A guide to preparing bootable USB drives for Windows/Linux installations

I have found a number of tutorials on the Internet that describe how to take a regular bootable ISO image and place it on a USB flash drive, but none of them really laid out what utility was needed and what ones won't work. There are a number of uses for this since most of the newer computers that exists today can boot off of USB drives. If you place your Windows installation disc on a USB drive - installing Windows again is breeze because you don't have to worry about scratched discs or other related disc reading problems. Also, installing from USB allows you to directly edit files (if you use an answer file or OEM drivers) and you're installation will be a much faster process than reading off a traditional optical disc. In fact, if your computer doesn't have a disc drive, it likely does have a USB port that can be booted from.

Be the IT Guy: IP Addressing your network - What's in the numbers?

I'm an IT Guy. I'm human, but I do make a living in Information Technology. I'd like to give you a peek at some of the things I do when I'm after something. My hope is that you find my adventures interesting - and, yes, feel free to correct me! Today I bring back an article I wrote years ago - it's still relevant today.

Many times I talk to people inside my industry and outside - thinking about getting into the industry; they tend to be lacking in knowledge of TCP/IP and proper IP Addressing conduct. I often go into offices that have been previously setup and find the network is 150.150.150.0, or all of the hosts on the network are directly connected to the Internet. While these practices all work, this industry is begging for consistency and there are recommendations as to the proper use of IP addressing to simplify your network management. Have you ever wondered why a network's hosts might be numbered 10.x.x.x or 192.168.0.x?