Custom software developer. IT consultant. Geek.
Archive for February, 2007
DevConnections Spring 2007 – I’m Officially In
Feb 25, 2007
It’s official — I’ll be attending DevConnections in Orlando this March. It was a tough call between DevConnections (Orlando, March 2007), DevTeach (Montreal, May 2007), and TechEd (Orlando, June 2007).
Hamachi – Nice free VPN software
Feb 25, 2007
I was looking around for some nice free VPN software for a client today. They aren’t running a Windows Server, so currently they’re just using the VPN hosting built in to Windows XP Professional. However, this method is limited to one simultaneous connection, and the client is outgrowing that limit.
A while ago, I ran across Hamachi – a free software solution that can traverse firewalls, etc. to easily create VPNs. I couldn’t remember the name, however, when I went to look for it today. Finally, I found it:http://hamachi.cc/
Apparently Himachi has been purchased by LogMeIn — another solution that I’m a More >
Daylight Savings Time 2007 Update for Windows Mobile
Feb 23, 2007
So a few weeks ago, I downloaded the Daylight Savings Time 2007 Update for my Motorola Q (Windows Mobile 5 Smartphone Edition) device, but it didn’t seem to do anything. When I went to appointments occurring between March 11 and April 1, they were still showing up 1 hour early. Perhaps, I thought, my hosted Exchange provider has not applied the DST update on their server. However, today I found the simple solution to my problem. To apply the DST update, you have to change your timezone to something else, and then change it back to your actual timezone. Strange, More >
Exchange Server 2007 free trial
Feb 16, 2007
I found something neat today — a website that gives you a free 5-day trial of Exchange Server 2007. This lets you try out the latest version of Outlook Web Access, but more exciting is that it lets you try out Exchange Server’s new phone-based access, where you can access anything in Outlook via telephone. They give you a toll-free number that you can call into to try it when you sign up. It’s all free, hosted by Unisys!https://signmeup.exchange2007demo.com/exchange2007demo/
The next version of Microsoft Office
Feb 15, 2007
Microsoft Office 2007 is out the door now, so everyone is starting to wonder “What’s next?” A long time ago, Office was given version numbers, like Word 6.0. With Windows 95, that changed to a year, yield Office 95, Office 97, and Office 2000. Then, with Windows XP, they gave Office a matching moniker, so we had Office XP. Since then, it’s been back to years with Office 2003 and Office 2007. However, through all of this, the version number system has still been maintained. So Office 2007 is actually Office version 12. It was actually referred to as Office More >
Outlook and I are celebrating our 8th anniversary
Feb 1, 2007
While I was doing my Outlook Daylight Savings Time update, I realized something neat… this month marks 8 years of calendar history for me in Outlook. In February 1999, I first started using Outlook to manage my calendar, having switched over from the Palm desktop, and before that an obscure calendar program for a strange little PDA I had.
Outlook and I have been through a lot together. When our relationship first started, I was just a sophomore in college. In the past 8 years, I’ve graduated, started a business, gotten married, traveled, and had two kids. 6,022 calendar entries later, Outlook’s More >
My Outlook got its DST update today
Feb 1, 2007
Microsoft Outlook 2007 prompted for its Daylight Saving Time update today. I was pretty excited about this, until it told me that it would update all 6,022 items in my calendar with the new time zone. “You’re going to do WHAT to my calendar items?” I said. So up came a list of the 6,022 items, ready fo rtheir update. “Alright, what’s important?” I thought. So I went through and selected some important appointments over the next several months (enough for a spread out sample set) and wrote down their start times. Then off the update went. Quick? NO. Now granted More >
Self-Activating the “Watch Now” Feature in Netflix
Feb 1, 2007
Several weeks ago, Netflix announced that they would be rolling out a feature that lets you watch movies on-demand via your Netflix account. They said that this would be a gradual roll-out, and users should log in and watch for a “Watch Now” tab to appear in their online account.
I logged into my account this morning, but still no “Watch Now” tab. So in the top-right corner, I clicked “Help”. At the top of the list of “Quick Links” was “Where do I find movies I can watch instantly on my PC?” I clicked on that link and was taken to More >