This is from one of our servers, this one is located in Texas, doing a download of a file from Microsoft’s site. On my 20mbit FiOS connection to our office in Tampa I’ve seen up to 2MB/Sec downloads. The one pictured below topped out at over 7MB/Sec.
I want *that* connection in my office!
I’ve upgraded several systems to Windows 7, and so far my favorite feature has to be using the keyboard to move and dock windows around very easily. The keystrokes you need to know:
<windows key> + <left arrow> = dock window to left half of the current monitor
<windows key> + <right arrow> = dock window to right half of the current monitor
<windows key> + <up arrow) = maximize the window
<windows key> + <down arrow> = restore window or minimize it depending on its state
For multi monitor rigs:
<windows key> + <shift> + <left arrow> = move window in its current shape and location to the monitor to the left (it will wrap around)
<windows key> + <shift> + <right arrow> = move window in its current shape and location to the monitor on the right (it will wrap around)
If you want to maximize the height of the selected window, while not changing its width, try:
<windows key> + <shift> + <up arrow>
and naturally <windows key> + <shift> + <down arrow> will shrink the window back down to its previous height, or minimize it.
I know using the keyboard for anything but typing emails and web pages is passé, but give these shortcuts a shot! You might like ‘em!
I’ve been experiencing random crashes with Virtual PC 2007 with Service Pack 1, and finally I got fed up with them and decided to see if I could find a solution to the problem.
It turns out that there is a hotfix that solves not only that problem, but increases the maximum screen resolution of the virtual machine, so if you have a high resolution monitor and use Alt-Enter to go full screen, it will actually fill up the screen. Woohoo! There are a bunch of other fixes in there as well, so read the description in the link below.
Download the hotfix at: http://support.microsoft.com/Default.aspx?id=958162
Happy patching!
Wow, two scams in one night.
On Deb’s most recent cell phone bill, there were two charges for SMS based services, neither of which she signed up for:
If you search for these two companies, you will find a ton of fraud alerts about them. How is it that they keep getting away with this? Obviously they are making money, despite the states that sue them and get settlements from them.
Perhaps the governments should make it a point not to settle, but to put these thieves out of business and put the owners in jail?
We are pretty positive that these services got Deb’s phone number from Facebook, so be careful out there! Of course, to verify your account, you must provide your cell phone # to Facebook, maybe we should all go remove it from our Facebook accounts – something I’m going to go do right now…
I just received a letter from NAITPA sending me my membership card, and thanking me for my support. I have a membership number, a receipt number and a due date on this nice letter. They also include a handy payment stub for my $231.00 annual payment along with my membership card.
What’s interesting is that until now, I’d never heard of them. The mailing sure looks like a statement, and it doesn’t include any marketing materials to help educate me about their site / organization, so I guess I’m supposed to assume that I just pay them and “continue” my membership.
This has all the appearances of a scam. If you look on the back, there is a disclaimer:
“By accepting this offer, you agree not to hold NAITPA liable for any part thereof. Note: THIS IS NOT A BILL. This is solicitation. You are under no obligation to pay the amounts stated unless you accept this offer. The information in this letter contains confidential and/or legally privileged information from the notification processing department of the NAITPA…”
So there we have it. These people are up there with those that send you invoices for copier supplies, even though you don’t have a copier. Also, in the disclaimer, they state that you agree not to hold NAITPA liable for any part thereof – I think this means that they are saying that you have no recourse if they don’t provide any of the services they claim to offer.
On the payment stub, it has another disclaimer that “my membership is NOT transferable and NOT refundable", but on the disclaimer side they say that “you may request a refund within 30 days”. Yup, sure you can. Doesn’t mean they have to give it to you.
Finally, while there web site says “After another successful year…”, checking on the Internet shows that their domain was registered on February 11, 2009.
For all I know, NAITPA might be a legitimate organization, but it has many signs of being fake.
Heh, at the end of writing this post, I used Bing (Google found nothing other than their web site) to search them, and found this other post: http://empoprise-bi.blogspot.com/2009/08/naitpa-professional-association.html
If you want a real organization, check out the Association for Computing Machinery.
Recently I took a business trip to Chicago to visit several clients. While there, I had to rent a car from Hertz, rather than the usual Enterprise Rent-a-car that I prefer.
Here are the reasons I won’t be renting from Hertz again:
1) Much more expensive than Enterprise. It was between $20 and $40 per day more expensive with Hertz.
2) “Top up” fuel is crazy expensive. If you don’t bring the car back full (or don’t pay for the suckers game of buying the tank of gas and returning empty), the charge to fill up the car (or even just top it up) was nearly $8 per gallon! I didn’t pay it (brought the car back full as per usual), but it was really an offensive number.
3) And the item that breaks the camel’s back: If you happen to get a violation in the car, of any kind, they will charge you an extra $30! So I got a parking ticket (not unusual in Chicago) and pay it within a day or two of receiving it. More than a month later I get a bill from Hertz saying that since there was a violation, I’m being charged an extra $30. For comparison, I’ve gotten parking tickets before while renting from Enterprise and never received any additional billing. And no, I’m not a serial violator, but when you’re with a client, you don’t necessarily want to race out to move the car.
So there you are. Hertz is now on my boycott list. Hope they enjoy the time there with their Days Inn companion. As an update, I’ve spent dozens of nights in hotels since the Days Inn fiasco, and I have yet to stay at another one.
I just stumbled across this page. Take a few minutes and read through them. Good stuff. Hopefully the right to bear arms won’t be too restricted over the next few months.
After all, gun control means putting three bullets through the same hole at 100 yards.
I cannot believe they let this slide. We have QB installed on one of our network servers, and when we try to create an accountants copy, it fails to create it. In the event log there are errors from QuickBooks, and one of them points to some random directory on our E: drives. The problem is, none of our computers use E: drives! So I’m not surprised that it cannot find that drive.
We tried this on multiple computers and finally had to go find help on it. It turns out it’s a bug in QB, but they’re not exactly forthcoming about it.
The solution is to copy the QB directories from the server onto a desktop and generate the accountant copy from the desktop. Of course, in order to keep your house in order, you then need to copy the desktop copy back to the server. Make sure you have backups!
Here’s a link to one of the conversations: https://community.intuit.com/atc/post/show_mini/coVidceBmr3zw9abTJhmjm?help=true&show_answer_button=false&show_comment_button=false&tags=tag305
Combine this with the inability for people to effectively print things such as reconciliation reports due to a problem on Vista 64 and I’m really wishing for either a better accounting program, or for Intuit to get off their collective asses and fix their software. There are a set of steps to go through to fix the Vista 64 printing problem – go look at : http://support.quickbooks.intuit.com/support/pages/knowledgebasearticle/1007856
Software sucks. Have a great day!
Another Tampa Code Camp is in queue. On Saturday December 6th, starting at 8am (registration at 7am), Keith and others (Joe!) are putting on another code camp.
As per last time, I’ll be doing a session on CRM, focused on client side programming. Of course, with only 60 minutes (including time for Q&A) there’s not much time to go into what should take days, but what the heck, I’ll load up on caffeine and power through it.
There are also sessions on everything ranging from WCF to DotNetNuke to Understanding Lamda Expressions (bahhh? Oh wait, that’s a Lambda expression…). Take a looksee at the agenda and come check it out. It costs nothing, and your payment is fully refundable if you’re not happy.
In a recent update of Gmail, Google has added themes. While dorking around with the available themes, I discovered "Terminal." As an old school geek, this really takes me back. Try it out, you’ll either love it or hate it!