Official Knezev Blog

Tips & Tricks: Use "telnet" To Send Email

noreply@blogger.com (Damir Knezev) — Wed, 11 Mar 2020 08:36:00 +0000

C:\Users\damirknezev>telnet server 25


220 server.domain.local Microsoft ESMTP MAIL Service, Version: 7.5.7601.17514 ready at Mon, 22 Oct 2018 07:35:04 +1100



ehlo



250-server.domain.local Hello [192.168.1.20]



250-TURN



250-SIZE 2097152



250-ETRN



250-PIPELINING



250-DSN



250-ENHANCEDSTATUSCODES



250-8bitmime



250-BINARYMIME



250-CHUNKING



250-VRFY



250-TLS



250-STARTTLS



250 OK



mail from: someone@domain.com



250 2.1.0 someone@domain.com....Sender OK



rcpt to: someone@otherdomain.com



250 2.1.5 someone@otherdomain.com



data



354 Start mail input; end with <CRLF>.<CRLF>



subject: This is a test email using telnet


This is where the body of the email is written.


.



250 2.6.0 <server03aTZrX0cC0000000a@server.domain.local> Queued mail for delivery

How To: Office 365 Journaling Workaround

noreply@blogger.com (Damir Knezev) — Wed, 11 Mar 2020 08:30:00 +0000

Is there a Journaling facility in Office 365? The answer to this is Yes as well as No. The reason being Office 365 does not allow you to designate a mailbox which is hosted on Office 365 as a journaling mailbox.

The only option we have as techies is to designate a mailbox which is located in an On-Prem Exchange server or a third party journaling solutions provider.

So how can this issue be addressed since many businesses are reluctant to buy a subscription from a third party provider for journaling purposes?

In Office 365, a workaround can be used to get this done by using Mail Flow Rules in Exchange Online. Below steps provide guidance to implement it.

First, log into the Office 365 Portal using the Admin credentials.

Then go to Exchange Online Admin Center as shown below in Fig1 and under the Mail Flow section, select “Rules”.

Fig1

Once inside the Mail Flow rules section, click on the “+” sign and select “Create a new rule” as shown below in Fig2.

Fig2

Once clicked on “Create a new rule”, the new rule dialog box will pop up where we will have to configure the settings for the new rule.

Under the Name section of the new rule, give a name which can be easily identifiable to the action you want the rule to do. In this case, name it as “Journaling Workaround”. Then click on “Apply this rule if” section to get a list of drop down options from which we are going to select “the sender is located” option since we want to have all the emails from senders within the organisation to be recorded as shown in Fig3.

Once that is selected, click on “Select One” on the left-hand side as shown in the below diagram Fig4 to bring up the “Select Sender Location” option box. Since we want the senders located inside our organisations emails to be tracked, select “Inside the organisation” option from the drop down menu.

Once done, click on “OK”.

Fig3

Fig4

Once that is done, we have to now tell the rule what needs to be done. For that, we need to go to the “Do the following” section and select “Bcc the message to” option from the drop down menu as shown below in Fig5.

Fig5

Once selected, it will prompt to select the mailbox that you need to Bcc all the messages which are sent by the sender of the organisation. In this case, select the mailbox created for the journaling purpose named journaling@cloudarcs.netas shown below in Fig6 and select “OK”. You also need to add this rule when you're using a 3rd party Journaling solution and would like to Journal all Internal to Internal emails of mailboxes hosted on Office 365.

Fig6

Once all the above is done, make sure to select “Enforce” to enforce the rule immediately. By default, this is enabled and makes sure to leave it as is too and click on “Save” as shown below in Fig7.

Fig7

That’s it. Now the organisation should be getting messages Bcc’ed to the mailbox admin provided when users in the organisation sends any email out. Likewise, if there is a need to record all the emails which comes into the organisation, simply create another mail rule selecting “If the sender is located” and set the value to “Outside the organisation”.

Tips & Tricks: Robocopy

noreply@blogger.com (Damir Knezev) — Thu, 18 Oct 2018 02:00:00 +0000

The best way to copy terabytes of data within Windows.

C:\Users\dknezev>robocopy /E source destination

https://www.computerhope.com/robocopy.htm

Tips & Tricks: Ping a Range of IP Addresses

noreply@blogger.com (Damir Knezev) — Thu, 18 Oct 2018 01:53:00 +0000

A way to ping all addresses from 192.168.1.1 to 192.168.1.254 once, wait 100ms for a reply and display only addresses that are getting a reply.

Syntax for FOR /l is (start,step,end) if you want to change the range.

Note that the Windows FIND is case sensitive, so make sure you capitalise "Reply,".

C:\Users\dknezev>for /l %i in (1,1,254) do @ping 192.168.1.%i -n 1 -w 100 | find "Reply"

Tips & Tricks: Retrieving Mailbox Stats in Exchange 2007

noreply@blogger.com (Damir Knezev) — Mon, 07 Nov 2016 04:00:00 +0000

[PS] U:\>Get-MailboxStatistics | Sort-Object TotalItemSize -Descending | ft Disp

layName,@{label="TotalItemSize(MB)";expression={$_.TotalItemSize.Value.ToMB()}},

ItemCount > c:\mailboxes.txt

Physical vs AWS Virtual CPU Cores

noreply@blogger.com (Damir Knezev) — Tue, 11 Oct 2016 04:00:00 +0000

Firstly a bit of an explanation on the central processing unit CPU and what it does. A single-core CPU can only perform one task at a time, which is where multiple CPUs, hyper-threading and multi-core CPUs come into play. Having multiple CPUs allows multiple programs to run at the same time ensuring your computer stays responsive, especially while multitasking.

Multiple CPUs

Most computers only have a single CPU. Before hyper-threading and multi-core CPUs came around, people attempted to add additional processing power to computers by adding additional CPUs. This requires a motherboard with more than one CPU socket — multiple CPUs are inserted into different sockets. This isn’t very common among home-user PCs today. Even a high-powered gaming desktop with multiple graphics cards will generally only have a single CPU. You’ll find multi-CPU systems among supercomputers, servers, and similar high-end systems that need as much number-crunching power as they can get.

Hyper-Threading Technology

Hyper-threading was Intel’s first attempt to bring parallel computation to consumer PCs. A single physical CPU core with hyper-threading appears as two logical CPUs to an operating system. The CPU is still a single CPU, so it’s “cheating” a bit — while the operating system sees two CPUs for each core, the actual CPU hardware only has a single set of execution resources for each core. The CPU pretends it has more cores than it does, and it uses its own logic to speed up program execution.

Multi-Core CPUs

A dual-core CPU has two central processing units, so it appears to the operating system as two CPUs. A different process can be using each core at the same time. This speeds up your system, because your computer can do multiple things at once.

Unlike hyper-threading, there are no tricks here — a dual-core CPU literally has two central processing units on the CPU chip. A quad-core CPU has four central processing units, an octa-core CPU has eight central processing units, and so on.

Windows 8’s task manager shows this fairly well — here we have a single processor with four cores and hyper-threading, so it appears to have eight logical CPUs.

Most computers now have multi-core CPUs, which is the most efficient option here. However, Intel CPUs also have hyper-threading as a bonus. Some computers that need a large amount of CPU power may have multiple CPUs, but it’s much less efficient than it sounds.

AWS Virtual CPUs (vCPU)

I've found it really hard to find any type of information on what Amazon Web Services considers a vCPU as part of the EC2 instances. The instance type page defines a vCPU as “a hyperthreaded core for M3, C3, R3, HS1, G2, and I2.” The description seems a bit confusing: is it a dedicated CPU core (which has two hyperthreads in the E5-2670 v2 CPU platform being used), or is it a half-core, single hyperthread?

After some testing (test results to come soon) using an m3.xlarge EC2 instance which is stated to have 4 vCPUs running an E5-2670 v2 processor at 2.5GHz on the Ivy Bridge-EP micro architecture I have found that a vCPU in an AWS environment actually represents only half a physical core. So if you’re looking for equivalent compute capacity to, say, an 8-core server, you would need a so-called 4xlarge EC2 instance with 16 vCPUs.

Tips & Tricks: TeamViewer 'Unnamed Devices'

noreply@blogger.com (Damir Knezev) — Mon, 12 Sep 2016 05:00:00 +0000

Just a quick update on TeamViewer's [Unnamed Devices] and if you find yourself with a bunch of them in your [Computers & Contacts] list.

Go to the [Connection Report] inside your Management Console and delete all the connection records for that device that might exists.

Tips & Tricks: Freezing Visio 2010 on Surface Pro 4

noreply@blogger.com (Damir Knezev) — Thu, 28 Jul 2016 05:00:00 +0000

If your Microsoft Visio 2010 keeps freezing on your brand new Surface Pro 4 the issues is with a conflicting dll file.

Please disable the [TableInputService] process via Task Manager. Yes this will disable the touchscreen features but you're still able to use the keyboard and mouse. It's the only solution until Microsoft release an update which is nowhere to be seen on the horizon.

How To: Copy a Folder and Its Contents Using VBS

noreply@blogger.com (Damir Knezev) — Wed, 27 Jul 2016 05:00:00 +0000

The script below uses the CopyFolder method to copy the contents of C:\Scripts to C:\Temp, overwriting any existing files in the destination folder. Note that this will not result in a folder named C:\Temp\Scripts; instead, the folder C:\Temp will simply contain the same files and folders as C:\Scripts. To create a folder named C:\Temp\Scripts, you would need to specify C:\Temp\Scripts as the destination folder.

Const OverWriteFiles = True

Set objFSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject") 

objFSO.CopyFolder "C:\Scripts", "C:\Temp", OverWriteFiles

How To: Check Your Own Mobile Number

noreply@blogger.com (Damir Knezev) — Tue, 23 Jun 2015 12:00:00 +0000

There are various numbers that are associated with various networks like 12722123 for Telstra or 1272312 for Optus. However you really need to remember just one number, 1800 801 920 (has worked on all lines I have ever tried, except payphone).

Tips & Tricks: Disable any parent menu item in WordPress

noreply@blogger.com (Damir Knezev) — Tue, 16 Jun 2015 09:00:00 +0000

Be sure you have activated the link target in the options menu on your menu page.
Insert a link menu item where the URL is anything e.g. http://www.google.com
Select the just created link menu item and click on the dropdown link in the top right corner.
Delete the URL from the URL target field.
Easy as 1, 2, 3 ... 5 ...

Tips & Tricks: Windows 7 x64 not recongnising all available RAM

noreply@blogger.com (Damir Knezev) — Fri, 05 Jun 2015 09:00:00 +0000

It appears having the 'Power Management' mode in BIOS set to Power Saving halves your available RAM which Windows recognises.

Who would have thought that Performance Mode would increase my available RAM within Windows from 8GB to 16GB ...

How To: Resolve Gmails "Unusal Usage -- Account Temporarily Locked Down" message

noreply@blogger.com (Damir Knezev) — Tue, 02 Jun 2015 11:00:00 +0000

Recently some of our office users started getting a weird message from Gmail "Unusal Usage -- Account Temporarily Locked Down". Having moved to Google Apps for Work over three years ago now and still not having forwarded our DNS records to point to Google we initially thought that this was the reason why, however having spent sometime now looking into the random problem it appears it's just a ...

It seems that there have been a lot of posts on Google support groups about this message (site:productforums.google.com or site:groups.google.com) unusual usage account temporarily locked down - Google Search) and unless you're accessing the same account on multiple devices simultaneously (e.g., PC + mobile devices), there's probably nothing that you're doing wrong.

Note: If you are using your account on an insecure network (i.e. open wi-fi), make sure you are accessing Gmail using HTTPS -- not unencrypted HTTP -- to reduce the risk of someone hijacking your session.

Otherwise the problem seems to be caused by cache issues and clearing your browser cache and deleting your saved cookies seems to fix the problem at hand.

A Month in Software (01-05-2015)

noreply@blogger.com (Damir Knezev) — Sun, 31 May 2015 23:00:00 +0000

I'll tell you that the workloads at work just don't seem to be getting any lighter. Hell I'm just going to have to push through and make sure to get these Month in Software articles out at a reasonable time otherwise it's just not worth the hassle.

Gantter Project

Gantter Project is a free web-based application that integrates with Google Drive allowing you to create and manage Gantt charts while collaborating with colleague in real-time. You can think of it as a web-based Microsoft Project. It lets you import Microsoft Project files, which could prove to be helpful if your team is collaborating with others still using Microsoft Project on the desktop.

I have used this application and recommend it highly for teams who want to take project management to the web but still want to use a gantt chart because it is familiar. It has the ability not only to import Microsoft Project files but to also export any project management data to the Microsoft Project file format.

Pros: Free. Google Drive and Hangouts Integration, Web Driven.
Cons: Still in beta mode, buggy at times.
Available editions: Gantter for smartapp.com, for Google Drive, for Google Apps, For Desktop
Used for: All Operating Systems.
Installation: Installation is based on the edition chosen. All installation is web-based dependant on host.

The Internet at a Power Point Near You

noreply@blogger.com (Damir Knezev) — Fri, 29 May 2015 09:00:00 +0000

Having been around for a few years now Ethernet over Power is certainly not a new concept. However there aren't many people that know about it and even less that use it. I recently needed to network a temporary office for a contractor and found the current crop of Ethernet over Power solutions to be amazingly reliable and nutritiously quick.

Going back to an article I wrote some four years ago now about the Internet at a power point near you. Ethernet over power give you the ability to connect your Internet ready TV, Blu-ray & Game consoles to the Internet, through any electrical outlet. Ethernet over power solutions turn any electrical outlet in your home into a high speed Internet connection without any cables.

Internet access in any room:

Extends a high speed Internet connection to any power outlet
Perfect for connecting HDTVs, Blu-ray™ Players, DVRs, PCs and game consoles to your home network and the Internet
Compact design with push-button security
Just plug into any electrical outlet
Automatically powers down when not connected or not in use

How To: Delete disconnected offline files within Windows 7

noreply@blogger.com (Damir Knezev) — Tue, 26 May 2015 03:00:00 +0000

One of my biggest pet peeves about Windows 7 and Microsoft in general is the terrible offline sync. It just doesn't work and sometimes even when you do disable the 'Offline Files' service you might still need to reinitialise the Offline Files (CSC) cache due to an unsynchronised and corrupt database.

If you cannot access the Offline Files tab, use this method to reinitialise the Offline Files (CSC) cache on the system by modifying the registry. Use this method also to reinitialise the offline files database/client-side cache on multiple systems. Add the below registry sub-key to the following folder: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\NetCache

Key Name: FormatDatabase
Key Type: DWORD
Key Value: 1

Note: The actual value of the registry key is ignored. This registry change requires a restart. When the computer is restarting, the shell will reinitialise the CSC cache, and then delete the registry key if the registry entry exists.

Warning: All cache files are deleted and unsynchronised data is lost.

For further information please visit http://support.microsoft.com/kb/942974.

How To: Replace Googles deprecated DocsList API service

noreply@blogger.com (Damir Knezev) — Thu, 21 May 2015 11:00:00 +0000

Google has recently deprecated the DocsList API and replaced it with DriveAPP. The best way to show you how replace one with the other is to show you a before (orange) and after (green) code example. Please note the below code returns a copy of a document to a predetermined target folder using the original document name.

 /* -------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 *

 * ©© Except where otherwise noted, this content is licensed, under a Creative 

 * Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. 

 * http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/

 * 

 * Project Name: Duplicate Document

 *

 * Options: ---

 * Requirements: ---

 * Bugs: ---

 * Notes: ---

 * Author: Damir Knezev

 * Version: 1.1

 * Created: May 22 2014

 * Revision: 1.0 Created initial duplicate document script

 *           1.1 Replaced deprecated DocsList API service

 * Description: Google App Script to create a duplicate document including the 

 *              source document name.

 *

 * ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- */



function createDuplicateDocument(documentId, documentName) {

  // var oldFile = DocsList.getFileById(documentId);

  var oldFile = DriveApp.getFileById(documentId);



  var newFile = oldFile.makeCopy(documentName);



  // var targetFolder = DocsList.getFolderById(TARGET_FOLDER);

  // newFile.addToFolder(targetFolder);

  var targetFolder = DriveApp.getFolderById(TARGET_FOLDER);  

  targetFolder.addFile(newFile);



  return DocumentApp.openById(newFile.getId());

}

Tips & Tricks: Delete a stuck print queue

noreply@blogger.com (Damir Knezev) — Tue, 19 May 2015 11:00:00 +0000

Run an elevated command prompt using 'Run as Administrator'. You'll know you're running as the command prompt as an administrator when the heading of the command prompt says 'Administrator'.

Type and run 'net stop spooler', which will kill the printer spooler. Delete the print queue using 'del %systemroot%\System32\spool\printers\* /Q' and then restart the print spooler with 'net start spooler'. Once again as simple as 1, 2, 3...

The Best Free Alternatives to DynDNS

noreply@blogger.com (Damir Knezev) — Tue, 19 May 2015 03:00:00 +0000

I've used DynDNS in the past to great affect so you can imagine my surprise when I went to re-register recently and was asked to sign up for a paid membership. Yes that's right DynDNS has shutdown its free plans. Still, having spent a couple of minutes Googling aleternatives I fell in love with ...

DuckDNS

DuckDNS is a simple, easy dynamic DNS service that itself is hosted on Amazon's EC2, and supports virtually every operating system, including routers that are running the DD-WRT open firmware. It's free, it's fast, and it was built and is maintained by a team of people who do it for the love - they even kindly mask your hostname from reverse lookups, which is a nice touch and much appreciated. You can read more about them in their FAQ here, or just sign up and download their client for Linux, Windows, OS X, the Raspberry Pi, DD-WRT, Tomato, OpenWRT, pfsense, Android, and others (yes, there's more) now.

Vodafone - vodafail.com

noreply@blogger.com (Damir Knezev) — Sun, 17 May 2015 10:00:00 +0000

Back in 2010 an angry Vodafone customer set up a website to expose Vodafones poor reception and customer service woes called vodafail.com. Little has changed in the last five years.

Sydney software engineering graduate Adam Brimo was a disgruntled Vodafone customer after having the usual dropped calls, no reception, poor battery life and delayed voice-mail messages.

Attracting tens of thousands of comments vodafail.com is a place which will guide you trough your Vodafone troubles by helping you file a complaint to either get your issue/s resolved or your contract terminated.

Tips & Tricks: Adjust AutoFit Row Height in Excel

noreply@blogger.com (Damir Knezev) — Wed, 25 Feb 2015 01:00:00 +0000

To adjust the height of the row to fit all the text in a cell, follow these steps:

Select the row you want to adjust the height.
In Microsoft Office Excel 2003 and in earlier versions of Excel, point to Row on the Format menu, and then click AutoFit.

In Microsoft Office Excel 2007 and later versions, click the Home tab, click Format in the Cells group, and then click AutoFit Row Height.

Tips & Tricks: Display Windows OS System Information

noreply@blogger.com (Damir Knezev) — Fri, 13 Feb 2015 01:03:00 +0000

Different editions of the Windows Operating System exists of each version: Web Edition, Standard Edition, Enterprise Edition, Datacenter Edition, etc. The following are quick ways to display the information related to your Windows version and edition.

Open up a command command prompt shell window 'cmd' (MS-DOS) via the Start menu and either use 'winver' or 'systeminfo'.

Tips & Tricks: Renaming Network Connections in Windows 7

noreply@blogger.com (Damir Knezev) — Wed, 29 Oct 2014 11:00:00 +0000

Open up your Network and Sharing Center and simply left click on the Icon (under View your active networks) to rename it. By default this icon is a house.

Tips & Tricks: Fuji Xerox DocuCentre 1085 Default Password

noreply@blogger.com (Damir Knezev) — Wed, 24 Sep 2014 07:00:00 +0000

The amount of times I've had to find the default username and password for the Fuji Xerox DocuCentre 1085 is countless.

Username: admin
Password: x-admin

When accessing the web interface of the Fuji Xerox DocuCentre 1085 if you attempt to change any settings you will be prompted for this username and password. The default that the copier is set to is in my experience not clearly identified in the manual.

How To: Create a Ubuntu Samba Network Share

noreply@blogger.com (Damir Knezev) — Thu, 11 Sep 2014 07:00:00 +0000

Setting up a Ubuntu media server is pretty useless unless you know how to create a samba network share directory. Here's a quick, uncomplicated and brief how to guide that is as quick as 1, 2, 3 ... 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.

After you've logged into your Ubuntu box please proceed to use all commands as root (precede each command with 'sudo' or use 'sudo su').

1. Install Samba

sudo aptitude update
sudo aptitude install samba

2. Set a password for your user in Samba

sudo smbpasswd -a <user_name>

Note: Samba uses a separate set of passwords than the standard Linux system accounts (stored in /etc/samba/smbpasswd), so you'll need to create a Samba password for yourself. This tutorial implies that you will use your own user and it does not cover situations involving other users passwords, groups, etc...

Note: Remember that your user must have permission to write and edit the folder you want to share.

sudo chown <user_name> /var/opt/folder/anotherfolder

3. Create a directory to be shared

mkdir /home/<user_name>/<folder_name>

4. Make a safe backup copy of the original smb.conf file to your home folder, in case you make an error

sudo cp /etc/samba/smb.conf ~

5. Edit the file '/etc/samba/smb.conf'

sudo vim /etc/samba/smb.conf

Once 'smb.conf' has loaded, add this to the very end of the file:

[<share_name>]
  comment = share description
  path = share path i.e. /home/<user_name>/<folder_name>

  available = yes
  browseable = yes
  guest ok = yes
  writeable = yes
  create mask = 0755

6. Restart Samba

sudo restart smbd

7. Once Samba has restarted, use this command to check your smb.conf for any syntax errors

testparm

8. To access your network share use your username (<user_name>) and password through the path 'smb://<HOST_IP_OR_NAME>/<folder_name>/' (Linux users) or '\\<HOST_IP_OR_NAME>\<folder_name>\' (Windows users). Note that the '<folder_name>' value is passed in '[<share_name>]', in other words, the share name you entered in "/etc/samba/smb.conf".

Note: The default user group of samba is "WORKGROUP".