Here we are again with yet another review, lol.
The Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet
What can I say about this little gadget that hasnt already been said or raved about. Just to give you a little background from my perspective. I am an IT Consultant that deals with a majority of clients that are in the healthcare industry. We are always looking for innovative ways to do things more efficiently within that realm. A majority of my clients are using Windows 2008r2 servers with Citrix XenApp Farm platform. This setup makes it easier to deploy many different applications and software that normally would not work together in a seamless environment.
The Lenovo Tablet, with its many apps that can be downloaded, works perfectly in this arena. With the addition of cisco anyconnect and citrix receiver, you can pretty much jump right into the action. Not only does it run Windows, Linux and Mac apps together; it also has a nifty wireless connection that can be locked down and secured. Especially since you are dealing with millions of patient records that could easily be downloaded and utilized in the wrong way.
My review on this tablet from a scale of 1-10 is about an 8. The last two points are taken off due to the stylus having issues on occasion and the lack of lockdown options built in to secure in a client/server environment.
LanDesk offers a platform that will manage and lockdown the machines which make them compliant to HIPAA regulations, but they charge about $50 per machine to maintain it. Not bad if you have the budget for it, but if you are up to 1,000 tablets, its gets to be pretty expensive.
In the current environment that the tablets are working in, they are currently being used with an EHR application that the providers and medical assistants use to diagnose and check in patients. They are portable and light and have an extra peripheral called a Keyboard Folio Case that allows them to be docked just like a small mini laptop.
So if you are looking for an android based tablet device that can be used in a business environment, look no further than the Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet. You'll be glad you did.
https://www.cdwg.com/shop/products/Lenovo-ThinkPad-Tablet-with-Wi-Fi-64GB-Android-3.1/2456085.aspx
Its been a nice cruising time during these last few days at my current job. Im an IT Consultant who manages 4 main clients and liaison to almost 20 others. In my spare time, (lol, who has that), I look for new and innovative ways to do things in the cloud; as well as save money on products that make day to day operations more simplified. Currently I am looking forward to spending some days just studying, learning new things and honing my skills in others arenas.
Current Projects Im working on:
*Building a corporate ticketing system from Open Source products*
*Streamlining the way current businesses do business and the resources they use to get there*
*Creating a more efficient way to provide IT resources to businesses without breaking their budgets*
*Focusing on the small businesses (5-50 users) and Medium businesses (50-200 users) and providing them with a cost competitive managed services media package that is customized to that company*
During this time I will be testing a few products and keeping great documentation so stay tuned for those delicious tidbits of information that I'll be feeding the blog gradually as things progress.
I spend a lot of my time combing the internet for resolutions to problems that I have never seen before. And in my travels I often come across something that has nothing to do with what Im searching for but none the less has some meaning for something else in the back of my mind.
One such product is Mobile Go by Wondershare http://www.wondershare.com/
This product has come in handy for me many times as I sometimes am too rough on my droid phone and have busted it up a few times requiring a replacement. What I love most is that it will back up your text messages and allow you to see each persons text individually in the order in which they came to your droid device. When I discovered that feature, I was like WOW!! It will also allow you to text message someone from your phone thru your computer when it is connected via usb. I like that feature as Im working at a client location and have my laptop with my phone plugged up and can pop off a text message faster by typing it on the keyboard than swyping it on my phone (absolutely love that feature, : D).
Also if you get another droid phone you can easily transfer all of your data from your old phone to it, even the sd card data (ha ha, bet you were going to ask, I could feel it, lol). It also comes with tons of options from Adding/Editing contacts and importing them to/from your email, to Managing your media and Organizing your apps. This action packed software is a must have for most of your droid devices (tried to attach a Lenovo Thinkpad Tablet to it and it wouldnt recognize it). But it also come with an option that if your phone doesnt work on it, you can send your device specs to the creators and they will work on getting your device on the Hardware Compatibility List (HCL to the rest of us, lol)
With just under 9 million downloads Im pretty sure the rest of the world will recognize it soon enough. And here's the best part.....wait for it.....its absolutely FREE!! Yes you guessed it, free. There is an advanced version running just under $40 but the free one works fine for what I need to do with it.
There is even a version for iOS devices, so bring your iMac, iPad, iPhone and copy everything in one application on your PC.
So dont get caught with your pants down, phone falls into toilet, sink, stream, ocean or what have you....betta BACK DAT THANG UP!! LOL.
***UPDATE***
As of 2014 this software is only available free for 30 days, then it requires you to pay for it. Send me an email and I can send you a link to the free version since Ive had before they posted the 30 day trial version.
So where do I begin. Do I start where I told the client that this could be done, and when i did tell them did I also tell them it was going to be a piece of cake and easy? Hmm, I must have, then I had a brainfart because it turned out to be everything but what I told them (drat, no....double drat, lol) I must have been out of my mind to think that an instruction sheet would allow me to do this in 12-24 hours. More like from 12 hours to a week. There is a lot to begin to swallow with a project like this so I'll start with the setup:
My setup consists of:
2 VMware ESXi 4.1 servers with the following specs
Dell PowerEdge 2950 w/ 4GB RAM Dual 2.0GHz Processors 400GB RAID5 drive
Custom built server with 12GB RAM / Quad Core 2.2GHz Procs / 3 - 1.5TB HD's
configured with ESXi 4.1 Hypervisor and put on separate servers
The three servers will consist of the following
2 clones of the current network servers: SBS03 (2003) and DC2 (2008r2)
1 vm will consist of SBS 2011 which will be the final result after the migration:
SBS11 (2008r2) and DC2 (2008r2)
I will be following the guide supplied by: http://blog.mpecsinc.ca/2011/05/sbs-2003-to-sbs-2011-migration-guide.html which by the way is a very good guide to follow...
So I start out by making sure that the two current clones have all the updates and necessary prerequisites before attempting to start the migration. Once those are done, I then start to follow the instructions provided by the site above. Special thanks to the site at blog.mpecsinc.ca they were most helpful in this endeavor.
So we finally were able to make headway on this near impossible to complete project.
Started with the 3 vm's snapshot at the point where they are ready to move forward with the Migration portion of the project.
Found an article that stated that another user with administrative rights other than the administrator should be created to complete migration correctly.
Created a user on the test WM network named bbaccus with administrative rights.
Started the migration with the new credentials attached and the process began.
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After about 5 hours the message popped up:
Active Directory replication is taking longer than expected. You can choose whether to continue waiting.
Went to GU and found article and instructions below:
On the source server:
Load regedit and change the following key:
HK_LM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\NTFrs\Parameters\Backup\Restore\Process at Startup – change the BurFlags key to decimal 4.
On the destination server:
Press CTRL-ALT-DELETE, load task manager, then click on file select run and enter regedit to change the following keys
HK_LM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\NTFrs\Parameters\Backup\Restore\Process at Startup – change the BurFlags key to decimal 2
HK_LM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Netlogon\Parameters – change the SysVolReady key to decimal 1.
Next restart stop and start the File Replication service on both the source and destination machines. (On the destination machine hit CTRL-ALT-DELETE, click on file, select run and enter services.msc)
The migration should then continue as normal.
Source of this answer is: http://www.tt-systems.co.uk/blogs-of-an-it-engineer/entry/sbs-migration-active-directory-replication-is-taking-longer-than-expected.html
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Resumed migration by selecting "yes" on pop up and migration seems to be moving, however same error popped up several times, tried to repeat process but as the hours were going by, I opted to hit "no" on error instead.
Migration went on for about another 1.5 hours than finished with following errors:
Exchange 2010 cannot be installed
Incoming and Outgoing e-mail for Microsoft Sharepoint Foundation are not configured.
Found article that claimed to work so I tried it:
If you are getting this error message, you need to completely remove Exchange 2007 and then run all of the preps from a command line:
setup /prepareschema
setup /preparedomain
setup /preparelegacyexchangepermissions
setup /preparead (this is the one that actually creates the Exchange Administrative Group)
setup.com is found in the root of the E2K7 DVD
In order to run these you need to have the appropriate permissions. Make sure you have Schema Admin and Enterprise Admin permissions.
After you have finished these steps, rerun setup.exe or click the install link from the DVD autorun.
Source: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/forums/en-US/exchangesvrdeploy/thread/375f92ef-01c6-4a1c-8bdd-dcfe203fc396/
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Tried those options, then ran the setup, and VOILA, the hub transport actually installed!!!
Went back and installed the other roles: Client Transport and Mail Transport
Both installed fine, after that was completed a new error popped up that says that Exchange is in evaluation mode for 120 days and needs a serial number to be licensed.
Found article http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2527626 and ran Hotfix Download that actually will license server automatically which it did.
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Now I am able to move forward through the migration path and get the rest of the items moved over.
The following tasks on the migration path have now been completed so far:
Migrate Data
Configure network settings
Configure internet address
Migrate network settings
Migrate Exchange mailboxes and settings: this one has some extra items that you have to complete before it will let you move on to the next phase.
Remove legacy group policies and logon settings
Migrate users and shared data: This is current where I am now.
I am using syncback to migrate all user data with original folder dates and permissions and will update once this portion is completed. This is also the section where I will be merging the sharepoint data to retain the clients calendar and data as they use this calendar daily...wish me luck, : D
Hello World
So today, January 18th, 2013, and I have decided to start a blog about the ups and downs, successes and failures, and just plain truth about things that happen to me in the networking and computing world. And boy do I have some stories, lol. But before we begin, let me tell a little about myself.
Ive been dealing with computing crap since I was 14 due to the fact that my father was a C programmer back in 1981 and kept nagging me about the computer age was coming. I was like, yeah yeah yeah whatever (typical 14 year old response, lol). We were the first in our neighborhood to have a personal computer in the house and it cost about $13,000 (hard to believe right?) and it was a laptop as big as a suitcase, lol.
It consisted of 2 - 5.25' floppy disks, 640k of memory and no hard drive, the screen was about 5 inches in size and it made a lot of noise. But my dad was a genius with the computer back then, of course I could care less. So about 16 years go by and its now 1997, well here I am...JUST NOW CARING, lol.
Before I became an MSCE I was shunning everything Microsoft. I used to be a netscape browser using, unix/linux coding guru. But that wasnt making any money at the time and the only bragging rights came from your immediate circle of geeks, lol, and that usually was a pretty small circle.
But low and behold I became what I continue to be today, Microsoft based IT Consultant, with a hint of Apple experience, linux/unix experience and now on to Cisco and Citrix to add to my repertoire. So now you can say Im a Jack of all Trades and master of none, but then, who is anyway.
Of course I couldnt live without my GU experience. For those of you that are new to the game, and the lingo, that stands for Google University, ; )
And now enough about me, lets get started....
In the current environment that the tablets are working in, they are currently being used with an EHR application that the providers and medical assistants use to diagnose and check in patients. They are portable and light and have an extra peripheral called a Keyboard Folio Case that allows them to be docked just like a small mini laptop.
