How to survive in OS battle in year 2007

First of all wish everyone a Happy Ney Year! We're on the era of expecting windows VISTA to come out and surprise windows fans. I've once reviewed the windows Vista and couldn't find much interesting things to stick around it. I'm really disappointed to hear minimum/ recommended hardware requirement for the OS. You can run any Linux OS in very good condition in that kind of specs.(This is my personal blog so bare with my ideas...lol)
But things may change as usual. If we look into the Windows OS history most of us keep on moaning and blaming when they initially released their OS. I remember most of us blamed windows XP and told we'll stick to to windows 2000 Professional no matter what. But it changed ultimately. Even though we moan about the windows Vista hardware requirement in the market we se hardware components exceeding Vista requirement and far more capability packed. But it's the question is how far we want to go on purchasing hardware and software to do the same task we did years back. As always security and information theft is a the biggest risk in the current and present future. So software vendors have busy time looking after their product and keep on covering their products t minimize such attacks.
As a summary of the situation I see year 2007 will be interesting place for OS battle. With Microsoft windows Vista and their latest server product range their will be significant change from the fans for the Linux world. They will think twice before jumping to OS.

Is Ubuntu really play well than windows?

I've posted about the Ubuntu Linux distro in my earlier post. Since that I've been regularly using it as my main OS in my laptop. I've to admit everyday I'm loving it. I wonder why I didn't make that move long time ago. Yeah you can argue saying windows support various software and easy to install but what the heck Linux got more software than windows. You'll almost find a software to competitive to windows software. BTW Linux is not an operating system to a geek who wanna try all the latest software all the time but hey I got a answer for that too. Save the money to purchase VMware for Linux and install Windows virtually if you can't lave M$. (I also need M$ due to my clients support ) So I keep it in my virtual environment in order to support clients. I'll sharing some of distro pics in order to share my experience with Linux. Anyway I found downside also, for gamers Linux will be no no..pls go to windows. But I found simple games to enjoy.

Linux OS in a USB Flash Drive

Most of us now aware of the Bootable OS CD's. For those who is new to this it's just a CD that will load the whole operating system into teh memory without thouching your Hard disk. Most of the tiem the main OS will be Linux. For windows XP users who needs to peek into the Linux world, this si teh ideal soultion. They can feel the OS without installing it to their system. But now time has change bootable option has been step forward to USB flash drives! This is much more faster thanks to the USB 2.0 . This means it's much more faster than loading from the CD. Otehr advantage is your CD-rom is free for you to use and you can recover data from your non bootable HDD and can write it to a writable CD. So without much introduction I'll introduct to one of the link I found in a web search.

http://www.pendrivelinux.com/index.php (This site provide instructions to install various Linux flavours to USB drives. The instructions are easy to follow to a newbie.) If you're still not sure to do this then go ahead and buy a USB flash drive preinstalled with Linux OS. Good option will be buying the following product,

http://store.mandriva.com/product_info.php?products_id=277

Cheers!

Free Online data backup

There are many commercial online backup software and products available for a resonable price. While searching through the net I found a free edition which gives away 2GB online space to backup. The usage is very easy though restore option is not straight forward but not difficult at all. (After all it is a free verion) They also offer commercial version starting with 30GB options.

https://mozy.com/?ref=XEL4QC

Using UBUNTU in my Laptop

In my previous post I've mention about the Ubuntu Linux. This is the most famous and easy to use Linux OS I've found. I decided to move to Linux instead of Windows in my Dell Inspiron 6000 laptop. To my surprise I found Linux Os if much more quicker in responding time than the Windows XP. I'm really happy about that speed gain up. My machine spec is Intel M1.6 GHz 512 MB Ram, 40 GB 5400RPM HDD,...oh and share memory for the Intel VGA card.

First start with Ubuntu Linux 6.05 version and found out they have released the 6.10 version on 26th October 2006. This one code name as Edgy Eft. Upgrade process too long time than the new installation but it has greatly improved the speed. I prefer o stick with Gnome desktop environment. It is less graphics and response is much quicker. But if you're moving from Windows environment this will not make you unhappy.

Vmware player in Ubuntu Linux

I've been searching forums and Googling about this one. I find various answerers to this. Some of them are very easy to follow just bring up the terminal window and type one command and it'll do the rest!!(Eg : sudo apt-get install vmware-player)
I was really happy I don't have to download any packages and go through lots of fiddling, unfortunately this didn't work for me. I get and error message when I tried this option. So what case the problem? It's just a simple matter of enabling the correct repositories. All you have to do is,

system-->software sources-->(select) software restricted by copyright or legal issues (multiverse).

After that it will update the sources list with additional download locations. So that's it. Go to the terminal windows (command prompt in windows language ...lol) and type sudo apt-get install vmware-player.


















If you like to install the Vmware-server in your Ubuntu system then visit the folowing link,

http://www.howtoforge.com/ubuntu_vmware_server

Welcome to Linux World

I've been always curious to try out new operating systems. Trying to move away from expensive software like Microsoft and move to the freedom world called Linux. I think I found the perfect Linux distro to that which is "Ubuntu" This is one of the user friendly Linux distro for beginners. In my understanding with Linux I will prefer this one most. At the moment of writing the latest version is 6.10 called "Edgy" . As many Linux distributions this one also allows you to test this OS in bootable CD. Ubuntu linux is having few flavors. Kubuntu which is default desktop is KDE. and Ubuntu is having Gnome. Even though you can try both in the same environment I found Gnome is much less resource hungry and works faster. I've been used to Windows environment and thought moving to Linux will be really difficult. We all have been habbit of GUI environment of Windows and really afraid to go away from clicking mouse buttons (Lol). Anyway Linux GUI has been improved vastly. It almost like you're using windows environment and the great thing is applications are loading very faster. I hope the following links will provide you appearance of the Ubuntu linux and make a apatite to try them out. After all don't be afraid to freedom!!

Screen shots

more screenshots

Some free utlities to make your life easier

1. Acrobat Alternative. (Loads very quickly) Download

2. Photoshop alternative ( to my knowledge) Download

3. Find your computer hardware information . Authors page

4. Did you whish for a proper windows temp files cleaner? This is it. Download

5. Good firelwall software (5 stars goes for this product from me) Download

Hope someone will find these untilties helpful in their day to day working life.

Walking through Windows Vista

Always wanted to get my hands into latest software and test them out. I was so anxious to get my hands into Vista and try it out. Heard they released teh RC1 23rd of September for public. Manged to download a small 2.3 GB iso file. (lol) At first I went through upgrading which took nearly 8 hours and ended up with BSOD!
Next armed with a another hard disk went through the installtion which took nearly 1.30 hours. My machine specs are (AMD XP 2500+, 1024 Ram and 120 GB 5400 RPM hard disk) Windows Vista gave me only 3.4 points out of 10 to my machine! (too bab) But all along it runs smoothly. I am quite happy with that performance but so far didn't dig too much into the features even though I notice Microsoft had taken quite a step improving the visual effect rather than finxing the software problems (lol) I've attached few pics to show how it looks like. I couldn;t run my favourite programs like Alcohol120% CD emulating software and Nero. But manged to install the VM Ware workstation software in it.

Testing MS Office 2007 Beta 2

Microsoft Office 2007.

I’m glad of the new appearance of the MS office product suite. You can publish your word document straightly to you Blog! So far I’m in the initial stage of testing the software. But I’m already starting to love its features. Now Microsoft has released MS Office Beta2 for public. You can download it from following link,

http://www.microsoft.com/office/preview/beta/getthebeta.mspx

Microsoft also recommend to download and test your system for compatibility with the existing documents. Tool has been provided to download and test in your machines.

http://www.microsoft.com/office/preview/beta/converter.mspx

Susantha

02^nd June 2006

Playing Diablo 2

Finally manged to finsihed the game after 3 days contiouns battle. I've to admit in the end of the game I used to registry editor other wise I'll be playinh this for months. 2 years ago I plyead half of this game for 6 months but never saw the ending. Now it's time to try this out in online mode!!
I've to admit I'm like to play computer games as a hobby. I whish I can upgade my AMD XP desktop in order to play better games but not doing so will also let me time to spend in my studies. Well I'm fooling my ownself!!!

SBS Specialist

Finally passed the Small Business Server Administration Exam. this one is really cool, because the product itself test your knowledge in Exchange, ISA and windows 2003 server itself. I've to admit passing the exam really doesn't mean I'm a specialist in that product. Experience has to be count into that in order to wear that crown. But in the other hand I've got MCP to my credential list which is a good thing.

Learn by watching!

While browsing through the net I came accorss a good web site. (http://www.blogcastrepository.com) This is a cool web site. You can watch videos, show how to do some of the Microsoft tasks. If you're a pro you can publish your own blogs to the site.

ISA, Exchange and SBS update

After installing the SBS server in a test machine I got the chance to test the ISA server for the first time. I've to admit the GUI interface is pretty cool. I think newbies will love how simplify the the tasks to be created and started. After all Microsoft has thrown away some utilities that really help newbies.

I found ISA Server best analyzer tool & MBSA (Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer) are really helpful. Thumbs up for the MS guys developing these tools. It's really easy to find how powerful or how weak is your server and what patches you're missing. So if there are any SBS administrators (newbie and pro) I think this is a must tool in their toolbox.

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/tools/mbsa2/default.mspx - MS MBSA

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=d22ec2b9-4cd3-4bb6-91ec-0829e5f84063&DisplayLang=en - MS ISA Best Pratices Analyzer

Another day in January 2006

1. Came up with a CCH login error complaining by user. CCH pro system gives an error "Maximum sessions" had been used. To solve this you’ll have to go to file and select Detach user" option and remove the currently logged in users. These are orphaned sessions which have not been closed properly. This will also depend on the number of license you've accrued from CCH. If the number of license is 4 then 5th user cannot login and access the database.

2. Mnaged to isntall Clisn't UPS software (APC smart UPS ) by installing following orderly manner
Agent software, server software and fianlly console software.

Exchange SP2 notes

Microsoft had already released the SP2 for the Exchange server. With lots of goddies to the It people and the users. So it's time to dig into the web and read lot of info. My concern is all about how it apply to the Small business Server 2003. Surfing around few favourite sites I came across a blog which gives you nice article about the upgrade and other info for a newbie (just like me..) So it's my pleasure to share it wiht all the other readers.

http://www.vladville.com/about.asp

Hope this site will give you some idea about the SP2 even though he is not going very deep about it.

Usful links I came across in my studies.

www.overclockers.com - My first subscription to a technical web site and where I came a overcloking addict. Really cool web site adn you can get lot of help from the techncial forum.

www.smallbizserver.net - this is a site I came to hang around most of them time, when I found out there is a server software called Small Business Server. Now I've providing support for this product so sticking to get more information from these guys. Cool techncail forum too.

www.yousendit.com - To send a large file to someone. If your ISP won't allow you then these guys will allow you upto 1 GB.

www.computerperformance.co.uk - Can't say much about this site because I'm still getting into it. But it's seems to be useful to anyone because this guy offer lot of information. thanks pal keep up your good work, at least I'm promoting you in a good manner.

www.msexchange.org - Another paradise to hang around if ya scratching your head to troubleshoot Exchange server.

www.petri.co.il - Great web asite, and he is doign a great service. Really worth a looking. It's all about windows server software and windows XP tweaks.


So far that's all for now until I find intrestign places for you all. Well these are my tasing but if anyoen looks for more info please let me know soI'll be keen enough to look intot hat also.

Configuring POP3 Connector in SBS 2003

Oki I'm back to my own space after a long time. Keep on pulling my hair to resolve a Small Business Server 2003 matter for the past few weeks. When you are a real idiot with less knowledge and trying to do a big task it is really painful hahahah! You'll have to be in that position to feel that. Anyway my task is to configure an Exchange mail sever to receive mails from ISP and then send mails to outside world. Things will be easy if this is a new company and wanted to host their own e-mail server but in my scenario this company have already started and they have 200 branch offices!! Head office is also not hosting mail server but relying on ISP to do that one. So here I'm with a branch office screaming they want to keep their own mails in a server. Initially I didn't have any idea how to configure this apart from the information I grab from the Internet but sometimes they are so confusing. Finally I managed to setup my own server computer and install SBS 2003 to it. Today I successfully completed the mail part and managed to send and receive e-mail to branch members.
Big thanks goes to the SBS development team making the taks wizard driven. It makes really easy to understand what we are doing. To me it's all about configuring the POP3 connector to reterive the mails from the ISP gloabal accoutn and deliver it to the relavant user accounts. The task is completed after several mouse clicks.

Configure 2 Desktop computers

Configured 2 desktop computers. Need to install CCH today. Configuration start on 13-10-2005. One has to be Dispatched today. CCH will be isntalled as client version without the databse instalation. After that need to move other 2 computers which need to be created as peer to peer. HP Printer also has to be configured to the network.

First Post

This is my sample post.