Author: H0rs4B@lls4210

Back ups and System restores

Folks, please back up your data.
Once again I have been involved with a system meltdown where there was NO valid back up available.
I was able to salvage some data only after many, many hours and lots of aggravation.
Please don’t let this happen to you.
If people would create, and more importantly follow an effective back up strategy, they (and I) would live a much less stressful life.
There’s one simple rule about backups that everybody needs to fully understand:
Your files should exist in at least Two places, or it’s no longer a backup! Too often people delete files from their primary PC, assuming they are backed up or worse have their back ups located on the same hard drive on the same PC. A different partition of the same physical drive does NOT count. When hard drives fail they usually take the whole drive down including all partitions.
You data must exist in TWO, separate places at once or it is not a back up.
The simplest way is to purchase an external drive that you back up your data to by creating (and appending) disk images (see below for more) on a regular basis. I believe the most effective backups are Images(Clones).

Large external drives are very inexpensive these days. You can pick up a 1TB drive for around $100 or less just about anywhere.
But remember when backing up your data that you can’t delete it from your main system once it’s been backed up to an external drive. By doing that, you’ve left yourself with only a single copy of your important files, on an external drive that has just as much chance of dying as your internal PC hard drive.
So if you have only one external drive remember that.
Or you can go to my paranoid – but outrageously safe, route:
And use at least TWO external drives for image rotations.
I do.
I believe in the ‘grandfather/father/son’ method of backups.
[This is a method for storing previous generations of master file data that are continuously updated. The son is the current file (the one on your pc or data drive for home users), the father is a copy of the file from the previous cycle, and the grandfather is a copy of the file from the cycle before that one.]
I don’t want to be the guy who lost 25 years of family photo’s or my QuickBooks file with 15 years of business data because I didn’t want to spend a little money and time up front to be safe.

Imaging or cloning is the procedure by which you create a backup that is identical to a bootable system either to another (separate) internal or external drive. This is the ultimate backup! Should your drive fail you can just ‘pop in’ your cloned drive or ‘restore’ that clone image to a new (replacement) drive and your are up and running.
Image software makes a full, exact copy of your hard drive— a mirror image of the operating system, software, data, file organization—everything.
Good description here.
The go to software for me is Acronis or Ghost
Both have home and enterprise solutions. I have used them for many years, and continue to use both of them extensively.
For the price it is inexcusable to not have this software and use it regularly in your back up strategy.
For OS X creating an image is very simple process that can be done without any 3rd party software although I do like using SuperDuper. I have covered that in a previous article here.

Some of you may be happy just having your ‘data’ backed up to an external or online storage solution like Dropbox, Mozy, iDrive or Carbonite. There are others search ’em out.
That is fine and good for immediate back ups or access to current documents while traveling. I sometimes do this to between my image/back up schedule or when I am traveling and I know I will not be able to use a secure system.
I also use Microsoft’s SyncToy to mirror my working folders at home to one of my external drives and at work for my working documents and files. This tool has just been update to increase it’s speed and robustness, especially with network attached storage devices (NAS). You can find it here.
Well that’s all for now.
Please people save some grief and back up your data then back that up!
Peace.

More on Antivirus software

I’m really impressed with Microsoft Security Essentials. It’s very minimalist but it gets the job done. It’s very fast to scan your computer and it isn’t constantly bugging you to ‘renew your subcription’.
Microsoft Security Essentials is the newest addition to Microsoft’s computer protection software. It replaces the Windows Live OneCare subscription service and Windows Defender by providing more comprehensive coverage than either of the two originally provided. Microsoft Security Essentials is free for all Windows users and provides protection against a variety of threats including viruses, malware, adware, and spyware.

Although I still use Symantec Corporate (and other Anti-Spyware solutions – me paranoid) on most of my machines I have been using this on Windows 7 and think it is a GREAT free alternitive to the expensive ‘bloatware’ AV solutions out there now. The only ‘caveat’, if you can call it that, is your system must pass ‘Microsoft Genuine Validation’. I hope all your machines do already, they should. But there is always that chance your operating system was not properly licensed by your OEM or you license key was mistakenly blacklisted.

You can get it here:
http://www.microsoft.com/Security_Essentials/default.aspx

Be safe out here.

Freeing youself from Cable

Many have heard of people ‘ditching’ their cable company and instead watching TV on or from the internet, but few have learned how to do it. It is one of those things that seems only geeks and techies would or could really do.
But that is simply not the case.
With some of the many freeware applications and generously provided how to guides available, anyone can do this.
Here is one of my favorite ways:
TED (Torrent Episode Downloader) is a free tool that can find episodes of almost any TV show for downloading using a torrent client. It’s database of torrent sources is updated periodically to include new shows, and the program allows users to search for and add any shows that are not listed.

This is an extremely useful and impressive tool that can make the process of finding and downloading your favorite shows very easy; TED brings an easy to use iTunes-store like interface to the world of torrent TV shows.
This program is particularly suited for average users who (a) do not want to wade through torrent search sites and get bombarded with dubious ads and popups, (b) do not have the time or inclination to be searching for torrent sources needed for downloading, and (c) would like a reliable and easy way to find just the episodes that they want to watch.
Here is a good demonstration video.

The home page for TED is here.

Documents

Actual download:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/ted/files/ted/0.971/tedv0971.exe/download

Once again the Adam at Lifehacker has done a fantastic job of creating a simple walk through of the application.
You can check that out here:

If you don’t know what a Torrent is or anything about using BitTorrents then check out this Lifehackers Beginers Guide to BitTorrent. It is a GREAT introduction to understanding what a torrent :

For my windows machines I use uTorrent

On the Mac’s I use Transmission

Note:
Some of you may have to configure your router (firewall) to allow the torrent client to receive information through your router – called port forwarding.
I will not go into great length on how to do that right now. You should be able to find all the information you need here at PortForward.comf
Good luck and have fun!

Microsoft Technet Deal

For those of you in the development of, sale of, or support of computers and systems you should already have a Microsoft Tech Net subscription.
With the Tech Net Plus subscription you have access to download over 70 full unrestricted titles (many with multiple license keys and permited activations!!) of Microsoft software and training titles, ranging from Windows 7 to Office 2007 and many server versions. Simply burn the images (.iso) to CD of DVD.
I believe it is the most valuable subscription available for staying current on applications and operating systems.
If you don’t currently have a subscription now is the time to get it.
Microsoft is being very generous and providing a 28% discount till the end of the year.
The regular subscription is $349.00.
With the coupon it comes out to like $252.00.
A VERY low price to pay for all the software most of you will ever need for a long while.
I have been a subscriber for over a decade believe I get WAY more than my moneys worth. I am able to have access to new and current software as soon as it is available and usually LONG before the general public has access. For example via TechNet I have been using Windows 7 in one form or another for over a year. [The cost of Windows 2008 Server R2 is $3,999.00 alone!]

You can find the information here:
http://www.microsoft.com/click/technetplus/

Just use the coupon code:  TNWIN7L

Description of Subscription Software Benefits:

TechNet Plus Direct

All Online Access

Access to all TechNet Plus resources via the members-only TechNet Plus benefits portal for an individual user. Does not include DVD shipments.

• Full-version evaluation software without time limits

• Beta software releases

• Technical Information Library

• Professional Support Incidents

• Managed newsgroups

• Online concierge Chat

• Technical training resources and Microsoft E-Learning Courses

Servers & Operating Systems 2007 Microsoft Office System Microsoft Dynamics

• Windows Server 2008

• Windows Server 2003 R2

• Compute Cluster

• Windows SharePoint Services

• SQL Server

• Application Platform Servers

BizTalk Server, Commerce Server, Host Integration Server, Connected Services Framework, Customer Care Framework

• Business Productivity Servers

Content Management Server, Exchange Server, Office Live Communications Server, Office Forms Server, Office Groove Server, Office PerformancePoint Server, Speech Server, Sharepoint Server, Windows Sharepoint Services

• IT Operations Servers

Identity Integration Server, Microsoft System Center, Microsoft Operations Manager, Microsoft System Center Capacity Planner, Microsoft System Center Data Protection Manager, Systems Management Server, ISA Server

• Windows 7


Ultimate/Enterprise/Professional/Home Premium/Home Basic/Starter

• Windows Vista

Ultimate/Enterprise/Business/Vista Home Basic/Home Premium

• Windows XP

XP Home/Media Center/Professional/Tablet PC Edition

• Office


Ultimate/Enterprise/Professional Plus/Professional 2007 [2]

• Office Desktop Applications

Office Word, Office Excel, Office PowerPoint, Office Outlook & Business Contact Manager, Office Access, Office Publisher, Office InfoPath, Office OneNote, Office Communicator, Office Groove, Office SharePoint Designer, Office Visio, Office Project Standard, Office Accounting, Office Business Scorecard Manager, Office FrontPage, Office Project Professional, Office Project Server, Office Project Portfolio Server

• Dynamics AX, GP, NAV, SL, Microsoft Forecaster & Microsoft FRx

• Dynamics CRM, Point of Sale, Microsoft Small Business Accounting & Financing

Al Gore 1st ‘Carbon Billionaire’!

Why is Al Gore spouting the ‘Man Made Global Warming’ Horseshit everyday?

Here is why:

“Al Gore, the former US vice president, could become the world’s first carbon billionaire after investing heavily in green energy companies.”
Story Here:
http://commonamericanjournal.com/?p=5490

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/6491195/Al-Gore-could-become-worlds-first-carbon-billionaire.html

More on ‘Global Warming’:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125686509223717691.html

http://www.globalwarming.org/2009/02/03/global-warming-101-science/

Costs of government run health care

Costs of government run health care.

The idea that the government could effectively run anything better than private enterprise in a free market is absurd.
Here is a great quote from Thomas Sowell, the noted economist:
“There is a fundamental difference between reducing costs and simply shifting costs around, like a pea in a shell game at a carnival.”
The entire article is here:
From Thomas Sowell and should be read by all!
Printer Friendly version:
http://townhall.com/Common/PrintPage.aspx?g=6d848057-bab6-46c6-bfbc-86b55677ef93&t;=c

And here is more of what you will be paying for!
Aborton Tax

What’s the score after 6 months?

Sure makes me fell “warm” all over, how about you?
Actually more like ‘fired up’.

Obama’s First Six Months’ Accomplishments

1. Offended the Queen of England .

2. Bowed to the King of Saudi Arabia .

3. Praised the Marxist Daniel Ortega.

4. Kissed Socialist Hugo Chavez on the cheek.

5. Endorsed the Socialist Evo Morales of Bolivia .

6. Sided with Hugo Chavez and Communist Fidel Castro against Honduras .

7. Announced we would meet with Iranians with no pre-conditions while they’re building their nuclear weapons.

8. Gave away billions to AIG also without pre-conditions.

9. Expanded the bailouts.

10. Insulted everyone who has ever loved a Special Olympian.

11. Doubled our national debt.

12. Announced the termination of our new missile defense system the day after North Korea launched an ICBM.

13. Released information on U.S. Intelligence gathering despite urgings of his own CIA director and the prior four CIA directors.

14. Accepted without comment that five of his cabinet members cheated on their taxes and two other nominees withdrew after they couldn’t take the heat.

15. Appointed a Homeland Security Chief who identified military veterans and abortion opponents as “dangers to the nation.”

16. Ordered that the word “terrorism” no longer be used and instead refers to such acts as “man made disasters.”

17. Circled the globe to publicly apologize for America ‘s world leadership.

18. Told the Mexican president that the violence in their country was because of us.

19. Politicized the census by moving it into the White House from the Department of Commerce.

20. Appointed as Attorney General the man who orchestrated the forced removal and expulsion to Cuba of a 9-year-old whose mother died trying to bring him to freedom in the United States .

21. Salutes as heroes three Navy SEALS who took down three terrorists who threatened one American life and the next day announces members of the Bush administration may stand trial for “torturing” three 9/11 terrorists by pouring water up their noses.

22. Low altitude photo shoot of Air Force One over New York City that frightened thousands of New Yorkers.

23. Sent his National Defense Advisor to Europe to assure them that the US will no longer treat Israel in a special manner and they might be on their own with the Muslims.

24. Praised Jimmy Carter’s trip to Gaza where he sided with terrorist Hamas against Israel .

25.. Nationalized General Motors and Chrysler while turning shareholder control over to the unions and freezing out retired investors who owned their bonds. Committed unlimited taxpayer billions in the process.

26. Passed a huge energy tax in the House that will make American industry even less competitive while costing homeowners thousands per year.

27. Announced nationalized health care “reform” that will strip seniors of their Medicare, cut pay of physicians, increase taxes yet another $1 trillion, and put everyone on rationed care with government bureaucrats deciding who gets care and who doesn’t..

Bloomberg: Daschle says, “Health care reform will not be pain free. Seniors should be more accepting of the conditions that come with age instead of treating them,” while former Colorado Governor Dick Lamm says seniors have “a duty to die.”

If this does not sufficiently raise your ire, just remember that the President, Senators, and Congressmen have their own special gold plated health care AND RETIREMENT plan which is guaranteed the remainder of their lives and they are not subject to this new law if they pass it.

Upgrade Windows 7 from Release Candidate or RTM version

Many of you have been running Windows 7 since the first Beta and moved onto the public Release Candidate. They were offered to the general public as a free ‘beta’ or taste test of the new OS.
Windows 7 is, in my opinion, a huge step up from Vista in virtually every area.

But as you know – or should know, The RC expires in March of 2010! By that time you will have had to have installed the retail version or you will be warned by the machine shutting off every two hours. When the free Release Candidate begins to expire you can’t even do an upgrade install of Windows 7, you will have to either re-install Windows Vista first, or buy a standalone version of Windows 7!

So let’s get with the upgrading.
First let me point out that a ‘fresh/clean’ install is almost always the best way to go. However there are times when an upgrade makes a lot of sense. Such as when you had to ‘tweak’ a special driver, or have massive amounts of applications installed and uniquely configured, or simply just have everything ‘just the way you want it’.

A note on Windows 7 pricing:
The Windows 7 Family Pack, consists of 32-bit and 64-bit Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade media Setup discs and a single product key which can be used to activate three copies of the OS on three different PCs! The Family Pack costs $150, or just $30 more than a single copy of Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade. It’s kind of a no-brainer to me.

OK on to the upgrade process:

  1. Copy of all of the files from the retail disc to a folder on your hard drive I called it “Win7Upgrade” 
  2. Navigate to and then open the “sources” directory in that folder, and look for a file called “cversion.ini”.
  3. Right-click and choose ‘open with’ and choose ‘Notepad’. You may also launch Notepad and choose File>Open and select that file.
  4. Change the number 7233 to read 7000 (you’re telling it the minimum version that’s allowed to upgrade). Save it.

Right, now you’re almost there.
One more thing you may have to do.

When doing an upgrade MS limits you to what ‘type or flavor’ of the OS you can upgrade to.
Example; Vista Home Premium can only be upgraded to Windows 7 Home Premium, Windows 7 RC(and therefore ‘Ultimate’) can only go to Windows 7 Ultimate etc.
BUT HERE IS THE GREAT PART!
That is not entirely true!
You can upgrade to a different version with a simple registry adjustment.

Open a command promt on your Vista or (Windows 7 Release Candidate) machine and type in:

Regedit

Navigate to HKLM(HKEY_Local_Machine)Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\ CurrentVersion

Change EditionID on the reg key from “Ultimate” to “[youreditionhere]”
and
Change ProductName on the reg key from Windows 7 Ultimate to “Windows 7 [youreditionhere]”
(minus the quotes of course)

Example:

EdittionID Professional

ProductName Windows 7 Professional

Close the registry editor, restart and do your install.
I have used this trick to upgrade some of our corporate Netbooks that came with Windows 7 Starter to our Volume License version of Window 7 Enterprise.

Remember you will have to have a valid install key/license for what ever version you install AND you will have to activate it. You won’t be able to use the same key on a bunch of machines.
That’s it.

Maximum PC has an article that details some of the steps above in a little more detail. Before you try any of these tricks you should check out this article too.

They also have a fantastically easy to walkthrough of how to boot and install from a USB.

Paul Thurrott’s SuperSite for Windows has a great article on how to do a Clean Install Windows 7 with Upgrade Media

Well that’s all.
Hope you find this information usefull.
Here is some great stuff on utilizing many of the features in Windows 7. I have also put a ‘short-cut’ image that can be printed out too.

Happy computing
Peace

Google Docs Exporting

As most of you know I am a huge fan of Google web apps – Gmail, Calendar and Google Docs.
By being available nearly everywhere (with Internet connection that is) they greatly enhance productivity.
Google docs is a great tool for putting up reference information such as technical walk throughs, How-To’s, and documents and forms that are needed all the time from different locaitons and the like.
Because my natural paranoia though, I don’t put up sensitive information into Google Docs. And I download my Gmail a few times a week to Outlook. Google (and all ‘cloud services’ – MSN, Yahoo etc.) go offline or are sometimes not available, and as I have written before, the security risk of the cloud is still very real.

If you have lot’s of documents in Google Docs and you would like to export them Google has made that MUCH easier now.
Now you can export all your documents, spreadsheets, presentations and PDFs from Google Docs in a siungle  ZIP archive.
Perfect for making sure your documents are available whether or not Google is available.
Check out this walk through.
Google Batch Export

Hackintosh x86 News

UPDATE:
For another simple solution to building a ‘Hackintosh’ Lifehacker.com has just posted this updated article on how you can build your own out of a retail Snow Leopard CD and a Dell Mini 10v. It is a super article.
[Again as mentioned by me and in this article. Even though you’re using a standard retail-purchased copy of OS X, the disclaimer: Apple does not like Hackintoshing. It violates the OS X EULA, and probably won’t make the Dell folks too happy either, should you need to return your hacked Mini 9 for service. So, as always, proceed at your own risk.]

There has been a lot of neat stuff happening in the OSX86 world as of late.
As some of you know I have been using Apple’s for over two decades.
And MS Windows (DOS originally) for just as long. I am most certainly not an Apple OR Microsoft fanboy.
I do feel that both have done a good job for their prospective target markets.
What I like about OS X is the ‘under the hood’ stuff that can be done with a little terminal knowledge. The *nix kernal makes configuring and tweaking sooo much easier.
OS X is also easy for some of the ‘less tech savy’ users to learn, and harder to kill. Which makes OS X great for grandma and uncle Argyle.
What aggravates a geek like me is to listen people bash MS and lap up anything Apple. The facts are MS is a software/OS vendor and Apple is an hardware vendor. It was MS software that actually ‘made’ Apple a usable personal computer (PC) don’t forget.
But…
What really sucks though, is to have to shell out 2k for new hardware just to run the new Apple OS every 3 years. It’s true that because Apple controls the ‘whole pie’ their systems tend to ‘just work’, But if you build or buy a high quality PC you can get the same reliability and ease of use at a much lower total cost of ownership.
I have newer Intel Mac and a few older models I use. I just recently upgraded a couple to Snow Leopard and so I now have a couple of retail full install disks and a few upgrade disks sitting here.
I also have a bunch of Virtual Machines on my server I use for testing and support purposes.
Well now to the point.
I think this guys page –
myHack
probably the best site/page I’ve found in a while for building a ‘hackintosh’ from a legit copy of OS X.
The information provided is superb and I look forward to maybe trying some of the tips and tools. It might make your quest for a hackintosh complete. Take a look.
I am also huge fan of the OSx86 project and all the guys who continually work and contribute.
Likewise here are some other great resources:
PCwiz Computer
OSX Freesite
iHackintosh
OSX86Install

You can google/bing your way to TONS more ‘hackintosh’ stuff if you wish.

Well that’s it just thought I’d pass on some info for those of you that might have been lost in their quest to test a Mac 1st hand with out shelling out $1-2k
.
The information provide here is for information purposes only. Since the OSX’ EULA clearly states that you aren’t allowed to install OSX on non-Apple hardware, you aren’t allowed to Install OSX Tiger or Leopard on your regular Windows machine (Intel or AMD, doesn’t matter). This site is in no way liable or responsible for the actions of its visitors. This site takes no responsibility for the information you obtain or use from links provided. You are free to do as you wish but we are not liable for any actions you take.