Free Online Disk Partitioner For Windows

As many of you know, by day I am a VMware administrator. I manage hundreds of virtual Windows machines. Every once in a while these machines start running low on disk space. In the old days, on physical servers, if you were running low on disk space you had to do major cleanup. If cleanup wasn’t possible, then you had to look at cloning the drive to a bigger drive, and running some offline disk partitioning software like Gparted to fill the entire disk right? Each of those things requires downtime. Downtime sucks.

Well, Windows Vista, 2008, 7, and 2008 R2 come along and smartened up. Plus you have the awesomeness of virtualization and now all of a sudden things are easier. In VMware you can just add an extra 10 Gigs of disk space to your system drive all willy nilly like, then in your newer Windows OS, just go into the disk manager and extend the volume. Easy peasy right?

What about legacy operating systems? By that I mean something like Windows 2003 R2 64bit? Well with that you are shit out of luck pal. You can still add the extra 10GB to your system partition, but you can’t extend it without rebooting to your GParted live CD again.

Well, at least with Windows XP and below there is a free solution. It is called EASUS Partition Master Home. With it, and just like Vista and Windows 7, you can move and resize your disk partitions on the fly without rebooting!

Here are a list of benefits from their website:

• FREE partition manager for Windows 32 bit & 64 bit HOME USERS. No Adware and Toolbar.
• Support removable devices like flash drives and memory cards.
• Extend system partition to maximize computer performance.
• Partition Manager utility for better hard disk management and computer performance maximization.
• Copy Wizard to copy partition or migrate entire hard disk to another without Windows system reinstallation.

So that’s cool that it is free for workstations, but what about us folks that work on servers?

Well, EASUS makes a version for servers as well called EASUS Partition Master Server, however it is not free. For about $160 per server though, this will let you re-size server partitions without rebooting. If you have a whole slew of servers, you may want to purchase the enterprise edition for $400.

Of course, there are sites that are giving away the server edition for free… *wink* *wink*

What software do you use to resize partitions on the fly without rebooting? Know of any free ones that you can use on a Windows Server? Let us know in the comments.

del.icio.us Tags: how to,resize,windows server,2003,64 bit,online,without reboot,vmware

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How To Find a Driver For an Unknown Device

Sometimes there are things when working with computers that really just chaps your hide. Well, at the very least it chaps my hide. One of those things is right after performing a fresh install of Windows, and you are installing device drivers. There is always that one f’ing driver that you can’t find to an ambiguous device that is “Unknown”.

Like the rest of us you go to the manufacturer’s website, Dell, HP or whatever, and start looking for all the possible drivers that might foot the bill, but alas none of them make sense. Is it the chipset driver? Hell no! Is it the Bluetooth driver? Nope! Is it the biometric driver? Nada! WTF is this thing?

You see where I’m going with this right? Well it turns out that a tool that I blogged about back in 2007 called DriverMax actually can scan your computer, identify the device, and download the driver for you. All in one app! When I originally blogged about it, all I mentioned was it’s ability to backup drivers from one PC to another. Well, it will also update your drivers to the latest versions, and will help you identify those pesky unknowns too! Plus, it’s free! All you have to do is register an account.

To test it out, one of the Desktop techs I work with gave me an HP Elitebook 8440p that he just couldn’t find the right driver for. We had everything else installed except the one *gasp* unknown device!

I went ahead and launched DriverMax, and after first running the Driver Updates wizard, I ran the Identify Unknown Hardware Wizard.

After a few seconds the scan was done DriverMax opened up a web browser to a page showing me what the device most likely was, and gave me a link where I could search the DriverMax site for the driver.

It turned out that the missing device was for a built in biometric scanner. The Desktop tech said that he swore he downloaded that from the HP website, and it couldn’t possibly be the missing driver. I decided to download the driver from the DriverMax site to test it out. Guess what? It WAS the missing driver!

As I mentioned above Drivermax is free, and registering an account is free but there are limitations that aren’t there if you pay for their premium subscription which is about $30. I think for most of us though, the free version will do what we need. Usually that is to find that one pesky f’ing driver!

Know of another free tool like this? How about one that you don’t have to register, or one without limitations? Let us know about your favorite driver software in the comments!

del.icio.us Tags: how to,find,driver,unknown device,easy,free,drivermax

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Evolution of A Techie Dorm Room

I was surfing around Stumbleupon today, and came across this picture I thought would make you guys laugh. Especially if you are a techie that attended college. Now, this pic doesn’t really apply to me because while I was going to college I was married, so I lived with my wife and couldn’t decorate my living quarters in such nerdy ways. Although if I did have my own place, it would most likely look like one of the images below.

 

In the below image from CourseHero.com, the artist takes you through an evolution of the natural collegiate habitat of the techie from the early to mid 1990’s to modern day. Enjoy!

 

del.icio.us Tags: course hero,infographic,humor

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My Clean PC? Save Your Money. You Don’t Need It!

I’m sure you’ve seen it, the commercial for MyCleanPC.com telling you to get  a free diagnostic scan of your PC and it will magically make it super fast! Hell, they say that even if you have anti-virus on your machine, you could still be vulnerable to a virus attack.

Ok, that last part is slightly true. There is a chance you can have a virus that your antivirus might not catch. I’m willing to bet though that MyCleanPC won’t catch it either. Mainly because it is not an anti-virus, or anti-malware scanner at all. It is a registry cleaner. You would think with the way they talk about it in the commercial, that it’s the next best thing since Symantec, but alas, it’s not!

So what’s a registry cleaner you ask? According to Wikipedia:

A registry cleaner is a type of software utility designed for the Microsoft Windows operating system whose purpose is to remove redundant or unwanted items from the Windows registry. However, the necessity and usefulness of registry cleaners is a controversial topic, with experts in disagreement over their benefit. The problem is further clouded by the fact that malware and scareware are often associated with utilities of this type.

If you haven’t seen the commercial, here you go:

 

I ran a scan for shits and giggles on my netbook. Here are the results:

Now doesn’t all that red look scary? Doesn’t it just make you want to click that giant green button so you can go buy the program? Before you do, you should know that this is fairly common. As you use a computer over time, you tend to accumulate junk. Certainly not evidence of a *gasp* virus!

Many IT techs would recommend against using registry cleaners because some times the cleaner might delete something it shouldn’t have and it could make your computer worse. Frankly, any time you mess with the registry you take that risk. On the flipside of the coin, some admins swear by them.

Personally, I can take or leave registry cleaners. I have used them in the past, but I have never seen a solid performance increase from using one. Generally if your PC is slow, you need to run a defrag on your hard drive, and do a spyware cleanup. Registry cleaning can be a bonus on that.

So lets say you are hell bent on using a registry cleaner. MyCleanPC is roughly $40 for the full version. I think I just threw up in my mouth a little while typing that. $40? Give me a break. If you want to use a registry cleaner, I recommend good ol’ CCleaner. It’s fast, proven, effective and most importantly it’s free!

What about you? What’s your take on registry cleaners? Like them, dislike them, non-committal? Let us know your opinion on this subject in the comments!

del.icio.us Tags: mycleanpc,my clean pc,scam,alternative,free,ccleaner,registry,cleaner

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I’m Addicted To Foursquare!

I think it’s time that I come out and talk about a problem I am having lately. I know the first stop on the road to recovery is admitting that I have a problem. No, my problem is not smoking 7oz crack rocks like Charlie Sheen. My problem is that I am addicted to the online social media game known as Foursquare.

I’ve been a member for a while, but only recently got into it. I started off slow. Only really checking in if I thought about it. You know, casual use. Then I finally got the integration with Twitter and Facebook working correctly on my HTC Evo, and it’s like a whole new world has been revealed to me! You see I already liked updating my Twitter feed and Facebook with random nonsense I was doing throughout the day, but Foursquare lets me do that while at the same time trying to outdo my friends!

You get points for checking into places, and points for stuff like discovering your first Martial Arts Dojo. If you visit a particular place the most, you can become the Mayor! So you are probably thinking what a tremendous waste of time it is, but before you click off the blog keep reading a bit.

You see, Foursquare isn’t just a game, it’s a way to discover new places while also getting sweet deals! Yes, I said you get deals! Some businesses realized that Foursquare gave people wandering about a reason to check out their establishment by allowing businesses to offer you free stuff, discounts etc. just for checking in. Many places give really great deals just for becoming Mayor!

So any way, I may have a problem. However until I get help, I would love for you to join me! I’m ElDiPablo!

del.icio.us Tags: what is,why use,foursquare

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Small Business Accounting Software Simplified and FREE

It’s tax season again, and all of us are turning out our pockets so good ol’ Uncle Sam can get his piece of our pie. Who am I to tell Uncle Sam he can’t have my hard earned money? So my wife and I went down to our new accountant’s office. This year I got an accountant that is familiar with blogging and technology because as I started to do last year, I am writing off my blog’s expenses since I actually make money off it.

So I’m showing the accountant my Google Adsense info, and explain to her about the blog and she proceeds to tell me that I can no longer consider my blog as a hobby, and I have to start considering it a business that is trying to make a profit. Since it’s a business I need to start keeping better track of my income and expenses.

I never took it too seriously because my last accountant first of all didn’t know what a blog was, treated it like a hobby, and pretty much didn’t take it too seriously. Many of the receipts I brought to her to write off she laughed at and said no. My new accountant is completely opposite. Especially when she sees the amount of Google money I bring in per month. Anyway, it’s time to get organized with my money.

The first thing she had me do was open a new bank account dedicated to Bauer-Power income. From there I needed to find an accounting program to keep track of my spending and earnings. Fairly simple right?

I looked online for an Open Source alternative to Quickbooks, or Peachtree and found a program called PostBooks by Xtuple. It was a really robust accounting system that offered way more than basic book keeping. A little too much for what I needed in fact. I mean I wasn't really doing any point of sale, Billing, Payroll etc. All I do is write some stuff about software on a blog, or how to fix computer problems and you guys do the rest by clicking on ads if they interest you.

Nope, all I needed was something I could track income and expense, then print that out in a report. I found that in a super simple program called Easy Cash Manager. Here is a description from Moor Computer Programs, the creators of the tool:

Easy Cash Manager is a simple book-keeping program. You can use the program to keep records of your incomes and expenses. You're probably wondering why you shouldn't just use Excel for that. I will explain. Excel is a spreadsheet program which has a lot of functions. The versatility is quite useful, because you have a lot of functionality in one single program. But from the other side, sometimes you need a lot of time to find out how exactly you can do what you want to do, or sometimes you don't understand how to get certain configuration right. Easy Cash Manager is a very simple program with only a few functions. Easy Cash Manager is meant for people who just want to manage their financial stuff without having to read three books "Excel for beginners" before they know how to.

Myself, I'm a lazy computer user and I find that everybody can be. If I want to do something with my computer, I simply don't want to use programs which are too complex to understand in a short time. I prefer using programs which are very easy because they are created for exactly what I want to do. Easy Cash Manager is such a program, meant for simple book-keeping. The program doesn't have many functions that you won't use, so you will learn how to use the program very easily. The program has been created for usability and the word 'ease' is very important.

All the above applies to me exactly. I didn’t want something like Quickbooks, Peachtree or even PostBooks because they were too damned complicated. Lets face it, I’m not an accountant. I can however keep track of my income and expenses then print out a simple report, or even export my info to a CSV file to give to my accountant who knows what to do with the numbers. I’m not sure you can make it easier than that. Plus it’s free!

The only problem I’ve found is that this software comes in an ugly green color by default, but that can be easily changed by going to Display > Coulour Scheme and choosing your color scheme.

Are you a blogger that makes a little Adsense money on the side? How do you keep track of it for tax time? Let us know in the comments.

del.icio.us Tags: free,book keeping,accounting,software,easy,for dummies,easy cash manager

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Last PWN3D Post! Deleted Domain Accounts. Meh.

Ok, so this is going to be my last post on my recent encounter with a hack attack. If you haven’t been following for the last few posts, a local business owner I trade services with got his Domain Controller hacked into, and the hacker did some mischievous things to make the business owner’s life difficult.

The last thing I will talk about that the hacker did was delete a couple of domain user accounts. The reason I saved this for last is because it is also the easiest to fix. Also, I have written about restoring tombstoned Active Directory accounts in the past using a free tool called ADRestore.net.

The reason this works, and is easy to fix, is that when you delete an account in Active Directory, kind of like deleting something on your desktop, it’s not really deleted. Instead of going to never never land, the account is just marked as a tombstone in Active Directory, and hidden. Sure, after a while the tombstones get cleaned out, but that takes a while. As long as you discover the missing account soon enough, you can recover it.

With ADRestore.net, you can browse the tombstones in Active Directory and restore them easily with a click of the mouse. Read my original post about ADRestore.net here: (ADRestore.net)

del.icio.us Tags: restore,deleted,active directory,accounts. objects,free

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