Tech Tips for the Field

Windows Server Core

2007-08-21T21:02:00Z

A new option in Windows Server 2008 is Server Core. It provides a minimal environment for running a subset of the server roles, AD, DNS, DHCP, File & Print. It can reduce the servicing requirements and the attack surface for those server roles. http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/servercore.mspx

Vista Command Prompt in Admin Mode

2007-08-21T21:01:00Z

If you go down to Start and type CMD in the search box (not from the RUN line) and hit CTRL+SHIFT+ENTER, it will open the command prompt in Admin mode. Thanks Randy Rands for that one…

Tabbed IE Shortcuts

2007-08-21T21:01:00Z

When you have multiple tabs open in Internet Explorer, type CTRL+1, CTRL+2, etc. This will move that tab to the front.

Solid State Hard Drives are coming

2007-08-21T21:00:00Z

With sizes reaching 160GB, SATA II “no spinnie” hard drives will start showing up this fall in new computers and devices. http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/solid_state-drives/

Vista CPU performance

2007-07-13T18:53:00Z

Get more performance out of Vista. The default power plan in Vista is set to Balanced. Changing it to High Performance will increase the CPU utilization up to 50%. That’s in Control Panel, Power Options.

Network open cancellation

2007-07-13T18:52:00Z

Do you remember way back when you could hit CTRL+C to cancel an operation? Well, it’s back with Vista – sort of. Try to open a document on a network resource that it can’t find. In Windows XP, you were stuck until the OS decided it couldn’t connect. Vista allows you to hit cancel and it returns control back to you. If you’re at the command prompt, CTRL+C works again. Play around with it and discover the power.

Google Search

2006-07-19T17:53:00Z

If I’m looking for something Microsoft related, I use www.google.com/microsoft. This will filter my results to Microsoft type answers. If I search for SMS, I’ll get Systems Management Server instead of Short Messaging Services. They also have a filtered search for the U.S. Government at www.google.com/ig/usgov as well as others. If you want your answers to come from a specific website like Microsoft.com or you only want to search military websites, after your search criteria enter site:microsoft.com or site:mil.

Shared Comptuer Toolkit

2006-01-10T19:31:00Z

This locks down the computer and discards changes at logoff. http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/sharedaccess/default.mspx

Port Query Tool

2006-01-10T19:30:00Z

Ever tried to troubleshoot application communications? This free utility will tell you if a computer is listening on a specified port. http://support.microsoft.com/?id=310099

Outlook PST Compaction

2006-01-10T19:13:00Z

Delete lots of e-mails from your pst lately? You should compact it as well. In Outlook, go to File, Data File Management, double-click on your pst, then choose Compact Now.

Account Lockouts

2005-11-07T21:51:00Z

Wish you could find all the domain controllers that are involved in user lockouts? Visit http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=35607 for details.

Word autocorrect

2005-11-07T21:51:00Z

Do you often misspell the same words the same way? Some words are automatically corrected while others are not. Next time you get the red squiggly, instead of right-clicking and choosing the right word, right-click and go to AutoCorrect then choose the right word. This way you’ll never have to do it again.

Outlook is protecting your privacy

2005-11-07T21:50:00Z

Do you get e-mails that you can’t read and you have to right-click to download the pictures? I finally decided that even though I didn’t really want to receive e-mails from Delta promotions, I also knew they wouldn’t send me smut or viruses. So, the next time I received that e-mail, I chose to add the sender’s domain to the safe list. Now, when I get those messages, at-least I can see what I’m deleting.

SMT 5600 Cell Phone Antenna

2005-10-01T02:22:00Z

I just went to a truck stop and bought an antenna for my SMT 5600. It increases my reception from 1 to 5 bars!!! It works great. The antenna is about 4” long with an 8’ cord. Since they don’t sell one for the SMT 5600, I had to try all of them until one fit. It’s the same as the CDM 100. When I called Wilson Electronics, they said that’s how they do it too.

Here are the part numbers:

Cellular Antenna, Dual-band Mini Magnet W-301113 $29.99
http://www.wilsonelectronics.com/antennas/wcminimagnet.htm

Cellular Antenna, Adapter for Audiovox 359910 $9.99
http://www.wilsonelectronics.com/adapterlist/wcadapterlist-audiovox.htm

Outlook 2003 Server Status

2005-09-24T00:22:00Z

To see server status in Outlook 2003, hold the CTRL, then right-click on the Outlook Icon in the system tray. Go up to Connection Status.