Scurlock Systems and Associates LLC

***Updated***

Those of you who know me know that when it comes to operating systems I prefer Windows XP Pro over Vista.

Brace yourselves – I’ve decided to switch out my main work computer from XP Pro to Vista Business.  Not Jimmy’s system, not Sherry’s system, but my own Little Engine that Could box.

I’ll be documenting the process here – from start to finish.  What works.  What doesn’t work.  The ups, the downs, the best of times, the worst of    …well you get the idea.

AND SO IT BEGINS…
I’ve decided to leave my current hard drive intact and install Vista on a completely different drive.  This will allow for several things – I can always go back to XP Pro by simply swapping out the drives, and I won’t need to backup 150GB of data prior to doing the install.

Picked up a 500GB drive on the way home – fairly large upgrade from the current 150GB drive.

SO WHICH VERSION OF VISTA…
Vista comes in many flavors, from the Home Basic on up to Ultimate and several in between.  I’ve decided to go with Vista Ultimate 64.  The 64 denotes the 64-bit version.  What does that mean?  The biggest thing it means is that you can load up a system with RAM!  RAM is cheap these days, and more RAM = Happy Computer.

STAY TUNED…
Tomorrow the journey begins – the new drive will be installed and we begin the Vista Ultimate 64 install.

*UPDATE – THE INSTALLATION*
So this morning I began the installation.  Prior to doing anything I made a list of all of the ‘must have’ programs that were installed under XP – things like MS Office, Quickbooks, LogMeIn, Mozy Backup and so on.

I removed the existing hard drive (containing XP Pro) from the system and replaced with the new 500GB drive.  While the original drive did not *have* to be removed, the ‘better safe than sorry’ phrase came to mind.

I also doubled the RAM, from 2GB to 4GB, put the cover back on the box, plugged it back in and powered up.

The intial installation phase was surprisingly fast and easy – boot to the Vista DVD and follow the prompts.  Entered the CD Key and let it go to town.  It took all of 15 minutes for the 1st phase, which required a reboot.

The 2nd phase consisted of Vista scanning the system looking for devices – this took 4 minutes.

The 3rd and final phase of initial setup was creating a user account and password and setting the time zone, which took all of 2 minutes.

Vista was installed from start to finish in under 30 minutes – impressive!

Even more impressive was what I found when I logged in for the 1st time – On a standard XP Pro installation, after the initial install of the Operating System one must then install drivers for audio, video, network card, system board, and so on.  Not with Vista – after the 1st login the system was up and online, it had installed the proper drivers for the network card, video card, the audio, everything!  I didn’t have to download or install a single solitary driver.

There were several updates for Vista which downloaded automatically in a matter of minutes, and I went ahead with their install.  This was the one step in the whole process that caused me a moment or two of concern – the updates (there were 35) took quite a bit of time to install, about 35 minutes.

After the updates were done the system rebooted, and the left monitor (I have two monitors on the system) showed the mouse cursor, which I could move around, but everything else was completely black.  I waited a few minutes then rebooted the system again, at which time it came up normally.  I haven’t experienced the black screen again.

Now it was time to install software – Installed Microsoft Office 2007 Enterprise and Office 2007 Service Pack 1, downloaded and installed AVG 8.5 antivirus, Quickbooks 2009 Pro, MozyPro online backup and a few other applications.

Every single application installed flawlessly – no errors, no hangups, no issues with Vista 64, nothing.

We utilize an off-site Exchange server for our email.  Configuration of Outlook took all of 30 seconds.  Plugged in Exchange server name, entered my login ID and password and bam!  There was all of my email, calendar and contacts.  Easy peasy.

Next came the printer – I have a Brother MFC 7820N unit – it’s a black and white laser printer/fax/scanner that is connected to the computer via a USB cable.  This was my single biggest concern out of the whole process of swapping over to Vista – I have experienced so many issues with printers/scanners and vista and wasn’t sure what to expect.

The printer had been purchased a year ago, and came with a Vista CD.  I popped in the CD, followed the prompts and 5 minutes later had a fully functional printer/scanner/fax.  I can scan directly to the hard drive with zero issues.

Next came accessing data on other office systems running XP and allowing others to access data on this box.

I was able to map a drive to our front desk system with minimal effort – browsed the network, chose the system and data share and that was that.

I set up a 2nd login on the Vista system for Jimmy and Sherry to use when accessing data I’ve shared.  I copied over the data from the original hard drive, created the share then simply browsed out to the Vista box from Jimmy and Sherry’s systems, provided the user ID and password and they were in.

I’ll have a chance to utilize the system all day tomorrow and really take it for a test drive.

**UPDATE – FINAL THOUGHTS**
I’ve had a chance to use Vista for a couple of days now, and bottom line is it has worked out much better than anticipated.

Out of all of the applications that I use, only one (Malwarebytes Antimalware) is not 100% compatible with Vista-64.  Truecrypt, Quickbooks 2009 and our printer/scanner/fax all work flawlessly.  Not a single error encountered.

-Daniel Scurlock
Scurlock Systems and Associates LLC

As a small business owner I do a lot of networking.  Our business model is 100% referrals, and we love it.

I joined BNI (Business Networking International) a bit over 3 years ago, and in 2008 that group accounted for 25% of our sales.  25%.  From one group.  We have done work for folks in that group, their friends, their parents, their kids, their coworkers and so on.  It’s a very powerful organization and I would urge anyone who has not experienced it to find a local chapter and go visit.

Recently I was invited by a business acquaintance to attend a local ABWA meeting.  ABWA is the American Business Women’s Association.

I pointed out the fact that I was, in fact, a man and that well, this was an association for Women; my acquaintance just chuckled and urged me to attend.

I attended my 1st meeting last month and joined that night.  Absolutely amazing group.  Amazing.  Group.

Now here’s the meat of my little story and what prompted this post…

Yesterday I was meeting with a potential client and during our conversation she mentioned that she was interested in locating a patent attorney to ask some very general questions.

When I got back to the office I fired off an email to a few of the ABWA members asking if any of them knew of a patent attorney I could refer to my client.

Next thing I know an email has gone out to our entire group and my inbox begins flooding with personal referrals for patent attorneys.

Within a matter of hours I had a list of 15 patent attorneys and their contact information to pass on to my client.   These are not just random names pulled from Google – these are personal referrals from folks who had done business with them.

That, ladies and gentlemen, rocks.

Daniel Scurlock
Scurlock Systems and Associates LLC
www.scurlocksystems.com

So, you buy a new computer. You may wonder what all those programs that came with the system are used for. Consider this: they aren’t necessary. Most of the factory-installed programs are what are considered bloatware. Let me explain…

Software manufacturers are paid to design a good product that has good loading times. To achieve these loading times, they load a “launcher” which typically shows up as an icon in the tray (the area near the clock). In their ideal testing conditions, this speeds the launching process significantly. The unintended side effect is that if you get just a few of these programs, they start to slow the system down significantly, defeating their original purpose entirely.

Other instances of bloatware are little “extras” that manufacturers put on their systems such as games, trial programs, hotkey launchers, and things of that nature.

To combat this, we offer a remote cleanup service that eliminates this bloatware (among other things) and restores your system to a state that’s quite possibly faster than it was when you purchased it.

If you want to know more about bloatware and its’ problems, don’t hesitate to call Scurlock Systems at 972-633-1111. We’ll be glad to answer questions and clean up your system.

www.scurlocksystems.com

I grew up on a farm near Austin, Texas, and my folks and brother are still out there, enjoying the country life.

My brother lives in a house about a quarter mile from my parents, and recently Dad called me wanting to know if he could share his internet connection with my brother.

We went over options (stringing a cable that far was right out) and with the current wireless equipment we use just couldn’t come up with a plan that would get a wireless signal that far without stringing up all sorts of equipment between the two houses, along with power sources, etc.

Flash forward a few weeks…

The entire farm (100ish acres) has WiFi access.  Out on a tractor in the back 40 and need to check the weather?  No problem!  Fire up the laptop and check weather.com for the latest report.

Down in the pecan orchard and need to fire off a quick email?  No problem!

What we found was an absolutely amazing device called the Nano Station 2 by an outfit called Ubiquiti.  This is in effect a Wireless Access Point that reports to have a 15 Kilometer (over 9 miles!) effective range.

Power is provided via an Ethernet cable to the unit (Power Over Ethernet), so there is no need to string AC power where the device will be placed.

The device works flawlessly, and has enabled coverage over an area previously considered impossible to cover by residential-grade equipment.

We’ve ordered several more of the devices and will be testing in the Dallas area to see what kind of coverage we get in an area saturated by existing wireless traffic.

Oh, and the best thing about the device?  The cost!  MSRP on the unit is only $79.

More to come as we test.

**UPDATE**

We received the units late Thursday afternoon and have had a chance to play with them today.

Here is what we’ve learned:

The units work in pairs – i.e., One unit is set up as a Wireless Access Point, and the 2nd unit, which can be located quite some distance away, is set up as the receiving unit.

The receiving unit can then be wired into a switch or directly into a computer for access to the network.

The BIG lesson we learned is these units *must* have line of sight in order to work.  To utilize them in a city environment you would need to mount both units on a tower or fairly high pole in order to make it over any buildings between points a and b.

We also tested one unit as a standalone WAP (Wireless Access Point) and found that while the coverage was considerably better than our existing Linksys WRT54GL units, the antenna is directional.  We have not tested yet with an omnidirectional antenna hooked up to the device.

Summary:
The devices are absolutely amazing, and in the right conditions (large open spaces with no line of sight issues, or units mounted up in the air) they can provide a VERY cost-effective solution for expanding your network.

Daniel Scurlock
Scurlock Systems and Associates LLC
www.scurlocksystems.com
972.633.1111