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Archive for the ‘General’ Category

I ran across this great video on YouTube. It is about a world without system administrators. Just think about that for a moment! LOL

Well here it is:

This video was made by Aprigoinc visit their YouTube channel if you want to see more IT videos.

Decades ago, discussions about securing the enterprise were limited to the almost benign topics of virus tainted email attachments and the benefits of power-on passwords. Today, the landscape has morphed into a virtual minefield of potential vulnerabilities, thanks in part to the endpoint devices that connect organizations to the Internet.

Endpoint devices include everything from computers and servers to routers and switches – each an attractive gateway for possible intruders.

Let’s examine the top endpoint threats:

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Check out this free SharePoint event in Minnesota.

Twin Cities SharePoint Saturday IV on March 20, 2010

The 4th Biannual Twin Cities SharePoint Saturday! (Formerly known as the Twin Cities SharePoint Camp.)  Spend a day with other SharePoint Administrators, Developers and End Users and come away with tips, tricks and a richer understanding of how you can leverage SharePoint to meet your needs.

Audience
SharePoint Saturdays are about the SharePoint community at large.  It’s a free forum for SharePoint Architects, Administrators, Business Users, Developers, and other SharePoint users to come and learn from their peers.  Topics are always based on community interest.

Date: March 20, 2010
Time: 8:00am – 5:00pm
Location: University of Minnesota’s Computer Science Building, Minneapolis
Cost: Free

http://www.sharepointsaturday.org/twincities/default.aspx

I have run into the issue of not being able to find the Scanpst.exe file where it should be. I even had show hidden files olders and show system files turned on. I did a search and still could not find it. This file typically would be in one of two locations:

• First: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12\
• Second: C:\Program Files\Common Files\System\MSMAPI\1033\

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We recently had a client that required Google Chrome for a web based app. Google Chrome is easy to download and install. Pretty straight forward and easy enough right? Wrong. Google Chrome installs in

• Win Vista/7 - C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\
• Win Xp - C:\Documents and Settings\%username%\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\

by default. You would think Google would install it to Program Files by default like other applications but it does not.

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I will be attending two FREE webinars one on SharePoint 2010 and one on the basics of CRM.
They are both on the same day February 11th.

• Back to the Basics of CRM (Salesforce.com and Microsoft CRM) - 1:15 - 2:30 pm EST
• SharePoint 2010: World Premiere - 3:30 - 5:00 pm EST

Sign up here

Do you need to track equipment, software, and IP addresses in your IT department? These are a given. The issue is many IT budgets have been cut. Well I have had the same issue. There is a solution. If you have SharePoint 2007 you can use it to manage and track all of these things. If your company has not or does not plan to purchase SharePoint 07 dont worry. You can get Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 for free and you can manage track all of the above with it.

Download Windows SharePoint Services 3.0

I have made som custom lists that I use everyday in SharePoint to help out in my IT department. I am attaching them to this post to share with others admins out there. You can off course modify these once you have them added to your own SharePoint. These lists are:

• Equipment Tracker: Use this list template for tracking equipment in an IT department.
• Software Tracker: Use this list template for tracking software in an IT department.
• IP Tracker: Use this list template for tracking IP addresses in an IT department.

Click to download my SharePoint IT Kit

These list templates are provided “As Is”. I assume no responsibility with use of them. If you find these lists helpful please sign up and leave a comment letting us know how they have helped you.

I ran across a tool Microsoft has for testing remote Exchange connectivity such as: Outlook Anywhere, ActiveSync, Autodiscover and more. Here is the URL: https://www.testexchangeconnectivity.com

Recently I had a virtual machine that would not obtain an IP from DHCP. I noticed the DHCP client service was disabled in windows services. I would enable it, start it and it would start just fine. I would then reboot the VM. The DHCP client service would be disabled again. I had a feeling there was a GPO that was disabling that service. I wanted to check this without going through the domain policy, the local policy and any other group policies that could be causing this. I used a tool in windows called Group Policy Results Tool. You can use this tool to find out how Group Policy settings are affecting both the the computer and the logged-on user.

To track down the GPO setting faster this is what I did:

• Open a command prompt on the client machine
• Type: cd\ (to go to the root of C:)
• Type: gpresult /v >gposettings.txt (This gave me a verbose report of all group polocies applied on the client machine)
• Go to the C: drive and open gposettings.txt in notepad
• I did a search for DHCP in this text file

This brought me to any GPO settings that had anything to do with DHCP. This helped me identify which group policy was pushing down the setting that was disabling the DHCP client service. It was in the Default Domain Policy. This is the path to system services:  Computer configuration\Windows settings\Security settings\System services

If you have a similar issue you can use the above method and Group Policy Results Tool to track down the cause of it.

More information on using the Group Policy Results Tool:

• http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/setup/expert/gpresults.mspx
• http://support.microsoft.com/kb/321709

Have you ever had devices that where stuck on your system and you needed to remove them. For example someone removed a physical network card from the system without uninstalling it first from the OS. This can be a problem if that network card had a static IP assigned to it. Once you add a new network card using the same static IP that was assigned to the previous network card it will give you an error.

If this were to happen normally you would go to device manager and simply uninstall the device. Well what if they don’t display? That means they are hidden. It is a good thing there is a way to un-hide them so you can uninstall them.

I have created a batch file that contains this:

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