Hey what’s going on fellow Admins? I thought I would drop by aTa today to drop the latest Tech Chop video on you. In this episode I talk about a really great computer management solution that runs on your favorite flavor of Linux.

By computer management, I mean it’s sort of in the same category of Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager, but way easier to setup. Plus since it’s open source, there are no licensing costs. It’s called FOG.

FOG can clone hard drives, and deploy the disk images in a multicast. Not only that, but you can deploy software with it, map printers and join computers to Active Directory.

Check out the video:

If you have any questions about FOG that I didn’t cover in the video. Capabilities, installation questions, etc. Let me know in the comments!

By -=El Di Pablo=-

We have seen many networks fail because of poor power considerations. A UPS is a key factor in keeping up with a 99.9999% uptime. UPS or Uninterruptible power supply kicks in when there is a power failure. These UPS’s can safely shut down your equipment to keep them from going down hard.

Eaton sent over there 5PX1500RT UPS for review and for us to keep (consider this our disclosure.) It is a 1500VA-class Line Interactive Uninterruptable Power Supply (UPS). This rack-mountable UPS weighs in at 65 pounds and is made by a 100 year old company! We will be giving away our review unit so please chime in below in the comments as to why you should be the proud recipient of the device (you will have to pay for shipping though!)

 

The device arrived from a struggling freight delivery gentleman. It comes with a rail kit for 2U rack mounting, two pedestals feet for tower orientation, quick start guide, RS-232 serial cable, USB cable, user manual CD, software CD and a Phillips head screw driver.

After un-boxing the big guy the first thing I noticed was the LCD screen on the front panel. I feel this is a must for appliances nowadays! You can monitor the device right from the LCD which is great. You can see from the image below that it shows the current load information, battery charge percentage and run time. The LCD is orientated to either a rack mount situation or if you stand it up besides your rack. 

Let’s take a look at where the action happens. The back panel of our UPS:

We have 8 total outlets. The black ones are standard battery protected outlets. The Grey ones allow for more configuration and management. There is the option to connect up 4 additional external batteries. The slot all the way to the left allows for an optional web management interface card.

We plugged in two servers, one firewall and one router into our unit. We simulated a power failure and we were able to keep our devices running for close to 15 minutes before the IPP software kicked in and started shutting down our server. Letting the servers run without the software caused the devices to completely die at the 22 minute mark.

Talking about the IPP software – we should explain what it is. The software is called “Eaton’s Intelligent Power Software Suite.” The IPSS includes two powerful tools to help you manage your power. These tools are the IPM and the IPP. Don’t you just love an acronym?

Intelligent Power Manager (IPM) is the “supervisory software” that facilitates management of power and environmental devices through a Web-based interface that can be accessed from any PC, anywhere on your network. Eaton’s IPM is compatible with network-enabled power devices such as UPSs, PDUs and environmental sensors. It even supports some non-Eaton UPS units. Through IPM you can monitor battery conditions, load levels and runtime. You can also perform mass firmware upgrades, customize views, centralize alarms and track equipment. So, what about virtualized environments? Intelligent Power Manager easily integrates with VMware’s vCenter, bringing power management right to your vCenter dashboard [in its own tab]. It even allows for remote shutdown of servers in clusters. There’s more, it integrates with vCenter’s vMotion and SCVMM’s Live Migration applications so you can transparently move virtual machines from a power affected server to a non-affected server on the network.

Intelligent Power Protector (IPP) is the “protection software” that monitors and protects connected devices during power events. It can be configured to automatically save any work or open files and conduct a graceful shutdown of computers and network devices. It communicates with the UPS via serial port, USB or via network (with optional Web/SNMP card) and acquires information that can be monitored, configured and updated via a web browser or through IPM.

All in all, the device is solid and reliable. We have had no issues with the device thus far in around 45 days of testing. It is backed by a full 3 year warranty and I would highly recommend it to anyone.

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

We have received the UPS device as compensation for this article. The article/review was not biased. The device will also be given away on our website. Let us know why you want and/or deserve it!

_ThePoweredAdmiN_

If you or a little one flipped your laptop display chances are you are freaking out. Stop… Don’t worry you can flip it right back to where it is supposed to be with the following hot keys:

•  Ctrl-Alt-Up – right side up
• Ctrl-Alt-Right – 90 degrees
• Ctrl-Alt-Down – 180 degrees
• Ctrl-Alt-Left – 270 degrees (If that doesn’t work try Ctrl-Shift-R)

_TheUpsideDownAdmiN_

The word on the street is if you have a jailbroken iPhone 4 now you too can access the full functionality of SIRI using a Cydia program called H1Siri. But, Before you run and download your copy know that they will send ALL YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION TO CHINA!

According to Gizmodo – Grant Paul has detected that the hack sends your personal information through a server in China. And with personal information I mean email, SMS, calendar, contacts and location. Good luck with that.

Beware of the hacked Siri! If you really want it be patient or go get a damn 4s!

_ThejailBrokenAdmiN_

Are you interested in seeing a snow storm cover your Google listings? Google has introduced a new Easter Egg this weekend for those of you looking for some virtual snow and not getting a blizzard like last year!

All you have to do is open up Google’s homepage from any HTML5 compliant browser and type in Let It Snow.

When it is done click Defrost and thaw out!

_TheNoSnowForMeAdmiN_

Hey Hey Hey…

It looks like some spam comments  were causing the site to crash on all posts… Our traffic dropped from 4k hits a day to 20 hits a day! The comments have been removed, the database has been repaired…

If you see something funky make sure you say something! If you can’t comment email info at asktheadmin dot com.

Thanks for all you loyalty and Happy Holidays!

_TheTiredAdmiN_

Image via Wikipedia

I’m sure that like me, most of you are the tech support for the family. Every time your creepy uncle goes to a sleazy porn site, you have to stop by his house and clean up his computer’s internet VD (Viruses and Malware). You’re mom calls you because she can’t figure out how to print pictures of her precious little dog, and your dad’s hard drive is crashing every time he plays Farmville on Facebook. We at AskTheAdmin feel your pain.

How many times have you just told your family, “screw it, re-install Windows”? Of course they can’t because all of their precious files are on there, and of course they never ever back that stuff up! Why not give them the gift of backing their stuff up for them? Not just to an external hard drive that will fail in 6 months either. I’m talking about true set and forget automated cloud backup!

Back in August I wrote about how I am using some software at work to backup my servers. It’s called Crashplan. Now Crashplan has some pay versions if you want to back up to their servers, but they also give you the option to set up your own cloud solution for free! Plus it runs on Windows, Mac and Linux! That means no matter what you’re relatives use, they can backup using Crashplan.

I said cloud backup though right? This is where you come in. I recommend buying a relatively low-cost NAS device with RAID, or you can build your own Bauer-Power SAN using Ubuntu, IET, ZFS and GlusterFS. Then you can install Crashplan on your computer at home, and backup all of your friend’s and family to your redundant storage; because Crashplan will let your friends and family backup to your machine over the Internet using a simple friend code. You only pay for your home storage.

With this solution their files are offsite, and you are once again the computer guru that swooped in and saved the day!

Now when they call you after pooching their computers, you can re-install with confidence, and restore all of their essential files. You can also drop off an extra drive at their house, and back your stuff up to them. Ulterior motive? Maybe. Awesome idea? Absolutely!

The cool thing about Crashplan, besides it being free, is it also saves data using deduplication and encryption. That means the files you save for your relatives will be secure and won’t take up a lot of space. It’s a friggin’ thing of beauty!

If you decide to do this for your family over the holidays, let us know about it in the comments!

-=El Di Pablo=-

At my current day job, I work for a small technology start-up in La Jolla California. We offer web-based solutions for some of the nation’s top banks, and housing lenders. We also provide a database for “closing service” providers, so you can hire people like home inspectors, and exterminators at the best price when selling your house. It’s kind of like the “Orbitz” of the real estate closing market.

Any way, the company is only a few years old, and up until now we are running on a Microsoft BizSpark licensing plan. Now that we’re getting a little older though, and we are using more servers to produce our goods, we need a more robust licensing plan from Microsoft. I decided to go to one of my local VARs to work on some quotes, and what they came back with almost gave my boss a heart attack.

In this post I am strictly going to talk about Microsoft SQL Licensing. Just so you know though, the quote we got for SQL was on top of an already ridiculously high $107K three year quote for server licenses. Before I give you the quote I got for SQL, keep in mind this is only for two physical servers running SQL Enterprise.

So we got our quote from Microsoft, and it was roughly $183K for three years. Yes, for two servers it was almost $200,000! That is because at the time of this writing, they were quoting us based on the number of processors. One of the physicals servers has four processors, and the other has two. Bam! Bend us over for $200K!

On top of that, my VAR is telling me that next year Microsoft is switching to a per-core model of licensing. On my server with four procs, each proc has six cores! On the two proc box, each proc has four cores! Now my boss is starting to hyperventilate.

I’m sorry Microsoft, I know you’re just a mom and pop shop, and you’re just trying to make your way in this crazy world, but $200K is too much to pay for a database. The good news for us is that Microsoft SQL isn’t the only game in town. Good news for my company, I’m not afraid to think outside of the Microsoft box.

After getting that quote, the manager of our dev team and I started talking about moving to an Open Source database solution. First he said MySQL, but since they’re owned by Oracle now they have more strict licensing. I’m suggesting PostgreSQL.

Never heard of it? Here’s a description from their About page:

An enterprise class database, PostgreSQL boasts sophisticated features such as Multi-Version Concurrency Control (MVCC), point in time recovery, tablespaces, asynchronous replication, nested transactions (savepoints), online/hot backups, a sophisticated query planner/optimizer, and write ahead logging for fault tolerance. It supports international character sets, multibyte character encodings, Unicode, and it is locale-aware for sorting, case-sensitivity, and formatting. It is highly scalable both in the sheer quantity of data it can manage and in the number of concurrent users it can accommodate. There are active PostgreSQL systems in production environments that manage in excess of 4 terabytes of data.

Best of all, PostgreSQL provides all of their Enterprise features absolutely free under a Liberal Open Source License! With something like this we can lower our overhead, and use those cost savings to improve our bottom line.

We will have to no doubt do some serious coding changes to make sure our data is compatible with PostgreSQL, but I think in the long run, the cost savings of switching to open source will outweigh the work to get there.

What do you think? Move to an open source database? Stick with Microsoft and suck up the cost? What’s your argument for or against? Let us know in the comments.

-=El Di Pablo=-

Image via Wikipedia

I have been trying to track down a network issue I’ve been having at work for the last month and a half. It’s a real pain because it only happens once a week randomly, and it only lasts for 2 to 5 minutes. Since it’s so unpredictable, it’s nearly impossible to track down how, or why it’s happening.

Anyway, I decided to setup Wireshark on a laptop, plug it into a port on my switch with mirroring enabled, and collect some network traffic. The problem I have with Wireshark is that it doesn’t display information is a way that is easy for me to read.

A buddy of mine recommended uploading my capture files to an online analyzer called CloudShark. This thing is actually pretty cool, and really easy to use. Plus it has easy graphing options so you can get a better visual idea of all the 1’s and 0’s you’re looking at.

Another cool thing about CloudShark is that once you’re capture is uploaded, you can forward the URL of your capture files to some of your Network Engineer buddies to get their take on what’s going on in your network, and they don’t need to break out any analyzers of their own. Everything is displayed right in their browser!

Here is a link to an example capture file: http://www.cloudshark.org/captures/f62e1db77ba0

One thing I did notice is that you need to use CloudShark in Internet Explorer or Firefox. It doesn’t work so well in Chrome.

Know of any other good, free and easy to use packet analyzer tools? Are they cloud based like this one? Let us know what you like to use in the comments.

-=El Di Pablo=-

The following post was written by Melissa Schraiber of FatWallet.com. We were not paid to post this and apparently we share a love for HostGator!

Check it out below:
 

 
In today’s digital world, it is vital to have a web presence. The success of a website is directly related to its hosting, so finding the right host should always be the first step. The following list outlines the attributes of a good host.

 Cost versus Value

There are many hosts who promise to deliver unlimited bandwidth and disk space along with 100 percent up-time, for a very low monthly fee. There is no such thing as unlimited in the hosting world and no host has perfect performance. There are often strings and hidden catches attached to such claims, as well.

A good host will have clearly defined limits on resources and will offer several levels of service for different needs. Those just starting out will benefit from GoDaddy promotional codes, which can be found online.

Technical Support

A proper host will offer support by phone, live chat and email. Support services should be available every day of the year, 24 hours per day.

A good way to test the level of a prospective host’s support is to contact them with pre-sales questions. How fast and well the company responds will reveal the quality of the service overall.

Uptime

Uptime is important to anyone hosting a site but especially so to businesses. Downtime equals lost revenue and reputation, so it needs to be avoided as much as possible. It should be noted that equipment and power failures happen and sometimes this is beyond the control of the host.

Quality hosts will offer 99.999 percent uptime over the course of one year, which would amount to roughly six minutes of downtime. This claim will be backed by a Service Level Agreement, which will provide a credit to the customer if uptime slips below the stated percentage.

Scalability

All websites need room to grow and this is where scalability comes in. A host should make make expanding and upgrading as painless an experience as possible.

A stable, established host offering services ranging from budget all the way up to dedicated servers is a good choice. Moving an account to a bigger hosting package or even a new server should take place with a few clicks and little to no downtime.

Along with the above guidelines, anyone considering hosting a site should first carefully consider the present and future needs of that site before embarking on the search for the right host.

What do you use for a web host? Do you have any questions? Hit us up in the comments below…

At my office we use Office Communicator to keep in touch with other users in the office. It’s nice to be able to send a quick chat to someone in the next room to save yourself a trip from having to get up and go talk to someone, or pick up the phone to call them. I am a huge advocate of chat and IM.

Well, not sure if my coworkers do this, but I like to use the status update area in Office Communicator to subtly say what I’m thinking about. Sometimes that also requires a little bit of ASCII art.

Do you do the same? Awesome! Here is a list of some simple one line ASCII art you can use to put in your messages:

Ascii Text Animals

Caterpillar ,/\,/\,/\,/\,/\,/\,o
Fish <`)))><
Fish Swimming ¸.·´¯`·.´¯`·.¸¸.·´¯`·.¸><(((º>
Happy Cat <(^.^)>
Kitty cat =^..^=
Koala @( * O * )@
Loch Ness monster _mmmP
Monkey @(‘_’)@
Mouse <:3 )~~~~
Rat (to the left) <^__)~
Rat (to the right) ~(__^>
Sheep °l°(,,,,);
Spider ///\oo/\\\

Ascii Objects

Crayon ())__CRAYON___)) >
Cup of coffee [_]3
Glasses -@-@-
Needle |==|iiii|>—–
Pie fight —=======[}
Rose 1 @-}--
Rose 2 @}}>-----
Rose 3 @)}---^-----
Rose 4 @->-->---
Rose 5 --------{---(@

Ascii Faces/People

Angel ^i^
Concerned (@_@)
Heart <3
In Love <*_*>
Looking at you ô¿ô
Very Happy ^_^
Very Happy 2 [^_^]
Sleeping (-.-)Zzz…
Sleeping Baby w/Pillow [{-_-}] ZZZzz zz z…
Whoa O_o

Miscellenous Ascii Art

Ascii Waves 1 *~’`^`’~*-,._.,-*~’`^`’~*-,._.,-*~’`^`’~*
Ascii Waves 2 `’~,.,~’`'~,.,~’`'~,.,~’`'~,.,~’
Hearts w/text »-(¯`·.·´¯)->TEXT<-(¯`·.·´¯)-«
Robot d[ o_0 ]b
Text Embellishment 1 (¯`·._.·(¯`·._.·(¯`·._.· Your Text ·._.·´¯)·._.·´¯)·._.·´¯)
Text Embellishment 2 ,.-~*´¨¯¨`*·~-.¸-(_Your_Text_)-,.-~*´¨¯¨`*·~-.¸

Not only are these good for IM, but you’ll find that they work pretty good for Twitter and Facebook as well. Hell, you can use these for email signatures if you want. The sky’s the limit really.

Do you like to add a dash of ASCII to your every day? Let us know how you like to insert ASCII into your stuff in the comments.

-=El Di Pablo=-

[Via Squidoo]

I love this time of year. I live in San Diego, so the weather doesn’t get cold enough to snow, but it’s chilly enough to wear jackets. It’s like the best of both worlds here. I get the cold, but don’t have to do any shoveling or driving on icy roads. Win win!

Let’s be honest though, this time of year is not great because of the weather, it’s great because it is gift giving season. No matter if you are celebrating Christmas, Hanukah, Kwanzaa or Festivus. chances are pretty good that you are shopping for gifts, or someone is shopping for gifts for you. If you are in the market for set top boxes, then you may want to check out the review I did for this month’s Tech Chop!

In this episode I review the Mvix Ultio Pro MX 880HD, WD TV Live Plus, Boxee Box, and the Apple TV. Check it out!

Got any questions about the devices mentioned in the show? Do you own a set top box? Maybe the Roku? Do you like the one you have? Looking to trade up? Let us know in the comments.

When I started my current day job one of the things the IT department didn’t have was a decent monitoring system. They did have an external service that monitored the company websites, but nothing internally for monitoring servers for disk space, service, or CPU issues. To remedy that problem I decided to implement a really cool open source monitoring solution called Zenoss Core.

After setting up Zenoss, I learned about a really cool application for Windows servers that lets you get more our of monitoring using SNMP. With this applications, it means less to configure, and you can simply add servers to your monitoring solution with SNMP, and pretty much get everything you need to keep your network in top top shape!

It’s called SNMP Informant. Here are some of it’s features from their website:

• Full 64 bit support – Our "all-in-one" installer automatically detects the operating system version and installs the correct components
• Access Windows Performance data – Our Performance providers allow you to connect to any "out of the box" Windows Performance counter object using industry standard SNMP Object IDs (OIDs)!
• Access Custom Performance data – Our new "Custom" provider (part of SNMP Informant-Premium) allows you to collect data from any valid Windows performance counter.  If you’ve got a performance counter instrumented application, and you can see the performance counters in PerfMon, then you can monitor it using SNMP Informant Premium!
• Run Remote scripts and collect data – If you’re using custom scripts to monitor something on a remote Windows server, you can now execute that script remotely using SNMP Informant, and collect the results of that script into an OID that YOU specify!
• Use your OWN Private Enterprise ID – You can customize SNMP Informant to respond to queries made against your OWN IANA Private Enterprise number!
• Read Remote Registry information – The new "Custom" provider also lets you specify what registry value to read!
• Collect WMI information – Our WMI providers allow you to connect to the Windows Management Instrumentation sub-system using SNMP!  Stop/Start/Restart services!  Reboot servers!  Execute programs remotely!
• Monitor Exchange, SQL, Cluster, BizTalk, ISA and more, including Forefront, WSUS, Virtual Server, Citrix, the OS, and system hardware.  Supported Operating Systems include Windows XP/Vista/Windows 7, Server 2000, Server 2003 (incl. R2), AND Server 2008 (incl. R2).
• Extend your monitoring system’s ROI – If you use products like HP Network Node Manager, IpSwitch Whatsup, OpenNMS, Nagios/Cacti/MRTG/RRDttool, Zenosss, or other SNMP compliant management platforms, find out how SNMP Informant can add significant value to them in minimal time and with minimal effort!
• Stop/Start/Restart Services and Windows Server – Using SNMP, you can control your Windows server like never before!
• Can be used with SNMPv1, SNMPv2 and SNMPv3 – Many companies are starting to to take advantage of enhanced SNMPv3 security.  SNMP Informant supports all 3 versions.  Find out more here!
• SNMP Informant is priced attractively – We recognize that while functionality is important, value cannot be overlooked. That’s why we have priced SNMP Informant to help maximize your IT budget spending.

Their standard version is absolutely free, so you can start adding it to all of your Windows servers today, and start seeing better results with your monitoring solution.

What are you guys using for monitoring these days? Solarwinds? What’s Up? Microsoft Systems Center? OpManager? What’s your favorite and why? Let us know in the comments.

-=El Di Pablo=-

Image via CrunchBase

A while back I mentioned some applications and or plugins I found that will help boost the views you have on a particular Youtube video on Bauer-Power. These methods might be considered by some as shady. I say, if by shady you mean helpful, then yes… Very shady!

All of these tools are fully automated. You can simply set them, and forget them to earn credits which in turn you can trade in for more views. With some of them, not only can you get more views, but you can also get comments, likes, favorites and subscribers! Basically everything you need to be the next Justin Bieber.

Here’s my list:

• Vagex – Terrible name I know. Sounds like something your girlfriend might use when she’s feeling not so fresh. Trust me though, it’s the best one out there. Not only can you get more views, but you can specify key words that you want to rank for in Youtube’s search. Plus you can get likes, favs, comments and subs as well.
• U2BViews – This is number two on my list. This is available as a desktop application as well as a Firefox extension. They are getting ready to add likes, favs and subs, but they do not have it yet. I’ve also chatted with the developer and talked them into adding Google Plus One’s as well.
• Viewet – This one is pretty much just like U2BViews, except it’s really only good for more views in my opinion. The thing I like about it is you can manage your credits easier. You can withdraw from one video to deposit on another video.
• Enhanceviews – This one runs as a browser plugin only. This one is great for comments and likes. You can even submit your Youtube account to them to use as they see fit, and earn credits that way. The only thing I don’t like about it though is their credit to view ratio. The ones above are all one to one, but Enhanceviews is something like 38 to one. Still, you can rack up credits pretty fast.

So why would you want to use this I hear you mumbling to yourself, all creepy like. This can best be answered from the Viewet page:

YouTube video views benefit your videos in many different ways. Viewet [and the other tools] increase your video’s ranking for your keywords and tags, increases the chances of your video being featured on a Google search for the keywords on your video, and also can get you video honors and even featured on the YouTube homepage.

If you can make it to the front page of Youtube, you are two clicks away from Bieberdom! Woot!

The best thing about these tools is they are 100% free to use. They all have paid features, but the free versions are robust enough that you don’t need to use them. I find it’s best to set these up on a computer in the corner over the weekend with the sound off, and walk away. The next time you have a video of you cats doing something super cute, use your new secret weapons to push them to the front page.

Got questions about these? Know of any other similar tools? Let’s chat in the comments!

-=El Di Pablo=-

Karl and I try to not get too political on our blogs for the most part. I mean, Bauer-Power and AskTheAdmin are just not the right forums for political debate. However, I think this type of topic is relevant, and it’s something I am very worried about.

You see, if you did not know, there are currently two major censorship bills passing through the halls of government these days. SOPA, and Protect IP. From what I understand from the media, SOPA is pretty much dead thanks to you Internet users that have contacted your representatives, but Protect IP is still being pushed through the Senate.

What is Protect IP? From Wikipedia:

The PROTECT IP Act (Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act of 2011; United States Senate Bill S.968) is a proposed law with the stated goal of giving the US government and copyright holders additional tools to curb access to "rogue websites dedicated to infringing or counterfeit goods", especially those registered outside the U.S.The bill was introduced on May 12, 2011 by Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and 11 initial bipartisan co-sponsors. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that implementation of the bill would cost the federal government $47 million through 2016, to cover enforcement costs and the hiring and training of 22 new special agents and 26 support staff. The Senate Judiciary Committee passed the bill, but Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) placed a hold on it.

The PROTECT IP Act is a re-write of the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA), which failed to pass in 2010. A similar House version of the bill, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) was introduced on October 26, 2011

According to groups like the Eff and AmericanCensorship.org, this bill is vague enough that it will make it really easy for the US Government to shut down any website they deem a threat. Mmmm, what’s that smell? Smells like communist China! I don’t know about you, but I like my freedom of speech protected by the first amendment. This act threatens that freedom.

Imagine if one day Uncle Sam had an issue with AskTheAdmin? Guess what Jack! You can’t read it any more! Don’t let that happen!

Well, I’m asking for your help. Please use the form above to call your representatives and let them know that you oppose the Protect IP Act. We need as many calls as possible before the Senate breaks for the holidays if we want to stop it.

-=El Di Pablo=-

I was cruising around on Stumbleupon today during some down time, and came across this video from Microsoft showing how they envision our world of tomorrow with the advancements of technology. It’s pretty interesting to thing that some day we will not have computers and laptops like we do now, but our smart phones, and tablet devices will be powerful enough to replace them. Heck, even our credit cards will be powerful computers!

Not only that, but all the walls, and windows around us will be computerized as well, and can sync up with our mobile devices. Seeing the way technology is right now, I don’t think this dream is too far fetched any more. Check it out:

Some comments on the Youtube page say things like:

Technology? will kill us! – pajkica

I know I am a f***n hippie or something for all of you.. But who cares about the future of technology? We have computers, and cell phones, and we can enter? internet every moment we want, we have bluray, we have 3d.. We can communicate now with everybody! so… It’s time to talk about the future of the people microsoft..;/ – RandomProductionzzTV

While others are saying:

All I can say is that it’s awesome. I would like to live that future? :) thank you for sharing it. – wesamly

It seems the future holds technology that is incredibly intuitive, knowing exactly where the user wants it? to go, as if there are no other options. There are some interesting and exciting parts to this video, but also some things that woulde cause fear for anyone concerned about privacy. The concierge seemed to know a lot. Identity theft seems easier in the future. – citzsold

What do you think about Microsoft’s vision of the future? Flippin’ awesome? Cold and bleak? I’m curious to know what your vision of the future is. Let us know in the comments!

-=El Di Pablo=-

I think it was in 2006 I attended my first hacker convention in San Diego called Toorcon. It was pretty cool because the company I worked for at the time was a sponsor, so they paid for my admission in. I will never forget one of the guys that I saw there. Dude was bald with a douchy bluetooth headset on, a military M1 jacket with cammo pants, sunglasses indoors, combat boots, and of course a backpack with a friggin’ antenna coming out of the back that was easily six feet tall. The dude was a serious wardriver.

What is wardriving you ask? According to Wikipedia:

Wardriving is the act of searching for Wi-Fi wireless networks by a person in a moving vehicle, using a portable computer, smartphone or PDA…

…Wardriving originated from wardialing, a technique popularized by a character played by Matthew Broderick in the film WarGames, and named after that film. Wardialing in this context refers to the practice of using a computer to dial many phone numbers in the hopes of finding an active modem.

Basically you drive around, and look for open wireless networks. Simple right?

Now I’m not saying you need to be like the guy at the hacker convention, but sometimes it’s nice to know where in town you can go to catch some free Internet in case you have to send an emergency Tweet, or update Facebook at the drop of the hat.

Well I found a cool tool that runs on Windows that will automatically try find and connect to open wireless networks when you’re in range, and will alert you to stop when it has found an open access point and is trying to connect.

The tool is called outSSIDer, and you can get it as a free download. From their page:

outSSIDer automatically attempts to connect to any open access point that comes within range as you walk down the streets hunting for WiFi.

When an attempt is made it alerts you with sound to stand still and wait. That way you don’t need to watch the screen while walking – you can even close the laptop lid to save battery!

The connection is then verified against payment hotspots and restricted networks by trying to fetch the Google website icon.

If it fails connecting or verifying, it alerts you with the sound again and resumes scanning.

This tool is light and easy to use, and certainly a good tool to have in your wardriving goody bag. Do you go wardriving ever? What tools do you like to use? Let us know in the comments!

-=El Di Pablo=-

A few years ago I came across a free web host provider, and have been using them ever since. Now, as some of you know, I have my own technology blog called Bauer-Power, and that is hosted on Blogger. I love Blogger because it’s easy and free. Plus it’s owned by Google, so that means that the servers that it’s running on are fairly rock solid. The problem with Blogger though is it’s not as versatile as other blogging platforms like WordPress.

For you guys looking to move over to WordPress like here at AskTheAdmin, you probably want to go with your own web host. What if you don’t have any cash yet? I mean it takes a few months for that Adsense revenue to kick in right? Well don’t fret, I have a solution for you. It’s a free webhost that supports PHP and MySQL. Guess what? That is exactly what WordPress runs on jack!

The provider is called 000Webhost, and here is a list of their free hosting features:

• 1500 MB of Disk Space, 100 GB Bandwidth
• Host your own domain
• cPanel Powered Hosting
• Over 500 website templates ready to download
• Easy to use website builder
• Free POP3 Email Box with Webmail access
• FTP and Web based File Manager
• PHP, MySQL, Perl, CGI, Ruby.
• And many more…

I personally use them for my custom Ninja themed URL shortening service, and I also set up a test WordPress blog so you can see what I’m talking about. You can have unlimited websites under your account as well, so if you want to be the next Internet mogul, you can get started on 000Webhost.

Know of any other free web hosting providers? Are they better than 000Webhost? Why? Share with the rest of the class in the comments!

-=El Di Pablo=-

Disclosure Notice: Although 000Webhost is free for you, I will get $5 per sign up as long as your account stays active for 30 days. A guy has to pay the bills doesn’t he?

Many moons ago, right around the time I started blogging on Bauer-Power, I worked for a company called Newland Communities. Simple enough name, but when you cram that name into a URL, it now becomes a pretty long domain name. Now add that to the end of your user name, and you have a really long email address. Try calling support with that email address, and the technician asks you to spell out your address phonetically. Needless to say, it sucked!

Well, I found a place that puts the long-ass email address I had at Newland Communities to shame. Oh, and by the way, you can get an email address with them if you like for free! The site is, and I’m not kidding here, abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz.com, and they are giving away free mailboxes so you too can have one of the worlds largest email addresses!

Take a look at their selling points from their home page:

With each account, you not only get an obnoxious email address that is sure to piss you friends off, but also you get 25MB of storage. True, you’re better off with Gmail, but then again, you won’t have an email address that won’t fit into some web forms. Your call I guess.

-=El Di Pablo=-

Happy Thanksgiving everyone from everyone at AtA!

Here is a little humor for all our Linux friends out there… The text on mouse over was: Ew, gross you moddified link()? How can you enjoy abusing a file system like that! – [via XKCD]

What the hell did that title say? Reconstruct shredded paper? Yeah, that’s exactly what it said. You know those little machines you get at Office Depot to turn your banking and financial statements into spaghetti? Well, now there is a new service that easily lets you take shreds of paper from a paper shredder and scan them into your computer. You then run it through this software, and like a friggin’ jigsaw puzzle, it pieces it back together into a legible document.

This tool is called Unshredder, and luckily it’s not free. It’s sold as a monthly license subscription for $90, or an annual package where you can save a little on the monthly cost. Since this package is aimed at criminal investigators, I’m sure that cost in nominal. For the average teen hacker, they may try to find a different method of getting your info instead of dumpster diving.

From their page:

Unshredder is the first commercial document reconstruction tool in the world! A desktop software application that will put all of the pieces back together in a fraction of the time it would take to do manually. Unshredder is as simple to use as a word processor but it unleashes the power of your computer to achieve quick, accurate results. If you are a professional investigator Unshredder is an essential tool.

Putting shredded paper back together isn’t really new. When I was in the Navy, I learned that the Iranians did this to the American embassy back in the 70′s or something. They got a hundred old ladies to sit down with shredded American secret documents and scotch taped them all back together. Nowadays the US Military uses special shredders that doesn’t turn paper into spaghetti, it turns it into friggin’ confetti… Then they burn that s#!t!

Most of us at the office aren’t going to use incinerators though, but still using a shredder with cross-cut functionality is harder to piece back together than the simple spaghetti making shredders. Just some food for thought.

Know of a free tool that does this? maybe something open source? let us know in the comments!

-El Di Pablo

Greetings fellow Admins! It’s me, El Di Pablo from Bauer-Power and Tech Chop taking the reigns here at AskTheAdmin for a little while. I was chatting with Karl, and apparently he is working 70 hour work weeks lately, and hasn’t had time to keep up with the posts here. Me being the nice virtual online friend that I am, I volunteered to write up some posts for a week or two to give you guys some original content.

Now, today isn’t going to be one of those days though. Today, I am going to post my latest video from my monthly video show Tech Chop. In this episode I show you three ways you can send spoof emails using your iPhone, Android, and also from Linux. Spoiler alert! Sending spoofs from your iPhone or Android phone is way easier than Linux. However, since you are using the terminal to do it in Linux, that automatically boosts your geek cred by +5 and in turn makes you look cooler.

Here’s the video:

Links for the apps and commands used can be found here: (Spoofing Email For Dummies)

Sending out these spoofs is actually a pretty funny prank you can play on someone. In the video I mentioned sending one to the desktop tech that works for me, and he almost had a heart attack. He says he is saving it for blackmail purposes now, so maybe it wasn’t such a good idea. Anyway, still funny if you ask me.

If you want to check out more videos from Tech Chop, visit TechChop.com. If you want to watch the videos on your TV using a set-top box like Boxee, or Roku, you can catch Tech Chop on the Tech Podcast Network!

Know of other tools that will allow you to send spoofs? Are they easier to use? Let us know about them in the comments!

As usual I would like to thank the good people at HP for sending over another review machine to check out. This time it is the HP EliteBook 2760p the big brother of the 2710p My daughter and I reviewed way back when. The biggest gripe we had back then was processor power and no real touch screen. The 2760 changes all that with an awesome i5 processor and a full on touch screen. Throw in a USB 3.0 and a eSATA port, with a little display port action and topped off with 4g internal and a 320GB Self Encrypting Drive you have an awesome laptop with a convertible tablet built in (not the other way around!)

I was amazed that the system is MIL-STD 810G standards for vibration, dust, humidity, altitude and warmth.  We have also found the system available on Amazon for ~$1200USD. Not too shabby seeming the MSRP is around $1500. The screen is very responsive, the computer is pretty quick and meets all our HD Video/On-line gaming necessities.

Check out the available Specifications:

• Processor: Intel Core i7/i5
• RAM: upto 16GB DDR3
• Hard Disk: upto 320GB
• Graphics Card: Intel Integrated HD3000 Graphics
• Display: 12.1 inch matte (anti-glare) LED backlit display
• Operating System: Windows 7 Pro
• Connectivity: Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth, Ethernet LAN, 4G Internal Modem
• Hi-Speed USB, VGA connection, two-in-one combo headphone/microphone jack
• RJ11 and RJ45 modem/LAN ports, SD/SDHC card slot, Smart Card reader, Express Card 34 slot, Memory car reader
• Firewire port
• Webcam
• Weight: ~6 lbs

We absolutely love it!

 I highly recommend a touch screen laptop for learning little ones. It has been a huge help in teaching our wonderful Kayla.

t’s the last thing McAfee would want users to hear about one of its products, but the Firefox browser is advising users to disable McAfee’s ScriptScan software, saying that it could cause “stability or security problems.”

SriptScan ships with McAfee’s VirusScan antivirus program. It’s designed to keep Web surfer’s safe by scanning for any malicious scripting code that might be running in the browser. But according to Mozilla it has an unintended side-effect: It can cause Firefox to crash… a lot.

In a note posted to its website, Mozilla said that the add-on “causes a high volume of crashes,” and is “strongly encouraging” users to disable the software. The warning applies to all users of version 14.4.0 and below of the plugin, Mozilla said.

The Firefox browser started popping up warning messages Monday, advising that users disable the software

In McAfee user forums, there is a smattering of complaints about the Firefox problem.

The problem affects Firefox 7 users, according to Francie Coulter, a McAfee spokeswoman. “McAfee has identified the cause and is working actively with the Firefox team to resolve this issue and expects to roll out an update shortly,” she said in an email message.

[Via ITWorld]

Here is a great recent post from our good friends over at Bauer-Power:
I am a huge fan of Microsoft’s VPN built into Routing and Remote Access. For me it is the easiest system to configure, and deploy. Plus it isn’t limited on how many users can connect to it like say a Cisco VPN where you might be able to have 10 concurrent users, and if you need any more you have to pay for more licenses. Lame sauce I say!

I also like Microsoft’s latest VPN technology, Secure Socket Tunneling Protocol, or SSTP for short. It’s as easy to setup and configure as PPTP, but it’s more secure because it uses SSL encryption. Plus the only port you have to open up on the firewall is 443. Easy peasy!

Finally, the last thing I like is that if you use a Microsoft VPN, you can use the built in Network and Sharing Center in Windows to configure your settings. You don’t need a third party client like you do with Cisco, Sonicwall or Netscaler VPN’s. That means less overhead, and less software you have to take care of. Pure win!

What if you don’t want to write up a tutorial on how to setup a connection in Network and Sharing Center for your users? Sure it’s easy for you to go through the Setup a New Connection or Network wizard because you’re the IT guy. For the young lady in sales though, you probably should have a PhD in nuclear physics to set the thing up. Why not configure it once on your computer, backup your settings, and restore it on her computer? Sounds like a good idea right? Well it,s actually easy to do.

• Go through the Set Up a Connection or Network wizard in Windows to configure your VPN settings (SSTP, PPTP, L2TP etc)

• When done copy rasphone.pbk from %userprofile%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Network\Connections\PBK\ on your computer
• When you are ready to restore it, paste rasphone.pbk in %userprofile%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Network\Connections\PBK\ on the computer you want to restore it on.

Easy right? Since all you need to do is keep a copy of rasphone.pbk, which is just a text file that can be edited in Notepad, you can easily deploy your Windows VPN settings using a startup script or something!

The next time the user logs into windows, they will see their automatically configured Windows VPN when they click on their network icon in the system tray!

[Via Bauer-Power]

Going green can give some people the blues. Trying to make the world a better place often involves some serious life changes, and this can take a lot of people out of their comfort zones, making the entire going green process a counterproductive activity. In this day and age, however, creating a greener environment is as simple as the click of a mouse. You may already be helping your environment without even knowing it. Here are a few ways we can all use the internet to lead a greener life.

Download Music

Arguably the easiest step is one that is already being done by millions: get your music online. Whether it is through iTunes, Pandora, or others, listening and grabbing music from the internet means that there’s no need for packaging, handling, transportation, or warehouses. Instead, the music gets transferred right to your computer. What could be greener than that? It’s pretty convenient too.


 

Reusing Used Goods

For things that are not as easy to transfer as music, there are always buy/sell/trade sites such as Craigslist. While it might not seem green at first, nothing helps out the environment more than buying from the people around you and putting to good use what is essentially trash. Buying local used goods helps not only reduce landfill clutter but also cuts down on the transportation and packaging of new materials. One man’s trash is another man’s treasure, especially when you’re getting involved in your local community.

For another similar site that is explicitly dedicated to helping those around you, try Freecycle.org. It is a fantastic site where people give away things they don’t need to whoever asks for them. Get rid of your old broken down TV instead of throwing it away, and it could live a new life in someone else’s home.

DIY

Speaking of broken down TVs, do not throw anything if you can repair it first. If you do not have the skills, don’t worry! DoItYourself.com has great guides on how to fix just about anything, helping you save your money and the earth as well. DIY projects also help you learn valuable skills and gain self-confidence. Few things make you feel better about yourself than fixing your own broken down appliances and furniture.

Know Your Greens

If you still cannot fix it, and you cannot do without it, your best bet is to head to EnergyStar.gov and gather information about the products you need. Staying informed about your future purchase is both good for the environment and your wallet. The cheapest option is not always the most cost-efficient once you factor in the cost of operations and the impact it could have on your utility bill every month. As they say, knowledge is power, and electronics are getting more efficient every day.

Green ISPs

Do not forget the internet itself! Some internet service providers (ISPs) are going green as well. Because the internet is so entrenched in our daily lives and it is so widespread, any steps ISPs take to go green will be similarly large and impactful. Even something as simple as going paperless and making monthly billing statements online reduces the impact of hundreds of thousands of envelopes and paper slips, not to mention ink that simply does not need to be used. Some ISPs make sure that their resources are powered by solar or wind energy instead of gas or coal power, increasing the green factor even further exponentially. Some internet service providers go as far as to hold a sweepstakes for a hybrid vehicle as well as other green giveaways to promote their paperless ordering!

So as you can see, sometimes you can make multiple steps at once. If you’re diligent, and use the right resources, you can take two steps forward and no steps back, and walk your way into the green future.

Blake Sanders is a writer of technical information at broadband comparison site Broadband Expert. Blake specializes in internet service providers, cell phones, and high speed internet news and information.

Note: Photo courtesy of br1dotcom via FlickR Creative Commons.

The truth about passwords...

[Via XKCD]

We got numerous positive responses on yesterdays funny post so here is another insane Windows error messages… You try changing your password with these crazy policies! Seriously WTFluck?!

So all kidding aside this is a real pop-up on a real website when a real person tried to click the good old “Forgot Password” button. Now if  I am clicking on that – do you really think I can use my existing password to login? I mean really… Sheeeesh!

[Via TheDailyWTF]

The information published below on AtA 3 years ago today still rings true. Check it out:

It’s an Admin’s worst nightmare (well one of them).

A server’s system disk is quickly running out of space for no apparent reason. You know that when the system drive fills the server is going to shut down and you’re going to have a lot of unhappy users. You need to find out what is taking up so much space.

There are several tools for looking around your drive and getting a visual image of what is on it. Tools like WinDirStat, Folder Size and TreeSize all do a nice job of showing you where all that space is going.

But sometimes you need a quick and dirty tool and (if you’re like me) you don’t want to install something on your servers unless you really need to.

That’s one great thing about SequoiaView, it gives you a nice visual map of any drive or folder without installing anything. Download the zipped version, unzip it and run the executable. There’s nothing to install or risk messing up your servers with. Delete the whole folder when you are done and there’s no trace of it.

Of course, I am using JFFNMS to monitor my network so I was able to learn about this impending disaster early enough to do something about it. In my case – I had forgotten to reconfigure the IIS logging on my Exchange server, so the OWA logs were slowly filling up the system drive since they default to Windows\System32\LogFiles.

What do you use to monitor disk space on your servers? Do you have any horror stories to share with AtA? Well that is what the comments are for!

_TheMonitoringAdmiN_