May 20, 2010
I’m happy to report that the new version of Microsoft Outlook 2010 64-bit edition is FAST. This is one of the first times I’ve installed a 64-bit application and truely seen the benefits. I have a TON of email, and this version of outlook has shown to be able to keep up with me, run well, and really work quickly for me on an older computer.
I recommend it to power users, it a worthwhile upgrade in time savings alone when compared with outlook 2007.
The search and usability features have almost negated the need for my favorite too, xobni as well… more on that later.
-Russ
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Corneredge News, Microsoft Office, Tech post | Tagged: 64 bit office, 64 bit outlook, Office 2010, oultook 2010 | 
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Posted by Russ
May 17, 2010
As developers we often have to support many different versions of Microsoft office. We are excited to use the 64 capabilities of the latest version of office 2010. When installing last week I noticed I cannot have older versions of office. If you want to run 64 bit, you have to UN-install previous 32 bit versions of Office.
You’ll see this message:
So, prepare some extra time to un-install your older 32 bit applications before upgrading to 2010. Its cleaner to use virtualization to maintain multiple client installs for development purposes anyway.
Leave a Comment » | Corneredge News, Microsoft Office, Tech post | Tagged: 64 bit office, microsoft office, Office 2010, office install error | Permalink
Posted by Russ
May 14, 2010
Our support team will NEVER send you a spam message like this below.
————————————————————
Dear Customer,
This e-mail was send by corneredge.net to notify you that we have temporanly prevented access to your account.
We have reasons to beleive that your account may have been accessed by someone else. Please run attached file and Follow instructions.
(C) corneredge.net
Leave a Comment » | CES Systems, Corneredge News, Tech post | Tagged: SPAM | Permalink
Posted by Russ
April 20, 2010
Lifehacker had a great article today showing the good old windows tricks to make your PC faster. Which ones really work? This is definitely worth your time if you are into tweaking or tuning your computers performance.
Windows Maintenance Tips: The Good, Bad, and Useless
You might be surprised which ones help performance vs. hurt performance.
2 Comments | Clinton Hague, Tech post | Tagged: lifehacker, performance tips, windows performance, windows tips, windows tweaks | Permalink
Posted by Russ
March 22, 2010
Like many of you out there, when I am creating a VM, there are times I want a virtual hard drive larger than 256GB. Unfortunately VMware defaults the DataStore block size to 1MB, which limits you to a virtual HDD of only that size. In a previous post (here), I walked you through deleting and recreating the DataStore to get the larger block size needed for a VHDD of up to 2TB. But what happens when you can’t delete the DataStore to recreate it. This is the error I am talking about: ”Error during the configuration of the host: DestroyVmfsDatastore: can’t delete partition 3 on lun vmhba1:0:0″
It is no surprise when you install VMware, it installs some other information on the drives for the OS, but I was surprised to see files on the local hard drives when I was installing VMware on the embedded SDcard we typically specify with our servers. Despite installing the actual OS on a separate flash drive, the install actually wrote some data to one of the drives on the server.
Compare DataStore1 which has VMware ESXi installed on it to DataStore 2 which has nothing but VM’s on it. You can see there are a lot more partitions, which is why the DataStore won’t delete. If VMware was installed on an embedded flash drive you would see less partitions on DataStore1, but still a lot more than on DataStore2.
The easiest way to avoid this is if you are installing to an embedded SD card is to not attach your hard drives or configure your virtual disks if you are using a RAID card until after the ESXi installation. If the drives aren’t there, then the installation can’t write files to them.
If, however you have already installed VMware ESXi to the flash drive and don’t want to reinstall it again with the drives disconnected, the easiest way it from inside the RAID card utility at startup, just re-initialize the offending drive, which will delete all data that has been written to it and then you will be able to create the DataStore with the larger block size.
If you do not have the option of installing to an embedded flash drive, then my recommendation would be to create a 1GB virtual disk in your RAID card first, install VMware there, and then create the remaining disks in the RAID utility after. Then, when you are creating the DataStore in VMware, you can specify the block size then.
I hope this helps take away some of the confusion on why you cant delete a DataStore on a clean install with no VM’s even created.
1 Comment | Corneredge News, Tech post, vmware | Tagged: embedded SD card, ESXi datastore, Vmware datastore | Permalink
Posted by Clinton
February 3, 2010
Today Microsoft had their password lists compromised.
Anybody with a hotmail account, Windows Live account, or msn account should take the time to change their password. This is confirmed by Microsoft, and a customer of mine had this happen to him: someone used his compromised password to send bad links to several of… his contacts.
More details here
Leave a Comment » | CES Systems, Corneredge News, Tech post | Tagged: compromised, hotmail, passwords, security | Permalink
Posted by David
November 10, 2009
Ok, I posted about how impressed I was about the windows 7 upgrade process here
And the main reason I was so impressed is that I did the upgrade to my workstation with the following specs:
- Easily 10 different USB devices & 2 different hubs plugged in at all times
- Firewire used for video editing
- close to 100 applications installed from all over the place.
- VMWARE workstation installed running test machines & extra virtual network devices
- 12 gigs of ram
- two different RAID Configs for two sets of hard drives etc…
bottom line, its NOT a simple computer to upgrade. I work the crap out of this machine daily, and it upgraded fine initially.
And that’s where I’m starting to struggle. Just today:
- I lost the nice Windows Aero feature. Seems pretty hard to get back, which doesn’t make any sense. The troubleshooter can tell me that my desktop manager services aren’t running, but I can’t turn them back on. WHY so complicated? Running this OS without the Aero is dull, I feel like I’m being punished and thrown back to a retro windows 2000 look now. Let me switch it on if I want!! I guess I’ll have to troubleshoot it for hours now to fix it.
- I lost audio randomly, but after 5 minutes of waiting for the “troubleshooter” if fixed the service that wasn’t running.. how did it get turned off? But wait my youtube videos don’t play sound now??
- I’ve had a few programs crash/not work… a crystal reports runtime issue mainly for now…older programs, but still….
- Backup – I have a buffalo terastation, an incredibly simple network storage device that I use for backup on my network. The new Microsoft BACKUP program will NOT allow me to send a backup to a device without Network authentication of some unknown kind, so I can’t do a backup of files to my incredibly simple network storage unit. YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!!! I have to setup a Microsoft machine on my network for backups??? COME ON!! I literally tried basic auth with a user name and password I was able to config and test, Microsoft backup won’t use it. sweet! I know, I’ll use an incredibly simple file replication tool instead. Just use Karen’s Replicator if you need to run a backup. It actually works over the network.
SO, hang in there, and don’t upgrade yet. Microsoft has some patching to do and I’m stuck grumpy in windows 2000 land with crap I have to fix.
2 Comments | Tech post, Windows 7 | Tagged: Aero, don't upgrade, Windows 7, Windows 7 upgrade, windows aero | Permalink
Posted by Russ
November 5, 2009
I’ve been a loyal Kavoom user for years now. I have two monitors on my primary desktop and often place my laptop next to those monitors. The KM software allowed me to use my laptop from the desktop keyboard, essentially providing me with 3 screens & 2 computers available to me on my desk all accessible from a single keyboard and mouse seamlessly. Really a beautiful thing for productivity.
When I upgraded my workstation to windows 7 earlier last week, I found that Kavoom! is not compatible with windows7. (Or at least that’s what windows told me. I honestly didn’t try re-installing, I couldn’t find the original download) I went to check the Kavoom website for an update, and NOTHING?! The site has been down for the last two weeks… so it forced me to look into a new solution.
Of course I easily found Synergy+ – a free tool that does the same thing. Not as smooth of a setup process, but it seems to work fine.
So Kavoom is gone, but we are not lost… and perhaps the free option explains why they are gone. Its a shame when a fair product that sells for $30 goes out of business due to a free solution. Go open source, but its not fun to be a developer who owns an eliminated product… which is better?
UPDATE: Synergy also works with MAC and Linux… so yes, its cooler than Kavoom… its so nice to have my mac working also… 4 screens!
5 Comments | CES Systems, Corneredge News, Tech post | Tagged: Kavoom, KavoomKM, KM software, synergry+, Synergy | Permalink
Posted by Russ
October 13, 2009
Since August I’ve been seeing some pretty spotty and in-consistent DNS service at my house. I run Comcast cable internet, and finally got sick of slow DNS response times, timeouts, and failures.
I learned that Comcast has decide to centrailze and essentially “customize” our DNS service so when something is not found we are re-directed to their own search page.
Here is some more information:
Comcast Re-direction goes nationwide
Your Rights with comcast DNS Re-direction
DON’T PUT UP WITH THIS!
Re-direct your DNS to an outside service like Open DNS. I did this and my problems are SOLVED!
Here are the instructions for you newbies:
Open DNS Step 1
For advanced users, just use these servers:
208.67.222.222
208.67.220.220
Fast DNS lookups are here again!
Leave a Comment » | CES Systems, Tech post | Tagged: comcast, openDNS, slow dns | Permalink
Posted by Russ
