Windows

A salesperson has guided you through the purchase of a new PC (desktop or laptop) and it?s now sitting in a box in your home. Assuming you can see the little symbols showing where to plug in the keyboard and mouse (which in reality are usually all just USB these days anyway), you should be good to just plug everything in and go, right?

Ah, well, almost.

Chances are that most PCs you?ll drag home from a retail store?have a manufacturers release of Windows 8 installed on them. Unfortunately, there are usually a ton of updates that have been released by Microsoft since that PC has its software installed ? the most important being the immensely helpful upgrade to Windows 8.1

Our friends at the Kaseya NOC have decided not to rollout out a Microsoft security patch just released for Internet Explorere 7 machines (on Windows XP).� They�ve seen some issues once it�s been installed and there are a few blog sites with people reporting problems.� Suggest hold off installing this one for a while until it�s sorted:

�Post: We have noticed that after applying the patch KB2416400 (MS10-090), when browsing a particular site, all links stop working following clicking a link to open a java script pop-up window. Hitting F-5 to reload the page restores functionality of the links. So to avoid this miss-functionality we have denied this patch from all Virtual Manage machines.

So many people I know are cynical about Microsoft�s �Windows Updates� .. that is, if they even know it exists.� Valiant attempts by Microsoft to make these updates deploy automatically (to your internet-connected PC) have hit some snags � the installations don�t always work and sometimes they can even break the functionality of corporate applications.� To ease the headache for system administrators, Microsoft�instituted �Patch Tuesday� .. being the 2nd Tuesday of every month when all the newest, tested updates would be sent out.� This lets systems administrators know when they will be hit and gives them a chance to test the latest updates in a lab against their corporate software programs, before releasing�them into the bigger corporate network.

Save � of the critial �protect your data� type, not the �look how much money I saved in this sale today type� (though arguably they are just as important as each other).

Normally my favourite rant is regarding backups (and, more importantly, testing your data restorations), especially where small business is concerned. And I�m talking real small business (1 � 20 users). But I�ll save that for another day.

No, today�s rant is about saving your progress as you go. Though the concept was made famous when Microsoft Word crashed during that business report/university paper you had nearly finished .. and hadn�t saved .. and couldn�t be recovered � saving as you go is important for other applications too .. and not just software applications.

I�m afraid I�m starting this blog with a technology drama, involving my shiny new iPod Shuffle (2nd generation) and Windows Vista.� �Ah yes, Vista� you say knowingly.� But at Microsoft�s defence leaps the voice of my dear friend who pointed out that the vendors had the Vista code for�2 years prior to the release, so surely they could have sorted out their device drivers by now and what more does Microsoft have to do?