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When I saw the BETA version of Microsoft Office 2010 was out, I first thought I would like to try it but who needs the hassle.

In previous versions I needed to overwrite my old Office install and that would goof things up when the BETA trial ended.

This time around what they have done for the Microsoft Office Home and Business 2010 Beta is wrap it up in a technology called Click-to-Run. This is awesome, it lets you try the real copy in a virtualized sandbox. Everything runs perfect and up to speed but it runs in its own little world, not effecting your previous versions of Office. Highly recommended.

I have been watching with amusement the AT&T vs. Verizon TV ads. Basically Verizon’s shot first with “The AT&T 3G access stinks” ads and then AT&T sued Verizon in court and then placed their own ads. Yesterday AT&T dropped the lawsuit because the judge basically threw out the lawsuit. I have both networks, AT&T service stinks. The Verizon’s ads are correct. Hey AT&T smarten up ! Your network stinks, the only reason I have you is because of the iPhone.

Lastly I have had my Verizon Mifi device to access the internet for almost 2 months, now, and its is truly amazing. I can connect any WiFi device to this thing, anywhere on the Verizon network and I can get connected. I was worried I would go over their 5 gigabyte month limit, but I am not even close. I originally got it for the kids when we are out and about, but I quickly started using it at work. The internet speeds here are abysmal (don’t get me started).

You want to really get depressed about the condition of the United States ? Click here.

sigh

December 3rd, 2009 | Tags: 2010, AT&T, iphone, microsoft office, mifi, verizon | Category: General, Technology | Leave a comment

Many people in the media are complaining about the iPhone application approval process, its takes to long, to arbitrary, not good for people , blah, blah, blah.

If you ever needed a reason why the approval process is there, take a look at this “Knocking” application. It was denied approval, then the developer send an email to Steve Jobs begging for approval. He got it, but you look at the comments on the application and its all about crashes and the program not working.

Apple please, just make the approval process quicker that’s it. Don’t change you approval processes for buggy software.

Thanks

December 2nd, 2009 | Tags: apple, approval, iphone, media | Category: General, Technology | Leave a comment

WTI is proud to announce the release of our new MPC-HD Series Switched PDUs. The MPC-HD Series is specifically designed to provide secure, remote power control and reboot capabilities for high amp devices such as Sun Blade 6000, Cisco Catalyst 6500 LAN Switches, Cisco Nexus 7000 Data Center Switches and HP 7000 Blade Servers. There are many different products on the market that allow remote power control, but WTI’s MPC-HD is the only one specifically designed to both deliver AND switch high amp power.

The new MPC-HD series includes four different models to fit your high amp power switching needs:

MPC-HD16H - Dual 16 Amp Inputs, 2U, 200V - 240V AC, (6) IEC C19 + (6) IEC C13 Outlets
MPC-HD20H - Dual 20 Amp Inputs, 2U, 100V - 240V AC, (6) IEC C19 + (6) IEC C13 Outlets
MPC-HD30H - Dual 30 Amp Inputs, 2U, 200V - 240V AC, (6) IEC C19 + (6) IEC C13 Outlets
MPC-HD32H - Dual 32 Amp Inputs, 2U, 200V - 240V AC, (6) IEC C19 + (6) IEC C13 Outlets

The MPC-HD includes two separate power buses; perfect for managing power for devices such as blade servers, that require power supply redundancy. Each power bus is split into three, individually breakered circuits; each circuit includes one switched IEC 320 C19 outlet and one switched IEC 320 C13 outlet, for a total of 12 switched outlets (two power buses, three breakers per bus, two outlets per breaker.) The MPC-HD is available in dual 16, 20, 30 and 32 Amp configurations.
 
The MPC-HD does more than just control power and reboot functions; it can also meter energy use and report findings in text or graph format; a very valuable tool for those who need to track power use and energy costs. Advanced metering capabilities allow the MPC-HD to measure and report Kilowatt Hours, Kilowatts, Amps, Voltage and Temperature. When any of these factors exceed threshold values, the MPC-HD can switch or reboot power and promptly send notification. The MPC-HD can also perform remote reboots and power shutdowns on demand, or when a device fails to respond to a ping command or according to a user-defined schedule.

If you need reliable, secure, remote power control for high amp devices such as Sun Blade 6000, Cisco Catalyst 6500, Cisco Nexus 7000 or HP 7000 blade servers, then you should take a closer look at the wide range of features and capabilities that our new MPC-HD Series Switched PDUs can provide. Check out our Switched PDU pages listed above for further details, or contact our sales team today!

December 1st, 2009 | Tags: Cisco Catalyst 6500 LAN Switch, Cisco Nexus 7000 Data Center Switch, high amp switched PDU, HP 7000 Blade Server, Sun Blade 6000 | Category: General, Technology | Leave a comment

This year, as a part of our annual company Thanksgiving celebration, WTI employees participated in a Can Castle Food Drive to benefit the Orange County Rescue Mission.

WTI Can Castle Food Drive for Orange County Rescue Mission

The Orange County Rescue Mission is a local non-profit organization that provides food and housing to the less fortunate here in Orange County. In addition to providing meals for the disadvantaged, the Orange County Rescue Mission also sponsors a network of temporary housing accommodations, rehabilitation facilities, and health clinics. Unlike some larger, nationwide charitable organizations, the vast majority of the money and food that is donated to the OC Rescue Mission goes directly to the needy, with comparatively little spent on administrative costs or overhead.

About two weeks prior to Thanksgiving, WTI employees were split into two teams, competing to see which team could donate the most food and then build the most creative “can castle” from the donated goods. Collection bins were placed in the WTI lobby, and as Thanksgiving approached, we all took pleasure in watching the piles of donated food grow, and seeing one team or the other temporarily gain the lead.

After the Can Castle Competition - Loading Donated Goods for Delivery to Orange County Rescue Mission

When the day for our company Thanksgiving celebration finally arrived, we anxiously weighed the two piles of food, hoping to see which team had won, and we were astonished to see that our food drive competition had resulted in a tie! Both teams had donated about 1000 pounds of food each.
 
But the food drive was not over; after we weighed out each team’s contributions, there was still the Can Castle building contest, in which the two teams would compete to see which could build the most creative structure from the donated food goods. For thirty minutes, team members were wracking their brains, either trying to figure out how to realize previously made plans for their can castle, or improvising a new plan that would make better use out of the donated items. After the thirty minute “castle building” time period had elapsed, two volunteer, outside judges were brought in to decide which can castle had won.

December 1st, 2009 | Tags: Add new tag, Can Castle, Orange County Rescue Mission | Category: General | Leave a comment

I just wanted to thank Disney, Pixar, Apple or Steve Jobs (thanks a joke, they are all the same). We buy a few DVDs and most of them have Digital Downloads now, well as you know that is a joke. The Digital Downloads are usually in some obscure Windows Media DRM laced digital format that can NOT be played on an iPhone/iTouch or any iPod (or the Zune for that matter) it was basically useless.

When we got the new Up! DVD from Pixar/Disney  I was hopeful and actually tried it. You know it worked flawlessly. It supported both iTunes and Windows Media formats. It launched my iTunes and downloaded the digital copy of the movie and it went on my iPhone and iTouch without a hitch.

No need to RIP the DVD and hassle with file formats it just worked.

Thank You

Its a perfect example of how, if you don’t not punish people that buy this thing, they will come back.

Now lets tell the rest of the studios

sigh

November 13th, 2009 | Tags: apple, disney, movies, windows | Category: General, Technology | Leave a comment

Well, it came and went. We got to the Mission Viejo Microsoft store about noon time. It opened at 9am, the sales people where telling me the there where lines outside the store before it opened. I am not a complete fanatic about it. MY son on the other hand reminded me constantly about our noon time appointment. Lucky for him they had no school that day.

We got into the store it was EXTREMELY noisy there were so many people. The only Microsoft Executive I recognized was Ray Ozzie. Of course it looked a lot like the Apple Store just down the mall from it (even the employees where wearing color coded shirts), but the Microsoft store was bigger and more sterile looking. They had a Microsoft Surface running a pumpkin drawing program for the kids and a ton  of computers. There where 3 Xbox 360 stations set up in the rear of the store near the Theater.

I never saw so many “cool, hip” people at the mall… EVER, there were a lot of people checking out, obviously many of the people were not from this area. Microsoft had banners and signs throughout the mall, even the Cupcake store had employees wearing Windows t-shirts and cupcakes saying “Welcome Microsoft”. I should have strolled down the Apple store to see if there were any sign of Microsoft there, but one has to work.

We are going back to the store this weekend to take a closer look when the crowds thin out, because there were lot and lots of computer on display to try and of course the Zune and (ugh) Microsoft phones.

They were giving wrist bands out for a concert by Justin Bieber at 5pm. I had no idea who he was. Evidently my 14 year old daughter knew, her friends were there since the morning.

sigh

October 30th, 2009 | Tags: microsoft store | Category: General, Technology | Leave a comment

Its mainly a Microsoft today. The Microsoft store by us in the Mission Viejo Mall, Shops of Mission Viejo opens at 10am, my son has today off from school for Parent Teacher week, so he wants to go at noon time.

Fine I said , lets get our free goodie bags and sign up for the free contests. I will post pictures later today.

Another bigger news item is that Microsoft has opened up their PST data format in Microsoft Outlook. If you don’t know what that is, it is basically what keeps people from moving away from the Microsoft Office Platform, you know, Microsoft’s money machine. It’s the central file that Outlook uses which stores your contact, email and calendar. Basically anything that is important to you. It was this mysterious file that for years vexed 3rd party developers designing Applications compatible and competing against Microsoft Office.

What this means is that the Microsoft Office cash cow will now start to whither away, if you own Microsoft Stock, watch for smaller profits starting in 2011. As Google (and others) make in roads with a cheaper alternatives, Microsoft will have to come up with a game changer to replace that revenue lost.

Also, Verizon introduced the “Droid” phone based on the Google Android Operating System yesterday, legitimizing the Android Platform. I never liked the “here is the mobile Operating System go make a phone” strategy. For developers its way to complicated to support 100 different phones that are slightly different, just enough to make thing to complicated. The strategy never worked for Unix before Linux came out. It didn’t work for the Microsoft Mobile Platform. I am sure Android will work out well enough, but not the blockbuster hit everyone is thinking. The bottom line, its all about the developers

Lets see, what is Apple doing, yea the tablet, bookreader, Comic book display or what ever the heck they are going to release in January.

sigh

October 29th, 2009 | Tags: Android, apple, Droid, Microsoft, microsoft store, mobile, tablet | Category: General, Technology | Leave a comment

Well Vista 2 Windows 7 was officially released yesterday. I have been using the beta versions for months and finally installed the RTM version a month ago. It works great, no problems, runs like a champ.  Mind you I still also run Mac OSX and Linux for good measure.

In celebration of installing a new OS, I figure I would load the new Ubuntu 9.04 onto a machine that was recently abandoned and see how it runs. It loaded with no problem, great performance, then I started to do updates. It took 10 hours to update my Ubuntu Linux 9.04.

What I don’t get is, that people claim Windows is so insecure that it cant be used for anything, but there are so many updates for Linux that it takes 10 hours to update after an install.

What I am waiting for is for all computer users to fess up and admit 99% of all security headaches are caused by behavior and the way people do things. Opening unknown emails, going to websites and just clicking OK when a dialog box pops up. The internet is not a carefree place it takes responsibility from everyone.

If I drive my car down the freeway at 100 MPH and crash into a stalled car and the drivers claims he didn’t know where the brake was, do I blame the car manufacturer for the accident ? Of course not, its the drivers fault for driving to fast and not having the knowledge of where the brake was.

Same thing for computers.

I noticed since the Microsoft Security Essentials came out, all the virus and malware companies are giving great deals on their software and doing deals with a lot of banks for free trials. Listen, just download the FREE Microsoft virus software and save your money.

On a Side note, my son told my that the Microsoft store at the Mission Viejo mall opens on October 29, I think he is already in line.

sigh

October 23rd, 2009 | Tags: apple, security, software, ubuntu, windows 7 | Category: General, Technology | Leave a comment

It usually takes me months to get something once I make the decision to buy, mainly because I am so cheap, but this time I have made an exception. I needed internet access around town for various reasons, a big one as it turned out, to keep the kids happy. Most of the time you would look at a wireless modem that plugged in to your computer to give you wireless access. My problem, is we have a lot of unusual devices. like a modem-less iPhone, iTouch and a Nintendo DSi, along with the various Wi-Fi based computer we lug around.

This Mifi 2200 Wi-Fi hotspot device marketed by Verizon (and Sprint) and made by Novatel wireless is a blessing. The price was $99.99 (USD) which included a $50 instant credit (yes, you can get the instant credit in store if you ask for it). It allows up to 5 simultaneous WIFI connections over the credit card sized device. The download speeds are suppose to be 3G speeds, so download speeds are 600 to 1.4 Mbps and upload speeds at 500 to 800 Kbps, with EV-DO Rev. A. The best plan I could get was 5 gigs a month for $60, after that they are charging you per a megabyte. I am going to monitor normal usage this month and see what I cap out as.

So far there had been no buyer remorse, well that is until my wife sees the first bill.

sigh

October 13th, 2009 | Tags: modem, novatel, sprint, verizon, wireless | Category: General, Technology | Leave a comment