Ben Culbertson
Ben Culbertson (MCT, MCSA, MCDBA, CIW, A+, Net+, MOS) has taught thousands of people in the Chicagoland area, and brings ten years of training, web, print, and network consulting experience to the table. Serving a two year tour of duty as an inner city high school teacher, he motivated at-risk students to achieve excellence and learned how to teach high level concepts in a rubber-meets-the-road fashion. He is also the Technical Editor and webmaster of ReliefJournal.com, a quarterly literary journal, and the Editor-In-Chief for Coach’s Midnight Diner, an annual genre anthology.
Ben Culbertson has written 20 posts for TrainSignal Training
How to Check if Your Processor is Capable of Handling Virtualization
By Ben Culbertson ⋅ October 2, 2009 ⋅ One comment
If you’re planning on making the move to virtualization, whether it’s Hyper-V or VMware you need to first make sure that your hardware, and more specifically your processor, can handle virtualization. How do you do that? Well, there’s actually a really easy way to check which Intel processors support virtualization and which don’t. So if [...]
Video Clip: How to Install SQL Server 2008 on Hyper-V
By Ben Culbertson ⋅ July 16, 2009 ⋅ 3 comments
Hey gang, Coach here with a really cool video clip that brings Hyper-V and SQL Server together. Mel and I recently did a bonus video on how to install SQL Server 2008 on Hyper-V for our SQL Server 2008 Administration and Hyper-V trainings and today we wanted to share a short clip from that video. [...]
How to Install WordPress on Server 2008 the Easy Way
By Ben Culbertson ⋅ April 23, 2009 ⋅ Post a comment
You know, I’ve never been much of a fan of using Windows as a Web Server. I don’t like ASP code, I never liked the configuration of IIS 5 or 6, and I know a lot of guys who just got tired of wrestling the security issues on Windows Server. Not to mention the fact [...]
Coach’s Critical Career Tips: The Ability to Research
By Ben Culbertson ⋅ April 2, 2009 ⋅ Post a comment
Hey gang, Coach here with a vital skill that you need in the IT arena. With the uber-fast rate of change in the IT world, the old big thick here’s-how-to-do-everything books are becoming so 20th century. You need to be able to do research online in order to get the latest and greatest info on [...]
The Why of IT: My Philosophy of IT Training and Certification
By Ben Culbertson ⋅ March 17, 2009 ⋅ One comment
I’m pretty sure that it was Victor Frankl who said that we humans can do just about anything if we have a why. The how we can figure out, but the why of what we do is critically important to every choice and action. So I’ve been thinking about why I do what I do [...]
How to Use Hyper-V and WDS to Virtualize Windows Server 2003
By Ben Culbertson ⋅ March 4, 2009 ⋅ One comment
Learn how to move a physical Server 2003 machine to a Hyper-V Virtual Machine using only Server 2008′s Windows Deployment Services as a tool. If you can’t shell out the dollars for System Center Virtual Machine Manager, this might just be an option for your migration to the wonderful world of virtualization. If you’re not [...]
Video: Server 2008 MCTS and MCITP Certifications
By Ben Culbertson ⋅ March 2, 2009 ⋅ 3 comments
I know a lot of you are interested in learning about the new certifications and upgrade paths for current MCSA’s and MCSE’s. Today we’ll talk about which exams you’ll need to pass to move your skill set up and achieve the MCITP certification. I’ll explain in detail what the MCTS and MCITP certifications are and [...]
Free Server 2008 Training: Windows Deployment Services
By Ben Culbertson ⋅ February 26, 2009 ⋅ One comment
Welcome to Client Imaging and Deployment. Today we’ll start with a quick introduction to WDS, which I think will become an important feature for many of you working with Server 2008. Now let me start with a little warning; Microsoft does not have good documentation on WDS, and it even took me a while to [...]
Free Server 2008 Training: Windows Server 2008 Terminal Services
By Ben Culbertson ⋅ February 18, 2009 ⋅ 4 comments
Ready to tackle Terminal Services? Today we’ll be taking a look at some of the great new tools, features and advantages of Terminal Services. I’m also going to show you how to setup Remote Applications. I’m going to walk you through installing the Terminal Services role, adding an application, and actually creating a remote desktop [...]
Free Server 2008 Training: Server 2008 IIS 7 Web Servers
By Ben Culbertson ⋅ February 17, 2009 ⋅ 2 comments
Moving right along, today we start off with a discussion of some of the new features of IIS 7.0 and then we’ll get into modularization, which is a really cool element of this next generation web server. What modularization allows us to do is build our own web server depending on our unique needs, so [...]
Free Server 2008 Training: Windows Server 2008 RODC – Read Only Domain Controllers
By Ben Culbertson ⋅ February 16, 2009 ⋅ One comment
What is an RODC? When do you use it? How do you use it? These are just some of things we’re going to be covering today. I will also explain the requirements for an RODC and walk you through the steps to deploy RODC on your server. Here’s what’s covered in today’s video: What is [...]
Free Server 2008 Training Windows Server 2008 File and Print Servers
By Ben Culbertson ⋅ February 15, 2009 ⋅ Post a comment
Today we’ll learn about what’s new in file and print server roles in Windows Server 2008. I’ll walk you through implementing Distributed File System, namespaces and replication using our Verde Petra scenario and at the end I’ll also show you how to implement print services. Here’s what this video covers: What’s new in File and [...]
Free Server 2008 Training: Windows Server Core and DHCP Servers in Server 2008
By Ben Culbertson ⋅ February 14, 2009 ⋅ 6 comments
Now that you know how to install Server 2008 and Active Directory and create users and groups let’s move on to Server Core and DHCP. So what is Server Core? Well it’s basically a stripped down version of Server 2008 and there are a lot of neat things about it. Today we’ll focus on Server [...]
Free Server 2008 Training: Active Directory Users and Groups in Windows Server 2008
By Ben Culbertson ⋅ February 13, 2009 ⋅ 10 comments
Ready to learn about Active Directory Users and Groups? Great! Now, I’m going to assume that you already installed Server 2008 and Active Directory and have your server set up and ready to go. Today we’ll start with a quick review of Active Directory so you can get a good idea of what’s new in [...]
Free Server 2008 Training: How to Install Server 2008 and Active Directory
By Ben Culbertson ⋅ February 12, 2009 ⋅ 6 comments
Today we’ll start with Installing Windows Server 2008 and Active Directory. Here’s what I cover in this video: The scenario — I’ll start off by introducing you to the scenario that we’ll be working with all throughout this training Quick edition check — we’ll go through the different flavors of Server 2008 and the requirements [...]
Free Server 2008 Training Videos: Introduction to Server 2008
By Ben Culbertson ⋅ February 11, 2009 ⋅ 10 comments
If you’re thinking about making the move to Server 2008 or want to learn more about it, then you’ve found the best place to start! I created this free 6 hour introductory video series for people just like you. This free mini-course is divided into 10 lessons and covers the essentials of Server 2008. We’ll [...]
New Training Release: Windows Server 2008 Applications Infrastructure Training
By Ben Culbertson ⋅ January 27, 2009 ⋅ 2 comments
Hey gang, Coach here with hot-off-the-presses news that we’re releasing my Server 2008 Windows Applications Infrastructure course for the 70-643 exam. I had a blast building this course, because it encompasses some of my more favorite tech. A while back, Kasia the brilliant web mistress interviewed me, and I know that this week she’s super [...]
Six Snarky Statements: Why System Admins Need Microsoft Word
By Ben Culbertson ⋅ March 11, 2008 ⋅ One comment
Hey, Coach here with a really important post. I have talked with and taught system administrators around the country, and I am aghast how few of them really know Microsoft Word. If I had a nickel for every time I’ve heard, “I’m a network administrator, what do I need Word for?” and “That’s for those [...]
5 Cool, Must-Know Things About SharePoint 2007
By Ben Culbertson ⋅ October 16, 2007 ⋅ Post a comment
SharePoint is being adopted by more and more large and small organizations every day. Designed by Microsoft, SharePoint Services simplifies collaboration and increases efficiency in the workplace by providing a single, shared workspace. Coordinating schedules, organizing documents, collaborating on projects, and sharing information and ideas is made easier, more effective and more convenient. Besides increasing [...]
Robocopy: No, It’s Not a Giant Robot!
By Ben Culbertson ⋅ October 10, 2007 ⋅ 2 comments
Robocopy is a nifty little tool that’s been around for a while under the Windows Resource Kit, but Uncle Bill and the gang over at Microsoft have decided that its time has come. Robocopy makes its desktop debut in Vista! So many of us admins love to pick up another scripting option, and Robocopy is [...]