Elgin Computer Guy

OK, so the product isn’t even out yet, but it’s free, so I decided to go ahead and sit for this exam. I don’t stand much chance of passing, but figured I’d give it a shot anyway. This is a 4 hour test on EBS2008 and there are no study materials available that I’m aware of. There wasn’t a study guide for the SBS exam when I first took it either and I somehow managed to pass that one.

If I have time tonight, I’ll download EBS and start playing. Are you feeling crazy enough to join me and take the free exam?

Here’s the link with instructions on how to get it for free….

http://blogs.technet.com/essentialbusinessserver/

It’s only through prometric and only for a limited time.  I signed up for the last time-slot on the last day of the exam.

The first issue of the Mouse & Driver Gazette will be in the mail next week.  I plan to send out a monthly newsletter to my clients and probably to prospects as well.  If you’re a client you should be seeing it in the mail (yes snail mail) by the end of next week.  I’m actually pretty excited about it.  This is coinciding with my official launch of the Ultimate Computer Protection Plan and my long overdue price increase.

I’ve been following Caroline’s blog for a month or two now.  I enjoy it and hope some of you might as well.  Here’s her post about the 2008 edition of the Thirty Day Challenge
http://www.caroline-middlebrook.com/blog/thirty-day-challenge-2008-is-here-and-im-in/

Try this one…. test #2

Moments ago I installed the FLOCK browser.  According to Ed Dale, it’s better than FireFox.  We’ll see. It has some interesting features, including the blog editor that I’m using right now.

This is a story of the worst technical support I’ve ever experienced in my life. It’s no wonder everyone complains about the quality of technical support.

As a computer tech with 20+ years of experience, I thought I’d seen and heard it all when it comes to tech support horror stories. I’ve dealt with countless completely clueless “techs” on the phone and mostly managed to keep my cool. I’ve learned to deal with those who follow their scripts without understanding. Usually once all the scripted stuff doesn’t work, you can escalate to 2nd level support and start the real troubleshooting. (more…)

A client recently upgraded to Office 2007 and asked me how to scan an image into a Word document the way she used to in Word 2003. We searched briefly but couldn’t find it. I did some searching online and found a solution on LockerGnome. Here is the an edited version of the post. It worked beautifully for me. (more…)

This is the coolest thing ever!  I needed to recover some data from a customer’s crashed SATA drive and was struggling with it. I happened across the BlacX by ThermalTake. I plugged it in and nothing happened, then I slid a 2 1/2″ SATA drive into it and lo and behold, I was able to access the drive.  It support hot-swaps and didn’t require any drivers on my Vista Business computer.  This has potential to be a great backup solution - you can easily take a copy of your important data off-site.

I put in the customer’s 3 1/2″ drive and it recognized that, too - even though it was having problems. I ran GetDataBack on it and was able to recover most of her data.   (Dell and her local computer shop both told her that the data was just gone and nothing could be done… HA!)  At just under $50 this belongs in every computer technician’s toolbox.

THERMALTAKE N0028USU BLACX USB HARD DRIVE DOCK - SATA, 2.5, 3.5 (STORAGE)