The importance of “opportunity cost” in troubleshooting
In trying to get one of my SSD-based test systems to work properly, I decided to upgrade from x86 Windows 7 Ultimate to x64 Windows Professional. And alas, I thereby willingly threw myself into the...
View ArticleThe new EdTittel.com is here!
Taking advantage of some of the great functionality in both WordPress and through this great theme (Graphene), EdTittel.com has gotten a significant overhaul and facelift. Come on in and look around!
View ArticleNew Site, New Look, Same Mission!
Dear Readers: This weekend, my Webmaster (Rebekkah Hilgraves, the lovely and talented proprietress of SheTech) and I decided to make the switch from the old EdTittel.com Website to the new site you’re...
View ArticleGrowing and Returning Interest in IT Certification
It’s often said that everything in the IT industry comes and goes in cycles. I have to agree with this notion: after working in the industry for over 30 years now, I’ve seen several waves of...
View ArticleBooted Off Twitter! No Due Process, Either…
I tried to login to Twitter on Saturday only to be informed that my account had been suspended by Twitter itself. Once the panic subsided, I decided to dig in and try to find out what had happened, and...
View ArticleSometimes, When Things Look Broken, They’re Merely Discombobulated
If you read my last blog post “Booted Off Twitter! No Due Process, Either…” you’ll get a chance to review my recent tale of woe that recounts how, upon having my @EdTittel twitter account suspended, I...
View ArticleInteresting tips and tweaks for PST file cleanup & optimization
OK, I admit it. I’m a little bit obsessive about maintaining maximum free space on the 80 GB putative (74.5 GB actual size) Intel X25-M SSD I use as the system drive for my production PC. In my...
View ArticleLensPen LapTop Pro Ultra Cleaning Kit
Every now and then I’ll get a request from a vendor to take a look at their products and report on my experiences. Over three weeks ago, a package from Canada showed up at my door, including the...
View ArticleA Tale of Three Notebook SSD Upgrades
OK, so I finally got my three production notebooks upgraded from conventional spinning hard disks to SSDs. All three of the source drives were 7,200 RPM SATA II drives: two from Seagate (one a Momentus...
View ArticleGreat Product for Recycling 2.5″ Notebook Drives
In the past quarter, I’ve replaced the boot drives on my three primary notebook PCs with el-cheapo ($149) OCZ-3 Agility 120 GB SSD drives. In turn, that has left me with three 500 GB 2.5″ drives that I...
View ArticleVeeeery Interesting! Meet the MYSOD
In this case, MYSOD stands for “Mustard-yellow screen of death” and it just hit me this morning on a new-ish production machine on which I’m having video driver problems. It’s got an Nvidia GeForce GTX...
View ArticleUse SP Cleanup Tool to Pare Down Winsxs folder, Reduce Windows Footprint
If your Windows 7 install has been around long enough, it will pick up various bits and pieces of leftover install information. The Windows Deployment Image Servicing and Management (DISM) tool...
View ArticleGoodbye Gadgets, Goodbye!
Since the introduction of Windows Vista in 2006, Windows Gadgets have made colorful and useful additions to Windows desktops everywhere. At this moment, Windows Gadgets work on Windows 8 as well as on...
View ArticleAn Interesting Trip Down Windows Vista Memory Lane
This weekend, I had the chance to rebuild and repair an extremely finicky Windows PC on loan to a friend. It is an HP Dragon (model number HDX9203) that HP released in 2008 prior to the release of...
View ArticleUpgrading to OS X Mountain Lion
When I got the news yesterday that the latest 10.8 version of OS X, aka “Mountain Lion,” was available, I jumped on the opportunity to download and install the new OS upgrade for a mere $19.99 at the...
View ArticleDell XPS 13 Leaves Great First Impression
Through a strange series of events, I got selected to fill Dave Strom’s inestimable shoes at the Dell Customer Advisory Panel (aka DellCAP) meeting in 2011. Since then, I’ve been a member of that...
View ArticleUSB 3.0 SandForce Flash Drives: True Value or False Economy?
I’m in a bit of a quandary on an interesting subject. I just purchased a 128 GB USB 2.0 Flash drive — a Centon DataStick Sport — that I picked up on special from TigerDirect for about $65 (as I write...
View ArticleGet the iPhone/Pad/Pod (iOS) Windrivers without installing iTunes
I’ve got numerous PCs around here and there — I can see two desktops and two laptops as I sit here in my office, and there are two more laptops and one SFF desktop elsewhere in our domicile at this...
View ArticleHmmm… Time to upgrade to Windows 8?
Drat! My production machine has started to act up lately. Yesterday was a pretty extreme example, as this trace from Event Viewer will show: The system has been getting increasingly, but not unbearably...
View Article
