Clever utilities are what really get my mouse twitching.  In the age of the connected home, more of these devices are disconnected from one another.  I have a keyboard and mouse for eight PC's in my home, 3 of which are HTPCs.  The HTCPs in my home all are capable of using a Logitech Harmony Remote control and all are currently using a Rocketfish Bluetooth Keyboard and Mouse Combo, but it still is a bit cumbersome.  Instead of having tons of remote controls on my coffee table, I have a Harmony Remote, a laptop, and my Rocketfish Bluetooth Keyboard and Mouse.  Well, recently, Microsoft's Garage Program featured an application created to help alleviate the need for multiple mice and keyboards for multiple computers.  The application is called Mouse Without Borders.

(more...)

I have a lot of data.   So much so, that there are servers and multiple NAS on my network.  Not all people are like me, but if you are and you have a lot of important data, then backing it up may have become an issue.  Until recently, I had been using a bunch of external disks to do my backups, but when we got our hands on the QNAP TS-419P+, everything changed.  QNAP has bundled a featured called RTRR (real-time remote replication) into their firmware and it allows you to have your QNAP NAS schedule a sync or a backup either from an RTRR servers or through FTP.

(more...)

In my career, yes there is a life outside of C.O.D., I am faced with many obstacles; usually regarding printing or scanning.  Recently, it was requested by a customer that printer output be preceded by a separator page.  Luckily, this is not restricted by devices (in most cases) and is rather easy to setup.  This is very helpful in environments that have more than one user printing to a device.  With a separator page, a user can differentiate their print from another person's print.

(more...)

I have had an annoying problem that I just realized I had.  Sometimes, when I am quick clicking through websites or testing on this one, I tend to hit some buttons rather quickly.  Sometimes, they close my windows and other times have no effect.  Well, one time, I accidentally zoomed in on this site with Firefox and never realized that I did so. (more...)

I have been hearing rumblings lately that Microsoft's Security Essentials is now available through Windows Update.  The availability of an antivirus application through this type of service means that users will no longer have to scour the web for a link to install it.  So what gives? (more...)

The current security craze is affecting more than our daily computing.  The implementation of various security measures has gone beyond standard security measures and has entered the obscene.  Where do we draw the line between taking precautions and stifling productivity.  IT concerns are valid, immeasurable, and undeniable... however, so is productivity. (more...)

It seems that the world is going crazy; everyone wants everyone else's information.  Some companies are going to great lengths to protect their data.  Laptops have gone missing or stolen with tons of important data on them, copy machines have latent images on the hard drives that can contain vital or important private information on them.  So what can be done about all this?  Some companies, including my own, have started encrypting hard drives.  This is nothing new as types of encryption have been around for thousands of years (ever watch an Indiana Jones movie?), but it seems as soon as something makes the news, the purchasing departments or C level staff finally listens to IT.  (more...)

In my efforts to get my company's demo rooms up and running with the solutions we offer to our customers, I have been faced with numerous Windows errors and issues.  The one I have been faced with today was an error message stating "The system administrator has set policies to prevent this installation."  However, I am the administrator and I haven't set any policies on this machine yet! (more...)

I don't understand why things just can't seem to work seamlessly.  Especially when you are talking about Microsoft Products.  You would think that one Microsoft product would work without issue with another, and you would think that you are pretty much guaranteed that this would be the case when the Microsoft Product in question is installed through Windows Update.  Enough of the babbling and on to the point... When installing updates for Windows Server 2003, I was pimp slapped with another error "The Requested Lookup Key Was Not Found In Any Active Activation Context".  (more...)

It was a dark and stormy night, May 5th; it was intense, my dog was hiding in the bathtub, the wind was blowing like a child with a new kazoo, the rain was coming down in sheets (11 x 17), and my PC was left to fend for itself.  Suddenly, the ground shook and my home felt epileptic.  The phone rings, the same quake is hitting China, the U.K, Japan, Canada... this is a worldwide earthquake? This wasn't a typical earthquake, this was a digital earthquake; at least that's how Matousec.com describes it.  They named it KHOBE! (more...)