Happy Holidays to everyone from IT Journey.

See you in the New Year.

-Craig

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.

1. Download or locate the ISO file you want to install
2. Download Virtual CD Control Panel
3. Extract WinXP Virtual CD Control Panel to a folder and run the VCDControlTool.exe file
4. When the program opens, click Driver Control
5. 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.
6. Click Add Drive
7. Click Mount
   You should now see the new drive appear in the drive listing in the WinXP Virtual CD program, and Windows Explorer.
8. 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.
9. Choose any special mount options that you want and click Ok
10. Click Ok to close the Virtual CD program
11. Open Windows Explorer and browse to the newly created drive letter
12. 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.

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/16/live- from-apples-iphone-4-press-conference/

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.

CMIT Consultants is now IT Journey, LLC.

Why was the name changed?
The name was change due to a name conflict with another IT consulting company in a different state.

What does this mean to me?
For the most part, nothing except we now run as a differnt name.

Will the services offered change?
If you are wondering if the services offered will decrease, the long term answer is no.  Some services like the Dell Partnership will need to be re-established under the new company name, but that was a new service that wasn’t being fully offered to CMIT customers yet.

Google Apps is a suite of of online applications that can serve as an alternative to other productivity suites.  Until today all you could really do was create, save, edit, and share documents, spreadsheets and presentations.  This was great, but wasn’t a complete solution for people who want to move to a completely online storage and productivity suite, it was missing an important piece…the ability to save files that weren’t created using the online productivity suite.  Google has just help to solve this problem.

Google Apps is now in the process of allowing you to upload documents that weren’t created using Google Apps, and securely share those documents both internally and externally.  You will get 1GB of storage per user and you will be able to upload files that are up to 250 MB.

This new addition to Google Apps will allow you to access your files anywhere you can access Google Apps.  Say good bye to that thumb drive and sending files to yourself through email.  Google Apps Premier users can purchase additional storage for $3.50/GB per year.

To read the full post from Google directly click this link.

You may have heard the term web 2.0 and wondered what it means.  Well you will get all sort of answers depending on who you ask, and all those answers will vary from too technical to too non-technical.  I have found a video on YouTube from a person named Michael Wesch at Kansas State University that explains Web 2.0 and some of the complexities with it.  This video as with many other has a technical base, but once you get past that and look at the over all video you can get an idea of what Web 2.0 is.

Take a look at the video below.

Happy New Year! 2010 is a brand new year. What is on your needs/wants list for this year? Technology is changing as usual, and companies are trying to make their IT budgets stretch a little further due to the current economy.

Making your existing technology work harder for you is something CMIT Consultants can help you with.

Contacts us today to see how we can help you.

Happy Holidays from CMIT Consultants to you and your family!

Hoping you have a great holiday season.

CMIT Consultants is now a Dell Registered Partner.

What does this mean to you?

CMIT Consultants can now offer you Dell products at discounted rates, provide you with information regarding Dell hardware and how it can benifit your company.