In the IT field or any other field sometimes the best approach for advancement is to wait and see. You must be willing to observe others as they work, learn from their mistakes and as well as yours, read books and online postings, but most importantly practice what you already know or want to know in a controlled environment. Otherwise, you are prone to repeat others mistakes.
After reading an article about a new Yahoo! service, I decided to experiment with it. However, the site was not very responsive and I kept receiving errors as I tried to create some pipes. Yahoo later posted a message acknowledging that they were a few problems but they were working on getting them resolved. Anyway, the service looks very promising.
In Windows XP, after customizing one user profile, many people including a corporate environment where large deployments of desktops is common used to copy that profile over to the Default User Profile. As a result, they would encounter several problems along the road that could not be duplicated with other systems without that common practice. Now that Windows Vista is available I would imagine that this practice will continue. Although I am against it because there are better ways of deploying desktops without the need for such customization of user profiles I will prepare to answer as many questions as possible because I know that their will be many.
If you have purchased any HP business class desktops such as the hp compaq dc7600 in the past few months and now feel ready to install Windows Vista then you should beware of known compatibility issues. Assuming you've ordered the computers with a built-in combo drive and received Roxio DigitalMedia PLUS, then Sonic CinePlayer 2.3 may not run as expected. HP now offers a software fix available for download from their web site for your computer, but it is only intended to fix known problems with the software on Windows XP computers with Windows Media Player 11 installed. If you decide to take the next leap forward and install Vista, then get ready to the hear the help desk line ring unless you install retail software that has been tested and works find on Windows Vista.
If you want to run software that requires elevated privileges on a Windows XP or Vista computer, then you can use Run As... For more information about this feature simply go to Start > Run..., then type cmd. Afterwards type runas /?
Windows XP Professional has the built-in capability to remotely connect to another workstation and allows for others to the same. If you have Linux and your preference is KDE, then you can use krc to remotely connect to a Windows XP Professional computer. Microsoft also has made available a client that Mac OS X users can download to remotely access their Windows XP Professional and Windows Vista stations.
If you're looking for a software application to capture screenshots of your desktop on a Windows computer, then look no further than TechSmith's SnagIt. However, if you wish to capture video, then I would recommend either TechSmith's Camtasia Studio or Adobe Captivate. On the otherhand, if you have VMware Workstation installed on your system then you can use the built-in feature to capture both screenshots and video. In Windows Vista you can simply use the Snipping tool and add it to the QuickLaunch Bar for easy access. If you are using Linux, then you can use a tool that is part of KDE or another that is part of GNOME. For Mac OS X, then go the Utilities folder to access the screen capture tool.
Other software such as InterVideo WinDVD Platinum has the built-in feature to capture screenshots of video playing within the player.
Today, a fellow co-worker reminded me that in the past people have found it very difficult to manage computers running Mac OS X in a network environment. Even though the OS has been in the market with incremental improvements over the years I couldn't believe what I was hearing. So today I'm undertaking some research to find a way to manage these computers in a corporate environment. I will attempt to find an easy solution for software deployment that will be comparable to managing computers in a Windows environment.
Recently, I upgraded my Lotus Notes client to version 7.0.2 on my workstation. I am running Windows Vista and felt that it was time to install the latest stable release of Lotus Notes. However, today someone informed me that they could not view my calendar.
If you're looking for a new job then consider visiting the following web sites to narrow down the prospects:
In Windows XP or Vista, whenever you encounter trouble with misbehaving software which I'm sure you have then you should consider using a little known utility from Microsoft. Assuming the software application was installed using Windows Installer technology; that is, as an .msi package then you can download msicuu2.exe from Microsoft's web site and remove the program.
Last week someone asked me about the feasibility of managing Windows based virtual machines (VMs) that can be launched from Intel-based Apple hardware. I thought about possibilities for a few minutes then a flush of ideas started to swirl around my head. Management of computers in a cross platform environment can sometimes be a challenging a matter, but if you already have the infrastructure in place to manage Windows client machines then the aforementioned is not a terribly difficult task to accomplish.
Managing Windows based VMs that are currently running on Apple hardware is not much different from managing those that reside on PC hardware or even physical machines that run Windows XP. The goal is the same, but the steps involved with keeping the VMs up to date might differ just a bit. In the next few days I will post systematic ways of doing so without hurting your budget; that is, keeping your total cost of ownership to a minimum.
The type of people who are interested in doing the above are people who have to manage users and computers in a multi-platform environment. The solutions that I propose here are just simple ideas that might lead to more system administrator friendly solutions. Keep in mind that you must not only periodically update the OS, but also regularly update additional software that has been installed within the VM.
Method I: Shared Resource
Run the virtual machines over the network so that you do not needlessly eat away the users memory resources to accomplish the task at hand. As long as the host computer (Administrator workstation) is a beefy system that is hooked up to a fast internet connection, then you can simply turn on the VM by accessing their VM configuration files over the network. On Windows based PCs you can use the command prompt to open multiple virtual machines at once assuming you have VMware Workstation 5.5+ installed on your administrator computer and your hardware specifications are extremely good.
Cons: Network latency may be a problem. User must be aware that you need to perform system updates to their VMs. Otherwise, they may inadvertently interrupt the process. Moreover, the remote computer must also be on the network with high speed internet access.
Method II: Remote Desktop Connection
Use a software application on the system to turn on the virtual machine then perform updates for the user.
Method III: Physical access to the computer
Perform manual updates. Assign someone the responsibility to make an appointment with the users on an agreed upon timetable.
Cons: You must periodically visit your users computer and update them. Efficiency is a factor.
Method IV: Training
Encourage users to store their data on their host system. After they are done modifying their data within the virtual Windows environment they can save the files in their profile on the host computer. Now, you can deliver up to date virtual configuration files to your users when they need to have their VMs up to date.
Method V: Boot Camp and Parallels
By utilizing Boot Camp and Parallels Desktop for Mac, from Apple and Parallels, respectively, you can install Windows XP (SP2) on a separate partition and allow your Intel Mac to startup from your Windows partition. Allowing your Mac to boot from the Windows partition in a corporate environment will allow System Administrators to treat the system as regular PC. They can then easily manage your partition just like the rest of your Windows based computers. Your users can then choose to boot their system into the partition of their choice, Windows or Mac OS X. If they select Mac OS X, then they can have the best of both worlds. With the latest version of virtualization software from Parallels, currently at Release Candidate 2 (RC2), you can directly access your boot camp partition. This allows your users to run both operating systems simultaneously.
Method VI: Compression
If you decide to create a virtual disk and then deploy the virtual machine configuration files to your users, then you can easily keep them up to date. All you have to do is keep the size of the virtual hard disk drive to a minimum. Furthermore, you can reduce the size of the files even more by compressing the VM configuration files utilizing some utility such as WinZip or WinRAR and then creating a self-extracting executable.
In the past few weeks I have been receiving more and more questions related to computer wireless networks. Some people just want to know what they are doing wrong and want quick suggestions for how fix their mistakes whereas others want step by step instructions for how to accomplish the setup.
Increasingly over the past few years IT personnel have started to implement virtualization solutions in their computer environments. As technology improvements have reduced the amount of desk space that computer hardware and other physical equipment once took, virtualization seeks to reduce that space even further.
If you set up a virtual machine that dynamically expands the hard drive space, then after a basic Windows XP installation you can compress the configuration files and store them on a 2 GB USB flash drive.
A few months ago I was given the task of setting up and configuring a few Sony Vaio laptops. I wanted to wipe out everything on the system and perform a clean install, but after searching around on Sony's web site I was unsatisfied with software and drivers provided on their web site. So I decided to recover the operating system and OEM software from the recovery partition. More info will be posted...
Problem Description:
After insertion of a DVD movie into the DVD RW drive of an hp workstation xw4300 nothing appears to happen; that is, AutoPlay seems to be malfunctioning. In Windows XP, upon insertion of DVD media users can usually expect to see a window with a menu prompting them to take some sort of action (refer to the attached image roxio_error00.jpg).
Observations:
As an administrator or restricted user, if you navigate to the video files of interest and double-click on them you get an error message (refer to image roxio_error01.jpg). If you attempt to launch Sonic CinePlayer, you get an error message (refer to image roxio_error02.jpg). The problem does not appear to affect four other similarly configured computers.
Known:
All five hp xw4300s were configured identically with the exception of one that also has OmniPage Pro 15 installed and a scanner attached. On the four other systems, after the insertion of DVD media users get a window prompting them to perform some action.
Hardware Specifications:
hp workstation xw4300
Software Specifications:
Windows XP Professional (SP2, 32-bit version)
Windows Media Player 11
Roxio DigitalMedia PLUS
- Sonic MyDVD v6.1
- Sonic AudioNow v2.0
- Sonic SC Data v2.0
- Sonic DLA v4.97 (32-bit only)
- Sonic CopyNow v2.0
- Sonic Express Labeler v2.0
- Sonic CinePlayer v2.3
Troubleshooting Steps:
1. Rebooted the computer three times.
2. As both an administrator and restricted user, attempted to open video files directly, but received an error.
