Probably the most stressful part about making a decision whether to move to Windows 7 or not is wondering what it really has to offer. For those of us who make our living writing, testing and training this is all we do, so it is not so bad. But I remember when I was in the trenches daily as an IT Director trying to test all the ins and outs of Vista. Doing that meant losing time on something else…mostly lunch and sleep. Read more
Social media is no doubt redesigning the way we do business. The people at Microsoft Research are designing a new Outlook add-in that will literally redesign the look of your email user interface.
Yesterday I received a tweet ( see what I mean about social media)about and interesting new project called "Social Views of Email". Now I am sure this is not the "code" or "official" name...as least I hope not, that would not be catchy at all...the project is currently in the proof of concept stage. Read more
In the world of cross-platform environments the challenge of backing up Linux, Unix, Mac and Windows data to a single solution can be costly or downright impossible.
Thanks to an open source project called Bacula. Bacula is actually a "set" of software programs that combine to form an enterprise ready solution for backup, recovery, verification and cataloging of network data. Read more
As the Dual boot saga comes to a close, I wanted to talk about one more tool that really helped me to put it all together. Anyone who is a longtime Windows guy can remember the boot.ini text file that we used in order to change boot order and the timeout settings. Although this was easy to use it was also really insecure as well. With the introduction of Windows Vista came a new boot loader and a new tool to edit the file as well call BCD edit. Well BCD edit is a command line tool and can be a bit of a headache to manipulate. Read more
In my post last week I spoke about a third party utility called GParted Live. I quickly thanked my fellow Microsoft Subnet comrade Mitchell Ashley, but I really owe him more than a quick thanks this utility was a life saver in many ways. I was knee deep into getting my system ready for OCS 2007 R2. I had created an image of my Vista install, backed up all my documents and favorites and then I went to use the shrink volume utility from within Vista. Problem is it was only allowing me to shrink the volume by only 38GB’s. Read more
Some of you may have wondered why I have laid off speaking about OCS 2007 R2 when it first released. Especially considering I have taken part in writing two books about OCS 2007. The truth is at the time of the official announcement in February I was in negotiations to write a new book...about OCS 2007 R2.
I figured that I would have enough to say about it soon enough and I would blog about the experience of writing the book. I also have to say the subject has been well covered by my counter parts on the Microsoft Subnet. Read more
Handling file and mail server maintenance is one of the tasks that tend to creating varying opinions amongst IT Pros. Some feel that the large amount of disk space and endless redundancy available these days’ means that file duplication is a task left to the user’s discretion. Others, perhaps due to the nature of the business have a very strict policy on file and email duplication. Read more
For over a year now I have been writing and bringing you tools that are Open Source, Cross Platform, inexpensive or just absolutely great for making the life of an IT professional easier and more productive. I have been able to bring you everything from Enterprise class solutions to tools that you can use on a thumb drive. Read more
Perhaps the oddest task we have to undertake as IT professionals is securely erasing hard drives. We spend so much time and effort on keeping the data, that when the time comes to remove it, it almost seems unnatural. Read more
As we move towards the newest phase of technology and see the growth of cloud computing, some may be concerned about how to protect their computer when they have no control over the hosted services you receive.
Well Panda security the makers of security solutions for home and enterprise users has released the first FREE cloud computing antivirus client software. Panda Cloud Antivirus, is a cloud based thin client that is lightweight and more efficient than traditional antivirus software. Read more
As I mentioned when I put together the 12 free SharePoint tools posting. There are a ton of great add ons for SharePoint. And as I promised I am going to bring you a new one from time to time. One I came across on Codeplex that I thought was particularlly interesting is a project called SharePoint InstantListFilter. Read more
So last Wednesday I received an invitation to a Seminar and Luncheon on Unified Communications. Since I have spent quite a bit of time over the last two years writing, speaking and implementing Unified Communications solutions (mostly OSC 2007), I thought it would be cool to attend this function and look at greater detail at some alternatives to the Microsoft offering. Read more
Keeping with the theme I started last week, I thought I would look at another Open Source alternative to a popular commercial software package. Being a writer I cannot think of any tool more important to me than a screenshot tool. They say a picture is worth a thousand words and a screenshot certainly saves me pages of explanation or in some cases re-explanation.
So to me a tool like Snagit is essential to my work, I recently came across an Open Source alternative to Snagit, a software project called Greenshot. Read more
One of my favorite tasks as an IT professional was to layout our network infrastructure using Microsoft Visio. It was that I performed however only two times a year. In addition, every three years I had the task of planning an entirely new network infrastructure. Now it was not an incredible expense for me since it was only a single copy of Visio that I needed to purchase and I did not always need the latest and greatest version either. Read more
Have you ever needed to connect to RDP, ICA, SSH, VNC and telnet sessions. Usually this means using two or more clients. Then there is the matter of managing those systems you connect to using these sessions. Read more
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SharePoint's popularity as a collaboration tool has exploded. So the time was right to look at add-on products for expanding its usability, management and customization. I was surprised, but happy, to find that many add-on tools for SharePoint is free.
I remember when we moved my firm from a small SMB firewall solution, I won’t mention names but the device was meant for no more than 50 concurrent users and had a maximum throughput of 10Mbits sustained. This was a problem considering I was supporting three offices and had a fiber optic connection that had 100Mbit of throughput.
We moved to an enterprise level firewall from the same manufacturer and I was excited to get the entire throughput and advanced firewall options I needed, except one. Read more
Piracy - An act of robbery on the high seas or an act resembling such robbery.
I am not talking about stealing software (hence the definition); rather I am talking about committing acts that resemble that kind of high seas robbery. Why do I say that you ask?
I had a friend ask me to look at her Mom’s laptop, which came from the manufacturer with a security suite of software pre-installed. You know what I am going to say next don’t you. The system is loaded with viruses because the updates for antivirus definitions ran–out. Read more
When I started in the business years ago, most bosses insisted that end-users not have soundcards and/or speakers at their desks. The inclusion of audio and video in the everyday workplace has sure taken a turn into the mainstream becoming what we in Technology always knew it could be, which is a tool to increase productivity n the workplace, rather than a hindrance to productivity. Read more
Monitoring your server room (and all the devices within) is a necessary function in any IT shop. What if you could monitor up to 100 devices with a single appliance that is energy efficient, loaded with features, easy to manage and…fits in the palm of your hand.
I am talking about the ServersCheck Monitoring Appliance. This tiny device comes preloaded with the browser -based software to manage all your network devices. Read more
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Ron Barrett is president of RARE-TECH, an IT Training and consulting company. He has been a technology professional for over a decade, working for several major financial firms and dotcoms. Barrett is a specialist in network infrastructure, security and IT management.
He is a co-author of The Administrator's Guide to Microsoft Office 2007 Servers, How to Cheat at Administering Office Communications Server 2007, and the Real MCTS/MCITP Exam 620 Preparation Kit and has been a contributor to Windows 2000 Enterprise Storage Solutions and Exam Cram �70-244-Supporting & Maintaining NT Server 4.
He has also contributed to several industry magazines and was featured in the book Tricks of the Windows Vista Masters. He has worked for Microsoft writing research and analysis documents for Windows Server 2008, Windows HPC, and PerformancePoint Server 2007. He has also created screencasts on Windows Server 2008 Administration for Linux Admins.
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