The blog from your trusted tech guys…
The Joys (and pains) of Multiuser Mode in Quickbooks
Nov 12th
Sherry and I both have Quickbooks 2009 on our systems and we share one data file.
It’s a great system – Sherry takes care of the day to day invoicing, I can run reports, enter stock, and all those other Quickbooksey things that one does in the daily running of a business.
Sherry had been using an old Dell desktop since she started here over a year ago (I know, the cobbler’s kids have the worst shoes) and we finally built her a very nice replacement system. All the bells and whistles, including an upgrade to Windows 7 Professional – woohoo!
So we get the new system installed, all of her data transferred over, her Outlook up and running, MS Office up and running, Mozy backup setup, etc. and we get Quickbooks installed.
When running in multiuser mode Quickbooks requires one to run a little program called Quickbooks Database Server Manager – you simply run the program and it scans your drive for Quickbooks files that you wish to share. Easy peasy. We ran the program, it found the data file and we shared it.
Sherry opened up our company file in Quickbooks with no problem and set Quickbooks for multi-user mode.
I head back to my office to fire up Quickbooks – I have stock to receive, invoices to print and mail, it’s time to get to work!
Alas, Quickbooks has other plans. I can see the Quickbooks file on Sherry’s system but Quickbooks is not having any of it. Nuh-uh. No way. Not gonna happen. Quickbooks gleefully points out that it can’t open the file on Sherry’s system. I hear sounds Nelson on The Simpsons “Ha-ha“.
Quickbooks can’t open the file – it tells me that the file is not properly setup for sharing on Sherry’s system; it can’t connect.
Hrrrmmm.
Much troubleshooting ensued. Data file moved from Sherry’s machine to mine, new data shares setup on both systems, and so on.
What we ended up discovering was a nifty little utility from Intuit’s site for troubleshooting network connection issues from within Quickbooks. We downloaded and ran the tool and it generated two errors for us to research.
After a bit of research we the found the cause of the issue to be……
Undocumented ports that needed to be opened at the firewall! No really. That was the issue.
In all of the troubleshooting and knowledge base searching at Intuit’s site nowhere did we find any mention that certain ports needed to be opened on the firewall software in order for Quickbooks to function in a multi-user environment.
It seems that the Windows 7 firewall blocks these ports by default. The fix took all of 30 seconds to implement. Opened up the firewall on Sherry’s system and allowed access to ports 8019 and 55333.
We are quickbooking away now – woohoo!
-Daniel Scurlock
Scurlock Systems and Associates LLC
Windows 7 – It’s All That (and more)
Oct 14th
So we’ve been playing with the Windows 7 RC (Release Candidate) for a few months now and have been quite impressed with what we’ve seen, but a couple of weeks ago we received the *full, complete version* of Windows 7 from Microsoft as an Action Pack subscriber.
All I can say so far is ‘Wow’, and I mean that as a good wow, a great wow, a jumping up and down with glee wow.
Windows 7 is what Vista should have been, and then some. The interface is cleaner, the bells and whistles numerous, and the stability rock solid.
Jimmy has been running Windows 7 Ultimate 64 on his main desktop for a week now and swears he will never go back to XP or Vista – that’s saying a whole lot right there.
What has me so jazzed at the moment is that earlier this morning I decided to install Windows 7 on my little Acer One Netbook which is not a powerhouse of a system by any stretch. It has only 1GB of RAM and an Atom 1.6GHz processor. I wasn’t sure if Windows 7 would even do an initial load or not due to the system hardware specs.
The netbook doesn’t have a CD or DVD drive built in, so I hooked up an external DVD drive and booted to the Windows 7 installation DVD.
Flash forward 30 minutes and we’re done. Windows 7 is installed, NO drivers were needed. System has full video, audio, wired and wireless networking. I’ve also installed MS Office 2007 Enterprise and Malwarebytes Antimalware.
The system is faster now than it ever was running XP, which just blows me away. MS Word loads in under 4 seconds, Excel in about 3 seconds.
Call me a convert.
-Daniel Scurlock
Scurlock Systems and Associates LLC
scurlocksystems.com
The Saga of Bob, Skippy, and the Vaio
Jun 18th
We all like to save a buck when we can, but I wanted to tell you a little story about what happened to one of our clients recently who purchased a Sony Vaio system from an Amazon seller…
And the saga begins…
For the sake of not typing ‘our client’ over and over we’ll call him, oh, Bob, and let’s call the Amazon seller Skippy.
So Bob find a great deal on a Sony Vaio desktop system on Amazon and orders it and receives it with no issues. He installs MS Office and his printer and off he goes, happy as can be.
All of this goes down with no issues – the system is up and running; everyone is happy.
Flash forward one week…
The system starts hanging up, blue-screening, locking up, powering itself down, spewing green vomit, well, you get the idea. Something is *definitely* not right here.
Bob contacts Sony, who determine that there has been a major hardware failure in the system.
Bob then contacts the Skippy the Wonder Amazon seller, and makes arrangements to send the system back for replacement. Bob packs up and ships the system back, eagerly awaiting the replacement system.
A week or so goes by and Bob receives his replacement system. He plugs it in and wham, same problem as before. blue-screens, lockup, green vomit, it’s ugly.
At this point Bob is not a happy camper. Skippy the Wonder Amazon Seller has simply shipped him back the same broken system without making any repairs or replacements.
Bob checks into Skippy’s feedback on Amazon and begins to find a series of unhappy recipients of Skippy’s computers with similar stories.
Bob contacts Sony again, in the hopes that perhaps he can deal directly with them and have the system repaired under Sony’s warranty.
Now here is the meat of the story, and what prompted me to share this with you all…
Sony has Bob run some hardware diagnostics, and Bob is reading off the make/model of the individual internal components of the system. Sony informs Bob that someone (Skippy!) had replaced the internal components of the computer with sub-standard, weak and broken parts.
So what Bob basically had was a nice shiny Sony Vaio case on the outside, but inside it was garbage.
Bob had been scammed.
Have I mentioned that Bob is a lawyer?
Bob contacts Skippy the Wonder Amazon Seller and explains to him that he will be refunding 100% of Bob’s money, shipping, etc. and what will happen to him if he doesn’t. Bob also contacts Amazon and alerts them to the fraud that took place.
Bob now has his money back. Skippy’s account has been banned at Amazon, and Bob has since ordered a NEW computer directly from Sony.
If you must order a computer from an individual online, but SURE that you check out the feedback for that user. If they have negative feedback read them closely and if there is *any* doubt don’t send them your money.
Once you receive your computer have it checked out by a pro and verify that what you paid for is what you received. Bob was extremely fortunate that he got his money back. Not all of us would be that lucky if that were to happen to us.
Cheers,
Daniel Scurlock
Scurlock Systems and Associates LLC
972.633.1111
scurlocksystems.com
*Updated – Switching from XP Pro to Vista – My Journey
Mar 30th
***Updated***
Those of you who know me know that when it comes to operating systems I prefer Windows XP Pro over Vista.
Brace yourselves – I’ve decided to switch out my main work computer from XP Pro to Vista Business. Not Jimmy’s system, not Sherry’s system, but my own Little Engine that Could box.
I’ll be documenting the process here – from start to finish. What works. What doesn’t work. The ups, the downs, the best of times, the worst of …well you get the idea.
AND SO IT BEGINS…
I’ve decided to leave my current hard drive intact and install Vista on a completely different drive. This will allow for several things – I can always go back to XP Pro by simply swapping out the drives, and I won’t need to backup 150GB of data prior to doing the install.
Picked up a 500GB drive on the way home – fairly large upgrade from the current 150GB drive.
SO WHICH VERSION OF VISTA…
Vista comes in many flavors, from the Home Basic on up to Ultimate and several in between. I’ve decided to go with Vista Ultimate 64. The 64 denotes the 64-bit version. What does that mean? The biggest thing it means is that you can load up a system with RAM! RAM is cheap these days, and more RAM = Happy Computer.
STAY TUNED…
Tomorrow the journey begins – the new drive will be installed and we begin the Vista Ultimate 64 install.
*UPDATE – THE INSTALLATION*
So this morning I began the installation. Prior to doing anything I made a list of all of the ‘must have’ programs that were installed under XP – things like MS Office, Quickbooks, LogMeIn, Mozy Backup and so on.
I removed the existing hard drive (containing XP Pro) from the system and replaced with the new 500GB drive. While the original drive did not *have* to be removed, the ‘better safe than sorry’ phrase came to mind.
I also doubled the RAM, from 2GB to 4GB, put the cover back on the box, plugged it back in and powered up.
The intial installation phase was surprisingly fast and easy – boot to the Vista DVD and follow the prompts. Entered the CD Key and let it go to town. It took all of 15 minutes for the 1st phase, which required a reboot.
The 2nd phase consisted of Vista scanning the system looking for devices – this took 4 minutes.
The 3rd and final phase of initial setup was creating a user account and password and setting the time zone, which took all of 2 minutes.
Vista was installed from start to finish in under 30 minutes – impressive!
Even more impressive was what I found when I logged in for the 1st time – On a standard XP Pro installation, after the initial install of the Operating System one must then install drivers for audio, video, network card, system board, and so on. Not with Vista – after the 1st login the system was up and online, it had installed the proper drivers for the network card, video card, the audio, everything! I didn’t have to download or install a single solitary driver.
There were several updates for Vista which downloaded automatically in a matter of minutes, and I went ahead with their install. This was the one step in the whole process that caused me a moment or two of concern – the updates (there were 35) took quite a bit of time to install, about 35 minutes.
After the updates were done the system rebooted, and the left monitor (I have two monitors on the system) showed the mouse cursor, which I could move around, but everything else was completely black. I waited a few minutes then rebooted the system again, at which time it came up normally. I haven’t experienced the black screen again.
Now it was time to install software – Installed Microsoft Office 2007 Enterprise and Office 2007 Service Pack 1, downloaded and installed AVG 8.5 antivirus, Quickbooks 2009 Pro, MozyPro online backup and a few other applications.
Every single application installed flawlessly – no errors, no hangups, no issues with Vista 64, nothing.
We utilize an off-site Exchange server for our email. Configuration of Outlook took all of 30 seconds. Plugged in Exchange server name, entered my login ID and password and bam! There was all of my email, calendar and contacts. Easy peasy.
Next came the printer – I have a Brother MFC 7820N unit – it’s a black and white laser printer/fax/scanner that is connected to the computer via a USB cable. This was my single biggest concern out of the whole process of swapping over to Vista – I have experienced so many issues with printers/scanners and vista and wasn’t sure what to expect.
The printer had been purchased a year ago, and came with a Vista CD. I popped in the CD, followed the prompts and 5 minutes later had a fully functional printer/scanner/fax. I can scan directly to the hard drive with zero issues.
Next came accessing data on other office systems running XP and allowing others to access data on this box.
I was able to map a drive to our front desk system with minimal effort – browsed the network, chose the system and data share and that was that.
I set up a 2nd login on the Vista system for Jimmy and Sherry to use when accessing data I’ve shared. I copied over the data from the original hard drive, created the share then simply browsed out to the Vista box from Jimmy and Sherry’s systems, provided the user ID and password and they were in.
I’ll have a chance to utilize the system all day tomorrow and really take it for a test drive.
**UPDATE – FINAL THOUGHTS**
I’ve had a chance to use Vista for a couple of days now, and bottom line is it has worked out much better than anticipated.
Out of all of the applications that I use, only one (Malwarebytes Antimalware) is not 100% compatible with Vista-64. Truecrypt, Quickbooks 2009 and our printer/scanner/fax all work flawlessly. Not a single error encountered.
-Daniel Scurlock
Scurlock Systems and Associates LLC
The Power of BNI and ABWA (American Business Women’s Association)
Mar 19th
As a small business owner I do a lot of networking. Our business model is 100% referrals, and we love it.
I joined BNI (Business Networking International) a bit over 3 years ago, and in 2008 that group accounted for 25% of our sales. 25%. From one group. We have done work for folks in that group, their friends, their parents, their kids, their coworkers and so on. It’s a very powerful organization and I would urge anyone who has not experienced it to find a local chapter and go visit.
Recently I was invited by a business acquaintance to attend a local ABWA meeting. ABWA is the American Business Women’s Association.
I pointed out the fact that I was, in fact, a man and that well, this was an association for Women; my acquaintance just chuckled and urged me to attend.
I attended my 1st meeting last month and joined that night. Absolutely amazing group. Amazing. Group.
Now here’s the meat of my little story and what prompted this post…
Yesterday I was meeting with a potential client and during our conversation she mentioned that she was interested in locating a patent attorney to ask some very general questions.
When I got back to the office I fired off an email to a few of the ABWA members asking if any of them knew of a patent attorney I could refer to my client.
Next thing I know an email has gone out to our entire group and my inbox begins flooding with personal referrals for patent attorneys.
Within a matter of hours I had a list of 15 patent attorneys and their contact information to pass on to my client. These are not just random names pulled from Google – these are personal referrals from folks who had done business with them.
That, ladies and gentlemen, rocks.
Daniel Scurlock
Scurlock Systems and Associates LLC
www.scurlocksystems.com
Feeling Bloated?
Mar 10th
So, you buy a new computer. You may wonder what all those programs that came with the system are used for. Consider this: they aren’t necessary. Most of the factory-installed programs are what are considered bloatware. Let me explain…
Software manufacturers are paid to design a good product that has good loading times. To achieve these loading times, they load a “launcher” which typically shows up as an icon in the tray (the area near the clock). In their ideal testing conditions, this speeds the launching process significantly. The unintended side effect is that if you get just a few of these programs, they start to slow the system down significantly, defeating their original purpose entirely.
Other instances of bloatware are little “extras” that manufacturers put on their systems such as games, trial programs, hotkey launchers, and things of that nature.
To combat this, we offer a remote cleanup service that eliminates this bloatware (among other things) and restores your system to a state that’s quite possibly faster than it was when you purchased it.
If you want to know more about bloatware and its’ problems, don’t hesitate to call Scurlock Systems at 972-633-1111. We’ll be glad to answer questions and clean up your system.
www.scurlocksystems.com
Long-Distance Wireless
Mar 10th
I grew up on a farm near Austin, Texas, and my folks and brother are still out there, enjoying the country life.
My brother lives in a house about a quarter mile from my parents, and recently Dad called me wanting to know if he could share his internet connection with my brother.
We went over options (stringing a cable that far was right out) and with the current wireless equipment we use just couldn’t come up with a plan that would get a wireless signal that far without stringing up all sorts of equipment between the two houses, along with power sources, etc.
Flash forward a few weeks…
The entire farm (100ish acres) has WiFi access. Out on a tractor in the back 40 and need to check the weather? No problem! Fire up the laptop and check weather.com for the latest report.
Down in the pecan orchard and need to fire off a quick email? No problem!
What we found was an absolutely amazing device called the Nano Station 2 by an outfit called Ubiquiti. This is in effect a Wireless Access Point that reports to have a 15 Kilometer (over 9 miles!) effective range.
Power is provided via an Ethernet cable to the unit (Power Over Ethernet), so there is no need to string AC power where the device will be placed.
The device works flawlessly, and has enabled coverage over an area previously considered impossible to cover by residential-grade equipment.
We’ve ordered several more of the devices and will be testing in the Dallas area to see what kind of coverage we get in an area saturated by existing wireless traffic.
Oh, and the best thing about the device? The cost! MSRP on the unit is only $79.
More to come as we test.
**UPDATE**
We received the units late Thursday afternoon and have had a chance to play with them today.
Here is what we’ve learned:
The units work in pairs – i.e., One unit is set up as a Wireless Access Point, and the 2nd unit, which can be located quite some distance away, is set up as the receiving unit.
The receiving unit can then be wired into a switch or directly into a computer for access to the network.
The BIG lesson we learned is these units *must* have line of sight in order to work. To utilize them in a city environment you would need to mount both units on a tower or fairly high pole in order to make it over any buildings between points a and b.
We also tested one unit as a standalone WAP (Wireless Access Point) and found that while the coverage was considerably better than our existing Linksys WRT54GL units, the antenna is directional. We have not tested yet with an omnidirectional antenna hooked up to the device.
Summary:
The devices are absolutely amazing, and in the right conditions (large open spaces with no line of sight issues, or units mounted up in the air) they can provide a VERY cost-effective solution for expanding your network.
Daniel Scurlock
Scurlock Systems and Associates LLC
www.scurlocksystems.com
972.633.1111
E-mail Security
Feb 12th
Dear Colleague/Friend/Family/Mom,
I love hearing from you and knowing you’re thinking of me. I’m flattered that you know my taste so well: I enjoy the strategic advice you’re forwarding about shopping mall parking lot safety and the pithy anecdotes about dogs getting into Heaven. However, regarding what are commonly referred to as chain e-mails? Please exclude me from your list of recipients. I rarely open them and I never pass them along to others.
This type of e-mail poses a threat to the security of my computer. One of the worst things a computer user can do is share her e-mail address with too many people, which gets it added into any number of address books.
Whenever an e-mail is forwarded to others, all the e-mail addresses that came before are also forwarded. Did you know that all of those people you sent the chain letter to now have my e-mail address? I would never share your e-mail address with anyone without your permission, and I hope that from now on you will return the favor.
Also, you’d be surprised at how many computers have some sort of malware residing on them. Many users don’t even know there is malware on their computer. Some of the sneakier malware harvests e-mail addresses from your address book and e-mail.
If you do want to send an e-mail to more than a few people, you can help protect those email addresses by using the BCC (blind carbon copy) field instead of the “To” or “CC” fields. This will hide multiple addresses from prying eyes.
And, by all means, please first check the validity of the story on a trusted web site such as: www.snopes.com.
Thanks for listening. I hope we can still be friends.
***SOLD*** Refurb Dell Desktop Up for Adoption
Feb 11th
***SOLD***
The computer has found a new home!
Howdy,
We have a Dell Optiplex GX260 desktop looking for a new home.
The hard drive was just reformatted and a fresh load of XP Pro and all OS updates (including Service Pack 3) has been performed.
Drivers (audio, video, chipset, NIC) have been installed.
Specs of the unit:
Windows XP Pro (COA is on box)
All OS Patches loaded, including SP3
2.4 GHz Processor
1GB Crucial DDR RAM
DVD Drive (Reader)
80GB Hard Drive
AVG and Malwarebytes’ Antimalware preinstalled for your protection.
If you would like to take this puppy home give us a shout at 972.633.1111. The system is ready to go!
Cost for the unit is $200. This does not come with a monitor, keyboard or mouse – computer only.
Woo hoo! A blog!
Dec 9th
We’re proud to announce the first official Scurlock Systems and Associates blog! Starting soon, you’ll be able to read the notes and announcements from the SS&A team pertaining to many useful subjects. Keep an eye out!