Newly Awarded…Microsoft MVP: Windows Desktop Experience

Just wanted to share with my readers, I have been received the coveted Microsoft MVP award for my work with the community. I would like to personally thank my good friend Mitch Garvis for his help in receiving this award. I have always loved working with the IT community and feel humbled to be included in the same company as some of the brightest stars in the Microsoft community. I have spent a considerable amount of time reading books and articles, and attending classes and seminars with many of the other recipients of the award in the past and am looking forward to meeting them in person.

I take the honour of winning this award very serious and will be working hard to live up to the standards that the current award holders have set. I have always shared what I know and will endeavor to continue to do this in the future. I know it was my work with the community that made it possible to win this award and as such, I will continue to provide quality information and to bring the questions and concerns of the community to Microsoft and its employees!

Thank you for your support and the support of my blog. I am looking forward to 2009 and sharing my knowledge and experiences…all within the confines of Non-Disclosure Agreement(NDA) of course!

It Feels Like Déjà-XP All Over Again

I have been using Vista since launch and love it! I am MCTS: Windows Vista Client Configuration certified and have presented on Vista for WWITPRO. Before this, I have used every Windows OS since Windows 2.0, yes that includes Windows ME but I don't want to talk about that one! Vista and ME were the only versions of Windows I used since launch, in fact, I waited in line for a midnight release of ME...I am still in therapy over that one! Why is this important, simply this. I have used all of the excuses on upgrading to XP that I have heard others speak about Vista.

I did a Live search on XP comments and found a few choice quotations for you. "It feels ridiculously slow.", "You want to avoid installing Windows XP on a system more than a year old.", "Memory may be cheap, but for an OS to have to use that much RAM to work well, that's just terrible,". These are just a few of the comments that columnists of the day were writing. At the time, Windows XP represented an revolution rather than the minimal changes that occurred between Windows 95, Windows 98 and Windows 98 SE. And as mentioned, I have a gaping hole in my memory about Windows ME so I can't remember if it was similar to 98 of XP!

Computing power is increasing by leaps and bounds on a daily basis, the operating system is no different. If you have a computer that can't run Vista, then don't! Simple. Microsoft Vista was not designed to run on every computer ever manufactured. And frankly, neither was Apple's OS X. I have an old iMac with OS 8.6 to testify to that fact. I don't hear a big cry from the Apple community! The Apple community understands this, and continually exploits this as a weakness within the Windows community. The truth is, as with Windows XP, Vista should install on most computers that are less than a year old...sound familiar...if you were paying attention, you would have read that same thing was being said about Windows XP.

I was having a conversation with an IT professional after my Windows Vista presentation and he was upset over the lack of a driver for both his five year old scanner and his one year old Ink-Jet printer. I mentioned the fact that Microsoft does not write device drivers, which caused the professional to accuse me of coping out on the answer. Fine, I said, we'll tackle the Ink-Jet printer driver problem first. When Microsoft starts working on a new operating system, they provide education, SDKs and most importantly, time for the hardware vendors to make sure that their products will have drivers when a new operating system is released. If the printer company does not have a driver, It is not Microsoft's fault! As for the scanner, you again have to speak with your hardware vendor. They may or may not feel obligated to support the hardware but the same principles as with the Ink-Jet printer apply here. Windows Vista currently supports over 54000 pieces of hardware so it is obvious that there are some vendors out there that do support their customers.

You may or may not have legitimate reasons about upgrading to Windows Vista, that's fine but the secret if to find the fine line between what is best for your clients and users and the comments that first jump to mind with out much thought or research. There are plenty of exceptional changes to Windows Vista, most notable the improved Search capabilities and the User Account Control, both of which I will be posting about in the next week or so.

Technorati Tags: Vista,WWITPRO

The SMB Nation Conference...Community to the Extreme!

I spent this weekend at the SMB Nation Conference in Toronto and boy am I tired! I just spent two days completely immersed in all things IT Small Business! For those who don't know, The SMB Nation Conference is the baby of Harry Brelsford. Harry is one of the "Who's Who" of the Small Business Server community. I just wanted to say a personal thank you to Harry for bringing this event to Canada! Here's to many more years of successful Events, both in Canada and elsewhere!

I was very impressed with the quality of speakers, including Mitch Garvis, (who most of you know from his appearance at The WWITPRO Springboard Series:Vista), Calvin McLennan (who has spoken at WWITPRO on Small Business Server) and Rex Backman, Rex Backman is a member of the Microsoft Response Point team. (If you don't know what Response Point is look it up. I will be writing a post about it shortly, so stay tuned!) There were many other quality speakers, you can find all the information here! 

The real value here was the type of information that was conveyed! There was a session by Matt Makowicz on how to sell managed services that was worth the price of the conference alone! This type of session is not available anywhere else in this country, and certainly not at any of the free conferences that we all attend from time to time! There was a hands on lab for Response Point that flat out blew me away! I considered my admission price one of the smarted investments in my IT business I have made in a long time!

I must admit, for me, the best part was the sense of community that came from being in the same room with so many people with the similar interests for two days! Everyone was very approachable, from the other summit attendees, to the speakers, and especially Harry! I have a deep love for the IT community, from the Desktop level one tech support, to the Enterprise level Systems Administrator to the small business IT service provider and attending events like this provide a boost to my belief that the IT community in Canada is getting stronger every day!

Once again, thank you Harry for bring this event to us up here in the Frozen North!

Technorati Tags: SMB Nation,Small Business Server,Response Point