Eureka!

One thing that has always bugged me in the past was that Windows Update, Sharepoint intranets, and other Microsoft-specific sites always required IE to run. Technically, it’s because VBScript and WShell scripts are used in those sites (the validity of that is a totally separate topic). However, what to do if you use FireFox as your daily browser, and hate switching over to IE just to browse some fool’s site?

Well, as long as you are running Windows, this solution should work for you: the IE Tab Firefox add-on.

With it you can switch from Firefox to IE mode and back with the click of your mouse. A little Firefox icon is displayed in the lower right corner of the Firefox browser after installing this add-on. Click on that, and it turns into an IE icon, and refreshes your page, running it in IE within Firefox!

Oh! And for those of you running Minefield (Firefox 3.x Alpha), it claims to work in it as well.

This has become one of my FF necessities!

While trying to google a fix for this issue I was experiencing, I came accross a post on a forum detailing the resolution to this problem. It appears that this is an issue that most likely only NVidia users will see if they have their Color Correction settings not set correctly. By default (at least for some driver versions) color correction is set to “Desktop”, while the fix for the issue is to set it to “All”, as shown in the screen print:

Have you been reading up on Windows Vista, enviously checking out the new sleek look? Well, for those of you who don’t want to wait to style up their computer, there’s a Vista theme for your Windows XP (and I think it even runs on Windows 2000) computer! You’ll need to download WindowBlinds and install this theme. The pic is a screenie of what my comp looks like with this theme running.

Well, it looks like this beta build won’t support RAID arrays yet. I tried to install it on my raid computer, and it wouldn’t read the disk information. So much for that idea. I have it installed on my other comp at the moment, but I’d like to take Longhorn through the paces of everyday use (I use my other computer as a server, and Longhorn is on an inactive removable harddrive, so it’s not getting used at this point).

What have your experiences been so far? Successes, failures?

[Edit 8/3/2005 09:11]
In the interim, here are some links about Longhorn, or ‘Vista’ as it’s now called (eventhough the boot screen still shows ‘Lonhorn’):

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Vista

The installation procedure of SBS2003 has not been going as smooth as I had planned. Every time I attempt to install it (must be about 5 times now) there are some issues with the Server Tools or the Server Monitoring Tools not installing correctly. No matter what I seem to do, these always fail. I’m about to give up on it, thinking that it must be my hardware.

Oh, on another note, I ordered a copy of the French localization of SBS2003. Unfortunately, I can’t use it, and if anyone want to purchase it from me, or trade it for an english version, please contact me.

I finally completed the downlaod for the long-awaited Windows Longhorn Beta. My first impressions as I am going through the installation process are (to say the least) are that of surprise, and relief at the same time: Microsoft is finally putting total emphasis on usability and have totally rethought the user interface. The setup process is now totally graphical, and it only requires two steps: a) what partition to install it on, and b) what name you will give this computer. It then proceeds to do the complete installation on its own. Right now I’m waiting for that to finish up, so more on this as I go along.

[Edit 7/31/2005 00:56]
Well, it finally finished it’s install. And the user interface is georgous. Now downloading the 64-bit version to install on my AMD Athlon64 machine. Being that VISTA is backwards compatible, I will try to use it for everyday use and see what the benefits really are. This link has some really great info: http://www.winsupersite.com

As a complete small business package, Windows Small Business Server 2003 has the following benefits to offer:

• Centralized Storage
• Simple Backup and Recovery
• Simple and Effective Security
• Reliability
• Remote Connectivity
• Colaborative Environment
• Support for Line-of-Business Applications
• Streamlined Configuration Process
• Streamlined Upgrade Process

As our business has employees across the united states, we are a very decentralized environment. This posed very specific problems for communication, delegation, and team management. Centralized storage is an absolute must in our environment. We must have all documents, resources, and information available on demand to any of our team members, so that we can do our job effectively. in our current Linux system that is not the case. We have planned to develop and impliment an online web-based file sharing system where we can upload and store our documents and other resources. Immediate drawbacks are appearent: the system isn’t developed yet, will take time and resources to create, and it isn’t easily integratable into other software and has very limited and specific functionality. Over the next week or two I will evaluate how this feature of SBS2003 works. On paper it sounds like a great solution to our dilema.

More to come …

Well, our company is and a turning point. We are currently faced with the decision to either move to a non-Microsoft environment where we would set up our desktops, servers, and what-not on Linux, or, move to a complete Microsoft environment, where our desktops run on Windows XP, our servers on Windows Server 2003, and our websites are in ASP.NET, etc.

Until now we were trudging along with the goal of running our business in a non-Mocrosoft, say, Linux, environment for the following reasons:

• Cost savings - Linux software is for the most part free and OpenSource.
• Secure server and network environments (less virus’, spyware, etc.).
• Product flexibility.

However, we are comming to realize, much to our dismay, that as much as we dispise what Microsoft stands for (Monopoly, exclusion of competition, market control, etc.), they do make things very easy for businesses. Only as long as you use Microsoft software across the board of course. Here are the drawbacks we are currently facing in our non-Microsoft environment, which let us to our current fork-in-the-road situation:

• Maintenance, development, custom content creation, etc. is all very time-consuming and tedious.
• We would have to create our own team-system for collaboration, file-sharing, etc. that fits our specific needs.
• All our focus and effort spent on creating our internal business infrastructure would dramatically decrease our productivity and not let us accomplish what we started the business for in the first place.

There we now have the pros and cons of the non-Microsoft environment. I am currently evaluating a total Microsoft-oriented environment to see how well it stacks up against the other scenario (Linux), as well as to see if it can provide a all-encompasing package, so that we don’t have to go out and purchase 3rd-party software. This includes the following:

• Windows Small Business Server 2003
• Live Communications Server 2005
• * Windows XP
• * Office Profesional Enterprise 2003
• * Office OneNote 2003
• * Visual Studio 2005

* denotes items installed on users’ desktops, unmarked items are installed on the server.

Over the next couple of posts I will evaluate each of these in comparison to a Linux equivalent that we are currently using. I would also be eager to hear your thoughts and experiences on this subject: please do comment!