Apr 22

Re-size Server 2003 C: Drive

 

Disk

 

Have you ever run into a case with server 2003 where you don't have enough drive space on your C: partition but you have space on your D: partition but without purchasing a 3rd party utility its not possible to re-size a live windows 2003 system drive.

 

Well that is until now,

So I ran into a case where I needed to extend my OS drive C:\ but in Server 2003 you are not allowed to expand a system/boot drive with Diskpart.

 

Download ExtPart (More information in the text file)

 

The usage for this is the following below:

To extend the C: volume by 1 GB (1024MB) use the following command:

Open a command prompt and then type the following:

 

Extpart c: 1024

–Reboot isn't required but I always do afterwards–




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Jan 25

DSLR SD Memory Cards

51Kdyjl02FL._SY300_

So like most people when they bought their new camera you have to choose a good SD Card that is a decent size and fast.  Well if you go to your normal walmart or other tech like stores you'll most likely end up picking up the first thing you see or possibly they will have a extreme card and you think great that's the one I need.  What you should always pay attention too is the card actually compatible with your camera?  Just because it's on sale doesn't mean that its a good fit, yes it will work but you may experience the wright light is always on and you only are able to snap a few pictures then you have to wait, and wait and wait.  I myself did this same thing and got frustrated so I dumped my older cards and went for a 45mb/s sanddisk extreme sd card which has suited me so far but I still have that issue with the wait if I take a lot of pictures in rapid succession.  The next card I plan on getting and you should get one too is the Sandisk Extreme Pro cards.  They are sold in various sizes and have a great wright speed a must have for anyone with a newer DSLR.  

You can also get the Compact Flash version of these cards that have a 5mb/s higher write speed.


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Jan 16

Microsoft Security Essentials AV-Test certification Fails AGAIN!

 

MS-SEC-icon

Yet Again, Microsoft Security Essentials has failed AV-Test's antivirus certification, after not meeting the criteria to pass their December 2012 testing suite. AV-Test conducts antivirus software testing every month, pitting 25 programs against 0-day attacks and known malware while also testing the repair capabilities of the software and its usability. To pass certification, the app must score at least 11 out of a possible 18 points across the three tested categories; MSE scored 10 and so just managed to fail the criteria.

Security Essentials failed largely due to poor protection against 0-day real-world attacks, protecting against only 78% of attacks. While this may not sound particularly bad, and it's an improvement over 71% protection of November, it still falls well short of the industry average 92% protection in this area. MSE also failed to meet the industry average detection of malware discovered in the last 2-3 months, scoring just 90% compared to an average of 97% across other suites. An overall poor Protection score of just 1.5/6.0 meant MSE couldn't manage the required 11 points.

MS-SecEss

If you're wondering who should I switch too visit here:

Source: AV-TEST

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Jan 16

Teens, “Apple is dead, we want Microsoft & Samsung”

Microsoft Surface – Commercial HD

Teenagers know what's cool as many of you can tell teens generally like the opposite of what their parents find cool.  While Apple is still winning the market with the iPhone, iPad and the new Macs.  Just last week, Forbes.com reported that the younger crowd's opinion of apple dropping off faster than a car off a cliff.  Teens are becoming more interested in the new Samsung S3 and Note 2 and even the mighty iPad is starting to fall to the Microsoft surface (thank you Microsoft since apple doesn't make a enterprise device)  For more info please visit the source.

While we weren't’t surprised to hear about Samsung’s success, given their great sales numbers recently, we were shocked to hear that teens are in favor of the latest Microsoft Surface tablet. Although we really liked the tablet, sales haven’t exactly been rocking the world. That said, this is good news for Redmond and it will be interesting to see if they can leverage the popularity to sell more of the Surface RT and the Surface Pro when it’s released.

We shall see that if in time Apple will become the cool devices again possibly with the rumors of the iPad Mini Retina, iPhone 5S and the possibility of a cheaper iPhone…..  Its nice to see that Apple while unaffected at the moment may have the battle again like they did back in the 80's.  They seem to have forgotten thats why we went PC, because you made it impossible to join the enterprise with your devices!

Source: Forbes

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Jan 05

The Top Free Photo Editing Software Available on the Internet

 

 

When you want to edit photos without purchasing traditional photo-editing software, there are alternative options that are free of cost and available by downloading and using the tools yourself online. Using free photo editing software is a way to easily manipulate photos, change colors and add special effects, regardless of the type of design you have in mind for your own photos.

Editing photos can be a great way to spice up your photos while also adding fun effects to share with your friends and family instantly. Many online photo editors and programs allow you to quickly upload and share your creations by connecting to various social networking accounts you already use. Using photo editors online can save from being required to invest hundreds of dollars into professional programs that have similar features to all of the free editors that are currently available.

 

GIMP

GIMP is a free downloadable photo-editing program that is available on Windows operating systems. Using GIMP requires hard drive space and an installation for the software to work properly. Photo enhancement, advanced tool bars for levels and color and special effects are all available with the use of GIMP. GIMP is capable of saving files in various formats ranging from classic JPG, GIF and TIF images to PSD and PNG file types. You can easily important any type of photo or image to edit with GIMP once the software has been installed. 

 

Pixlr

Pixlr is an online photo editing service that is free and offers a wide range of features that are similar to the most advanced photo-editing programs on the market today. With Pixlr, it is possible to create your own images, use layers and choose specific fonts to add to any images you want to make. Pixlr also includes adjustment layers for advanced photo editing as well as plugin filters and options to choose from for added effects to any images you are working on. Pixlr's online photo-editing application is also available on mobile phones, depending on the phone you own and your current mobile service provider.

 

BeFunky

BeFunky is another online photo editing service that allows you to add photos via webcam, social media accounts and even from your computer's own hard drive. There are plenty of features and effects that you can choose from with BeFunky's editor. Resizing, cropping, rotating and even changing the brightness of your photos is possible with just a click of the mouse. You can also choose to add fish eye, matte, vignette or blur effects to any type of photo you choose to edit. Special effects can also be applied to instantly change the appearance of photos including using pop art, sepia and even motion color effect options.

 

LunaPic

LunaPic is a free, yet simple online photo editing service that provides a simplistic upload button to add and begin editing your own photos within your browser. Adding text, erasing strokes and even playing with different special effects with LunaPic can be done with a click of the mouse. In addition to color effects and the ability to add your very own text, LunaPic also provides animation special effects including animated rain and transitions for moving pictures you can create. Adding custom picture frames or creating an entire collage of images can be done with the features of LunaPic.

 

This article was submitted by Mitchell Jordan. Mitchell is a photography enthusiast and internet blogger for www.clearhighspeedinternet.net.

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Dec 16

iPad Cases Revisited

Having fixed quite a few iPads so far I find the common mistake is someone purchases a case thinking that it will protect their iPad.  I have seen some pretty cheesy foam cases, folding cases, etc that all have failed when it came to protecting the iPad.  The foam case that I reviewed worked great as long as the ipad fell on a corner and it would produce about a 3 ft bounce but failed when the iPad fell on its screen.  Typically damage I see on these devices is in the corners, it takes a pretty good blow to take one out and I have seen an entire corner destroyed but the screen was still intact, it was only when it fell on another corner did the screen shatter or crack.  So I thought it was time to revisit some popular cases…. as you can see below I'm only reviewing 2 cases, and to be honest if I find some better I'll review them but these are my trusted cases of choice.

 

1. The Otterbox Defender Series – Is the absolutely my favorite case, the first version for the iPad 2 didn't include a screen protector but the latest revision of the case includes a screen protector and it is a must have purchase for any new iPads we purchase at my work.  I have people that always come up to me and ask about whats the best case and this is what I tell them to get.  Now you can also get the Otterbox Cases for your iPhones too. Click here for the iPhone 4/4s, iPhone 5 and the new iPad Mini.  The iPad Otterbox cases come in various colors and if you get an iPad for Christmas then you need one of these, its very cheap insurance….

Otterbox Defender Series for the iPad 2/3/4 
About $50.00 +/-

 

My second option for an iPad case would be the Life Proof Waterproof iPad Case offered by Lifeproof.  This is a awesome case that has protection and it is even waterproof, this would be the ultimate case I would have if I was outside alot or possible with the kiddos (you know sloober and iPads done mix). 

This case has a screen protector built in obviously, its waterproof.  Now for the details: 

Waterproof up to 2 meters (6.6 feet)
Dirt Proof (Yes, it seals the case in a ziplock type configuration
Snow Proof that keeps the ice and snow out according to IP-68 standards.
Shock Proof – Designed too military drop survivability specs of 4 feet or 1.2 meters

Life Proof Waterproof iPad Case

About 90.00 but its waterproof

And for the extreme you can even get a case that floats

Lifeproof LifeJacket Float for iPad 2/3/4 (1135) - 60.00 + 90.00 for the case but hey it floats

 

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Nov 30

iTunes 11 Arrives

 

iTunes 11 has been released by Apple, offering a fairly significant update to the music player and iOS device syncing app. A variety of new features have been added, the user interface has been redesigned and modernized, a new mini-player has been included, and there’s even a redesigned icon to go with it. This is the first major update to iTunes in quite some time and is available for both Mac OS X and Windows users.

Download iTunes 11

There are a variety of ways to grab the latest version:

  • Download from the Mac App Store (OS X 10.8 or later)
  • Get it from Software Update from the ? Apple menu (OS X 10.7 and before)
  • Update directly from iTunes itself
  • Download directly from Apple for Mac or Windows
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Nov 26

Hog Happnin BBQ Festival – Shelby NC

We were looking for something to do this past weekend and after doing several internet searches we found that Shelby, NC was having a BBQ Festival that they call Hog Happnin.  We took the hour and a half drive out there and the place was packed.  They had to move the location this year from the normal spot of the fair grounds due to e-coil outbreak.  They had some really awesome cars there but i only snapped a few pictures, I should have gotten more but was starvin and wanted some bbq. Click the link below to view my photography gallery for the event.

 

For full gallery visit -> http://www.photogninja.com/galleries/automotive/hog-happnin-shelby-nc-2012/

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Oct 28

Raspberry Pi upgraded (512MB RAM)

I've had the pleasure in owning the first version of the Raspberry Pi and really liked it but for my media center idea it didn't work as smoothly as I wanted so I ended up selling it.  This version will help some of the shortfall of the low memory.  They have gone from 256MB to 512MB of ram now.  Some other nice features listed below: 

  • Broadcom BCM2835 700MHz ARM1176JZFS processor with FPU and Videocore 4 GPU
  • GPU provides Open GL ES 2.0, hardware-accelerated OpenVG, and 1080p30 H.264 high-profile decode, GPU is capable of 1Gpixel/s, 1.5Gtexel/s or 24GFLOPs with texture filtering and DMA infrastructure
  • 512MB RAM

This is a revision B board and has the audio connector already on it, that was another thing I was missing on the one I purchased.  This will make a awesome carputer, linux server, etc.  Now if your going to purchase one of these there are some things you should know first:

All you get is the board so you will need a power supply, sd card (class 10+), a keyboard & mouse.  I had issues with my keyboard and mouse so you may also need a powered usb hub to make them work better.   Here are the products I used:

  • 5v Power supply from a old cell phone, it requires 700ma but if you need one I highly suggest this
  • SD Card 4GB or better, i used this SanDisk Ultra 16 GB SDHC Class 6 Flash Memory Card 30MB/s SDSDH-016G-U46
  • As for a keyboard and mouse, i found that my cheap keyboard from Walmart didn't work so I had to purchase a powered usb hub then it worked fine.  It has to do with the power consumption of the usb devices and the Pi being limited in how much usb power it has.

More information on the board:

Great links for Raspberry Pi info:

http://www.raspberrypi.org  http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/

http://hackaday.com/category/raspberry-pi-2/

http://elinux.org/RPi_Hub

http://www.youtube.com/user/RaspberryPiTutorials

http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=Raspberry_Pi

http://www.irongeek.com/i.php?page=security/raspberry-pi-recipes

http://raspberrypihacks.com/

 


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Oct 24

Apple Configurator 1.2 Released

Adds support for iOS6, Active Directory & Apple TV

Apple Configurator is gaining prominence as Apple's preferred iOS management utility. The latest version adds a wide array of improvements. From the release notes:


Apple Configurator 1.2 is a recommended update for all Apple Configurator users. This update is available from the Mac App Store, via the Updates tab.

What's new in version 1.2?

This update improves overall stability and performance, and includes the following:

  • Support for new iOS 6 features (Lock to App and Global HTTP Proxy) on supervised iOS devices
  • Support for these new iOS 6 restrictions on a supervised device:
  • Allow the removal of apps from the device
  • Allow use of iMessage
  • Allow access to iBookstore or the purchase of books classified as "Erotica" from iBookstore
  • Allow filtering of profanity for Siri
  • Allow use of Game Center
  • Allow the installation of new configuration profiles
  • Improved reliability when activating a new iPhone or iPad with Wi-Fi + Cellular
  • The last settings used on the Prepare pane are retained when Apple Configurator is quit and relaunched
  • Improved ability to update or restore devices that are currently in recovery mode
  • Members of Active Directory groups are now shown in the Assign pane
  • Paid apps from the App Store can now be installed in the Prepare pane only when a device is being supervised
  • Support for configuring advanced network options on Apple TV
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