Windows 8 Preview
Recently played with Windows 8 beta on a desktop PC. Not impressed. Window 8 puts a Windows Mobile-like GUI on top of a more familiar Windows 7-like desktop. Furthermore, when you drill down to...
View ArticleMozy Hassles
Based on positive reviews by a number of independent web sites, I recently selected the Mozy Pro online-backup service for a small business client. Getting this set up has been a lot of hassle. Here's...
View ArticleBlonde Roast?!
It's "new" at Starbucks. It's coffee. Lighter roast, they say, as if that means something about flavor. I guess they mean it's not burned in the roaster. But they don't mean that their other roasts...
View ArticleSBS 2011 Standard Migration
We recently migrated a client from Microsoft Small Business Server 2003 to Small Business Server 2011 Standard on new hardware. We performed a migration install on the new server machine. We did the...
View ArticleAcrylic DNS Proxy for Restricting Web Access
From time to time situations arise where a client wants to deploy a PC with very limited internet access. For example, one of our clients uses a web timesheet application and has a PC on the shop...
View ArticleSwimming the Potomac
I swam across the Potomac River on Saturday, June 2nd. It was the second Potomac River Sharkfest, run along side the Gov. Harry Nice Bridge. The water was much clearer and cleaner than I expected. We...
View ArticleUPS SNAFU
Or what a long, strange trip it's been (instead of a 1-2 day delivery) ... Alexandria, VA, United States06/07/20127:17 A.M.Out For Delivery Richmond, VA, United States06/07/20122:31 A.M.Departure Scan...
View ArticleFun (and Frustration) With Dates in PHP
It is easy to have the wrong type and/or wrong value for dates in PHP. Dates can be represented/stored different ways or types - strings, numbers and something else called date/time class. PHP tries...
View ArticleBuyer beware
If you buy HP's G8 servers you must use HP's (expensive) RAM and hard disks. What's the deal with that? And HP doesn't make it clear that you have to use their components. HP tech support gave me a...
View ArticleBeware Big Brother
You know those cute photos someone sent you of their kids playing in the sprinkler on a hot summer day? Some machine is going to see "kiddie porn" and you may have to prove it is not! FYI, the default...
View ArticleBusiness Cases for Windows 8
Um.... there must be some. I'm not able to think of any... Okay, here's one: Microsoft wants to make some more money. With effective control of business PCs through its Windows and Office...
View ArticlePrivacy News
Walter Pincus has a sober and sobering column in the Washington Post today. The gist of it is, "Many people love the convenience of the Internet and cellphones and ever-multiplying social-media...
View ArticleLicense to steal
theScore is a popular app for your smartphone or tablet, providing sports news and information. FYI, if you install the app, you agree to give theScore permissions to: Add or modify calendar events...
View ArticleArticle 11
Real news from the New Yorker: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/elements/2013/08/hard-to-crack-the-governments-encryption-conundrum.html E-mail “sounds like the simplest application of...
View ArticleReal News
In today's NY Times and Guardian. N.S.A. Able to Foil Basic Safeguards of Privacy on Web Revealed: How US and UK spy agencies defeat internet privacy and security "...Microsoft co-operated with the...
View ArticleSynology Time Backup Trick
So, you need to change the IP address of your remote backup device in Synology's Time Backup? You cannot do it from the GUI without deleting the job and creating a new one. WTF?! However, you can...
View ArticleDark Mail @ Kickstarter
The founders of Lavabit and Silent Circle have started a new Kickstarter Project to develop a protocol for default, user-friendly, end-to-end encryption of email. They are calling it Dark Mail,...
View ArticleGoogle vs. Bing?
To protect my privacy when I surf the Web, I use a proxy server that I set up on a Linux virtual machine which is hosted in the cloud. To the best of my knowledge, the virtual machine is hosted on a...
View ArticleGood News!
"Congratulations! Thanks to you [me] and 2975 other backers, Lavabit's Dark Mail Initiative has been successfully funded." It will be very interesting to see what develops.
View ArticleWindows XP Expiration -- What Now?
Microsoft has ended support for Windows XP. What does that mean? What does that mean for you? It does not mean that Windows XP will stop working on your computer because XP has “expired”. XP has...
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