Automation and Small Business Owners

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Small business owners are usually forced by budget constraints to do every thing they can to save cost. In order to save on software licensing costs,for example, a small business owner may install the free version of a critical application like a firewall or anti-virus on the business computers. The task of updating these applications then falls on  each user to run periodic system scans and updates.

One thing that is not common in small business environments is process automation. Most processes are manually carried out. What we have to realize is that as hard as we try, at some point, somebody forgets to run a system scan or the backup program. Occasionally, someone could accidentally turn off or stop a backup application before the process is completed.

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How to repair a corrupt MBR in Windows Vista

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I tinker with Linux a lot and in many cases, have computers that dual-boot with Windows XP, Vista, Server 2003, and Server 2008. What always happens is that sometimes I remove the hard drive containing the Linux partition and the GRUB boot loader. This inevitably leads to the error 5 message – “boot loader not … Read more

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Device Manufacturers and the fleecing of consumers

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I’ve recently had cause to wonder if device manufacturers purposely make sure their devices are of limited use to people who buy their products. A few examples:

I recently bought a couple of NAS devices and each one of them failed woefully to do what was advertised.

First is what I actually started calling the Great White Turd. It is the Netgear sc101T. I have come across ridiculous devices before, but this one takes the cake for its total uselessness as a NAS device. What is the point of hard coding a “NAS” to use DHCP and no option of setting a static IP address. What part of “network” was missing during the development of the product? The SC101T forces you to install a client software on all computers that may need access to the device. The software cannot be installed on a server class Operating System like Windows Server 2003 or 2008. You have to mount the drive and share it to be accessible but since it is assigned a DHCP IP address, anytime you restart the computer, the drive mappings are shot to hell and you have to do it all over. For a product that retails for $180, I am almost tempted to start a class action lawsuit so we can recover some lost revenue due to emotional distress caused by this piece of crap.

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Outlook 2007 and Gateways

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I recently got a call from a client who was having a hard time connecting to their Exchange 2003 server. They kept getting a “disconnected” error. I told them to ping the exchange server and other computers on the network to see if they would get a response, they did and everything looked fine. I … Read more

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Employee Surveillance on Steroids

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So the other day I went to a conference on security and listened to a couple of rehashed arguments on why business owners should secure their networks, data and mobile devices. Pretty standard stuff.

Then we got into the latest development in employee monitoring and surveillance technology and I found myself going “whoa”, can they really do that? Sad fact is, yes, employers can really strip you down to your bones in terms of keeping tabs on what you do at work.

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