TTC Shelbyville – Technical Blog

When I have students who truly multi-task and they seek answers, it makes me really proud to see them growing and learning and thinking…. one of my best former students who currently works in IT shot this line over to me in an email…
(This email was in a conversation about looking at other avenues in life…they are branching out to discover other things that are out there beyond IT)

“I can keep myself focused on the task at hand…. btw, my new hobby is hacking my own brain, it’s fun”

Nemo Documents allows you to map out your files for a quick search of your files and a calendar ‘type’ output.  This not only allows you a great overview of your files but provides a quick look at dates and information on your harddrive.

In a sign that hackers, like everyone else, are taking an interest in everything Apple, researchers at Sophos say they’ve spotted a new Trojan horse program written for the Mac...more

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King’s Quest III is available for download for PCs or Macs.  With King’s Quest being around for 30 years now, this remake follows King’s Quest I and II and their remake.

If you want to see trends in your Gmail and have a visual reference of your email then Graph Your Inbox may be for you.

Graph Your Inbox does not save any personal data and works as an add-on to Google Chrome.

Need a repair guide for one of your electronic devices. iFixit has hundreds of repair guides with step-by-step pictures of the breakdown and assembly of your electronic investments.

Here’s a link Dawn sent on the step by step breakdown of the Xoom.  Link

Between Kevin, Dawn and Rick, I have a wealth of information coming at me.   Everyone comes to me for computer advice at school and many of my friends have jumped on the iPad wagon only to find out the thousands of apps didn’t make them truly productive.  Some friends found that the iPad made them productive.  So will the Xoom make you more productive?

Now with the Motorola Xoom, which comes with hardware superior to the older iPad, and because of Google Docs (which supports the Microsoft Office extensions) ,the ability to save files on the SD Card and various ports makes this a production pad. (GDocs for Xoom).  With Office 365, the iPad can be productive.  (along with email and other production apps)  So will the new iPad have an SD Card port or HDMI port and other peripherals people need to be truly productive?  And then again are we truly productive with mobile computing?  What about cost of ownership for companies?  Want to be more productive? Put remote desktop on the device.

With lithium ion batteries and ‘closed’ mobile devices, what happens when you need to change the battery?  With Apple, it will cost around$105.  No information will be saved and you must sync your iPad with iTunes to save the data before sending it off. (You should do this anyway).  Your iPad will be replaced by another within a week (not necessarily new).  What happens to the personal data on your iPad when you say good-bye to it?  Are they boxed up and shipped to another country to be refurbished with your data on it?  What about Motorola?  Erased data can be recovered.  Unlike a computer where you take out the hard drive and destroy it, you can’t remove onboard storage and destroy the data.

A term used in Information Technology is ROI (Return of Investment).  So many factors go into determining the ROI that with the fragile economy, IT Managers, CIOs and CEOs need to see if it is truly ‘worth’ purchasing a mobile device for employees.  A majority of apps don’t truly make us productive, but they make us happy so we can ‘play’ with technology.  We don’t truly need apps to estimate the length of our dog’s hair before we have it groomed.  If we pay $800 for a device (not including accessories) and the device last three years before becoming obsolete; shockingly that’s around $266.00 annually per employee.  So 10 employees – $2660.00 or 100 employees – $26600.00 annually.  If we use this device for 2 hours a day (520 hours annually), truly it is costing us $0.51 per hour for each hour of production.   (ROI is more complex than this.)  For convenience and production, it can be worth it if they are used for this.  So am I dismissing these? Absolutely not.

So as the mobile wars heat up and the economy stays on edge, the business community will have to determine the ROI for the devices.   IT personnel will have to work with management to find the employees who will use the technology.

As for home users, play away.

Chart: iPad 2 vs. Motorola XOOM vs. LG G-Slate vs. Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1

See our review of Windows 8 and see how you can run 90% of your programs, virtualize other operating systems, use your network and more.

I encourage my students to go over and visit Rick, Paul and Bill’s blog.  In 2009, Rick posted a link to a Scientific American article on How Hackers Steal Secrets from Reflections.   Great Article.  With our students going through some of the best security courses available, these links are very valuable.

Although we used a mirror for this example, we have tried glasses and other reflective materials and you can take a picture and reverse the photo.

Reversed with Irfanview

Thanks Kevin and Dawn for sharing!

Attached are guides on creating a roaming profile with Windows 7 and Server 2008 r2.

(Thanks to Mr. Ledlow for creating these)

Guides are in PDF
Step One Create a User on the Domain

Step Two Creating a Folder on the Domain

Step Three Creating the Profile

Step Four Join the Domain

A roaming profile allows the domain user to login and keep their preferences regardless of where they login.

See our review of Windows 8 and see how you can run 90% of your programs, virtualize other operating systems, use your network and more.

Toward computers that fit on a pen tip: New technologies usher in the millimeter-scale computing era.

(by ShareThis)

Introducing Windows Server 2008 R2

Link to eBook

Link to Free eLearning Course

Link

Students who are members of DreamSpark and hold an academic email are eligible.

The certifications are in the 72 series…

A list of the new extensions supported by Google Docs Viewer can be found over at What’s On My PC.

Here’s another excellent speed test for your internet connection.

Link

Results shown on lines pulling 2374 sessions (computers).

Full Download information

Want to map your friends out on a map? LINK
~D.Babian

You can download Windows 7 SP1 using your windows updates.  If you need to download the full version, it can be found here

What changes have been made?  Here’s a good article showing the changes.

Note:  We have had zero problems with Windows 7 and Microsoft has released 790+? fixes….

10 Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Wait for Windows 7 Service Pack 1 – Enterprise Applications – News & Reviews – eWeek.com.

Microsoft Windows 7 might not have all the features users want, but unlike earlier versions of Windows, it looks like users will have little to gain by waiting for major enhancements to come when Microsoft releases Service Pack 1. The performance of Windows 7 presents a pretty good argument that it might not be necessary.

 

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