Backups make us feel all warm and fuzzy. They’re great. Whether on-site, off-site or just on a jump drive, if we have a backup we feel like we can sleep better at night.
HA
Restoring and recovery are the thing. The actual ability to recover our files and systems is what should make us feel at ease.
For Instance.
I am currently trying to restore a Lenovo tablet to factory defaults. Nothing special, just a factory reset. The “ThinkVantage” crap is killing me. I’ve tried simply running it from the blue button, but it asks for a password to a domain that doesn’t exist, in addition to not recognizing the proper Windows password. Can’t restore.
I’ve tried using the recovery CD’s labled 1 of 6, 2 of 6, etc. After I put in disc 6, it finishes and asks for disc 7. Can’t restore.
I’ve tried giving up on the tablet software and just installing Windows from an OEM CD that I have. Windows can’t find the hard drive because it doesn’t have the proper SATA drivers and the machine doesn’t have a floppy drive, so the drives are almost impossible to load from the F6.
Now I’m trying to burn recovery CD’s from another tablet the client has hoping that these will work. If they don’t I’ll have to call Lenovo. I’m almost positive the machine is out of warranty and they will tell me the recovery disk is $39.99 and they can’t ship it overnight. Almost positive.

Oy.

Whatever your situation, make sure you can backup AND recover your files. Have a backup plan in the event that doesn’t work. Think it through. You’ll thank yourself.

Inspired by LeBron James, my buddy Peter agreed to interview me about the question everyone in America has been waiting for. Will Bill choose the iPhone 4 and AT&T or make the jump to Verizon and get the HTC Incredible? Here is a transcript of the interview.

Peter: Bill, this has been a long process for you. What was it like?
Bill: Well Peter, I won’t lie to you; its been arduous. My family, the media, camera crews day and night – its been a nightmare.

Peter: What is motivating you to look at different options after two solid years with iPhone and AT&T? Is it a question of loyalty?
Bill: In part, yes. AT&T has continually refused to take sufficient responsibility for the number of dropped calls I have to deal with and as a paying customer, it seems like if you are in a contract with them, you give up all your rights.

Peter: That said, why is there even a decision to be made? Why not just take your talents elsewhere?
Bill: The phone is the thing. iPhone is the best device from syncing, to apps to functionality. I really don’t believe there is a better smartphone on the market.

Peter: What was the determining factor in making the decision?
Bill: Ultimately, it came down to rollover minutes.

Peter: Well, before I ask you the big question, I have one more; who butchered your hair?
Bill: I cannot say, as it is a legal matter. Suffice as to say that I won’t be going back. Unless I have a coupon.

Peter: OK, I’ve stalled long enough. What is your decision? What phone are you going to choose for the next two years?
Bill: I’m going to keep giving my money to Apple and AT&T.

Peter: There you have it America. We have a winner. Even though AT&T continues to give its users the shaft, they’ll stay in business because Apple refuses to give up their exclusivity contract.

Yikes.

I have had a busy few weeks with my family out of town on a road trip vacation to the east coast. Luckily my clients have not let me feel alone with a raft of issues from setting up new offices to backup to wireless challenges.

In tech news, the new iPhone 4 has been causing no end of problems for people and has me really looking at all the options again. My contract with AT&T is up at the end of this month, so I may decide to cut ties and go with Verizon finally. This may also cause me to switch my email hosting to Google Apps. Anyone currently using this please let me know how you like it.

My wife’s trusty Dell laptop finally died on her while she was on vacation. She now has a shiny new 15″ Mac Book Pro that she is getting used to. Yep, my wife has a better laptop than I do now. Have to do something about that. . .

My Louisville Chamber Leads Group is looking for members. If you or anyone you know is interested in joining a great group of people dedicated to improving their business, please contact me. Anyone can come as my guest. We meet Thursday mornings at 7:30 AM at the Comfort Inn in Louisville.

One of my favorite clients, Rudisill, Gardner and Zeman are having a Grand Opening / Ribbon cutting on the 9th of September. They are usually at 4pm, but check the Boulder Chamber website to make sure. The address is 4410 Arapahoe Suite 135. Stop by and say hi to John and Karen. If you need a CPA or accountant, I can’t think of anyone I would recommend more.

Good luck and have a great month!

Microsoft has released the latest version of its Office software. Office 2010 seems to have improved upon some of the features from 2007. Take a look here:

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/products/cool-things-you-can-do-with-office-2010-VA101842280.aspx

You may need the latest version of Silverlight to view the video.

Like many others, I am still getting used to Office 2007 and probably will not be an early adopter of 2010. Because this is my business, however, I will be seeing it on a client’s computer sooner than later. It looks like they have kept the “ribbon” navigation, which I am not a huge fan of. Improvements include more ways to share and collaborate and improved graphics and movie integration. What do you think? Do we need another new version of office so soon?

Based on this NY Times article, there have been over 600,000 orders for the new iPhone on the first day it was offered.
Go read that again.
That is a lot of phones. They have pushed back the delivery date into mid-July instead of June 24 as previously planned. Apple always claims that whatever they put out will “change everything.” In this case, I think they are sort of right. If you haven’t yet watched the video for the new phone, here it is:
iPhone 4

For me, the new OS upgrades including multitasking, single email inbox and organization of apps are what sell it. Also, the hope that the apps I use for work will run a bit better and faster. From a geek perspective, the face time feature looks incredible. I wish it ran over mobile broadband and that there was an application that would allow you to connect with users other than iPhone users on a WiFi hotspot.

Either way, while I am still mulling over my choices, the new phone may just keep me with AT&T – two year commitment and all.

WARNING: This post has nothing to do with computers. Think of it as a community service.

Last Friday after work in the evening I decided it was time to get the sprinkler system working again.

Let me begin by saying that I am terrible with plumbing. I can frame a house, lay a hardwood floor and do any electrical work you need. I can even program an old VCR. What I cannot do, however, is anything related to water. Seriously – don’t even put me in charge of your fish tank unless you enjoy Sushi.

That said, however, the sprinkler system is usually just a matter of plugging in the system and opening/closing the right valves in the right order. Well, I thought I had everything working, but it still wasn’t working. In fact, the sprinkler box was flooding. So, I popped the top off using a flat-head screwdriver and my fingernails and thew the lid aside. While I was waiting for the water to drain out of the box, I happened to see something out of the corner of my eye. There, in one of the pockets on the underside of the sprinkler box lid sat the following:

Now at this time, she was not in a jar and she was not moving. I wasn’t sure she was alive. The only thing I knew for sure was that it was a very large, very black widow-looking spider. I slowly backed away shaking and slack-jawed. After about 15 seconds of that, I calmed myself and had one thought; have to kill it. I found a bottle of insect killer, sprayed her and validated that she was, in fact, still alive. I then dumped most of the bottle on her, effectively trapping her in one of the pockets of the lid. She was still moving in the liquid, so I found a bucked and placed it flat side down on top of her pocket so that she would eventually drown overnight. I know what your thinking – what a horrible death! My counter to that is to ask her little insect friends what they thought of her just before she drank their blood, or ask her husband – probably still digesting – his thoughts.

The point to all of this is that they like dark, damp places. My hand was inches from her. I have two very curious kids who play in our yard. Be careful where you put your hands.

I bought my iPhone 3G in July of 2008 and it has been a good business tool for me. I use the calendar, contacts, email, maps, Internet browsing, iPod, and a few of the other 250,000 apps available for the phone. After working with the HTC Incredible for two days, I am ready to switch to not only a new device, but a new network altogether.

I have always said about the iPhone that I love the device and hate the network. Now, I’m not even sure I love the device that much. By comparison, (and granted, my iPhone is two years old), the HTC is about 5 times faster loading programs, about 10 times faster loading web pages, it has an 8 megapixel camera and amazingly high quality video.

There are only two things that will hold me back from switching. As previously stated, there are over 250,000 apps for the iPhone. iTunes makes it ridiculously simple to sync contacts, photos, music and data to the device. If the new iPhone comes out in June or July I will have to look at the features and performance of the new phone before making a decision.

The biggest difference between the phones is simply the ability to make a call. AT&T has several “dead zones” just in the Boulder area. Verizon seems to have none. The hills going out of town seem to affect most carriers, but not to the degree that AT&T is affected. I will probably be willing to work with the syncing issue just to have a solid handset that doesn’t drop my call.

In the mail the other day I received an official looking letter from a company telling me that my domain registration was almost up and I should renew through their company.

While I’m sure that my domain is due for renewal soon, I will be renewing it with the company that it is currently registered with. First, the price will probably be better, second, I would probably have to switch some DNS information and third, I don’t appreciate putting my clients through this confusion.

These people are opportunists – god bless ‘em – but they are going to cause more harm than good. I believe that the same people that get fooled by phony anti-virus schemes will be fooled into thinking that this mail they are getting is something they HAVE to do. Most folks domain registration will automatically renew through their current registrar. It’s possible that they would pay the direct mail shysters AND their current registrar.

Ugh. The point is, if you don’t know if you need to renew – check with your web master or IT admin. Don’t be fooled by direct mail pieces from companies you don’t recognize.

Hate is a strong word. Maybe I am overstating it. Listen to this and tell me if I’m crazy.

I have been using QB Pro 2007 for the last four years. It does what I need. I never run updates as I don’t use the Payroll function. If I were to have a problem with the software, I’d run them manually.
I have known for a while that at some point, the one feature that makes my bookkeeping simple would be taken away unless I upgrade. I send my invoices via email through QuickBooks.
Finally, a couple of weeks ago, I got the message that I would have to upgrade if I wanted to continue using this feature. My option would be to print my invoices to PDF files and manually attach them to a new email in Outlook. Extra steps. I felt it was worth it to upgrade to keep my workflow streamlined.

Guess What?

QuickBooks 2010 attaches the invoices you want to send via email to a new message in outlook, you then have to click Send again.

Upgrading saved me one small step, the attaching part. That’s it.

ARGHHHHHH!