Monthly Archives: November 2006

New Cell Phone

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Normally I wouldn’t get really excited about a new cell phone. That was until yesterday. Over the past couple of months I have often wished I had email when I was in meetings or on client visits. I finally took the plunge yesterday and upgraded my phone to a new Blackberry Pearl!

I was hoping to get one of the Windows Mobile based devices so that I could sync the device with my SBS 2003 server, but the poor battery life of these devices available through Rogers kept me away. Enter the Pearl.

Rim released this phone in Sept 06, and it didn’t have the typical Blackberry look. It was sleek, didn’t have the standard keyboard and the track wheel was gone, replaced by a white trackball that lights up (the pearl)!. The form factor is like a chocolate bar. This phone is very light and the display on it is nice and bright. Reviews I read on the Internet all raved about the phone.

So I broke down yesterday, added the email plan and purchased the phone from Rogers (did you know you can now upgrade your Rogers hardware every 12 months). With the plans comes the Blackberry Internet Service which allows me to add up to 10 email accounts to the phone. One of the nice surprises is that I can add an exchange server account that has access to Outlook Web Access. I liked this because I can keep the email server from having to run as a pop3 mail server. Unfortunately without the BES (Blackbery Enterprise) server I cannot update contacts or calendar items using this method like Activesync does. Hower I can connect the phone to my PC and sync it.

Voice Dialing is a cool feature that I think I will use a lot as well. I can give the phone a command and then say a name or a number and the phone will dial.

IT also features a 1.3 MP camera with 5X zoom and Flash and the ability to play Mp3. There is a slot under the battery for a Micro SD card.

I still have to try to connect my laptop using the phone as a Bluetooth wireless device to the internet, but it should be possible.

So far after a day and a half of playing with it I have been impressed. If I find other thigs about it (good and bad) I will post them here.
Stephen

Vista and Office 2007 available now!

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Yes it’s true. Vista and Office 2007 are available right now to Microsoft SA (Software Assurance) Clients. Last Friday after returning from the Microsoft Launch Event in Edmonton I logged into my eopen site to check an agreement for a client and noticed that there was a new link to download software. Immediately I checked it out and was able to download RTM versions Vista Enterprise and Vista Business as well as Office 2007 Professional Plus and Office 2007 Standard. I have started the testing process on the RTM versions so that I can start the planning of deployments for my clients.

I can report though that on my test machine (AMD 3000+, 1GB Ram and integrated ATI Display Adaptor) that the RTM version of Vista Enterprise runs much quicker than the RC1 version did with the full Aero interface. A little warning though with the new version of Office the file format is not backwards compatible with earlier versions of Office. If you share Office documents, people using earlier versions of Office have to install a converter to allow them to be able to open the new document format. The other option is that you can download an add on for Office 2007 that will allow you to save documents as Adobe PDF documents. This at least gives you another option for sharing, unless of course those documents have to be edited.

 Want to see if what version your PC can run of Windows Vista? Download and run the Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor from here.

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/getready/upgradeadvisor/default.mspx

New PCs sold by Sysguy Consulting now until March 31st, have either free or low cost upgrades to Windows Vista 

Stay tuned for more information.

Stephen

Sysguy’s New Partnership!

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We are pleased to announce that we have Sysguy Consulting have joined in a new partnership with one of the world’s largest software companies, Computer Associates, for our home and small business clients. While we have been selling CA’s corporate products to our client (Etrust ITM, AV and more) we are pleased to be members of CA’s new Onsite Program.

The Onsite program allows our technicians while making house calls to use CA’s new onsite diagnostic scanner to detect viruses and spyware, possible PC problems and security holds and recommend software to correct these problems. As well our techs can immediately install trial or full versions of the software, and invoice our clients in the regular manner. We can celan up and protect your PCs immediately!

Contact us for your free diagnosic scan today!

Stephen

Intel Core 2 Duo Quick Review

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One of the really cool things about doing what I do is that I get to play with new technologies before or just after they are released. Usually it may be something that I get for my self but in regards to processors and computers it usually someone elses that I am configuring.

I have just had the opportunity to work on my first Intel Core 2 Duo system. I attended an Intel product briefing session this past week and got some of the scoop on their new processors. Firstly the Pentium name is gone. In the new Core 2 Duos the entire internal architecture has changed and so that have removed the Pentium Brand name…

The first time I worked with a Duo Core (Pentium D) system I was lessed than impressed. In fact for gamers it was probably slower than the Pentium Ds or AMD single cores that they were using. Multiple Core systems excel at multi tasking and multi threaded applications.

Continue reading →

Interesting Day

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I attended a couple of sessions today put on by one of my suppliers. One session was run by Intel and the second was on Mobility solutions. There were several vendors there showing off their products.

The Intel session was very informative and I learned a lot about their new line of Core 2 Duo processors and the architecture in them. Will blog some more about what I saw in the next little while.

MIcrosoft announces Vista Upgrades for new PC Buyers

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Have no fear this holiday season. If you buy a new Vista Compatible PC between Oct 26th, 2006 and March 31, 2006 you will receive a free upgrade to Windows Vista. All the information is available here at the Microsoft Vista site

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/getready/expressupgrade.mspx

Each Tier 1 manufacturer (Dell, IBM, HP, ACER) will have their own programs as well as system builders (like Sysguy).

Also being offered are low cost cross grades, for example XP Home to Vista Ultimate or XP Pro to Vista Ultimate.

Basically if you get a PC with XP Home you will get Vista Home Premium and if you are running XP Pro you will get Vista Business.

For more info visit the Vista info site for more info on system requirements and for tier one contacts.

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/getready/expressupgrade.mspx

Stephen

I hate Spammers!!!!

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If there is anything I really hate about the Internet it is spammers… Especially since I have my own domain. I can assure you that we here at Sysguy Consulting do not send spam out of any sort. However our domain is used for spoofing spam email. What these low life’s do is send out spam with reply to addresses made up from our domain sysguy.com. How do I know. I get several emails a day from mail servers to non existent addresses on my domain indicating message failures. It is not very hard to spoof a reply email address and the software that these idiots use so it automatically.

I have threatened several companies that I will begin proceedings against them if they don’t stop and it does stop for a while, but inevitably it starts up again. Lately there seems to be a lot of Pump and Dump mails going out (pump a stock up getting people to buy and drive the price up, then they sell it driving the price down).

What can you do to protect yourself? Make sure you are sure where you are giving your email address. Look for check boxes giving permission when signing web forms allowing companies share info with partners. You can always use a free email address (Hotmail, Yahoo, Gmail) if you have to sign up.

If you have a web site use a contact form or at the very least use a script to disguise your email address from robots. Never set a up an auto reply for your personal email address.

Hopefully one day we will be able to come up with a sure fire way to stop these scum and get email back.

Sirius Canada subscribers, we finally get to listen online!!!

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I got an email today from Sirius Canada indicating that we can finally listen to our radio subscriptions across the Internet! This is something that US subscribers have been able to do for some time and was expected in Canada last spring. That day is here!

If you are a Sirius subscriber and have not received an email yet, contact Sirius customer services to get your login account ID and password!