As the designated family geek, friends and family call me all the time to troubleshoot their computers. Sound familiar? If so, you probably have dealt already with the problem of trying to connect to the other’s party computer, transfer files, etc.
In my “arsenal” I always keep this three tools, I am sure there are some more out there. If you think they are better ones, by all means please let me know and I will update the entry.
TeamViewer
This is my favorite tool by far. It is free for non commercial use. It is fast and reliable. This software will blow you away, it offers the fastest tcp/ip transfers while working remotely. The screen refresh speeds are jaw dropping… it is amazing how well this thing actually works. Great to use when one of the parties is behind a firewall. It also has an add-on called ‘TeamViewer Manager’ which allows you to define multiple groups and multiple clients per group.
Awesome speed
click here to visit vendor
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Tags: remote desktop, remote help, tcp/ip, Teamviewer, tightvnc, vnc, zolved
I predict that SQL server 2008 is going to be a huge hit. It has been designed for performance and scalability from the start.
Some of the new features:
- Table Valued Parameters – stored procedures will accept a table parameter. ADO.NET has been modified so from C#, etc you can create a new variable called ‘SqlDBType.Structure‘ and pass this onto your stored procedures. This is huge! No more temporary tables, or cursors to emulate the same behavior.
CREATE TYPE CustomersTableType AS TABLE (NAME VARCHAR(25), LASTNAME VARCHAR(25));
CREATE PROCEDURE UpdateCustomers(@CUSTOMERS CustomersTableType REAONLY)
AS
BEGIN
INSERT INTO CUSTOMERS (NAME, LASTNAME)
SELECT NAME, LASTNAME FROM @CUSTOMERS;
END; - New date/time data types: date, time, and also same times but time zone aware
DATE - holds date from 1/1/1 to 12/31/9999
TIME - holds timeaccurate up to 100 nanoseconds
DATETIMEOFFSET - time zone aware. Stores value in UTC format
DATETIME2 - holds date & time with larger precision - New geo-spatial (latitude/longitude) data types -SQL server understand natively coordinates so you can create location aware applications. For instance, get me all the customers within a 10 miles radius
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Tags: Bill Gates, Data Analysis, MERGE, Microsoft, SQL server 2008, techEd 2008, Visual Studio 2008
If you have debt and want to be debt free, the first thing to do is to cut off your credit cards so you don’t use them anymore. You are probably wondering how you are going to survive, well, if you destroy your credit cards then you will not be tempted to use them and you will have to manage with your cash. This will force you to a cash based economy. In other words, only use cash (for everything) from now on.
Get a piece of paper and write down all your balances from smallest to biggest. You really want to start paying off the smallest balances first, once you are done with the smallest balance move on to the bigger balances. This will accomplish several things: first, psychologically you will feel like you are going somewhere, you are accomplishing something. Secondly, it will show your lenders if they look at your credit history that your liability is shrinking.
Depending on your type of debt, you might have to postpone paying some types of debt. Student loans for instance you should start paying the minimum until you settle all your credit card debt. Once you are caught up your credit card debt, then start paying your student loans at the max you can afford. Health-care debt also can be in some cases negotiable and you can always do a payment plan (small installments)
Always pay off your debt, it’s the right thing to do. You got in this mess to begin with, so try to organize yourself, create a budget and if needed get a second job.
This is very controversial, some people that believe credit scores are rubbish/garbage and you should not care about them at all. This is due to the fact that they will operate using cash only. If you feel this way, as soon as you pay off your lenders, close the accounts. If you do care about your credit score, do not close the account but rather keep it open for ever and NEVER ever use that credit card again.
Also remember that if you carry a balance on a credit card, you will pay interest. Interest is bad. Think about it, why are you giving away your hard earned money just for carrying a balance when in the first place if you were to operate using cash only, you would not have. This could save you a huge chunk of change.
Food for thought: “Never buy on impulses and only buy what you really need“
Tags: become a millionare, blances, chapter 11, credit cards, debt, how to, loans, money, rich, wealthy
I will be attending Microsoft tech*Ed 2008 (Developers) in Orlando, Florida this week. Keynote address by Bill Gates!
Stats:
- 5,000 developers
- 615 training sessions
- 16 technical tracks
Tags: Bill Gates, developers, Microsoft, SQL server 2008, techEd, Visual Studio
Never ever buy a brand new car again!
Why? the minute you drive that new car off the dealer’s parking lot, the car has lost value. A car can loose up to 25% of its value the first year. Then the percentage of devaluation slows down even-thought it continues at a much slower pace. The second year you own a car, it will loose up to 15% of its value and so on.
The worst years (the biggest drop in value) are usually the first 2 or 3 years. So get a new car which is used (low mileage and in excellent condition)
Lets do the math, if you buy a car which is 2 or 3 years old, you could save anywhere from 25% to 40% of the retail value. Lets say that a brand new car would you $20,000.00 if you wait to buy this same car 2 years, you could save anywhere from $5,000 to $8,000 and buy the same car for about $12,000 to $15,000
In other words, let someone else pay for the devaluation of that car and then you buy it when it has lost most of its value and the rate of devaluation is smallest.
I did purchased a 2 year old car with 15K miles, it still smell new and there was nothing wrong with it. I actually saved about 10% due that this car was in high demand and it was fully loaded (leather seats, moon roof, etc) I found my car on eBay Motors.
For piece of mind, make sure you get an extended warranty through your bank (not through the car dealer). The warranties offered by banks, are exceptionally good, they will set you back about $1000 to $2000 and you can have that money roll into the car loan. Theses warranties can last up to 6 years or 100K miles and pretty much cover everything. Mine paid for itself the first time I visited the dealer, I had a problem with the outside mirrors and the dealers suggested replacing them. They did, and it cost me about $900 to have the 2 mirrors replaced. I felt like I was robbing a bank!
Tags: Automobile, car, money, retail, save money, savings, used
If you are an iPhone user and want to play with all the native applications available for the iPhone, your only choices are to wait for Apple to release the new Firmware (June 2008 ??) or basically jailbreak your iPhone.
iPhones are not cheap but they are worth every penny. The last thing you want to do is do something to break this great gadget. Well, there is a piece of software called Ziphone that will jail break your phone in a matter of seconds.
For those that don’t know, jailbreak means to open the iPhone so you can run native applications via an awesome program called the installer. The installer basically works like a program / package manager. Where you select from a list of available applications the one you would like to install and over the Edge or WiFi network the application will be downloaded and install in your iPhone (normally within seconds) Very effortless process. I love this process for installing applications due that it allows a novice user or an expert to install application quickly without making mistakes and breaking something within the phone.
The number of available applications is impressible. You can spend many hours just looking at all the available applications. I am putting together a list of the top 10 applications that should be available shortly.
The steps to jailbreak the iphone with ziphone are real easy:
- download and run ziphone (select jailbreak only)
- plug your iphone
- follow ziphone instructions, this step should take just a few seconds
Tags: apple, crack, hack, iphone, jail break, jailbreak, ziphone