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!

Mercury Transit – November 8th 2006

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There will be a site to behold Wednesday Nov 8th! Mercury will pass in it’s orbit across the face of the sun. Starting at 12:12PM and continuing till 5:10 PM, you will be able to see this tiny planet pass directly in front of our neighboring star! Never look at the sun directly either with your eyes or with a telescope or binoculars without having appropriate solar filters installed!

If the weather is clear, I will have a couple of scopes set up and try to photograph the event. I am planning on mounting my SW 80 ED and my Coronado PST and try to get pictures! If I am successful links will be posted, so watch this site!

S

Roger’s Portable Internet Service

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In some areas of Canada, Rogers is now offering a new Portable Internet service. The service is based on Wimax technology and requires a special wireless modem available from Rogers. While the solution is not mobile it is portable! let me explain.

Mobile internet allows you to connect anywhere and is usually acheived by adding a PC Card to a laptop. It is typically fairly slow and very expensive in Canada. It does however allow you to roam and switch stations, and is generally available anywhere there is a cell phone signal.

The portable Internet service relies on transmitters on specific Cell phone towers and the modem requires a power outlet. This modem does not automatically switch to different towers as you move about.

The service however is extremely cost effective! Rogers offers it for 49.95 per month (minimum 1 year contract) and requires the purchase of the modem for 99.00. The published speeds are quite impressive however (nearly double todays cellular technology) at 1.5 Mb per scond download and 256K uploads. In addition you get 30GB downloads per month, 5 email addresses and the abilty to take your connection with you to certain areas. At this cost, and with these bandwidth amounts it is a far better deal than going with a cellular based service.

With a power inverter in your vehicle you do get some roaming ability.

We have not decided if this would be a good solution for Sysguy yet but are looking very closely at it.

Please let us know if you have tried this service and if it works well in your scenario.

What are we playing with now!

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Just to let everyone know there are a few things that we are testing in our labs. Of course like everyone else in the IT field we are playing with Windows Vista Beta (RC1 Ultimate Edition) and Office 2007. Early feelings are that this is going to be a worthwhile upgrade for most users! It may take a little bit of a hardware upgrade for older systems but if you don’t need or want the glass interface you’ll be fine. Our testing machine is a home built AMD 3000+ Processor with 1 GB Ram, an integrated ATI Video card and 160 GB 7200 SATA Hard Drive. We will put together a machine soon that will be slower and will try to test it at or very close to the minimum hardware requirements.

Windows Vista Business edition should be available to Software Assurance clients to download at the end of November. Starting tomorrow (Nov 1, 2006) it will be orderable from distribution for Open License clients!

We are also testing a Mav Mini! Yes a Mac! This little box is about the size of a book and features and Intel Dual Core 1.83 Ghz processor, 512 Mb of Ram and an 80 GB Hard Drive. We have been doing some video editing work with the included software and have had some mixed results about it. Stay tuned for more info and a complete review soon!

Happy Halloween!

Stephen