-
Recent Posts
Our other Web Properties:
Recent Comments
Archives
Categories
Meta
Category Archives: Desktop
Xen Vs VMware
VMWare has great pre-built systems. Microsoft Hyper-V does a horrible job at this, while
Xen may appear to be in the back of the pack at first, it really isn’t. The fact that Xen has no pre-built systems doesn’t slow down the server room, because the servers we spin up are our own. We assemble our own pre-built systems, and they work great, certainly faster than the rest once you’ve got a few good baseline systems built.
Tools:
Posted in Desktop
Leave a comment
Virtual Server Room -When to go virtual.
If you have three or more servers in your server room, then you should consider virtualizing.
The best way to describer a virtual server is to imagine you’ve taken a full snapshot of your entire server and then you boot it inside another system. There are many tools that help you do this, even free tools. These technologies range from VMWare to Xen server and even tools you might use on your Mac, like Fusion and Parallels, are virtualization tools.
We have identified two basic situations when it’s obviously and unarguably time to go virtual:
Posted in Desktop
Leave a comment
7 Useful Tips for Getting up and Running with Office 2010
Office 2010, the latest office suite from Microsoft, has been out for about a year and a half now. To IT guys like us, that means enough time has passed that the product is probably stable enough to recommend to clients for an upgrade. We’ve been using Office 2010 as well, ironing the kinks out and thinking about how new users might take to the new interface if they were upgrading from Office 2003. That’s why we prepared this list of useful tips and tricks for getting up and running with Office 2010:
- Create a Customized Tab on the Office 2010 Ribbon
Posted in Desktop
Comments Off
Hackers Stole an SSL Certificate from Google: What You Need to Know
The Dutch company that issued a rogue digital certificate for all Google Internet domains said today that its network had been hacked last month.
DigiNotar, a Dutch certificate authority (CA) that was acquired earlier this year by Chicago-based Vasco, said it was unaware of the breach for more than a week and had overlooked the in-the-wild Google certificate for over a month.
Multiple SSL (secure socket layer) certificates were stolen in the July hack, said DigiNotar.
“On July 19, 2011, DigiNotar detected an intrusion into its Certificate Authority (CA) infrastructure, which resulted in the fraudulent issuance of public key certificate requests for a number of domains, including Google.com,” the company said in a statement on Tuesday.
Posted in Desktop
Comments Off
Top 5 Ways To Stay Safe on the Web
The internet is a not a safe place. Oh sure, it looks like it on the surface, but millions of websites are infected with malware-spreading scripts that make infecting your PC as easy as visiting the wrong web page. Indeed, as the web becomes more and more sophisticated and more commercial transactions utilize the web, the more incentive there is for the creation of new vectors for malware transmission and threats that no one could’ve even imagined a few years ago. So bearing that in mind, here are the top 5 things to keep in mind to stay safe when browsing the web:
Apple WWDC 2011: The Top Ten Upgrades coming for MAC OS X Lion
Apple announced today that their next version of OS X will be released in July, and will cost just $29.99 (the same price as the previous upgrade). Unlike previous releases, however, Lion is not going to be released into retail channels. It will be available solely through the Mac App Store. This is the first time a major desktop OS update has not been available as a retail product. This decision may annoy some system administrators for its relative lack of flexibility, but most consumers are likely to see it as a benefit. Another first that should please consumers and business owners alike is the fact that you’re only required to purchase a single license, which can then be installed on any authorized Mac you own. Here’s hoping Microsoft makes a similar move, but that seems about as likely as Steve Jobs turning up for a keynote in a clown suit…
Posted in Clients, Desktop, Tech News, Uncategorized
Comments Off
Malware on a Mac? Surely you jest.
Before we get to our promised post explaining the best methods for keeping your PC clean from malware, we thought it’d be prudent to mention that it’s not just the PC users of the world who have to worry about nasty software infecting their computers. While they have oft been considered “virus-free” by their proponents, Mac computers are increasingly being targeted by the malware coders of the world. Maybe they just don’t like being made fun of for not having an iPhone, or maybe it’s because Mac computers now have a somewhat larger market share than they did just a few years ago. Either way, malware on Macs is here, and Apple’s response to it is rather telling. Here’s what’s going on:
Anti-Malware Walkthrough: Step-by-Step Guide For Getting Rid of Viruses and Spyware
Viruses. Spyware. These bogey words haunt every PC user, but many do not know what they really are or, more importantly, how to get rid of them. There is no clear-cut definition the separates a virus versus a piece of spyware, and in fact, sometimes the catch-all term “malware” is used. For our purposes, though, there is no real difference. We just want to get rid of all of it.
Posted in Desktop, Security, Tech Support
Comments Off
The Magical Self-Encrypting and Self-Erasing Hard Drive
Alright, it’s not really magical, but it is really, really useful. Toshiba has announced the production of new self-erasing hard drives. Worried about data security? You should think about investing in one of these ingenious machines: the Toshiba Self-Erasing Drive.
Perhaps you travel quite often for your business, and so rely quite heavily on your laptop for storing important sensitive information about your clients and internal documentation. Obviously your OS is already locked down, so you’re not too worried about remote attacks, but what if that drive is yanked from your laptop and plugged in somewhere else. It’s ripe for the picking. There are other solutions, but this Toshiba drive has a particularly elegant and simple one.
Posted in Desktop, Security, Uncategorized
Comments Off
5 Steps to Securing and Speeding up your Entire Office Computer Network at Every Level.
The idea that your computer can get infected was dismissed years ago, you installed antivirus protection. It should be all set right, you keep the updates going and you run Windows updates, so what do you have to worry about? But then it hits you: your computer has been getting slower and slower, you’ve been getting way too many pop-ups on the ‘net and the websites you go to seem to redirect to other sites. Something fishy is going on.
Posted in Clients, Database, Desktop, E-mail, Networking, Security, Servers, Tech Support
Comments Off
