Nov 232009
 

Spware continues to be an ongoing battle we have to face as an IT community.  There are well over a million different spyware and malware programs out today.  Super Anti Spyware is one of the best programs I have found that will detect and remove these threats.  This past weekend I received a call from a friend who had been infected by Anti Virus Pro 2008.  This threat will pretty much makes you machine useless and is hard to remove manually.  Using the Ultimate Boot CD For Windows and Super Anti Spyware I was able to have the person back up and running in no time.  The program detected and removed the threat.  Once again this program made me look like a hero.  Super Anti Spyware not only can remove already infected files but it also has real time blocking.  So I highly recommend checking out Super Anti Spyware.  Their site offers both a free version and a professional version.  If you can afford it I highly recommend the professional version.  This version allows you to basically set it up once and forget about it.  The free version requires you to manually update the definitions and manually scan your machine.  Since the the professional edition is only $30 you will get more then your money back out of it.  The program is also designed to work with all major anti virus programs.

Super Anti Spyware Site
http://www.superantispyware.com/index.html

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 212009
 

Quest Software has allot of great products on the market.  As a windows administrator we are always looking for great tools to help us troubleshoot problems quickly.  The FREE tool called spotlight on windows does a great job at finding the bottleneck on servers.  No matter what your experience level you have, this tool will help you.  The graphical interface gives you a quick snapshot of what the server is currently doing.  Some of the things it shows is network utilization, cpu utilization, physical memory utilization, and disk capacity.  If there is an issue the area will turn either orange or red depending on how bad the problem is.   Another nice feature is you can drill down into each individual area and get more information.  Each drill down area provides and explanation of exactly what you are looking at.  I do have to warn you that this tool can become addictive because of all the information it can provide in a quick snapshot.  You can download the program directly from the quest software site.  I strongly urge you to at least download and try it out.  I think you will learn quickly that this tool can make you look like genius.

Quest Software – Spotlight On Windows
http://www.quest.com/spotlight-on-windows/