Trick And Treat

For our Halloween edition, we thought we would focus on some neat software tricks… and the treats they provide. We have three offerings for business (presumably), one for your off-hours.

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It's All Set Up... Now What?

I had the opportunity to meet with someone in a related field the other day. We had met through a mutual client, and I immediately saw value in what she does; we work in subtly different areas in technology, but I think a well rounded client will use both of our skillsets to acheive maximum efficiency.

Erin Hoffman is the owner and Productivity Specialist for Optimum Productivity. She has been doing this for a couple of years; she is answering a perceived need for someone to help make sense of the tools and ever increasing demands placed on small business owners, managers and employees - and she's definitely onto something here.

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Google's Unstable Isotope

Last week, Google took a moment to show off something it's been working on for a little over a year - ChromeOS. They demo'ed it on the new CR-48 laptop; the CR-48 is arguably the stealth bomber of laptops - sleek, black, appears to have no radar signature at all.

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Awesome Energy

I had the opportunity recently to talk to a group of solo entrepreneurs during one of their monthly meetings. The group is called TreeHouse, headed by a quiet but effective leader, Ed Cox.

I admit, I get a little nervous talking to groups like this, wondering if I will get too technical (read: be boring). My fears are usually unfounded - I try to stay fluent in English even as I'm discussing technical things... It's not always easy, but it pays off.

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Crash

What would the loss of your primary computer mean to you?

A couple of weeks ago I was at a client’s site. This client had a couple of old servers… So old, in fact, they were tan in color. Think about it… when was the last time you saw a *new* tan computer? Yep, they were that old. Or older.  We were “virtualizing” these servers into a newer server they had purchased. This means that we were converting the old tan box computers into VMWare Virtual Servers.

The intricacies of that are beyond the scope of this article. This article is about what happened while the servers were being “virtualized”.

My laptop battery had been giving me issues. By “issues” I mean that it couldn’t hold more than about a 10 minute charge. This was not a critical deal, since I basically go from electric socket to electric socket in the course of my day. So, no big deal, just plug the brick in and keep moving.

Then my power brick started having issues. Subtle at first, the laptop would act as though it had been disconnected from power. Usually re-connecting the power did the trick. Soon, the brick disconnected for longer periods. The laptop would actually hibernate to deal with it.

Finally, in the middle of this conversion, the brick quit altogether. I certainly needed my laptop for this project, but mine was now completely dead. What to do?

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