markwilson.it

Since Apple switched to using Intel processors for certain Macintosh models, I’ve been excited by the possibility of running Windows on a Mac. Some say its sacrilege. I say it’s sensible. I love the Apple hardware, but am not a fan of the software, which (in my opinion) is proprietary and expensive. [...]

I’ve been writing this blog for a couple of years now. With over 500 posts, it’s consumed a scary amount of my time, but at least it’s finally something useful to do with the markwilson.co.uk domain that I first registered back in the late ’90s when I was thinking of leaving my job and [...]

The chances are, that if you’re reading this, you already know what a blog is. You may even know about RSS (or Atom). But for anyone who’s just stumbled across this site, Microsoft MVP Sandi Hardmeier has published a Blogging 101 that’s a really good introduction to what it’s all about.

I just fixed a little problem on my Windows XP laptop… I had a file which I could not delete (even after a reboot) and each time I tried, the error returned was:
Cannot delete filename: Data Error (Cyclic Redundancy Check)
Various Internet sites suggested rebooting in safe mode and removing the file – that didn’t [...]

Occasionally I blog about IT news items that interest me but I can’t cover everything (or even everything in my field of interest) due to time constraints. One thing I didn’t mention when the news broke a few weeks back was Microsoft’s release of Virtual Server 2005 R2 as a free download. This follows [...]

A few weeks back, I blogged about my problems installing Linux on an IBM ThinkPad. Because I’d like to get the Access IBM predesktop area back (and then install Linux so the system will dual-boot with Windows XP), I used the recovery CDs that IBM sent me (free of charge as the system is [...]

Whenever I see that John Craddock and Sally Storey (from Kimberry Associates) are presenting a new seminar on behalf of Microsoft I try to attend. Not just because the content is well presented but because of the relevance of the material, some of which would involve wading through reams of white papers to find, [...]

A few months back, when Microsoft announced that many of its forthcoming server products would be 64-bit only, I confessed that I don’t know a lot about 64-bit computing. That all changed last week when I attended two events (the first sponsored by Intel and the second by AMD) where the two main 64-bit [...]

Recently, I blogged about public/private key cryptography in plain(ish) English. That post was based on a session which I saw Microsoft UK’s Steve Lamb present. A couple of weeks back, I saw the follow-up session, where Steve put some of this into practice, securing websites, e-mail and files.
Before looking at my notes from [...]

I’ve invested a lot of time recently into learning about two of Microsoft’s collaboration products – Live Communications Server 2005 (real-time presence information, instant messaging and VoIP) and the forthcoming version of Exchange Server (e-mail, scheduling and unified messaging). Both of these products include telephony integration, and for many IT architects, designers and administrators [...]