I’ll talk about the major new stuff that Apple announced and prove to you that these things actually already exist at Microsoft’s Side!

Let begin.
iTunes 10:

You hate the new logo (Me Too), Looks like Apple used Microsoft Paint to draw it , with iTunes 10, Apple Introduced the following new features:

Ping:
The new social network for music so that you can follow friends and artists, sounds like new, People made it look new, however, It’s OLD!, Microsoft had a similar service for a very long time, it’s called Zune:The Social, a service that also allows you to communicate with friends about the music, what you are listening to, share songs, etc…, similar to Ping, the Social is quiet old, around 2 years, and may require some additions, but Apple Ping is no news, and with very minor improvements to Zune:The Social it will be HOT!.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zune_Social

iTunes Streaming Capability:
Well, It’s new to Apple, But Very Very Old to All Others (Not Just Microsoft), Apple is just very slow in adopting cool technologies, with iTunes 10 you can stream stuff to your iDevices and play them on the Device itself or on the TV, right? OK, that’s cool and we were waiting very long for this, but did you know that this is really really old? Streaming?! Oh come on!, We’ve been enjoying streaming technologies for years now, Microsoft technologies provided many ways to stream content to both PCs and Mobile Devices! and to compare this specific thing to Microsoft, Specifically with Consumer Products, Microsoft already have streaming capabilities to it’s mobile devices (and non-mobile), its called Zune! , the Zune Software Allows Streaming Music to your Zune Device (and the Windows Phone 7 Device), also, it allows streaming music to your XBOX 360! there are also some articles that will help you stream to non-Microsoft Devices such as the iPhone! , oh not just that, the “Zune Pass” allows you to stream contents directly from the Zune Market Place to your Zune Device to XBOX 360!
OK, now, on another side, Let be honest, iTunes Sucks in managing libraries and stuff and the new interface also took the colors, making it look like the 90′s, Importing Media to iTunes from other stuff is a headache! and by default items imported to the library are copied to a new locations for iTunes to use it, it simply sucks, I would’ve removed it from my Mac if I can sync the iPhone somewhere else!, Take a look at the beauty of the Zune Software! and By the way, you can import iTunes Library to the Zune Software!
Overview of the Zune 4 Software http://www.winsupersite.com/zune/zunehd_sw.asp

How to stream your Zune Content to Apple iPhone http://gizmodo.com/5309642/stream-zune-songs-to-your-iphone

Remember, Managing a Windows Phone 7 Device will be through the Zune Software, and I am pretty sure that Microsoft will update the software to even a better one, the coolest thing about it, its Light! Very Light! Unlike the famous iTunes, that makes your computer SLLLLOOOWW!

AppleTV:
Yes, the new Apple TV is Small, Looks nice, Takes streams from iTunes, etc…, but hey, It doesn’t work without iTunes! and It’s only streaming! how about we have the option of both? with a Battery on the device that eliminates the need to connect it to a power supply while visiting a friend’s home? Yes, with this specific case, we have three things from Microsoft that can be compared to AppleTV:

1- XBOX 360 with Zune Software and the Martket Place: You can stream your HD Cool stuff from your computer or from the Zune Market Place Directly, Movies, TV Shows, Music, Whatever you want!, in HD! Why would I buy AppleTV for 99$ If i can buy the XBOX 360 for 150$ the old one, or 199$ with Kinect for the XBOX 360 S!

2- Use the Zune HD Device: Yes, the Zune HD Device, 60$ More than AppleTV (for the 16 GB Version), but what do you get for this extra 60?
- 720p HD Video Out (HD Videos on Apple Store are 720p, Checkout Apple’s Website)
- Super Portability: The device runs on a Battery, allows for up to 8.5 Hours of Video Playback!
- Lightweight!: Even Lighter than AppleTV, which weighs Around 250 Grams, the ZuneHD is only 74 Grams!
- Music On the Go!: It’s Portable, with Storage, Use it as a Music Device Too!
- HD Radio!

3- Windows Phone 7 Devices (Upcoming):
Windows Phone 7 will have a Zune Software Inside it, with powerful devices coming out, expect to see devices similar to Droid X with 720 HD Out and even better!

The New iPods (I’ll talk a little more about them):
Looks cool, but I will focus on the iPod Nano here since it’s the new thing, it looks nice, very small and is very light, but it’s just weird,! why would i need an accelerometer on a device that looks like a square? the view is the same from all sides, right? tell me so that you can use the device the same way no matter how you hold it and i’ll tell you, ssshhhh, no matter how I hold it? Apple are the ones who brought the “You are holding it wrong” thing with the **Magical** iPhone4!, Also, do we get an Accelerometer for the Phone Jack? NO! , so I guess an Accelerometer is just a useless addition, as well as Multi-Touch?! What am i going to do with that on a 1.54 Inches Screen?! a Full Colored Screen that doesn’t even play videos!? a 240×240 Pixels Colored TFT-LCD Screen just to look at the album art? oh and 220 Pixels Per Inch! “I think the screen should’ve been OLED so that we pay double the price for nothing” The iPad doesn’t have that on a 9.7 Inches Screen! Are you going to read books on it? That all just doesn’t make sense to pay for, Too much money for no features, or for useless features! and without Wi-Fi, Which means no streaming and no Wireless Syncing, you need your USB cable to sync! all that is for 179$ (16 GB Model)!! oh, and when you want to buy it, Apple’s Headline for the Product is MULTI-TOUCH! That’s the funniest headline ever! like am going to swipe two fingers to change the song!

Comparing the iPod Nano with the Zune 16 is really REALLY funny!, take a look:
Zune 16 Features:
- Video Playback! with Many Formats Supported!
- Wireless Sync (Wi-Fi and USB Cable Sync Supported)
- Send/Receive Songs with Other Wi-Fi Zunes Around you (and know the song they are currently playing!)
- Stream from the market place or the computer (Wi-Fi Hot spots are now useful for Music Listeners and Video Lovers)
And its 199$, and you will actually make good use of the stuff!, not 179$ for features that you actually need on Large Screen Devices (that’s the 16 GB Model of course)

Conclusion:
The new Apple stuff are not actually New!, some nice stuff to see from Apple, but still, expensive and old in terms of technology, I believe that Microsoft is already prepared to compete with Apple’s new stuff, whether it’s the iPhone, the AppleTV or iTunes; the launch of Windows Phone 7 will change many things and I believe that a new Zune Hardware and Capabilities will come around.
Apple’s Store is Amazing, It includes many things, from music to Movies, and that is an advantage and Zune’s only major drawback,in the coming months, i believe that the Zune Market Place will whiteness major changes to most of its content, and the good news is that Microsoft already have what is required to compete with Apple, and its just a few steps away.

Zune did not gain publicity because Microsoft did not put a good effort to market it very well, some people never heard of it, and most online communities doesn’t even talk about it, this doesn’t make the product itself bad, and also doesn’t make Apple Products better. Zune’s drawback lies in the market place content and country limitations (US Only)!, Changing that will surely attract many more customers to current and future versions of the Zune!.

Last year, We decided to change our ISP, we went for two new ISPs to provide 1 primary and two backup connections, the primary connection was based on Internet over Microwave Technology, the other two were DSL and WiMax (No more DSL now, only WiMax), all was fine up until we started to think about how we are going to failover the primary connection to the backup connections using the same Internet IP?, this thing started to cause a headache to us, specially when we found out that both ISPs doesn’t provide BGP over DSL/WiMax.

So basically we cannot failover the same IP to other backup connections, and since our users access the services using DNS names, the DNS Service will point to a single IP or multiple IPs with round-robin, and in our case we wanted DNS to point to the IPs of the backup connections only when the primary connection goes down!

We started to search for a solution, I was aware of Dynamic DNS Services, but I didn’t want the IP Address to be updated from my side using a client application, also, I have three static IPs (one for each connection), Dynamic DNS would work for me if my backup IP Address is dynamic so that it gets updated each time it changes, but my case in a little bit different here!.

During the search task, i got my hands on an online service called DNS Made Easy (http://www.dnsmadeeasy.com), a DNS Hosting Company that provides more than just simple DNS Hosting, the concept of their service is simple, you configure your HOST (A) record, and you add the primary IP and then the IP Addresses of the backup connections based on an order of your pereference on which to activate first, DNS Made Easy servers will keep checking your IP, once it stops responding, they will confirm after 30 Seconds that its no longer responding and will automatically change the Host (A) record to point to the IP Address of the secondary connection. Nice, right ?

But thats not just it, DNS Made Easy provide many other services, such as, Inbound SMTP Service, add their servers to your MX Records list, and if your entire site goes down, their servers will receive all your emails and forward them to your email server once your email services goes up!, they also provide SMTP Based notifications when your services goes down.

I was impressed, their services are really dependable and just works, my users experience a maximum of 2 minutes downtime when the primary connection goes down (which is acceptable for us), although this might not be acceptable for others, it is still a very cheap solution in weird scenarios (Costs us less than 100 US Dollars per year!), in case you are worried about DNS Made Easy uptime, those guys are up since 1998 with a 100% Uptime during the last 12 Years!.

Incorporating several technologies and online services can really help saving your company some money, especially in a very tight economical situations.

Hope you find this useful.

Cheers,

Today’s IT Services are all about uptime, if your service is up you deserve respect, if its not, you better go home, today i would like to share a cool service that keeps checking your online servers 24/7 and notifies you immediately in case something goes wrong, its called Alertra.

Alertra is an online company that provides a single service to its customers “Monitoring”, their monitoring concept is simple yet effective, Alertra performs various checks from many many locations world-wide to ensure the accessibility of your service, you can configure your account with service checks at specific intervals you specify, if your server provides an incorrect response or does not respond at all, Alertra will fire an SMS all parties you specify in your account (a Good idea to keep your system administrators alerted).

I’ve been using Alertra for around 3 years now, and i admit that it saved us many times, specially when the internet service goes down late at night, or when the SMTP Service hangs or shuts down for some reason, Alertra was always up to notify us when things go bad.

Alertra supports various standard protocols, such as HTTP, SMTP, POP3, FTP, DNS and others, you can also use the TCP Protocol and specify the Port of the service you are checking or you can use a custom script to check your service.

You can get a free 30 Days trial if you visit their website, check it out, its cheaper than you can imagine (30 Dollars a Month depending on the number of services checked, the frequency of checking and the number of parties to notify), but hey, imagine the amount of money its going to save you!

Check it out now at http://www.alertra.com/

Hope this helps some IT Dudes out there.

A long time since I blogged, Been very busy lately and couldn’t find the right time to blog.

Today as I was playing with my Jailbroken iPad, I wished if it can be used as a USB flash drive without the need of a third party software to be installed on the host computer and the wish came true instantly , luckily, some devs out there managed to do the trick by replacing the USB drivers on the iDevice, after finding the correct repository I managed to use the device as a mass storage device on my windows and Mac machines and it works perfectly

In this post, I will detail the process of installing the required app on the iDevice and making it work as a plug and play storage device:

Requirements:
1- Any iDevice (iPhone, iPad, iPod) running iOS 3 or later (Tested on 3.2.1 and 4.0) and yes it works on iOS 4
2- Jailbreaking the device (Its legal and there are tons of sites detailing how to Jailbreak), if you are a newbie, visit Jailbreakme.com from Safari on your iDevice and then slide to jailbreak.
3- Add the right repository that contains the USB flash memory app

That’s it, let’s move to the steps:

1- from the home screen, open Cydia
2- go to the manage tab and then tap sources
3- in the sources section, click the edit button on the upper right of the screen and then click add on the upper left of the screen
4- in the enter cydia/apt Url type the following: http://apt.dmytro.me
5- click add and wait for the process to complete
6- one completed tap return to cydia, and then tap Done on the upper right of the screen
7- the repository should appear on the screen, tap it
8- tap the USB Drive app, and then install it using the button on the upper right of the screen
9- one installed, exit cydia by clicking the home button
10- open the USB Drive app on your home screen (it’s an iPhone app so expect it to look smaller on the iPad, but it works, trust me)
11- tap create disk and use the slider to allocate the amount of space to be used as storage for the mass storage drive (Warning: use only the space you need, using all the space could prevent iTunes from syncing)
12- tap create to create the partition
13- Choose the operational mode, now this is a little bit tricky, the app operates in three modes:
A- Drive+iTunes: this mode enables the iDevice to operate as a flash drive and it can also be synced with iTunes at the same time, the only issue is that it works on a Mac only
B- Default: Which is a the mode set on all iDevices (iTunes syncing only)
C- Drive: makes the iDevice only a flash memory drive, it will work on both Windows and Mac (Tested) but it cannot be synced with iTunes, you will need to switch to other modes if you want to sync.

Drawbacks:
Switching from one mode to another requires restarting the iDevice, annoying indeed, but not that much.

Congratulations, you iDevice is now a fully functional flash memory.

I am still testing the possibility of booting a Windows installation or installing windows from/to the iDevice using this nice tool, will update this post once I have more information

Update1: Tested the boot functionality, you can actually boot from/to Windows 7 from the flash drive, little bit slow, but works like a charm!, required reformatting the flash from Windows7 and using Diskpart utility to make the flash drive an Active Primary Drive.

I hope this was of good value,

Thanks for reading,

Personally, I think that Microsoft should’ve done Office 2008 like Office 2011, It is simple, fast and looks almost the same as office 2007 or 2010 on Windows, Office 2008 was simply useless, especially for a new Mac user like me .

Worth mentioning here that Right-to-Left Languages Such as arabic are still not supported, When i tried to type in arabic, word displayed the arabic characters separated just the same as in Office 2008.

Office Version : 14.0.0 (100326)

I don’t want to talk that much, i want to share some photos from the new Office Suite, Here are some screenshots from Office for Mac 2011: