After more than 20 years, IBM has finally pulled the plug on Lotus 1-2-3 (1983–2014)

Posted on October 18, 2014 by jmah

Lotus 1-2-3, the computer software program that was the spreadsheet of choice for businesses in the 1980s, was born in the Boston area on January 26, 1983. It was the brainchild of Mitch Kapor and Jonathan Sachs who had formed Lotus Development Corp. to release the software program. The two weren’t new to computer spreadsheets: Kapor was the head of development at VisiCorp, which marketed the first desktop spreadsheet program, VisiCalc, and Sachs was a computer programmer who had been transferring VisiCalc to some of the world’s first minicomputers………(read the whole story)

New Internet speed record blows past Google Fiber

Posted on July 10, 2014 by jmah

Bell Labs researchers just broke the broadband Internet speed record. It is eight times faster than the previous record — and it was done over copper landlines.

With speeds of 10 gigabits per second, Bell Labs’ technology proved to be 1,000 times faster than traditional broadband speeds. It is even 10 times faster than Google Fiber, which offers the fastest broadband available to consumers.

Alcatel-Lucent (ALU), Bell Labs’ parent company, dubbed the new technology “XG-FAST.” The company called it a “major breakthrough,” giving broadband companies the ability to provide fiber-optic-like speeds over the existing copper landline infrastructure that blankets most of America………(read the whole story)

SysTools Outlook PST Reporter

Posted on April 25, 2014 by jmah

If you want to have a quick analysis of what is stored in an Outlook PST file, this is a good tool and it is freeware.

http://www.systoolsgroup.com/outlook-pst-reporter.html

Analog Telephone Adaptor

Posted on April 8, 2014 by jmah

If you have a VOIP phone service at home, your service provider will give you an analog telephone adaptor such that you can connect the internet-based (digital) service to your existing (analog) phones. The adaptor will have an IP address just like other devices in your network when plugged into the router.

If you log into the phone adaptor (by pointing your browser to the adaptor’s IP address), you will find tons of configuration that can be tweaked to make it work better (or break it if you don’t know what you are doing). If you are really interested in understanding what or how each parameter should be set, these documents (#001, #002) will give you some clues (for Grandstream adaptors HT70x series).

User-Agent Strings

Posted on March 10, 2014 by jmah

A User-Agent String is sent by browsers when accessing a web server for identifying the type and properties of the browser. In some cases, you may want to force a certain browser to appear to be another (a different version or a totally different browser) for various reasons. You can override parts of the User-Agent String by modifying the registry. Details can be found in these two articles (Article 1 and Article 2).

Problem Downloading from Goolge Play

Posted on February 23, 2014 by jmah

If you experience problems downloading apps (or updates of existing apps) from Google Play on Andriod phones or tablets, try the following:

Go to ‘Settings’
Select ‘Apps’
Select ‘Google Framework Services’ and Clear Data (please only clear data; do not delete Google Services Framework completely)

Re-try the downloading and this may do the magic.

Facebook buys WhatsApp for $19 billion

Posted on February 19, 2014 by jmah

In a play to dominate messaging on phones and the Web, Facebook has acquired WhatsApp for $19 billion. (Read the whole story……..)

Microsoft is about to take Windows XP off life support

Posted on January 30, 2014 by jmah

On April 8, Windows XP’s life is coming to an end. On that day, Microsoft will stop issuing security updates to the 12-year-old operating system, and it will end nearly all technical support as well.

You wouldn’t think that killing off an operating system that debuted in the first year of the Bush administration would ruffle too many feathers. But an amazing 29% of computers across the globe are still running Windows XP, according to NetMarketShare. That makes it the world’s second most widely used operating system, just behind Windows 7………….(read the whole story)

Windows Server 2012 R2 Virtual Labs

Posted on December 16, 2013 by jmah

Microsoft offers an excellent platform for IT professionals to try out various editions of the latest Windows Server 2012 R2. Not only a step-by-step manual/tutorial is provided, but also virtual machines that you can actually configure and play around as if you have a number of physical computers at your command, all for free. Give it a spin!

BulkFileChanger

Posted on November 3, 2013 by jmah

BulkFileChanger is a small utility that allows you to create files list from multiple folders, and then make some action on them – Modify their created/modified/accessed time, change their file attribute (Read Only, Hidden, System), run an executable with these files as parameter, and copy/cut paste into Explorer.

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