Remote Support Software
I’ve been wondering why there aren’t more free internet remote support solutions given that there is very good open source code out there to accomplish this (i.e. VNC). Using VNC requires knowing the host IP and having TCP 5900 open through whatever firewalls the host is using. I have come across a couple of free […]
Transitioning from XP to Vista
What should we do about Vista? The major hardware vendors are making it harder to get XP pre-installed, so licensing will begin to get dodgy. Also Microsoft will end “Mainstream support” of XP on 4/14/09 http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/?LN=en-us&C2=1173&x=13&y=13
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- Personally I would prefer to stick with XP until the bitter end, but we will begin to see […]
- Personally I would prefer to stick with XP until the bitter end, but we will begin to see […]
Technorati
I am starting to get into things like Technorati and Digg and Reddit.
Automate ASR Backups on Windows 2003 Server
ASR Backups are a cool way to get system state backups of Windows 2003 server. They are cooler than regular NTBackup system state backups, because you can do a “bare metal” restore by booting a system with no OS to the installation CD and providing the ASR disk and path to backup files (USB drive, […]
How close can you get to Exchange with Google Apps?
Here are the main problem I see with rolling Google Apps out to Outlook users who are used to Exchange:
- Access to shared calendars won’t work the same
- I guess you could use something like OggSync to sync public and selected private calendars, but that is kludgey compared to Exchange free/busy functionality.
- Using the Google Apps web interface […]
Re-imaging instead of troubleshooting
At a large HMO I used to work for, they used to have a tough re-image policy. I believe that if a problem took more than two hours to solve, they would just have the desktop support person re-image the machine. This approach did lead to plenty of problems, lost user data, etc. But, if […]
Workstation builds – two partitions or one?
I had a lively exchange with another consultant today that included a discussion of imaging client machines. This other fellow subscribed to what I think is an old school philosophy that there should be a separate volume for the system and the data on client machines. I still subscribe to this view in regard […]
NetMeeting in the corporate video conference context
For corporate video conferencing, we usually have a dedicated “codec” from Tandberg or Polycom. However, we recently ran across this offering from Sony which works well, has nice modular add-ons, supports the latest protocols, and is more economical: Sony iPela PCS-G50. (CDW is a good corporate vendor if you want to simplify purchasing […]
Crazy Computing Clouds
I have been thinking about how to provide health monitoring to our clients, host servers for our consulting business, and have a flexible lab environment for testing and training. We don’t have a data center of our own, so I started looking at dedicated servers, virtual dedicated servers, etc. I was able to cave in […]
Client Backups: Offline Folders vs. Robocopy
Some IT shops don’t even bother with client backups. I’ve had one IT Admin tell me that he sets a policy for all users to save their data on the network. If they neglect to do that, it’s not his fault. This CYA approach only makes sense if you are almost deliberately […]
Using smartphones as modems
Some clients insist on having mobile broadband cards in their laptops which is pretty cool. But why pay for the extra data plan when so many of these same users already have a smartphone with data. Just configure the device and laptop and you can access the internet wherever there is a cell phone signal. […]
Spam Filtering
After much abuse from my associates, I have finally caved in. I’m all for using http://Postini.com to filter out spam. It’s cheap and it works well. It keeps the spam off the network, and I like how it just sends a quarantine report to the end-users each day.
Of course, now we have […]
Online backups – my fears
Why am I so turned off by online backups? Well I’m not entirely turned off, I use http://filesanywhere.com to backup my personal workstation. Here are some things that bother me:
- special files – The performance of online backups relies on being able to perform incremental backups (and compress these?). But some special files are […]
Managing Business Contact Information
Every business will benefit from managing their contact information in a more effective way. (Don’t get me started on CRM – this site is about simple and cheap solutions.) The problem is that this information is often distributed among many sources, excel files, individual users’s address books, Active Directory (GAL), sharepoint, etc. I am actually […]
Updating GAL (Global Address List)
One problem that I sometimes face is how to help businesses manage their contact information. This is certainly a large enough topic to warrant many articles, but one tiny step forward is to update the Global Address List with the user contact info. Problem is that this info is only stored in the user’s AD […]