A question from a reader:

Tony do you know of a “Simple” program that will measure antenna signal
strength in dB while you are connected to your wireless link. I guess it could
be called a signal strength meter. The ones avaiable either show you in a
bar graff or some other rediculas manner that is good for Non Tech folks but
to most of us Geeks it would be nice to be able to see the readout in dB so
the antenna could be fine tunned for the best signal.

And my (less-than-perfect) answer:

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Question from a reader:

Tony,

I saw you as one of the authors of the Microsoft Self-Paced Training for MCITP Enterprise Administrator series from Microsoft Press.  I visited your personal website and really liked your photography as well… Very impressive.

Anyhow, I digress… I’m not really writing to talk about photography, though I could.  My question is about MCITP training and certification.  You have a substantial history and experience in training/writing about Microsoft certifications.  I’m moving up in my employer’s organization and I’m tasked with getting my certification.  I had my MCSE 2000, but it’s time to upgrade my skills.

As someone new to Win2008 (specifically R2) do you have any hints, tips, suggestions for getting GOOD training, but also receiving certification.  I’m purchasing the Microsoft Press self-paced series that you’re one of the authors of, but I’m looking for more as well… By no means am I suggesting your books aren’t great… they are!  But I’m one who looks for help from many angles (even emailing the author, as you can see).  Any guidance you may have is much appreciated.

Regards,

And my answer:

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A question from a reader:

John left a question in the comments, and I wanted to make sure other reader of my training kit got the information:

I bought your MS Press 70-642 Configuring Windows Server 2008 Network Infrastructure and would like to know how to set up the lab using Virtual PC 2007…

I have two Dell Latitude laptops running XP Pro SP3 with enough hard drive space that I should be able to install both Virtual PC 2007 and Windows Server 2008 on…they will be connected to each other via a 4-port Netgear switch…

Where can I get a free copy of Windows Server 2008 to use for the lab?…and do you have any suggestions on ensuring that the lab software don’t mess up these two laptops (I use both of them for business purposes)?

And later in an e-mail followed up with:

Actually, I was able to download WS2008 (and VPC 2007 SP1) from a MS download website yesterday (WS2008 was 1.9 GB and it downloaded as an iso file)…

I just have a few (dumb) questions about setting up the lab (please confirm the correctness and the sequence of the following steps):

1. I’m assuming that I need 3 actual computers physically connected to each other by a switch…true?

2. Next, install default? VPC 2007 on each computer.

3. Next, install default WS2008 on each computer (I am assuming I will install WS2008 while inside the VPC environment , or should WS2008 be installed outside of the VPC environment as you suggest?…if outside of the VPC environment, do I have to wipe the hard drive clean before installing WS2008, or can I keep the existing XP Pro SP3 OS and all of my apps and data files intact and install WS2008 in a separate partition?).

4. Next, do I rename the computers from inside or outside the VPC environment (however, I cannot change the real existing computer names on these computers because they are domain machines in my company’s environment…if I change their names, I will not be able to connect to my work network!).

Are there any other steps that I am missing?

Really appreciate any clarification you can provide!

My replies after the jump.

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Question from a reader:

Tony, I don’t have 10,000 photographs but sometimes it seems like it. I would appreciate your opinion for the best program for organizing my files on the computer. I can’t seem to find something that will permit captioning, date recording and tagging. I often wonder how the NGS organizes their collection which must numer in the millions. Thanks

My answer after the jump…

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Today my friend Jeff hit me up with an interesting question. His quad-core HP DL585 is supposed to operate at 3.4 GHz, but Performance Monitor was showing it running at 82% of the maximum frequency–2.8 GHz.

My first thought was that the difference was the metric AMD uses to make it easier to compare their processors to Intels higher-frequency chips–and I was really wrong. When I investigated the Performance Monitor counters Jeff was looking at, I discovered a counter I hadn’t used before: Processor Performance\% of Maximum Frequency, as shown above.

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I got a question from a reader today–a question similar to the one that originally prompted me to create the NorthrupPhotography.com website:

Tony,

I was reading your 70-536 MCTS training book, when I saw that that you were a photographer. I find that to be strange, considering the fact that I too am a programmer who is also a photographer. At first, I found what must be your old website (http://www.northrup.org/). Upon seeing that site, I said that this guy must be joking when he says that he is a photographer. However, fortunately there is a link to what must be your new website (http://www.northrupphotography.com). The pictures on that site are incredible. Not to mention the fact that the layout is very appealing to the eye. However, as a writer of many windows books, what are you doing with a PHP website? That’s like going over to the dark side. After I finish the 70-536, it is my plan to update my site in a manner like yours, however I will utilize Microsoft Silverlight. Well, thanks for the inspiration. Take care.

My (wordy) answer after the jump.

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