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Archive for the ‘Tips-Tools’ Category

Here is another great tool from Microsoft. This is the Exchange Server Deployment Assistant. It is for Exchange 2010 deployments. It can assist you in creating a step by step plan for your Exchange deployment. It can help with On-premise, Cloud, or Exchange Hybrid deployments. This tool will also help you with upgrade scenarios.

Basically the tool will ask you a series of questions about your environment and how you want to setup Exchange. It will then populate a checklist that you can follow for your deployment. You can click through the checklist in the browser, download it or print it.

Here is a link to the tool:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-gb/exdeploy2010/default.aspx#Index

Microsoft has released a web based tool that can be used to build PowerShell cmdlets for SharePoint. This is a great tool for those that are new to SharePoint PowerShell or PowerShell in general. It allows you to drag and drop a PowerShell verb and noun into a design surface and then input your specific SharePoint information such as farm, site collection database etc to complete the cmdlet. Once you have the cmdlet designed you can copy it out  and can run it on your server.

Microsoft announced this tool At the 2011 SharePoint Conference in Anaheim, CA which I was at. I missed that announcement and learned about this tool from Russ Kaufmann’s blog.  Thanks Russ!

Here is a link to more information about PowerShell for SharePoint and  this tool:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/ff603532

Here is a link to the tool itself:

http://www.microsoft.com/resources/TechNet/en-us/Office/media/WindowsPowerShell/WindowsPowerShellCommandBuilder.html

I was setting up multiple wireless access points with the same security and the same SSID. I had no way in windows to tell which AP I was connecting to. I needed to know because as I moved through the office I needed to ensure the computer was jumping onto the AP with the strongest signal in that area.  One of my IT staff found a great tool that would tell me this information. This tool is called inSSIDer 2. We loaded inSSIDer 2 then walked around with a laptop and sure enough the tool highlighted the AP we were connected to. This gave me confirmation that the setup worked as planned. inSSIDER 2 is an alternative to Netstumbler and works well on Windows Vista and Windows 7. It can be used for much more then what I used it for. Here is a list of uses from the makers website:

You can download the tool here: http://www.metageek.net/products/inssider/

Another good tool when working with Wireless networks is Wifi Analyzer. This for an Android phone and is free.

You can learn more about this tool here: https://market.android.com/details?id=com.farproc.wifi.analyzer

Here is a very nice VOIP & Speed Test tool http://mys300.livemeeting.com/myspeed/test/mssvoip .

The nice thing about this tool is it can give you very detailed reports about your connection.

 I had some virtual machines running on Hyper-V. I wanted to run some of these on VirtualBox for mobility reasons.

VirtualBox supports running Virtual Machines from VmWare or Hyper-V. VirtualBox can boot VHD’s (Virtual Hard Disks) directly. You do not need to convert the virtual hard drive format.

I copied the VHD’s too %systemdrive%:\Users\USERNAME\.VirtualBox\HardDisks on my laptop. That is where VirtualBox stores its virtual hard disks.

I then created my virtual machine in VirtualBox and pointed it to the VHD hard drive. When I booted it up it tried to boot but gave me the blue screen of death. This is the error that was on the blue screen of death:

“A problem has been detected and windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer.

 If this is the first time you’ve seen this stop error screen, restart your computer. If this screen appears again, follow these steps:

 Check for viruses on your computer. Remove any newly installed hard drives or hard drive controllers. Check your hard drive to make sure it is properly configured and terminated. Run CHKDSK /F to check for hard drive corruption, and then restart your computer.

 Technical information:

 *** STOP: 0x0000007B (0x80786b58, 0xC0000034, 0×00000000, 0×00000000)”

This is what has to be done to get past this error. When you create a virtual hard drive in VirtualBox by default the storage controller is set as SATA. Hyper-V builds its bootable disks on IDE controllers. The fix is simple in the virtual machine settings change your storage controller to IDE and then your Hyper-V VHD will boot with no errors. You should be able to boot the VHD in VirtualBox or Hyper-V now.

I came across a site called www.virustotal.com. This site lets you upload a suspicious file to be scanned by multiple virus engines. This is a great tool. I have learned that not any one anti-malware or anti-virus program can catch all viruses. This is the best way to check out a suspicious file without loading multiple anti-virus programs on a computer. Yes this site is completely free and that is why I wanted to share it. This is from the site itself:

VirusTotal is a service that analyzes suspicious files and URLs enabling the identification of viruses, worms, trojans and other kinds of malicious content detected by antivirus engines and web analysis toolbars.

Free, independent service.

Runs multiple antivirus engines.

Real time automatic updates of virus signatures.

Detailed results from each antivirus engine.

Runs multiple web site inspection toolbars.

Real time global statistics.

Here is a list of the virus engines that Virus Total uses when it scans:

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I had this same problem. I reset my phone one day and lost the Skype beta app I had. Fortunately when I logged into the Market it was in my list of downloads and let me download and install it again. I was fortunate to get it back but I never did see it in the market after that. 

Click on image to download Skype Beta for Android OS

Intro

Spam, or more accurately Unsolicited Commercial Email, is still on the rise, with some estimates measuring it at 90% of all email traffic. It’s a nuisance for users, a storage nightmare for admins, and often a vector for phishing attacks and malware. Using a defense in depth approach, this article provides steps an email administrator can take to protect their network from spam.

Step one-user training

Users should be educated on how their actions can lead to or reduce the amount of spam destined for their inbox. Using corporate email for personal use, subscribing to mailing lists, registering their email address for promotions and giveaways, and forwarding chain mails are all vectors that can lead to spam. Consider disabling html support to prevent downloads that can confirm an address is valid, as well as to reduce the risk of email based malware.

Step two-web content

Spammers frequently scan websites looking for embedded email addresses in contact information. Raise awareness with your web developers and establish a policy that all email addresses in web pages should be masked using JavaScript or other encoding that allows a person to click or read the address, but makes it more difficult for a spider to harvest it. Use contact forms when possible instead of displaying email addresses.

Step three-tighten up your SMTP gateway

Disabling the verify command (VRFY) on your SMTP gateway makes it that much harder for spammers to check for valid email addresses. If supported, implement a delay before your server responds to a request with its banner. Legitimate email servers will wait for the 220 response before trying to send email, while many programs/scripts used by spammers will not. Your server can then drop email from this misbehaving sender. If your SMTP gateway supports Quit detection, configure it to drop email that it receives from a host that don’t close the session properly. Legitimate email servers end a session with the QUIT command, but many programs/scripts used by spammers don’t.

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This site http://www.ninite.com has a list of common software and utilities that are very useful. Basically like the site says you pick your favorite software and it will create one installer with the software you chose. You then download and install of the utilities and software you need in one shot. I had to share this on my blog. Check it out.

May of 2009 I posted a blog on how to Setup Exchange 07 using a Dynamic IP (click here to read it). In this article I suggested a paid email relay service. At the time I was not able find a free email relay but now I have found a free email relay service. This service is www.mxguarddog.com.

It is not only email relay but a SPAM filter as well. I stumbled upon this looking for a free SPAM filter service for one of my clients. The nice thing about this relay service is they will forward to a different port. So the relay will accept mail on port 25 and relay it to your email server on whatever port you choose. This is helpful for anyone that has an ISP that blocks incoming traffic on port 25.

The way MX Guard Dog keeps this service free is by exchanging licenses for links on websites. They give you licenses depending on the amount of traffic the website you put the link on gets. For example I signed up for the service when I found it and put a link on my blog. They gave me 40 licenses for this. It’s a pretty sweet deal.