Lexmark x9350 Network Printer Product Review.

brett Ok let me start this by saying at this time I’m awaiting the RMA to send my Lexmark x9350 back to our supplier.  We needed a network capable printer to allow us to be able to print from a satellite office to our main headquarters.  After doing some searches online we ran across a decent deal on this x9350. It is capable of both wifi and Ethernet connections and offers the normal multi-function printer tools.  But after we received it and attempted to install it, the problems started cropping up.

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Internet Explorer 8 Compatibility Issues.

brett March 19th 2009, Microsoft released IE8 to the general public and made it available for Windows updates. The good news with this version of IE is it includes improved standards support.  However for many of you who’s websites were designed with frontpage, word,  or powerpoint, you may find that your website no longer displays correctly. Some websites will be viewable by using the compatibility mode, but even that will not solve all the problems.

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Windows Server 2008 Live Migration.

brett Coming in 2010, with the release of R2 for Windows Server 2008, is the new to Windows service called Live Migration. Live Migration is Microsofts version of VMware’s VMotion service which allows you to move Virtual Machines across servers without having to shut them down.

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Terminal Services Remote App

brettI’ve been looking into ways to take advantage of the new features in Terminal Services for our company. One thing in particular, Remote Applications, caught my eye and reminded me of the tools I used to use when I was running Citrix.  Although it wasn’t that interesting to my fellow coworkers, who at the time were relatively new to Terminal Services.  That was largely because their main issue was that they couldn’t see their actual desktop, and the web interface that allowed them access to those applications was unfamiliar, and therefore, uncomfortable.  But the times have changed yet again, and these days my coworkers use a combination of thin clients and laptops to allow them to work from anywhere.

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6 – 7 versions of Windows 7 WTF?!

windows_7_graphicI wasn’t a fan of Microsoft’s decision to put out umpteen versions of Vista and I’m still not a fan of this marketing tactic in regards to Windows 7. Microsoft released details today that they will be releasing 6 versions of Windows 7 plus a an N version for the EU that will ship without Media Player installed.

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Windows 7 to kill Linux; Linux to retaliate and firebomb Windows 7

It’s the same old story every year: Linux will finally dominate Windows, Windows will finally kill off that pesky open-source Linux. My dad’s better than your dad; my mashed potatoes can beat-up your mashed potatoes. The truth simply is it’s not going to pan out like that. Linux will still dominate the server world and Windows will still dominate the desktop world (and if you think vista’s failing is a sign of Microsoft’s slipping, I kindly ask you to remember Windows ME followed by the popularity of XP). So what’s new to the battle front? Well, honestly, it’s not really ‘new’ it’s just what people are talking about these days. ‘Netbooks’. And I highly doubt it will be some epic battle of Good Vs. Evil, either. Continue reading

PowerShell Tutorial the switch statement part 1.

PowerShell’s switch statement is similar to an if statement though easier to implement when you want to evaluate numerous conditions. You can use the switch statement to automate tasks such as retrieving System event log entries and performing actions based on the type of entry, and or moving and deleting files based on their file names.

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helm 3 fixes

Helm is a powerful control panel for windows hosting – it can also be a total pain in the behind. Recently I tried removing a domain from our helm cluster (which consists of 4 machines) only to receive a generic ‘unable to remove domain please contact support or try again later’. Normally I’d just reboot the cluster and try again with great success; however, this did not work. There’s an almost ‘be all, end all’ fix for helm that I’ve known about for a while now, and I continually refine and add to it. After the jump I’ll share these words of wisdom and hopefully save you a few hair ripping frustrations. So without further delay, let’s lace up our best kicking boots and get ready to stomp out some fixes…

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Free CD burner for windows

Maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t think I’m alone in the thinking that the cd burning software included with windows is one of the worst, if not plainly the worst cd composition software available to users today. It is severely lacking in features such as those that would allow you to copy a cd, design an audio cd with any normalization or track control, or even simply create an .iso image file. About the only thing it does do is allow you to burn some piece of data on to the physical media that we call cd’s or dvd’s. That’s why I’m happy to have found CDBurner XP.

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