Veeam

Hi folks! So you need virtualization backup and you don’t know what to use?

Well the folks at Veeam make a great product! Veeam backup and replication will backup your virtual machines like no other! Veeam is one of the top vendors in the virtual backup market and they support both VMware and Hyper-V.

Veeam is constantly tweaking their product to provide the best performance for your backups and they even provide a free test copy for VCP’s!

-RP

Windows XP No Support

Hi folks! So how many of you still have users on Windows XP? Now you might be staying away from Windows 8, but you’re going to have to get away from XP sooner or later.

Windows XP is going end of support in April of 2014, which is exactly 1 year away. If you want to maintain a supportable environment your should at least consider moving to Windows 7 if Windows 8 still concerns you.

If you buy the appropriate Windows 8 license you can get downgrade rights and still install Windows 7.

-RP

Exchange 2013 and Hardware Load Balancers

Hi folks! So with the release of Exchange 2013, do you still need load balancers?

Absolutely! CAS servers can only do so much for you and if you’re in a geographically disparate setup, you’ll definitely want to take advantage of load balancers. Even if you’re not, layer 7 load balancers can load balance on many metrics that Exchange can’t do natively with it’s CAS servers.

I highly recommend the use of load balancers in highly available and high performance environments. If you’re in a small business, the argument can be made to forgo the load balancers, but if not, I suggest you take a look at the offerings out there.

-RP

HTC One Pre-Order at Rogers in Canada

Hi folks! If you’re interested in the HTC One and you’re one of my fellow Canadians, this post is for you!

Rogers has released a pre-order that will set you up for primo access to the HTC One! I am a current Rogers customer with my HTC One X (XL) and I for one want to take advantage of this!

You can register for the pre-order here if you want to be one of the first to get your hands on this amazing phone!

-RP

HTC One Launched in Taiwan

Hi folks! So the HTC One has finally been launched! Unfortunately only in Taiwan!

The launch of this phone has been highly anticipated but they’ve only released the 32 GB model for now. Units apparently are only available in the quantity of 6000 units. But there is another batch that is arriving soon.

I can’t wait for the Canadian release!

-RP

HTC One $100 Credit!

Hi folks! So you’re been waiting for the new HTC One but are stuck with your current HTC One X. What do you do?

Well the folks at HTC have made it extremely easy for you! They are going to give their customers a $100 credit so you can purchase a new phone! How’s that for awesome?

This is a great marketing idea, and I applaud HTC for sticking by their loyal customer base and giving us a graceful way to upgrade. You can take advantage of this offer here.

Thanks HTC!

-RP

Fix Samsung Galaxy SIII WiFi Sleep and Power Save Issues

Hi folks! So if you are a big fan of Android, and own a brand new Samsung Galaxy S3, you might have run into some WiFi issues.

Some users have experienced issues with various WiFi networks when their phone goes into sleep mode. When they turn their phone back on from sleep mode, the WiFi network doesn’t work. The other issues experienced are, even if they are connected, the WiFi network speeds get progressively worse. The only fix seems to be turning off and on the WiFi toggle.

Well there is another solution. It seems the folks at Samsung enabled a WiFi power save feature that causes all of these WiFi issues. The intentions were good, but the results obviously are bad connectivity. As they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

The way to fix this is not to go into your regular menus and toggle the power save setting for WiFi, that won’t do jack for you. The way to fix this is to go into the Samsung secret/hidden service menu. How do you do this?

• Go into your phone number dialing app
• dial *#0011#
• This will drop you into the service menu
• Hit the menu button
• Select WiFi
• You will see the Wifi Powersave feature button turned on, press it to turn it off
• Select the back button until you are back at the phone dialing screen, you are complete.
• If you reboot your phone, the powersave feature will revert back to on and you will have to repeat the above steps, so don’t reboot your phone unless you have to

I hope this helps! I have tested this with various Samsung Galaxy S3′s, and in every case it has solved the problem. My tests were done with Canadian Samsung Galaxy S3′s on the Rogers network.

-RP

What’s new in Microsoft Exchange 2013

Hi folks! So unless you have been under a rock, you know that Exchange 2013 is now available!

Why Exchange 2013? Well here’s a list of new features!

• Efficient changes to previous server roles
• New Exchange Admin Center
• Better Archiving Capabilities
• DLP (Data Leak Prevention)
• Integration with SharePoint and Lync
• High Availability and Site Resilience

And that’s just to name a few! If you are currently running an older version of Exchange, I highly recommend the upgrade, you won’t be sorry!

You can read more here.

-RP

Changes to Exchange 2013 Server Roles

Hi folks! So with the new version of Exchange 2013, there are huge changes to server roles!

What might you ask? For one, there are only two server roles now! CAS (Client Access Server) and Mailbox roles! Microsoft did away with the complexity and reduced the roles to just two.

Also the connectivity between the roles makes use of https now. The CAS servers literally act as dumb proxies that forward requests to the mailbox roles and session affinity is no longer required at the load balancer. The mailbox role is responsible essentially for everything else.

This makes better use of your servers and makes it much easier to design an Exchange architecture. Of course in smaller environments you can combine the CAS and mailbox roles on the same server.

You can read more here at the Exchange team blog.

-RP

Microsoft finds success with Meru Networks

Hi folks! Another feather in the cap for Meru Networks! Courtesy of Microsoft at the CeBIT 2013 conference.

Recently at the CeBIT 2013 conference which is one of the largest IT conferences in the world. Microsoft used Meru Networks wireless to provide wireless access for their presence at the conference. This went off without a hitch and showed off the capability of Meru Networks single channel architecture.

They were able to do this with zero issues, and everything went off without a hitch. You can read more here.

-RP