Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #687048 in Books
• Published on: 2003-12
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 752 pages

Review
Dishes out practical IT information and sound business advice! -- Michael Domingo, Microsoft Certified Professional Magazine (MCPMag), January 2004

Harry Brelsford extends his winning streak in delivering another userful book... -- John Martinez, Reseller Advocate Magazine, December 2003

Harry Brelsford's clearly written explanations and authoritative recommendations make this book an essential accessory for SBS administrators and users. -- Hugh Anderson, Montreal Gazette, January 2004

We at CRN applaud! -- Michael Vizard, Editor In Chief, CRN, January 2004

From the Publisher
SMB Nation is a small publisher focused on small business technology books and Windows Small Business Server 2003 Best Practices is another book in that line. This book reflects the publisher's strength in SBS and SMB topics froma third-party, real world point. Future books will address more SBS topics (advanced, extending, etc.)

From the Author
It is my great pleasure to bring you this comprehensive SBS 2003 book that reflects both the technology and business-sides to the SBS 2003 product. Make no mistake - this is a technical book first and foremost based on SBS 2003 being deployed in the real world. It reflects the "good stuff" I've learned by consulting to my real world clients and with my Microsoft relationships in Redmond. Also reflected in this book are comments and the input from attendees at my SMB Nation conferences!

Customer Reviews

1000 Pages should be 250
Let me give you the example of what he consider's "Best Practices" "BEST PRACTICE: Rumor has it that, in Radmond, this area is called RUP (Ryhmes with pup, like puppy). If you call Microsoft Product Support Services (PSS), you could say RUP and arrr-wuuu-wuuu, but your coworkers who overhear the telephone call might look at you kinda funny"

Isn't this hysterical?

If you're looking for bad jokes like this, then this is the book for you. It is full of them.

I didn't pay almost $60 for this book for this. You can buy mine on Amazon Marketplace.

About 1/2 of this book seems to have practical and accurate technical information, but you have to wade through all of this "cutsie" filler to get to it. And when you do, you sometimes don't get enough to really understand the issue.

I guess it would be ok for a beginner with a bad sense of humor and a lot of time on his/her hands.

"Click Next to go to the next screen...."
This book is fine if you are a complete novice with absolutely no idea about using wizards, filling out forms or clicking on buttons. If you have any idea then you would be best served to spend your time going through the SBS wizards and then spending your money on a more insightful book. All it does is basically go through each of the screens in each of the wizards with little or no further information or explanation.

Added to this are the numerous references to numerous key note speeches, hands-on lab sessions and conferences which add little or nothing to assist the average reader. These are often preceded by a reference to the authors previous book and usually closely followed by a recommendation to read the authors next book for more (apparently useful and appropriate) information.

Very disappointed in what was recommended as a book for an advanced computer user but who had not used Windows server extensively. A five page leaflet on clicking buttons in wizards would have covered the majority of the book!

Lots of information and a comfortable writing style
Being a computer network admin I have read many technical books over the years and almost all of them could put you to sleep. However, Harry's style is much more like a conversation than a dry lecture. The only other technical author I have found like that is Mark Minasi. This book does an excellent job of covering the important SBS topics and it offers many recommendations for other resources to help you learn and support the product. I learned a lot and I am looking forward to his advanced book in this series as well.