The UltraTech Zone

A couple months ago, a colleague at work introduced me to DropBox, which was in private beta at the time.  Their motto is simple: online storage that just works. Take a look at the video and give it a try.  They have clients for Windows, Linux and the Mac. I just started playing with it, but I can already see that it has a very good ...

It's been quite some time since I've taken a moment to blog anything.  Lots of stuff going on at work has been the main culprit, but traditionally, summers are very busy for me -- both at work and at church. There are several technology articles that I would like to comment on, while they still bear some relevance, and hopefully, I'll get ...

After many months, and a few miscellaneous upgrades to other parts of my network, I'm finally about to get a jump on my home virtualization overhaul project.  A number of things have changed from the original plan, however. Since that plan was presented back in October, Microsoft has released Windows Server 2008, with a beta of Hyper-V, ...

I recently had the privilege of being quoted for a technical article in BizTech Magazine, which is published on behalf of CDW.   This is not the first time I have had the opportunity to contribute to an article, but this is the first time (other than the webcast) that I have had my photo taken for a magazine.  Too cool!  ...

The month of February 2008 was a very busy one at LinkedIn, it seems.  A number of improvements and modifications were made to the site, including network upgrades which now show Group Membership changes, a much maligned News function, and a major graphical overhaul of the User Interface. So far, I'm liking the new interface, which takes a ...

I have a little bit of everything to share today. Professional Networking LinkedIn has performed quite a few upgrades in recent days, and they've upgraded their site quite a bit.   It looks nice, I must say.   I hope this is just the beginning of them implementing some long-awaited changes, such as the ones I compiled last ...

It took me long enough, but I'm finally cleaning out some old boxes of computer parts that I have laying around.  Really old parts in really old boxes. My wife will be very pleased to see this stuff go, finally.  She's been after me to do this for years.   Seriously! Just to give you an idea of what this amazing box ...

When I wrote part 1 of the home network virtualization project, I didn't realize that I actually had an updated network diagram available. I created it last October, but never posted it -- for reasons which completely escape me right now. I suppose that I was waiting until I actually performed the upgrades at the end year before I would post ...

Lately, I've been so busy with processes and procedures and policies, that I haven't had a chance to play with the upcoming version of Windows Server 2008.  I have had an opportunity to read a number of reports, including the one from eWeek, and it seems that the reports are favorable, especially where the new virtualization features are ...

  As I think about it, the title is probably misleading, because being a Technology Manager with change-agent responsibility is not the same as being a Technology Change Agent. In my particular case, I'm not looking to change the technology, necessarily.  In fact, I'm pretty happy with the basic technology infrastructure, at least in ...

Some days it seems like Microsoft still has a lot to learn about being a team player on a global stage where customers and regulators are interested in open standards and interoperability. They recently got spanked with both the ISO and the IEC while lobbying to get their OpenXML document format established as a global, open standard.  In ...

Some days it seems like Microsoft still has a lot to learn about being a team player on a global stage where customers and regulators are interested in open standards and interoperability. They recently got spanked with both the ISO and the IEC while...(read more)

As I wrote way back in May 2007 concerning LinkedIn, it is an awesome tool that greatly facilitates Professional Networking.  The LinkedIn Answers feature, for instance, is a very nice way to find people who you might be interested in connecting with, either because they helped you or because you could provide some assistance for ...

Service Pack 3 for Community Server 2007 is on the horizon, considering that a beta for SP3 was recently made available by the folks at Telligent.  I'm glad that I checked, because I was planning to update my site to CS2007 SP2 this holiday weekend, but I remembered that I have previously been surprised by updates on occasions such as ...

I don't say this too often, but words cannot express how worthless they are.   If I were to summarize the ways in which they failed to provide useful service, I could take all month.  In short, they were lacking in a number of areas, including: Poor customer service Unstable systems Utter lack of communication (95% of the time) ...