Eric Longman

Internet geek. Project Manager. Propellerhead.

If you manage lots of Windows servers like I do, then you’ve doubtless found Microsoft’s very nice “Remote Desktops” utility.  This one isn’t the built-in “Remote Desktop Connection” tool which allows you to connect to one server at a time.  No, this one has a little more smarts, and will save multiple server definitions and [...]

Here are a couple of outstanding pieces of software that I’ve run across lately.  One is highly recommended because you need it.  The other is highly recommended if you need it. SyncBackSE from 2BrightSparks You need to back up your data.  Trust me on this, you NEED to do it.  I’m on the tail end of [...]

More geek stuff. If you built a stored procedure, and it works beautifully in the Query Analyzer (or in SQL Management Console), but you get an “800a0e78 – Operation is not allowed when the object is closed” error when you run it from code, one possibility is that you left some debugging “PRINT” statements in [...]

For the first time in six years, I got a new laptop.  After lots of poking around in Dell’s Outlet center, I picked out a Dell Precision Mobile Workstation M4300.  I love it!  Fantastic 1920×1200 graphics, 2GB of RAM, and a plenty-fast Intel Core 2 Duo 2.2GHz processor, plus a big hard drive and fast [...]

http://cwflyris.computerworld.com/t/2973495/1517340/104116/2/

Network Solutions is up to their old tricks again.  Or perhaps it’s some new tricks.  Regardless…tricks. Yesterday (Feb 18), I got a call from a partner we work with who does IT/LAN management.  He’s got a new client who is getting an Exchange server and wants a domain name for their email.  He passed along [...]

OK, maybe “evil feature” is a little too strong, but this one sent me down a rabbit hole that was far deeper and far darker than I like.  In fact, I can provide a useful title like “Netgear WG511v2 Driver…” only because I have finally emerged from the darkness.  Come with me on a little journey, [...]

We got a new desktop machine for a client the other day, and I’ve been banging my head against the wall trying to get the right drivers for the NIC card.  Enter Vincent Verhagen with the perfect solution that even goes above and beyond what I needed.  Sweet!  I’ve written a small script that checks [...]

Elton passed on a cool link: “Quietly run Microsoft's SyncToy”A console application that runs SyncToy quietly by avoiding the user interface.http://www.codeproject.com/vb/net/SyncToy_Helper.asp Of particular interest is the code posted in the first comment on this article, under the heading “AutoSync”.  It’s a recipe for setting up a real-time file-watching sync that will keep two servers up-to-date [...]

Now this is supremely geeky.  Below is a graphical representation of all the files on my hard drive, with each block sized to represent the relative size of the files and folders.  Different colors represent different types of files.  Courtesy of a free program called SequoiaView.