Category Archives: What’s New

What’s new on the Sysguy site!

Alberta Only SBS Promo Starting soon

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Starting April 2nd listen for a new Microsoft Campaign in Alberta promoting one of our favourite SMB Solutions, SBS 2003 R2. MS will launch on the top radio stations in Calgary and Edmonton a promotional deal with HP. This will soon be followed by a direct email campaign. If you are looking at getting a server for your small business, now would be the time to start looking.

As a Microsoft Small Business Specialist, Sysguy Consulting will be involved with the promotion and we should be getting some referrals from MS. Please contact us if you are interested in finding out more about this promotion!

Stephen

Sysguy now sells Consumer Electronics!

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Just wanted to let our clients know that we now have access to several lines of consumer electronics products and more are being added regularly. We can now get LCD TV Displays, Plasma TVs, DVD Players and Recorders and more.

LCD TV Venders include, Acer, Viewsonic, VisionQuest, Olevia (several models recently received Consumer Reports Best Buy Distinction), Samsung, LG, and more.

Plasma TVs from Samsung, Toshiba, Sanyo, LG and Sony

DVD Players and DVD Recorders from Samsung, LG, Sony, VisionQuest and more.

So if you are looking for a large display for an office or an upgraded TV for your home, please contact us for pricing and availability.

Stephen

Some little changes coming to this blog

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If you visit this blog and things look a little different don’t panic. While I really like the appearance of the blog now, there are a few templates that I have found that I also like and will look at implementing and testing them. I also want to add Google adwords to the site and maybe create a 3 column look instead of the two column. If you end up seeing a theme that you like let me know. If you see one that you don’t like let me know as well. Make sure you leave a comment for me either way.

Stephen

HP All In One Vista Software Released

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HP has finally released their updated all in one software packages for Windows Vista. So if you have an HP all in one device and have lost the scanner and fax functionality after upgrading to Vista, (more so for networked products) you can download it now from the HP site. It is a fairly large download (160 or so MB) so ensure you have a high speed connection.

Without this software if you had a directly connected HP all in one device you could still print and scan from Vista but you had to use the built in scanner and faxing software. This would render these devices unusable if they work networked other than basic printing.

Stephen

Don’t throw out that old PC yet!

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If you are planning on upgrading to a new PC in the near future, think twice before getting rid of that old PC. As you may have read I am a part of the Beta Test Program for Windows Home Server, a new software product that will be coming out soon. The idea is that this is a file and print sharing, backup server for your home. Hardware requirements aren’t that strict (P2 1 Ghz, 512MB Ram and 80 GB HD with DVDR) and even if you have a single PC in your house this could help. So far I have just started playing with it and haven’t had much time to test. I have set up 2 PCs with the automated backup solution, SWMBO’s laptop and my Dell D600. Both have been working well and backing up every night (wirelessly at that). The server software is easy to set up, expandable (you can add storage space easily) and provides either full or partial restores to a PC.

I soon plan on testing a complete hard drive failure and restoring via the Home server. I believe that this is a much needed product for almost every home user and if it doubles functionality and keeps a PC out of landfill then all the better.

Stay tuned as I will continue posting my experiences with WHS.

Stephen

Coming Soon – Windows Home Server!

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We have just received word that we have been invited into the Windows Home Server Beta 2.0 Program by Microsoft. As I post this I am downloading the software to set up my first Windows Home Server. While it is anticipated that this will be sold as a complete hardware/software solution, we are getting the opportunity to try it in a PC that we have kicking around.

It is somewhat unusual for most Beta programs, but we have been granted the right to public disclose and discuss this product. This means I will post the trials and tribulations of Beta testing software here on the blog, after reporting issues back to Microsoft.

What is Windows Home Server? I discussed it in my previous post regarding backups, but it is proposed as a headless hardware/software appliance device that will connect to a users home network and do file and printer sharing, security checks and network health monitoring etc. It is based on Windows Server 2003 technologies. At this point I am still unsure if it will be available as a software only product.

Keep checking this blog out for updates!

Stephen

Vista Part 2!

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Well I broke against my own best practices when I installed Vista as an upgrade over XP Pro earlier this week. I have always been a big believer in installing a clean version of an OS instead of doing an upgrade, but I figured since this was a fairly clean install of XP I was safe. I had no real problems other than the sound issues I complained about and fixed after my original install, until today. I was trying to install Creative Labs software (supposedly Vista compatible) for my Zen Vision:M 30 GB (a great device I will write about one day), and the installation kept failing. I went back to the CD an dwas able to install the older softer with no issues, but then still couldn’t update it to the Vista version. Again I hit the web and found a thread on Creative’s forum where someone was having the same problems so they did a clean install.

I had nothing to lose as I just was starting to get the PC ready to where I wanted so I had nothing to lose. If you read my earlier post you may know that I have an upgrade Windows Vista Business Disk and purchased the Windowsanytimeupgrade to Vista Ultimate. One thing about the Vista upgrade DVD is that it is designed to run as an upgrade from the previous OS and not for clean installs. There is away that has been widely published on the net so I am not going to describe it here but it is a little cumbersum, but in the end it works just fine. Anyway my suspicions were confirmed and my creative software installed cleanly and is no longer an issue. In short some of the files from XP were interfering with the installation of the Creative software.

 For my clients, I strongly recommend doing a clean install over doing an upgrade to help reduce the possibilities of future problems. Please feel free to contact me if you want to attempt this on your own and I can provide you with instructions, or if you prefer I can handle the upgrade for you!

Stephen

Virtual PC 2007

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Microsoft has released Virtual PC 2007. It will run on Vista as a Host OS and will run Vista as a guest OS. The product is a free download and is available at http://www.microsoft.com/virtualpc. However you do need a licensed copy of every OS you run as a guest.

What is Virtual PC? It is an application that runs on one OS and allows other OS’s to run as Guest OS’ in a virtual machine, sharing the hardware with the host. It is a great tool for support or backward compatibilty for some applications. For example, although not officially supported, you could install a Linux system as a guest OS. This way you can run Linux and some of it’s applications on a Vista machine. This is a great tool for support people as well as you can have several virtual machines of different OS and start them up as you need them. You do need a fair bit of memory as each guest OS uses memory from the host to run. Here is a great use of VPC. LEt’s say you have an application that you absolutley must have but it does not run on XP or Vista but only Windows 98. You create a Windows 98 Virtual Machine, install the application on there and wehn you need it you just run the VM as Windows 98. This would eliminate the need to have a Windows 98 machie running but you could still use the software you need.

How to start
After you have installed Virtual machine, you create a virtual hard drive for the guest OS you wnat and set up the support you need, for example, DVDROM access or Netwrok access. Save the virtual HD and then start it up. It will look like a brand new PC starting. Next install your operating system, the same way you do on a PC and once it is done you can run the OS at the same time.

Sound confusing.. well really it is not and newer hardware is being built that supports Virtualization right into it (new Intel Processors). My suggestion is to try Virtual PC for yourself and see if it could help you. I have used it for demos in the past and have virtualized servers and workstations to demonstrate how a proposed netwrok will operate for a client. The biggest restriction is the hardware support and ensuring that you have enough Ram to run the guests.

Contact Sysguy if you require any information or want some help in setting up Virtual PC on your systems

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