Entourage Incorrectly Flagging Email as Junk?

Entourage uses the 'Junk' category to help users move classes of email into the Junk folder.  Sometimes unwary users will decide to rename the Junk category and use it for some other purpose-- after all, who needs a 'Junk' category, right?  The result will be that anything identified with that renamed 'Junk' category will be treated as junk!

A client had done exactly that, and then made her own contact a member of the renamed category.  The result was that every email she sent was moved to the Junk folder rather than the Sent folder.  The emails were sent out from her computer okay, they just didn't go to the correct folder after sending.

The fix was to rename the category she had renamed back to 'Junk', then un-categorize everything she had identified with that category.

Two New Articles on Disaster Recovery & The Cloud!

Disaster recovery is thought by many IT Directors to be their most important responsibility to plan for.  I've just released a new article to the publisher on this very important topic.
       You can download a free PDF version of it by clicking here.

Few concepts have captured the imagination of those responsible for computer system like The Cloud.  I've just released another article to the publisher on The Cloud and my thoughts from the recent VMworld conference in San Francisco.
       You can download a free PDF version of it by clicking here

My Kindle Love/Hate Relationship

Stephen King may love his Kindle, but I'm beginning to have doubts.

I Love the Kindle!
I love being able to read books on my iPad and Droid smartphone.  The convenience is terrific, and the technology works well.  And with the ability to tell the devices what font size I want, it makes reading pretty comfy!

I Also Hate the Kindle!
My wife wants to read one of the books I just read, but I have no way of sharing it with her unless I change her device registration to my account.  If she has her own account, with her own settings and preferences, doing so will make her very unhappy.  Also, a friend just asked me if I have a good book she can read while traveling cross country later this week.  Same problem: there's no way to share a book!

Solutions
If Amazon wants this technology to become pervasive, rather than just a novelty, it's going to have to find a way to let people share a book among family members or give a book away.  Here a couple ways they might be able to accomplish that:

• Let people identify family members by linking to those who have the same home address.
• Let people transfer their book for a small fee, maybe half of the purchase with a maximum of $3.00

Those solutions seem pretty easy and sensible.  People share printed books all the time, so this isn't really a potential revenue loss if strategically managed.  And coming up with a reasonable solution can make this technology truly pervasive.

Tech Support -- A Love Story

A user at one of our clients called HP's printer tech support last week because a roller in her printer wasn't working.  The technician did some diagnostics and quickly determined the problem was her computer, and after a few "fixes" determined it had viruses and she needed to buy a product they sell.  The result was that she had a totally unusable computer-- and a printer whose paper feed roller still didn't work.

We had to re-image the computer to make it useful again, and HP still had to replace the printer's roller.

Tech support is definitely the worst part of the computer user's experience.  Most who answer the tech support line do their best; but support person and user lack of knowledge, conversation trees, and knowledge bases often exasperate people and can even lead to incorrect conclusions!  There's no easy answer to the problem, but it is a problem.

Bank Security Fail

Banks don't get it.  I called my bank to ask about an error they made on my account, and to protect my identity they asked my name, address, and birthdate.  Those are all easily available on the Internet.  Very unimpressive security.

VMware Fusion Rocks! Again!

I run Windows 7 64-bit on my Mac in VMware Fusion.  When installing Windows 7, I set hard drive to 60gb.  But I've recently been running short on space and was NOT looking forward to re-installing Windows 7 just because I needed a larger hard drive.

Figuring I had nothing to lose, I told Fusion to increase the Windows 7 hard drive to 100gb in its Settings.  It accepted the change, then took a little time to rebuild the hard drive.  When it was done, I started Windows 7, went to Computer Management, and told Windows 7 to expand the C drive to maximum.  Within moments I had a working-- perfectly!-- Windows 7 machine with a 100gb hard drive.  Sweet!

Once again, Fusion proved to me that it totally rocks!

Our Daughter's Gone to College

I never understood what friends were going through when their kids went off to college-- until now.  It's a basketful of thoughts and feelings that, for me, add up to joy... but that doesn't mean it's without some sadness.

I'm very excited for her!  Our daughter is in place a great spiritually, psychologically, morally, physically... she's terrific!  I believe she's ready for the university experience and will do well.

I'm also scared for her.  There will be many who will try to hurt her while they pursue their selfish desires.  That includes her fellow students, professors, and others she'll be with.  You can believe that my prayers for her will not decrease during this phase of her life.

I also miss her, even though we said goodbye at her dorm just last night.  She brings me and my wife so much joy!  Her absence can definitely be felt, and it's underscored by us knowing she won't be home later today to share her day's adventures.

I know she'll continue to mature into the woman God has in mind for her to be, and will impact many around her positively and draw some closer to Christ.  That's all great stuff!  But I miss her...