Bradblog

X-BAR joins JWCS

I am pleased to announce that on July 1, X-BAR became part of JWCS, one of Seattle’s most highly regarded IT Services firms. We’ve admired the quality of service and the intense client focus of JWCS for quite some time and now, as part of JWCS, we have a significantly larger staff with broader and [...]

Disaster Survival and Business Continuity for the Small Business

Disaster Survival and Business Continuity for the Small Business (Part 1) from X-BAR on Vimeo.
Disaster Survival and Business Continuity for the Small Business (Part 2) from X-BAR on Vimeo.
Disaster Survival and Business Continuity for the Small Business (Part 3) from X-BAR on Vimeo.
Recorded Friday, November 20, 2009 as part of the Seattle Chamber of Commerce [...]

Use Drop.io to escape attachment hell

Although email may still be one of the greatest productivity tools we have, it hasn’t advanced much since its introduction in the early 70s. Sure, we can now add little smileys and distracting animations, but when it comes to sharing business documents and other files, we often run into a number of snags–from overzealous virus [...]

The case of Hyper-V and the mysteriously long ping times

Sounds like a Scooby-Doo episode written especially for us network nerds, no?
We recently noticed that Windows 2003 SBS servers on Hyper-V were routinely throwing 1054 errors (Source: Userenv) in the Application log, indicating that they could not find a Domain Controller on the network.  Very interesting, seeing as they are the Domain Controllers for these [...]

Office manager needed. Inquire within.

We’re hiring! We’re looking for somebody with strong communication and organization skills to provide administrative support to a number of key areas, including sales and marketing, bookkeeping, and office operations. Check out the job description and please pass this along to anybody you think might be a good fit.

Addition to the X-BAR family

Benson Shavey is the most recent addition to X-BAR– joining the team in December as a System and Network Engineer.
Benson has an unusual trait for a system and network engineer: he likes to talk about technology in a way that people actually comprehend. “I always try to have conversations that anyone from a beginner to [...]

Where’s my bus?!

Waiting for the bus isn’t the most enjoyable way to spend your time. In fact, it seems like this is one of the main reason for not taking the bus, which is too bad because using mass transit one of the most effective ways of reducing our individual contributions to global climate change.
Check out One [...]

New Director of Professional Services

Amanda Rankin joined our team in the fall of 2008 as a part-time project manager. We quickly learned that project management was just one of her many strengths that the she’s a joiner at heart – so we quickly put her to work in a number of other capacities. This past fall we promoted her [...]

Need assistance with hardware or software licensing?

At X-BAR, we’re here to help you plan changes to your IT infrastructure and you may not know that we’re at your disposal for questions or pricing inquiries related to hardware upgrades, software licensing, warranty renewals—you name it.
We have access to licensing experts from dozens of companies including Microsoft and Adobe, as well as hardware [...]

Changing voice or data services?

If you’re considering making a change to your voice or data services, please contact us.
We’ve had a number of clients get suckered into working with ineffective (and in some cases, less than competent) sales reps at nearly all of the local telecom and data companies. The good news is that we’ve identified a number of [...]

Comcast coming to Pioneer Square

For the past year, we’ve been quietly working with Comcast Business to bring their cable internet service to Pioneer Square. It always felt like a long shot – the cost of ripping up streets to lay cable is extraordinarily expensive, and often more than what a company like Comcast could ever hope to recoup in [...]

Windows 7 God Mode

Remember the first time you heard about “up, down, up, down, A, B, A, B, Select, Start”?  GodMode, genius!  Well, this trick might not be quite as cool, but for us sysadmin a shortcut to full control is always welcome.  Try this one out…

Create a folder somewhere on your hard drive (example c:\temp)
Name the folder [...]

Backup your online life

Whether or not we have a complete backup plan in place, I’m sure everyone agrees that regularly backing up our important files is a good idea. But what about that online identity many of us have worked so hard to create? If you’re like most people, you rely solely on someone else to keep all [...]

How to manually install an SSL certficate on SBS 2008

Having fun wrestling with SBS 2008’s “Connect to the Internet” and “Add a trusted Certificate” wizards?  Yeah, I thought so.
Here’s how to get around it:  Treat SBS 2008’s SSL management like you would any other Exchange 2007 box, and do it all from the shell.
Note: My walk-through is based on using GoDaddy for the UCC [...]

Brad to keynote Entrepreneurship Exposition

For immediate release
Auburn Mountainview High School DECA students to host Entrepreneurship Exposition
November 10, 2009
On Saturday, November 21, Auburn Mountainview High School DECA students Heather Odell and Nichola Usher are hosting the first annual Entrepreneurship Exposition from 9:30 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. at Auburn Mountainview High School, 28900 124th Avenue SE, Auburn. The event is free [...]