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So, a year ago I asked a question about Dropbox (to myself). I wanted to know what it was and why anybody would use it. Since then I have been super busy working and had no chance to type up anything about what I had found out.

Dropbox: Cloud storage accessible from pretty much any internet device.
Usage: Too many to put them all down.

I originally signed up for it just to see what it is but as time passed I finally figured it out. Dropbox gives easy access to my iPhone files without having to sync up. Any pictures I take can be added to my private Dropbox picture folder and they will automatically sync up to my laptop. (This goes both ways as well)

Lately there’s been a lot of hubbub going around since we found out that Dropbox really wasn’t as secure as we were led to believe. That being said, I tend to treat any online storage/connection as unsecured, so I don’t put anything on in my Dropbox of private nature.

If you do want to use it for secure online storage, I’d definitely combine Dropbox with an encrypted folder created with Truecrypt. This way only you can open the contents.

Over the next week or so I’ll be checking into Dropbox and see what it’s all about. I’ll keep you updated. I hope.

Hey look, two updates in all of a week. Scary. Ok, I posted an update from my iPhone a while ago stating that I’d update with nifty Apps that I’m using and are very useful. So here they are.

AirSharing: ($2.99 or $6.99 for Pro) This app lets you turn your phone into a storage location wirelessly. You can access it through a webpage it sets up when it connects to the wifi ( or you can mount it as a drive) and you can upload files of any time for use later. It’s awesome when you forget to bring your sync cable with you and you need to get files.

UrbanSpoon: (FREE) I have found myself out and about during the day in locations I’m not used to and looking for food. Some days I can’t make up my mind what to get and other times I know what I want but don’t know where to trust to get it. This is exactly why I picked up UrbanSpoon. If you can’t make up your mind, just press the shake button and it will choose a nice place, near you, for you, show you were it’s at, and give you options to check reviews/comments others have left. If you know what you want but need to find a place to get it, you can set the options and it will show you what’s around. The best part is when you’re with a bunch of friends and nobody can make a decision on what they want to get. You just set the price range and shake it up. FOOD ROULETTE!

iPhlix: ($2.99) This app lets you log into your netflix account and update your queue. This was really nice for me because I can never remember movies I want to see until I’m out and away from a computer. Now when I think of one or when somebody talks about it, I can just boot up the app and add it right then. I can also see what movies I’m getting next or ditch a movie off my list when I hear a couple bad reviews.

The last one for today is Mixologist.

Mixologist: ($.99 or Free) Have you ever wanted to know what’s in your alcoholic beverage? Or how to make that elusive drink? Or what to make with the ingredients you have? MIXOLOGIST TO THE RESCUE! Type in the name and you’ll be able to check the different recipes to find out how to mix one up yourself. Or you can enter in the ingredients that you have at home and search for drinks you can make with them. I don’t use it much but it’s very handy when I do.

So since I was very busy (read: lazy) the Consumerist and Consumer Reports did my job for me. They had had enough of the GeekSquad/BestBuy “Optimization” fee so they decided to check it out for themselves. I wasn’t at all surprised by the findings.

I recently picked up an iPhone and have been playing around with it coming up with a set of apps that are needed for tech fun. I’ll soon have a few ready to post.

I used to use this a lot 5+ years ago but have slacked off on it because I hadn’t needed to connect to my home network in a long time. For those of us who can’t afford a full on VPN solution, this run through will help you get access to your home network plus much more on the cheap but stay secure. What you’ll need for this is SSHd and puTTy (download links below).
Read the rest of this entry »

I know, I keep getting busy. I will have the ending to the Geeksquad entry soon. I’m also going to do one on image gallery software, and hopefully rdp over ssh (not sure if I’ve done that one yet).

Geeksquad..oh how I hate you. You used to be such a good company until BestBuy (WorstBuy) bought you. I had a client this week with a very sad story about the WorstBuy and their minion GeekSquad. She purchased a brand new HP laptop with all the bells and whistles for about 900$. This isn’t bad. The bad part is that she bought it specifically to do work. Unfortunately, it was a 64 bit processor laptop with a 64 bit version of Vista on it and the software she needs to use is not compatible with the 64 bit setup. The one saving grace was that she had JUST purchased it and there is a 14 day return policy on laptops. So I explained that since she had purchased this laptop exclusively for work and that this wouldn’t work with out software, that she take it back and get a 32 bit laptop or at least a new laptop with a 32 bit version of Windows.

This is when the crap hit the fan. This poor soul was taken in by the GeekSquad minion. Upon purchase she fell for the “service” that the Squad could do for her to “optimize” her system and install her purchased version of Office for her. All of these tasks take all of 10 minutes to do, and if people have any clue what they actually did, would never pay 100+$ to do.

That all being said, when she tried to return the laptop, she was informed of the sad sad truth. Even though she could return the computer, she could not recoup the cost of the “service” she paid for. So in the whole transaction she would lose about 300$.

Now, here’s my thoughts. Before you spend all this money, you need to ask yourself three questions:

1) Do you want to do it yourself?
2) Do you know somebody who can do this for less?
3) Is somebody holding a gun to your head?

If you don’t want to do it yourself and you don’t know anybody else who can do it for less, then go for it. My only concession is that you take the laptop home first and see if you’re going to keep it. Once the 14 day return policy THEN you can pay for it. This makes sure that you won’t get stuck losing money.

If you don’t want to do it yourself but you know somebody who can do it (or at least most of it) for less then cook up some dinner, buy some pizza, or just pay out cash for somebody else to do it. This makes sure that you don’t get forced to get slammed by the Squad’s prices.

Finally, if you DO want to do it yourself, it’s REALLY not that hard. In fact, I’ll update in the next few days with most of the instructions for what they do. KK???

Good, I’ll make a nice calender event so I remember to do it. In fact I’ll do it on Saturday while I’m hanging around.

SOOOOO. TO BE CONTINUED!!!!

There have been a few people in the past week who have come down with some nasty viri (viruses? virupotomi?) and don’t have anything on their systems that they really cared about. They just wanted their systems usable again. My response to this is a System Restore. What a system restore does is to wipe the hard drive and reinstall everything to exactly the way it was when you bought the computer. Most manufacturers today either ship restore discs or create a hidden partition on the hard drive to accomplish this.

I figured I’d try to make this task a little easier by linking to the info from all major manufacturer.

Sorry guys, I’ve been so busy the past few months that I haven’t had time to do an update. Today I got together a few great tools for use to help make up for the time I’ve been gone.

The first topic is called PSTools. PSTools was a set of command line tools that were written by SysInternals. The company was bought by Microsoft and is now called WinInternals. The tools are awesome for admins because they do so much. You can use them to change local passwords accross the domain, get system information (including software installed) from multiple computers, and see who is logged into a specific computer. Of course there is more than just this. All-in-all, there are 12 programs and each one is great.

The next program is one called WhoisCL. Lately, I have been doing a lot of work with domain names and dns. Every time I want to check if a domain name has replicated, I’ve had to go to some whois website and have it search for me. When I was on a linux box it was easy to just open a command line and type “whois [domain name]” and press enter and it all came up just fine. So I started looking for a command line whois for windows….I found it. WhoisCL is just what I was looking for. Now when I want to do domain name checks, I press Windows-R, type cmd enter, then type “whois [domain name]” and press enter and it shows up right there. By the way, I changed the name of the executable like it says in the webpage so I can make it easier.

Lastly, I’ve been doing some migrations for a few friends to take their old data off of their old machine onto their newly purchased desktop. In order to do this, I used a program that Microsoft created with WindowsXp and is till there (although kind of hidden) called “File and Settings Transfer Wizard“. What this program does is make it easier to transfer data, settings, programs, etc, from one machine to another over a network, through a usb transfer cable, or an external hard drive. Since the links below have tons of information on the procedure I will just link them for you and stop rambling about it.

*BONUS PROGRAM* I just came up with a bonus program. Robocopy is a great copy command line tool (and now has a GUI). It not only copies the files you want to copy to a new location but it has error handling and restarts if the connection is lost. The command line version was released with the Windows Server 2003 Resource Kit a while ago and in the past few years somebody made a nice GUI for it so people who aren’t used to command line switches can use it too.

I hope this helps for a while. When I get another chance to add more nifty stuff, I will.