Sysinternals Tools Can Now Run From The Web

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”

Sysinternals Site Discussion : Updates: Process Explorer v11.20, ZoomIt v2.0, Sigcheck v1.53, Handle v3.4 and introducing Sysinternals Live beta.

Regards,
Anthony

Anthony Clendenen | Solutions Engineer | 1E

Microsoft MVP System Center Configuration Manager

http://configmgr.com

© Anthony Clendenen

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Get FREE One Year Subscription of CA Anti-Virus - Tweaking with Vishal

In case you missed out the free AVG offer here is another free anti-virus product.  Once you create a free account on the CA site they will send you link to download it.

There words regarding the account.

“This information will be used to create your FREE account in case you are in need of any support. Your information will be kept private and will not be shared with any third parties.”

Get FREE One Year Subscription of CA Anti-Virus - Tweaking with Vishal

Regards,
Anthony

Anthony Clendenen | Solutions Engineer | 1E

Microsoft MVP System Center Configuration Manager

http://configmgr.com

© Anthony Clendenen

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Turning Your Wii Into a Streaming Media Center

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:

1. Wii
2. The Opera browser installed on your Wii (500 Wii points or $5)
3. Your Wii connected to your LAN
4. Orb
5. Wake-On-LAN (if you are going to use Orb on a laptop)
6. A computer with music, videos, pictures, files…! 

Download Orb here.

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

http://configmgr.com

© Anthony Clendenen

1 comment.

Attending MMS 2008? Yes I Am - We Are

I have gotten a ton of emails asking me if I am going to be at MMS this year and when and up until now I have held off because I was waiting for some things to finalize.  But today 1E sent out an email to customer letting them know the booth number, and when Sumir, one of the founders of 1E, was going to speak.  Which is right after the State of the Union, and also at the same time as Paul Thomsen is presenting his session on ConfigMgr Client Health.  So yes, I will be there from Sunday to Friday afternoon.  And we are trying to get my wife to be able to attend at least a day or more as well, I know some of you look forward to seeing her more than me - but I won’t mention any names, you know who you are! Not that I can really blame you…

I will be doing my best to blog live or very close to it when I am there but this year I will have to actually work so it may be more hit and miss regarding coverage of the sessions for those who can’t attend or those who use my posts for your justification to attend. 

We will be having demos at the booth of the different 1e products and most of us can also do an impromptu demo if you want to see something that isn’t on the schedule.  Just hunt me down and I can arrange it. 

There is more info on the 1E presence below, our booth is in the second row right as you walk in the doors. I am finalizing some plans to hold a special session in one of our conference rooms and when that it finalized I will publish the detail of it.

I look forward to meeting up with a bunch of you again I am sure there will be quite a few people from the myITforum.com list, Microsoft, and Dimension Data that I haven’t seen in at least a few months, people like Omar it has been since last MMS. 

Dear Colleague,

1E will be exhibiting at the Microsoft Management Summit (MMS) in Las Vegas from
April 28 - May 2, 2008. Please come and visit us on Stand 311, where you can:

· Find out how to dramatically reduce the cost of running Windows infrastructures

· See ‘live’ technical demos of our core solutions

· Discover how you can quickly & easily save $45 per PC per year

· Find out how Dell is saving $1.8 million a year across 50k PCs

· Enter our competition to win a Nintendo Wii

Come and listen to 1E CEO Sumir Karayi speak, following Bill Anderson’s "ConfigMgr - State
of the Nation" session.  Sumir will talk about real customer System Center and PC power management success stories.

Speaker: Sumir Karayi, CEO 1E

Date/Time: Tuesday 29, 11.45 – 13.00

Location: F-Veronese 2402-2503

1E has been providing robust integrated Windows systems management solutions for over 10 years. Join us as we detail real-world experiences of System Center success and PC power management implementations in large, complex, distributed environments.

» Book a 1:1 meeting
Use this opportunity to book a pre-arranged 1:1 meeting with 1E while you are at MMS. This
will give you the chance of discussing your requirements with us at an agreed date and time, and make sure that you maximize your attendance at the event.

For more information, please visit the 1E website.

We look forward to seeing you at MMS 2008.

Best regards,
1E Events Team

www.1e.com

Regards,
Anthony

Anthony Clendenen | Solutions Engineer | 1E

http://configmgr.com

© Anthony Clendenen

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New FolderShare

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.

Mac client direct download.

Regards,
Anthony

Anthony Clendenen | Solutions Engineer | 1E

http://configmgr.com

© Anthony Clendenen

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Defrag Your Hard Drive

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
  • Home version
  • Pro version
  • Pro Premier version
  • Home Sever version
• Norton SpeedDisk, by Symantec Corporation. SpeedDisk is a component of the Norton SystemWorks bundle.
• O&O Defrag, by O&O Software
  • Professional edition
  • Server edition
• 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
  • UltimateDefrag 
  • UltimateDefragLite 
• 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,
  • Download 
• Contig, by Microsoft (formerly Sysinternals),
  • Download 
• Defraggler, by Piriform,
  • Download
• JkDefrag, by Jeroen Kessels,
  • Download, GUI version 
• PageDefrag, by Microsoft (formerly Sysinternals),
  • Download 
• UltraDefrag, by Dmitri Arkhangelski and Justin Dearing,
  • Download
• IOBit SmartDefrag, by IOBit,
  • Download

How-To Create Your Own System Restore Partition!

Regards,
Anthony

Anthony Clendenen | Solutions Engineer | 1E

http://configmgr.com

© 2007 Anthony Clendenen

I Recommend These Books!
SMS 2003 Administrator’s Reference: Systems Management Server 2003 -  SMS 2003 Recipes: A Problem-Solution Approach  -  Microsoft SMS Installer (Book/CD-ROM package)  -  Pro SMS 2003  -  Professional MOM 2005, SMS 2003, and WSUS  -  Start to Finish Guide to Distributing Software With Systems Management Server 2003  -  Microsoft Systems Management Server 2003 - Administrator’s Companion

And you can check out more books and gadgets at my Amazon store here.

1 comment.

AVG Anti-Virus 7.5 Professional for FREE

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.

Direct download.

Details here.

Regards,
Anthony

Anthony Clendenen | Solutions Engineer | 1E

http://configmgr.com

© 2007 Anthony Clendenen

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Paint .NET 3.20 is Available for Free

If you wonder how I make those images, its all done with Paint .NET, which is 100% free and all the plugins are 100% free.  I know Ron and Rod use it as well and you cannot be the price.  I have used Photoshop and it is a great product but kind of pricey!  Paint .NET is build from the .NET Framework and costs you nothing so if you haven’t tried it and use another similar product you should give it a try.

Regards,
Anthony

Anthony Clendenen | Solutions Engineer | 1E

http://configmgr.com

© 2007 Anthony Clendenen

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Sync Windows Mobile With Your Mac For Free

Not that I know or ever work with anyone that uses a Mac.  I mean come on, I work for a Microsoft Gold Partner, no one I know from myITforum.com or work has ever even seen a Mac, let alone own one…

Source.

What Missing Sync did for $39, SyncMate does for free—syncing your contacts, calendars, notes and favorites from your Windows Mobile phone onto your Mac with little to no hassle. Unfortunately for WM users, the default iSync software doesn’t support either WM5 or WM6 as well as it should. We haven’t tried SyncMate yet ourselves, but if it works nearly as well as Missing Sync—which we have tried—then it’ll be worth every penny. [Eltima via Thinkabdul]

Regards,
Anthony

Anthony Clendenen | Solutions Engineer | 1E

http://configmgr.com

© 2007 Anthony Clendenen

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More Cool Tools for a Friday

Enjoy your weekend!  If you are going to the ConfigMgr airlift next week I will see you there!

SpeechVibe: Control Mouse Cursor using Voice Commands, Speech Recognition on Windows Vista

SpeechVibe is a Windows XP/Vista speech recognition program that lets you drive your computer using voice commands. While there are many other voice recognition programs on the web, the unique feature of this application is the ability to control your computer’s mouse and keyboard with the help of a discrete, translucent mouse grid that displays co-ordinates on your monitor.

+ Single click, double click, left click, right click and even drag and drop the mouse cursor using voice based speech recognition.
+ If you find that the mouse grid is obtructing your view, you can say “Flash computer” to hide the grid
+ Increase or decrease the size and fonts of the grid using voice
+ Shift the postion of the grid left, right, up or down with your voice
+ Say any key sequence and SpeechVibe will imediately execute it for you.

Download SpeechVibe for Windows XP and Vista from here

Download Live Search Mobile with Voice Input, GPS Location & 411 for Windows Mobile 5.0 and 6.0

In June, this year, Microsoft had inadvertently released the dogfood beta version of Live Search Mobile with bluetooth voice input on the web and had quickly taken it offline. Today Microsoft has announced the official voice-enabled beta version of Live Search for Windows Mobile 5.0 and 6.0 devices along with some other features such as GPS location awareness and 411 automated helpline:

+ Live Search for Windows Mobile with voice input: Speak your questions—no need to type
+ Get gas prices, and hours of operation for businesses
+ use Global Positioning System data on GPS-enabled Windows Mobile phones to provide location-aware local search
+ Live Search 411: Users can simply dial (800) CALL-411 (800-225-5411) and say the city and state, then ask for the business or business category to hear a list of options. Users say, “Connect me,” to instantly connect to the business. Cell phone users can ask for a text message with a link to a map of the business.
+ Live Search now supports GPS location aware search and other features for Blackberry OS 4.0.2

To download this latest beta on your Windows Mobile device, visit wls.live.com from your phone browser or livesearchmobile.com from a desktop PC.

PocketTV for WM6: View and Capture Screenshots/JPEG Images from MPEG-VCD Videos on Windows Mobile

PocketTV Classic is a free MPEG and VCD Video Player for Windows Mobile 5 and 6 based Pocket PC and Smartphone device that allows users to view, stream and capture still images in JPEG format from MPEG and VCD videos on your mobile device. PocketTV takes full advantage of all the features of WM 5/6 such as Landscape mode display, soft-keys, on-the-fly display rotation, VGA resolution, 800×480 wide-screen, etc.

Key features of PocketTV Classic include:

+ Full support for Windows Mobile 6 or 5 (On-the-fly display rotation, Screen Rotation, SoftKeys, VGA display etc)
+ PocketTV can play any standard MPEG-1 (with extension .mpg or .mpeg) or VCD video files (with extension DAT). You need to change the DAT extension to MPEG in order to play it with PocketTV
+ Can take advantage of onboard video hardware accelerators
+ Allows stepping frame-by-frame to observe individual frames
+ Capture still images in JPEG format from playing videos
+ Can play videos with odd resolutions i.e. image size not in multiple of 16×16
+ Integrates with IE Mobile/Pocket IE to click and view streaming MPEG videos

Download PocketTV Classic from the product homepage listed above as free registration is required.

HTC P3650 (Polaris)

Posted by smartmobilegadgets on August 4th, 2007

THE ULTIMATE POCKET MOBILE NAVIGATOR

Highlights:
The high speed navigator
Compact PDA phone, that provides rich navigation, multimedia, imaging and messaging experience
Take control of your busy life, with this pocket sized entertainer
Fully supporting Navigation solutions

Check out Smart Mobile Gadgets for more cool PDA devices and Mobile Phones

Say hello to the polaris the first life real pictures for polaris p3650

http://www.engadget.com/2007/10/19/htc-polaris-gets-specs-leaked-renamed-the-cruise/

"The next step in the HTC Touch line — the GPS-equipped Polaris — has been re-christened the Touch Cruise, and has gone and gotten its juicy specs all leaked out to the internet. In addition to having improved TouchFlo capabilities, like rotation and zoom, the new model will sport a quad-band GSM radio (850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900), tri-band UMTS (850 / 1900 / 2100), HSDPA and HSUPA data connectivity, a 400MHz MSM7200 Qualcomm CPU, 128MB of RAM and 256MB of ROM, a 2.8-inch, 320 x 240 QVGA display, 3-megapixel camera (plus secondary, 0.3-megapixel camera), WiFi, Bluetooth, and a microSD slot. Apparently, the design of the device hasn’t been finalized, though it will likely feature four buttons and a navigation wheel."

The SATA HDD Stage Rack, at last

Posted Oct 19th 2007 5:02AM by Thomas Ricker
Filed under: Peripherals, Storage

Now we’re talking! Meet the PC and Mac compatible USB 2.0 SATA HDD Stage Rack. The value of this 2.5- and 3.5-inch compatible dock is obvious if like us, you’ve got gigs of unused storage laying around after years of SATA disk updates. Just pop in that old disk for instant expansion without having to first wrap the drive in a clumsy enclosure. Available now for €33 / $47. If you still don’t get it, check the video after the break… you too will believe.

Virtual Earth 3D (Beta)

Brief Description

Add realistic 3D capabilities to your online Live Search Maps.

Overview

Virtual Earth 3D brings you another step closer to knowing "what it is like out there". You can search, browse, and organize local information viewed in three dimensions, just the way it exists in the real world. This enables you to more effectively find the data that is relevant to you, making Live Maps more useful than ever. Even better — it’s just plain fun!

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=e9298080-50c4-4f2e-9fc4-4009074996ba&displaylang=en&tm

Visio 2007 Connector for Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer (MBSA) 2.1

Brief Description

The Microsoft Office Visio 2007 Connector for Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer (MBSA) lets you view the results of an MBSA scan in a clear, comprehensive Microsoft Office Visio 2007 network diagram.

Overview

The Visio 2007 Connector for Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer (MBSA) 2.1 lets you view the results of an MBSA scan in a clear, comprehensive Visio 2007 network diagram. You must have both Microsoft Office Visio 2007 Professional and MBSA 2.1, a free security tool from Microsoft, for this connector to work properly.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=95e0f821-9c2c-4287-9157-49c1205e08ef&displaylang=en&tm

Customize the Open and Save Dialog with OpenWide

Windows only: Get a customized Open and Save dialog box (with details, icons, or lists) with OpenWide, an application that does what Windows does not. You can already customize the views of your individual folders using Folder Options in the Explorer, but unfortunately, your saved view does not extend to dialog boxes. The application is extremely small (72KB) but many might find the default System Tray icon feature unnecessary. Fortunately, the tray icon can be disabled. For those who often save files and need detailed information quickly, this application comes in handy (though Windows itself should really support this without the need of an extra app). OpenWide is a Windows-only freeware application for personal use.

Enlarge Your Taskbar Previews with Thumbnail Sizer

Windows Vista only: Vista’s thumbnail taskbar preview feature is attractive, but unless you’ve got superhuman vision, the very small thumbnails aren’t all that useful. Freeware application Thumbnail Sizer manually adjusts the size of the thumbnail so you can super-size those previews for a much closer look at the window contents via a simple width and height slider. With some simple tweaking, your taskbar previews can be large enough for you to even be able to read text in the preview, which means you’ll be able to understand what window you’re seeing at a glance. While you’re at it, you might want to enlarge your Alt-Tab thumbnails, too. XP users, you can add Vista-like taskbar previews with freeware application Visual Tooltip.

Regards,
Anthony

Anthony Clendenen | Solutions Engineer | 1E

http://configmgr.com

© 2007 Anthony Clendenen

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