SEO - Is it worth it?

I am rapidly becoming disillusioned by all the hype about SEO.
Everyone is offering you Page 1 on Google. Hey guys, unless that page contains millions of entries we can't all be on there. Or maybe we could get on page one with a single very obscure keyword that no one is ever likely to use but if they did you would be there!
On offer are instant results that take a year to be effective. Overnight success stories that take 2 years to come to fruition.
On offer is an SEO expert who wants £ 500 a month to do SEO work for us. In our business that would mean selling an extra 10 units a month just to pay for the SEO advice. I don't think so!
Others offer you placement on 10 Directory listings a month. Oh come on! Some of those will be so obscure that they are not worth it for the traffic they will generate.
We will soon be placing on one of our websites a fuller story.
In the meantime if you would like to have a go at me for writing such scandalous, sacrilegious, scurrilous content then click here Email Me.
Is it worth it? It is probably worth doing something but lets not get over excited by it all.

Spamming attack resolved

It would appear that recently an email account on our web server had been compromised and was being used to send out spam mail despite the security measures we have in place.
We believe we have now solved the problem and have put further security measures in place to revent this from happening in the future.
We apologise to any user who has received spam email emanating from our server and to those webmasters who may had had an increase in traffic resulting from the use of false email accounts purporting to reside on their servers.

First week without Windows

It has now been just over a week since I set up my Windowless system.
What are the issues? Well none really.
I have copied over all my data from my old system. A mixture of putting the old Hard Disks (one for Win XP and one for my old Ubuntu setup) and copying the data across. No problem. Other than that I brought across other data on a USB memory stick. Again no problem.
Ok I still have to import my old emails from Outlook. Just a 3.5 GB file to port across first. Evolution seems to do the job OK. I have imported calendar entries that have been sent to me. email set up was easy.
I have used Banshee to import some music. I am not mad with this, I still prefer to play from CD on my separates system but I have brought some files across. Can I sync with my Creative Xen, Well no. It doesn't like ogg files and I haven't found a way of converting them to mp3 to port across. Is it a big issue? Not really for me.
I have tried to connect my Blackberry. At the moment it is not having it. Is that a real problem for me? Well it should be but I have been very lazy about syncing my Windows and my Blackberry so why should it now be a problem. On the other hand maybe I shall see if I can swap the blackberry for an Android phone.
I have put my personal Accountz program on. Only problem were of my own making in making a mess of copying the old data from backup.
What is really good?
I have set up a number of users on this machine. It is nice to be able to log on to one account whilst remaining logged to the first account. For example, I was logged on to my personal account and playing some music through Banshee. I logged on to my work account without logging off the personal account and the music kept on playing. When I logged off the business account I simply logged back on to my personal account and carried on working from where I have left off.
After one week my impression? Great. Should have done it sooner.

I have gone Windows free at home

Ubuntu wins! Having to rebuild my home computer I have decided to go entirely Windows free.
I have used a Phenom II 555 processor, ASUS motherboard, on board dual head graphics, Genius 5.1 Audio card. I am using a previously used 500GB hard disk.
From start to finish the install took 20-30 minutes, including updates. I am using Ubuntu 11.04 (Natty Narwhal).
Every device was configured to work, including the add on audio card. (I thought I was in trouble with this until I realised that the sound output was being directed to the on board audio device).
I configured Evolution mail client to my mail account - no problem. I set up a couple of extra users so I can keep work separate - no problem. I set two users to be in the same user group so they can share data - no problem. I popped an audio CD in the drive and Banshee picked it up and played it - no problem. Also able to rip this to disk - no problem.
I popped my old XP hard disk in and copied all relevant data from it - no problem. I popped in my old Linux hard disk (from dual boot machine) and copied off all relevant data - no problem.
What issues are there. Well I would like a 64 bit version of Flash player - come on Adobe. I would like to sync my Blackberry with Evolution. I want to see if my Creative Zen can sync.
This tale should convince some of you that you do not need to use Windows operating systems. There is a perfectly good alternative.
To find out more visit Linux Computing UK where we can help you. For the more adventurous who want to go it alone try Ubuntu themselves.

Openfiler upsets me

Those of you who have followed this blog over time will know I am not averse to being critical. Today it is the turn of the OpenFiler team.
We have recently launched a new site called Linuxcomputinguk.co.uk where we are specifically trying to promote Linux products so I thought I really should try and find a Linux NAS server rather than the FreeNAS base we have used before. I came across OpenFiler.
So today I got an install going.
Using 2.99.1, after doing all the network setup, password etc the system spends 3 minutes (well 2.42 actually) to do the install and then goes away for 10-15 minutes seemingly doing nothing before eventually saying it is ready for a reboot.
After the reboot I get the web GUI and type in root and my password and get presented with a user account quota page.
I tried the UK support desk. They were all out at lunch, oh and by the way they do not take phone calls unless you have paid for a support contract. I spoke with sales who said they would put me in touch with the Partner support team. 6 hours later I am still waiting for a response.
Thinking I had a bum install I reinstalled. No change. I have now tried 4 installs of 2.99.1 and 2 installs of 2.3. And where am I now, nowhere forward from lunchtime. I even put in a call to the States but still have had no response (except to ask for my contact details which had been at the foot of every email I have sent them).
In the end I had a look at the install guide on their webpage. I do not expect that after more Linux installs than I care to remember that I should need to look at the install guide. What is it they say, manuals are for those who just can't hack it themselves. Something like that anyway. But right at the bottom of the guide is the gem. Log on as user openfiler, password password. Boy, why can't that be displayed on one of the install screens?
So I got in to the web gui to set up the system. Can I set up a volume? Can I, hell as like! No volume, no share, no usable system.
For me it is back to FreeNAS.

Hillier Consultants becomes a Mozy reseller

We have now completed the necessary steps to become a reseller on Mozy Pro and Mozy Home online backup products.
Most businesses appreciate that they need to perform regular backups but just don't get round to it.
This is fine until disaster strikes and then it can be - well disastrous.
Let us help you set up a system that you can then simply rely on to keep your vital business data safe.

Our organisation gains Ubuntu recognition

One part of our organisation has now received notice from Ubuntu that we are listed on their marketplace pages.
Please visit the Ubuntu site (http://webapps.ubuntu.com/marketplace/) to see our listing under Linux Computing UK.
At the time of posting the marketplace page has not been updated but come back later to find us.

Business Startup Show

We will be visiting the Business Startup Show at ExCeL later this week. Our roving team will be available to talk to you about our services.

We now become Accountz partners

Hillier Consutlants has just become a full business partner with Accountz - the 'Accounting for the real world' specialists.
Accountz runs on Windows, Mac and Linux platforms - all from the same disk.
As business partners we are on hand to provide first line support to Accounts users - both Home and Business.
To find out more contact us on 01268 548636

Standard 5.7.17 Error when sending email from SMTP server

Some months ago we were struggling to get an Exchange Server working. We could send but not receive. In the end we walked away from it.
Today we have been recovering a server from a broadband change, a router reset and re-configuration but without changing anything on the server itself which had previously been running Exchange OK. We could not get mail through.
We did a Google search for 5.7.17 and found some posts which were not very useful but then we happened upon this thread
http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Google%20Apps/thread?tid=14a3d1192c489e16&hl=en
from M1ke on Google Support Forum
I have followed this thread and can now successfully receive email
I think that I now understand it better than M1ke has described so I will offer some clues.

First, 5.7.17 is NOT an Exchange Server error so if you get it you have not got to the Exchange Server.
Second, the ability to send from servers such as hotmail and gmail are crucial to understanding what is going on.
Third, this content from M1ke is vital

My server and accounts are controlled by Plesk. All domain settings are in 123-Reg but Plesk has its own list of domain settings for each address. I assume it follows the 123-Reg settings because the MX and DNS lookups give those values, and Gmail/Hotmail/Yahoo addresses do not encounter the 5.7.17 error. If there are known Plesk issues please can you detail them so that I can investigate?

the important pieces here are 'My server ..... by Plesk' and by the way I do not think this is a Plesk issue.

Fourth, M1ke gives us the solution in his third post --- remove the mail boxes from Plesk and turn off the mail service for the domain in question. Playing with the MX records is a red herring.

Having done this our email gets correctly transported to Exchange without issue.

Now to the better understanding of the issue.
We were trying to send emails to an exchange server that is related to a domain which is hosted on our Plesk server. The public DNS records at the registrar correctly direct traffic to our server for http, ftp, etc and mail to the Exchange server - each server being found on different IP addresses. Thus hotmail and gmail find the public DNS record and the mail gets transported to the Exchange server.
Like M1ke, we were trying to test sending email from OUR server (running Plesk) to the Exchange server but our domain and the recipient domain are both virtual hosts on our Plesk server, hence Plesk tries to resolve the mail addresses itself, and will do one of two things. It will either drop the mail in a mail box which it knows about or give you a 5.7.17 error if it cannot find that mail box. Because Plesk can resolve the mail to a mail server which it knows about and mail never goes outside the local server and is never seen on the Public network and therefore cannot be received by Exchange.
Once you disable the mail server for that domain in Plesk the mail HAS to go to the public network and can be correctly transported to the correct host.
I hope this post will short cut a few problems for other people.
My thanks to M1ke and if anyone knows how to contact him please do so on our behalf.

HTTP error 403 in SharePoint

The solution is blindingly obvious once you understand it, but then isn’t it ever thus. Certificate errors, folder permissions, port numbers, SharePoint access levels, intricate IIS problems, public domain dns errors and all those issues you find when you Google “SharePoint Error 403 Windows Server” are largely red herrings. That is NOT to say that you can ignore these but when you know these are OK and you are still getting the error you need to find a different solution.

Starting from Basics

Platform: Windows server 2003 standard (that is NOT SBS); SharePoint V3

Problem: after configuration I could access default site on the server but not from outside – constant 403 errors.

The answer came to me via a visit to a link to Microsoft Technet on about page 4 or 5 of the Google output (it is sometimes worth going in that far!).

Fed up with getting these errors using the FQDN in the address bar [for those unfamiliar with FQDN I was typing hostname.domainname.com (please substitute your own hostname and domainname)] I typed in the IP address and got a connection. That proved that there was a route through to the site and that certificates and folder permission were NOT the issue.

The technet link [ http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc288173(office.12).aspx ] gives you the basics but it is still a bit cranky. I am not going to repeat the contents of that link so keep it handy.

The Alternate Access Mapping link defaults to 'show all'. When you use the drop down you have to choose the ‘Change Alternate Access Mapping Collection’ link. You will be offered the sites in your collection – in my case ‘Central Administration’ and ‘SharePoint – 80’.

Select the site you want to change (in my case 'SharePoint -80'). You are presented with the URLs that point to this site – initially it will be something like ‘http://yourservername’.

Now this is the bit to get your head around. There needs to be a complete separation in your mind about where you are accessing the site from.

If you are accessing the site from within your network (ie intranet mode) you will need an internal URL such as ‘http://yourservername’ and then for clients working within your own domain they will need to enter this internal URL in the address bar of their browser (I can use both IE and Firefox – after all it is only a website).

If you want to access the site from outside your domain (eg from home, extranet mode) then you need to have a public URL such as ‘http://hostname.domainname.com’ and then clients need to put this URL into their browser when accessing the site from outside the domain.

So now you have 2 URLs to the same site.

Your users will have to get used to the idea of using the internal URL when they are at work and the public URL when they are at home.

I was so pleased that I had cracked this last night once I had changed the Public URL that it came as shock this morning when I could not access the site from the server on which it resides which was resolved once I re-entered the internal URL.

As an administrator you also need to be very sure that you are setting the URL details when the ‘Alternate Access Mapping Collection’ is lodged on to the correct site. Otherwise you could be changing the URLs for a different site.

We are happy to take requests for further information on this. Please visit www.hillierconsultants.com or email stephen@hillierconsultants.com for further help.

Poor programming undoes Microsoft access control mechanisms

Why do developers of Windows programs write their programs in such a way that they force users to be local administrator?
Last week we were setting up a new domain server and all went well until we went to run some software. We had what looked like permissions problems and spent a long time checking that the users we were setting up did in fact have access to the data files we had copied to the new server.
Only after half an hour did it transpire that users had to be made local machine administrators in order to make the software run. Some files held locally cannot be accessed otherwise.
The main problem with Windows is that it derives from an OS that gave any user full control over the machines and the system itself.
Microsoft have been trying to do their bit to redress that with making domain members restricted users and with the new UAC controls. We all know why Microsoft has to address this issue. So why do developers then undo all this by writing code that requires ordinary users to have local admin rights. This leaves machines open to attack from malware which is just plain stupid.
Developers cannot absolve themselves by saying it's Microsoft's problem. If we pull together then we might get to a position where Windows no longer needs to have performance dragging anti malware in place.

Adding a new hard disk into an existing ClearOS system

We recently configured a new ClearOS server and forgot to add one of the drives. We have now found a fix for this details of which can be found on the ClearOS forum. Use the link below to read the thread.

Click here to read the forum

Hope this is of use to someone.