Vista Battery Saver

So I am running Vista on my laptop, and it has a bunch of little gadgets and graphical candy built in. Let's face it, Vista is pretty. With all this, when you are using a laptop on battery, it really eats the juice.

I was doing a little search for more advanced power management, such as turning off Aero when on battery - and it is not built in. But I stumbled across an open source website sponsored by Microsoft that has all kinds of user enhacements and plug-ins: http://www.codeplex.com/

Vista Improved

Woo hoo! Microsoft has released a VERY effective update that significantly improves performance for Windows Vista. This update is not automatically available via Widows update so if you are interested, you must go here: http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=941649eI am so much happier now with this performance update installed. From what I hear, this will be available in SP1, but why wait and torture yourself?!?

LinkedIn

Within about three days of eachother I had two or three invitations to get LinkedIn - added as a member of someone's profile. So I finally decided to take a look. LinkedIn is an online networking tool - it's power is in how easy it is to find a close friend that knows someone you have been trying to meet, such as an owner of a lucrative lcoal business. Great for networking.

I have attended a networking group for about two and a half years, and got to know the members well, but never good enough to know who they rubbed shoulders with. Within 30 minutes using this tool, I was able to find which of my close friend's knew the business owners that I have wanted to reach.

In a way, this site is a business owner's version of MySpace - more business networking instead of social networking.

Technical Support for Macs

If you do not know by now, our computer company is the "IT Department" for hire - local businesses outsource their computer department needs to us, so we deal with everything technical and that of course include Mac computers. The easy thing about technical support for Mac computers is a Mac user has so much pride in using a Mac. Macs are flawless, never crash, have a superior design, and a superior user interface. That is a rough version of the Mantra I hear when a Mac user sees me using a PC. That is what makes supporting Macs so easy - they do tend to be more stable and with this great interface the end users need less help. It also explains my surprise form this support phone call I had the other day:
End User: "I am having an email problem with my Mac."
Me: "OK, what happens?"
End User: "My Mac crashes whenever I open this specific attachment."
Me (Surprised): "Your Mac Crashes?.... Do you mean your email program freezes or the the computer itself is completely frozen... locked up?"
End User: "No not just the email program. the whole thing crashes."
Me (Surprised still): "Your Mac Crashes, and you are admitting it?!?"
OK, maybe I embellished the conversation a little but I had yet to meet a Mac user that would admit to any instability on their computer. Of course now, I am struggling to fix the problem. How do I get advice on a problem that no one believes? Not even myself.

Would life be easier hundreds of years ago?

Being a System Administrator, sometimes I think the part of desktop support would be easier if I started life fourty years earlier... maybe even four hundred years earlier. But then I came across this video that drew a good picture of most likely how technical support was back in the medieval times. That is when I realized that life is just as difficult and/or frustrating in every age, just in a different context! At least with these videos I can enjoy some humor.

Will it blend?

A close friend forwarded me a link to this website: willitblend.com I have heard of this website before, the owner touts the amazing robustness of his blenders by blending ANYTHING. Today's video is the blending of an iPhone! I never thought I would see an iPhone ground to DUST! http://www.willitblend.com/videos.aspx?type=unsafe&video=iphone I think the funniest part after you see this video is to look at the bidding action on the iPhone dust on eBay.

My Worst Nightmare

I came across this video and it is absolutely my worst nightmare. I think I need to go home early today after seeing this.

Fun in the office

We got our projector installed last week in our conference room/breakroom/theatre. The projector and our 9' wide screen work really well for training, watching movies, and impressing prospective clients. Last night I was cleaning out the garage and came across my old Nintendo, so I decided to bring it to the office. I just spent about 10 minutes hooking it up to our projector and surround sound stereo. There was a little excitement as I finally accomplished one of my ultimate childhood dreams and was left totally dissappointed. When you blow up the graphics of a Nintendo and play Mario bros. - little Mario is about 1 foot tall on the screen and the graphics look terrible! Here is a link to a video on how to beat Mario Bros in about 5 minutes. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yl_XPkcTl4 Since I have YET to beat the game, maybe having it on a bigger screen will help.

Microsoft Surface

People are flipping out about the capability of Microsoft Surface (Demonstrated on the Today show 05/30/2007). This was quite an amazing demonstration of what Microsoft could do with this amaziong touch table. It looks like the DiamondTouch that is designed by Mitsubishi. Microsoft's unveiling on their software, Microsoft Surface, is not the first however. After installing Warcraft III on my Windows Vista Laptop I stumbled across this video using the DiamondTouch to play the game Now I just got to figure out a way to get my paws on one of these tables!

Vista Amazing

So I have had PLENTY of complaints with Windows Vista and have replaced my upgraded desktop with a newly installed laptop and all my problems are gone. Yes, Vista with an upgrade is a guaranteed headache. You may try to power through all the problems, but you will still be plagued with performance problems in the end. I love my new PC and as soon as I get all the important data of the desktop I upgraded, I plan to format that PC as well.

Vista Woes Continue

ZIP files wouldn't open and finding the place to associate file expentsion was difficult (Control Panel -> Default Programs). However there are no valid options to fix the ZIP file extension. after about an hour of browsing Ifound a helpfil File associate fix at: http://www.dougknox.com/xp/file_assoc.htm - Thanks Doug! Just ran the little REG file fix. Open the Default Programs app and selected the correct thing to do with Compressed ZIP files and I am all set. My former TIF file problem was however easily fixed in the Default Programs tool in the Control Panel. Even though this is a fast machine, with 2GB of RAM, vista has its slow lag times. I cannot wait until SP1 and HEAVILY recommend anyone who is willing to try or test vista should do a full install, not an upgrade. I still have aweird error whenever I put in my Mobile Phone: OnConnect is shutdown - what is OnConnect anyway? and MFC71.dll was not found. GRR! A quick search of the hard drive for this file and a copy to c:\windows\system32 fixed that error. Other than that, I have no idea what is now working of if I really accomplished anything other than removing the error message. And Windows Media Player 11 natively supports PodCasts now right? No! That is how I ran into my ZIP file problem. I had to look for a podcast plugin that is offered as a ZIP file. GRR. On the positive side, Vista is pretty. Heh, I feel so much better.

Laptop Upgrade to Vista

Now that things have smoothed out on my Vista upgrade, I decided to try my own advice in regards to my laptop. Recall, I recommended to forgoe the upgrade and perform a fresh install. So about an hour an a half later, not only was Vista installed, but on a laptop that is officially not supported by HP for Vista. All the major components worked: video, sound, & wireless. I just had to adjust to the correct resolution and ask Vista to find a driver for my memory card slots (yes I just to told it to find one on the internet and it automatically downloaded what it needed). This install was quite easy and for a laptop with only 512MB of RAM I am impressed. I am still planning on a memory upgrade since I have not given it a real workout yet. Still I have so many questions to answer: How well does Vista play in a network environment? What security features are going to conflict with daly business tasks? How many components of the existing networks will need to be upgraded before Vista can take advantage of shared printers from XP, or network aware anti-virus? Boy did I open a can of worms!

Windows Vista Upgrade - Part 2

Still troubleshooting. I get a buzz every time sounds are played through the speakers. I also get an error about a failure to load some DLL file. Apparently it is a creative labs application, so I am uninstalling all the Creative labs apps. Bottom line: Don't upgrade to save time. You will spend less time with a fresh install of Vista, reinstalling your apps than you will if you upgrade and have to troubleshoot each new problem that comes up, and the peace of mind of a fresh install is totally worth it!

Windows Vista Upgrade

So I decided to upgrade my PC this morning to Windows Vista. I started the upgrade at 7AM, having a little bit of foresight, I decided to unintall Anti-Virus and the disk defragging software. As of 10AM Windows Vista is running, but my Mobile PC synchronization & PDF printing (cute PDF) are not. We have been playing around with Vista for around 6 months since RC1. I even used Vista RC2 for some manager seminars we hosted back in January. So the interface is familiar, but I have not tried some of the device applications. An upgrade/reinstall of Cute PDF 2.7 fixed PDF printing. But I am spinning my wheels on ActiveSync & Chapura PocketMirror. In addition I plan to install Office 2007 Enterprise. I will keep you all posted.

Office Remodel

So we are remodeling our office. My brother came down last weekend to help us expand this wall, then decides it is better to tear it out and start from scratch. At that point, this project immediately doubled in size and cost. And since I'm involved, I am going crazy on electrical and data. In just 30 feet of space I have 20 Ethernet drops (10 on each side) and 5 - 20A electrical circuits. Serious power. Without my brother I would have never gotten this project started, and now that we tore the wall out, there is no going back. As of this weekend, we need to finish the sheetrock, putty the walls, finish the elctrical & data wires, prime, then paint. My business partner and myself are doing this all on our own. Maybe to prove to everyone that we are not the typical computer geek. I just hope to finish it soon.

Seminar

I never thought preparing for a seminar would be so involved. I am trying to equip the office managers of our client and help them use the collaborative tools in Outlook to better manger their employees. In addition to a good seminar and PowerPoint slides - We cleaned the office, set up catering, cleaned out the refrigerator and even had to prepare for extra parking and provide signage. I could have postponed the seminars and still not be prepared. Hosting seminars is definitely something that needs practice to perfect!