Advice is usually free.

Sometimes you get what you pay for though. When you use me as a technology consultant, you should consider me to be part of your team. I'm your virtual CIO, and if you are making moves or changes that might affect any of the technologies you rely upon, you should at least bounce the idea off of someone and make sure you have thought it out and are not making changes that may have negative repercussions on your business's livelihood!

Tired of losing things in your clipboard?

Lot's of us have gotten really quick with Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V. Sometimes, you can have too many things open, and Control-C twice, losing data. There's a quick and FREE solution to this.
Check out ClipTray, it has the ability to save your clipboard, and allow you to choose which items in your clipboard to paste. Similar to Microsoft Office 2003's multiple clipboards, but this will work in any application, not just MS Office applications.

Don't Shoot the Messenger!

Technology can be great. Sometimes. Some days, when your workstation is broken, your server is BSOD'ing, or your network is not performing the way it should be, it takes someone like myself to figure out what's wrong, and let you know two simple things. What it will take to fix or replace it in both time and in dollars. Granted, they both fall into the money category for many people, and they quickly tend to find that the correct solution will cost more than expected. There are always ways to make things be cheaper, but to do it correctly, and not look back is money spent that should be viewed as an investment. You are investing in not having to call me as much, as often, or spend as much money over time. It's a simple term called TCO, or Total Cost of Ownership. Sure, you can purchase a new workstation for less money. But we all know the end result. When that doesn't work as expected, you end up buying upgrades, and paying for someone like myself to implement them. Over time, your "bargain" workstation may cost you more than the workstation that a consultant might recommend you purchase.

How to take screenshots!

When you get an error in Windows, or any application, there is a simple way to take a screenshot of the error. First, with the error message being the active window, hold down ALT and hit Print Screen. This places the screenshot into your clipboard. Then click on Start->Run and type MSpaint and click OK. Once MSPaint is open, you can go to Edit->Paste and it will paste the screenshot into the application. Crop the image, and save it as a BMP, or more preferably a JPG file. (Windows XP will let you do JPG, older versions of Windows, you will be forced to do BMP) Then you can save the file and e-mail it to your tech for further evaluation. It may seem like a few extra steps, but when an error message is particularly long, or has a lot of detail in it, this is much easier than retyping the error into an e-mail.

Got a new PC with no floppy drive, and need to boot from a floppy?

With so many new PC's coming to the market without a floppy drive, there are definitely times where you still need them. First off, I highly recommend every office have at least one machine with a floppy drive. If there are none, I recommend picking up a USB floppy drive for cheap. Once you have that, you can easily pass it from machine to machine if need be. If you have a boot floppy you need to use, software like Roxio can be used to make a bootable CD out of a bootable floppy. Just launch Creator Classic and choose File, New Project, Bootable Disc. Then choose "Generate image from floppy" and insert the bootable floppy into your USB floppy device. Once that is done, the only thing you need to do is make sure your PC can boot off of the CD. For most BIOS's, there is even a "boot menu" function that allows you to choose the CD drive. Some may require you to change the boot order in the BIOS to make your CD drive before your primary hard disk.

Nothing is more satisfying than a happy customer

I love having customers who not only are OK with being a referral for me, but actively give my contact information to other potential clients, along with kind words about what a great service I have provided them. There is nothing that makes me happier.

Protect yourself from spyware!!

Saw Microsoft finally did a write up, so I figured I would post it up for you all.

If you are running out of disk space on your C drive

There are a few places you can trim up. First off, clear your web browser's cache. This is basically a copy of all web pages you have visited, and does no harm to delete. Then, check your c:\temp, your c:\windows\temp and your C:\Documents and Settings\%username%\Local Settings\Temp folders for things to delete. Usually, if all applications are closed, you can safely delete most of the contents of those directories. Finally, if you still need the room, you can delete the uninstall folders from your previous Windows Updates. I generally recommend only doing this if you have to, since you will no longer be able to uninstall any patches. These files are in your c:\windows folder, and all start with a dollar-sign. See this image for more detail. Don't forget to empty your recycle bin!