In part 1 I went through the process of deciding what service to use for my mail and ended up going with Google Apps. It allows me to keep my existing domain name, I can access my data from just about anywhere, I have access to a calendar and contacts and best of all its free. In part 2 I’ll go through the steps I used to get everything up and running and detail a couple of gotcha’s the almost had me going back to my home servers. Read more…
Being a bit of a tech head and knowing a thing or two about email it only seems proper to have my own email server and for the last few years I did. I started out with building a Linux server running SendMail then graduated up to running a full blow Microsoft Exchange infrastructure with Domain servers, DNS servers, Front End servers, Email gateways, the whole bit. Lately though its become a bit of a hassle to run. The servers constantly need to be updated, the server everything runs on is behind on some crucial updates and it’s starting to run a bit slow, etc. So I started looking at other solutions, cutting back on the number of servers running, move to a hosted solution, use an email forwarding solution, etc.
g
I’ve had the iPad now for a number of weeks and as I stated in my last post it has really turned into a great little companion for both business and personal use. Many of the apps that were a big hit on the iPhone and Touch have been ported over to the iPad in order to take advantage of the larger screen and faster processor. As well there have been several new apps built specifically for the iPad. So far my favorite apps can be broken down into 3 categories, business, fun/personal and kids. On the business side, Evernote, ToDo and Adobe Ideas top the list. Fun/Personal include Twitterific, CloudReaders & GoodReader, Sports Tap and Meteor Blitz. Finally, this list would not be complete without adding a couple of apps that my 2yr old can’t stop playing, TicTacToe, I Hear Ewe & MemoryCueHD. Read more…
I wasn’t going to do it, had reservations about it, didn’t think it would provide value…but my wife is awesome and did it for me. A couple of weeks ago she comes home with a shinny new 32GB Wi-Fi iPad!! With everything I heard about it being just a bigger iTouch I wasn’t sure what to expect. There were so many negative reviews to go with the positive reviews my fear was this would turn out to be one of those purchases you regret a couple of weeks later. I was wrong…this thing is awesome. Yes, it is a bigger iTouch or iPhone without the phone and for me that really separates it from the rest.
In my day job I deal with many questions regarding email and spam and considering how important people think email is they really don’t know much about it. Here I’ll try to go through some of the more common questions I get and try to dispel some of the more common myths. Read more…
I purchased my first eReader today, not the Kindle or Sony eReader but a Kobo. For those that don’t know Kobo is a new startup from Indigo Books and Music that sells exclusively online content, specifically books. Their new eReader comes preloaded with 100 books and the online store boosts a collection of over 2 million titles. Read more…
Skype is great it allows me to keep in touch with many of my family and friends that live far away. Recently I’ve run into a bit of an issue with the video, I’ll start a conversation with someone and after about 5minutes the video will freeze and my webcam will just hang, the audio still works and I can continue the conversation. The real problem starts when I try to end the call, when trying to close the conversation window Skype just hangs and causes my whole system to just freeze. The only resolution is to restart Windows, this is the only problem I’ve run into with Windows 7 since started using it back in Beta. Read more…
I have a test VMWare environment that uses a separate iSCSI server for storage, it works great for testing new servers and getting different environments up. Problems arise though whenever there’s a power outage, the server running VMWare comes on automatically but the iSCSI server needs to be booted manually. This causes problems with the images stored on the iSCSI server, they show as being disconnected. So what needs to be done is to re-connect them so they can be started up. It isn’t a difficult process but it did freak me out a little the first time I had to do it. Read more…
Microsoft’s release of the new operating system, Windows 7, has many people looking to either upgrade their current systems or run out and buy the latest and greatest in hardware. Whether you are looking to upgrade or buy new there are specific hardware components that are required to get the most out of the new operating system. From the processor to the hard drive each piece needs to fit together to give the best performance. According to Microsoft’s website the minimum hardware required to run Windows 7 are: Read more…
Ontario has recently implemented a new law banning the use of handheld devices while driving, since October 26 people were given warnings when caught using a cell phone, but as of February 1, 2010 you can now expect to get a ticket of up to $500. The way around this is to use a Bluetooth or hands free setup. I recently purchased a new Bluetooth headset by Jawbone, this is the second headset I’ve bought and so far I’ve been very impressed with their offerings. Read more…