Nov 032009
 

One of the things I think everybody struggles with is learning how to use a program.  Microsoft has great office products like excel, word, power point, and onenote.  The thing is that as end users we usually are not using them to their fullest capacity.  Personally I find that it is hard to remember shortcuts or how to complete certain tasks.  I usually end up having to spend time looking them up on Google to figure out how to do that task again.  This is where having a nice cheat sheet would come in handy.  The people over at custom guide have spent the time to create amazing office cheat sheets that help you with the wide range of office products.  So I strongly encourage you to stop by and check them out.  I guarantee  having these close at hand will save you time.  You just might also learn a few tricks to make that document look just a little bit better.

Custom Guide Quick Reference Guides
http://www.customguide.com/quick_references.htm

Oct 312009
 

IT pros have allot of great tools that we can use to troubleshoot situations.  Clint Huffman has a great blog that walks through how he troubleshoots some of the issues he sees in the field.  The latest post by Clint explains how he investigates high CPU usage on a BizTalk server.   He walks through the use of PAL, Process Monitor, Process Explorer, WINDBG, and a few others.  The great part about the post is how to use all of these tool to find the root issue.  I personally find these post very helpful as it helps me better understand how to troubleshoot issues in my own environment.  Also the post hints that PAL 2.0 will be released very soon.  If you have not kept up with PAL 2.0 the big change is that it is built on PowerShell.  I can’t wait to see what improvements have been made.

Clint Huffman’s Windows Troubleshooting – High CPU
http://blogs.technet.com/clinth/default.aspx

Oct 302009
 

I am always on the lookout for free training.  I ran across an excellent video series for at idea that covers some PowerShell basics.  The series is made of of five different videos.  The first part will cover getting to know PowerShell and will allow you to start to see why it is so important to learn this new tool.  The other four parts cover using PowerShell on core applications such as active directory and exchange server.  So follow the link below and learn everything you can about PowerShell.  Also while you are over at the Idera website download PowerShell Plus 3.0 and give it a try.  I don’t think you will be disappointed.

Idera Practical PowerShell Video Series
http://www.idera.com/Promo/Practical-PowerShell/