SysAdmin

Wikileaks under DDOS attack on eve of new revelations [Comment] : " Tomorrow WikiLeaks is set to reveal a new series of classified US documents that have been sent by United States Embassies around the world. The revelations set to shed new light on the country’s relations with friendly and unfriendly states alike, and now the site itself has come under a distributed denial of service attack. Despite reports that hackers are responsible for the attack there’s no actual evidence one way or another, but it’s raised important and pertinent questions about the information that’s in the public domain and if there really is such a thing as “too much information”. Most people will agree that sometimes it’s just better not to know a fact, and to live in ignorance of it. The Human brain and conscience is only capable of processing so much which is why we choose to blank out certain events. This was the case with the previous WikiLeaks revelations of documents from the Iraq war. Most peo...

10 tips for troubleshooting DNS problems : " Figuring out what’s wrong with DNS will go faster if you have a set of troubleshooting steps to follow. Brien Posey shares his approach to isolating the cause of DNS problems. DNS is one of the most essential services on any Windows network. Active Directory can’t function without DNS, and it’s is also used by any number of other network functions. So it’s critical to troubleshoot DNS problems as fast as possible. Thankfully, the process is usually fairly easy. Here are10 of my favorite DNS troubleshooting techniques. Note: This article is also available as a PDF download . 1: Verify network connectivity When DNS problems occur, one of the first things you should do is verify that the DNS server still has network connectivity. After all, if the problem ends up being something as simple as a NIC failure, you can save yourself a lot of time by checking for the problem up front. The easiest way to verify connectivity is to log on to the DN...

Implement a single client backup strategy : " For years my consulting office has managed backup routines for numerous commercial clients. It doesn’t matter who installed the backup software (it could have been us, a competitor, the manufacturer, etc.). It doesn’t matter who configured the backup application (it could have been a novice engineer, a CCIE, an MCSE, a 20-year industry veteran, etc.). It doesn’t matter who manufactured the backup software. It doesn’t even matter whether the client is using native backup software, third-party utilities, or disk-imaging tools. Backup operations frequently fail. Possible causes for backup failures include: Clients forget to replace a tape. A user disconnects an external hard disk power cord in order to charge his cell phone. Software hangs. Media fails. The power goes out. Flash floods strike. Regardless of the cause, there’s one thing your consulting firm can do to help eliminate one of the most important business conti...

Speed Up Your Website By Optimizing Images : " Page speed is a ranking factor in the Google Search engine. According to Google officials it is currently used in 1 out of 1000 queries. I think it was Matt Cutts who said that speed acted as a tie breaker in situations. It is however likely that speed will play a bigger role in the future. But it is not only the search engine marketing and visibility aspect that plays a role here. The Majority of visitors likes a fast loading website. Depending on value or need to access those contents they may be inclined to wait, or leave the page if it loads to slow. Webmasters have lots of options to reduce the page loading time of their websites. This includes removing unnecessary scripts, using compression, minifying HTML, CSS and JavaScript files, merging files where possible but also to optimize images that are hosted on the server. The difference between an optimized image and an unoptimized image can make a big difference in page loading...

Netstat tips and tricks for Windows Server admins : " Netstat is a command that some Windows Server admins use every day, while others only use it when there is a problem. I fall into the latter category; I use netstat as a diagnosis tool when something has gone awry, or when I am trying to track something down. The 10 parameters to the Windows netstat command can display scores of additional information for troubleshooting or everyday use. The most common iteration of netstat is to use the -a parameter, which displays all connections and listening ports. However, netstat displays useful information even without parameters. Here are some pointers on using the netstat command: Fully qualified domain name: The -f parameter will display the fully qualified domain name (FQDN) of the foreign address in the netstat display. This will resolve names internally and externally if possible. Figure A shows the FQDN resolution within netstat . Figure A What process is runn...

Zoho Support adds a Help Desk to its Web-based office suite : " Filed under: Office , Web services Zoho -- the popular Web-based office suite -- has added another component to its customer support offerings. In addition to Zoho Assist, their Java-based remote assistance app, the company is now offering Zoho Support , a full-featured help desk application. Support packs tons of essential features, from managing customer requests and contracts to maintaining tasks and contacts. There's also a powerful reporting feature so you can analyze your Support data. It's an excellent option for small or medium-sized businesses who need a way to track customer issues and problem resolutions. Access to the core help desk functionality is free for one help desk user and up to 25 incidents per month -- which might not seem like a lot, but should suffice for small-time freelancers. Paid plans start at $12 per month per user. Want to see Zoho Support in action? Check out the off...

This Day in Geek History: The Web Was Invented : " It was exactly 20 years ago today that Tim Berners-Lee published the formal proposal to create the “WorldWideWeb”, probably for the sole purpose of one day allowing people to put moronic captions on pictures of cats. Image from Wikipedia The First Browser & Web Server The first web server was a NeXT Computer , created by Steve Jobs’ company and running a Unix-based operating system named NeXTSTEP—it didn’t have a hard drive by default, came with a 1120×832 grayscale display, and it only cost $6500. This same computer was also used to create the first web browser, appropriately titled WorldWideWeb and later renamed to Nexus to avoid confusion. It took him only two months to put together the first working version—after some more development, it was capable of displaying basic style sheets, downloading files, browsing newsgroups, and even spellchecking. Somebody should mention that last one to the Internet Explorer team…...

Rescue Disk Creator Sardu 2 Released : " I have reviewed Shardana Antivirus Rescue Disk Utility (Sardu) back in 2009 and found it to be a helpful but complex to setup rescue disk creator. The developer has recently released version 2 of Sardu which sports new features and an improved user interface. The portable software program offers a selection of tools that can be included in the bootable disk image or copied to an USB device. The utilities are grouped into the four tabs antivirus, utility, Linux Live and Windows PE. It is possible to select multiple programs of a group. The antivirus tab for instance offers to include the AVG Rescue Cd, Avira AntiVir Rescue System, Dr. Web Live Cd and the Kaspersky Kav Rescue CD among other choices. A click on a program downloads it to the local system, another click adds it to the disk image so that the rescue disk can be accessed whenever the system is booted from that CD, DVD or USB stick. A few rescue disks and programs need to be downlo...

Canonical axing X Windows: What will it mean for the next version of Ubuntu? : " In yet another recent announcement that had the Linux community looking like the proverbial “deer in headlights,” Canonical has announced that in an iteration of Ubuntu it might very well drop X Windows in favor of Wayland . This comes on the heels of Mark Shuttleworth’s recent announcement that 11.04 would see Ubuntu leave behind the GNOME Shell in favor of Ubuntu Unity. That was a tiny drop in the bucket compared to this latest consideration. Think about it - X Windows. How long has X Windows driven the desktop for Linux? Maybe since Linux had a desktop? This is HUGE! The very thought of a Linux without X Windows is staggering considering that nearly every application will have to be rewritten. Is the next announcement to be that Canonical is no longer going to ship with current Linux applications, but is instead going to develop applications on their own? Ubuntu Web browser. Ubuntu Email client. Ub...

Soft2Base, Download, Install Multiple Freware Apps At Once : " I sometimes take a look at PCs of friends and family, usually because something is not working and they asked me to, and to a lesser extent when they bought a new PC. It is often the case that the PC is not equipped with the right programs, no solid web browser, no text editor, data transfer program, security program and so on. One of the tasks that I do over and over again is to install the programs that I came to rely on on those computer systems. For that I open the program’s website, download it and install it afterwards. This takes some time, considering that it is not usually just one application that needs to be made available, but many. Soft2Base is similar to previously reviewed applications like AllMyApps , Essential Software Installer or Ninite , by offering to download and/or install selected applications at once. The program displays a set of configuration options on startup. Here it is possible to select...

BOFH: You just can't go around killing people : " Episode 14 What do you mean why? 'Cause you can't Bot Wars IV - The Screenplay [Black Screen] Several screens of multi-coloured static flash by before the words: INITIAL TESTS INDICATE UNIT OK appear in large tasteless block letters on the screen. Another burst of static crowds the screen before a Camera image appears with the top half of the PFY’s upside-down face … "

Q: What’s your Windows template approach? : " Once upon a time, I was a Windows Server administrator. Most of my focus was on Windows Server deployment and management. VMware virtualization was a large interest but my Windows responsibilities dwarfed the amount of time I spent with VMware. One place where these roads intersect is Windows templates. Because a large part of my job was managing the Windows environment, I spent time maintaining “the perfect Windows template”. Following were the ingredients I incorporated: Applications Adobe Acrobat Reader Advanced Find & Replace Beyond Compare Diskeeper MS Network Monitor MS Resource Kits NTSEC Tools Latest MS RDP Client Symantec Anti-Virus CE MS UPHClean VMware Tools Windows Admin Pack Windows Support Tools Winzip Pro Sysinternals Suite Windows Command Console BGINFO CMDHERE Windows Perf Advisor MPS Reports GPMC SNMP Tweaks Remote Desktop enabled Remote Assistance disabled Pagefile Complete memory dump DIRCMD=O env. va...

10 applications you can move to the cloud : " Providers have made great strides in improving the security and reliability of cloud services — so much so that Justin James sees a number of areas where moving applications to the cloud makes a lot of sense. Until recently, I was not a big fan of putting mission-critical applications in the cloud or letting someone else provide them. I had been burned too many times by shady vendors or providers who just did not have their acts together. But in the last few years, things have changed. There is a new breed of application vendors out there who have certain application classes nailed down really well and have established reputations for reliability, security, and fairness. It’s a good time to take a look at the cloud again. Here are 10 applications that can be moved to the cloud. Note: This article is also available as a PDF download. 1: Email Email is the lifeblood of many organizations, and as a result, many companies are not willing t...

Could You Live Without Internet Connectivity? : " It’s hard to believe that the web as we know it is still a teenager. No other teenager in all of history has had such a massive impact on life. Throughout world history, technology has fostered change in human society but never at such a rapid pace as the changes today. Like a person aging or gaining weight who fails to notice when they look in the mirror each day, society moves blindly forward, oblivious to the changes that are unfolding in it. How can we see just how far reaching the effects are? How can we observe just how far things have progressed? Simple. Strip away the web, one device at a time and see how that simple imaginary task would change the ways that those devices are used. Like a fat man forced to see that his clothes don’t fit, if we can’t use the devices, we see the changes. What specific web-enabled devices would be impacted or changed if they didn’t have internet connectivity? While your first impulse might be...

Source: http://www.ghacks.net/2009/04/26/the-10-best-windows-backup-software-programs/ Backing up data regularly should be one of the most important tasks of every computer user; Yet only a minority is doing it thoroughly and regularly. The rest is flirting with disaster as there are numerous incidents that can delete data on computer systems. The most common ones are hardware failures, which can mean damaged hard drives but also (partially) unreadable CDs or DVDs, computer virus attacks but also human error. If you have ever met someone who partitioned the wrong hard drive you know that the latter can be cause for great frustration. Backups are the single most effective method of preventing data loss on computer systems. The following article will list the 10 best Windows backup software programs. Cobian Backup cobian backup Cobian Backup is a free backup software for personal use that supports both local and remote backups. The software is constantly under development by ...

An Apache Mod. By Google For Faster Websites : " Google is so decisive on making the web faster with the tools and resources it creates. Also remember that they had announced "speed being a factor in Google's search rankings". Google is now sharing an open source Apache module named mod_pagespeed that automatically optimizes web pages. It works with Apache 2.2 and includes several filters that optimize JavaScript, HTML, CSS stylesheets, JPEG and PNG images . For the other members of the Page Speed family like the Page Speed extension, check this . "

Review: Weezo 2.1 remote access application : " There are so many ways to gain remote access to your computer. From the over-simplified free software to the paid solutions to the VPN solutions and more. Where there is a will to gain access there is a way to gain access. However, one of the available tools takes a different approach. Instead of gaining full access to your machine, you gain access to your documents by way of a Web-based server. This tool is Weezo and it (basically) turns your computer into a secure Web server that allows secure access to files, simplified sharing of files, and even quick and easy Web publication of your content and desktop. System requirements Product: Weezo Operating systems: Windows 2000, XP, 2003, Vista, 7 Display capable of 32-bit display Broadband or better network connection Who’s it for? Weezo is for anyone who not only needs remote access to their machine (via a Web browser) but also has an interest in sharing out the content to other use...