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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Elephantware. That’s what download.com calls them: programs that, like tanks, pull you down with the undertow and slow your PC to a crawl, causing it to freeze up while you’re in mid-sentence.

You don’t want them, you don’t need them, and you can get rid of them and replace them with friendlier less bulky counterparts. So what are they?

Here’s a list of the top five most annoying elephantware programs:

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I thought I’d pass along a pretty amazing contest that is being sponsored by HP and BuzzCorps.  They are giving away 31 extremely high-end HP Pavillion HDX laptops over the next month. 

These desktop replacement systems have a massive 20.1" screen, and are valued at over $5,000. 

There are 31 different technology related websites that will be running various contests that you can enter to win one of these laptops. 

The rules for each contest will vary from site to site, so visit them and check out the rules.

This really is one amazing laptop, so check out the sites and best of luck!

The following websites will be running contests for the HP HDX "Dragon" laptop:

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Wordpress is one of the most popular blogging platforms today, and for good reason.  It’s extremely easy to install and can run on Windows or Apache web servers.  There are also thousands of plugins available to extend it’s functionality.

Plugins are additional pieces of code that are "plugged in" to the WordPress core to extend its capabilities, add new features, or enhance existing features.  There are many extremely useful plugins, which will vary depending on how you intend to use your blog. 

No matter your intended use, however, there are a few plugins that no WordPress installation should be without.  Check out some of our most useful plugins.

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It’s just another day as you slide into your seat and hit the start button on your computer. You guzzle coffee as you wait for your system to start up, and bam! Your stomach drops as you stare at the deep indigo colored screen. It’s not a folk tale, it’s not an urban legend…it’s the blue screen of death. (BSOD) Yikes. There goes your day.

We all know that it’s common sense to stay away from funny looking email. If you don’t know who sent it, don’t open it. It’s a great concept, in theory. In fact, lots of us with itchy, trigger-happy fingers have opened email titled ILOVEYOU only to be bitten by the love bug. Ouch. Let’s take a look at some of the worst network attacks of all time.

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Every time you surf the web, or do something on your computer, you leave tracks of where you have been and what you were doing.

Whether that means pictures, movies, URLs, browser history, etc., it all leaves clues as to your online and offline behaviors.

Privacy means something different to everyone.  Many people aren’t concerned with someone else being able to see where they’ve been online, what files they’ve downloaded, etc.  Other people are VERY concerned and go to great lengths to cover their tracks online.

When covering your tracks online, there are two main areas of concern. 

1. Covering your online activity (masking your IP address), clearing cache and browser history, etc.
2. Covering your offline (local) activity, what files you’ve opened, programs you’ve run, etc.

Here are our Top 5 Ways to address both of these areas.

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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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Information Security is a concern for every company, no matter how big or how small. 

Knowing what information typically is traversing your company’s network is critical to knowing when something out of the ordinary occurs. 

Monitoring your network enables you to be aware of many things including degradation or fluctuations in performance, overall network health and stability, and security.

When it comes to network monitoring tools, there are many choices ranging from free to commercial, open-source to proprietary. The range of functionality they provide also varies from packet capturing tools to full-blown network monitoring applications that can show the health of all devices on your network in real-time.

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With the overwhelming rate of change in all the areas of IT, the skills you have today are outdated tomorrow, so the path you choose can be both exciting and daunting.

And the rise of e-everything the need for IT floods every corner of our lives. Technology has revolutionized communications, computing, productivity, and has had a profound effect the quality of human life.

So much of our lives depend on technology, which means there’s a variety of employment areas to choose from, such as web design, software development, software testing, programming, systems administration, networking, and more. Even jobs outside the IT sector require IT skills.

If you’re contemplating breaking in, consider a few of the highest paid entry level IT jobs as your springboard into an exciting and rewarding career.

The following pay scales are according to the salary.com national averages for the Chicago, Illinois area.

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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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