August 23, 2010
BRUCEB CONSULTING – NOW WITH NEW IMPROVED MONITORING
I am pleased to announced a new service for my loyal clients: real-time server and networking monitoring.
This is the culmination of months of evaluation and testing. It represents a higher level of service that I’ll be delivering to my clients, at the same time that I’m helping reduce technology costs by handling problems before they turn into crises.
SERVER MONITORING
For less than $1 per day, I will set up 24×7 Round-the-Clock Monitoring that will check your server’s critical systems every fifteen minutes. Whenever it sniffs a problem, I’ll get an email showing the exact nature of […] continued
August 19, 2010
NOTEBOOK SHOPPING, WITH BAMBOO
Here’s a nice notebook at a nice price: the Asus U43Jc, a 14” laptop that can be purchased from Amazon until September 5 for $999 – with a $150 Amazon gift card thrown in, effectively bringing the price down to $849. That’s quite good for a notebook with these specs!
The notebook features a cover and palm rest made out of bamboo, making the case look very sleek in a furniture sort of way. (It also lets Asus tout how environmentally swell it is.) It’s got great parts inside: an Intel Core i5 processor; 4Gb of RAM; […] continued
August 13, 2010
SAY GOODBYE TO SIX YEAR OLD COMPUTERS
Small businesses bought a lot of computers in 2004 and 2005. Windows XP had been on the market for three years and early compatibility problems had been resolved. Small businesses cleaned out the aging Windows 98 80386 computers to take advantage of the new OS and new programs.
This is the year to repeat the process. Windows 7 is a mature version of Windows Vista – for all intents and purposes, the current version of Windows has been on the market for three years and early compatibility problems have been resolved. Businesses should be clearing out the old Windows […] continued
July 5, 2010
NEW NOTEBOOKS
It is impossible to keep up with the flood of new devices onto the market. Technology is appearing everywhere, in every form factor, faster than anyone can hope to keep up with it. The most you can hope to do is be generally aware of how many choices are out there, so you don’t settle for something in the belief that you can’t get what you want.
Take a look at this article, which covers 17 new notebooks. The manufacturers are familiar but I’ve never heard of most of the specific models – and I read about new […] continued
May 28, 2010
WHERE ARE THE SOLID STATE DRIVES?
Almost a year ago I predicted that solid state hard drives would be mainstream devices once manufacturers finished ironing out some technical kinks and the price started to come down. What happened?
Solid state drives (SSDs) are the devices that work like hard drives but don’t have any moving parts. Intel has fixed the technical issues and the results are dazzling, especially with Windows 7, which is optimized for SSDs. By all accounts, the drives are worlds faster than any conventional hard drive, with reports of Windows 7 installations in seven minutes, […] continued
May 17, 2010
GETTING STARTED WITH WINDOWS 7
A lot of people are buying Windows 7 computers! Here’s a roundup of articles about new features to discover and some of the ways that Windows 7 is different than Windows XP. Click on the pictures or the titles for the original articles with all the details to help you get started!
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WINDOWS 7 TASKBAR |
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April 29, 2010
SMARTPHONES AND MONEY
HP is buying Palm. Synergy! Patents! Engineers! Vision! Innovation! New smartphones computers tablets slates operating systems! Whee!
I was idly reading stories about the deal when a sentence jumped out at me from the New York Times this morning. If this is true, it explains everything you need to know about what is happening around you and where the world is going.
“Analysts have forecast that sales of smartphones, currently about equal to the annual sales of laptops, will surpass total PC sales by 2012.”
Got that? Let me repeat it, in boldface:
- Sales of
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April 19, 2010
MICROSOFT FIX IT CENTER
Microsoft has started broad beta testing of Microsoft Fix It Center, an automated tool for fixing common problems with Windows. I don’t know that everyone will want to rush to install it (I’d hate to have my clients forget that I am their automated tool for fixing problems), but you might want to take a look.
The roots of this project go back to the earliest days of Microsoft operating systems, when Microsoft started its “Knowledge Base” – the collection of technical support papers that describe specific issues and specific solutions. It has grown over the years to quite […] continued
March 31, 2010
POWERED BY PURE SINE WAVES!
I’ve got Pure Sine Waves! Woo hoo!
If you had asked me last month, I would have bet heavily that I would never use the words “pure sine wave” in a sentence. And yet here I am, gloating because I have pure sine waves and you don’t. What an interesting world!
The background for this story concerns life in the country. Our supply of electricity is fairly messy – it hiccups frequently with little blips and surges, lights dimming and returning, computers and printers at risk. I’ve had high quality UPS battery backups running in my office for […] continued
March 15, 2010
MORE DELL COMPUTERS FOR SMALL BUSINESS
I’m not going to mention every product announcement that comes along, but Dell has introduced some small business laptops and desktops that look particularly appealing.
The Dell Vostro 3000 line of laptops come in a variety of screen sizes and weights (13”, 14”, 15” and 17”), with the latest Intel processors, extensive battery life, high quality graphics, built-in DVD drives and webcams, and all the usual accessories. Prices change quickly depending on what boxes are checked for processor, memory, video, software, but these appear to be comparable to all the other laptops on the market now.
Here’s […] continued