Thursday, June 29, 2006

:BlackBerry Sync

BlackBerry calendar and contact sync used to only be for the big guys. Now There is a FREE single user edition of BlackBerry Enterprise Server! Additional users can be added for $99 each up to 15 users. It will run on Small Business Server 2003. I just completed my first implementation and am ready to deploy on a regular basis. If you are interested in learning more, please feel free to contact me.

:SBS 2003 Client Application Deployment

I was searching high and low to figure out if Small Business Server 2003 could deploy client applicatoins to Windows 2000 Professional. I know it works for XP Professional. I think I finally figured out that it does. It does not deploy for Windows 98 or Windows ME.

The Set Up Client Applications Wizard only works with client computers running Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional and Microsoft Windows XP Professional. If you have a client computer running a different operating system, you must connect to the share manually from the client computer.

Tuesday, June 13, 2006

:Service Pack 2006

Numerous vendors have now posted service packs, including Trend Micro and Microsoft. Trend Micro has SP1 available for it's Client Server Messaging Security Suite for SMB. Microsoft has SP2 for Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 and SP2 for Windows Sharepoint Services. Contact Virtual October to have your updates completed.

Thursday, May 04, 2006

:Microsoft's Focus

Despite being evacuated from the facility for a fire in an electrical room, the recent TS2 event sponsored by Microsoft was a great learning experience. Highlights of the event included the entire presentation runninng on Windows Vista Beta, Microsoft's new Windows platform launching in early 2007. Despite earlier claims that everyone would have to upgrade all of thier hardware to partake, Vista will ship in 32bit versions taking advantage of todays most recent PC and laptop purchases.
The 2007 Office (not Office 2007 - huh?) has drastic menu changes, but very intuitive, better use of screen space, faster formatting, and a new document standard based on xml that allows anyone to view a document without having to have that version of Office. In fact you don't even need Office at all since it is an Internet enabled format. Despite the late relase date, you can still make Office 2003 pay for itself in less than 8 hours of your time (that's how much simpler it is to use) and I can even show you a way to get a FREE UPGRADE to 2007 Office when it comes out.
R2 version of Small Business Server 2003 is mostly full of the latest Service Packs for the first version. However the Premium version does include SQL 2005. The new branch office support allows the setup of a "Virtual Server" that synchronized shared data, so no matter what office you are in, you see the exact same things. Seamless failover is included so users stay connected even when the local server or Internet connection drops.
Many more topics and demo's where discussed. I didn't win any books or CD's, but all in all it was a great event.

Wednesday, April 19, 2006

:Good Bye Windows 98, ME

In what is bound to go down with some screaming and yellling, Microsoft has announced that it will stop support of Windows 98 and Windows ME in July of this year. Support documents will still be available online though. Microsoft is planning a 2007 release of their latest Windows desktop software called Microsoft Vista.

Friday, April 07, 2006

:Windows XP Paging file missing

Virtual October is on the case of the "Missing Windows XP Paging File". The paging file is a swap file, or virtual memory file that Windows uses in addition to your RAM installed in your computer. Without a page file, Windows is sluggish and slow.

Even after I reset the Virtual Memory in Control Panel, System, Advanced Tab, Performance, Settings and rebooted there is still no pagefile.sys. I did this multiple times so I was sure I wasn't losing my touch.

Norton Antivirus was installed, that could be it. I was upgrading to Trend Micro Client Security anyway. So I removed Symantec Norton AV, installed the Trend Micro CS client and rebooted. No change.

Then I found a Microsoft article about the issue. Which directed me to a site about Intel's Application Accelorator. I downloaded and prepared myself to be let down again, but after the reboot, it worked. Pagefile.sys intact and working. Performance is much better now.

:DELL laptop fuzzy display fix

For some reason Dell is shipping their laptops with a "low resolution" setting in Internet Explorer (IE). When you browse the Internet, all the pictures are blurry, fuzzy and really quite nasty looking. After ton's of research, I finally found the fix and ran it on quite a few laptops already. It does work, but you need to edit the registry. I strongly suggest making a backup of the registry first and then making the change, just in case.

You just need to change one registry setting located at HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main

Change "UseHR" to dword:00000000. It is probobly set to 1 right now.

Reboot and everything is clear!

Friday, March 10, 2006

:Microsoft Certified Small Business Specialist

I passed the MS Certified Small Business Specialist test today. I had already take the sales test. More info soon on the logo and the benefits.

Tuesday, February 21, 2006

:Cancer Benefit Golf Tournament in York

The 15th annual Peter A. LaCesa memorial golf tournament will be held on May 20th at Briarwood Golf Course in York Pennsylvania. The benefit has donated almost $120,000 to the York unit of the American Cancer Society and the York Cancer Center Patient Fund. Virtual October is proud to be a sponsor of the event. Please see their website for more information, to register, or to sponsor the event. www.palgolf.org

:Outlook limits

Here is a new one for you. Not only do you have the limits imposed by an Exchange server for your Outlook 2003 settings, but you also have a local registry setting that imposes limits on Outlook's local .pst and .ost file sizes. Only fix, keep your inbox trimmed down.

Monday, February 20, 2006

:Trend Micro Licensing NOW ONLINE

Now it is even easier to renew your Trend Micro license. http://licenseonline.virtualoctober.com

Our online portal makes renewing Trend Micro software as simple as 1, 2, 3. We can provide you a custom quote, and checkout is simple and fast right online.

Also available on the portal is harware and equipment, as well as another source for purchasing MS software.

:Quickbooks 2006

Networking with the latest version of Quickbooks just got easier. Quickbooks 2006 includes a database server to assist performance in multi-user networks. The database server runs on the computer sharing the database or on a network server like Microsoft Windows Server 2003.
Learn More Here.

Friday, February 17, 2006

:Microsoft BETA

No, it's not a new Microsoft product name. It's MS's pre-release trial period product names. Microsoft has released a plethora of Beta's. Here is the brief list.

Windows Defender - Formally Microsoft AntiSpyware. Free realtime spyware scanner.
Windows OneCare Live

Windows Live Safety Center - Online version of Windows OneCare Live.
Windows Live Safety Center

Thursday, February 16, 2006

:Windows Vista

Article on the new versions of Windows coming out in 2007.
The only thing missing is Small Business Edition..

Wednesday, February 08, 2006

:Circles

Today I felt like I drove in circles. Up one side of the river, down the other, then up again, and then down again. Moving profiles here, resetting an entire office's IP settings there. Thank goodness the last circle included a few beers and a hockey game. Not bad for a days work.

Friday, January 20, 2006

:Disable Java Update in 3 Simple Steps

If you already have the latest java on your computer, you will notice that by default it constantly wants to update. I find this quite annoying as it always seems to pop-up at the most unopportune time.

Here is how to disable the updates.
1. Open Control Panel and double click JAVA Plugin.
2. Choose the update tab.
3. Uncheck the box for "Check for updates automatically".

Then you can choose when to update by going to this tab and choosing manual update.

And there you have it.
If you do need java, please visit http://www.java.com/