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I’m a big fan of Mozy backup. I use it on my personal server to protect and secure all my personal files (read more about my home setup here), I recommend it to all my home/small office clients, and I install Mozy Pro on most of the servers I maintain. It pretty much runs automatically and its just “set it and forget it”, except for a couple of reasons, which you should keep an eye out for. Read More
I’ve been using a Mac Book Pro running OS X Leopard as my main PC for about 2 weeks now, and my goal was to adapt without Windows (either via Parallels or Boot Camp) using native software. Browsing, well Firefox and all the plugins I use work in OS X. iTunes? Well…iTunes. Video/Codecs? VLC. FTP? Cyberduck. Office 2007? Well, there’s Office 2008 for Mac.
Everything seamed like a smooth transition until I started using Word, Excel and Entourage. Everything looks different. Tool bars and menus are totally different from their Windows counterparts. It is not easy for Mac-switchers as it is, getting used to not having a taskbar, jumping icons and what not, but why oh why does Word for Mac have to be completely different from regular Windows Word? Why is Entourage the complete opposite of Outlook? I mean, its the same program in essence that does the same stuff, but these having different UIs is confusing and just plain stupid. If Adobe can do it with evey single Creative Suite program Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, etc) why isn’t Microsoft doing it?
My guess is that Microsoft doesn’t care about Mac-switchers and they aren’t the core target. They care about providing Windows-Word like compatibility to Mac, same for Excel and Outlook (or Entourage). If I can open and edit Word documents using non-Word apps on a Mac, then what is the incentive for me to even purchase Word for Mac? I ended up installing Parallels and getting my Office 2007 via Coherence. Call me weird, but I love Office 2007’s ribbon.
I guess that is it. My first Mac-rant and I end up criticizing Microsoft….typical Apple!
About a year ago I wrote a pretty successful article (it got Dugg over 1000 times and I still get traffic via search engines) and I’ve decided to revisit this article and update it a bit with fresh hardware. In a year, memory and processors got cheaper, so I will be including these in this new build. This time, we will be building the computer for about $500 (without tax) with Vista Home Premium included. I don’t get into the specific of building the machine itself Read More
Normally, I wouldn’t be blogging about my last visit to the dentist’s office (still no cavities, yay!) but I just had to due to outcome of the visit. I had an appointment for just a general checkup and cleaning. While the doc was taking x-rays he asked me about my work and how I earned a living. I gave him the standard answer, which is something like, “I fix/build computers, servers and I do networking. I also design and develop websites”. It was then that he decided to share with me his computer issues there at his office, which were networking related. Read More
Relakks is a VPN connection provider based in Sweden, that allows you to mask your internet activity. Why would anyone want/need such a service? Simple: privacy. Relakks doesn’t keep any records since it is not required to and will only hand information (such as an email address) to authorities if, and ony if, a crime punishable by 2 years in jail has been committed.
I came across Relakks because I wanted to stream a couple of TV channels from JumpTV that are not available in the US because of licencing restrictions. My logic there was that if I was able to make my connection appear to come from another country, I should be able to stream those video feeds. Read More
I’ve written 4 new posts over at DigitalWiseGuy, the ultimate source of tech info as I like to call it.
- Form-shifting mouse. A new concept of a computer mouse that can be molded instanty into any shape the user desires
- New Sony Full HD Projector - Details on very-capable HD projector by Sony announced and soon to be available.
- Water-resistant Digital Camera by Minox - perfect for the outdoors
- ShakeMMS - an app developed for the Symbian platform that utilizes the Nokia S60’s accelerometer to read text messages.
There you have it. Head over to DWG for full articles
This is the second part of the “my home network” series. In case you missed the first part, you can find it here. I will focus mainly on my server setup. To recap, all my files (pictures, documents, music, videos, etc) are stored on my server. This server is an old HP Proliant LC3 with a 500 MHz Pentium III processor, 512 MB of RAM and two 36 GB SCSI drives. This machine has been proven to be very reliable (its been running for 112 days now non-stop), as it sits on a closet outside in my balcony. I did have to run ethernet cabling from my router/switch to that outside closet, but that wasn’t much of a hassle (I know my was around a crimping tool and RJ-45 ends).
At that time I decided to go with a server-based solution because my laptop (my main computer at the time) was running out of space and I also wanted to access my files from anywhere. The first thing I did when I got this server was to wipe and reinstall the OS. Originally this server had NT 4.0 but I decided to go with Windows XP Pro. Read More
I did it. I bought a nice domain name (did I?), I set up Wordpress and a new theme and I’ve setup a new blog for my girlfriend. She’s a behavior therapist that works with autistic children and I thought that the premise of a blog from the perspective of a therapist would be interesting. There is quite an extensive network of autism-related blogs out there, but most are from the perspective of the parents of autistic children. Check out the site at http://autismchronicles.com. After setting up the new blog, I thought that the documenting the whole process of starting a new blog would be interesting, so here goes.
1. Found a subject matter. I think this is the most important step for anyone planning on starting out a new blog. I’ve seen many blogs out there without a defined subject matter, which I guess isn’t wrong, Read More
I got a call last week from the owner a real estate company, who was referred to me by my largest and oldest client. I had a meeting with the him last week, where he gave me quick tour of the office, introduced me to his employees and showed me his (quite frankly, chaotic) network. I explained the services I offer and he then committed to a service plan where they will get a scheduled weekly visit, unlimited phone/remote support and one unscheduled emergency visits for a reasonable (in my opinion) monthly fee, which is the way all my contractual clients are setup.
As usual, with any new network I get in to, I found it not being up to my standards. To be more specific, the physical wiring is messy, the servers are not physically locked down (they are simply next to the copiers), Read More
I want to share the way my home network is setup because it works for me, and I might give you ideas as to how to set up yours. My data is very valuable to me and I will also share with you how I protect and access it from (almost) anywhere. A hard drive failed on me about 5 years ago and my data (music, documents, videos, photos…etc) was lost forever. I did manage to get a few files back from online/CD backups, but for the most part, I lost the files and I couldn’t afford thousands of $$ on professional recovery. First, I will list the devices I have running and their roles:
ii. Internet. I chose Charter as my ISP because they have proven to be reliable and they offer the fastest internet connection in the area (10/1 mbs). But as soon as FIOS starts laying down that sweet optic goodness in my area, I’m giving Charter the boot. Read More