2006 February

Even though I have not been offered a chance to try the new Windows Vista OS myself just yet, the more I hear the more I like. For the first time in a very long time, it appears that we have a truly fresh kernel to work with.

Part 1 Part 2
So, I finally managed to set aside the time to get the Sputnik AP 160 setup earlier this afternoon. To start with, everything was going to plan. Unfortunately, they forgot to email me some needed verification information. OK, mistakes happen. This is not a big deal.

I’ve finally done it. I’ve moved all my digital stuff from my old primary desktop PC to my new one. I finally had an entire, relatively uninterrupted Saturday to do it. And it feels fabulous. It was a long time coming, as I’ve had the new PC since Christmas (a gift to myself). I just […]

Ensuring data quality is a challenge for most organizations - partly because they may not be fully aware of their own data quality levels. Without this information, they cannot know the full business impact of poor or unknown data quality - or how to begin addressing it. This white paper outlines the questions your organization […]

The animated TECHTip Tutorial is available here.
SSM [Source Specific Multicast] is a single-source-rooted distribution tree with no RP [Rendezvous Points] using PIM [Protocol Independent Multicasting] and IGMP [Internet Group Management Protocol]. Receivers are explicitly-joined existing members which reduces complexity, billing, security, etc.

Well, it has been quite a weekend for me. After recovering from a bit of a bug on Sunday, I received an unexpected email from Ask Jeeves. It seems that they are looking to change their image, perhaps to better appeal to the tech savvy market currently using other search engine options.

It seems like just the other day that Windows 95 and OS/2 Warp 4 were released. It was actually almost 11 years ago. I cannot believe advising some of my clients to run a ten-year old operating system on their antiquated PCs. Imagine that.
The first time round I experienced Win 95, I was awestruck. […]

We hear messages like “Do email newsletters!” “Start a blog!” “Build a forum!” “Provide a feed!” These sound like each is the only thing we should do to add content to Web sites. The way to go is to diversify your content. Invest a little here and a little there for a better return […]

The animated TECHTip Tutorial is available here.
Middleware sometimes referred to as the pipes or plumbing connecting the faucet to the reservoir. In computing certain computing occurs at the client and some at other places such as servers or SP [Service Providers].
Middleware is defined as a set of technologies that support the interaction providing a […]

Over the past few years, I have had numerous readers asking me how I struck out on my own and made a success out of the PC repair game. Even though I may not do this any longer, I would be the first to admit that it was PC repair that have gave me the […]

I can remember in the early eighties, just after the first PCs started appearing, the amount of gadgets you could buy to supplement you PC. Peripherals they were called. The term referred to all kinds of interesting pieces of hardware that could be used with a PC. You could get all kinds of funny things. […]

Back in December 2005, I wrote about how to make a thumb drive virus scanner using datapol’s NTFS4DOS, a Kool Tekkie Tool that allows you to read and write NTFS volumes from a DOS command line interface. Now, the good folks at datapol have come up with another winner: CIA DRiVE.net, a very cool remote […]

Server downtime is an unfortunate fact of life, but it’s not the only glitch that can develop on a Windows network, nor the most common. Database issues can cause an application to work improperly or not at all, problems with Microsoft Exchange Server can slow down email traffic, and hiccups with Active Directory can inadvertently […]

The animated TECHTip Tutorial is available here.
Split Horizons are solved in RIP by limiting packets to 15 hops. In IGRP [Internet Gateway Routing Protocol], the number of hops is limited to 255. For CCNA, this solves a route loop as ports (circuits - pathways) cannot advertise (send) routes on the same port (interface) […]

I’ve said once and by gosh, I am going to say it again: Lack of communication is one of the biggest problems in big business today.

Over the years, I’ve used a number of great tools to help keep my Windows machine under control. Some software to manage my registry and other programs to make sure that I had a good handle on my PC’s security.
Well, it took some doing, but it looks as if one company has gotten it right: […]

In the beginning, IBM created the hard drive and it was good. People thought to themselves, “Who could ever need more than five megabytes of storage?” Then came the information revolution and everything started changing. As the information bubble grew, so did storage space to accommodate everything within IT. Today the world runs on Terrabyte […]

In my RL (real life,) I do IT and web work. There isn’t a week that goes by when I have a client that has a PC that will not boot up properly. Usually, this means one of four items could be defective (or a combo of them.) The four are the power […]

The animated TECHTip Tutorial is available here.
The Yagi-Uda antenna design is a “resonant” driven-fed dipole (the fed dipole is the driven element) with one or more parasitic elements called Reflector and Director(s). A dipole element will be “resonant” (matched to the desired frequency) when its electrical length is 1/2 of the wavelength of the frequency […]

These days, it is becoming more and more difficult to compete for my attention. Now I am not speaking of my ‘at work hours’ mind you, I’m talking about what I enjoy listening to or perhaps watching on the monitor of my PC during my free time.