Hard Drive Fun & Vista Service Pack 1

Hard Drive Fun

I read an article today over at TechRepublic about how to build and configure an external hard drive enclosure that was really well done.

Greg Shultz not only goes through how to set one up, but he also explains how to properly set the jumpers on the drive, and what the different settings mean. I enjoyed this article quite a bit, and thought that the information was pesented in a way that was very easy to understand. I will be purchasing one of these for myself.

Vista Service Pack 1

I am installing it right this minute for the first time, so I will post updates here as I go today. Hopefully this SP will fix all my issues with Vista (yeah right, and monkeys may fly out of my butt today).

Ok, here is the update, it took me about an hour to update my PC early in the morning. It went smoothly and I had no download or update problems.

I have not seen any improvements or changes, other than now everytime I remotely connect to my servers at work I get a security message. Nothing seems faster, it still takes MINUTES to open my network connections, and basically all annoyances are still present.

I will be installing spk 1 on my laptop today, that may be a better indicator, as I use it much more often than I do my desktop.

Vista System Tray Trick

If you were looking for an awe inspiring article or some super helpful tips on how to run your network, I am afraid I am about to disappoint. But I have said from the first day I posted here that I would be putting tips up that I wanted to remember, and so that is what I am doing today.

Greg Shultz, a regular author over at the Microsoft Windows Blog on TechRepublic, posted a Windows tip for XP yesterday, so I thought I would post the Vista version of putting personalized text (only up to 12 characters) in the time area of your system tray.

1. Go to Start -> Control Panel -> Regional and Language Options2. From the Formats tab, chose the box at the bottom right labled "Customized this format."

3. Choose the Time tab from the box that pops up.

4. In the "AM symbol" and "PM symbol" you can add any text you want.

5. Apply your changes and ok your way out.