No, it’s not britney spears. It’s computer consulting.

Now let’s take a look at the same trend line with another search term superimposed:

What’s the second search term? No, it’s not amy winehouse. It’s cloud computing.

I’ve known for a while that the times they are a-changin’ but as they say, a picture is worth a kiloword.

Challenge: A company running Microsoft Small Business Server 2003 wants to make some of the files on their server available to outside parties, such as a consultant. One option would be to create user accounts for these outside parties on SBS and have the outsiders use Virtual Private Network (VPN) technology to access the shared folders on the server. But this is a 10-year-old solution and carries a fair amount of administrative overhead, performance issues, and the like. Surely there is a better way?

Solution in brief:

1. Install Microsoft FolderShare on the server and on the outside parties’ computers.
2. Create a FolderShare account for the server.
3. On the server, identify which folders are to be shared and which FolderShare accounts will have access to them.
4. On the outside parties’ computers, configure FolderShare to access the shared folders.
5. On the server, configure FolderShare to run as a service.

Total cost of new software: $0. (At least for now.)

Step-by-step instructions:

• 1. Install Microsoft FolderShare on the server and on the outside parties’ computers.
  • Create a new account on the server (e.g., “FolderShare Account”) that will be used to install run FolderShare. The account must have permission to log into and install programs on the server and have read/write access to the folders that are going to be shared. Log into the server with this account.
  • Download the FolderShare software. (Note: on SBS2003, you will probably first have to add https://www.foldershare.com to your list of trusted sites in Internet Explorer.) (Note: there is a Mac client available, but I’m not a Mac guy, so I can’t tell you if it actually works.)
  • Run the installation program (Foldershare.msi) on the server. Just step through the wizard.
• 2. Create a FolderShare account for the server.
  • After the installation wizard completes, there will be a new icon in the system tray (a.k.a. notification area). Click it and choose “FolderShare website.”

• Assuming this is the first time you are using FolderShare, click sign up for a FolderShare account. (Note: if you haven’t already, on SBS2003, you will probably first have to add https://www.foldershare.com to your list of trusted sites in Internet Explorer.)

• Enter the required information. For the server account, you probably want to use something permanent like “foldershare@mydomain.com” rather than an individual employee’s e-mail as shown here.

• If you have created the account successfully, you’ll see the confirmation window; otherwise you’ll get an error.

• 3. On the server, identify which folders are to be shared and which FolderShare accounts will have access to them.
  • Access the FolderShare website (from the FolderShare system tray icon or simply go to https://www.foldershare.com/home.aspx.) If necessary, sign in with the account you created in the previous step. Ordinarily, you will not have to sign in each time because your credentials are saved.

• Choose “Create your first shared library.”

• In this example, I am going to share the folder that I created to download the FolderShare installation file. Normally, this is where you would share a folder that outside parties need to access. Navigate to the desired folder and click “Create library here.” Note: see below for advice on creating a “sandbox” folder for new FolderShare users.

• Enter the e-mail addresses of the outside parties who will have access to this folder, and assign the desired level of permissions for each user. Definitions of each permission level are shown below the list of assigned users. As we will see later, Contributor access can be rather problematic and should probably be avoided.

• You’ll see a preview of the e-mail that the outside parties will receive. You can personalize the body of the message if you want to. Click Send when done.

• 4. On the outside parties’ computers, configure FolderShare to access the shared folders.
  • The people you have invited to share your folder will receive an e-mail invitation. If they already have a FolderShare account, they will simply have to sign in. If they have not signed up for FolderShare before, they will be given a link to download the Foldershare.msi program and a temporary password to use during after installation.
  • The process of installing the FolderShare software on the outside parties’ computers is exactly the same as it was for installing the software on the server.
  • After installing the software and entering the username and password, the outside party will get a notification about the invitation you sent from the server.

• At the FolderShare web site, the shared library will be visible.

• Clicking on the name of the shared library will reveal information about the library. The outside parties should choose “Sync with a new computer” to gain access to the library from their computers.

• After selecting their own computer’s names, the outside parties will be asked where on their computers the synched folders will be stored. A couple notes about this:
  • The destination folder cannot be a drive on a network server, whether or not the drive is mapped. The folder must be stored on the outside parties’ hard drives.
  • The outside parties must drill down a couple of levels before selecting a folder. You cannot choose to put the folder directly on the Desktop or the root of any hard drive.
  • Pay very special attention to the instructions at the top of the screen: The folder you select will synchronize with this library. Any files already in this folder will be added to the library. Unless you really want existing files from the outside parties ending up on your server, you will probably instruct them to create a new folder for the purpose of synchronizing with your server.
• The outside parties will have the option to sync in the background or on demand. (In this example, “Emily_Vista” is the name of an outside computer.) If they are only going to need access to a few files in a large folder, then on-demand synchronization might be the way to go.

• The shared library will now appear on the pop-up menu of the FolderShare icon in the system tray, giving the outside parties a quick way to access their synchronized folders. They can also get to the folder by simply using My Computer or Windows Explorer to navigate to the destination folder they created earlier.
• If on-demand synchronization was selected, the files will appear with a .p2p extension. This indicates that they are placeholders, not yet downloaded via FolderShare. Opening a .p2p file will trigger a download of the actual file from the server. (For this to work, the FolderShare must be running and signed in on the server, which is why the next step is important: configuring FolderShare to run as a service on the server.)
• If the outside parties have permission to add files to the library, any files they add to their local copy of the folder will automatically be synchronized back to the server, even if they chose the on-demand synchronization option.
  • Note that Contributor access prevents any editing of the files on the server, including renaming. If an outside party with Contributor access attempts to rename a file, you will end up with a duplicate file on your server and the outside party will get a warning:

• Contributor access will also prevent the outside parties from changing the contents of what they added. The warning message will be slightly different in this case:

• For these reasons, you will probably want to choose either Reader or Editor access for your outside parties. If they need read-only access to some files on your server and read-write access to others, you will need to separate the files into separate folders and create multiple shared libraries with different permission levels.
• Because this is a new way of sharing files among computers, you will probably want to create a “sandbox” folder consisting of sample files. Have your users and outside parties experiment in the sandbox before using FolderShare for sharing actual company documents.
• 5. On the server, configure FolderShare to run as a service.
  • There are detailed instructions for doing this on Chris Blankenship’s blog. No need to repeat them here. However, I found a couple of typos in his instructions, so check my comments on the blog and see if he’s modified them in response.

Thanks to Sandy Berger for writing a blog entry that showed up high in Google and helped kick-start my research on this.

I hope at some point to import some of the old Schragazine articles back into this blog. Maybe starting next winter, on the 9th anniversary of the Schragazine launch ….

I have to say that on the basis of spending half an hour or so with this new software, my answer may just be yes. It’s been several years since I actually played around with voice recognition software, and my memory of it was that the transcription was filled with errors and that it took a ridiculously long period of time for the computer to figure out what I was saying. But even with the most basic of training, and using the simple microphone that was bundled with the software, I have found Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10 amazingly accurate and responsive.

The programmers of this software have clearly gone well beyond simply trying to recognize what you’re saying; they are trying to figure out what you’re meaning. For example, in the previous paragraph I said the words "Dragon naturally speaking." The software must have realized that I was talking about it because it combined the words naturally and speaking into a single word with the S in speaking capitalized. And yet two sentences ago when I said "naturally speaking" it realized that I was not talking about the product.

I’ve barely scratched the surface of NaturallySpeaking’s capabilities. I’ve been using it to dictate e-mail and, of course, this blog entry. What I haven’t done yet is figure out how to do things in Windows like opening and closing programs or switching between them, and within programs like selecting items from menus.

It’s immediately clear that anyone who has to transcribe a large amount of text would benefit from using this program. Let’s say you had to transcribe the Gettysburg address. It’s about 270 words and if you type 50 words per minute that’s going to take you about 5 1/2 minutes. I’m going to try it now:

four score and seven years ago our forefathers brought forth on this continent a new nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal now we are engaged in a great civil are testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure we are met on a great battlefield of that war we have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live it is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this but in a larger sense we cannot dedicate we cannot consecrate we cannot hallow this ground the brave man living and dead who struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor power to aggregate tract will little note nor long remember what we say here but it can never forget what they did here is for us the living rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced it is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom and that government of the people by the people for the people shall not perish from the earth

That took one minute and 45 seconds, and only a few words (in red) were misunderstood. Note, however, that there is no punctuation. My understanding is that the program can figure out from your speech patterns where to insert commas and periods but I haven’t gotten that far yet. Now we’ll try it with punctuation marks – in other words, I’m going to speak aloud the words “comma” and “period.”:

four score and seven years ago our forefathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate-we cannot consecrate-we cannot hallow-this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us to living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who for here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us-that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion-that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain-that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom-and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

That took two minutes and 10 seconds and had even fewer mistakes. I can’t imagine that proofing and editing what I just spoke would take much longer than if I had typed it and then had to fix my typos.

I’m eager to keep experimenting with the program to see exactly what it can do. I’m thankful that I work alone, because I can imagine that the initial thrill experienced by my coworkers upon hearing me talk to my computer would quickly wear off.

Potential conflicts of interest. In situations where Company is receiving any compensation (money or otherwise) from a Customer for providing pre-sales support, or where Company has a fiduciary relationship with a Customer, Company has a potential conflict of interest. In these cases, or when Company is otherwise required to do so by applicable law, Company must not act in a manner that puts its interest in the Fee [for selling Microsoft services] ahead of the Customer’s interests so as to be unfair to the Customer.

I was glad to see that, because it’s consistent with what I said about consultants, contractors, and vendors. (Speaking of which, I just noticed that although comments are requested on that page, you can’t actually make any. That must be new since I switched templates. I’ll see if I can do something about that.)

The sucker is huge and consumes a lot of desk space all by itself, but its big pockets and Lazy Susan design have allowed me to keep everything that used to be stacked in front of me within arm’s reach and yet out of the way. I’ve labeled three of the four sides: “To Do,” “To Read,” and “To Write.” The fourth side currently holds blank paper for jotting down phone numbers and other notes that will later go into the “To Do” slot.

This is of course not the first desk organizer I’ve tried, but so far it’s the only one that’s actually accomplished its mission for more than a few days.

I’m not under the illusion that putting ads on my blog is going to let me quit my day job. I did it more as an experiment. And if I can make enough money to pay for an extra night at the movies every couple of months, why not?

If you want to follow in my footsteps and “monetize” your own blog, here’s what you have to do:

1. Create a blog (or other web site) with plenty of content. You’ll have a hard time getting ads on a site that’s under construction.
2. Sign up for an account at Google AdSense. There are other ways to place ads on your site, but AdSense is a pretty good way to get started.
3. If you’re a blogger, find an AdSense-ready theme. There are dozens available for WordPress. I chose Ad Flex Blog, which was the first one mentioned on this list of AdSense Ready WordPress themes. As of this writing (August 9, 2008) I’m using mostly default settings, so my blog looks pretty generic. As I have time, I’ll fiddle with the 100+ options in the theme settings to personalize it.
4. Figure out where in the theme you  have to insert the code that’s generated for the ad blocks you create in AdSense. (You don’t tell AdSense what ads to put on your site. You provide the equivalent of an empty billboard, and you let AdSense know that your space is available for rent.) For example, in the Ad Flex Blog settings within the WordPress admin console, there’s a field called “Ad Banner Link Unit Code.” That’s where I pasted the javascript code for my 728 x 15 pixel billboard. That’s the thin strip that says “Ads by Google” right above “The Schlog.” At the moment I have two other billboards, at the top and bottom of each page.

That’s pretty much it. After that, you just log into AdSense now and then to see how much money you’ve made. In the first week, I’ve made a whopping $5.67 from a total of 4 clicks on ads I’ve displayed. Like I said, I’m not quitting my day job.

Despite Google’s product name, some of the ads make no sense at all. For example, there are a lot of references in my blog to my own name, David Schrag. As a result, I’m seeing ads in the link for “David Hasselhoff,” “David Beckham Pictures,” and “David Bay” (whoever he is). And now that I’ve mentioned their names again, I’ll probably see even more ads. But I’m also seen an ad for a company that will be offering SharePoint training in Boston, and that’s something my readers might actually be interested in.

So what do you think? Are you impressed? Aghast? Dismayed but resigned to the creeping commercialization of the web? Have no problem with the ads but think the new theme is butt-ugly? Remember, feedback no longer requires registration, so let’s hear it.

There are few if any people on the planet more familiar with Small Business Server than Microsoft’s Sean Daniel. Sean recently posted a feature comparison between SBS 2003 and SBS 2008. What strikes me about this list is how little is striking. Almost all the new features are benefits for the network administrator, not the end users, and many of those new features apply only to the initial installation and configuration of the product.

I’m still not seeing any compelling reason to upgrade from SBS03 to SBS08 unless there’s a particular feature of Exchange 2007 that the organization wants to deploy. I’ve heard a lot of folks saying "we’ll upgrade our clients to SBS08 when it’s time to replace their server hardware." But when will that be? I’ve got servers that are four-plus years old running SBS03 and doing just fine. What exactly is going to warrant a server hardware replacement? Have there been any changes in CPU technology that would have a meaningful impact on the productivity of a typical small business?

I hope I’m missing something. The leaps between SBS 4.5, SBS 2000, and SBS 2003 were simply extraordinary. I’d hate to think that the SBS 2008 is going to be a big fat "ho-hum." So please comment and tell me where I’m wrong.