2006 May

Well I have definitely been busy lately. And this month, it goes beyond the usual. With the approach of this year’s Gnomedex event just around the corner, I finally decided that I had better get on the stick so I am not rushed at the last minute.

In the previous installments of this article I showed you have to install and configure the Fax Service in Windows XP as well as how to send faxes. In order to receive a fax you must have selected the Enable Receive when you were configuring the Fax service. Also, if your Windows XP computer is […]

Working with Microsoft’s network directory service for the first time can be a headache for system and network administrators, IT professionals, technical project managers, and programmers alike. This authoritative guide is meant to relieve that pain. Instead of going through the graphical user interface screen by screen, O’Reilly’s bestselling Active Directory, 3rd Edition tells you […]

Whether you’re hiring a new employee or switching to a new outsourced vendor, changing your current Information Technology solution can be risky business. Why? Perhaps more than in any other department, knowing what it takes to keep your technology systems running is knowledge seldom shared and rarely documented. Here are the ten things you need […]

The animated TECHTip Tutorial is available here.
Without a map of the paths or routes ahead, IP [Internet Protocol] packets could go anywhere or nowhere.
Routing protocols tell routers how to route packets. BGP [Border Gateway Protocol], RIP [Routing Information Protocol], OSPF [Open Shortest Path First], RTMP [Real Time Message Protocol], IGRP [Interior Gateway […]

Today has proven interesting. Not just because I finally decided to drop satellite for digital cable TV. No, rather because of what I discovered today from someone who works for Comcast. It looks like we are going to be seeing yet another speed increase in the world of cable Internet.

If you read my previous article, you might remember me making an inquiry as to which application would be the best for helping to make my move to a new hard drive as smooth as possible. And here are the responses:

In the first installment of this article I introduced you to the Windows XP Fax Service that can be used as an alternative to purchasing a dedicated fax machine. Now I’ll show you how to send a fax using the service.
Once you have the Fax service installed and configured, you can begin sending and receiving […]

Chris Pratley (Microsoft’s Group Program Manager for Office Authoring Services) mentions it’s now possible to blog directly from OneNote via a connection with Word 2007, which has some late-addition features that let you use it to create blog posts directly. Gone is the messy Office markup/HTML gobbledy-gook, as the code if cleaned up and made […]

The animated TECHTip Tutorial is available here.
PIM SM [Protocol Independent Multicast Sparse Mode] uses the “pull” model to deliver/receive multicast data traffic. Sometimes called pullcasting, data is only sent when data is requested (asked for).
Multicasting is not always used within a single network or AS [Autonomous System].
An AS is a group […]

Those new MacBook notebooks look pretty sweet right now. Oh sure, buying a new notebook is not really a needed thing right now. Still, I would certainly not mind using one with a dual-boot running OS X and Windows XP. The specs are attractive enough and I would even consider it a nice change from […]

If you’re like me and spend 50% or more of your life reading the Sky Mall and United Airlines magazines in the seat back pocket in front of you, and if you also happen to have a BlackBerry with a Web browser enabled, or some other SmartPhone-ish thing that lets you browse the web, be […]

FreeMind is an Open Source mind mapping software that enables you to visualize ideas, projects, concepts, brainstorming, Internet research, or any other task that can benefit from a structured overview.
You can create nodes with child and sibling nodes and add icons, clouds, notes, and custom formatting for better presentation. The nodes can be expanded […]

Not everyone has a dedicated fax machine in their home or office. Windows XP includes a Fax service that provides you with complete faxing capabilities. If a dedicated fax machine is not in your budget, you can use your Windows XP computer to send, receive, track, and monitor faxes.
The Fax service is not installed […]

The animated TECHTip Tutorial is available here.
Here are a few words on SLA [Service Level Agreements]. In most cases they are NOT worth the paper they are written on. For example, explain the following in lay terms: When the packet/cell delivery in a 30-day continuously measured period every five minutes falls between the […]

It has long since been my opinion that the number one thing holding BitTorrent back is the lack of accurate usage statistics. Seriously, it has prevented us (video content providers) from taking this distribution method more seriously with regard to monetizing a specific channel.

Brent Strange (some dude I know from somewhere, heh…) discusses Virtual PC and the relative performance impact of using differencing, undo, and fixed virtual disks. While there are many things one can do to improve performance of virtual machines, having a good, clear understanding of the performance characteristics of different virtual disk types is basic […]

Hiring managers share their secrets in this guide for IT candidates seeking their dream job. All aspects of the hiring process are covered, from how IT managers screen resumes to how they perform on-site interviews.
Secret techniques of major corporations for finding the short list of job candidates are exposed, as well as the determining […]

QuickSet Internet Zone enables convenient access to the Internet Explorer security settings that allow you to set restrictions for Active scripting behavior without having to go through the IE configurations dialog.
You can also quickly toggle between enable/disable and prompt mode for all configured settings.
[49k] [Win2k/XP] [FREE]

The animated TECHTip Tutorial is available here.
This is a review of Cisco router switching modes. It is recommended that a review of Cisco’s router product line and a detailed understanding of the various router platforms such as small, medium and high-end routers be completed prior to any examination.
Cisco uses various types of switching […]