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- Microsoft App-V 4.5 Hits Release Candidate
- Troubleshooting an ever growing Usrvol_sftfs.pkg file
- anthony.clendenen@gmail.com sent you a link to content of interest
- Sysinternals Tools Can Now Run From The Web
- Get FREE One Year Subscription of CA Anti-Virus - Tweaking with Vishal
- Mars Lander Phoenix Touches Down Successfully!
- Scientist Creates Cold Fusion For the First Time In Decades [Cold
- Using Maintenance Windows While Patching
- ConfigMgr SP1 Goes RTM
- Virtual PC Guy’s Weblog - Hyper-V Clustering Step-by-Step Guide
Recent Posts
- Microsoft App-V 4.5 Hits Release Candidate
- Troubleshooting an ever growing Usrvol_sftfs.pkg file
- anthony.clendenen@gmail.com sent you a link to content of interest
- Sysinternals Tools Can Now Run From The Web
- Get FREE One Year Subscription of CA Anti-Virus - Tweaking with Vishal
- Mars Lander Phoenix Touches Down Successfully!
- Scientist Creates Cold Fusion For the First Time In Decades [Cold
- Using Maintenance Windows While Patching
- ConfigMgr SP1 Goes RTM
- Virtual PC Guy’s Weblog - Hyper-V Clustering Step-by-Step Guide
Sysinternals Tools Can Now Run From The Web
Categories: Cool Tools, Downloads, Free!, Microsoft, News, TechNet, Tools.
While they also updated several of their tools like Process Explorer, Handle, ZoomIt and SigCheck, the much more interesting news is that you don’t have to download the tools any longer and put them somewhere in %PATH% you can execute them directly from the website. How cool is that?
From a command prompt or Run simply type \\live.sysinternals.com\tools\<tool name here>
And this site has all of their tools, check it out on their site at http://live.sysinternals.com
You can sill download the tools if you want to use them locally, go to the same link and click on the exe and/or the chm file to download them.
This is a quote from the About_This_Site.txt file.
“What is this?
This is a file share allowing access to all Sysinternals utilities. We have developed this to test an alternate distribution mechanism for our utilities.
This will allow you to run these tools from any computer connected to the Internet without having to navigate to a webpage, download and extract the zip file.
If you are unfamiliar with Microsoft Windows Sysinternals, it is highly recommended that you visit the website at http://technet.microsoft.com/sysinternals before using these tools.
If you have any questions or comments on this file share, please email syssite@microsoft.com
Regards,
The Microsoft Windows Sysinternals Team”
Regards,
Anthony
Anthony Clendenen | Solutions Engineer | 1E
Microsoft MVP System Center Configuration Manager
© Anthony Clendenen
Ronni Pedersen’s Blog Visio 2007 Pro ConfigMgr & OpsMgr Connectors
Categories: Blogroll, Config Manager, ConfigMgr, Cool Tools, Downloads, Office, SCCM.
Download the Visio add in and the web server component to connect and generate datasets to connect to your existing diagrams or auto generate your diagrams for your infrastructure monitoring needs. See your data from OpsManager and ConfigManager live in Visio diagrams.
Ronni Pedersen’s Blog Site: Microsoft Office Visio 2007 Pro SCOM & SCCM Connectors
Regards,
Anthony
Anthony Clendenen | Solutions Engineer | 1E
© Anthony Clendenen
Turning Your Wii Into a Streaming Media Center
Categories: ConfigMgr, Cool Tools, Downloads, Free!, How-To, MMS 2008.
After you win the Wii at the 1E booth (311) at MMS and you have made Pro on all the sports, have made all your family 
members and friends into Wii peeps, the next logical step is to stream all your music and videos with it from your PC upstairs to your Wii downstairs in your media room. XBox does this out of the box (no pun intended) from what I have heard, since my daughter is only in second grade and my son is just in junior high they aren’t quite ready for an XBox, plus I suck at video games so I am not a gamer. The Wii doesn’t have a whole suite of additional features, and streaming music and video is not one of them. It does come with a built in wireless adapter so you can get it on your home wireless pretty easy. It also uses Opera for a web browser. I mention both of these because you will need them for streaming.
I was first introduced to Orb several years ago when I got my first Netgear wireless router, it was 802.11B, so that should give you some idea on how many years ago. The Orb CD came in the box and I checked it out to see what it was. Set it up, showed it off at work a few times and then I didn’t use it much again. Back when I was still working at ESRI I played Classical music in my office all day and it was local plus I didn’t want to use up the bandwidth needlessly. I looked at it again when I started to travel with my last employer (Hey everyone!) I even bought a tuner card, but I don’t really like TV, and really don’t like 99.99% of movies for a list of reasons so I didn’t really end up using Orb or the tuner card.
But now that I have a home office upstairs, and my wife’s art studio is downstairs when I am at home and the kids are in school and I am not on the phone I will play music, but I have to play music we both like and loud enough for her to hear. So this is not ideal. But our Wii is hooked up to the surround sound system and LCD downstairs, so if she could play music from it and choose her own music, and what level that would just about be perfect!
So what you will need:
- Wii
- The Opera browser installed on your Wii (500 Wii points or $5)
- Your Wii connected to your LAN
- Orb
- Wake-On-LAN (if you are going to use Orb on a laptop)
- A computer with music, videos, pictures, files…!
Get additional addons for Orb from their MyExtras here.
extras include video mail, watching Internet videos on your mobile device, and watching you video content on your TV instead of in Flash in the Wii’s Opera browser.
You can get version 1.0 of Orb here.
Once you have Orb installed you will have to create an account. Next specify what folders you want to include in the different categories. Keep in mind that any folder you put on there you and your family will be able to access from the Wii console.
After you have Orb configured you will need to get the browser installed on your Wii if you haven’t got it already. Once it is just go to orb.com, put in your account info and you will be listening and viewing in just a few seconds.
In Orb you can search by artist, title, genre, playlist, resume a playlist, shuffle your search results, it’s pretty nice.
And if you have bluetooth in your car, a phone with an unlimited data plan and bluetooth…
Regards,
Anthony
Anthony Clendenen | Solutions Engineer | 1E
© Anthony Clendenen
OneNote PowerToys
Categories: Blogroll, ConfigMgr, Cool Tools, Downloads, Office, OneNote, Tools, et. all.
If you don’t know I am a HUGE OneNote fan and have converted countless people from using Notepad, Notepad2, Word, paper, you name it to using OneNote since it first came out in Office 2003. (If you are only interested in the the list of OneNote PowerToys, skip this section and scroll down).
Some of my favorite things are the ability to write anywhere, assign "tags" to notes, copy and drag from anywhere, any application, webpage, pdf - anywhere into a OneNote page, and have it enter the link where it came from directly below it, create Outlook tasks or appointments, even contacts directly from the notes. You can record audio and/or video directly into a note page, you can password protect sections, you can draw, highlight, email…and one of the functions I use most, use the Windows key + S to screen clip any area of your desktop without losing the mouse focus on a menu or highlighted item!
Here is an example. On the left is a screen clip using OneNote’s function and you can see the Firefox right click context menu after left clicking on a link on Chris Pratley’s OneNote blog. On the right is text that from the same page that I copied and then drug onto the same note page, as you can see at the very bottom is a link to where it was copied from. You can also see that the same link that I used in my screen clipping example is brought over automatically into OneNote.
Let’s see what else I can do with these two examples.
You can see I have taken the text from Chris’ blog and the image of my Firefox context menu and switched their position on my notes page, I also shrunk down the image size and moved it lower on the page, I could also do things like make the text in the image searchable, crop the image, send it to the back, resize it, save it externally. OneNotes screen clipping tool also allow you to set default behavior when you do capture an area, copy it to the clipboard or copy it to the clipboard and send it to the Unfiled notes section of OneNote, and either view it or not. I just use the copy to clipboard option.
I also added some things after the text I copied in. I added a "To Do" tag next to the text "Get list of plugins for blog post" it’s that empty checkbox, that I can later check when I am done. I can also create a summary page that shows all my To Do’s, tasks, remember for later, follow up, essential any tags I choose for a notebook and it will group them together, showing completed items together. The search function in OneNote is one of its better features as well.
The next line is just to highlight another one of the tags, which you can assign hot keys by ordering them. And the final line is a tag that I have customized. It is a "For Follow Up" tag that I have made the text white and to highlight it in red. You can build you own custom tags or customize the built-in ones.
Here is the tags toolbar, also captured with OneNotes screen clipping tool
Plugins for OneNote
The original intent of this was to capture a list of OneNote plugins because I could not find a single source that had them all. So here is a list of plugins I was able to locate at the time of posting.
Pasted from <http://blogs.msdn.com/descapa/archive/2007/03/03/sort-sections-powertoy.aspx>
Pasted from <http://blogs.msdn.com/descapa/archive/2007/02/17/sort-pages-powertoy.aspx>
Task Requests from OneNotes Meeting Notes
Updated OneNotes Favorites addin (3/20/2008 v1.61)
This allows you to tag a note page as a favorite, essentially creating a favorites list like in IE in OneNote.
Calendar PowerToy by Josh Einstein - allows you a to view your notes by the date you wrote them
From : OneNote PowerToys Blog
(Sorted by me)
Working in OneNote:
Table Sum Powertoy for OneNote
ReadOnly Section Addin (OneNote 2007)
Official Powertoy: My Font Tool for Tablet PC
OneNote Favorites PowerToy (old version -see above)
Import to OneNote:
Jeremy Lewi’s SendTo OneNote PowerToy
Microsoft Dynamics CRM2OneNote
Import texts from Project Gutenberg
Send to OneNote 2007 from Windows Explorer
Outlook to OneNote AddIn (Outlook “rule”)
GBM How-To: Add OneNote 2007 Printer as Right-click Send To option
Application integration:
OneNote 2007 Integration with MindManager Pro 7
SnagIt Output for OneNote 2007!
Updated: “Clip to OneNote” Firefox Extension
Export your Outlook notes to OneNote (2007)
Windows Live Messenger Send To OneNote 2007
GoogleNewsReader to OneNote PowerToy
Eclipse RCP Snippet for OneNote
Regards,
Anthony
Anthony Clendenen | Solutions Engineer | 1E
© Anthony Clendenen
New FolderShare
Categories: Beta, Blog, ConfigMgr, Cool Tools, Downloads, Free!, Microsoft, Office.
FolderShare has gotten a face lift, new client, and has moved to the Windows Live platform. If you are not familiar with FolderShare Microsoft bought them a couple years ago and the concept is that you can setup shares among computers that sync with each other. I have been using it for years to sync computers and make sure that I have the same documents on each computer. You can set the sync to be automatic or on demand, you can also share your FolderShare libraries with your friends. It is similar to Groove but it is a free service.
New FolderShare Blog.
New Windows client direct download.
Regards,
Anthony
Anthony Clendenen | Solutions Engineer | 1E
© Anthony Clendenen
SkyDrive Now Has 5 GB of Storage
SkyDrive is part of Live and is a free service that allows you to put files online and share them with others or keep them private but have access to them from anywhere you have a Internet connection.
Regards,
Anthony
Anthony Clendenen | Solutions Engineer | 1E
© Anthony Clendenen
WorldWide Telescope Coming to Your Desktop
This is rather interesting. Apparently Microsoft is going to release Google Earth backwards on Feb 27th. Meaning that instead of zooming and panning in on Earth you will be able to do the same with cosmos! This should be quite interesting. It is reported that they will use 10 Earth bound telescopes as well as the beleaguered Hubble telescope to produce an explorable cosmos for your desktop. It will be interesting to see how they deal with distance for the stars as this is always been the major problem for astronomers. More details here.
Regards,
Anthony
Anthony Clendenen | Solutions Engineer | 1E
© Anthony Clendenen
Napkin PC
Napkin PC Concept Utilizes Multi-Touch E-Paper Display and RF Technology
We have all doodled an idea or a bit of important information on a napkin at one point or another, but designer Avery Holleman takes it a step further with the Napkin PC. The device is intended to help creative groups collaborate on designs more effectively. Here’s how it works: data is sent to the multi-touch e-paper "napkin" interface via the pen using short range radio frequency (RF). The pen and the napkin also communicate with the base station PC via long-rage RF. More after the break.
The result is a device that allows users to share ideas with greater ease. The napkins are also modular, so large-scale layouts can be formed by connecting them together. If all of that wasn’t improbable enough, the Napkin PC uses so little power that it has no need for a battery—instead, it features a single-layer flexible circuit board that utilizes inductive power. It sounds like a really awesome idea, if you can get past the fact that it would cost a fortune to produce one device that probably wouldn’t work. [Yanko Design]
Defrag Your Hard Drive
Categories: ConfigMgr, Cool Tools, Downloads, Free!, How-To, SMS 2003, Tools, et. all.
How often do you defrag your hard drives? Do you think it is often enough? Defragging your drives can make a substantial difference in
performance, seek times as well as the health of your drive can be improved if you defrag your drives on a regular basis. Keep in mind that hard drives are mechanical devices and eventually one of those moving parts is going to fail and you can extend the life of your drives by making them work less when you try to get a file. Don’t believe me? How about ExtremeTech.com? This link is to a portion of an article they wrote regarding optimizing performance and this piece is specifically about defragging your hard drive, including the Master File Table (MFT), and your Page File.
There are a ton of products out there some free, some pay, and the old standard that is included with the operating system. Below is a list of available software for defragging your beloved hard drives. If you find that you like one that does not have a scheduler then use either ConfigMgr to schedule a reoccurring ad to start the defrag or use task scheduler.
Pay versions:
- Diskeeper 2008, by Diskeeper Corporation
- Norton SpeedDisk, by Symantec Corporation. SpeedDisk is a component of the Norton SystemWorks bundle.
- O&O Defrag, by O&O Software
- PerfectDisk 8, by Raxco Software
- Puran Defrag, by Puran Software
- UltimateDefrag, by DiskTrix, Cost $39.95, $9.95 for 90 day license, $19.95 for the Lite version, 30 day free trail download
- Vopt, by Golden Bow Systems
- Total Defrag 2007 (Home), by Paragon Software Group, Cost $29.95, free trial download
- Ashampoo Magical Defrag, by Ashampoo, cost $14.99, 30 day free trial download
- Windows Disk Defragmenter, by Diskeeper Corporation &Microsoft, included in the operating system
Free versions:
- Auslogic Disk Defrag, by Auslogic,
- Contig, by Microsoft (formerly Sysinternals),
- Defraggler, by Piriform,
- JkDefrag, by Jeroen Kessels,
- PageDefrag, by Microsoft (formerly Sysinternals),
- UltraDefrag, by Dmitri Arkhangelski and Justin Dearing,
- IOBit SmartDefrag, by IOBit,
How-To Create Your Own System Restore Partition!
Regards,
Anthony
Anthony Clendenen | Solutions Engineer | 1E
© 2007 Anthony Clendenen
I Recommend These Books!
SMS 2003 Administrator’s Reference: Systems Management Server 2003
And you can check out more books and gadgets at my Amazon store here.
AVG Anti-Virus 7.5 Professional for FREE
Categories: ConfigMgr, Cool Tools, Downloads, Free!, Tools.
Computer Active is giving away the Pro version of AVG for free. I use the free version of AVG on several computers at home and it works fine, you get those annoying widows during updates because it is free, with Pro you can turn that off. Right now it looks like their servers are being flooded but you have until Jan. 17th with the option to stop the offer at anytime, which means they only have so many licenses.
Details here.
Regards,
Anthony
Anthony Clendenen | Solutions Engineer | 1E
© 2007 Anthony Clendenen
