The other day I picked up a new iPhone 4 since my Blackberry Bold 9000 was finally hanging often enough that I was pulling out the last few hairs out of my head.  So I have to say so far I really like it.  I like a LOT more than I thought I would.

One issue I ran into when setting up my email accounts, was that I couldn’t get one of my personal email accounts to connect.  It was a Google Gmail account (Google Apps account actually).  For some reason, it kept telling me the username/password was incorrect, even though I knew for sure I had the credentials correct.

I tried connecting for a day two, changing passwords, deleting and adding the account into the iPhone, etc., with no luck.  I then came across a post on one of the forums, that stated occasionally the authentication mechanism locks (the captcha system) to prevent spamming, etc.  So the article said to go a special link that allows you to do a “Captcha Unlock”.

The link is https://www.google.com/accounts/DisplayUnlockCaptcha which I thought, awesome I found the fix!  But, for those of us who use Google Apps and have Gmail managing our own domain emails, you need to go to the Google Apps version (the above link is for regular Gmail accounts).  The Google Apps Captcha Unlock link is: https://www.google.com/a/yourdomain.com/UnlockCaptcha, where you replace yourdomain.com with your valid domain name.

I unlocked the account, added the account in the iPhone and life is good.

Hope this helps if you run into a similar issue!

Certified for Life?  Not so Fast…

CompTIA (www.comptia.org) recently changed their longstanding policy of certification for life.  Up until recently, if you passed any of CompTIA’s certification exams you were certified for life and didn’t need to recertify after a period of time.

That all changed last year, when CompTIA decided to announce that all certification holders would need to recertify every three (3) years.  Much to the dismay of the thousands of existing CompTIA certification holders, many of whom felt that the terms of their original “agreement” with CompTIA was now being changed without their input or consent.

CompTIA decided to change their initial ruling, and now have announced that existing certification holders will remain certified for life.  It’s very important to note however, anyone obtaining a CompTIA certification after January 01, 2011 will have to recertify every three years!

What Does this Mean for You?

If you are an IT professional who is thinking about certification, or a career changer looking for training to become certified, you will want to hurry!  If you are looking for CompTIA A+ Certification Training, you still have time to study and get certified before next year.  Doing so will certify you for life, and save you quite a bit of money over the long term because you won’t need to recertify or obtain Continuing Education Units (CEU) every few years.

Palaestra Training offers CompTIA A+ Certification training videos that are extremely affordable, come with AVI, iPod and mp3 formats and truly allow you to study anytime, anywhere. 

Get your training now, so you have time to study and get certified before next year!

Visit us at www.PalaestraTraining.com for more information about our training videos for CompTIA, as well as Microsoft, Cisco (CCNA and CCNA Security) and our newest addition – Project Management Professional (PMP) Certification Training.

Palaestra Training just released a new series that prepares students for the Project Management Professional (PMP) exam.

This training covers the material in the PMBOK 4th edition, and is packed full of information that will help project managers, IT professionals or anyone looking to manage projects the right way.

The training also includes over 3 hours of Microsoft Project 2010 training and includes MeasureUp exam prep software for the PMP certification exam as well.

As always, Palaestra Training offers a 30-day money back guarantee on all their training products, as well as FREE worldwide shipping.  Visit the PMP Certification Training product page for more details and free full length sample videos from this awesome series.

I recently did an upgrade of a server which involved upgrading the existing HP Smart Array controller card and hard drives.  We have an HP ML350G5 server that was using an E200i integrated smart array controller and 4 5.4k SATA drives in a RAID 5 array (I know, 5.4k drives…   it was actually a misconfigured order from HP).  At any rate, I upgrade to an P400 controller with 512MB of Battery Backed Write Cache (BBWC) and 7 15k SAS drives.

We did a full backup of the system using Acronis True Image server, upgrade the hardware, rebuilt the array and restored the backup (again using Acronis).  One option I noticed during the restore was the option to create a new disk signature or extract the existing signature from the backup file.  The default is to create a new disk signature, so we went with that a performed the restore.  An hour and a half later, the restore finished and everything looked good.  Everything except the Microsoft Office applications.  They for some reason wanted to reinstall and activate.  I let it run for about 10 minutes while it looked like it was trying to install, but it was hanging so we killed the process and looked around for some articles on what the issue might be. Read the rest of this entry »

As of January 1, 2010 CompTIA has instituted some changes to their certification policy.  In the past, if you were A+, Network+ or Security+ certified you would remain certified for life – no need to renew or update the certification unless you wanted to just keep up with new technology.  In keeping up with the times however, and in making CompTIA certifications more relevant, they are now requiring certain certifications be renewed every three years.

The new certification renewal policy is applicable to all individuals who hold CompTIA A+, CompTIA Network+ or CompTIA Security+ certifications, regardless of the date they were certified. Does this apply to ALL CompTIA certifications?  The short answer is no, only to the three listed above for now (Other CompTIA certifications are not affected at this time).

CompTIA advised on their website that there will be multiple ways to renew your certification, including take “bridge” exams that bridge the gap between an older exam and the newest version, by taking Computer Based Training, teaching, presenting, and so on.  For the complete details on this update to their certification policy visit their website.

Many thanks to everyone that followed us on Twitter and commented to enter our 8GB iPod giveaway.  We’re very happy with the response, and hopefully everyone will find value in the tweets we publish.  We tweet exclusive deals and discounts, so keep an eye out!

Congratulations to Tanya Wilson (@twincere) for being the winner of our iPod giveaway.  Tanya was kind enough to send us a photo and let us know how we were able to play a small part in adding to her family’s Christmas cheer!  We hope Tanya that you and your family will enjoy your new iPod for years to come!

Keep an eye out for future contests and giveaways, and most of all make 2010 the best year ever.

We’re a Computer Training company that creates IT Certification Training Videos for Microsoft, Cisco and CompTIA certifications.  We’re looking to do a little viral blogging experiment and expand our audience on Twitter.  We’re going to be giving away an 8GB iPod Nano the first week of December.  Great time to join the contest and enter to win a great gift for yourself or someone special.

Want to Win One?  Here’s all you have to do:

1. Follow us on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/cdrees
2. Simply tweet “Just entered to win an 8GB iPod Nano.  Just follow @cdrees and retweet http://bit.ly/win-nano” or click here to tweet automatically

We are starting the contest at roughly 800 followers.  At then end of November we’ll pick a new follower and give them a brand new 8GB iPod Nano (choice of color).  If we make to 2,400 followers, we’ll also give away a 32GB iPod Touch.

This contest is open to people anywhere in the world and is free to enter (as long as it is legal for us to ship to you).

This is a very easy contest to enter.

Good luck!

Remember, if we get to 2,400 followers, we’re also going to be giving away 32GB iPod Touch!

Microsoft recently released their free anti-virus, anti-malware and anti-spyware program called Microsoft Security Essentials.

Aimed at the consumer and small business market, this application really takes aim at the existing free anti-virus solutions out there, and even some of the pay solutions that consumers and small businesses use. 

The application is built on the same engine Microsoft’s enterprise solution (ForeFront) is built on, and integrates nicely into the operating system.  When I’ve tried other applications, including AVG Free, Avira, and Avast! I’ve always noticed the fact it was there in that my OS seemed to slow down to varying degrees when the software was scanning or downloading updates.

With Microsoft Security Essentials I haven’t noticed any impact to overall system performance.  In addition, the software caught a few things that the other applications mentioned above didn’t catch for whatever reason.

As a general rule of thumb I prefer built-in or integrated solutions simply because I feel there’s a better user experience, things are less intrusive and it just seems to perform better.

The big AV companies like Symantec, McAfee, Kaspersky and others surely must have at least a little trepidation over the fact the Microsoft has released a free anti-virus solution that they charge for.  Will Microsoft’s Security Essentials replace full-blown suites that Norton, McAfee and the others provide?  No, and it’s not intended to.  The others have firewall applications, inbound/outbound mail scanning, instant  messaging scanning, etc., that Security Essentials doesn’t have.  In my opinion however, those are all things you don’t really need in the first place and just slow your system down.  XP, Vista and Windows 7 has a firewall built-in, most people these days sit behind a cable, DSL or FIOS router which has firewall capabilities, and their IP address is masked behind the router’s NAT (Network Address Translation) feature as well.

Microsoft Security Essentials offers real-time scanning and virus, malware and spyware detection, so having an inbound/outbound mail scanner on top of real-time protection seems a bit like overkill to me as well.

What do you think?  Does Security Essentials fit the bill for you and your environment or do the added features offered by one of the bigger companies AV “Suites” fill the needs of your environment?

Microsoft is ramping up for the release of it’s newest operating system, Windows 7.  Set for general release on October 22, 2009 it promises to fix a lot of the stigma associated with Windows Vista.  The new OS is much nicer in a variety of areas than in predecessor (in our informal beta tests).  Overall it’s just a more polished OS, nicer interface, less intrusive security, and less of a hardware hog.

If you’d like to get your hands on this new operating system, but don’t want to either buy a new PC with Windows 7 preinstalled or shell out the $120 – $320 for the new OS (depending on the edition and if you buy the upgrade or full-retail version), then host a Windows 7 house party!  Microsoft is giving away special Ultimate Editions of Windows 7 to select groups in the U.S. and select other countries for spreading the word and hosting a house party between October 22 and October 29, 2009.

The folks over at ARS Technica have more information on the program, along with details on how to sign up.  Are you as excited about Windows 7 as we are?

As you have probably heard at this point if you follow the show American Idol, celebrity gossip, or just happen to watch the news from time to time, Paula Abdul is leaving the show American Idol.

She’s walking away from the most popular show in television history and into an unknown future.  Why would she do this you might ask?  Well from what I’ve read and heard, it comes down to several things: Money, Respect and Overall job satisfaction.

You’re more than likely saying “That’s wonderful, with the economy in the shape it’s in, Paula Abdul is walking away from a multi-million dollar a year job; where all she has to do is sit and be nice to aspiring singers and take an occasional chiding from Simon Cowell.”

Well, you’re right with regard to the fact that millions of people around the world are suffering through economic hardships and she’s turning down an eight-figure deal. On the other hand, money is not always the most important thing in life. I didn’t say it’s not necessary, just that it’s not the most important thing in and of itself.

There really must be a combination of financial reward, respect and an overall feeling that your appreciated and valued.  In other words, we need to feel that we matter.

This leads to me to the title of this blog post, in that IT professionals (and anyone for that matter) can learn a lot from Paula Abdul when it comes to career choices.  Simply being paid a lot doesn’t necessarily equate to happiness.  Even though she was making several million dollars a year from the show, her counterparts were making many times more than that.  Simon Cowell is reportedly making upwards of $45 million for doing basically the same job.

As an IT professional, it’s important to balance financial rewards with the intangibles to find a job that is rewarding mentally, physically and financially.  Many people get stuck in a rut where they feel they can’t leave what they’re doing even though they hate it and subsequently their overall quality of life suffers.  This also has an impact on the people around them as well (i.e. family, friends, children, spouses, etc).  Quality of life is more important than simply being well-paid.  Many people who have a lot of financial success find themselves depressed and overstressed because they reach a certain level but haven’t learned to balance the other aspects of their lives.

As IT professionals, it is crucial to keep your skills sharp and learn new things whenever possible.  This also means constantly working toward keeping a balanced life as much as possible.  Training is critical to developing new skills and keeping marketable.  Some people take classes, some learn online and many self-study with computer training videos at their own pace.  Whichever path you choose, it is important that you keep moving forward.  This not only gives you options and allows you to make changes when it best suites your needs, but it also insulates you to a degree should disaster strike and your forced to quickly find a new job due to downsizing, etc.  If you are thinking about working for yourself there a number of things to consider in order to become a successful entrepreneur.

Don’t be afraid to take the step into the unknown or go after the things you deserve.  Take a lesson from Paula Abdul and seek the quality of life that will truly make you happy.

I’d like to know what you think, was it a wise decision or not?  Can IT professionals take a page from her book and improve their quality of life?