The Sikh Geek

Dave has very kindly written an article for the UK Section of the SBSC PALs site. The Group is still looking for members and it’s never been a better time to join especially during this difficult economic time. I am pleased to say that Ardent Isys is joining the HTG UK Group. This is in no small part due to the fact that Dave Sobel is moderating the Group.

I’m sure everyone has been viewing with horror and sadness the terrorist attacks that have taken place in Mumbai. I was there the night the events started unfolding and was in my hotel room when the news channels started reporting what was happening in South Mumbai at various locations. I was some distance away from the attacks in a small hotel next to our offices in Goregaon East (about 20 mins from the International Airport). As the horrific events were coming in on the news, I phoned our Operations Director, Amit, who had gone towards that area to meet up with his brother Ashish (my business partner) and a UK Client we had visiting his team at our offices. Luckily Amit had not made it to the area due to the roads being blocked and having to turn back and Ashish had made it back safely as well. I phoned my wife to tell her that I was okay at about midnight and went to bed. At about 2.30am I was woken by a knock at my hotel room and was confronted by armed police officers with the hotel manager. The police had their handguns in their hands by their side. They questioned me for some minutes, checked my passport and got me to empty my luggage and searched my room. They were not aggressive but just firm and efficient and apologised as they left. I was okay with this as I knew it was as a result of what was happening that night. In the morning Amit and Ashish came to pick me up to go to the Airport to catch our scheduled flight back to London. There were no delays at the Airport, no panic, no chaos or confusion but obviously heightened security and full flight due to people wanting to leave. Many of our staff did not arrive at work that morning but that was understandable as many come in via train and we were happy that they should not put themselves under any undue risk. Life generally in Mumbai was going on as usual and despite reports I saw on the news the City was not paralysed.

Many people have died and many more are injured and therefore my thoughts turn to them first and foremost. Most of the dead are Indian citizens and reports have been in the UK Press as to how the staff of the Taj Hotel had saved the hotel guests whilst losing their own life. The Indian Armed forces, Police and Emergency services showed great bravery and the Chief of the Anti-terrorist unit in Mumbai lost his life amongst other senior police officers.

Thanks to all those that were concerned for me, I really appreciate your thoughts. It’s great to be connected with so many caring and thoughtful people around the world.

Mumbai and India has suffered terrorist attacks before and probably will do so again but India’s resolve and desire to fulfil its destiny will never be destroyed. It is taking its rightful place at the top table of nations and there is no reversal of this no matter how many people denigrate Indian workers and their capabilities. The last two weeks that I have been in India, I have felt extremely proud to be a person of Indian Origin.

There is a famous quote which is often read out during the Remembrance Day Celebrations and written on many war memorials through out the world which is :

When you go home
Tell them of us, and say,
For their tomorrow
We gave our today

However, few know what the origins of this quote is. It is written on the Kohima Epitaph which commemorates the Allied deaths during World War II who repulsed the Japanese Army from invading India, which was then a part of the British Empire. This was the largest defeat the Japanese suffered on land.

Mark Tully’s account of the Indian Army from the BBC’s From Our Own Correspondent recalls how this for many years was called the "forgotten army".

Today is Armistice Day, 11th November which on this day on the 11th day of the 11th hour in 1918 the end of World War I came about. I mention this because to understand human suffering on the scale that was seen in the World Wars and the Wars that are current today is to feel the very thing that makes us human. To understand man’s inhumanity to man is something we should all try and comprehend and forever be asking "Why?".

I went to the Gurudwara this Sunday with my family as we do some time and there were slideshows of the Sikh Soldiers who had fought in World War I in Europe, almost 85,000 Sikhs losing their lives during the two World Wars. The Secretary of the Gurudwara said that in today’s Remembrance Sunday ceremonies in London at the Cenotaph there would be no recognition of that contribution and he was right.

The Allied Army which fought the Japanese at the Battle of Kohima had a large contingent of Sikhs and one of them Gian Singh won a Victoria Cross for his bravery. So, next time you see a Sikh with a Turban remember that their ancestors fought and died with their Turbans on fighting for this country and freedom.

Francis Yeats-Brown said of the Sikhs :

I have never met a despondent Sikh in the front line. In a hospital in the rear he will moan dreadfully over a small wound, but in a fight he will go on to his last breath, and die laughing at the thought of Paradise, with the battle-cry of Khalsa ji ki jai as he falls.

On the Burma Star website under the Indian Forces the Sikh Regiment list reads (6 of the 12 are Sikh Regiments whilst Sikhs only make up 2% of the population) :

• 1st Punjab Regiment
• 2nd Punjab Regiment
• 6th Punjab Regiment
• 14th Punjab Regiment
• 16th Punjab Regiment
• 3/11 Sikh Regiment

I was listening to the ITV News last night and they interviewed the last 3 surviving UK men to have fought in World War I, now well in their 100s. One of them said don’t forget the Germans because they lost many people as well.

As these World Wars pass out of living memory what will you do to Remember?

I’ve been running SBS 2008 for many months now from the Beta programme and over the weekend I installed the RTM version of SBS 2008. There is no in place upgrade from Beta versions to the RTM version, so it meant a reinstall. The first thing to say about the installation is how easy it is and how much quicker it is compared to SBS 2003. I am a big fan of the easiness of SBS 2008 and I know that might make me a bad consultant to some who think it’s been made too easy. I like the wizard driven approach and that’s been refined in SBS 2008 from 2003 just enough to make things easier to access, such as surfacing the Smarthost option (for sending outbound emails) rather than having to dig into the depths of the SMTP Virtual Server to do it.  The SBS Self-signed Certificate is conveniently placed on the Sharepoint Company Web and I was able to download it and install it on my Windows Smartphone (I have previously done this with the Orange E650 and HP iPaq Voice Messenger with a problem). The only slight problem I had was setting up the Internet Connection which failed and was told to go to Fix Network, which I did and it did fix it by installing IPv6. I could then rerun the Internet wizard and Exchange was configured and ready to go. I let SBS 2008 install Forefront and Live One Care for Server which came on a limited time trial basis and they’ve obviously tuned Forefront to be slightly less aggressive on the filtering as in the Beta it was rejecting left, right and centre. I really like the "Network Essentials Summary" on the SBS Console Homepage which gives a quick overview of the state of the server and in Network -> Computers you see the state of the client computers as well.

In terms of resource usage the early indications are that memory usage is up from SBS 2003 and with 4 GB on my machine, it is using 97% of that. Therefore, the 4 GB recommendation is only really a minimum you should have and more likely 8 GB would be a working average in my opinion.

Whilst the installation is a breeze, there’s lots to learn such as Exchange Server 2007, Server 2008, WSS 3.0, Forefront (if you decide to use it although I’m not sure what other options are available for SBS 2008?).

The SBS Team have done a great job on this and I don’t think they are given enough credit. Remember that is one of the products from Microsoft that is completely 64 bit! Anyone who writes software knows that integrating various different products from different product teams is not an easy task.

I’m still learning but I’m enjoying learning about SBS 2008! Next step is Virtualisation …

I forgot to add that I’ve had 2 BSODs (Blue Screen of Death) related to nvstor which is the driver Microsoft uses to manage storage for the NVidia nForce SATA Controller. From my searching around some other people have reported this but with Vista. I am currently running SBS 2008 on a Dell Dimension C521 which is actually a desktop machine until I virtualise SBS 2008 and put onto proper server hardware (once I’ve worked out how to do a Physical to Virtual Conversion of SBS 2008?). However, I have noticed my test server which is a HP ML115 uses the NVidia chipset as well! The Beta2 version of SBS 2008 was rock solid, it never crashed once in the 6 months I was running it.

I’ve been seeing "reset to /device/raid0" in the event log but there is no Raid on the machine??

Jonathan Schwartz, the Sun Microsystems CEO, has not been slow to latch onto the Obama victory in the US Elections. The link is that The Obama Website was running on MySQL which of course is now owned by Sun!

If you take a look at the Write Software, Change Washington Page on the Obama Website then you can see the call to action for LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP)developers.

Looks like Microsoft had better get its lobbying engine revved up in Washington!

During this year’s WPC in Houston there was much discussion about how the PALs should communicate publicly. To cut a long story short the PALs have created a Sharepoint site http://www.sbscpal.com which has been very kindly provided by Jose Morales (one of the European PALs based in Slovenia). It’s a WSS 3.0 site which Jose and his team at B4 Contact have built a CMS around called Sharepoint CMS. This allows the public facing site to be branded and have some great templates added. The content is easily managed via an intuitive web based interface. It has been created by the PALs and paid for by the PALs but with the full support of Microsoft. It is independent of Microsoft so they do not control the content, we do as a Community!

The site is split into the PAL regions of the World and on the frontpage you can click on the respective country flag to go into that public area. The UK region can be found here and is maintained by myself.

The reason for writing this post is to start to encourage people to contribute to this site via me if you are a UK SBSC Partner. The content is open to what you think would be valuable but here are some of my thoughts :-

• Blog roll links to SBSC UK Partners (if you have an active blog let me know!)
• Contact details of Current SBSC Groups
• Upcoming Events
• Partner Interviews (let me know if I could interview you about business/technical stuff?)
• Business/Technical Articles (would you be willing to write an article for the site?)
• Customer Case Studies (do you have an existing Microsoft Published Case study which could be highlighted or one of your own stories?)
• Links to other existing resources

Now, I know you UK SBSC Partners can be a shy retiring bunch sometimes so I’m not expecting a sudden stampede to contribute so I’ll be reaching out to certain people in the coming weeks to seek contributions by calling in favours, begging and bribery:-) We have commitments from Microsoft to provide contributions so this is a serious thing we are doing. We want to make this site unique and not just be duplicating content. This can be a great Showcase/PR vehicle for you as a UK Partner because it will be seen at the highest levels of Microsoft not just in the UK but also at Microsoft Corporate level. I’m pretty sure Andrea Russell in Redmond will make certain that people within Microsoft see what we are doing as a Community.

So, contact me at vijay@sikhgeek.com or Mob: 07773 123 562

I had to read Emily’s post twice! An article about SBS 2008 in The Guardian?? Really??

Interesting article by Kate Bevan who is a technology journalist and was writing about setting up SBS 2008.

She writes a blog at http://stuffandthoughts.wordpress.com which has some posts on SBS 2008. She’s also on Twitter so I’ll see if I can connect with her on there!

Nice highlight by Emily

P.S. Why not consider Digging the article at http://digg.com/software/Servers_with_a_smile

I’m just watching the second PDC 2008 keynote and Steven Sinofsky is talking about and demoing Windows 7. He’s highlighted the E7 Blog which is the engineering blog giving a behind the scenes look at Windows 7. It’s developer focused and very geeky!

You’re invited to attend the worldwide launch event for Windows Essential Server Solutions, which includes Windows Essential Business Server (EBS) 2008.

Please join us for the Windows Essential Server Solutions Virtual Launch Event, held November 12^th, 2008, at 8-9 a.m. Pacific Standard Time at http://www.thedreamserver.com.

Microsoft and its partners are launching Windows Essential Server Solutions, a new family of integrated server solutions that address the unique needs of small and midsize businesses (SMBs). During times of stationary or shrinking budgets and economic uncertainty, minimizing the redundancies and optimizing parts in your IT infrastructure can help control costs and raise productivity. With the unique challenges firms face upgrading and maintaining their IT infrastructure, smart organizations are re-evaluating their plans and expenditures and investing wisely.

This live, one-day, virtual tradeshow is to launch Windows Essential Server Solutions, which includes Windows Small Business Server 2008 and Windows Essential Business Server 2008. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and other Microsoft executives will introduce these new products and will be joined by Mark Minasi, an independent expert and best-selling author.

Webcasts:

In addition to the main launch keynote, there will be both business and technical sessions that will address concerns and questions that decision makers have in today’s tough economy.

1. Opening Keynote / Launch Webcast – Presenters: Steve Ballmer, Steve Guggenheimer, Michael Risse, Steven VanRoekel

2. Mark Minasi Session: 7 Tips that IT can use During the Economic Downturn, Includes interview with Chris Phillips

3. Turn Your IT Infrastructure into a Strategic Business Asset – Customer and Partner Perspective, Presenters: Michael Cocanower, CEO of itSynergy, and Steve Porter, CIO of Touchstone Behavioral Health

4. Windows Essential Business Server - A Real-World Customer Perspective, Featuring Sumeeth Evans, IT Director of Collegiate Housing Services

Channel Partners are invited to take part in a special session to find out what opportunities Windows Essential Server Solutions provides for their practice

5. Windows Essential Server Solutions for Channel Partners - Hear directly from  two Microsoft partners, Richard Opal, and Lyf Wildenberg, who are making deep investments in Windows Essential Server Solutions,

Exhibit Hall

Visit the exhibit hall and discover how integrated hardware and software solutions provide enterprise-class infrastructure without the complexity or cost. Learn how affordable blade servers can help make the goal of an infrastructure- in-a-box a reality. And find out how software for backup, security, line-of-business (LOB), and management work together seamlessly to help ensure SMBs are more secure and productive.

14 Booths:  You will be able to get information and interact with representatives from:

• AMD
• CA
• Citrix Systems
• Dell
• HP
• IBM
• Intel
• Lenovo
• SUN Microsystems, Inc.
• Symantec
• Trend Micro
• Microsoft Windows Mobile
• Microsoft Windows Essential Server Solutions
• Microsoft Dynamics

So what I started to hear at Remix UK and at the recent Steve Ballmer S+S London event was officially announced by Ray Ozzie at PDC 2008 in LA, Microsoft’s new Cloud OS called ‘Azure’.

You can checkout the keynotes here.

Tim Long has a good post on this and also Steve Clayton.

The Azure Site and the PDC Site.

Rory Cellan-Jones, BBC News Technology Correspondent reports from PDC.

So, if you thought things weren’t changing here is the proof of Microsoft’s new strategy.

Look out for more new announcements at PDC!