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Backing up a virtual machine to the cloud
Any virtual machine will be large, probably >10 GB and it changes regularly. To back it up to the cloud I would ideally use a block level back-up solution. That way only the changes get synced up. The catch is that a block level back-up solution needs an agent at both ends and as far…
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Vagrant and Chocolatey can script setting up Windows environments
In an earlier post I suggested that development environments should be virtual machines and I will probably run mine in Virtualbox 5.0 because this now supports all hypervisors including Hyper-V on appropriate Windows platforms (Pro or Enterprise). Virtualbox is also the preferred target of Vagrant which we will discuss below. Virtual machines can be copied…
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Development environments should be virtual machines
It is a fact of life that laptops fail. Last year the hard drive failed and I had to reinstall. Now my Dell Studio 1558 got a blocked fan and my repair was unsuccessful. My data is intact on the hard drive but the I am going to have to restore to a new device. It…
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GPL as an anti-competitive tool
For some the GPL is a religion for others it is a business model. I have long been concerned that open source creates non-competive monopolies. In the 1990’s there were many webservers but in after a couple of years only Apache and Microsoft IIS remained. When I posed this to O’ Reilly (of the books)…
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Amazing vision of the future
This beautiful 5 minute video shows gives an insight into what usability could mean for users.
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Buying a 24″ monitor, Dell U2412M software install issues
I have had the same Dell 21″ CRT monitor for over 20 years but recently it the image has started flickering and I have started to worry that it might fail or even catch fire. The internet suggests that the ergonomically ideal screen size is 17″ because it matches your natural field of view. As…
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HP Steam 13 review for education
I have just purchased an HP Stream 13 to review for use in a school environment by teachers and students. It is a low spec machine optimised for use with Office 365. So far I am very impressed. It is delivered with Windows 8.1 and will review again after I have upgraded it to Windows…
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MsMpEng.exe High CPU Issue – replace with Avast! Free
I have a Windows 7 i3 laptop that has worked well for many years. I have always liked Microsoft Security Essentials because it just worked. However this is no longer the case. I am embracing the cloud and have installed OneDrive OneDrive for Business Dropbox Microsoft Office 365 including OneNote etc The sync activity associated…
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How to fix OneDrive for Business “1 file remaining” issue and other issues
At the moment (June 2015) Microsoft has three sync engines in the market, two are a bit rubbish and they plan to have a single one by Christmas. The good one is the consumer version of OneDrive that can be downloaded and installed into Windows 7. This works brilliantly which in the case of sync engines…
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How to upgrade from Office 2010 to Office 365 (Office 2013)
I am an IT consultant and I use my personal laptop for work with many clients. I am the happy owner of Microsoft Office Professional 2010 that I have configured nicely and used with no difficulty for many years. My set up is Windows 7 Home Premium Microsoft Office 2010 Word 2010 Excel 2010 Access 2010…
Dr James Bayley
Creating successful projects
Dr James Bayley 