Windows 7 Taskbar Multi Monitor Support

There have been many conversations on many threads across the Internet on this topic: Does Windows 7 display the taskbar across multiple monitors? The simple and quick answer is NO. The confusion stems in part from the fact that some of the early releases did support this feature but this is no longer the case and to my knowledge there has not been an answer from Microsoft as to weather this will change.
I don't know why Microsoft decided to do this, but in my opinion it is a much needed feature. By much needed I am I am willing to pay for this and in fact I have gone and paid for it. My questions is why can DisplayFusion do what Microsoft can't, or isn't willing to? Anyway for those of you out there who like me have visited many discussion boards to get a definitive answer. This is it. DisplayFusion, though, is fantastic and gave me what I needed. It also permits me to use a single image as wallpaper across two screens.

Adwords is a Cash Grab

I thought I’d take a minute to write down my experience with Adwords. At first I had heard that it was a good way to advertise for a small business so I decided to pony up the money and give it a try.
From the beginning the user interface was convoluted at best and I had a hard time figuring out what I was supposed to do and specifically WHERE it was to be done. There were lots of friendly help postings anchored at many places in the interface, but most of them referred to items, tags or keywords that I could never find. Keep in mind that I do this for a living: I walk into offices and help them use software or hardware that I have never seen before. I'm the guy who supposed to figure out problems and for the most part I do pretty well. Google Adwords is something that I should have been able to figure out with time. Finally I was able to create an ad in the system and before long the ad was running.
When I say the ad was running I have to qualify that statement with the following information: even though the ad was up and running and Google was happily gulping away at the down payment that I had made the ad was marked “Pending Review”. “No biggie”, I thought. They probably have a lot of ads to cover so I won’t worry about it.
Then my money ran out and they were asking for more. Since I had received a couple of clicks and the ad had been shown a few times I decided to add more money. The only thing that bothered me was that my ad was still marked as “Pending Review”. By the way this means that the ad will show on Google searches, but not in its partner ad placements which are substantial.
I sent a quick e-mail off to Google after making my payment asking for the ad to be reviewed.
The next morning I was quite surprised that the ad had been reviewed. I had received an e-mail informing me that my ad has been disapproved. You see I had used the word “Mac” in my ad. I kind of had to because I fix Macs and PC’s. I don’t have another way of referring to Macs without infringing on a trademark. Apple won’t work. Maybe I can use pear. This post is not to discuss the insanity with which Apple protects it's copyright.
Anyway you be the judge if this is right. Should Google be able to ask for more money and then quickly disapprove the ad after it has run? You can judge for yourself. Ironically I goolgled for more info on this and found that I am not the only one that has a problem with Adwords review time, or their approval policy. Shame on you Google. You will need to change your catchphrase from “Do no Evil”, “Being like Redmond”.

No more "in behalf of" in Gmail

One thing that stopped me from using Gmail to consolidate my email accounts was in the "in behalf of" phenomenon. For those of you who don't know, you can use Gmail to send and receive mail from your other e-mail accounts. The problem is that when I sent from one of my other accounts via Gmail it was always stamped the message as being from Gmail "on behalf" of my other email account.
It appears, though, that Google has finally put an end to this. Check out this article on the Gmail blog. Now I can take advantage of Gmail's great IMAP service on the Blackberry for all my acounts.

Blackberry OWA client

Some users ask , "How can I configure my Blackberry device receive to email when we don't have a publicly available e-mail server?". The answer from RIM is buy a Blackberry Business Enterprise Server, or BES. This presents a dilemma for small businesses who don't often have the budget required for a BES and BES licenses.
For users that already have Microsoft Exchange server running the solution is simple. Use the Blackberry OWA client. OWA is Outlook Web Access. It's what allows users to connect to their company mail server via a web page. You can use this same OWA login information to configure your device. Keep in mind this technique is not a replacement for a BES server, because it will not do a full synchronization of your Calendar and Contacts too. It's just a way to retrieve mail when you don't have a BES server and your Exchange server is behind a firewall.
If you still want to set this up check out this link. KB03133

Classic Office Menus in Office 2007

If you're like me then the transition from Microsoft's office 2003 to 2007 was not that easy. After years of building up the menu structure, the office 2007 ribbon bar changed the location of pretty much everything and requires a lot of re-learning. I'm all for learning something new, but in a pinch it's nice to flip back to the old system so you can get the things you need done on time. This is where the Ubit menu comes in. Install this little utility on your Windows machine and it gives you a whole new entry on the ribbon bar called 'Menu'. When you click 'Menu' all the old familiar Office menus will display. Think of it as training wheels until you get the hang of the ribbon bar.

Almost Time Machine for the PC

If you've ever seen the Time Machine backup on Apple operating system you were probably pretty impressed. In typical Apple style the graphical user interface it pretty and the there are not too many settings to play with. It just works. It makes a complete copy of your system and then adds any file that gets added or modified.
I've looked for something similar for PC and up until recently it has not been available. That's about to change this month. Seagate is releasing a product called the Replica. It aims to do very same thing; make a full copy of your system, operating system and all. It then updates any file that gets added or changed. The result is that if you delete a file, or make changes that you wish hadn't you can go back and to a time when the file was in the shape you wanted it and get a copy of it. I have to admit it's not as pretty as Time Machine but it's the best attempt at a Time Machine like application for the PC.
The only drawback for me is that there is not a network version of this product available. I'm sure that this will be available soon. Check it out here.

ClarkConnect Server for Home and Small Business

If you are a small businesses (10 -20) users, or home users who wants to run a server then this article is for you. Most people in that category don’t have the money to run a Windows server product, and if no one they know has Linux experience, then Linux is also out of reach for them. Many of these people will also not buy a Linux solution because they don’t want to be chained to a contract technician who charges for every little change like adding a user, a directory, or some other feature.

If you are in this category then I fully recommend that you check out ClarkConnect. Here is how the describe themselves on their website. “ClarkConnect is a powerful and affordable internet server and gateway solution….” They really are what the say. You can install the software on a machine with two network cards and use it as a gateway, VPN server, and firewall. Setup is also easy if you choose to use it as a Windows file sever, mail server, MySQL database, or web server. The best part for users with little experience is that 95% of customization is done via a web browser. If you’ve ever tinkered with the functionality of your router, then it’s pretty much a similar experience.

There are several reasons why I recommend this solution to small businesses and home users. First the setup is relatively easy. I say relatively because I still think you should have a technician help you plan your network and setup your server, but once that’s down it’s very easy for someone with little experience to manage. Oh yeah, that’s my second point: easy to manage. Thirdly I think it’s worthwhile because it really requires very little resources from the server. There’s no graphical user interface so CPU and RAM aren’t wasted running the OS. The fourth point maybe should have been first, it’s price. For $85 a year it’s hard to beat. There also a free community version with some limitations that you can use to try it out. Check out this table that compares the two versions.