Sadly my Brita Water purifier probably doesn't have these features...
Yikes, maybe they need to purify my movie popcorn too.
Hopefully the BSOD will be a 3D Avatar telling me to "just try to press control alt delete" 3D Windows Phone
The misguided thoughts of a technologist trapped in a foodies' body
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Monday, March 21, 2011
Chrome OS Update
I kept hearing everyone talking about Chrome OS updates. Strangely though when I choose "Check for Updates" nothing returned. It always said I was up-to-date. So I decided to log off completely and shut the device down to see if that coaxed the update out of Google. It did. Finally I was running
Chrome OS 0.11.257.18 (Official Build) dev-channel x86-mario
Google Chrome 11.0.696.14
Having been running a 1o version of the Chrome browser on every OS I use, I was wondering when I would finally see a version 10 of the Chrome OS. But it seems I am not up to 11 (not to be confused with Spinal Tap's 11).
So right off the bat I notice a couple of things:
1) The trackpad seems a little more responsive.
2) Now there is a button in the upper right corner to make it easier to switch between windows.
I am sure there are others but those two jump out the fastest.
A PC Mag article says Google has tweeted it has shipped out all the Cr-48's it plans to ship out. In other news Sony is supposedly working on their own ChromeBook and a hybrid that would be both PC and ChromeBook in the same notebook. The hybrid would have an externally accessible graphics card that would allow you to use the notebook as a workstation after you hook it up to either a docking station or some type of device similar to a small form factor PC>
I will keep you updated once I find other fixes.
Chrome OS 0.11.257.18 (Official Build) dev-channel x86-mario
Google Chrome 11.0.696.14
Having been running a 1o version of the Chrome browser on every OS I use, I was wondering when I would finally see a version 10 of the Chrome OS. But it seems I am not up to 11 (not to be confused with Spinal Tap's 11).
So right off the bat I notice a couple of things:
1) The trackpad seems a little more responsive.
2) Now there is a button in the upper right corner to make it easier to switch between windows.
I am sure there are others but those two jump out the fastest.
A PC Mag article says Google has tweeted it has shipped out all the Cr-48's it plans to ship out. In other news Sony is supposedly working on their own ChromeBook and a hybrid that would be both PC and ChromeBook in the same notebook. The hybrid would have an externally accessible graphics card that would allow you to use the notebook as a workstation after you hook it up to either a docking station or some type of device similar to a small form factor PC>
I will keep you updated once I find other fixes.
GroupMe - New Android and feature phone app
At SXSW a new program was introduced, GroupMe. I have downloaded and installed it and I have found it very useful already. With GroupMe you create groups of friends or family by their cell numbers. Then you can text to one phone number, which GroupMe gives you, and all of your group get the message. This server even works on non-smart phones. So you can go online, create the account, get your conference phone number, then you can text this number to communicate with all of your friends. So far the app and service are free. I do not yet know what the business model for this is, but I like it so far. You can also call the number and ring all your friends at once. Pretty cool. The site for GroupMe is http://groupme.com/ Give it a try. They have an app for Android and for iPhone.
Using the App
Once you create your group, the interface on Android phones looks similar to a chat session. Or the messaging interface that came with Android 2.2. You see the pictures of those you are chatting with and their messages in cartoon balloons. Reply to the session and everyone in your group gets the message. When they reply all see their reply back. It is great.
Using the App
Once you create your group, the interface on Android phones looks similar to a chat session. Or the messaging interface that came with Android 2.2. You see the pictures of those you are chatting with and their messages in cartoon balloons. Reply to the session and everyone in your group gets the message. When they reply all see their reply back. It is great.
Thursday, March 17, 2011
The Art of Meeting
I live in a world of meetings. Most meetings are unproductive and at times counter-productive.
How do you prevent wasting valuable time? Download one of the meeting calculator. Type in the number of people, take a guess how much the group of people make per hour, and how long the meeting the meeting is going to last. How much will it cost per hour or per minute to have this meeting? Yikes. Throw in pricy consultants and a project manager and this meeting could bankrupt small company.
So how do you fix this?
1)Plan the meeting before you schedule the meeting.
Create an agenda; plan what needs to be discussed.
2)Only invite the people you need to the meeting.
Counter-productive people need not attend.
3)Meet with stakeholders seperately.
Give stakeholders a seperate meeting. Give them their updates and statuses. By meeting with them seperately your team meeting can focus and avoid politics. Plus your team can be more open with ideas and even unpopular status information.
4)Assign someone to take notes.
Sometimes a meeting happens and everyone forgets what was said. Someone other than the meeting facilitator needs to take notes so the meeting can stay on track with the agenda.
5)Have a timekeeper.
So many meetings go on and on about a point and time gets away. When you create the agenda try to determine how long each topic should take.
6)Send out the agenda ahead of time.
This allows others to ask questions ahead of time that may help provide information ahead of time. This may even shorten or even eliminate the meeting.
Good luck out there. Think before you schedule that next meeting; the time and sanity you save may be your own.
How do you prevent wasting valuable time? Download one of the meeting calculator. Type in the number of people, take a guess how much the group of people make per hour, and how long the meeting the meeting is going to last. How much will it cost per hour or per minute to have this meeting? Yikes. Throw in pricy consultants and a project manager and this meeting could bankrupt small company.
So how do you fix this?
1)Plan the meeting before you schedule the meeting.
Create an agenda; plan what needs to be discussed.
2)Only invite the people you need to the meeting.
Counter-productive people need not attend.
3)Meet with stakeholders seperately.
Give stakeholders a seperate meeting. Give them their updates and statuses. By meeting with them seperately your team meeting can focus and avoid politics. Plus your team can be more open with ideas and even unpopular status information.
4)Assign someone to take notes.
Sometimes a meeting happens and everyone forgets what was said. Someone other than the meeting facilitator needs to take notes so the meeting can stay on track with the agenda.
5)Have a timekeeper.
So many meetings go on and on about a point and time gets away. When you create the agenda try to determine how long each topic should take.
6)Send out the agenda ahead of time.
This allows others to ask questions ahead of time that may help provide information ahead of time. This may even shorten or even eliminate the meeting.
Good luck out there. Think before you schedule that next meeting; the time and sanity you save may be your own.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
How to remotely install software
Over the years I have used many Jedi Mind Tricks and utilities to install software onto remote users' PCs. For a while I used to run Microsoft System Management Server (SMS) to push out software and when SMS (not to be confused with "Short Messaging Server", though it is easy to confuse it with "slow Microsoft software") worked, it did a great job of pushing out software. After a while SMS became a problem child at times and I had done some creative things using DOS batch files and registry hacks. In fact those are still my favorite way to do things. I have also done some VBScripting to push out things as well but this doesn't work as well as I would like.
Today I received a message, "How do we push out software with a batch file and have the install run with admin rights?" Well, I knew I had done it before using some Windows Resource kit utils but I hadn't done it in a while. So I began "Googling" to refresh my memory. Along the way I discovered a utility from SysInternals (which Microsoft wisely bought out a few years ago). This utility is called psexec. With it, you can remotely execute programs onto a machine. In my case, I used it to push out Google Chrome browser to people.
You can use this very easily, here is how:
First, you need to go to this page and grab the psexec tools.
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897553
I put mine in the c:\windows\system32 directory. But you could also open it in another folder and add it to your system path. You will need to run the psexec once to accept the license agreement. When you copy, don't let it overwrite your existing DLL.
Next, create a file In my case, I created a file on the root of C: called serverlist1.txt
Populate it as follows: (one PC name per line)
yourpcname
myneighborspcname
When the file is ready, run this. I ran it on my cubical neighbor's PC and my machine. Probably not perfect test subjects, but the psexec runs as you unless you specify a different user, which is an option if you know their password.
Here is the command (I drop to a DOS command window and run it as follows:
psexec @c:\serverlist1.txt -s -i -d msiexec /i \\mmyserver\public\chrome\GoogleChromeStandaloneEnterprise.msi /qn
The /qn is a MSIEXEC thing that tells it to install quietly. Here are some helpful links along the way.
Windows Environment Variables
A good article that gave me the clues I needed to get this working
Today I received a message, "How do we push out software with a batch file and have the install run with admin rights?" Well, I knew I had done it before using some Windows Resource kit utils but I hadn't done it in a while. So I began "Googling" to refresh my memory. Along the way I discovered a utility from SysInternals (which Microsoft wisely bought out a few years ago). This utility is called psexec. With it, you can remotely execute programs onto a machine. In my case, I used it to push out Google Chrome browser to people.
You can use this very easily, here is how:
First, you need to go to this page and grab the psexec tools.
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897553
I put mine in the c:\windows\system32 directory. But you could also open it in another folder and add it to your system path. You will need to run the psexec once to accept the license agreement. When you copy, don't let it overwrite your existing DLL.
Next, create a file In my case, I created a file on the root of C: called serverlist1.txt
Populate it as follows: (one PC name per line)
yourpcname
myneighborspcname
When the file is ready, run this. I ran it on my cubical neighbor's PC and my machine. Probably not perfect test subjects, but the psexec runs as you unless you specify a different user, which is an option if you know their password.
Here is the command (I drop to a DOS command window and run it as follows:
psexec @c:\serverlist1.txt -s -i -d msiexec /i \\mmyserver\public\chrome\GoogleChromeStandaloneEnterprise.msi /qn
The /qn is a MSIEXEC thing that tells it to install quietly. Here are some helpful links along the way.
Windows Environment Variables
A good article that gave me the clues I needed to get this working
Suffering burn out in the IT field?
Here is a good blog post on alternative careers for burnt out IT professionals.
10-alternative-careers-for-burned-out-it-workers
10-alternative-careers-for-burned-out-it-workers
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