Upcoming Microage Events

http://www.microage.com/register/TechVisionWinter10/

Attend TechVision to:

• Get an update on the world’s cyber security status, how hackers are making their money and what to do to protect your business from these threats
• Go in depth with Microsoft Windows 7 and Exchange solution updates to bring efficiency to your organization
• Learn more about information Lifecycle Management ideas to help you create an asset strategy and stay compliant
• Network with manufacturers you are currently using and meet with Suppliers that offer new solutions

2. We will also be at the next VMUG event with HP. http://communities.vmware.com/community/vmug/forums/us-west/phoenix

Five Tips for Choosing Power Supplies

The power supply is the most neglected component on the computer. Most users will spend a great deal of time choosing a new processor, video card, and motherboard, but when it comes to the power supply must users try to be cheap. Don’t be. By not caring about your power supply, you will be paying a higher electricity bill and will be putting your equipment at risk.

Efficiency is the parameter that measures how much a power supply consumes for its own operation, and it is expressed by the mean of a percentage. This percentage tells the difference between the wattage the power supply is delivering on its outputs and the wattage it is pulling from the power grid. For example, if a given power supply has 80% efficiency, this means that when delivering 200W on its outputs this power supply is actually pulling 250W from the power grid (80% of 250 W is 200W). This 50W difference between the two is the amount of power the power supply consumes to operate and it is completely wasted – but you pay for it.

A power supply with higher efficiency will consume less power from the power grid to produce the same wattage on its outputs. If we replaced the power supply above for a unit with 90% efficiency, we would now pull 222W from the power grid, saving 28W compared to an 80%-efficiency unit. This way a power supply with higher efficiency will reduce your electricity bill. This way you should pick a power supply with the highest efficiency your pocketbook can handle.

We want basically five things in a power supply:

• First, that it is an honest product and can deliver the wattage its label says it is capable of. Unfortunately, the average user can’t tell this by just reading the box. But in United States, it’s becoming less and less common to find power supplies that can’t deliver what is written on the box.
• Second, the highest efficiency possible, as already explained.
• The third thing we want is that all outputs from the power supply stay inside their allowed values all the times. If you have a power supply that is for instance delivering +13 V instead of +12 V this will overload your components and may lead to computer crashes and even burning components.
• We also want the outputs from the power supply to be as “clean” as possible, without electrical noise or fluctuations (“ripple”).
• And finally we want the power supply to have protections, so it will shut itself down if something wrong happens, reducing the risk of having your components burn.

Small Adjustments

Happy New Year to everyone! With this, my first real update of the New Year, I thought it was important to address the topic of resolutions. I am all for taking the opportunity to look back at the past year and seeing how I can improve my habits and attitudes and be a better person in the year to come. But what I notice is that many people (myself included) are overly ambitious with their goals and then within a couple of weeks or a month, we start feeling overwhelmed and we give up on our efforts.

I started thinking about the way that pilots (or autopilots) navigate their airplanes to remote destinations. It is not a straight line from point A to point B. There are hundreds of little corrections along the way. The plane's navigation system determines the flight path and then constantly recalibrates the plane's controls based on the current location, altitude, etc. Autopilots also improve fuel efficiency and passenger comfort, since the adjustments made by an autopilot are more subtle and accurate than those made by hand. It's similar to what happens to your GPS route when you accidentally take a wrong turn. Rather than berating you (wrong turn, idiot!) it simply reevaluates the course based on your current location.

So, my suggestion is this: rather than taking on unrealistic resolutions and then beating up on ourselves when we cannot live up to them, what about making some smaller, more reachable goals along the way? Instead of "New Year's" resolutions, what about "New Month" resolutions? At the beginning of each month, we have the opportunity to check in with ourselves, take stock of our current locations, or progress, and then make the necessary adjustments... without all of the guilt and drama.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this topic. If you have something to add to the discussion please do so ..

Tech Tip eOpen web site!

If you have customers that can’t figure out where to add a Microsoft license on the new eOpen web site, here is where you can find that option:

Located at: https://www.microsoft.com/licensing/servicecenter/home.aspx

Go to the "Settings Tab" on the new site, then "Request Permissions" link just below "Settings". In section 1, “Licensing ID Access”

select the appropriate Program. In most cases this will be “Open License”. Once this option is selected a box for their authorization and license

number will pop up.

Welcome to the new and improved eOpen web site!

Let me know if you have any questions and I will be happy to try and help.