Mike’s Rants and Raves

Usually when I get called in to a new client it is either because they have a defined need or they are in immediate trouble. The latter is more often the case and I usually enjoy the challenge of figuring out what is wrong under the threat of impending doom. More often than [...]

Since Microsoft got religion around security, and especially since SP2 developers have been faced with the Unknown Publisher problem. Any application that has not been signed with a digital certificate from a trusted CA (Certificate Authority) displays a message that the publisher is Unknown with a more forceful warning than in previous versions of [...]

Remember the Netscape browser, well the remains have been resurrected as Mozilla Firefox and it is beginning to make a dent in Microsoft’s dominance. The new browser written mostly by freelance programmers and run as an open source project is taking away about 1% a month from Microsoft. Microsoft’s rating went down from [...]

I started publishing to this blog over a week ago and I had it in test mode for a week before, so I thought I would take the time and describe the experience so far. Well, since I try and publish an article 6 days a week it can be a little hard, but [...]

Suddenly the computer won’t work, the server dies, monitors flicker or don’t turn on, HELP! Well I know this is no consulation, but it happens to all of us, the PC that no one wants to touch with the applications that do something, but you are not quite sure what. This experience has [...]

It’s after the holidays and for some reason other people like to buy me electronics, and vidoe games (hint I can buy wholesale!). Well luckily I can return it and buy what I want right? Wrong nowadays returning electronics, video games, or DVDs means the dreaded store credit. This used to be [...]

Usually like all good technology consultants I try and sell backup solutions to our clients. As long as this is a network backup with a server involved this is not a big deal. On the other hand when it is just a bunch of computers hooked together we tend to run into resistance. [...]

My First Rant! Lately it seems that IBM and other vendors have given up trying to capture the business desktop market. This always gets me concerned, because the small business owner loses a valuable resource in the local reseller and business level support from the manufacturer. The smaller business will be [...]

A year ago I was offered a free three year Internet hosting account at 1and1.com. This was a pretty good deal (Free!) and hard to pass up, so I took the plung and have been satisfied with them ever since. Technical support has about a 15 minute call on hold time, while not [...]

I was only a real fan of Instant Messenger when it first came out, it soon became apparent that I don’t have the mental capacity to handle the constant interruptions. I first used ICQ then moved on to AIM, lately I have since consolidated and rolled them all into Trillian. I have [...]