The musings of an IT Consultant

Epic Technology Day is here again!

Hi folks, once again it’s time for Epic Technology Day! This is the day long conference my company holds twice a year. Unfortunately due to many ongoing projects I won’t be presenting this year, but I will be in attendance.

Lots of new things to look forward to at Tech Day this year, including the Cisco Now Van which will showcase some of the cool equipment from Cisco.

Also VMware will be there as per usual speaking about their great products. HP and Citrix will also be there touting their wares. Technology day is a great opportunity to network in the Manitoba IT community and learn a lot about what’s new and wonderful in the world of technology. You can register for it here.

Hope to see you there!

-RP

New Message Indicator still displays on BlackBerry even though all are read

Hi folks, today I want to show you how to fix a common problem with BlackBerries.

One of the common things that I find happening is with your new message indicator. Whenever you receive an e-mail from someone it will cause a small icon to appear at the top of the screen indicating you have “x” amount of new messages. This is a great way to see how much new e-mail you have without actually going into the messages application.

Unfortunately sometimes people go into their application mark everything as read and it still might say you have 10 new messages. Now how can this be? I have had people tell me, “Raj, I’ve looked everywhere, and I can’t find the new messages!”. Well don’t fret, they’re easily found!

You see there is a way to save messages in the messages application and what happens is that some people save unread messages by accident. Then what happens is they dissapear into the saved messages folder and they’re still unread. So then what happens is that the new message indicator still shows that there are new messages even though you can’t see them!

In order to resolve this, go into the messages application, hit the BlackBerry button to bring up the menu and select “View Saved Messages”. This will take you to the saved messages screen where you can read all your unread saved messages and the new messages indicator will then finally dissapear!

-Cheers, RP

I think therefore I XBOX!

Hi folks, great news for all you knowledge seekers out there! ITKE is holding a contest from now until the end of April for the top 3 ITKE users that have the most knowledge points to win Xboxes!

How do you gain knowledge points you might ask? You gain knowledge points by asking and answering questions on ITKE! This is a great way to learn a lot about the tech world of IT!

You can read more about the details of the contest here: http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/itke-community-blog/new-contest-a-trio-of-xboxes-for-our-top-three-users/.

Also if you think you have more to share with the IT world, and want to do this, sign up for writing a blog on ITKE just like I do!

-RP

The BlackBerry Curve 8900 AKA The Javelin

Hi folks, you might recall how I was really wanting to get my hands on a BlackBerry Javelin. Well I just picked up a BlackBerry Curve 8900 AKA the Javelin!

After having used the BlackBerry Curve 8300 for a long time, I have to say I am suitably impressed. The Javelin is smaller, sleeker, and lighter. It fits well in your hand and the keyboard is great. The camera is 3.2 MP and the phone has WiFi and supports UMA (Unlicensed Mobile Access) which allows you to automatically switch to use your data on WiFi instead of on your normal cellular network as well as make voice calls over the WiFi network you’re connected to.

I wholeheartedly recommend the Javelin and if you are thinking of buying a Curve, please pass on the 8300 and go straight for the 8900. This phone is better in every way! It even knocks the Bold off of it’s pedestal! It is also one of the lighter BlackBerry phones, with the Pearls being the lightest. I can see this phone quickly becoming the staple of the BlackBerry lineup.

-Cheers, RP

Using Windows Server 2008 as a desktop OS

Hi folks, as you know I have been trying out various OS’ as of late on my laptop to see how things work. I used to use Windows XP Professional for the longest time on my laptop but finally got bored of it and wanted a change.

The next thing I tried was Suse Linux but unfortunately it couldn’t do everything I wanted it to do due to the large amount of Microsoft centric programs I needed to run in my daily work. So what I did was dual booted Suse Linux and Vista and that seemed to suffice for quite some time. The downside of this was that Vista wasn’t that much better at running my Windows world apps either. That’s pretty sad in my opinion.

You see I need 64 bit in a Windows world so I can use more memory because I’m an avid user of VMware workstation. When you’re using lots of virtual machines on your laptop you need more RAM. There really is no way around it. Of course using VMware workstation under Vista isn’t the best case scenario. Basically my laptop would become way too sluggish. Not surprising, I really didn’t expect anything less.

So then I switched to Windows 7, and as you saw in my blog, I couldn’t really get too far due to the issues I had. But for what I was able to run I was impressed with it. Frankly, I can’t wait until Windows 7 comes out, I’m looking forward to it and I hope Microsoft gets it right this time.

So what did I do next? I wiped my hard drives clean and I installed my copy of Windows Server 2008 on my laptop. Talk about a huge difference! All my hardware worked perfectly and my laptop performed way better than Windows Vista! Who would have thought that a server OS would make a great desktop OS!?!? Anyways, I disabled all the unneeded features and services and I turned on the “desktop user experience” that is included with Windows Server 2008 to “Vistaify” the OS.

I have to say I have been pretty happy with this, and I think this is what I’m going to stick too as my OS until Windows 7 comes out. Give it a try and let me know what you think!

-RP

Kaseya Connect 2009

Well as I have mentioned before, I love the product Kaseya. It is a great solution for providing Managed Services to your customers. With Kaseya you can monitor and control small to large amounts of workstations and servers as well as create an alerts dashboard to notify you about impending alerts in a client’s environment.

Well that same company that brought you the Kaseya product is now holding a conference in Las Vegas. It’s called Kaseya Connect 2009. I for one am going to try my best to go if I can find the time to get away from my duties here in Winnipeg. I would encourage all of you in the Managed Services industry to go as well. There should be a lot to learn from this conference.

One of the things I’m going to try and get out of it is how I can better use the Kaseya product to increase efficiencies in our Managed Services division. It should be a blast!

-RP

Epic’s Extreme Technology Makeover

Hi folks, as you know in this economic downturn, it’s hard to think about upgrading your network. Even if you are the network admin and you know of all the issues, it can be hard to get the executive to approve your IT roadmap when times are tough.

In light of that, Epic thought it would be a good time to hold an Extreme Technology Makeover contest. The contest rules are on the web site, but the gist of it is that you submit your “case” as to why you think your company needs an Extreme Technology Makeover and then Epic will choose the winner. The value is for a $50,000 solution.

You can apply to the contest here. Good luck!

-RP