December, 2012

Traveling down the Microsoft Certification Path

Hi folks! So what did you resolve to do in the New Year? Did anyone resolve to do more certs? Well if you did, may I suggest going down the Microsoft path? Microsoft has come a long way since the "paper MCSE" days, and now their certs actually do have value. You learn a lot from training and...

Netflix down on Christmas Eve

Hi folks, so Netflix is down on Christmas eve. This is apparently due to the Amazon's AWS. This brought a thought to my mind. When you decide on who to host your cloud services with, do you have a checklist? Do you do your due diligence? Do they take proper backups, have failover power...

Microsoft Learning Second Shot Retake Exam Offer

Hi folks! Once again Microsoft is helping out all you IT folks out there by offering up the Second Shot offer! You can basically register for Second Shot before you take your exam, and then go register for your exam. If you fail the exam, you can retake your exam for free! This is a great way...

Cisco AnyConnect VPN Client Windows 8 Support

Hi folks! For those of you that rely on Cisco for VPN access, you'll be happy to hear that there is a supported Windows 8 client now. I installed it myself and verified that it does indeed work. The Cisco AnyConnect VPN client no longer needs a workaround to work with Windows 8 as it did before....

Enabling .NET Framework 2.0 in Windows 8

Hi folks! So after installing Windows 8, I re-installed all my old apps. However I did run into a hiccup. One of the apps required the old .NET framework 2.0. So what do you do, do you download and install it? No need to do this in Windows 8! Just open your control panel, go to the Programs...

Office 2013 in Windows 8

Hi folks! So after I migrated my main laptop to Windows 8, I figured it was time to upgrade to Office 2013? What's the main difference? Not much really, just more of a Windows 8 look and feel. The real difference comes if you have a touch screen monitor. Then you can use touch to interact with...

Windows 8 Hot Keys / Shortcut Keys

Hi folks! So if you have installed Windows 8, you'll notice it's not as easy or intuitive to get around as it was in Windows 7. How can we alleviate this pain? Hot keys of course!

The best way to become efficient at Windows 8 is to start...

Windows 8 Customization

Hi folks! So after I had all my apps setup and my start menu all sorted with Stardock's Start8 app, I decided I wanted to do more customizations/personalizations to my Windows 8 installation. So how does one do this? Well the good folks at Stardock have yet another cool app called Decor8. This...

Anti-Virus in Windows 8

Hi folks! So after installing Windows 8, you'll probably want to install anti-virus. What should you use? Well I should first point out that anti-virus is already included - Windows Defender is part of the package. However it's not the greatest product, after all you get what you pay for....

Windows 8 Start Menu

Hi folks! So obviously one of the first things you will notice when you install Windows 8 is that your start menu is gone. In it's place is the Windows 8 Start Screen. At first glance, the Start Screen seems like a great replacement for the Start Menu, until you realize it's just a cluttered...