Turn DPM and Windows Storage Server into an appliance

Combine windows storage server and add windows system center data protection manager and you can get a backup and dr appliance you can build – or a service you can sell.

The Case of the Headless Corpses, Part 2

In which a crime is solved – and then unsolved again thanks to a piece of mouse fluff.

Managing Skype in business

Skype means free or cheap calls but it’s based on peer-to-peer file sharing principles. How can you tame consumer VoIP tools for use in a business network?

PDF Security: obfuscated code, hackers and other threats

Hackers are finding increasingly inventive ways of exploiting holes in Acrobat.
The same rich content that makes PDF so useful to businesses can also make it a security risk. Embedding links, images, tables and media uses JavaScript and that allows PDF files to be exploited as an attack vector for hackers.

Smartphone data plans for push email and web browsing

Getting a smartphone connected for push email and Web browsing is as easy as signing up for a data plan with an operator and waiting for the network to provision the service. Finding the right data plan for the business can be harder – but it can be more profitable too.

Installing Utimaco SafeGuard Easy

Protect a range of different versions of Windows with whole disk encryption with Utimaco SafeGuard Easy.

Mining Logs with Splunk

There’s a lot of information floating around in a network, information that’s being written into log files every minute of every day. Those log files that contain everything you need to know about how the systems you’re managing are running, and how they’re responding to the demands of their users.

Partner Focus: Peter-Hortensius-Lenovo

The computer maker Lenovo has 9% of the worldwide PC market, and in 2009 it ranked as the world’s fast-est-growing PC company. In the three months to December 31st, Lenovo grew sales by 42%, against an industry av-erage of 17%. We asked Lenovo what that means for small business resellers.

Dirtection Inc: episode 2

fluff-headerThe secret history of fluff - now it’s war...
People often ask me if it’s boring. The job, I mean – cleaning other people’s computers. “Boring?” I say,
“Is white-water rafting boring? Is tightrope walking over Niagara Falls boring? Is swimming naked with man-eating sharks boring?” If they are being honest, they generally say “No,” or “Probably not”. At which point I snap my fingers, affect a smirk of superiority and say, “Pah! Dull as dishwater compared to cleaning computers!”

Dirtection Inc: episode 1

There are 322 types of keyboard fluff. This is the story of one of them.

If it hadn’t been for the piece of fluff, the whole business with the horseflies, the vicar and the postmistress might have turned out very differently. It was a particularly interesting piece of fluff, as it happens, which is why I stole it. Well, I’m not sure ‘steal’ is quite the right word, really. More a case of borrowing. I would have given it back if asked. But, as is so often the case with fluff, nobody asked.