I tried updating a Latitude E55XX bios today with the latest firmware. It would unpack the firmware and then shutdown, but not actually do the update. Michael and I could not figure out why it was not updating, and spent over an hour searching for a solution; finding none. Finally

I've recently begun using Carbonite for backing up my files. Carbonite is a very easy-to-use and works quite well... But, that's another subject for another post. I did, however, run into some problems when contemplating how the backups are affected by encrypted files. When using TrueCrypt

I recently updated our company's JIRA installation to the latest version, JIRA 5. I was very excited to see the new sharing/mentioning features in JIRA. Unfortunately, I found that I had some initial problems getting the new features to work with our Exchange environment. Here are the

When I originally started using Crowd, I set it up with an internal directory... A type of directory that is proprietary to the Crowd application. Ideally, I would have set it up with an AD/LDAP directory, but at the time I did not have one setup. Now, of course,

The other day I checked out the FTP logs on my server and found that there had been thousands of hits on random usernames like “Administrator”, “Anonymous” and “Guest”. I figured surely there was something built into Windows Server 2003’s IIS that supported brute force prevention, but sadly I

A while back when I was using Outlook 2007, the contacts from Outlook would show up in Skype with a different icon so that I knew they were Skype contacts. This worked really well for me because I keep all my contacts in Exchange and Outlook (synch'd to

Yesterday I called up Microsoft Support to discuss the calendaring sharing issue I am experiencing. At first I was directed to Exchange support. They quickly established that it wasn't an exchange problem because the calendar sharing permissions work fine in OWA and Outlook 2010. So, they forwarded me

For the most part, navigating the Exchange Management Console has been very intuitive. The location of the Send Connectors, the Receive Connectors, the Mailboxes; they all make sense and are (within reason) easy to find. One seriously lacking administration feature is permissions. There is no built-in permissions-editing tool in the

This last couple weeks I've been slowly setting up a new install of Exchange 2010. Needless to say, it was a very interesting experience. My job description may not be "Administrator" but I do enjoy setting up systems like that. Even more-so when it adds structure

I performed a fresh install of Windows Server 2008 about two weeks ago. Although the setup was easy as can be, I ran into some issues with IIS/FTP. First off, the FTP that is packaged with the server is garbage, don't even bother. After IIS is installed

I have been using Outlook since the beginning of time. It has always been good to me. I even hopped on the Office 2010 beta and eventually purchased Office 2010 when it was released. I have several machines, not including my smart-phone (previously a windows mobile phone, now the DROID

Working with SOAP so much often leaves me needing to view the entire SOAP message that is being sent to (or from) my WCF services. For a long while I had the chunk of XML configuration code stored away on my machine knowing that I would have to use it

A couple days back I installed Outlook 2010 Beta because I read an article about it that described a couple features that I could really use. So far, I must say, I am reallyimpressed with the product. Although the interface hasn.t been changed that much, the changes that they

A while back I ran into some issues with my system getting BSOD'd... The dell online chat representative (after remote assisting me) suggested that I re-install windows. After I did that I could no longer properly use my bluetooth headset devices. Today, I spent about 30 minutes with

So my home server has been running now for almost a week (sort of). On Saturday the power went out in my basement and all my machines were shut off. When I flipped the breaker everything started coming back up and online, except for my new server. I talked to

Yesterday I received my new Acer easyStore server. For a while now I have been needing a new server and this one caught my eye with the competitive cost and the extra memory. For the same price of the HP home server I was able to get an extra 1.

Although the TinyMCE WYSIWYG editor is very cool, I find it hard to write articles/blogs with it. For example, depending on your browser the editor seems to display different. In Chrome the editor spans to fill the entire window but in Internet Explorer it only spans to about 500

Before two months ago (about the time I got laid off) I had never even heard of "Joomla". Very odd name... I stumbled onto the CMS (Content Management Software) from a friend of mine who wanted help with their website (http://www.sizzlencuisine.com). She had previously been