The World According to Mitch

For more information about the Windows Springboard Series visit http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=8418918. In a previous post (http://mitchgarvis.com/blogs/mitch/archive/2008/05/05/windows-vista-comments-from-a-converted-enthusiast.aspx) I told you about the manager of the local Starbucks, a computer enthusiast whom I helped get going on Windows Vista and Microsoft Office.  This afternoon I got an e-mail from him that I wanted to share with you.  Not…

The original e-mail arrived in French… not entirely normal to begin with, although not unheard of.  The original text is attached below.  The title translated to 'FW: Free Computer (Verified)!  At first I figured someone was forwarding a Craig's List post to me… people are giving away Pentium machines all the time.  Not so… A…

<Because the original e-mail on which this article is based was in French I decided to write a rudimentary translation for my French readers and friends.> Je ne reçois pas souvent des courriels en français, mais des fois, alors je l'ai regardé prudemment.  Le titre parlé d'un ordi gratuit, et le texte lisait: « Bonjour…

In the past year I have become a father to my fiancé's ten year old son Aaron.  I had previously never had any experience as a father, and certainly no real exposure to ten year old boys.  It has been a challenge that I have been struggling with, and I can only hope that with…

For more information about the Windows Springboard Series visit http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=8418918. I have spent the past two years telling people how much I love Microsoft Windows Vista; it is not because Microsoft pays me to do so (they do not), but because I truly believe it is the best operating system on the market for desktop…

In 1625 King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden ordered his shipyards to build (among others) a mighty fighting ship called the Vasa.  He gave very specific instructions for what he wanted in this ship, how he wanted it outfitted, and made it clear that it should be the mightiest ship on the seas, and it was……

I am so proud of Gingit… Yesterday she attained immortality!  At 8 months old she has vaulted to the Number Five spot (worldwide!) on the auspicious site… http://www.thingsmydogate.com. To see her story, please click http://www.thingsmydogate.com/gingit.html! Sigh… at least some good came of all that loss! M

This is my mouse… from the day I got it in March of 2007 I fell in love with it, because despite the (slightly ridiculous) price tag it was not only the most comfortable mouse I've used in a long time, but it also had the added bonus of being a presenter mouse, with the…

The entire world runs on DNS. While that is not true, the Internet does, and without it the entire infrastructure would screech to a deafening halt.  In short, DNS (or Domain Naming System) is the directory service that lets us use friendly(ish) names to remember sites, such as garvis.ca/blogs, rather than having to remember http://209.97.218.133/mitchgarvis/blogs. …

I had a conversation with my Exchange Server last night. Microsoft has been talking about Unified Messaging for a couple of years now, and I have been interested in it since the outset but because I do not always have the infrastructure (or the time) to do a lot of the things I would like…

I tend to work a lot of late hours.  I am not entirely sure why, but it probably has to do with the fact that there are fewer distractions about at midnight than there are at noon.  The phone doesn't ring, there's really nowhere to go.  I can sit at my computer and work. It…

…So my brother-in-law, like most people I know, assumes that when it comes to computers I will know the answer. This led to my learning something new this week. The question: ‘I have an analog camcorder with which we have documented our lives over the past eight years. We recently purchased a Media Center PC…

They say that when you cannot do, teach.  I am not entirely fond of this particular expression, chiefly because I am primarily a teacher in my profession.  I do tend to 'eat my own dog food' and work with the tools that I instruct on though, which is why at the moment I have, for…

For the past few months I have been using Windows Home Server (WHS) to backup my workstations at home… two laptops, one desktop workstation and my Media Center PC.  The WHS box has 650 GB of hard disk space, about half of which is dedicated to file storage, and the other half is for backup…

(Note: It has been brought to my attention that I inadvertently named this article the same thing I had named a previous article.  As such I am renaming this article, four hours after the original publication time.  Thanks for understanding.  -M) For the past several years I have been a huge proponent of Microsoft Small…