WindowsAdminGuru BLOG

While you are on the Go, you will always want to know, what the road ahead is! So, in similar lines, AA which is the UK’s largest motoring solution provider which provides a host of services ranging from Breakdown assistance to insurance to financial services to driving assistance etc. With the help of route planning service which comes for free, allows the drivers to plan the trips across Ireland and whole across UK and Europe very easily online. AA Route Planner Features The route planner of AA comes packed with many features, like just key in the From and to field and you are presented with the route instantly. What’s more is you can also add the via routes, lets you to choose to avoid motorways or the tolls/congestion charge and also can choose the reverse route options so that you can plan your drive very comfortably. Steps to Plan a Route on AA Route Planner So, don’t you want to know how you can plan your route? Let’s get started and know how you can plan one....

Whenever you open and start the Skype application, it first loads the skype.exe and also along with this another process which is skypePM.exe is also loaded. Basically, the skype.exe is the plugin manager which always loads during the start of the skype even though if you are not using a single plugin in skype. Considering the fact that, this process uses over 15 MB of RAM which actually does nothing. Since it uses 15+ MB of RAM, we will see now the way with which you can get rid of this plugin manager process skypePM.exe. The simple and powerful way is to simply rename or even you can delete the folder named Plugin Manager which generally installs during the installation of skype. As soon as this folder is deleted, the skypePM.exe process during startup doesn’t load up which in turn speeds it up quite a bit and thus saves the RAM as well. If you are unable to find the folder of Plugin Manager then in some cases  it’s located on the same directory level as my Sky...

You’ve thrilled to Windows Internals, now thrill to Mark Russinovich’s latest masterpiece, the novel Zero Day . It looks somewhat like Daniel Suarez’s Daemon, I think: An airliner’s controls abruptly fail mid-flight over the Atlantic. An oil tanker runs aground in Japan when its navigational system suddenly stops dead. Hospitals everywhere have to abandon their computer databases when patients die after being administered incorrect dosages of their medicine. In the Midwest, a nuclear power plant nearly becomes the next Chernobyl when its cooling systems malfunction. At first, these random computer failures seem like unrelated events. But Jeff Aiken, a former government analyst who quit in disgust after witnessing the gross errors that led up to 9/11, thinks otherwise. Jeff fears a more serious attack targeting the United States computer infrastructure is already under way. And as other menacing computer malfunctions pop up around the world, some with deadly results, he realizes tha...

If you have been getting a dream of getting a Job at Google then its time you should check out the following video and get more insights on what kind of facilities you would get. Freebies ranging from Food, Gym to personal trainers you also get a free body massage on your birthdays. None of these service charges are deducted from your monthly pay which is also expected to be a big number. If you would like to have a detailed look at the GooglePlex in Mountain View then the following video can help you. It has amazing info on how the employees are given Pool tables, hot tubs, electric vehicles, pets allowed etc

The SMB survival guide for printers will not get into where to buy your companies toner or ink cartridges. The best type of paper to use or formatting a print job. This article will cover only the technical aspects of printers. Any tech will tell you that beside migrating an old PC to a new PC that printers can be the biggest pain to configure and troubleshoot. below are some of the reasons why. 1. Dealing with Print Drivers. There are different print drivers for each version of Windows Operating Systems. lets also include the fact that we now have 32 and 64 bit versions. 1A. Print Driver Software on provided CD Be prepared to install printer software that will start updating you on everything from low ink to no paper. Nice additions but they also prompt for where to buy your ink and paper. In the old days you could install the print driver only for the printer . Now you need to install a mini printer operating system to have them work. You can still just install ...

My customer has a 2003 Small Business Server environment that has been in production for five years. Every application offered in the SBS 2003 package is being used. Because the customer is using multiple friendly addresses from the outside to connect to there Share Point, Web Mail access, FTP and a custom web app. They purchased a wild card SSL from GoDaddy to make it easier and use one SSL certificate. The wild card *.mydomainname.com allows them to provide one SSL for all the friendly names each website application needs. The customer decides to migrate to Small Business Server 2008 with the newer versions of Exchange, IIS and SharePoint . Microsoft provides a migration path from SBS 2003 to SBS 2008 that takes longer then building a new network from scratch for this company. After all the applications are migrated and working the old SSL is imported onto the new server. The company begins to have problems connecting to the apps from the outside or allowing In...

SBS 2008 Migration highlights: 21-day grace period to complete the migration Answer file generator must be used Migrate without taking down servers Destination server joins the existing domain (replica DC) Uninterrupted mail flow between both servers No need to touch client workstations Migration should be able to take place during business hours even! Pre-migration tasks: Configure a full backup of the source server (include boot and system partitions, and system state) Make sure you have any 3rd-party backup software that you might need available Verify the backup (restore random files) Exchange Server: Verify database integrity, Delete unnecessary mail, Archive old mail (for speed of migration) Remove junk documents: SharePoint, Shared folders, Former employees’ profile folders SBS 2003 Best Practice Analyzer (SBS BPA) checks: Exchange Server Update service Network configuration Windows support tools Netdiag (Help isolate network/connectivity issues) Dcdiag (ana...

After installing a new Windows 2008 SBS server you may receive the following notice when using the Remote Web Workplace website to connect to a remote computer. "No computers available" Unless you are an administrator all standard users receive the notice after logging into the RWW site an attempting to connect to an internal computer. This is because the computer was not added using the SBSconnect option on the internal SBS website. Adding computers to the domain using the standard option under the my computer properties still works but there are some quirks. One such issue is that that computer will not be added to the available list of RWW computer when logging in for remote access unless you are a administrator. If you do make the mistake on add each computer from the my computer properties location have no fear. Adding each computer again using the sbsconnectcomputer web site listed below. By default the internal web address is http://sbsconnectc...

I have more and more small compaies asking me if they should move there email to Gmail or Yahoo's email hosting programs. Does anyone have any experiance with this option for a small or medium size company? What are the advantages and disadvantages to moving them over from another web host who provides pop email services or a in house email server like exchange. Is there a cost advantage and what about recovery and archiving of emails. How is the SPAM and virus protection on these options?

If your company does not have a Blackberry server, then adding your companies email is as easy as adding a service book entry on your cell phone providers blackberry.com site. Below is a list of the well know cell phone providers links for adding a service book . Sprint http://bis.na.blackberry.com/html?brand=sprint Verizon https://bis.na.blackberry.com/html?brand=vzw

During a migration of Small Buisness Server 2003 to 2008. A newer server with dual network cards was used to be the new Small Buisness Server 2008. After installing the Small Buisness Server 2008 operating system a annoying problem showed up. Changes and updates were still needed to be applied on new SBS server to get the server ready for the users to attach to there new applications. During this time the default gateway address would just disappear from the network card bindings. After attempting all the usual troublshooting on the Network card and bindings. I went thru the registry and found the following fix. Open the registry with regedit.exe Go to the path: HKLM/System/CurrentControlSet/Services/Tcpip/Parameters/Interfaces/ Here you will need to select the CLSID of your network adapter where you change the configuration. You can recognize it by looking at the value of the IP address that will have the IP of this adapter. You should see the DefaultGateway and DefaultGateway...

I have found that theses two free email services are a great way to send large emails without clogging up the company email server. Dropbox and Send6

Sometimes we may find difficulty in booting up the system in safe mode, the reasons would be 1. There is no remote management card 2. The keyboard inputs may not work from the Remote Management Console and etc.. etc.. hope you may already know this TIP, in such case it is just to brush up your knowledge. http://www.ehow.com/how_5671358_force-mode-restart-editing-boot_ini.html Note: Comments and Suggestions are always welcome.

How to convert the file system type from FAT to NTFS. http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb456984.aspx fyi and reference.

The general NIC properties doesn't show the Maximum Frame/Jumbo Frame option when we check the Advanced Settings. We can see the jumbo frame support from the HP NCU (Network Configuration Utility) but the frames are not really get adjusted. Please go through the below HP link. http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/Document.jsp?objectID=c01783861&lang=en&cc=us&taskId=125&prodSeriesId=3660135&prodTypeId=329290

Hope you found the hot question from the above requirement, but the answer is a big NO , its not possible to upgrade from 32 bit OS version to 64 bit, we need to perform a clean installation and need to check the compatibility of the existing hardware/software with the 64 bit OS why because not all the s/w or h/w supports the 64 bit version of the OS. I found some useful information on this topic, please have a look. http://windows.microsoft.com/en-IN/windows-vista/32-bit-and-64-bit-Windows-frequently-asked-questions   http://forums11.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?admit=109447626+1269302404866+28353475&threadId=1105808 And there was an accepted answer given below from the Experts Exchange. If you find anything different answer to this question please do share with us. Thanks.

This week, Microsoft took the wraps off the cloud operating system that CEO Steve Ballmer hinted at earlier this month and that has been under development for two years under Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie. Named Azure, it is the foundation of what will become the hosting platform run by Microsoft, first in its own data centers and potentially licensed to other data-center providers. The release is the first part of Microsoft's services platform, and it provides an outline for where Azure is going. What is Azure? Azure is Microsoft's operating system for the cloud, code-named Red Dog, and will anchor the Azure Services Platform that Microsoft will run from its hosting data centers. Azure also is a development environment for builders of applications for the cloud. What's with the name? Azure is a blue color in the HSV color space, which is widely used to generate high-quality computer graphics. Blue Sky. Clouds. Get it? So it's just an operat...

It was 2005 September when I entered the Online field through a webmasters forum called as the Digital Point which gave me all the basics and insights of the Search Engines business. Also this was the time when i started to understand how search engines work and how we can optimize our websites to rank better in the search. Finally after around 5 years of full-time experience I have a full time team of SEO’s, Content Writers who manage around 100 different websites and make sure that all of these rank in better placements in the Search. This article is a continuation to our article of Career as a Full Time Blogger – Scope Returns Future. Whenever we plan to hire a SEO, we need to ensure that the guy has practical experience rather than having some basic knowledge on On-page optimization. Hence this field can pay you a lot of money if you have real good hands-on experience and knowledge, and pay you nothing if you have just some bookish knowledge. Its always important to ...

This is my personal opinion about earning the more money from Google Adsense is mainly from Health and Technical blogs. This I can say some kind of proof which I'm earning from my blogs / websites. Final word is to earn more revenue from adsense, write health care related and technical stuff. Wondering how much those high ranking bollywood blogs make? Well dont worry because they are for sure making a lot less amount of money when compared to the health or tech bloggers from my personal experience for the period of last few years i have found that the Entertainment Blogs dont make much money. Here are a few statistics on this along with reasons why this happens. In this article we are going to compare two different blogs which have almost similar amount of traffic but the levels of income is quite different and you will know why this happens. Generally in case of most niche you will find that the advertisers are trying to get sales to their products & services but ...

Earlier last month we had written a useful article on Windows 7 Phone Contacts – How to Add, Import, Call and Link which gave you a hint on how you can import all your Phone Contacts through the SIM Card which actually is a very easy job because you can just import SIM contacts with a few tapping, but when the case if of importing the same through different services, then starts the trouble. Since we were earlier using the Apple iPhone and the iPhone contacts were Sync with PC all of them were stored on the Windows as a copy of the same. Now we need to transfer all of these onto the Windows Phone 7. Transfer Contacts from Old Phone to PC The First step is to transfer all your contacts from the current phone to your PC. In case you are using Apple iPhone, then you should check out this article on Backup iPhone Contacts which creates a copy of all the phone contacs onto your computer and is synchronized every time you connect the device to the PC. In case you use any other pho...

Adsense is an ad serving service for web-masters to show related ads in their site and earn from a CPC factor. Most Indian bloggers use adsense to show ads on their blog. There are a lots of guide to adsense basics, adsense setup, etc all information in Adsense Category. Some of us earn much from adsense and make blogging our primary work, and some of us uses adsense as a extra earnings. But these earnings are tax payable. As a beginner, someone is curious about many factors, as will his earnings pre tax-deducted, or there’s need of PAN card, or how to pay tax to government, etc etc. The best thing here is that we don’t have to pay tax directly. We have to pay tax on our total income as it is some legal income, and the tax amount depends on how much you earn. For individuals, the tax is free for earnings upto 1.40 lacs p.s, which is a very high limit for casual bloggers who earn through adsense a little pretty-some amount, only huge earners (pro bloggers) have to think abo...

Sometimes, the add-ons which are there in the Internet Explorer browser has so many add-ons that it takes so much of time to load and which eventually slows down the speed of browsing and in turn hampers the overall browsing experience. So, to avoid this let’s check out how you can disable, uninstall or remove some of the add-ons or extensions permanently which will fasten up the Internet explorer. Uninstall Add-On Through Control Panel Usually, the add-ons are automatically loaded by IE itself or by the application programs which has uninstall entries in the Add or Remove Programs or from the Program features which is there in the Control Panel. You can uninstall the programs that got installed in the add-ons which normally also removes all the associate add-ons. This works on most of the included programs like Adobe flash player and also the acrobat reader. Remove the Addon Through Add-ons Manager For removing the add-on through the add-on manager, you can delete A...

The scourge of the mobile gadgets is barely containable. Its necessity is no longer debated. It is a reality that without mobile phones, it would be impossible to keep up in this fast changing world. The need for innovation in this fast changing environment gave birth to what business people and techies call the “smartphones”. Those who were once glued to their laptops and PCs for Internet connectivity have found a ‘smarter’ way to get connected. Smartphones have conquered the world and gained dominion over the lives of people living in the fast lane. This has led to the clash of smart phone developers who are trying to provide the best services to their customers. Android phones and BlackBerry phones are just two such competitors in the smart phone industry. These two giants are constantly driving technological boundaries beyond the edge in order to be the best. BlackBerry pioneered smartphones. It created its smartphone with the purpose of creating a multi tasking system fo...

"Disk Mirroring" uses only one disk controller where as disk duplexing option uses additional disk controller. In RAID 1 aka Disk Mirroring, one drive in the array acts as "Mirror" drive, backing up all the data on the primary drive on-the-fly. "Duplexing" option adds another disk controller, in case one controller fails, the other controller will take over automatically with out any interruption in the service.

IBM and ARM have announced that the two companies will be partnering on advanced semiconductor technologies designed to power the next generation of mobile gadgets. The goal is to create 14nm chips that will be even more suited for better power management, longer battery life and better multimedia support. This isn’t the first time that IBM and ARM have teamed up together, but this initiative is much larger in scope. ARM will power the processor IP and it will be tuned to IBM’s manufacturing processes. This is a significant partnership for ARM, a company who licenses the technology used in practically every mobile device on the market. The press release doesn’t give any information on when we can expect to see the fruits of this partnership but this is clearly the sort of technology that will be powering our devices in the future.

Social game developer Kabam has raised a whopping $30 million round of funding from Redpoint Ventures, Intel Capital and Canaan Partners in order to create multiplayer social games focused on hardcore gamers. Kabam CEO Kevin Chou, a former associate at Canaan Partners, says that the fresh round of funding will be used to fuel new acquisitions and grow out the internal team to bring more products to market. A lot of the focus will be on launching new massive multiplayer social games. In addition, Kabam hopes to expand to other social and mobile platforms in 2011. Unlike Zynga, Playfish and other social gaming juggernauts, Kabam doesn’t focus on the millions of casual gamers that permeate Facebook ( ) . Instead, the development firm is honing in on 25- to 35-year-old males who are looking for a deeper and more competitive in-game experience. Kabam currently has three Facebook games on the market: Kingdoms of Camelot , Dragons of Atlantis , Glory of Rome and SI Fantasy ...

Welcome to this morning’s edition of “First To Know,” a series in which we keep you in the know on what’s happening in the digital world. We’re keeping our eyes on three particular stories of interest today. Apple to Challenge Facebook With iPhone “Photo Streaming?” In an early developer build of the upcoming iPhone operating system iOS 4.3, sleuths have found evidence that Apple might introduce a social media capability called “Photo Streaming.” ARM and IBM Partner on New Mobile Chipsets IBM and ARM have announced that the two companies will be partnering on advanced semiconductor technologies designed to power the next generation of mobile gadgets. Amazon Acquires Entertainment Subscription Service Amazon.com has acquired the remaining shares in European home entertainment subscription service Lovefilm (LOVEFiLM), the company has announced. Further News * Collecta, a real-time search engine that launched in June 2009, has quietly shuttered its main product; the team i...

Aliph has unveiled the Jawbone Era, the next generation of the company’s high-end Bluetooth headsets. Not only does it boast the company’s noise-cancellation technology, but it is the first Bluetooth headset with an accelerometer. The device, which will retail for $129.99, has a similar look and feel to the Jawbone Icon, but comes with a slew of new features. The most important one is NoiseAssassin 3.0, an update to its military-grade noise-cancellation technology. Aliph says the Era is also capable of playing HD audio. The rationale behind the improvement in sound technology is that people not only want to make calls with their device, but listen to music and their apps. Now, users can simply tap the headset twice to answer and end calls, a feature the company calls “TapTap.” Shaking the Era four times, “ShakeShake,” will place the Bluetooth (Bluetooth) device into pairing mode. These are the only accelerometer features available for the Jawbone Era currently, but Aliph promises...

Langley Steinert is the CEO/founder of CarGurus , a leading online automotive community which provides price transparency tools for car shopping. Previously, Steinert was chairman/co-founder of TripAdvisor, the largest online travel community in the world. Prior to TripAdvsior, Steinert was VP of marketing at Viaweb (acquired by Yahoo!).   The Internet continues to change the way we shop for products and services. Going on a trip? You’ve probably done your research via the web, influenced by every good (or bad) hotel review you found along the way. Buying a TV? You probably did your homework for that, too. Maybe you researched that TV from your smartphone, while in the store where you were tweeting about your not-so-helpful salesperson. The ability to access information and share it instantly has empowered consumers. Savvy marketers have learned to adapt, working within this new paradigm to grow their businesses and win customer loyalty. But a new alarm is being s...

Here’s video evidence that lets you see the new multitouch, app-switching capability on the iPhone ( ) . We’ve seen this trick on a video featuring the iPad , but not one with the iPhone. Similar to the gestures available now on Apple’s laptops with their “Magic Trackpads,” a four- or five-finger multitouch gesture lets users move from one application to another. But don’t get your hopes up about using this on iPads or iPhones when iOS 4.3 is officially released. We obtained this from Apple’s official release notes for iOS 4.3, beta 2: In other words, developers can play now, but the rest of us may just have to wait a bit. The second beta of this iOS 4.3 was just rolled out yesterday, and even though its recipients are sworn to secrecy, they are leaking some tantalizing clues. When can the rest of us get iOS 4.3? Apple’s not saying, but we expect at least one more beta and then an RC (Release Candidate) before it gets into the hands of the public. Look for it to ...

The rumors about Google Docs getting a music player, playlists and a preview pane are just that, according to one of the execs in charge of Docs. Earlier this week, Google Operating System blog, which is not affiliated with Google (Google), dug through the Google Docs (Google Docs) source code and found several references to features not currently in Docs. This includes references to a preview pane, a media player, playlists and collections, a potential feature to organize multiple folders. Don’t expect the imminent launch of a music player though, says Director of Product Management for Google Docs Jonathan Rochelle. I just had breakfast with Rochelle and directly asked him about the Google Docs music player rumors. He told me that his team has “no goal for a music player.” Instead it’s a case of people looking too deeply into the code. “It’s hard to find why it’s even there,” he added. Essentially, Google’s programming teams are always testing different ideas and products, addi...

Welcome to this week’s edition of “What’s Hot in Social Media,” a series in which we revisit the week’s most popular stories concerning social networks. We’re keeping our eye on 10 interesting developments this Thursday. WikiLeaks To Release Secret Swiss Bank Account Info Swiss whistle-blower and retired banker Rudolf Elmer has given WikiLeaks details concerning the bank accounts of more than 2,000 prominent individuals. The information may contain evidence of tax evasion. Facebook Halts Phone and Address Sharing (For Now) Following widespread displeasure over its recent decision to allow application developers to request access to a user’s address and mobile phone number, Facebook (Facebook) has decided to temporarily disable this feature until it implements changes that will help users make better informed decisions about their privacy. Social Networks To Capture 11% of Online Ad Spending in 2011 U.S. marketers will spend $3.08 billion to advertise on social networking ...

Rovio, maker of hit game Angry Birds, plans to turn the game into an animated series, CEO Mikael Hed has announced. “We have been looking at that for quite a while, and that is definitely one of my personal big focus areas right now – to work on broadcast content for Angry Birds (Angry Birds),” Hed told the British TV industry site C21media.net [subscription required]. No further details have been given about the series, but we wouldn’t be surprised if it appeared on TV. Angry Birds has been a smash hit on both the iOS and Android (Android) platforms; it was recently launched for the desktop PC, and is coming soon to the Wii, Xbox and PS3. Mattel is also adapting it into a board game. An animated series is the logical next step in what has quickly blossomed from just another cute iPhone game into a powerful franchise.

There’s a silly rumor exploding on the Internet this weekend, alleging that Facebook is shutting down on March 15 because CEO Mark Zuckerberg “wants his old life back,” and desires to “put an end to all the madness.” [UPDATE] We have official confirmation from Facebook Director of Corporate Communications Larry Yu that the rumor is false. We asked him via e-mail if Facebook (Facebook) was shutting down on March 15, to which he responded, “The answer is no, so please help us put an end to this silliness.” He added, “We didn’t get the memo about shutting down and there’s lots to do, so we’ll just keep cranking away like always.” Let’s think about this for a minute. Would Facebook decide to shut down the company just a few days after announcing a round of funding, consisting of $450 million from Goldman Sachs and $50 million from Russian investment firm Digital Sky Technologies, on a valuation of $50 billion? The spurious report was started by a site to which we refuse to link, know...