More from HP
HP continues to pound away at the recession with amazing offers:

I'm the IT info guy. I know a little about a lot, but I know a lot about where to find technology info and answers. For your IT needs call me 514-373-8345 or 800-555-6255 x8345. Email garfieldj@pcmall.com.
HP continues to pound away at the recession with amazing offers:

Someone passed this on to me earlier today. It was interesting, thought I would post it.
These things are fun! I think. I never used one, but I assume they would be useful. Perfect for taking notes or even freehand design.

Apple

Lenovo
ThinkPad T400 - Intel Centrino 2 Core 2 Duo P8400 2.26GHz Notebook
Intel Centrino 2 Core 2 Duo P8400 2.26GHz, 2GB RAM, 160GB HDD, DVDRW, 14.1" WXGA TFT, Intel 802.11agn, 1GB Ethernet, Modem, Ultranav, Secure chip, Fingerprint reader, Windows XP Professional
PC Mall Part #7531721
Mfr. Part #7417TPU
Lenovo
ThinkPad T500 - Intel Core 2 Duo 2.26GHz Notebook
Intel Core 2 Duo P8400 2.26GHz, 2GB RAM, 160GB SATA HDD, CDRW/DVDRW Drive, 15.4" WXGA TFT LCD, Fingerprint Reader, Modem, 1GB Ethernet, WLAN 802.11a/g/n, Windows XP Pro
PC Mall Part #7531844
Mfr. Part #224233U
Lenovo
ThinkPad SL400 - Intel Core 2 Duo T5870 2.0GHz Notebook
Intel Core 2 Duo T5870 2.0GHz, 2GB RAM, 250GB SATA HDD, DVD Recordable, 14.1" WXGA TFT LCD, Fingerprint Reader, Camera, Modem, 1GB NIC, WLAN 802.11agn, Bluetooth, Windows XP Pro
PC Mall Part #7676309
Mfr. Part #27436AU
These offers are only valid until March 31st, 2009 or while supplies last.
Call 800-555-6255 x8345
http://www.vmware.com/resources/techresources/cat/91?from=0
Labels: VMWare
I love this Hewlett-Packard (HP) deal that we have this week.
HP DX7500 with 3gb and a 22" monitor for $399.99 after mail in rebates...why not? Limit of 5 per customer! Valid until Friday the 27th or while supplies last.![]() | HP Smart Buy Business PC Security Lock Kit This handy device ensures desktop PC remains exactly where it is by locking the chassis cover and securing it to an anchor point. PC Mall Part #7702727 Mfr. Part #PV606AT |
![]() | HP Smart Buy USB 2-Button Laser Mouse The HP USB Laser Mouse provides the speed and accuracy of laser tracking in a simple, elegant design. PC Mall Part #7763737 Mfr. Part #GW405AT |
![]() | HP Smart Buy Connectivity Starter Kit Get connected with everything you need in one kit - surge protector, local area network (LAN) cable and USB printer cable. PC Mall Part #7197390 |
Labels: 22" monitor, dx7500, free ram, HP, mouse
A Practical Roadmap for Balancing IT Cost Pressures and Top Line Value
Live Date: Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Time: 8:00 AM PT/11:00 AM ET
Speakers:
Andre P. Hughes, Global Managing Director, Accenture & Cisco Business Group
Rebecca Jacoby, SVP and Chief Information Officer, Cisco Frank B. Modruson, Chief Information Officer, Accenture
Moderated by:
Bob Melk, Publisher, CIO Magazine
Accenture and Cisco joins CIO magazine to discuss how IT can be an asset that drives value for your business by deploying technologies that can fundamentally change the way your organization collaborates with its customers, employees, partners and suppliers.
Virtualizing your IT infrastructure lets you reduce IT costs while increasing the efficiency, utilization, and flexibility of your existing assets. Around the world, companies of every size benefit from VMware virtualization. Thousands of organizations—including all of the Fortune 100—use VMware virtualization solutions. See how building a virtual datacenter will benefit your organization.
1. Get more out of your existing resources: Pool common infrastructure resources and break the legacy “one application to one server” model with server consolidation.
2. Reduce datacenter costs by reducing your physical infrastructure and improving your server to admin ratio: Fewer servers and related IT hardware means reduced real estate and reduced power and cooling requirements. Better management tools let you improve your server to admin ratio so personnel requirements are reduced as well.
3. Increase availability of hardware and applications for improved business continuity: Securely backup and migrate entire virtual environments with no interruption in service. Eliminate planned downtime and recover immediately from unplanned issues.
4. Gain operational flexibility: Respond to market changes with dynamic resource management, faster server provisioning and improved desktop and application deployment.
5. Improve desktop manageability and security: Deploy, manage and monitor secure desktop environments that users can access locally or remotely, with or without a network connection, on almost any standard desktop, laptop or tablet PC.
Virtualization dramatically improves the efficiency and availability of resources and applications in your organization. Internal resources are underutilized under the old “one server, one application” model and IT admins spend too much time managing servers rather than innovating. An automated datacenter, built on a VMware virtualization platform, lets you respond to market dynamics faster and more efficiently than ever before. VMware Infrastructure delivers resources, applications—even servers—when and where they’re needed. VMware customers typically save 50-70% on overall IT costs by consolidating their resource pools and delivering highly available machines with VMware Infrastructure.
1. Assess your virtual environment readiness
You can't optimize what you cannot measure. A detailed assessment is required before full project commitment to understand your current capabilities, help justify current as well as future investments, and provide a baseline measurement that can be tracked and reviewed.
2. Investigate shared/unified storage to improve flexibility
A well-architected shared storage environment can help IT groups enable the advanced features of virtualized server environments without adding the overhead of additional management.
3. Revisit data backup and recovery plans
Virtualization means relying on fewer physical systems to process more tasks. Consolidating on fewer machines without redesigning data protection will lead to performance issues, impede recovery and limit overall project success. CIOs should carefully consider the best choice in data protection for their organization's specific needs, to minimize the impact of events such as data, system, or site failure and ensure information is properly protected.
4. Consider thin provisioning
Server virtualization enables the rapid provisioning of applications and administrators should consider thin provisioning for their environments to reclaim unused storage, improve storage efficiency and enable faster time to market.
5. Dig into data de-duplication to maximize efficiency
By its very nature, virtualization tends to have a lot of duplicate data such as the same operating system and application software. De-duplication technologies allow an organization to use and manage less storage while still reaping the benefits of virtualization.
Download VMware ESXi free is VMware next-generation hypervisor that allows you to deploy virtual machines in your physical servers.
ESXi live demo shows how it works and gives an excellent overview
VMware Virtual Infrastructure 3 live demo summary of features and benefits of VMware Virtual infrastructure 3.
VMware View 3; Take Control of Your Desktops!
What if I were to ask you just how safe your network is? You'd probably tell me you have firewalls, HIPS, all kinds of AV, spamblockers etc...you'd probably tell me it's pretty safe.
Whenever I speak to a customer that is not considering virtualizing I always think about what it must have been like trying to convince people in the early days of the PC that this was a necessary revolution that they must embrace. I can imagine those who just would not let go of their electric typewriters.
My mother mentioned that a friend of hers bought a machine that has both VHS and DVD capability. Better still, she tells me that this machine is supposed to convert VHS to DVD. I have never seen a piece of equipment built for that. Looks like I will be Googling around trying to find this magical piece of equipment so I can convert all my old VHS tapes and then toss them.
THe two things I learned a little about today:
vOptimizer Pro is the only solution for VMware ESX Server infrastructures that reclaims storage from across the virtual infrastructure to help increase storage utilization, reduce storage costs and improve VM performance.
According to industry analysts, as much as 90% of storage in virtual infrastructure is unused because of over allocations at the initial point of provisioning. With widespread adoption of virtualization, organizations are often faced with buying more [unused] storage to support their growing environments. Accepting low utilization rates adds significant cost that can quickly diminish the savings derived from virtualization initiatives. Therefore, saving money without sacrificing peak performance presents a key challenge.
source: http://www.vizioncore.com/products/vOptimizerPro/
and vConverter
vConverter is Vizioncore's P2V/V2V conversion solution that significantly reduces the time and effort spent converting servers to the VMware, Microsoft or Virtual Iron platforms. vConverter enables fast, easy and reliable conversions without disrupting the source physical system during the conversion process. There is no need to reboot, no need to visit machines being converted and no software to install on the source, which means virtually no downtime, thus significantly reducing the time and cost of the conversion process.
source: http://www.vizioncore.com/products/vConverter/
These things are cool.

Iogear
Wireless USB to VGA Adapter Kit
The IOGEAR Wireless USB to VGA Adapter kit instantly allows you to add a high resolution display using Wireless USB Technology.
PC Mall Part #7660305
Mfr. Part #GUW2015VKIT
Cables To Go
Wireless USB to VGA Kit
Wireless USB To VGA Adapter Kit. The TruLink USB To VGA Kit includes everything you need to wirelessly display video content from your computer to a remote monitor, projector or television.
PC Mall Part #7692273
Mfr. Part #29572
Jaymie at Biz Communications http://bzcom.biz/ is an IT Professional whose opinion I value and trust. Today he looked at this Disk Director from Acronis and raved about it. Apparently I can download this thing, and then fix my partition issues. I have a 160gb hard drive partifitoned and the C is at 90% and the D drive at 30%. Apparently Disk Director can fix this issue by reallocating drive space from my D drive to my C drive...excellent!!! Just the tool I was looking for.
Think all Web Filters are alike? Think again. iPrism delivers Value, Simplicity, and Performance…
iPrism surpasses competitors with Anonymizer blocking, Antivirus at the gateway, robust on-box reporting and high throughput capacity. Employees can easily by-pass other filters without being detected and let dangerous viruses into a network.
Why iPrism for Web Content Filtering when money is tight…
· Increase employee productivity with iPrism for Web content filtering – Turn on the filters, turn up the productivity!
· Secure networks from internet based threats – Spyware, Phishing, and malware - that can cost thousands to repair & in downtime
· Block streaming audio and video that takes up precious bandwidth, slows down the network, and distracts employees from work
· Reduce corporate liability by blocking illegal downloads, inappropriate content, and executable files that can distract employees and install malware that can damage the network
· Make sure employees are actually filtered – iPrism employs an unparalleled multi-layered approach that combines URL classification, deep packet inspection and unique proxy blocking to deliver the most effective anonymizer protection on the market
· iPrism helps save today and tomorrow as it protects companies from unforeseen expenses
Get your free iPrism Switch Kit today!
Ø FREE onsite evaluation that can be deployed without any client or network changes
Ø FREE enhanced technical support for setting up matching policies, reports & alerts based on your current settings
Ø INCENTIVE PRICING just for watching a live demo
More reasons why iPrism is the best solution…
· It is a plug-and-play appliance that can filter content by Category, URL or file type with an easy to navigate interface & real-time drill down reporting
· No additional hardware or software to purchase, install, manage, or maintain which lowers total cost of ownership
· Two-layers of AV protection including real-time scanning which provides virus and spyware protection at the perimeter
· Flexible enforcement options to monitor or block by day, time, user, user groups, IP address and web categories that optimize network performance and reduce corporate liability
· Supplies the ability for managers to quickly override pre-determined blocked sites (such as shopping) for temporary access
· Helps meet compliance regulations and acceptable internet usage policies
· Delivers Proxy and Anonymizer blocking - iPrism Web Filter employs an unparalleled multi-layered approach
· SafeSearch – blocks thumbnail images, ideal for schools and libraries while reducing corporate liability
· Provides 100% human reviewed iGuard URL database which limits false positive results
· Integrates with LDAP and Active Directory for detailed reporting down to the user name level
· Includes Delegated Administration
· Allows for filtering of remote workers
· Optimizes network performance by limiting access to high bandwidth sites such as You-Tube and others offering streaming video & downloadable MP3 files
· Easy to use with the lowest TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) on the market
Click here for a brief iPrism overview: http://www.stbernard.com/media/swf/demos/ip/index.html
iPrism Models - Side-by-side comparison: http://www.stbernard.com/products/platforms/appliances.asp
iPrism WebEx Demo Schedule: which day works for you?
Monday 1:00 PST
Tuesday 11:00 PST
Wednesday 10am PST
Thursday 9 am PST
Friday 9 am PST
Thanks for taking the time to learn how iPrism can help you save & protect your network.
Bestlink Electronics has developed several new UMPC products in both 7" and 10.1", with Linux, Window CE, Window XP operating systems respectively.
They have recently developed a 10.1 inches netbook using VIA C-7M ULP CPU


It came to my attention that the differences between unmanaged, web smart and managed switches is not always clear, even for IT professionals, so here it is:
A managed switch allows you to control the individual ports of your switch. Features of course vary with manufacturers and models, but even the most basic will have the ability to turn the port on or off and control its link speed and duplex settings. That control is for security; it prevents someone just walking in and connecting to your lan through an unused port.
Beyond that, you might be able to specify a particular MAC address that is allowed to connect. That prevents someone from replacing machines with their own. You might be able to set login authentication, also. You may be able to designate certain ports as "high priority"; for example the ports your servers are on. Setting bandwidth limits, monitoring port traffic and of course logging are also features.
source:http://aplawrence.com/Words2005/2005_08_07.html
Unmanaged Switches
Unmanaged switches require no configuration and are often ideal for small, simple networks. Ready to go out of the box, you simply unpack, power up, and connect to your network. The switch will automatically build a switching table and then forward data out only the appropriate ports with no additional user intervention required.
source: http://www.phoenixcontact.com/automation/32119_30368.htm
Smart Switches
The smart switch is aimed at small-to-medium size businesses, which don't have full-time network technicians, and don't want to learn a network operating system like IOS. Given that target market, it's no surprise to find Netgear involved - the company sells mostly to small companies, SOHO businesses and home users, and is a leader in unmanaged switches.
"We've pioneered the smart switch," boasts Netgear product line manager Peter Newton. "It gives you the key management features without having to buy a managed Layer 2 switch."
The switches don't have a console port or a command line interface, he explains: "You don't need to know IOS, but you get management features through a browser interface - it's easy to use.
source: http://www.techworld.com/midsizedbusiness/features/index.cfm?featureid=2348
Here's a couple of other great reading resources:
http://www.alliedtelesyn.com/media/pdf/unmanaged_smartswitch_wp.pdf