TTC Shelbyville – Technical Blog

Students today have more resources than ever.  The internet, online classes, online libraries, books, blogs, RSS Feeds and dozens of other resources.  Younger people today have to multitask more so than ever.

Information Technology is growing so rapidly that students have to remember more than ever.    This double edge sword I believe results in distractions that take away and overwhelm students.  We are moving at an unprecedented pace.   While e-learning has its advantages, some things just have to be in a traditional classroom.   College should always follow vocational training and the training and education cannot stop once they are in the field.

With vocational training, traditional students can go into the work place faster.  Believe it or not, this is a good feeder to colleges and the students can learn and remember technologies, get employed and grow with technology while they are in school.  It is not practical to begin learning and wait four years before entering the field of information technology.   It is important to gain the needed skills and to be a versatile IT professional willing to learn, get a diploma, certifications  and degree and to grow in IT.

It is not uncommon for our students from our school to become employed in a fortune 500 company, continue college, come back and get certifications and to be successful.  It takes commitment, initiative, and self-discipline.

I’m far from being a person who wants to stop or slow technology but there are times I feel overwhelmed with 20+ years of experience.   With Microsoft’s technet, Lifehacker, Gizmodo, BillMullins, WhatsOnMyPC (an awesome launch pad to other blogs) and other blogs that are out there; these great resources serve a place in higher ed and the education of today’s students.  These resources are needed for students in this technical world that is not going to slow down.  Period.

Yep, it will.  Lifehacker had a good article on this. (Thanks Drew)  By going wireless, devices will be accessed from your pc or laptop….

I like all browsers….really like IE and Firefox… if you want the latest BETA (Could have a few problems), down load it HERE.

Process Hacker is an excellent program to see the process and information about running programs.  See Bill Mullins’ article. Excellent Review.

Microsoft has released a Patch Registration Cleanup tool that helps to correct most issues that are a result of corrupted or invalid update registration and information.  This helps your computer correct any problems with updates.

For Windows 2000, XP, Server, Vista and 7

Link

Check out Microsoft’s Feed Website:

Excellent and Free Video Converter.  Link

• Opens and converts from the following file formats: AVI, FLV, MOV, MP4, MPG, MPEG, MTS, RM, RMVB, QT, WMV, and others recognized by your computer (Direct Show).
• Converts to the following output format: AVI, MP4, MPEG1, MPEG2, QuickTime (QT), WMV.

Extended Disk Analyzer allows you to quickly look at your drive and see how much information is in each directory.

Extended Task Manager helps you to analyze information about your system.  This Task Manager gives detailed processes and information not found in Window’s Task Manager.  Link  (Windows XP/Vista)

There is truly an advantage to adding multiple NIC cards to a computer.   It won’t speed up a single internet connection but it can help with loss of signal, detecting access points, transferring information to and  from computers.

When adding a second NIC card to a computer, you can highlight both by holding down the CTRL key and clicking on them and then right clicking to bridge the connections so they act as one…this can allow you to bridge a wireless network to a wired network.

Two nic cards on the same network can allow for load balancing.

Dual Wireless Cards

Keynote Internet Testing Environment allows you to create a free account and to test your internet and servers to gather information and to analyze what your users are experiencing.   Link

Internetpulse.net provides information on network to network performance on the internet.   Fully configurable, you can select between vendors to see latency and network availability.

Link

D. Babian

Free Printable Certificates.

Certificates of Training, Certificate of Appreciation, etc.

Many thanks to Rick at WhatsOnMyPC.wordpress.com.

Link for Teacher Forms

With today’s economy, you need all the help you can get.  Microsoft has several new resume templates that are free.  Link

Dawn and I were trying to rescue data from her niece’s computer with ToDo mirroring.  After running into bad sectors, we were forced to stop.  Dawn will have to load windows on a new hard drive and reload the data.

Unfortunately there is times when bad blocks or sectors won’t copy.  One solution is to try to use BadBlocked FileCopier.   This software helps you to copy files that normally won’t be copied because they are damaged or corrupt.  Another tool that is in Beta.

You can use a USB Drive to lock your computer.  By creating a strong key and password, the USB drive becomes your ‘key’ to unlocking your computer.  After downloading, you MUST right click with Windows Vista or Windows 7 in order to unzip and install this program.

Link

Want the QuickLaunch Toolbar for Windows 7?

Get Quick Launch toolbar back

1. Right-click the taskbar – choose Toolbars / New Toolbar
2. Enter the following string and hit OK:
   %userprofile%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch
3. Turn off the “lock the taskbar” setting, and right-click on the divider. Uncheck  “Show text” and “Show title” if you want to -  make sure the view is set to “small icons”.
4. Use the divider to rearrange the toolbar -lock the taskbar

Want to get rid of it after you put it on?  Unlock the taskbar.  Right click on the taskbar, go to properties -click on the toolbar tab, uncheck the quicklaunch box.

Well it may not be such a secret but PSR.exe is a tool that can be used to show steps or to troubleshoot your computer.  At the search or run line, type psr.exe.  A small recorder will appear.   Click the down arrow next to the Help ? .   Click on Settings.   Save the file as Capture.zip under a folder.    Close these windows.  Click on Record.   (25 screen shots will be be captured to a web based file that is zipped by default).

This recorder is great for troubleshooting applications.

Sample output (end of capture)

Recording Session: 10/10/2009 9:20:49 PM – 9:21:09 PM

Problem Steps: 11, Missed Steps: 0, Other Errors: 0

Operating System: 7600.16385.x86fre.win7_rtm.090713-1255 6.1.0.0.2.4

Problem Step 1: User left click on “Minimize (push button)” in “TTC Shelbyville – Technical Blog”
Program: Firefox, 1.9.1.3, Mozilla Corporation, FIREFOX.EXE, FIREFOX.EXE
UI Elements: Minimize, Tim Sneath : The Bumper List of Windows 7 Secrets – Mozilla Firefox, MozillaUIWindowClass

Problem Step 2: User mouse drag start on “Application (menu bar)” in “Calculator”
Program: Windows Calculator, 6.1.7600.16385 (win7_rtm.090713-1255), Microsoft Corporation, CALC.EXE, CALC.EXE
UI Elements: Application, Calculator, CalcFrame

Problem Step 3: User mouse drag end in “Calculator”
Program: Windows Calculator, 6.1.7600.16385 (win7_rtm.090713-1255), Microsoft Corporation, CALC.EXE, CALC.EXE
UI Elements: CalcFrame, Calculator, CalcFrame

Problem Step 4: User left click on “Application (menu bar)” in “Calculator”
Program: Windows Calculator, 6.1.7600.16385 (win7_rtm.090713-1255), Microsoft Corporation, CALC.EXE, CALC.EXE
UI Elements: Application, Calculator, CalcFrame

Problem Step 5: User left click in “Calculator”
Program: Windows Calculator, 6.1.7600.16385 (win7_rtm.090713-1255), Microsoft Corporation, CALC.EXE, CALC.EXE
UI Elements: Calculator, CalcFrame

Problem Step 6: User mouse drag start in “Calculator”
Program: Windows Calculator, 6.1.7600.16385 (win7_rtm.090713-1255), Microsoft Corporation, CALC.EXE, CALC.EXE
UI Elements: Calculator, CalcFrame

• Clicking the transparent rectangle in the lower right shows the desktop.  If you hover your mouse on it without clicking, the desktop shows semi transparent
• Holding the top bar of a windows and bumping the left side of the screen or right side docks the windows to 50% of your screen so you can easily put two applications side by side.
• Bumping the top maximizes the window (if it is not maximized)
• Win + Home will minimize all screens that you are not using (you can simply grab the application’s top bar and shake it to make all apps minimize)

When you have an application open:

• Win+Left Arrow and Win+Right Arrow dock;
• Win+Up Arrow and Win+Down Arrow maximizes and restores / minimizes;
• Win+Shift+Up Arrow and Win+Shift+Down Arrow maximizes and restores the vertical size.

More tips can be found here.

Microsoft’s Shortcuts – link

MyPictureTown allows you to upload and share up to  6000 – 300 kb pictures or 1000 – 1 mebabyte pictures (2 gb of storage).  Free Link