Matt Wilkinson

Last weekend, I finally caught up with a client that needed some help with connecting to his wireless router at home from a couple different Windows laptops. I had the client connect one of the laptops to his router via wired Ethernet so I could use LogMeIn to remote into the machine.
After a few moments, [...]

Last month, an eWeek writer did a analysis on Average Selling Prices for Windows PCs vs. Macs. The conclusion should not shock anybody: Macs are more expensive, twice as expensive to be exact. So that begs two questions: (1) Why are they continuing to sell so well (overall market share aside) and (2) why do [...]

It feels good to post again… I haven’t posted anything in quite a while, but not because I didn’t have anything to write about. On the contrary, I almost have too much to write about. I’ve just been swamped, trying to tend to every little PC issue with what seems like an endless stream of [...]

I decided to test out Thunderbird today, and I have to say I am very impressed so far. I set it up with my Google Apps/Gmail account via IMAP, and it is lightning fast compared to Outlook 2007. And Thunderbird’s interface is very clean and easy to navigate. Will these impressions be enough to make [...]

One of my customers has been experiencing off-again/on-again problems with their e-mail host. Her current e-mail host has a very miserly storage quota on their POP mail accounts, which results in her maxing out and having issues receiving mail. The good news is, there are lots of options… including Google.
I did a little research on [...]

A couple of months back, a customer asked me for help with his desktop. I’d replaced the hard drive and re-loaded it for him over a year before, but he said it suddenly starting to freeze up randomly. He dropped off the machine, and I took a quick look.
I plugged the machine into my KVM, [...]

Like taxes and death, the hype surrounding Apple’s launch of the iPhone 3G is unavoidable. I’m not an Apple hater, nor am I an Apple fanboy, so I guess I fall somewhere in between… but I still had to shrug my shoulders when it came to those people who sat/stood/crawled in the various lines at [...]

One of my customers runs a very successful dog training business in Chicago. A year ago, I’d helped her move her Web site to a new host, although we kept her domain name/DNS hosted with her original service. To facilitate this, we purchased that domain hosting company’s DNS management service, which was priced at $5.00 [...]

Last Sunday, I invested a couple more hours into troubleshooting some nasty issues with Windows Update causing my machine to lose Internet connectivity. The first installment of the saga is here, and the second installment is here.
The outcome was actually pretty decent, although far from perfect. I now have a means by which I can [...]

Last Wednesday (6/11/2008), I wrote a post about my Windows Vista PC having some major issues after auto-installing a batch of updates from Microsoft’s Windows Update service. Essentially, after these updates installed and my PC restarted itself, it lost its Internet connectivity (while maintaining LAN connectivity overall, which is peculiar in and of itself).
Shortly afterwards, [...]

Maybe this will turn out to just be a unique situation — that I’m the only one encountering this phenomenon. But it’s a very frightening scenario: that a number of Windows Updates made to my Vista PC overnight last night (Tues, June 10) neutered the PC’s ability to connect to the Internet. I’ll be watching [...]

This past weekend, I spent time setting up four new laptops for one of my business clients. Out of habit, one of the things I do when I get to the point of setting up e-mail is send test messages. I didn’t have any reason to believe that e-mail wouldn’t work, but I’m glad I [...]

A while back, I’d written a post about one of my customers I’d help transition from one ISP  DSL.net) to another (Comcast) for Internet connectivity at their small office. After that was completed, I thought they would be in a position to cut ties with their old ISP and stop paying for services they no [...]

I upgraded from Outlook 2003 to Outlook 2007 three or four months ago. For the most part, I love it. But I’m not smitten. Far from it. Here are my likes and dislikes:
Likes:

The overall interface is vastly improved
The To-Do Bar is awesome. I use it every day to keep myself on track and on [...]

Do we take email reliability/deliverability for granted? I’m talking about email that traverses the Internet (e.g. outside of internal corporate email delivery, which there should be no question about reliability).
It seems to me that I’ve had an increase in the number of complaints/reports from some of my clients about lost emails in the past [...]

I’ve had more laptop cases over the years than I can remember… big cases, small cases, and in-between sized cases. I’ve managed to unload some of my surplus cases via yard sales, craigslist, and The Salvation Army. I kept a Brenthaven backpack style case for my MacBook Pro, and mostly use it for my local [...]

Last week, I had occasion to switch out laptops for one of my company’s field salespeople. She happened to live just a couple miles from where I live in Chicago, so it was really easy for me to pay her a house call. We lease our Dell laptops, with laptops on a 24 month cycle [...]

I’m not, repeat NOT, a Comcast fanboy. Far from it. But it did come to the rescue of one of my small business clients. In February, I posted about this client and their saga of slow DSL.
I am happy to report that I helped them successfully transition to Comcast Business Internet. So now, rather [...]

Several days ago, a customer of mine reported problems with remotely accessing their file server. In reality, it wasn’t a server in the strictest sense of the term, but rather a Linux-based Multi-function appliance called a Chilibox from a company called Chili Systems. I’d recommend this device for their small office back in early 2006 [...]

It’s been a busy couple of weeks for me — hence my brief absence from Lockergnome IT Pros. I was in Las Vegas last week for a quick vacation in honor of my wife’s birthday. Played a Texas Hold ‘Em tournament at Planet Hollywood Casino and came in third place. You can read about all [...]