The IT Guys Blog

Samsungs new 19″ USB connected monitors feature an internal video card so there is no need to upgrade your PC. You can connect up to six of these 19″ displays, provided of course that you have enough usb ports. The new displays also feature the traditional VGA input and a DVI in. Samsung’s new UbiSync technology will likely grace future monitors as it adds a third option for connectivity and doesn’t require a graphics card. The idea of six 19″ monitors connected to one system is a bit much, but maybe useful for a stock trader or someone who needs to scan multiple displays quickly. The monitors are available now through major retailers and have an MSRP of $379.

“The Onion” ran a story today where they put a date on the buyers remorse, which many of the wall street firms are claiming will hit home in the months to come. Mark March 21, 2008 down on your calendar as the day the apple died.

“At the current rate, we believe that at this time a sea change will occur in which people will look down at their glossy white or black devices and feel a sense of embarrassment and gullibility,” Goldman Sachs analyst Steven Shore said. “They will realize that, despite all the sleek design, they got caught up in a wave of hype that made them shell out additional hundreds of dollars for options and features they didn’t need. Until then, I would like to point out that my iPhone is awesome.”

Anyone who spends $699 for a cell phone must have a lot of discretionary income and doesn’t mind spending it on electronics that will plummet in price and popularity fast. That or they just got caught in the fad of the iEVERYTHING. Apple could make a five hundred dollar coffee mug tomorrow, the iMug, and I guarantee you they’d sell at least a few thousand of them. When you find yourself digging a few hundred dollars out of your pocket for something with an i in front of it’s name consider why you need such a device. Do they not make cheaper cell phones that also hold mp3s? Do you even want a cell phone that holds mp3s? And if you do, consider the fact that early adopters always pay a premium. The premium isn’t always monetary either; you don’t want to be the next guy riding through the neighborhood on a Segway, do you?

IT Guys have lots of ways to communicate and ask each other questions; my favorite is Experts Exchange. I know you have to pay for Experts Exchange and that’s a big no no with a lot of the IT guys out there, but the solution is make your work pay for it! It’s hands down the best directory of IT problems and solutions on the internet. For documents like policies and troubleshooting guides I usually check out TechRepublic, where I also have a TR Pro membership.

Be sure to leave comments on other sites you like!

Ask any IT Guy, any real IT Guy what he hates the most and he will undoubtedly list documentation. Documentation isn’t fun for anybody, when you think about it you are retracing everything you’ve already done and nobody likes to re-do things. You may not realize it but it’s something your employer also expects you to do. IT Guys tend to switch jobs more often than most employees and they want records of things when you leave. There are some ways to make documentation easier of course. Read the rest of this entry »

Sony’s new OLED Displays are 3 mm thick and have a 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio. The largest size currently in existence is 27″ but it features a > 100% NTSC color reproduction. I can’t wait until these 1080p displays are available.

A new video was released today.

As far as I’m concerned you have three options as an IT Guy.

• Red Bull/Energy Drinks
• Coffee
• Others

Red Bull is great except that after you chug your third or fourth one down your stomach will feel like a washing machine on spin cycle.

Coffee is a great choice, for some reason even though it contains less caffeine than some of the other options it has great eye opening abilities.

Other choices I’ve seen used range from fruit juice to sugary breakfast snacks like donuts.

The real IT Guy trick is just to keep a steady sleep cycle. If you like to go to sleep at 2 A.M. and wake up at 7 A.M. that’s fine, but don’t vary it. If you go to bed earlier your body will take advantage and except the extra sleep every day. Why do you think so many people claim they need 8-10 hours a night yet so many others get by fine on 5-7?

Source: Reuters

A computer containing 800,000 recent job applicants data including social security numbers and personal information was recently stolen from Gap Inc. Gap is pointing the finger at the vendor who apparently assured Gap that the data was encrypted and kept in a safe manor. Now any job applicant at Banana Republic, Gap, and Old Navy that applied since July of 2006 needs to worry. Gap is offering a year of free credit monitoring service and a charge dispute resolution service for the affected applicants.

Gap stands to learn a stiff lesson from this mistake, you can’t point the finger at a vendor you picked when they mess up. A business associate’s agreement will not save you when 800,000 people’s social security numbers become public. It may give Gap grounds to sue the vendor, but guess who will be stated as the defendant on this class action suit? Companies need to realize that just because they pick a vendor who guarantees security, it needs to be verified. We work with a few Indian corporations and I’ve repeatedly caught them trying to do unsafe things. From putting a printer right on the internet to sending data in an non-secure and non-encrypted way. Nobody who works with us should have to worry if the vendors we chose are using safe practices, that’s solely our responsibility.

Full Story at Reuters

Further proof that Microsoft clearly dropped the ball on Vista. They are extending production of Windows XP an additional five months, which is likely to be pushed even further back as June grows closer. I wont buy Vista for our corporate desktops until Bill invents an OFF button for all the “security features.” Supporting a new operating system always increases overhead but Vista’s security creates a whole new challenge. It’s 2007 no vendor should be releasing software updates or new versions that aren’t self explanatory.

Bill Quoted Saying: “Vista is so secure it could run life support systems.”

It always amazes me when I see some of the “old school IT Guys” rocking their CD Wallets with software that totals their life savings. I guess nobody told them that CD’s get stolen, break, and don’t last long. I’ll cover this before somebody e-mails me about it. CD-R’s have an average rated life of 75 years and if you leave your CD’s in a warm place or in sunlight that shrinks their life dramatically. 75 years seems great but if you’re and IT Guy, you actually USE your CD’s. Realistically plan on your CD’s lasting no more than a year and sometimes less, because they get scratched and left in computers by accident before you ship them out to other offices. CD’s are temporary storage in my eyes. You should always have copies of your CD’s on a file server or at least an external hard drive. Read the rest of this entry »

When these polls roll every year I always wonder where these people are working? Not only do they say that 49% of Tech workers have admitted falling asleep on the job but 44% admit they’ve kissed a co-worker and 25% admitted drinking alcohol on the job. If I had to guess I would say these people work at large companies where they are in very specialized fields. I’ve seen IT dept’s where they have 25 or so employees and then their sister data center in TX had another 30. When you get 25 guys in IT and it’s so specialized that your job is just to work with routing or content filtering you tend to find more time to goof off.

Article from ITNews