Clientworks Inc.

Web Site Launched!

joec — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 00:42:24 +0000

The brand new Clientworks website has been launched!

In addition to regular company and store info, our new website features:

-tech blogs by our staff members.
-links and resources to tech info and tools.
-Links to remote support options for customers
-And coming soon…the MyClientworks Portal for instant access to service history and new support requests.

Keep your software up to date!

joec — Fri, 03 Dec 2010 21:14:06 +0000

I am aware that this tip is nothing new and is sort of cliche, but it is probably the number one problem with viruses and the internet of the 21st century. The internet world is kinda scary when you get down to what is actually going on, and yes there really are bad people connected to the internet trying to infect innocent users with malware for a variety of reasons. This is no reason to be afraid of the internet for those who are willig to take responsibility of the computer systems they use. The way that it works is simple: NO SOFTWARE WILL EVER BE 100% secure**. High-level malicious hackers will eventually find an exploit and use it to inject malicious code into internet connected computers. Software writers will eventually fix the exploit and make it safe. Low-level malicious hackers will continue to search for and infect computers that do not have the updated, safe software. I don’t have the exact numbers, but I would say that the number of low-level hackers (and automated bots) in the world is 10-100 times the amount of high-level hackers, what this means is that your chances of being infected when your software is not kept up to date is 10-100 times higher.

And while I am at it:

Update to windows 7

Windows 7 has thus far proven to be much less susceptible to viruses at our service center. 90% of infected machines are running windows XP. Save yourself the hassle and upgrade as soon as you are able. We offer upgrades in our shop including the migration of your data and most common applications for a flat fee. Please contact our shop for details!

Welcome to BIOS

amundt — Fri, 03 Dec 2010 20:45:50 +0000

Hello and welcome to my computer hardware, server and desktop virtualization, and cloud computing technology blog.Ã‚Â I will update you on the current trends happening around the world.

Use WordPress to manage dynamic sidebar content

joec — Fri, 03 Dec 2010 20:13:24 +0000

This website is using a modified version of the default “2010″ WordPress theme. In the Two colum layout I wanted to be able to have a way to edit the sidebar content per page using the page editor and not using only the abilities of widgets. So I created my own solution:

First I added the plugin “Executable PHP widget” so that I could easily add some code to the sidebar
Next I added this widget to the sidebar with the following code:

Planting and Growing your digital garden.
A blog about web development by Joe Crain.

What this means is WordPress will check for a page named the same as whatever page is currently being displayed with “-Sidebar’ appended to it and it if finds one it displays the body of this page in the sidebar of the current page. There is an exception for when you are on the home page or on a blog post. The home page always looks for “Home-Sidebar” and a post always displays the sidebar pertaining to the name of the *category*. So the sidebar from this page was taken from a page named “Planting and growing your digital garden-Sidebar”
So the last step is to go and create your sidebar pages. I created a “sidebars” page as a place holder and gave it an order of 9999, that way it always shows up last in the admin section. Then when I create new sidebar pages I use this page as the parent, this keeps things a little more organized in the pages admin section.

Virtualization Intro

amundt — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 21:01:16 +0000

Concept

Virtualization is the creation of a virtual (rather than actual) version of something, such as an operating system, a server, a storage device or network resources.

Virtualization can be viewed as part of an overall trend in enterprise IT that includes autonomic computing, a scenario in which the IT environment will be able to manage itself based on perceived activity, and utility computing, in which computer processing power is seen as a utility that clients can pay for only as needed. The usual goal of virtualization is to centralize administrative tasks while improving scalability and work loads.

Hardware

Hardware virtualization, execution of software in an environment separated from the underlying hardware resources
- Hardware-assisted virtualization, where some support for virtualization is built into the underlying hardware
- Full virtualization, sufficiently complete simulation of the underlying hardware to allow software, typically a guest operating system, to run unmodified
- Partial virtualization, where some but not all of the target environment is simulated. Some guests may need modifications to run, see paravirtualization
- Paravirtualization, virtualization environments that require modifications to guest operating systems in exchange for higher efficiency

Clientworks Website

joec — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 02:03:02 +0000

Welcome to my new Web Development Blog. How appropriate that I am wrapping up development on this very website as I start this blog which is all running on WordPress. WordPress is a great tool, but it comes with many obstacles to overcome. This blog will document my various trials with this and other websites I manage.

All in a days work

Here are some items I learned in today’s devepment session

Nicely fitting images: When an image is added, it defaults to display: inline, which causes the browser to display a row separator underneath it (to separate it from the next line of text) If you are displaying an image inside a div and you want to eliminate this space set its CSS display attribute to block.
I have a lot to learn in regards to using the visual editor in Word Press.Ã‚Â One thing to keep in mind: Do not try to use the visual editor to do much more than adding text and inserting a simple image. You are going to need to use the HTML editor with a plugin like WP Unformatted to achieve more advanced results.

Welcome!

joec — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 20:16:34 +0000

Welcome to our new Clientworks company blogs!Ã‚Â I am looking forward to starting my new blog along side other members of our team.Ã‚Â The subject of my blog is data, whether it’s transferring data, storing data, interpreting data, or tracking data.Ã‚Â I specialize in database administration and design at our company.Ã‚Â I will be bringing in snippets of emerging technology in the world of data, tips and tricks for managing data migrations, reports from my real world projects, and other experience from the world that promises to make life easier but is sometimes known for doing just the opposite.

I will leave this post as just an introduction for now as I finish fulfilling my other role here: Webmaster.Ã‚Â Which reminds me,Ã‚Â Be sure to check out my other blog here at clientworks dedicated to web development: Planting and growing your digital garden.