Spiceworks 5.3 is here Spiceworks 5.3 has just been released and adds a pile of improvements and new features that I'm sure everyone will find useful. All together Spiceworks has packed in 82...
Virtualization...What is it? What should I use? Virtualization has been around for a while, but is just now starting to pop-up in the SMB market. Some companies will expand physical servers to assign a single role to each...
Keep Track Of Your IT Devices And Software How do you keep track of all those IT devices, software licenses, IT contracts, etc that you have? That is a question that is difficult for a lot of businesses to answer,...
How to Install a Program from an ISO file Have you ever had to install a program but only had it as an ISO file and didn't or couldn't burn it to a CD/DVD? Here is how you can do it on Windows XP.
Download or...
Spiceworks 5.0 Beta is out A Beta of Spiceworks 5.0 has been released to the public. This is an exciting release for all of us. I for one have watch Spiceworks grow over the years both as a company...
Spiceworks 5.3 has just been released and adds a pile of improvements and new features that I’m sure everyone will find useful. All together Spiceworks has packed in 82 updates in version 5.3.
Here is a quick list of a few features:
Up to 20% performance increase
New purchasing navigation (create and send RFQs even faster)
New volume license tracking and improved cloud services
IT Journey will be offering a Spiceworks 101 training class September 23rd from 1-5pm. If you are a Spiceworks user or are thinking about using Spiceworks this class will be beneficial. Classes are only $99 per person for 4 hours of training.
Not sure what Spiceworks training covers? Here is a video from Nicole at Spiceworks that explains what Spiceworks University is.
IT Journey is proud to be the first and only official Spiceworks Training provider in North Carolina. If you are a Spiceworks user head over to the community and join the Spiceworks University forum
What is Spiceworks University? Spiceworks University is a training offering through Spiceworks Certified Trainers.
What classes are currently offered through Spiceworks University?
Currently three classes have been created by Spiceworks. Here is a list of the current course offerings.
Spiceworks 101: Spiceworks Fundamentals
Spiceworks 201: Inventory Deep Dive
Spiceworks 202: Help Desk Deep Dive
IT Journey is proud to announce that it will be the first authorized trainer for Spiceworks in North Carolina. Check back here for future classes.
Right now we are working on scheduling a class for July 2011. When more details are available I will post an update. In the mean time, if you have any questions please feel free to contact me by phone using the “Call Me” widget on the bottom of the Home page, or leave a comment to this post, or submit your question on the Contact page
How do you keep track of all those IT devices, software licenses, IT contracts, etc that you have? That is a question that is difficult for a lot of businesses to answer, but there are solutions out there. One of my favorite solutions is a product called Spiceworks.
Spiceworks is a free piece of software that can scan you network and inventory everything you have connected to your network. It has a dashboard where you can get alerts for things like warranty’s that are running out, software license counts, Help Desk tickets and so much more. One of the really great dashboard options is to add a contact list where you can store all the contact info for all your vendors and attach documents to the vendor (like contracts). This provides a great place to centrally see all of you IT contacts and the contracts you have with each of those companies.
Want to give it a try. You can download it for free here.
Spiceworks also maintains a video library that shows how to use key components of the Spiceworks software. Here is a video that gives you a good overview of Spiceworks.
Another extremely helpful feature of Spiceworks is the Spiceworks Community. The community consists of over 1.4 Million Spiceworks users all with varying levels of IT knowledge (from home user to Large Enterprise). You can post any question and typically get a response from someone in the community in less than one day. Here is an overview video of the Spiceworks Community.
If you have any questions or want help setting Spiceworks up on your network give me call. I can come on-site to set it up for you or work with your remotely.
Posted on : 20-10-2010 | By : Craig | In : Uncategorized
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Have you ever had to install a program but only had it as an ISO file and didn’t or couldn’t burn it to a CD/DVD? Here is how you can do it on Windows XP.
Download or locate the ISO file you want to install
Extract WinXP Virtual CD Control Panel to a folder and run the VCDControlTool.exe file
When the program opens, click Driver Control
Install the Virtual CD driver
When you click Install Driver, you will be prompted to find the driver file. This file is called VCdRom.sys and is located in the folder where you extracted WinXP Virtual CD Control Panel in step 3.
Click Add Drive
Click Mount
You should now see the new drive appear in the drive listing in the WinXP Virtual CD program, and Windows Explorer.
Select the ISO you want to install and click Open
Select the ISO that you want to install. For this demo, I am using the ISO for Visio 2007 Pro that I downloaded from the free TechNet Subscription.
Choose any special mount options that you want and click Ok
Click Ok to close the Virtual CD program
Open Windows Explorer and browse to the newly created drive letter
Run the setup file to start the install
If you don’t run Windows XP Virtual CloneDrive from Slysoft is a good alternative.
If you have any question about this post feel free to send me an email or post a reply to this post.
A Beta of Spiceworks 5.0 has been released to the public. This is an exciting release for all of us. I for one have watch Spiceworks grow over the years both as a company and as a software product. This release is one of the best I have seen. There are several new features that I would like to point out.
Backup device configuration from Cisco, HP, and Dell equipment
How is this helpful?
Now if you have an HP, Dell, or Cisco device, Spiceworks can backup the configuration of that device and save the image for later use or just as a general backup. This is extremely useful when you are making configuration changes to your network. Now through Spiceworks, you can make a backup of the configuration before you make changes and add notes as to what you are doing and why the backup was created. If your changes don’t work the way you want, you can have Spiceworks restore the previous configuration from the backup and reboot the device for you. This can save you a TON of time and save you money by avoiding a long network outage due to a configuration problem.
General Speed Improvements!
Spiceworks knows that speed has been an issue when using Spiceworks in the past. Well Spiceworks said back on June 7, 2010 that they hired a new employee (Adam Gashlin) who was going to be working on performance improvements. Well Adam and the rest of the staff at Spiceworks have delivered in the means of a performance improvement of up to 30% in Spiceworks 5.0.
Comparing the iPhone 4 antenna problem to other SmartPhones
Steve Jobs said:
10:11AM “The BlackBerry Bold 9700… let’s see what happens when you hold it in a normal way… 5 bars… and now on holding the left side.
Quote from a press member in the Q&A:
10:41AM Q: I can’t get my Bold to drop right now, maybe you can show me how to do it?
Steve: You may not see it in certain areas.
Wait a minute…you can make the antenna problem happen anywhere with the iPhone4 and Steve said that is a problem with all SmartPhones, not just the iPhone, yet here he is saying that it doesn’t happen everywhere on other phones.
Virtualization has been around for a while, but is just now starting to pop-up in the SMB market. Some companies will expand physical servers to assign a single role to each physical server. While that is okay to do, you typical don’t utilize the full power of each server when you do this and you end up paying for more hardware, electricity, and generate more heat in your server room (or IT closet) than necessary. This is where virtualization comes in to play. With virtualization you can logically split a server up to run multiple installs of Windows, Linux, Unix or any combination of those on the same physical server. Each logical install doesn’t see the other logical installs that are on the same server which can help you with software conflicts, virus infections and more.
If you have ever looked in to virtualization you have more than likely come across the company VMWare. While VMWare is one of the biggest and longest running players in the virtualization market, they can also come out to be one of the more expensive. With the price of VMWare’s ESX server, SMB’s typically find it hard to justify the cost of virtualization. That is why I want to tell you about a free alternative from Citrix called XenServer. XenServer is a solid alternative to VMWare’s solutions and comes in three different versions. The version that would best fit a first virtual server for an SMB is free.
If you are thinking that you may need to purchase a new server to implement a new software solution, give me a call to talk about virtualization first. We can talk together to find out if virtualiztaion would be a good fit for you.
