Relics of the IT underworld

    It feels good to be back in front of my computer and writing about my favorite subject. That would of course be the subject of IT and technology. It's been a crazy couple of years and in that short timespan things have drastically changed in the landscape of ones and zeros. Everybody seemed to think that the cloud was going to be this big disaster and why would we ever move to it. In all honesty some companies are still hesitant to move to the cloud even with the mass migrations that are happening now. Over the last few years I have spent my priority focused on AWS and consuming the multitude of services that they provide. This statement alone is enough to get me burned at the stake from other people that believe in other cloud providers. That being said what am I saying when I put out the phrase "AWS only as cool as you make it" ?     For starters, most of the services are not complete entities unto themselves. You will find that although they provide certain ...

             A Study of the Cloud Advantage                                     Introduction In the Authors many years of experience there have been several exciting changes to the technology field. Throughout this paper many of these changes and facts will be delivered in the hopes of creating a knowledgeable understanding of what the cloud is and how it can be truly beneficial. The field of computers is a constantly changing field. Updates in things such as hardware and software are always changing how things can be accomplished. One thing that is now occurring is the advancement towards servers, a special kind of computer, being hosted in the cloud. The cloud is a recently introduced idea that started out as a place companies could host software. Hosting softwa...

            Over the years there have been several changes in how software is developed, and with each of these iterations there have been several growths in how complex software systems are developed. One of these ideas is continuous integration or CI for short and is gaining much traction in how new software projects are developed. Over the course of the next few paragraphs I am going to delve in to the world of CI concepts and explore it from a high level perspective in hopes of giving those out there that may have heard the term a glimpse into what it means and what benefits your organization could gain from it.             In the beginning there were developers and they developed code from early in the day to late at night. Once done they took their punch cards and hoped that the mighty machine would validate that what they had been striving for was correct. It...

Well time for another exciting tech tip as we stumble along the shadow of the valley of dead computers. I know that most people will say OS/2 what is that, but this week is detailing the OS/2 trick to revival. I recently encountered this beast while working on a voicemail system that was about 16 years old. It was a good voicemail system and didn't need anything fancy so OS/2 fit the bill at the time. The first word of advice I would have is to make sure you have plenty of medicine by your working space of choice as OS/2 is not around for obvious reasons which you will later discover and need this for. The biggest problem I found with the operating system was it is not very "user frinedly ". I say this because a couple of things I did while restoring expected you to just except the factor that it happened just like magic. I like the simplistic "I completed" message and see why it helps to enforce our users into thinking everythings okay. Try not getting one wit...

Have you ever found yourself with needing to make a copy of a CD for backup? I have this happen all the time especially since I hate to have a big book of software taking up space with everything else I have to worry about. Never fear DD is here! This handy utility has been around for a while but there is one caveat you need to watch out for in Windows 7. Below you will see the problem Now everybody looking is probably scratching there heads saying hey doesn't look like an error because it says completed successfully. Well my Friends unfortunately it does far from complete when you go to look for the file. The good news is there is an easy solution. Close all of your file manager and my computer locations that have either a drive or network location open. Magically once this is done you now have the ability to make the ISO you were trying to make. I would like to see them make a more detailed error for this.

Had an interesting question run across my mind today. How do you know that Microsoft really acknowledges a company as a certified partner? After all it's great that you use the logo on your page but the logo is just like most photos of the Loch N ess monster, Easy to fake. I could put the logo on my blog if i wanted to simply by right clicking and saving a copy and then uploading it. How scary was that ? So to find out the answer to the question everyone wants to know I simply called on the resources of Microsoft themselves. Everybody tends to think that Microsoft is a big giant whale that you never want to talk to. This couldn't be farther from the truth! Every time I have had a question I have gotten professional and courteous representatives to help me through my issues. This experience was no different and I was able to find my answer quickly. Not only was the answer easy to find but it gave me a new tool to look at if a partner is really a partner. That way if I am lo...

For all of you out there that are young pups who have to listen to people like me say I remember the day and trust me there are older days actually, Punch cards for example,vaacum tubes, if we really want to go for the gusto lets talk about an abacus. Now that's out of the wayonto the real matter at hand. After an enjoyable weekend enter the dreaded Monday. Set the scene with an entrance into another dimension where everybody in the meeting is talking about how well the production line is running. Lulled into this false sense of security I come out of the meeting to discover that yes indeed there must be some sort of strange vacuum in the conference room which allows for an alternate set of reality to play out. With the alternate reality bubble burst you are immediately accosted by a technology that was developed when I was growing up and what fun would it be without having to remember how to actually use it. Now if anybody does a little Google sea...