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07 March SEO Meeting Held at Pinstripe Service HQHad a great meeting today from our boss Dan Colby. Lots of SEO information about www.pinstripeservices.com 03 March Good article on Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and AJAXWe have been doing more and more consulting on SEO in our business, while also looking into utilizing the power of AJAX. This is a good article on what to consider as you create AJAX pages with SEO in mind. We may link to it via www.pinstripeservices.com.
09 January Essential Sys Admin ToolsOver the years I have accumulated some essential tools for sys admin tasks. Please feel free to send this email and tools to anyone you know in the business. This suite of tools is the essential toolkits for any IT provider who goes onsite to assist clients. Also this is the essential action pack for any IT audit or analysis.
They all meet the following requirements.
Links to the attached apps are as follows
One item I did not include in the attachment was OpenOffice portable (due to its size, around 300 MB). This is great when you need to interact with Office documents, but do not have office installed on a server. http://portableapps.com/apps/office/openoffice_portable
Links that led to this list originally 03 November Sync Podcast with Windows Media Player using the IE7 RSS feed capabilityRecently the newest version of Windows Internet Explorer 7 was just released. One of the new functions of the IE7 release is the ability to use the app as a RSS feed reader, including capability to download associated files. The most common type of associated file is a podcast. With the current version of Windows Media Player 10 and reportedly with the upcoming version 11 there is no native podcast support. Since Itunes has had this support for some time I have been striving to achieve that same functionality in my Windows Media environment. In the past I have used podcast applications such as ipodder to manage my podcasts feeds and files. Then using a very helpful blog post from Jake Luddingtons's MediaBlab I would synchronize the podcast mp3 files to my Treo 700w through the auto playlist feature in Windows Media Player. This works great and you can find the instructions here and the method works with any device that can sync with WMP. However I wanted to take out the extra step of using a podcast reader application (we all know XP runs best when you have as few applications loaded as possible) and use the built in functionality of IE7. IE7 by default downloads RSS associated files to the temporary internet file folder on your workstation. The way to confirm this is to go to your RSS feed subscription in IE7 and checks the properties of the downloaded mp3. Once you have confirmed the location use the method on Jake Luddingtion's blog to setup an autoplaylist that looks to your temporary internet file folder on your workstation. Wait for the files to be found (took my windows media player a few minutes) and you have a native podcast method within XP. Sadly after doing some research it appears that the file location of RSS feed associated files cannot be changed at this time. One other tip is to make sure you change the number of updates to the RSS feed your browser will keep. By default it is 200, which is way too many podcasts. The number of updates equals the number of podcasts in the past it will keep in storage. If you need more details feel free to email post comments and I will do my best. Enjoy. 18 October Is DSL good enough for business?Many clients in the SMB space are utilizing DSL or cable modem connections as their businesses internet connectivity solution. For casual use and web browsing this certainly seems to be a cost effective choice. However if you have revenue producing applications or mission critical services that are based on this service you need to weigh the costs of downtime.
This week Bellsouth suffered a major outage which affected all of their DSL customers. This outage lasted as long as 24 hours or more in some cases. Because traditionally DSL is considered a "home" solution their is no service level agreement and no guarenteed uptime.
See the local techwire article here. 05 October Anti DRM Day!Anti DRM day was this Wednesday and I thought it would be an interesting topic for discussion. First off what is DRM? DRM stands for Digital Rights Management and is essentially restrictive technology on digital media like MP3's. DRM was created in response to the Napster days where song swapping and sharing was rampant and before it was illegal. The best known DRM is Apple's FairPlay which is part of Itunes and Ipods. This DRM restricts you from ever playing purchased songs from Itunes on any other device than Ipod and means that if you ever buy another MP3 player you will lose those songs. Can you imagine someone making your CD's playable in only one type of device, and by one company?
Corporate interests of course have the right to protect their intelectual property and DRM is one way to do that. However the folks at DefectivebyDesign.org and others (including me) beleive that DRM restricts choice and is overall bad for business. Consumers deserve to do what they want with their legally obtained media, in a legal fashion.
There are certainly great arguments for and against DRM, so start up a lively debate in your office today.
One great chose for DRM free music which is totally legal is emusic.com. This service allows you to download DRM free MP3's for a fair price.
For more information on Anti DRM day go to DefectivebyDesigns's website. 07 September Dell Laptops Banned on Korean Air FlightsWho knows which airlines will follow suit next. On a recent flight on Korean Airlines I was informed that Dell laptops would not be allowed onboard with the batteries installed. They did allow me to remove the battery and keep the laptop with me. So be wary, and check your flights to make sure carrying your dell laptop will not be a problem.
Link to a newsreport on this item. http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06250/719479-96.stm
19 August Internet on International FlightToday I am traveling overseas found an incredible surprise. I popped open my laptop to work on some "offline" work, and noticed that my laptop showed an open access point. Of course i should have had my wifi turned off, but that is not the point of the story. When I looked at the connection it was indeed a legitimate access point. Open up a web browser and a happy greeting from Boeing Connexion asking for a credit card. For around 20 bucks I can surf for all 17 hours of my flight, or until my battery dies, or till I burn a hole in my pants from the heat.
Of course my second thought is that i have not had a chance to check to see if my Dell laptop battery is one of the ones being recalled. Seems more relevant at 30,000 feet.
I had heard rumor of this service being cancelled, hopefully that is not true.
For now I will enjoy my intermittent turbulence somewhere over the coast of Russia (per the little map on the screen) 15 August Want to be a silicon valley millionaire?A recent BusinessWeek article has a cover story of Kevin Rose, the founder of Digg.com, and lists him as a young man worth $60 million dollars. On a recent podcast (This Week in Tech) Kevin himself speaks of this story and how the headline is too good to be true.
“Until the deal is done, it’s pure speculation." Jason Greene, Emegence Capital Partners
01 August Add your own Google ButtonsLike many users, google rules my web surfing habits. A quick google search gets you the information you need fast. I have been using the google toolbar since beta now and it is essential to my day. One cool feature I found from the Google Blog is the ability to have custom buttons.
With custom buttons you can have the ability to use them as a quick shortcut, or the ability to use them as an "in-site" search. For example I have CNET.com button on my google toolbar. I wanted to search for the latest podcasts from CNET, so I just type "podcast" into my google search box and then hit the CNET button. It will then only return search results on the CNET.com site.
Very interesting and helpful. Give it a try.
Trixbox (formally Asterisk@home) featured on PCMag.comThis great open source software is getting more mainstream. Read PCMag's article here.
25 July Surprisingly Fun Game for your XBOX360New game out recently for the XBOX360, the surprisingly enjoyable UNO. It is part of the XBOX Live Arcade suite. You can download a trial copy via the XBOX Marketplace. For less than the cost of a deck of real uno cards you can unlock the trial and play against friends across the internet. A great mindless game for when you need a mental break.
And feel free to send me a friend invite to play! My gamertag is young9898, just like this site.
21 July Microsoft Virtual PC is now free!Quoted from
Full of I.T.Kevin Remde's IT Pro WebLog
Now, like Virtual Server 2005 R2, you can download and use Virtual PC 2004 (SP1 version) for free. “No way.” Way. But I understand your disbelief. That’s what I said when I heard the news late yesterday. And by the time you read this it will be true. And it gets better. Yep. We’re announcing that the next version of Virtual PC (2007) will be free also. So now you folks looking to use Virtual PC Express (the limited version that was going to come as a part of Windows Vista Enterprise) will be able to use the full-blown Virtual PC product instead… and with an additional benefit. If you’ve purchased Windows Vista Enterprise, you are now allowed to run 4 additional copies of Windows Vista Enterprise guests on your Windows Vista Enterprise host. So whereas previously you would have had to buy those licenses for your guest machines; now they’re INCLUDED, as long as your host is Windows Vista Enterprise edition. And that’s also true if you’ve purchased Windows Vista Ultimate edition with SA (Software Assurance). “But I suppose I can’t run those additional licenses if I’m using VMWare or some other product, right?” Wrong. But I’m not surprised you would think that. This is a little confusing to a lot of people who assume Microsoft is trying to use this to push it’s own virtualization stack. So here it is in a nutshell: So that means that, yes, you will have the right to run 4 additional copies of Windows Vista Enterprise edition on top of your Windows Vista Enterprise desktop, laptop, or tablet, and you WILL NOT have to be using Virtual PC to do it. “So – What happens to Virtual PC Express?” It is gone. There’s now no longer any need for it. Virtual PC does all of what Express was going to do, and more. And did I mention that it’s free? “When can I get Virtual PC 2007? And what will it do that 2004 doesn’t?” It’ll be out in the first part of 2007, and include being able to run it on a 64–bit host machine. There are also said to be performance and virtualized memory-allocation improvements. And it’s free. — Here’s the thing that I think is the most interesting about this change (other than it’s just very good news for virtualization as a whole): Microsoft is once again reacting to the great competition that is out there. One of the big value propositions of Windows Vista Enterprise was that it included the virtualization (VPC Express) needed for the sake of application compatibility scenarios, among others. But other virtualization products are out there now that are free and would do the same or more, so the “perceived value” of Windows Vista Enterprise took a big hit. So now that we’re giving the full Virtual PC away for free, and we’re including the additional licensing perks for Windows Vista Enterprise, it again becomes a very valuable reason to go there in the enterprise. What do you think? Are you heading off to download your free copy of Virtual PC 2004 now? I hope so! 11 July Keep better documentation with WikiEvery IT shop has the same problem. Technology professionals (i.e. geeks) love to make changes, and hate to document them. IT guys are an intelligent fast thinking bunch, and they like to troubleshoot quickly. On any simple problem an IT professional may try dozens of settings to resolve an issue. Quite often those system changes are not documented, and are not switched back to the original settings.
One great solution to help with this issue is to use a Wiki application. The most famous Wiki is wikipedia.org.
In fact this is the definition of a wiki, from wikipedia.org
A wiki (IPA: [ˈwiː.kiː] <wee-kee> or [ˈwɪ.kiː] <wick-ey>[1]) or wicky is a type of website that allows users to easily add, remove, or otherwise edit and change most content, sometimes without the need for registration. This ease of interaction and operation makes a wiki an effective tool for collaborative writing. The term wiki can also refer to the collaborative software itself (wiki engine) that facilitates the operation of such a website (see wiki software), or to certain specific wiki sites, including the computer science site (and original wiki), WikiWikiWeb, and the online encyclopedias such as Wikipedia. The first wiki, WikiWikiWeb, is named after the "Wiki Wiki" line of Chance RT-52 buses in Honolulu International Airport, Hawaii. It was created in 1994 and installed on the web in 1995 by Ward Cunningham, who also created the Portland Pattern Repository. "Wiki-wiki" means "fast" in Hawaiian. It also refers to a type of native fish of the islands.
Why a wiki? Two main reason. One, its cool, and we all know techies like cool technology. Two, it is simple. To edit a page you just double click anywhere, and then you can edit the text. Changed an IP address on a server, just double click and edit. Changed the default port on your terminal server, just double click and edit. Also most wiki's are text based. So using a wiki via any web browser, or mobile device is seamless.
You can secure a wiki, or leave it wide open for collaboration. At any time you can revert to an old entry if a mistake is made. Also a wiki utilizes a database, so it is fully integratable with any applications.
Couple of great examples of wiki are
05 July Search Engine Optimization (SEO), A different perspectiveThere are many great strategies for SEO optimization, however this article has a little bit of a different perspective. As web sites become an essential part of a companies marketing strategy, this type of planning is essential.
Quoted from
Getting Your Site Indexed Before You LaunchI've noticed that most SEO articles focus on what to do after you launch your site. Those that do deal with preparing your site for launch usually discuss on-site SEO like keyword research and meta tags. What tends to be neglected is the advantage that you can gain by getting your site indexed before you launch. With a little planning and a few hours of work it's easy to be indexed by Google, Yahoo, and MSN before your site goes live. original link http://www.site-reference.com/articles/Search-Engines/Getting-Your-Site-Indexed-Before-You-Launch.html
Found on Digg.com at http://digg.com/tech_news/Getting_Your_Site_Indexed_Before_You_Launch 23 June Asterisk@Home moves to TrixboxAsterisk is a free open source telephone private branch exchange (PBX) application. The basic Asterisk system is based upon Linux technology, and can be difficult to configure. A simpler version called Asterisk@home is packaged for an easier setup and configuration. This product recently made a name change, and upgrade to Trixbox. Trixbox allows a user to have a VOIP system up and running with one hour.
We have been testing this system internally and have found that you can indeed have your basic PBX setup within one hour. We were able to get a call attendant, voicemail, and basic calling between softphones rather quickly. However this is not for the faint of heart, it requires knowledge of PBX systems, linux systems, and hardware technologies. The good news is that any old workstation sitting around can run this in a test mode. We are running our test platform on a PIII with 256MB's of RAM.
A great setup and information page can be found here at nerdvittles.com. 26 April Technology and Cycling DO go togetherVia the always helpful Google news alert I came across this very unique story. This year's Tour De Georgia just completed, and this is some great insight into the legendary Discovery Channel Cycling team, and their director Johann Bruyneel.
This is off of Rahul Sood's blog, he is the owner and CTO of VoodooPC. Evidently through his connections with AMD he was able to get into the team car for Discovery Channel.
QUOTED:
The plan to punk Johan Bruyneel spawned itself from the seeds of a few innocent jokes. I laughed hysterically with my friends at AMD, Bart Knaggs from Capital Sports Entertainment, the great people of Trek Travel, and Matt Tolmach President of Sony Pictures over dinner on Friday evening.
I told them I was going to ask Johan some dumb questions on the ride like “Where’s George?” (Referring to George Hincapie who was out of commission after he suffered a terrible fall in a previous race – thankfully he’s in good spirits and almost fully recovered). I said I would look at Tom Danielson as we drove by and say things like “Hi Lance! How are you Lance?” I would then do things like throw my box lunch out the window, or perhaps throw a water bottle out like I had a condition that affected my reflexes. I then suggested that I would let out random “yelps” like “Livestrong!” and “No Chain!” to the riders out the window, and perhaps out the sunroof.
Continued here http://voodoopc.blogspot.com/2006/04/tour-de-georgia-part2-punk.html
21 April LSWAN on my mind (Logistical Satellite Wide Area Network)One of the best things about travelling is the chance to see new technologies. The gear we are working with today is the LSWAN.
Quoted
SWAN is a satellite and Internet protocol (IP) communications system that provides forward-deployed Marines in Iraq and the Horn of Africa and their central command posts with robust communication capabilities virtually whenever and wherever they need them. As the lead technology partner for the Marine Corps SWAN projects, DataPath worked with several commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) vendors to provide the required reliable, quickly deployed, high-bandwidth capabilities.
"It was essential that we implement real-time communications solutions that deploy quickly to enable the SWAN project," said Captain David Joseforsky, LSWAN/VSWAN/HSWAN project officer, Marine Corps Systems Command. "The robust, reliable communications solutions transform traditional Marine Corps operations. With these solutions, front-line operational forces can capitalize on the resources and intelligence being gathered by central commands, unmanned aerial vehicles and other resources. We expect SWAN to continue delivering vital battlefield intelligence and logistics support as it transitions to a formal program of record."
from http://www.datapath.com/print-news-release-02-06-06.asp |
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