Packard) for making this dream a reality. Props to Andrew McIntosh too for the UPS, and to Lauren for assistance in the pits.
You guys absolutely rock!!

Trend Micro is coming back to Cincinnati, Ohio again for some FREE training on the new Worry Free v7:

Event: Cincinnati SBS SIG – Trend Micro Live Training
Date: Saturday August 21, 2010
Time: 9:00 AM – 4:00 PM EDT
Venue: Max Technical Training
4900 Parkway Drive, #160
Mason, OH 45040
Map to venue: Click here
Registration URL: http://www.zoomerang.com/Survey/WEB22AY73GFTUS

This is an all-day event, and lunch will be provided courtesy of Trend.

Seating is limited so REGISTER TODAY!

WEBSITE CONSTRUCTION COMPLETE
Tonight the blog was successfully upgraded from WordPress 2.2 to WordPress 3.0. All of the plug-ins got disabled, then the site was upgraded, and only about 25% of the plug-ins got turned back on. (Fewer plug-ins mean faster page load times.) The hope is that the blog will be faster, easier to manage, and still maintain the same overall look and feel.

Here is a list of the 3 major new features on the blog.

NEW – Voting Feedback

The blog has always allowed registered members to sign in and post comments. But a new feature that got added today is a quick 1-5 star rating system for each blog post.

The goal is to provide a quick and easy way (one button-click with no login required) for readers to provide feedback. Here’s how it works:

All new posts start with a default rating of 3 stars like this…

With 1 mouse click you can vote posts as low as 1 star or as high 5 stars:

	1 – Needs Work
	2 – Below Average
	3 – Average
	4 – Very Good
	5 – Excellent

If folks indicate what they do and don’t like (eBooks, meetings, webcasts, comics, downloads) by voting on the posts, that’ll be helpful feedback about what content you want to see more of on the site. All voting is completely anonymous.

As always, logging in and posting comments or questions the traditional way is still welcome. If you login and post a comment, I get an e-mail right away with your response.

NEW – Twitter Integration

Another feature that got added is Tweetmeme.  This is a new button in the top-right corner of each blog post that makes easy to Tweet a blog post that interests you.

Once you click on the green “retweet” button, Tweetmeme will ask you to login to Twitter and will pre-populate a Twitter post with a shortened URL. You can edit the post, then hit “Tweet”.

I’m not sure if this feature will stay or not, but I wanted to try it out.

NEW – Mobile Phone Support

There’s another plug-in for mobile web browsers that is supposed to make the site easier to read on iPhones and such. If anyone has an iPhone, check the site out and let me know if it looks OK. That plug-in is called WordPress PDA & iPhone.

Where to Download these WordPress Plug-ins

In case you’re running WordPresss for your website and are interested in installing similar features on your site:

• GD Star Rating – Looks awesome but is not working with WordPress 3.0*
• Vote-the-Post – Not as pretty but works out of the box.
• Tweetmeme – Could be cool, could be annoying. We’ll see.
• WordPress PDA & iPhone – For you peeps on the go.

*Note: If GD Star Rating gets an update soon, I’ll definitely switch to that, but Vote-the-Post should be fine for now.

All plug-ins listed above are free downloads.

KYSBSUG June 2010 Meeting #76 – What’s New in Office 2010
Presenter: Tim Barrett
Date: Wednesday June 23, 2010
Time: 6:30 PM – 8:30 PM Eastern
Venue: Money Concepts
Address: 323 Townepark Circle, Louisville, KY 40243
Map: Click here

IMPORTANT: Due to a scheduling conflict, we’re meeting on the 4th Wednesday this month, not the typical 3rd Wednesday.

Description:
Office 2010 is currently available through volume licensing, and it’ll be in the big box stores mid-June. Have you used Office 2010, and are you ready to talk to customers about what’s new? Join us and take a tour of the new features that’ll help businesses work faster and smarter, and leave with resources to answer client and employee questions about Office 2010.

Doorprizes:

• Drawing for a boxed copy of Office Professional 2010 (NFR)
• Drawing for a copy of Matt Hester’s book
  “Windows Server 2007 R2 Administration Instant Reference”

Registration URL:
Due to limited seating, registration *is* required.
Click here to register today!

…for Susan. For real details on being an MVP, check out Wayne’s post here: http://www.sbsfaq.com/?p=1823 

It’s a great article, and Jeff’s comment on that page is a real thinker as well. Fantastic stuff!

Time to answer some questions for the HURY mailbag:

Q. I don’t understand most of your comics??
A. That’s not a question, but thanks for playing.

Q. Your comics are not very funny.
A. True.

Q. How long will you keep making the comics?
A. Until I get bored, rich, sued or abducted by aliens.

Q. Why don’t the computers have faces?
A. Does your computer have a face?

Q. Will the characters ever have faces?
A. Yep.

Q. Do the characters have names? How many are there?
A. Lots. There are actually 18 characters, each complete with a bio and a back-story, but only a couple have been published so far:

• Dale – The Small Business Server (First shown in #001)
• Darwin – The cell phone (001)
• Mack – Dale’s best friend (002)
• Mallory – Laptop (006)
• Mitchell – Old school desktop PC (006)

Q. When do the comics come out?
A. Each Wednesday.

Q. Why are your comics numbered with 3 digits?
A. Because Windows Explorer sorts 001-100 properly but not 1-100 in file names. So I named them like that. Plus, 007 is much cooler than 7.

Q. What do you use to make the comics?
A. Microsoft Office Visio Premium 2010. Under construction it looks like this:

Q. Why don’t you draw the comics by hand?
A. For several reasons:

1. I’m lazy.
2. This is a hobby, not a day job.
3. Visio is fun.
4. When I draw with MS Paintbrush they tend to look like this…

   

   …which usually frightens little children.

5. But mostly, I’m lazy.

Thanks for the great questions, and thanks for checking out the blog.