That’s right, even though you hemmed and hawed it is still not too late. Seems Harry did battle with the calendar and lost, so you win. The deadline for early bird registrations has been extended until end of day 9/8/2008

Don’t let it slip by again! Here is the BROCHURE

Here is the link to REGISTER before it is really too late.

If you missed the live meeting traing series for SBS 2008 you can watch the recorded versions.

Here is a list, have patience it takes forever once you click one of these links until you get to the actual recording, but it is well worth the wait. Once they start they are fine and you will learn a lot.

HaNote: when you get to wespal05 which is actually part 4 use the low res version, the hi res verion is missing the slides, the rest of them play fine in ri res.

Session 1 - https://training.partner.microsoft.com/plc/details.aspx?systemid=1821820&page=/plc/search_adv.aspx

Session 2 - https://training.partner.microsoft.com/plc/details.aspx?systemid=1821957&page=/plc/search_adv.aspx

Session 3 - https://training.partner.microsoft.com/plc/details.aspx?systemid=1822160&page=/plc/search_adv.aspx

Session 4 - https://training.partner.microsoft.com/plc/details.aspx?systemid=1822161&page=/plc/search_adv.aspx

Session 5 - https://training.partner.microsoft.com/plc/details.aspx?systemid=1822162&page=/plc/search_adv.aspx

Session 6 - https://training.partner.microsoft.com/plc/details.aspx?systemid=1822163&page=/plc/search_adv.aspx

Session 7 - https://training.partner.microsoft.com/plc/details.aspx?systemid=1822164&page=/plc/search_adv.aspx

The last part of the series has been postponed until Sept 10th here is the link to register
https://training.partner.microsoft.com/plc/details.aspx?publisher=12&delivery=249912

PRESS RELEASE

SMB Nation 2008 Fall Conference to Hold Launch Party: Small Business Server 2008 and Essential Business Server 2008.

MarketPlace Expo SOLD OUT!

Seattle, WA – August 22, 2008 - Boasting a completely sold out tradeshow hall and host hotel, SMB Nation 2008 will hold a Small Business Server 2008 (SBS) and Essential Business Server (EBS) LAUNCH PARTY on the Saturday night of its October 4-6, 2008 annual conference in Seattle. A 58’ Hatteras yacht will be christened the M.V. SBS 2008 on the pier at the party.

“With the SBS 2008 release-to-manufacturing (RTM) yesterday, we are thrilled to be timed perfectly for the SBS 2008 and EBS 2008 products debut and look forward to toasting its great success,” said Harry Brelsford, founder and CEO of the 20,000 member SMB Nation. “Our conference is uniquely positioned to motivate and educate the small and medium business (SMB) technology consultant, channel partner and computer guy and gal!”

SMB Nation 2008 appears to be outperforming similar technology events with the complete sellout of the MarketPlace Expo tradeshow hall and with attendance figures ahead of last year. “We believe the 600+ attendees will be treated to a unique educational experience and BE THERE for the start for the next generation of SBS and the first release of EBS!” Brelsford added. Over three busy days and nights, attendees will select from three (3) academic tracks including BusinessSpeak, GeekSpeak and “How To” that provide bona fide content without “being sold to.” SMB Nation 2008 has even added a “Speakers Behaving Badly” hotline where attendees can report any speaker from the 40+ content sessions that make commercial statements to insure the most pure attendee experience possible. “We want to avoid the wolf in sheep clothing phenomena,” emphasized Brelsford.

Sponsors and attendees will meet in the spacious Bell Harbor Conference Center. “At a time when similar technology shows are behind plan, we are ahead of plan” said Brelsford. “We believe this underscores the strength of the SMB segment and the optimism our sponsors have about the SBS 2008 and EBS 2008 opportunity.” Intel and Trend Micro are the platinum sponsors leading the event followed by HP and Microsoft. Gold sponsors include Autotask, CMIT  Solutions, Aastra, SonicWall and Labtech. Silver sponsors include D&H, The Planet, Connectwise, Citrix, N-able, Reflexion, Tigerpaw Software, Nero, 19Marketplace, Symantec, StorageCraft, Acronis, Calyptix, MaxSP, Doyenz, EMC Retrospect, Quanta\Syspine, Zenith Infotech, Linked In, Backup Assist,  CRU DataPort and WatchGuard. Bronze sponsors include Netgear, Untangle, CTL Computers, Level Platforms (LPI), MSP Partners, Linksys by Cisco, Comcast, Diskeeper, Expetec, New Global Telecom (NGT), Pronto Marketing, eFolder, CoreConnex, Highly Reliable Systems, SMB Books & Results Software, Technology Marketing Toolkit, Napera Networks, Independent Computer Consultants Association (ICCA) and Integrated mar.com. 

Attendees can expect a high-quality conference with content that has been rigorously scrutinized by esteemed industry conference chairs (Dana Epp, Mikael Nystrom, Curt Hicks and Joe Moore). That has resulted in outstanding speaker selections such as Jeff Middleton, Susan Bradley, Ramon Ray and Amy Babinchak and popular topics such as How to Sell Your SBS\SMB Consulting Practice and Security in SBS 2008.

“So the last question is this. Where will you be October 4-6, 2008?” concluded Brelsford. Attendees can learn more and register at www.smbnation.com.

About SMB Nation

Founded ten years ago by Small Business Server author Harry Brelsford, Bainbridge Island, Washington-based SMB Nation supports small and medium business technology consultants to improve their business and technical skills with publications (books, SMB PC magazine) and events (SMB Nation conferences and workshops). SMB Nation boasts worldwide tribal membership in 30+ countries exceeding 20,000 consultants, resellers, VARs\VAPs and channel partners. Harry Brelsford is a Microsoft Small Business Specialist (SBSC) and holds an MBA from the University of Denver in addition to MCSE, MCT, MCP, CNE, CLSE and CNP certifications.

 Contact:
Harry Brelsford
CEO, SMB Nation
206-915-3072
harryb@smbnation.com
Harry Brelsford | CEO | SMB Nation, Inc. | www.smbnation.com

Please attend our SMB Nation 2008 fall conference, October 4-6, 2008
Read Harry’s SMB Dude Blog here
Download your copy of SMB PC magazine here

This morning I found this GREAT POST on the Diva’s Site. They say plagiarism is the sincerest form of flattery, so here it goes:

Let’s get out our pencils shall we?

Start with the price tag of SBS 2003.

Add to that the price tag of Windows 2003.

Add to that the price tag of ISA 2006

Add to that the price tag of Outlook 2007 licenses.

Add to that the price tag of SharePoint Designer.

Got all that in your head?

Okay so now think of the price tag of SBS 2008.  Got that?

So now if I told you that between now and October 31 that you can have your customers buy SBS 2003 + Software Assurance, spread the price tag over the next three years (and like who couldn’t like a spread of payments in this economy) and then when SBS 2008 hits the streets you get SBS 2008 plus all those bonus pieces of software I just listed.

There are times that Software Assurance is a very hard sell.  And then there are those times when it REALLY pencils out. 

One of the good things is that SBS 2008 RTM’d today.  It’s finally out.  One of the bad things is that SBS 2008 RTM’d today.  That means the clock is ticking on your ability to lock in this steal of a deal.

One of the best benefits of SBS 2008 is the ability to park whatever stupid line of business software you have (do check it’s supportability on Windows 2008).  Another advantage is that you can run that second server as a 32bit box in case you have funky printers that can’t support 64bit.

But bottom line, check out the attached slide deck.

http://msmvps.com/media/p/1645467.aspx (whoops forgot the link)

Software assurance makes sense, but only until October 31st.  Act now, before the window of opportunity passes you by.

Today the long awaited RTM (Release To Manufacture) of SBS 2008 formerly know as Cougar is a reality.

This marks a major milestone in SMB technology as we wave goodbye to 32 bit technology and welcome in the new world of mainstream 64 bit technology. Years of effort have gone in to building this long awaited upgrade to the almost 6 year old SBS 2003 product base.

This new release is going to make adoption of SBS so much easier for folks moving from P2P whether they are a DIYer or were smart enough to hire a pro from the get go. Either way I am betting the adoption rate for SBS doubles over the next 12 months even in the tight economy. This is by far the easiest OOBE (Out Of Box Experience) for SBS since its inception. A little harder of a sale to existing SBS 2003 customers since 2003 was such a great product, there is no ”I just have to have this today” but there are a lot of cool new things SBS 2008 not the least of which is the new image based backup. 

I want to publicly congratulate the entire SBS team on a job well done, SBS still Rocks!

My pal Kevin Weilbacher  SBS-MVP and famous for Song of the Week on the sbs2k yahoo list has just put together a little diddy for MS and Cougar, hop on over to KEVIN’s SITE and listen. A bit of a hint, download the words before you start listening, it is hard to make them out. For those of you who have been around a while some nice nostalgia in the video.

One of my favorite powershell guru’s Michael Pope (who also runs the Triangle SBS Group) posted this handy note. So of course I stole  borrowed it from him to share it with you.

As always use at you own risk, ymmv

I know some of you may still be wondering what good PowerShell is for. It’s relatively new and shiny but what can it do?

Someone on the Kaseya forums was asking how to script the update of a MULTI_SZ registry value because they wanted to push out an update related to this post http://blogs.technet.com/sbs/archive/2008/07/17/some-services-may-fail-to-start-or-may-not-work-properly-after-installing-ms08-037-951746-and-951748.aspx

This is something I had been meaning to script so I took some time last night and put it together. This is just an example of something that’s simple to do with PowerShell that is very difficult to do otherwise.

For those of you that are interested, save the following to an Update-ReservedPorts.ps1 script file in Notepad:

$NP=”1645-1646″,”1701-1701″,”1812-1813″,”2883-2883″,”4500-4500″

$P=”HKLM:\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters”

$RP=(Get-ItemProperty -Path $P -Name “ReservedPorts”).ReservedPorts

$RP=$RP+=$NPSet-ItemProperty -Path $P -Name “ReservedPorts” -Value $RP

RTP Computer Services, Inc.

105 West NC Highway 54

Suite 265

Durham, NC 27713

Phone: 919.806.8845
Fax: 800.853.3365
Email: michael AT rtpcomputer.com
Web: http://www.rtpcomputer.com/

Then, run it within PowerShell and you’re done. I tried scripting this with REG.EXE and it was very difficult because this is a MULTI_SZ registry value.

You may have seen my post earlier about the upcoming SBS Partner Tour, well if you are lucky enough to be in the Charlotte area, here is an added bonus;

Here is a note from Eric’s Blog that may explain your temporary problems.

Over the years, the various components of the Microsoft SMB Channel Community have continued to grow and expand to better address the needs and requests of those in the Community. These components I am referring to are our MSSMALLBIZ.com WebSite, our User Group, and our Blog.