ClearOS production server

An alternative to Windows 2003 / 2008 domain server software.
For sometime now we have been searching to find an alternative to the Windows server products. Windows server products developed nicely from Windows NT through to Windows 2003 but in our opinion Windows 2008 was a poor product. Based on the Vista kernel it suffered from all the maladies affecting Vista and achieved none of the benefits.
We have supplied one client with Server 2008 and I hope not to have to repeat this experience.
We know that Linux based domain servers have been around but to our mind most of these have suffered from the command line based disjointed administrator interface.
At a personal level I am aware that whatever I do I cannot put into a client a system that my staff cannot manage in my absence or after the Big Red Bus has pressed my mortal being into the surface of the tarmac. Therefore I have been reluctant to put in place a server that become useless once I am no longer in charge of it.
As a result we have not installed any Linux based servers - but all that is likely to change now.
We have been investigating the ClearOS server software (and the e-box and sme server systems). We have built a number of test installations and have now built a production server.
The server is based on an AMD Athlon 5000+ dual core processor on a Foxconn A74ML-K motherboard and 2GB RAM. This is combined with a 500GB hard disk (not new and removed from an older machine) and an optical drive and very little else.
We have installed the server on the same network as our web server which is remote to our office network.
Our next job is to configure the server into a working server, and enable remote logon to both Windows and Linux clients. We will blog progress as it occurs.
For more information about ClearOS click this link.

Where were Microsoft's Quality Assurance Team?

Where were QA when they allowed Vista to exist? Why am I stroppy about this?
Dead simple. I run Vista Business workstation on a 2003 domain. I have IE7 installed.
Today I want to access a site to check for client that their site is accessible remotely. Following what the supplier told us to do yesterday to allow Active X controls to install I got nowhere. Whatever I tried, whatever settings in IE I used, I could not get the Active X to install despite being offered the UAC control to specify the administrator and password credentials. This surely should be enough.
However I thought maybe I should log on as the administrator. So I logged off. 20 minutes later I am still waiting for the machine to offer me the log on screen. This includes having done a cold restart. 30 minutes later and after my second cold restart I have got my system back.
Surely logging off as one user and logging on as another is not difficult. Surely it should not require a reboot of the system? Surely we deserve better from the world's leading software developer.
Let hope QA have been awake during the long overdue release of Win7.

Accounts systems

Are you an accounts user? Are you locked into Sage? Are you paying high levels of support? Are you looking for accounts packages on non-windows platforms?
We have recently been investigating alternatives to the Sage Accounts programs. Not the we have anything against Sage as such. As a business system it does the business. The support desk in UK based and they have a lot going for them.
But what alternatives are there? Well, there is TAS books but that is now part of the Sage empire and we suspect product convergence over time. There is quick books but we know of no business using that system.
We have however recently investigated two particular alternatives.
The first, Accountz, is based on an installed program which runs on Windows, Linux and Mac systems. We have tested this out in the single user version. We tried to test to destruction. We created the data on an Ubuntu Linux system. We then copied the files across the network onto a Windows 2003 server mapped drive. We then installed to product onto a Vista computer and were able to access the data on either the Vista or Ubuntu system. It worked! This makes it very interesting from a Linux point of view - a topic we will return to in another blog.
The second, Kashflow, is a web based accounts system. There are no programs to use, simply use your favourite web browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera) and you are away. The data is stored on the companies London based web server and mirrored to a backup server. Because of this the program is available on both Windows and Linux platforms, which makes it equally interesting to us as Linux users.
Both systems have a respectable UK installed user base.
For further details of this visit our website www.hillierconsultants.com or phone (UK only) 01268 548636 or email sales at our office.