Blog entries

Deployment using Windows 7

Matt Lorentzen — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 07:23:13 +0100

ok, so it has been a while.....I am always telling clients that they need to invest more time into adding content to their sites, and yet I find no time for my own.

I have just finished a network deployment for a primary school in Northampton involving an ICT suite rewire, CAT 5 install and then all the hardware provisions for a new domain.

Server 2008 R2 is great to use. I really like the Group Policy preferences as it cuts down so much batch file work. The abilRead More...

Open Source Options in a Windows Environment

Matt Lorentzen — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 15:08:31 +0100

I started with Microsoft products and I trained (and train) to learn as much about the Windows platform as I can. However in recent years, I have started to become interested in Open Source solutions. It started with an application, Blender which is an Open Source 3D application.

At the time I was running some flash animation course for a school and we where looking at ways to load in pre-rendered 3D elements. I was using a program called Plasma from discreet (now absorbRead More...

AOL webmail problem with IE8 - More AOL Fun!

Matt Lorentzen — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 17:18:49 +0100

I officially 'don't like' AOL. I had an issue today with a customer desktop who was using Internet Explorer 8 and the AOL web portal. There is so much background code going on, there is 200 lines of head tag code with various javascript and tracking snippets before you really get to a div.

The problem with the client was IE8 would crash out when you clicked the webmail option. Logging into AOL was fine. What ever code base is processing, IE8 didn't like it.
Now I knRead More...

Domain Name problems for HP AOL Port

Matt Lorentzen — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 16:38:44 +0100

Sometimes I get some really strange problems to sort. Really random things. The following breakdown is an outline of the problem, random as it is I encountered today.

After completing a router upgrade for a client I set to work on the 'list' of things they wanted me to look at, and if you work in IT support you have no doubt worked through a few lists in your time. One of the things on the list was to do with a user preference for connecting to AOL's homepage to access Sport, News Read More...

IE6 - Style hanging around like a bad smell

Matt Lorentzen — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 08:47:24 +0100

One of the things I tend to end up sorting out a lot when I am deploying Windows networks is a patch management structure. First there was Software Update Services (SUS) which then became Windows Software Update Services(WSUS). It is easy to setup and all that is needed is to set the content update location path to the server in Group Policy.
Of course you need to monitor and control the updates but WSUS has an intuative dashboard that gives you control over the systems and the status ofRead More...

UPN Suffix in Active Directory User Properties

Matt Lorentzen — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 12:18:21 +0100

Recently I had a call from a client who was having some strange issues on the network regarding the performance of opening files.

It was random, sometimes things would open no problem, other times a lag of around 30 seconds would kick in. This was happening across a wide range of accounts.
Network checks, traffic transfer, switch trunks and performance baselines failed to pin point the problem.

It turns out the issue was to do with a missing UPN attrRead More...

To iPhone or not to iPhone - HTC HD2

Matt Lorentzen — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 10:42:05 +0100

It seems that you simply don't fall into the 'cool' catagory unless you own an iPhone. I have been wrestling with the business benefits now that Vodafone have started to offer this as a device and I must admit that I have been very tempted. The app store stuff looks excellent and I am sure that there are numerous applications on there that would make my life easier. Some of my business processes already offer iPhone apps to make this easier, mainly logmein and heartinternet so I can see a logRead More...