The Howerter Blog » Technology

Dell computers

Jay Howerter — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 20:15:42 +0000

I received 8GB of Crucial RAM for my work Optiplex 745 today and when I installed it, Aero stopped working on Windows 7. Memtest86 also would lock up whenever you test. Weeeee! Why can’t anything be simple? After doing some reading, it looks like Dell PCs (at least the business line) only fully support Dell branded memory. I have never had any problems with memory on any of my custom built PCs. Pretty frustrating stuff. I guess I will return the Crucial RAM and pay more for the Dell memory.

PBX

Jay Howerter — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 20:08:48 +0000

I tested my PBX a couple of days ago. It is almost ready to be deployed. I am ready to get it installed and start using it.

Don’t click on links in email

Jay Howerter — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 19:16:43 +0000

If you needed anymore proof to not click on URLs in emails read this story. This story talks about a flaw in SSL (the secure protocol used be websites) that allows a hacker to fake a secure website and your browser will not warn you about it. Meaning, they can have a secure site that looks like PayPal and the security certificate will not come back as invalid. If you get an email from eBay, PayPal, etc don’t click on the link. Go to the site directly (for example, www.ebay.com) after you login you can find any messages that they want you to see. That way you know where you are logging into.

Class this week

Jay Howerter — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 13:37:18 +0000

I am in Schaumburg, IL taking a Cisco class at Global Knowledge. It is the last class I need to take to prepare me for my certification tests. The instructor is knowledgeable, but I forgot how boring class was. It is from 8:30 am to 4:00 pm of lecture and labs. It is a little more tolerable because it is something that I want to learn. This is Wednesday so it is almost half over.

Exchange is back up!!

Jay Howerter — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 21:42:04 +0000

This morning I was able to get the setup on the Exchange server to complete. I have since restored everything. Wow, what a pain this all was. I am very glad it is over. I was dealing with Microsoft support on this one and I wasn’t impressed. I am very glad that I had backups of all the email.

Exchange rebuild Day 4

Jay Howerter — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 16:34:00 +0000

Well I have been trying to successfully rebuild my Exchange server for 4 days now. I get to the configuring part and it errors out on one particular Exchange task. I am a little frustrated to say the least. I have a case opened with Microsoft so hopefully they can figure it out.

The necessity of RAID

Jay Howerter — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 14:20:01 +0000

Maybe some of you have noticed that my mail server is down. This weekend, the hard drive died and I haven’t received the replacements yet. I have ordered two new hard drives and a RAID card. That way if it happens again the server will still run. I am a little lost without my email.

Trixbox

Jay Howerter — Wed, 20 May 2009 13:29:33 +0000

After “deciding” to use Asterisk yesterday, I was talking to a friend and he pointed me to Trixbox. Trixbox is based on Asterisk but has a lot of cool things and installs in appliance mode. Basically, it looks like you install the product and it installs Linux, PHP, MySQL, etc. Can’t wait to try it.

Asterisk

Jay Howerter — Tue, 19 May 2009 19:34:07 +0000

I have started reading about Asterisk the open source PBX. I am installing it at my house. Since I have Vonage I can use Asterisk to connect directly via a SIP trunk. This way I will not have to use the Vonage adapter. Katherine doesn’t see the purpose of this project. I think I just feel ashamed to be a VOIP guy and not have a IP-PBX at my house.

Noise

Jay Howerter — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 20:15:32 +0000

On our recordings at church there has been a very audible hum. Last night I spent a couple of hours trying to get rid of the hum. I discovered that when I connected the board to the new recording PC, the noise went away. A balanced connection is most likely the solution. This has been bothering me for a couple of months now. I am glad to have it resolved.