Overwhelmed and disorganized? Are you fumbling through your day, buried under a mountain of sticky notes and scribbled reminders? It seems like there’s too many tasks and not enough time to get it all done.

As we all try to get to the Four Hour Work Week, we’re always running to catch up on responsibilities and squeeze in that little bit extra to stay ahead of the game.

Everyone is looking for the perfect solution in self-organization. A key ingredient to getting it all done is to maximize and use your time efficiently, allowing you to maximize your productivity.

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Now that we’ve gotten the holiday behind us, it’s time to get back to work and to focus on those IT Certification and Training goals.  For one week only, we’re giving everyone 25% off all of our IT Certification Training Titles.

If you’ve been waiting for the best time to get your hands on the hottest IT Certification available, now is your your time!  World-class instruction in an easy to follow format that gives you classroom style learning that you can take with you and watch anytime, anywhere.

Learn from the best instructors in the industry as you prepare for your certification or to give you edge over your competition.

Take advantage now and get 25% off all our certification and training titles, including:

• Cisco CCNA Certification Training
• CompTIA A+ Certification Training
• Microsoft MCDST Certification Training
• Microsoft Outlook Training

Use the promo code PMD2008 during checkout to have 25% taken of your order instantly!

Be sure to act now, because this sale ends Tuesday, June 3rd.

When it comes to keeping your network secure, few things can be as critical (and annoying) as keeping your servers and workstations patched.

At least in the Windows world, Microsoft comes out with vulnerability patches on the second Tuesday of each month. 

Affectionately known as "Patch Tuesday" this is a day that is the bane of most IT Administrator’s existence. 

Why do you ask?  Because it means another round of downloading patches, another round of testing, another round of scheduling deployments and then dealing with any fallout when applications for some strange reason just stop working.

Automation is the Key

Anyone who’s been in the IT industry for any length of time knows that automation is the key to eternal happiness, and automating system patching is essential.

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Migrating from XP or another operating system to Vista can be a little like moving into a new house (but maybe with a few more unexpected headaches). You’re already attached to the old dings and dents in your wallpaper, and you know where all the pots and pans are in your kitchen. You are beginning to realize there are a lot of kinks to this new place, and you’re not sure where everything is or how it functions. To make this difficult transition smoother, these are some shortcuts that will help you improve your Vista experience so you can move in a bit more comfortably (if that’s possible).

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If you’re like me, you’re always looking for better ways to maximize your time and streamline your daily tasks so you can spend more time on what really matters.

Outlook is a great tool to help manage my time effectively and boost productivity. 

Reducing clutter and increasing organizing go a long way toward increase efficiency and maximizing my time.

There are many great functions that are often overlooked:

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If you installed Windows XP SP3, thinking you’ll be ahead of the curve and check out the new features, enhanced security, etc., you’re not alone.

Lots of people, myself included, like to evaluate the latest technologies, updates, tweaks, etc., either for personal information, or perhaps to evaluate for a business-need.

Typically its advisable to not run RC (Release Candidate) code on mission critical machines, on the outside chance it might break something.  That’s good advice for most situations, but if you’re like me you install a service pack (even a release candidate) on a test machine, run it for a few days and see if everything is working.

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I was recently playing around with Windows XP SP3 (build 3264) and I slipstreamed the service pack into my Windows XP install media to make installing a new build easier (SP3 would already be installed).

Normally, it’s a pretty straightforward process, however with SP3 (at least the RC build I was using) didn’t take HD audio into account. 

When you’re installing onto a PC (Lenovo R60 laptop in my case) you typically need to install an HD Audio hotfix (KB888111) prior to installing the HD audio drivers.

The issue in this case it that SP3 supercedes the hotfix, so when you try to install KB888111 you’re presented with an error saying SP3 is newer and you don’t need the hotfix.  Unfortunately, you can’t install the drivers without the hotfix, and you can’t install the hotfix because SP3 thinks it’s newer and doesn’t need it.  This is supposed to be fixed in the final release of SP3.

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Are you a Microsoft Outlook expert?  Do you use even half the features the program has to offer?

Chances are, you don’t.  Most people only use about 10% of the functionality in Microsoft Outlook (or any Office product for that matter). 

What the ends up doing is costing you time and effort, reduces your productivity and wastes time.  Palaestra Training has just released a new training series on Microsoft Outlook 2003 that covers everything from the basics to the advanced topics. 

Whether you are a casual home user or a power business user, our training series will teach you how to be more productive and unlock the true power Microsoft Outlook has to offer.

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Palaestra Training has just released it’s newest training title, Microsoft MCDST Certification training for the 70-271 exam. 

Our trainer, Bill Ferguson, literally wrote the book on MCDST Certification.  He is the author of the best selling book "MCDST Certification Study Guide" published by Sybex and is a much sought-after trainer and speaker.

Bill is one of only a handful of Microsoft Certified Trainers (MCT) in the world to be featured on Microsoft’s website.  Palaestra Training is very excited to be able to bring this information-packed training series to it’s customers.

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