By Brian McMurtry

Senior Network and Systems Engineer

On-Site Computer Solutions

Recently, one of my clients brought it to my attention that suddenly, Excel 2003 took several minutes to open spreadsheets stored on a network share. After a bit of fruitless searching, I finally ran across an article that noted that this was a new issue with no easy fix other than some changes to the registry.

It all started when Microsoft released a patch (KB2501584) that integrated Office File Validation (OFV) for older versions of office- basically it is an add-on to Office that enhances security before opening files. The unfortunate effect was that after installation, Excel would take 7-8 minutes to open a file that opened instantly just the day before.

In the last few days, Microsoft acknowledged that this was an issue, so they released a bulletin (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2570623 ) with a “Fix It For Me” link that will disable OFV. After running the Fix it, Voila! Excel returns to the normal behavior for networked spreadsheets.

Microsoft does provide two other “workarounds” other than disabling the patch- first, you could save the file locally and work on it on your own PC. Second, they encourage you to upgrade to a newer version of Office, which is not affected by this bug. However, in my opinion, as long as your antivirus is up to date, I see little harm in disabling OFV.

Zuckerberg says also adding group chat feature

NEW YORK (AP) — Quick on the heels of Google’s launch of its latest social-networking venture, Facebook is rolling out video calls. It’s powered by Internet phone company Skype.

Facebook said Wednesday that it is also rolling out a group chat feature. Facebook users can now create instant group chats if they want to quickly message a small group of their friends.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg says Facebook now has 750 million users. And they share 4 billion things such as photos, links and status updates on the site every day.

Google Inc. opened up Google Plus last week on an invite-only basis.

For more, here’s the link:  https://www.facebook.com/videocalling

Courtesy of Jakes DTV Blog

As the Evansville IceMen of the Central Hockey League commence preparations for the dawning of a brand new era with their move into Evansville’s exciting new downtown state-of-the-art arena for the 2011-12 pro hockey season, the local franchise has taken yet another forward, progressive step in their overall profile and presentation.

On Friday, the IceMen organization has announced the launching of an all-new web-site through a marketing partnership with On-Site Computer Solutions of Evansville. The IceMen all-new web-site will formally debut this coming Monday, June 6th. All IceMen fans will still be able to access the new “site” through the same domain name at www.evansvilleicemen.com.

Some of the many features of this IceMen fan-friendly new web-site will include a modern focus and approach centered on the IceMen new home of the new downtown Evansville arena. Fans will find that the new web-site will offer total and complete players’ statistical integration expressly to better understand what the viewers are looking at and how long they are looking at it.

In addition, the new web-site will include integrated social media outlets such as Facebook and Twitter for even more fan interaction. A new “Fan Forum” will also be introduced to enhance the linking of the fans to the IceMen team and encourage discussion on the happenings of their Evansville pro hockey team. IceMen fans/viewers will enjoy an innovative and creative ad rotation system that changes the displayed advertising tiles every time the page is refreshed.

From the IceMen organization’s perspective, the new web-site also possesses some exemplary and extraordinary features.

There is a full content management system that allows the IceMen organization to effect changes to the web-site at any time whatsoever without the assistance of On-Site Computer Solutions.

Also, the new web-site has been constructed on a system that will allow for future growth of the web-site with the overall ability to add and increase many new features and aspects of the IceMen new web-site.

As an integral part of this new partnership, On-Site Solutions will also serve as the official Web-Master for the IceMen new web-site.

On-Site Computer Solutions operates under the auspices of Principal Web Solutions and is located at 600 N. Weinbach #940 in Evansville. “Internet Power for Real Business,” the company’s president is John LaFief while the creation and construction of the new web-site is authored by Alex Mourer.

A Microsoft small business specialist, their web-site is www.PrincipalWebSolutions.com.

For the past three years, the IceMen web-site was overseen on an independent contracting arrangement with Michael Shockley. The IceMen organization wishes to express many thanks to Michael for his time, talent, hard work and overall services for a job well done.

On-Site will be teaming up with Insight Communications to provide web cams and Wi-Fi Internet once again to the Evansville West Side Nut Club Fall Festival (now there’s a mouthful.)

News 25 and Regent Communications will be helping out as media sponsors for the Fall Fest Nut Cams, and the Wi-Fi. Come on down to the Evansville Fall Fest, and enjoy the Free Wi-Fi Internet, or check on the crowds from your office, and plan the best time to head down and fill up on crazy-good food. The Fall Fest Web Cams are available here:

http://www.424help.com/fallfest/

By Brian McMurtry, Senior Systems Administrator

 Unless you’ve voluntarily banned yourself from all advertising in the last few weeks, you’re probably at least mildly aware that Microsoft is releasing another iteration of its desktop operating system, generically named Windows 7.  This article is intended to be a brief synopsis to help small and medium-sized business owners to be informed concerning Windows 7 and its impact upon your day-to-day business operations.

Most of the businesses that we have served since the release of Vista have patently asked us to sell them Windows XP on all new systems.  I can recall maybe 1 or 2 laptops that we have sold with Vista on them.  The primary reason has been that their legacy applications would not run on Vista, and given the current economy, investment in upgraded software packages has been sparse.   In addition, the earliest releases of Vista were prone to running slow.  User Account Control was a maddening annoyance.  Also, clients were unpleasantly surprised that their printer (and other peripherals), which ran beautifully on XP, would not be usable in Vista due to limited driver support.

Performance and Reliability

On-Site has been beta-testing Windows 7 on a couple of workstations since February 2009, and the results have been startling.  When I first installed Windows 7, I was honestly expecting a bloated version of Vista.  What I found was an operating system that achieved what Vista should have been.  Not only did the machine perform better on Windows 7 than Vista, it ran far more stable.  In 8 months, the machine has just crashed once due to a configuration error. 

Legacy Application Support

As stated before, most businesses did not adopt Vista because their current software would not install on anything other than XP.  The most astounding development in Windows 7, in my opinion, is the so-called XP Mode.  If your company is still running that legacy application that requires XP, your Windows 7 pc can be configured to run applications in XP Mode through a virtual machine that runs XP.  The caveat is that it does require the download and installation of the feature, and your machine should meet certain hardware requirements, as not all PCs can run XP Mode.

Pricing

The OEM pricing (when you purchase Windows 7 with a new pc) is actually less than Vista.  There are several flavors of Windows 7, but your business will be primarily interested in Windows 7 Professional or Ultimate.   Think of Professional as the basic business desktop OS, with some added features such as the Media Center.  Ultimate includes Bit-Locker (full-disk encryption) as well as some Linux application support).  There is an Enterprise version for bulk purchasing which includes everything that Professional has, plus Bit-Locker. 

Bottom Line Synopsis:  Should I upgrade or adopt Windows 7?

In the past, we have taken a wait-and-see approach to adopting a new operating system, waiting until the first service pack is released.  With Windows 7, it may be several months before the first service pack is released.  We do recommend that our clients stick with that which is proven and stable, but I see no compelling reason not to purchase a new pc with Windows 7 given its current level of stability at release.   At this point, upgrading an XP machine to Windows 7 is not supported, but Vista can be upgraded.

 It is always recommended to ensure that legacy hardware such as scanners and printers are supported by Windows 7 before purchasing.  It’s also critical to find out if the new pc can run XP mode before purchasing it.

If you have further questions or concerns with Windows 7, please feel free to let us know, so that we can offer our insight in your decision-making process.