SBS 2008 – Default Gateway is lost after a server reboot

June 11th, 2011

We have seen problems with several different installations of Microsoft Small Business Server 2008 (Microsoft SBS 2008) where upon a server reboot, the server becomes disconnected from the internet, losing email flow to/from the internet and users mobile and remote access stops working.

Users on the local area network (LAN) don’t seem to be affected and otherwise all other server functions e.g. shares, printers, Exchange 2007 still seem to work.

After investigation we have found that for some bizarre reason the setting for the (D.G) TCPIP default gateway on the SBS 2008 server has been lost for no apparent reason. Re-inputting the default gateway again or running the ‘Connect to Internet’ SBS wizard seems to resolve the issue until the server is restarted once again and the ther cycle of repair begins again.

After some investigation we have found that this is a known bug and Microsoft have available a hotfix which is only available upon request rather than a Microsoft Critical Update. You can review this Microsoft article KB973243

The fix will involve installing a Microsoft hotfix and making some changes in the SBS 2008 server registry.  http://support.microsoft.com/kb/973243

Our experience is that once the hotfix and registry changes have been applied the issue does not re-occur.

Century IT Services – Getting IT Right

Providing Computer Support & Network Support to businesses in Hampshire, Dorset, Surrey, Wiltshire, Sussex & Berkshire.

My IP Has Been Blacklisted What Can I Do

May 17th, 2011

I think my IP Addresses may have been ‘Blacklisted’

If you are trying to send email but emails are being bounced or not delivered to the recipients email system – your IP may have been blacklisted.

Your IP address can be ‘Blacklisted’ for a number of reasons

• You have a virus or malware on your PC or network which is sending out SPAM
• You have been reported for sending out SPAM
• Your Mail server / Exchange server has been compromised

What can you do? Well the first thing is to make sure that your computer system including your server is free from viruses or malware and if it is infected remove the infection as soon as possible. There are many companies that offer ‘blacklist’ services on the internet, the longer you leave the problem, the more ‘blacklist’ systems you will start to appear on.

If you can’t find any viruses or malware on your computer systems after running a full scan using your current antivirus software I would recommend you try some alternative antivirus software and run another full scan.

Once the infection is removed you can run through a process of requesting your IP addresses are removed from the ‘Blacklist’ To find out which ‘blacklist’ you are on you can try one of the following MX Toolbox, Black List Check, SPAMHAUS or one of the many other ‘blacklist’ providers.

Depending on which ‘blacklist’ you are on you may be able to get your IP address removed within hours, although some removal requests take days or even longer. I would recommend you are absolutlely certain the virus/malware or server compromise has been resolved before you request removal from a ‘blacklist’ otherwise your removal request will likely suffer unnecessary delays.

Often the reason behind the ‘blacklist’ can be complex and beyond the skills of a normal computer user and you may need to speak to an IT professional to rectify the situation.

Century IT Services – Getting IT Right
Providing Computer Support & Network Support to businesses in Hampshire, Dorset, Surrey, Wiltshire, Sussex & Berkshire

How Fast Is My Broadband Connection

April 12th, 2011

 Broadband Speed Problems?

Is your broadband running slow, or perhaps you dont really know what speed your broadband is running at, or if there is a fault and were  wondering what checks you can do yourself.

Your broadband speed will be dependant upon a number of factors, namely the distance from your local BT Exchange, the quality of cable from the exchange, the number of broadband users at your BT exchange, your internal telephone wiring within your building, other telephony devices within your building, faulty microfilters, throttling at the BT telephone exchange / ISP or any combination of these.

You can usually check your broadband connection speed by looking at your router connection information. You can compare the router information against these tests to Identify your actual Broadband Speed

• BT Speed Tester
• My Broadband Speed
• Broadband Speed Checker
• Think Broadband
• Speed Test.Net
• Sam Knows

If your broadband speed is slower than you would normally expect you can try the following troubleshooting list:-

• Ensure a microfilter is fitted on each telephone socket that is in use
• Try your ADSL router in the BT master socket
• Ensure your router firmware is up to date
• Try unplugging other telephony devices on the broadband  telephone line

By comparing the BT SpeedTester results with other Broadband speed test you can get an idea if your broadband is being throttled at the local BT Telephone Exchange or by the Internet Provider (ISP)

Century IT Services – Getting IT Right
Providing Computer Support & Network Support to businesses in Hampshire, Dorset, Surrey, Wiltshire, Sussex & Berkshire

3CX Business Telephone System

March 3rd, 2011

Are you looking for a feature rich and modern telephone system for your office but thought it was beyond your budget? Think again – ask us about our 3CX phone systems where features like voicemail, call recording, call queues, and music on hold come as standard.

If you tell us about your business, we can give you an informed opinion on how to empower your business for growth.

If you are not talking to your clients and prospects who is?

If you are you looking to make some productivity and customer experience enhancements to your phone system and have discovered these types of features can be costly to implement – why not take a fresh look and find out what a 3CX based VoIP telephone system can do for your company?

Like anything, if you don’t understand the product properly, know its capabilities or how to exploit its capabilities you are not getting value for money.

Century IT Services are Experts, we know how business works and how vital systems like office telephones and I.T need to be a ‘turnkey solution’.

A telephone system that is designed for business will give your company the competitive edge, after all if you are not talking to your clients and prospects who is?

 Are You Missing Incoming Telephone Calls?

Like any business, missing an incoming call can mean a loss of business or opportunity, in a busy office missing vital calls from prospects and customer happens more often than you know!

A 3CX business telephone system has many clever features that you may only expect to see in high end or corporate telephone systems, these can minimise or even eradicate losing of incoming calls

• Ring Groups
• Call Queuing
• DDI’s
• Auto Attendant / Digital Receptionist
• Hunt Groups
• Voice Mail
• Voice Mail to Email
• Music On Hold / Advertising On Hold
• Caller Ring back
• Bounce calls to a queue
• Bounce Calls to mobiles
• Wall chart to monitor queue status
• 3CX software for workstations
• Night Service so calls out of hours and on public holidays go to voice mailbox

A correctly specified business telephone system will become a tool of the business increasing efficiency and productivity, effectively improving your bottom line – your profit!

Tell me a bit more about these Features

Ring Groups – and hunt groups will ensure that if a phone call isn’t answered within a reasonable amount of time the incoming call will bounce to a group of people in a predetermined hunt pattern.

DDI’s - mean that callers can dial the extension of a user directly rather than telephoning the company published number or switchboard

Voice mail – will ensure that if the telephone call is not answered within a pre-set time the caller has the option to leave a message – these voicemail messages can also be forwarded via email to mobiles.

Queuing – What normally happens if you get a sudden influx of incoming telephone calls? We are pretty sure that some calls are lost and callers give up and ring off. With call queues, incoming callers are queued and answered in turn; whilst they are waiting you can ensure they are kept entertained by music on hold or an advertisement on hold.

Bounce Calls to Mobiles – incoming callers can speak their name and calls can be sent to user’s mobiles, mobile users will have the option to hear the caller’s name and decide if they want to accept the call before it put through.

Caller Ring Back – Rather than a caller wait for the phone to be answered, they can enter their phone number and the 3CX will call them back without losing their place in the queue

Music on hold – on hold advertising is the way to go, the days of a poorly digitised green sleeves is back in history with windows 95.   There are plenty of companies on the internet from which you can provide a script, select your voice over and the type of music you want – most can be royalty free, prs free and ppl free.

3CX software for workstations – the 3CX MyPhone software can be installed on workstations so you can easily monitor the status of phone extensions (busy/free/away), call queues, add callers to address books as well as change user specific preferences.

Night Service – The phone system can be programed to automatically go to an answer machine outside office hours and even be preprogramed with bank holidays

I have existing phone lines, how will 3CX work with these?

There are a range of hardware modules (VoIP Gateways) to interface existing BT analogue lines (PSTN), ISDN2e or ISDN30 digital telephone lines.

There are also a choice of modules to allow options for to make telephone calls direct from your telephone system though a mobile phone gateway directly onto mobile networks such as O2, Vodafone, T-Mobile.

If you have inclusive mobile tariffs that include free mobile to mobile telephone calls – this can be cheaper and more cost effective than using BT line to make a call to a mobile

Would you like a Demonstration?

If you thought a new office telephone system was not within your budget think again – tell us how many phone extensions you are looking for and ask for a no obligation quote!

If would like a demonstration to see what a 3CX VoIP telephone system can do for you, deployed and installed expertly by Century IT Services give us a call or fill in our online enquiry form and book yourself a demonstration.

How will you plan your new office telephone system??

3CX Brochure    -      www.3cx.com

If you are looking for an explanation of VoIP acronyms – please review our VoIP terminology page on our BLOG

Century IT Services – Providing 3CX VoIP Telephone System Installations & Support in Hampshire, Dorset, Wiltshire, Surrey, Sussex & Berkshire

Sending Eshots Through Exchange Server

February 8th, 2011

There are several main considerations you need to think about and the main one is how long do you want to give your mail server indigestion for? A small eshot might be completed in several hours but a larger one can go on for days, during this time you will probably find other business emails are being delayed going out.

• Your Exchange Server will not get indigestion
• Your IP won’t run the risk of getting blacklisted
• You can upload your mailing / contact list
• You can test your email to see if will get caught in SPAM systems before you send it
• You can see who has opened your email and clicked on links
• You can easily manage unsubscribers

Century IT Services – Getting IT Right
Providing Computer Support & Network Support to businesses in Hampshire, Dorset, Surrey, Wiltshire, Sussex & Berkshire

Exclaimer Email Disclaimers

January 9th, 2011

IS YOUR COMPANY SENDING EMAILS ILLEGALLY?

Avoid a fine of £1000 and a daily fine of up to £300

Since the 1st October 2008, your company could face a considerable fine for not ensuring all it’s business emails contain specific information about it.

The Companies Act 1985 requires all LTD, PLC, and LLP companies to include the following details on all it’s business e-mails:

• The Company registration number.
• The place of registration. (E.g. Scotland & Wales)
• The Registered office address.

This must be presented in a clear a legible manner. Although many companies add signatures, Confidentiality notices and Disclaimers to their emails, these are often inconsistent between users, computers and mobile devices, and when new people join this is an important task easily forgotten.

For many businesses it can be very difficult to police their email systems and ensure each user meticulously complies with not only business law but the company policies on email and internet use. It can be impossible to check every computer,workstation, laptop and mobile phone (or ipad) complies with email disclaimer policy – thats before we begin to look at remote and home users (thats another bag of worms!)

In an age where company personnel will send emails from a range of different sources including Office mail, Web mail or a portable handheld device the chances of a single email slipping through the net is even greater. Unfortunately one improperly disclaimed email is all it could take to land your company a significant fine.

Thankfully there’s a simpler, more cost effective way!

Thankfully you don’t need to worry about this issue any longer if you speak to the right I.T experts, there is now a simpler, more cost effective and relatively inexpensive way to ensure all your business emails remain legal, a method which is not dependent on individual users or computers and doesn’t have any time implication at all.

If you are using Microsoft Small Business Server (2003, 2008 or 2011), or Microsoft Exchange (2003, 2007 or 2010) you can install some disclaimer software directly on the Exchange Server and this software will automatically disclaim emails as they leave your server

Automatically and Reliable – Guaranteed!

This disclaimer software will automatically add the vital business information to each and every outgoing email. Wherever your company email is sent from, Disclaimer will ensure your business stays legal

If you need an I.T expert to take a fresh look at how your business works and to dicusss how you can make significant and affordable productivity improvements to your business why not give us a call and let us Empower Your Business For Growth – Contact Us

Century IT Services – Getting IT Right

Providing Computer Support & Network Support to businesses in Hampshire, Dorset, Surrey, Wiltshire, Sussex & Berkshire.

Send Arcserve & Backup Exec Email Alerts Through SBS 2008/Exchange 2007

December 16th, 2010

 Emailed backup alerts from Arcserve or backup Exec will not be delivered through Microsoft Small Business Server 2008 due to the fact that  Exchange Server 2007 has improved SMTP relay security when comparing the earlier Microsoft Small Business Server 2003

You will need to an a customer SMTP recieve connector within Exchange 2007 even to recieve backup alerts from the same server.

1) Exchange Management MMC

2) Server Configuration, Hub TransportNew Recieve Connector, Recieve Connectors

3) Create a new (Internal) SMTP Recieve Connector and set the IP address of the server in the ‘Recieve Mail From Remote Servers IP Addresses’

4) Set ‘Externally Secured’ under Authentication’

 Job done

We have since found a useful article on the C.A website  detailing the changes

Century IT Services – Getting IT Right
Providing Computer Support & Network Support to businesses in Hampshire, Dorset, Surrey, Wiltshire, Sussex & Berkshire

VoIP Jitter & Packet Loss

November 29th, 2010

One of the biggest design and installation mistakes we come across in many other 3CX VoIP installations is perhaps the intended sharing of a single business broadband connection with 3CX VoIP trunks and all of the other business internet activities e.g. Surfing, downloads, email, mobile and remote access etc.

Trying to ‘stuff’ everything down a single broadband connection is not a good idea, on a busy or saturated broadband connection, the first service to experience problems will typically be the VoIP Siptrunk Traffic, callers will begin to experience ‘Jitter’ (delays in the voice conversation by each party) and ‘packet loss’ (conversation drops out – parts of the conversation are not heard).

Most modern business broadband routers support a feature called QOS (Quality of Service) whereby VoIP traffic can be prioritised by the router. Basically what happens is that VoIP traffic is prioritised over other types of internet traffic i.e. Surfing & Email, basically internet traffic which does not require ‘real time’ communication over the broadband connection.

This QOS feature does help ‘share’ a broadband connection relatively succesfully but in our experience there are times again when upon broadband saturation VoIP traffic will begin to suffer Jitter and Pack Loss.

If you are suffering from Jitter and Packet Loss the other consideration is your Internet Service Provider, would your ISP know if they have a system where they prioritise VoIP Traffic over their network and the Internet? If they don’t then it doesn’t really matter that you have the right equipment and configuration, VoIP traffic problems will occur further upstream.

What do we recommend?

• We would advise against sharing a broadband connection, 3CX Sip traffic with other computer network systems & services

• We would recommend you select an Internet Service Provider (ISP) who specialise in VoIP and can offer a prioritised VoIP traffic service

• Look at what VoIP Codec you are using and perform a mathematical calculation against your available bandwidth

• Why not use a 3CX recommended VoIP SIp Trunk provider who have a dedicated VoIP Service

• Speak to us about a dedicated VoIP gateway to interface your existing BT phone lines, we have solutions for PSTN, ISDN2e, ISDN30 and mobile/gsm networks

If you think you are suffering from a broadband / VoIP traffic capacity or bottleneck problem, in the first instance try this VoIP Tester

VoIP Tester – VoIP Tester

Why not give us a call to discuss how we can expertly support your 3CX VoIP Telephone System investment or make productivity improvement recommendations?

Century IT Services – Providing expert 3CX VoIP Telephone Installations & Support in Hampshire, Dorset, Wiltshire, Surrey, Sussex, & Berkshire.

Sophos – Cant change expired trial login to purchased licence

October 11th, 2010

 If you have downloaded yourself of Sophos Secuity Suite SBE and have found every time you input your ‘purchased licence’ details from the Sophos PDF you get a ‘Timed Out’ error message and the new licence details are not saved, here is the fix for this problem:-

1) Firstly, please could you make an exception for the following, so they are not blocked, in your firewall and Internet proxy server:
*.sophosupd.com
*.sophosupd.net

This is the main reason why SUM updating fails. To test the exceptions, try downloading the following – they should both work, creating
files that are about 24 KB in size:

http://d1.sophosupd.com/update/736ed2bae19829f6cedf64f194fa1730x000.dat
http://d1.sophosupd.net/update/736ed2bae19829f6cedf64f194fa1730x000.dat

2) After ensuring the above, please could you stop the SUM services as follows:

Start > Run > Services.msc

�
Stop the Sophos Update Manager service.
Stop the Sophos Agent service
Leave services open for now.

In Task Manager, please stop any SophosUpdateManager.exe, SUMService.exe and ManagementAgentNT processes that are running.

3) Start > Run > \\[your_server_name]\sophosupdate

Clear the contents of this ”sophosupdate” share.
Leave the window open for now.

4) Start > Run > explorer

Browse to C:\Program Files\Sophos\SCC\SUM
Delete the file ”specialactions.xml”, ”specialactions.xml~” and ”sum_status.xml”

5) Back in Services.msc, start the Sophos Update Manager service once again. Then start the Sophos Agent service.

6) In Sophos Control Centre, Change your updating Credentials from configure updating click ‘Update Now’ in the top-left.

At this point, it may take a while to start downloading. Please leave it a good 15 minutes.

Century IT Services – Getting IT Right
Providing Computer Support & Network Support to businesses in Hampshire, Dorset, Surrey, Wiltshire, Sussex & Berkshire

Microsoft Office 2010 – Remove Formatting Marks

September 20th, 2010

If you are finding that there are some strange formatting marks in your Microsoft Word document that you haven’t seen before you may have inadvertently turned on the option in Microsoft Word to ‘Show/Hide Formatting Marks’

It should be easy to turn off the Formatting Marks option in Word – See Below

Otherwise follow this link to the relevant Microsoft Article

 Microsoft Show or Hide Formatting Marks

Century IT Services – Getting IT Right

Providing Computer Support & Network Support to businesses in Hampshire, Dorset, Surrey, Wiltshire, Sussex & Berkshire