FREE Macbook Pro

Does anyone know if there exist such a site?

Top 5 Reason Blackberry is better than Windows Mobile

I used to be a die-hard Windows Mobile user and advocate...I have had and Treo and Motorola Q with WM5. They both had my emails, contacts, notes, games, videos, music, etc. They also were constantly freezing! That's when I decided to give Blackberry a try. I purchased a Blackberry 8830 from Verizon Wireless when it first came out and I absolutely love it! I will never go back to a Windows Mobile device. Here are my Top 5 reason why I will always use a Blackberry

1) The Email function is the best I have seen! It is really faster. I receive emails on my Blackberry faster than on my Outlook.

2) My Blackberry does not crash or freeze!

3) There are as many free applications out there for a Blackberry and their are WM5 applications. Blackberry might even have more.

4) Easy setup. Blackberry setup is much easier than Windows Mobile. Especially in the corporate / enterprise environment

5)Blackberry PIN Messenger - I love this application! It's such a neat little FREE messaging feature available only to Blackberry users

Top 3 Utilities for IT Pro's

In my day to day work as an IT Engineer, I find myself using several utilities to make my job easier and my clients happy. Here are the Top 3 Utilites that all IT people should use:

1) MSCONFIG - This is a free utility built into Windows XP & Vista. It allows you to troubleshoot PC startup crashes and or errors and remove unnecessary startup programs(which will boost performance)

2) CCleaner - This is a free utility that can be downloaded at www.ccleaner.com. It fixes registry errors and clears your PC of unwanted cookies, temp files, and other junk. Very useful.

3)Crossloop - This free app allows you to remote control your clients PC from anywhere you have an internet connection. No special ports need to be opened on firewalls! Just download and install on both PCs. Within a matter of minutes you will be remote controlling your clients PC. You can download the application from www.crossloop.com

Vista SP1 Released to manufactures!

Well its about time! I am anxtious to get my hand on a final release of SP1 for Vista. I just got a Vista laptop (Dell XPS M1330) and there are some gripes I have with it (Vista). Hopefully SP1 will iron out theses issues. For example copying files over the network takes foreverrrrrrrr.......

Read the fully story here.


Once in my hands, I will write a review on SP1.

VMware Converter Tips

As you all know, I recently converted an old SBS 2003 server into a virtual machine onto a new Dell PowerEdge 2900 server. This server ran AD, Exchange, BES 4, and a small SQL database. From that experience i decided to come up with my top 5 tips for a successful P2V conversion.

For those of you who did not know, I used VMWare Converter 3.2.

1. Do not resize system partitions or partitions that have database files on them (exchange and /or SQL)
2. If possible, use the Cold Clone method rather than the Hot Clone method
3. If using Hot Clone, shutdown as many services as possible on the source machine
4. Alway take a full system backup before proceeding with the P2V process.
5. Remove as much virtual hardware as possible such as USB, Serial, and Floppy. The less hard was the VM uses the more stable it will be.

Good Luck!

VMware - Making my job easier

Just like the title says. VMware is making my job a lot easier. In addition to that, it has increased efficiency for my clients.

Next week, I will be upgrading an old Pentium III server running Microsoft SBS 2003 to a new Dell Poweredge 2900 w/ a 2Ghz Intel Xeon Quad Core Processor, 4GB RAM, and 5 250GB SATA drives in a RAID 5 configuration. I am also running Windows 2003 Server R2 x64. The 64 bit version of Windows will allow the server to take full advantage of the hardware and memory available. The old SBS server is their primary Active Directory Domain Controller, BES Server, and Exchange Server! Now rather than use the SBS Swing Kit to migrate the server to new hardware and use a difficult, unreliable BES migration white paper, I decided to use VMware's P2V converter.

All I need to do is download VMware Server (for free at www.vmware.com) , install VMware Server on the new server, install VMware converter, and run the converter. 4-6hrs later (depending on the size of the hard drives in the old server) the old SBS server will be migrated into a Virtual Machine onto the new server. Its that simple.

And the best thing about going virtual is that in the future if my client wants to add more servers, they can! All I need to do is create a new Virtual Machine!