Don't Throw Disks Away!

This week, I want to talk about recovery disks. New computers usually come with recovery disks.  These are the disks that have a preloaded version of Windows on them.  (It is the version that came with the system when you bought it.)

I am guilty of this myself; I have been known to throw them out, thinking that I will not need them.  Please put them away somewhere - it does not matter as long as you can find them again.  I have often been asked by a customer to save their data from a failing hard drive only to find out that they do not have the recovery disks. This is a problem in 2 ways:

1. It slows down the repair of the computer. Unless you have a copy of Windows lying around, those disks are needed to get your new hard drive up and running again.
2. It will cost you more money. If your laptop is out of warranty, the manufacturer will charge you for recovery disks or you will have to buy another copy of Windows.

These disks usually have a bunch of bloatware on them and you do not have to install it all, but they also come with a full set of drivers for the machine.  This can cut down on the time needed to search for them, making the whole process just that much smoother.

Have a great weekend!

Kristen Hewes - Hardware Technician

Give Us a Call 617-731-6319 and Ask a Professional IT Support Technician Any Questions You May Have!

The Web of Perfectionism: How Not to Get Stuck

Are you a perfectionist? Many of us are!  Perfectionism can help to keep us motivated, work harder, and achieve more, but will it always help your performance or can it hinder you too? If you find yourself focusing too much on getting the perfect outcome or debating and changing things repeatedly, then you may be walking the line of extreme perfectionism. This can lead to wasted time and resources, particularly if you are managing people. In the end, the result doesn’t justify the effort and stress it can cause. Here are some great ways to keep yourself out of the net of extreme perfectionism.

Make a Decision and Stick to it
When you choose on a direction to take and announce it to your employees, stick to it. One of the traps of perfectionism is wasted time second-guessing yourself. If you're constantly changing gears after your team has begun the project, then you have wasted those recourses. You may never know if your third, fourth, or fifth decision would be any better.  As they say, go with your gut!

Trust your Employees
Listen to the input from your employees when you have unveiled your plan. They are great resources and will let you know what is possible. If they like the plan then it’s probably worth using. Their support will help prevent you from sliding into the second-guessing game that I previously talked about. Another way to prevent wasted time is not to micromanage your workforce. When you have assigned tasks, take a step back and let them manage those tasks. You hired them for their competence in the first place, right? And before you execute your plan …

Have a Plan B
Sometimes things go wrong, so develop a backup plan. This will keep you more flexible mentally and keep you from being held to the constraints of your first plan. The more flexible you are, the more you'll be able to handle the “non-perfect” things that happen throughout your plan and your day.

Perfectionism can have a beneficial effect as it may make you endeavor to be your best, but that pressure can lead to stress and wasted time. Try to stay flexible and strive for your personal best. If you find yourself caught up in perfectionism, the steps I’ve outlined above should help. You can also read this article to learn how to avoid perfectionism pitfalls all together.

Terminal IT Support

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Some Interesting Winners at the T3 Gadget Awards

As new technology pops up around us daily, it’s human nature to want to know which is the most innovative and revolutionary in the gadget world.  Well, the T3 Gadget Awards quench that thirst.  The awards, voted on by more than 960,000 online users, were given out last week.  Since the tech community is primarily casting the votes, “obvious” winners to the masses weren’t the case.  Below we’ll show you a number of interesting and even ironic choices – and be sure to check out the full list of categories and winners.

Ironic Winners

As gadgetry encompasses many arenas, so must the T3 categories.  This means that categories like Best Retailer and Gadget Personality of the Year are included.  The latter had one of the more ironic choices for winner:  Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook.  Although one cannot argue his importance in the world of communication, he’s never been known for his George Clooney-esque charisma. Then there’s the category of Best Commuting Device.  Here, pitted against automobiles and electric bicycles, the winner was the Amazon Kindle.  True, it will help pass the time while traveling, but it does make a puzzling choice for Commuting Device of the Year.

Influential Winners

One of the most interesting awards, Digital Media Service of the Year, was a bit of a surprise, seeing as Mark Zuckerberg walked off with the Personality of the Year.  Instead, it was Twitter that beat out Facebook and Google for this influential award.  Surely the CEOs of giants like Apple, Google and Facebook aren’t crying themselves to sleep over their T3 Award losses.  However, they should definitely take note that Twitter’s win speaks volumes regarding where social media is headed.  Facebook must continue to innovate and not upset their community, or they may well end up lost and forgotten like MySpace.

Surprising Winners

If you were to ask the average passerby which phone would win Phone of the Year, most would probably say the iPhone 4.  Again, though, because a very tech-savvy crowd cast the votes, the votes went to Samsung’s Galaxy S II.  Google won the Tech Brand of the Year, beating out rivals Apple and Facebook.  Although it’s just the “T3 Gadget Awards,” Google is in a far better position among the tech community in terms of brand recognition and possibly overall importance.

From Google and Samsung, Apple and Microsoft, to Facebook and Twitter, the list of nominees is a “who’s who” of technological innovation.  Please take the time to look over the complete list of nominees and winners, of which the Gadget of the Year and Innovation of the Year weren’t even mentioned here.  It’s truly interesting to see how fast the gaming world is evolving, how fast technologies are being created and, consequently, becoming outdated. For fun, check out the candidates from the first Ceremony held in 2008, a lifetime ago in technology years!

Terminal IT Support

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The Infinite Loop

This week, I came across a Windows problem that I have never seen before: the infinite loop bug. It started when a customer brought in a laptop stating that it would not boot up. I tried booting it myself and when the laptop I turned it on, it went straight into startup repair.

I let it run until it finished, at which point it informed me that it could not repair the problem and shut itself off.

Upon rebooting the laptop, it made it to the Windows splash screen, then blue screened. Hitting F8 got the laptop into repair mode and I set it to not restart on error, so I could see the code, and this is what I got:

STOP: C0000135 the program can't start because %hs is missing. Try to reinstall the program. 

So, using the internet, I did some research, and found lots of results and reasons that this could happen. The first explanation had to do with AVG, but was from 2010 and had already been resolved so it was no good.

The second explanation had to do with an error Windows 7 service pack 1 installation.  This was also no good, as the customer had Windows 7 installed weeks ago.

The third explanation was it happened while plugging in an external drive.  This was a possibility, but I really had no way of knowing.  Armed with this information, I started working through the fixes.

I checked the ram and the hard drive integrity, no problems there!  I moved on to a chkdsk, which came back clean. I tried /fixmbr and /fixboot, but they did not work either.  I tried a new boot.ini as well, but to no avail.  In the end all I could do was grab the data and reinstall Windows.  Sometimes there is just not a good fix.

If any of you have any ideas or fixes,please feel free to comment and give me some help for next time!

Have a great weekend.

Kristen Hewes - Hardware Technician

Give Us a Call 617-731-6319 and Ask a Professional IT Support Technician Any Questions You May Have!

Green Tech Announcements at CEATEC

Many people are concerned with “being green” these days. Whether it’s to avoid the impact technology has on the environment or to save money, many companies are following suit and looking into green tech and ways to save energy. When looking to conserve energy, one of the first things a company or individual must know is, what is consuming the most energy?

At the CEATEC conference this month in Japan, Toshiba and Intel announced some of their upcoming plans to more easily allow companies to keep track of their energy usage. In this “Green Age,” it’s no surprise to see major players in the technology world coming forward with big developments that allow more regulation and monitoring of the amount of energy being used. Below are a few of the ecologically-forward changes and additions these two companies announced they will be implementing in 2012.

Intel

PC users will be able to monitor the energy consumption of their PC with the application Intel has developed. With an easy to read dashboard where the data is organized and displayed in graphs, charts, and statistics, you will be able to much more easily see how your computer is using energy.

Toshiba

Toshiba is combining their recently acquired Landish Gyr smart-meter tech with some of their own developments to bring a “smart home” offering to the table. The “smart home” gives people awareness of the energy consumption within their homes. Toshiba is also developing a variety of cloud technologies for energy monitoring that will be available to many different types of industries including healthcare and city infrastructure.

While these two companies have big plans for energy monitoring in 2012, it seems as though a lot of companies in the US are moving away from it, namely, Microsoft and Google. In June, Microsoft announced the discontinuation of Hohm, their energy-monitoring service launched in 2009. Google also seems to be changing its green game by shutting down Google Powermeter, which they also launch in 2009.

We can see that though companies in the US are moving away from energy monitoring, companies in Japan are focused on it. What will the future be for the green technology world? It’s hard to say, but if you have any ideas or speculations about this, we would love to hear them!

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The iPhone 4S - Is It Worth It?

Apple is known for its forward thinking, cutting-edge and revolutionary inventions.  From the Apple IIe to the iPad, Apple has always been at the forefront of computing and communicating.  However, it has set the bar so high that even Apple finds itself hard to beat.  A good example is the recent release of the iPhone 4S – a truly remarkable product using the latest and greatest technology available.  But to its loyal fans, people who are always expecting a revolution instead of an evolution, some might have found the launch of an upgraded/evolved iPhone 4 instead of a revamped and brand new iPhone 5, to be less than remarkable.  However, the 4S does present 3 very impressive upgrades, which should inspire die-hard Apple users to seriously consider purchasing the iPhone 4S.

Software

Not surprisingly, the 4S is much faster and powerful.  It features the same dual-core A5 chip that's found in the iPad 2 and it makes opening apps, loading the web browser, scrolling through screens and countless other operations super smooth.  Apple states that the 4S is twice as powerful as its predecessor and has 7 times the graphical prowess.

Siri

One remarkable difference between the iPhone 4 and the 4S is the addition of  your very own “personal assistant” named Siri.  When it works, it is an amazing feat of technology. You can simply tell Siri to contact a friend and tell her you’re running late.  Tell Siri, “I’m feeling like Indian food,” and she will tell you where the nearest place serving Sag Paneer is located.  However, the caveat is “when it works.”  When Siri cannot understand a particular command, area or specific person, she will tell you humorously, if not annoyingly after a while, that she can’t process the info.  Undoubtedly this will be fixed at some point, but it would be wonderful if it worked flawlessly now.  See this article for another take on Siri.

iCloud

Another cool aspect of the iPhone 4S is that it has basically made MobileMe a stock feature.  All Apple products from now on will have access to iCloud. This means that it no longer matters which device you use, you can access any piece of information you’re looking for, whether it’s an mp3, a photo, app or document.  It’s truly remarkable, until you stumble upon some of its unwieldy aspects. The most frustrating of these is the fact that MobileMe has already created a user ID that iCloud doesn’t recognize. Furthermore, if you have an email address through Yahoo or Gmail, it won’t recognize them because they don’t have a me.com address. All new technology comes with learning curves, but the fact that we think Apple should be above these frustrations makes them all the more, well, frustrating.

Ultimately, the iPhone 4S was predestined to be a huge seller worldwide – but are its upgrades worth the wait?  The solution mostly is determined by the type of user you are. If you need to have the most cutting-edge product available, with improved hardware, camera, voice controls and iCloud, it may be something to consider.   If the iPhone or other mobile phone you’re using gets you where you want to go, its good to know that the iPhone 4S is more of an evolution than revolution – but its pretty cool none-the-less.

Terminal IT Support

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Google+

I am lucky enough to have received a Google+ invite, and, I must admit, I love it! 

I have had a Facebook account for years, and also dabble in Twitter, but honestly I find this to be a much better way to stay in touch with friends and keep them separated into groups.  For me, Facebook has gotten bloated and cumbersome.  On top of that, I used to play games on there. That lead me to having 700+ friends, 99% of which I don't know.  So, I stopped using it.

Along came Google+ and a fesh start.  Now, I have a few circles set up, with different posts to each, depending on the subject matter.  School friends, family, work friends, and gaming guilds, and none of them have to read anything that is not aimed at them!

If you get the chance to check it out I highly recommend it!

Have a great weekend.

Kristen Hewes - Hardware Technician

Give Us a Call 617-731-6319 and Ask a Professional IT Support Technician Any Questions You May Have!

Restoring Administrative Access to Redirected Folders

When you apply folder redirection to the My Documents folder, you can specify exclusive rights to the user’s folder. As an administrator, you might want to restore access to these folders. In order for folder redirection to work, the user must retain ownership of the redirected folder. This can make manually restoring administrative permissions a lengthy task. Fortunately, there is a handy script that you can use to update these permissions thanks to the My PKB blog found here: http://mypkb.wordpress.com/2008/12/29/how-to-restore-administrators-access-to-redirected-my-documents-folder/

You will need PsExec in order to complete this project as well as the powershell (PS1) script template below. Just follow the link above to the My PKB blog for instructions.

#ChangePermissions.ps1

# CACLS rights are usually

# F = FullControl

# C = Change

# R = Readonly

# W = Write

 

$StartingDir= "E:\Users\shares"

 

$Principal="INSERT_DOMAIN_NAME\INSERT_ADMIN_SBS"

 

$Permission="F"

 

$Verify=Read-Host `n "You are about to change permissions on all" `

"files starting at"$StartingDir.ToUpper() `n "for security"`

"principal"$Principal.ToUpper() `

"with new right of"$Permission.ToUpper()"."`n `

"Do you want to continue? [Y,N]"

 

if ($Verify -eq "Y") {

 

foreach ($file in $(Get-ChildItem $StartingDir -recurse)) {

#display filename and old permissions

write-Host -foregroundcolor Yellow $file.FullName

#uncomment if you want to see old permissions

#CACLS $file.FullName

 

#ADD new permission with CACLS

CACLS $file.FullName /E /P "${Principal}:${Permission}" >$NULL

 

#display new permissions

Write-Host -foregroundcolor Green "New Permissions"

CACLS $file.FullName

}

}

Adam Jones - Systems Engineer

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IISReset after importing new SSL certificates for Exchange 2010

I ran into an interesting issue today with Exchange 2010.  I needed to add a few user mailboxes to an Exchange server, but when I tried to open the Exchange Management Console, I was greeted with a rather startling error:

"The WS-Management service cannot process the request. The user load quota of 1000 requests per 2 seconds has been exceeded. Send future requests at a slower rate or raise the quota for this user. The next request from this user will not be approved for at least <large number> milliseconds." 

I next tried to fire up the Exchange Management Shell and received the same error.  Worrisome, but I hadn't heard any reports from users about email issues, so I knew it couldn't be anything too severe.

My initial thought that somehow the server was under attack and being subjected to a large number of requests from a foreigh host proved to be untrue.  A bit of research turned up many different options for possible fixes, including registry modifications, IIS reconfigurations, and powershell commands to disable and remove SSL (see http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en/exchange2010/thread/4d396628-3867-4c95-9541-e0eb021e0135).  One blog even hinted at ADSIEdits.  However, the SSL issue tipped me off, as I had just recently renewed the SSL certificate on this server.  This turned up a very helpful blog entry (http://jasonshave.blogspot.com/2011/01/resolved-ws-management-service-cannot.html) which suggested a simple IIS reset.

I opened a run prompt and ran 'iisreset /noforce', after which everything was back to normal.  Just goes to show that even though an error can seem dire, the solution is often quite simple.  It's always worth looking for the simple solution before getting too complicated and making a situation much worse than it already is.

Brian St. Marie - Sr. Systems Engineer

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Laser Printer Forms

Laser printer manufacturers recommend procedures to determine which tray to use on your printer for printing with certain types of forms.  All cassette trays can use standard 16lb to 28lb forms.  When it comes to special types of forms, such as card stock, transparencies, and label sheets, you should use your manual feed or multi-purpose tray.  This tray feeds forms straight through the laser printer without any U-turns of these forms.

Many paper manufacturers will state that their special forms can be used in cassette trays and, quite often, I end up onsite clearing a form jam out of the laser printer.  The problem is that these special types of forms have a hard time moving through a laser printer when they are U-turned.  When label sheets U-turn, a label is most likely to peel off the sheet, causing a jam.  Always use laser printer manufacturers’ paper specifications over paper manufacturers’ specifications.

Joe Churma - Hardware Technician

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Transporting printers

This week I want to talk about lifting printers.  We get a lot of printers through the door, and I want to make sure that if you decide to move one, you do not hurt yourself.  Here are my tips:

1. Plan ahead.

Clear a path.  This will give you a clear run and less chance of injury.

2. Keep it close.

You will be a more stable lifter if the object is held close to your body, lifting things at arms length is a surefire way to get hurt.

3. Place feet at shoulder-width apart.

Keeping your feet at shoulder-width will give you a better lifting base and make you more stable.

4. Lift with your knees and keep your back straight.

Your legs are stronger than your back, so keep your back straight and bend and lift with your legs.  Practice it if you need to.

5. Crunch those abs!.

Tightening your abdominal muscles will hold your back in a good lifting position and will help prevent excessive force on the spine.

6. Too much? Get help!

If an object is too heavy, make sure you have someone around who can help you lift.

7. Wear a belt or back support.

If you lift a lot grab a back support belt; they help maintain good posture for lifting.

Have a great, safe weekend.

Kristen Hewes - Hardware Technician

Give Us a Call 617-731-6319 and Ask a Professional IT Support Technician Any Questions You May Have!

Moving Symantec Endpoint Manager to another server

While trying to move my Symantec manger to a new server in our environment, I found the following instructions on Symantec’s website and they worked like a charm! 

 MACHINE_2 will have both IP and hostname different from MACHINE_1

1. Install Symantec Endpoint Protection Manager on MACHINE_2
   NOTE: The version installed to the new server must be the same version as on the old server. The new management console can be migrated to a newer version once the transition is complete.
2. In the Management Server Configuration Wizard panel, check Install an additional site, and then click Next
3. In the Server Information panel, accept or change the default values for the following boxes, and then click Next
• Server Name
• Server Port
• Server Data Folder
4. In the Site Information panel, accept or change the name in the Site Name box, and then click Next
5. In the Replication Information panel, type values in the following boxes:
• Replication Server Name
  The Name or IP address of MACHINE_1
• Replication Server Port
  The default is 8443.
• Administrator Name
  The Username used to log on to the old console.
• Password
  The password used to log on to the old console.
6. Click Next
7. In the Certificate Warning dialog box, click Yes
8. In the Database Server Choice panel, do one of the following, and then click Next:
   Check Embedded database or Microsoft SQL server (whichever database type you'd prefer to install), then complete the installation.
9. Log in to the new SEPM on MACHINE_2 and ensure that all the clients and policies have Migrated successfully.
10. Click Policies > Policy Components > Management Server Lists > Add Management Server List
11. Click Add> Priority and a new Priority would get added named as "Priority2"
12. Add MACHINE_1 under Priority 2 and add MACHINE_2 under Priority 1, and assign this New Management Server List to all the groups.
13. Wait at least one replication cycle.
14. Stop the "Symantec Endpoint Protection Manager" and "Symantec Embedded Database" service on MACHINE_1 to verify whether all clients now report to the new SEPM on MACHINE_2
15. Once verified that all the clients are reporting into the new SEPM, and have moved away from the old one, proceed to the next step.
16. Delete the Replication Partner from MACHINE_2 SEPM: Click on the Admin button | Under View Servers, Expand Replication Partners and select the partner to delete | Under Tasks, choose Delete Replication Partner | Type Yes when asked to verify deletion of the replication partner.
17. After the successful Migration, uninstall SEPM from MACHINE_1 

Dennis Foote - Systems Engineer

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