RACKWORTHY

Daemon Tools Lite for Windows 7

charles.crampton@gmail.com (Charles Crampton) — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 05:00:00 +0000

Virtual CD Driver for mounting ISOs in Windows 7

Microsoft was gracious enough to give us a Virtual CD tool for Windows XP Pro but not so in Windows 7. So how do we access that library of ISO files we've accumulated? Daemon Tools to the rescue. With Daemon Tools Lite v4.35.5 we once again have the ability to mount ISO images and address them as virtual CD ROM Drives. With over 5 million downloads and counting, it seems that Daemon Tools has become the "go to" solution for those in need of a tool to mount ISO files in Windows 7. A 9Mb download gets you started. Once installed the Daemon Tools utility runs as a Windows service with an icon in the services toolbar. Click on the icon and you'll be presented with a very simple window. Click the CD-ROM image and you'll begin building a media library of ISO files. Right click in the lower window and you can add virtual drive letters. Right click on any of the drive letters and you will be prompted to mount one of the ISO images. Simple.

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Windows Install CD Customizer

charles.crampton@gmail.com (Charles Crampton) — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 11:55:00 +0000

nLite's WinOS Boot CD customizer

Here's another "note from the field", a post about a tool tested and proven in a customer environment. Ok, so here's the technical backgrounder: Customer orders a Lenovo tower PC and of course it comes pre-loaded with Vista, but with XP downgrade rights. We're wanting to use this as a staging server for document images to be burned to Blu-Ray disks (hey, they hold 25GB of data) using CyberLink's InstantBurn application. We've also ordered a SATA Raid controller and (2) 250GB SATA disks so we can RAID-1 mirror the drives where the images will be stored. The bonus problem is that the system didn't ship with an XP boot CD, but a system recovery CD set with Vista (ie we're going to have to download and install a bunch of video/motherboard/ethernet/etc. drivers after the OS install). So, we put in the XP SP2 boot CD we have and as the system boots we hit F6 to install the 3rd party drivers for the SATA Raid controller and viola, the dreaded "Insert disk into Drive A:" message appears. Hmm, ok, so what system ships with a floppy drive anymore? We consider a USB Floppy drive for a minute and then realize that this early in the boot sequence there are no USB drivers loaded yet; what to do?

Enter the solution for this type of dilemma from nLite. It's actually a very ingenious but simple solution, which makes it even more appealing. We downloaded and installed the nLite software on a laptop and then (after a few minutes of reading) launched the app. Note: it does require the .NET Framwork 2.0 in order to run. It prompted us for our XP CD (it works with Windows 2003 as well) and then a target directory, where it proceeded to copy the entire XP CD; that said, you'll need around 1.2GB of available disk space to use this tool. Next we were presented with a menu of choices for modifying the now copied XP OS and we chose "Install Drivers", clicked "next" and were prompted for the location of the SATA Raid drivers we wanted to install. True confession here it took us a couple of tries to get the right driver set for the controller, but hey it was a learning process. The nLite utility then proceeded to copy the drivers and then the tool presented us with an option to Finish. We relaunched the application and then selected the "Create Bootable ISO" option. The nLite utility then used the now modified on-disk copy of XP to create a bootable CD ISO file. At this point you launch your favorite CD burning tool and burn the ISO to CD.

Next comes the true test of the tool - the boot of our newly created XP CD. While we failed on our first try (wrong drivers), the second try resulted in a boot sequence that saw the SATA Raid controller drivers load and then we were able to proceed with the installation of XP. Mission Accomplished.

The nLite utility has the following features which you may find helpful:

* Service Pack Integration - update that old SP1 boot CD to SP2/SP3.
* Component Removal - remove unwanted components prior to install.
* Unattended Setup - scripting of installation(s)
* Driver Integration
* Hotfixes Integration
* Tweaks
* Services Configuration
* Patches
* Bootable ISO creation

Calendar sync

charles.crampton@gmail.com (Charles Crampton) — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 03:13:00 +0000

Tungle Calendar Sync

In a perfect world everyone would use the same e-calendaring system, but of course that is not (and never will be) the case. What would be the benefit of everyone having access to each other's calendar? So that when you want to schedule a meeting with one or more people you wouldn't have to endure dozens of emails trying to get everyone to agree on a date and time to meet. Enter Tungle, a web service that crosses over the proprietary calendaring boundaries so that you can easily schedule meeting with people using their own calendar system. Currently Tungle supports Outlook (with or without an Exchange server), Google Calendar, iCAL and Entourage on MAC, and soon Lotus Notes.

The question becomes - how simple is it? Very simple. Not only that, you can get a vanity URL by signing up at their Tungle.me site. When you sync your calendar with Tungle, it publishes your busy and available times, not the details of your calendar entries. This allows others to see your available times. They even have an iPhone app that gives you full functionality for using the scheduling application. Sweet.

The added bonus is that even if you don't use one of the supported calendaring systems, you can still use your Tungle calendar to coordinate and schedule meetings with others. Oh, and yeah, it auto-updates across time zones (duh, of course they thought of that).

So, if you have need of sharing calendars and making meeting appointments with people outside (or even inside) your company who don't share a common calendaring system, you might want to give Tungle a try.

CyberLink's InstantBurn for Optical Media

charles.crampton@gmail.com (Charles Crampton) — Thu, 07 May 2009 03:11:00 +0000

Use CD-RW and DVD-RW like a removable disk

Cyberlink's InstantBurn-5 software turns your CD-RW, DVD-RW and rewritable BlueRay discs into a removable media drive. You can drag and drop files from folders, send unwanted files to the Recycle Bin for deletion, rename files, and change file property information. The verification function checks whether data has been written properly, ensuring the reliability of the data. InstantBurn supports UDF (Universal Disk Format) versions 1.02, 1.5, 2.0, 2.01 and 2.5. The only unfortunate fact is that it's a MS Windows-only product, supporting Vista, XP, etc., but no Linux or OS-X support at this time.

One suggested use of this product would be to put a DVD-RW or BlueRay-RW drive in a PC with InstantBurn-5 software and then share the re-writable disk across the network as NAS storage, using it for instant archiving of data to an optical disk. The beauty of the solution is that you don't have to master the disk and do write-at-once burns of your data - you can keep writing to it as needed until full and then replace and continue archiving data onto a new re-writable optical platter.

All-in-all another great product from CyberLink. Check out the rest of their media editing and mastering software as well as PowerBackup for PC data archiving.

DimDim web conferencing

charles.crampton@gmail.com (Charles Crampton) — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 04:30:00 +0000

For those WebEx and GoToMeeting users out there dreading your monthly bill, you might want to take a look at DimDim, an open source based web conferencing solution. DimDim has three versions, Free, Pro which is priced from $99 to $495 per year and Enterprise starting at $1995 per year. The pricing brackets are based on DimDim hosted software and concurrent users. Compare that to WebEx at a web published price of $69 per host per month, and you begin to see the savings. For 50 host users that would be $3,450 per month vs. DimDim Enterprise at $19 per user per month (hosted) or $950 per month, a savings of $2,500/mo., or $30,000 per year. What is unique about DimDim, besides the fact that it has an open source offering, is that you can host it in-house if you chose instead of subscribing to it as a service. For those companies with security concerns over using a hosted web conferencing solution, this is a definite plus.

Another big "plus" is DimDim's free API for creating integration and mashups. Currently there is DimDim integration into Moodle, the learning management system for schools, Yahoo's Zimbra email system, and SugarCRM just to name a few. There's even a Facebook application that is based on DimDim. So you can see that not only are there potential cost savings to using Dimdim, but also a great technology advantage in having an API to leverage for use in other applications. Since DimDim has a free version it would be very easy to take it for a spin, kick the tires, and see how it "rides" for use as your new web conferencing solution.

NAS adapter is too cool

charles.crampton@gmail.com (Charles Crampton) — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 14:14:00 +0000

Addonics NAS Adapter for USB

In my quest to provide some networked storage on my home network I stumbled upon the Addonics USB to NAS adapter. Priced at only $55.00, this adapter provides two much needed features in a very small form factor and inexpensive to boot. In a nutshell, you can take any USB hard disk, attach the Addonics adapter and turn that disk drive into a NAS storage device accessible via SMB or FTP. The real BONUS feature here is that this adapter can also serve as a network print server if you attach a USB printer.

Product Features

* Convert any USB 2.0 / 1.1 mass storage device into a Network Attached Storage device
* Great for creating a custom Network Attached Storage appliance.
* USB port can be used to power most 2.5" USB hard drives or any low powered USB storage device.
* Support Fast Ethernet 10/100Mbps.
* Simple to install
* Small and light weight. Size slightly longer than a C size battery. Can be installed practically anywhere
* Can be set as DHCP server or client.
* Support Samba server for up to 64 concurrent clients.
* Support FTP server for up to 8 concurrent users.
* Can be set as a print server to attach any USB printer to the network
* Built-in Bit Torrent client for direct download to the attached USB storage device
* Can be set as a UPnP AV server to share photo/music files stored on the file server with XBOX 360 video game consoles connected to the LAN
* User management to allow read only or read/write access to folders
* Administrative management access via web browser with password security.
* Compatible with all Windows OS, Mac OS, Linux 2.6.x and above

OpenProj for Project Management

charles.crampton@gmail.com (Charles Crampton) — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 12:44:00 +0000

I had the opportunity the other day to test out OpenProj, an open source project management tool. I was sent a MS Project (.MPP) file to review a project plan for a website development effort but did not have MS Project installed on my laptop. Unlike some other MS applications like Powerpoint, Microsoft does not have a viewer app available for MS Project files. Enter Serena's OpenProj software, a free open source alternative to MS Project. After downloading the OpenProj software and installing on my Windows XP laptop, I was able to not only easily open the .MPP file but was also able to modify the project milestones and view all of the project details. While I didn't have a chance to test them, other open source options for project management are DotProject and Open Workbench. For collaborative project management in a hosted environment, I'd also recommend taking a close look at BaseCamp's software-as-a-service solution which starts at only $24/mo. for 15 projects, 3GB of storage and unlimited users. Also worth a close look is Zoho Project, part of the comprehensive suite of SaaS apps from Zoho.com.

eJabberd for Instant Messaging

charles.crampton@gmail.com (Charles Crampton) — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 04:37:00 +0000

eJabberd Open Source Instant Messaging Server

Another "victim" in the ongoing saga of free open source software (FOSS) being hijacked by a commercial entity only to be later sent to the deadpool is Jabber, recently acquired by Cisco. A project begun in 1998 by Jeremy Miller (per wikipedia) and first released in 2000 as jabberd, Jabber quickly became the basis for the XMPP protocol standard. Probably the most well known adopter of XMPP is Google with the Google Chat software. Many other commercial software companies have also adopted the proven and well regarded XMPP standard for their own integrated messaging, VoIP and presence awareness applications.

Recently I had a customer discussion that centered around an issue with the lack of phone lines (in-coming and out-going) between their distribution centers. There were complaints coming in from the warehouses of busy signals during the peak times of the day. The initial discussion centered around the possibility of voice over IP (VoIP) being a way to solve the problem via provisioning more voice lines between locations. Ok, so not being one who carries around a hammer looking for nails, I asked a more obvious question - what the heck is everyone trying to call each other for at 4pm? The answer was "instant gratification", the warehouse people and order processing people needed quick answers so orders could be completed and picking tickets issued, so trucks could begin being loaded. Email was "too slow" to wait on those simple questions - so my obvious response was - so what about instant messaging. You'd have thought I asked someone to streak naked through the parking lot... no way, then people would be wasting time IM'ing their friends all day instead of WORKING, was the response. Ok, so I had to clarify, I wasn't talking about using AOL or Yahoo, etc., I was talking about implementing an in-house IM server. Response: "We looked at MS Messenger and IBM Sametime, and that's more than we want to spend on IM." Yes, the same people who wanted to throw a VoIP solution at a POTS line congestion problem that would have cost in the high tens of thousands of dollars were balking at spending $40k on IM. As usual, I had a suggestion: "So what about open source, maybe something like Jabber?" Again, a blank stare. I had to pinch myself to make sure I hadn't time warped back to 1998, but no I was again having the "open source is OK" conversation.

After a lengthy discussion I made the suggestion to download eJabberd and use Pidgin as the client for testing purposes. My reasoning for going with eJabberd is that for a customer like this, it would be best to have an option for a commercial support option for the software. With eJabberd that option is available from Process One among others. I'm not doing an ad here for them so just take that as a mention of an alternative. Anyway, just keep in mind that there are options out there to solve problems that don't have to cost a great deal of money.

Typically, if you can win the technology adoption battle via use of FOSS, then if you need advanced features later as user adoption matures, the money to move to a commercial package seems to magically appear where none was available before. The ISVs figured this out a LONG time ago by offering shareware or feature/function-limited freeware versions of their software. It used to be called the "puppy dog close" in sales school - get the client to own it, name it, care for it, feed it and love it, and you're guaranteed they'll have to buy food for it, get it shots, etc. It just never ceases to amaze me that internal IT departments still haven't figured out that they need to get the technology in the door and working and then proving usefulness to management only takes turning off the unauthorized project server and waiting for users to start hollering.

If you're in need of a good IM server, eJabberd is a great option. You can click on over to XMPP.org and see a list of other server options as well as a list of client options.

xkoto for MS SQL clustering

charles.crampton@gmail.com (Charles Crampton) — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 04:29:00 +0000

xkoto Gridscale: A better way to cluster MS SQL?

If you've ever tried to implement a MS SQL server cluster then you're familiar with the quorum drive concept and how it is used for clustering. Microsoft's NTFS is a single instance filesystem that does not have a clustering component. While there are replacements for NTFS like HP's Polyserve cluster filesystem product, I recently uncovered xkoto Gridscale. xkoto's Gridscale for MS SQL is a very different approach to clustering. I was fortunate enough to have a brief technical discussion with one of their engineers the other day and here's the short version of his explanation of Gridscale. The Gridscale product claims to avoid the scalability limitations, technical complexity, and costs associated with traditional clustering, mirroring and replication solutions for SQL Server by assisting you to scale application load horizontally across multiple, active-active instances of SQL Server. Also, you can eliminate planned and unplanned database outages since all SQL Servers managed by Gridscale are fully active. Finally, since Gridscale supports databases in remote locations, you can meet disaster recovery requirements without the complexity of traditional transaction-based (journaling) or storage replication solutions.

Ok, so this begs the obvious question: How does this work? Well, Gridscale runs on a pair of gateway (my term, not theirs) servers (active/passive). These gateway servers run between your applications and databases (see the image above this post) to manage multiple, active-active copies of SQL Server databases running anywhere on the network. Gridscale then load balances read requests, while write requests and database changes are propagated asynchronously to all databases to keep them in sync. The SQL Server instances themselves operate completely independently from one another, unaware that they are part of a pool of database servers. xkoto claims that with Gridscale, applications typically require little to no modification beyond the use of a special database driver (standard ODBC or JDBC are two options) which talks to the database virtualization server (the gateway servers).

The Gridscale architecture also allows for on-the-fly addition of SQL server nodes to the cluster, as well as the ability to script a node to remove itself from the cluster while backups are performed and then the node can be re-added to the cluster and updated. If my notes are correct this has been tested out to twenty (20) nodes in a single cluster configuration. One slight limitation is that each gateway pair can only address a single instance of the SQL database engine per server (or in this day and time of virtualization, per operating system instance). So if you have multiple SQL instances per server (not multiple databases now, multiple instances of the SQL database application engine in memory), then you'll need to deploy multiple Gridscale gateway pairs.

The xkoto Gridscale for MS SQL was just introduced back in September as a follow on to their very successful and mature Gridscale for DB2 product.

Dabble DB online database

charles.crampton@gmail.com (Charles Crampton) — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 23:07:00 +0000

Dabble DB Online Database is EASY

So yes, another Software-as-a-service rant, but well worth a look. Dabble DB is a web-based application that lets you upload your data and then build your own database applications. You can import existing data or start from scratch. Once you define your database fields you can then drag-and-drop the field elements into an online form, complete with data validation and rules. You can build multiple forms pages and tie them together with workflow. You can also control user access to pages and build forms that let users enter and edit sub-sets of your database without access to the entire application. The forms that you build can also be embedded into another website. Dabble DB is extremely flexible and powerful, allowing you to create reports, sort and group data, filter data for reporting, build pivot tables, calendars, charts and even maps using the data in the online database.

Some of the examples of application possibilities from the Dabble DB site:

* Tracking sales and invoices
* Contacts and CRM
* Project management
* Scheduling events, classes, workshifts
* Timesheets
* Personnel records
* Tracking workflow
* Surveys and reviews
* Basic statistical analysis
* General content management

Dabble DB has a free version of the tool that allows you to build publicly-accessible applications. For a range of fees you can elect to subscribe to Dabble DB's private sites option and build private, invitation-only applications.

As always, check it out and let me know what you think.

Google 10 to the 100th Project

charles.crampton@gmail.com (Charles Crampton) — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 04:58:00 +0000

October 20th Deadline Approaching

http://www.project10tothe100.com/how_it_works.html

How it works

Project 10100 (pronounced "Project 10 to the 100th") is a call for ideas to change the world by helping as many people as possible. Here's how to join in.

1. Send Google your idea by October 20th.
Simply fill out the submission form giving Google the gist of your idea. You can supplement your proposal with a 30-second video.

2. Voting on ideas begins on January 27th.
Google will post a selection of one hundred ideas and ask you, the public, to choose twenty semi-finalists. Then an advisory board will select up to five final ideas.

3. Google will help bring these ideas to life.
Google is committing $10 million to implement these projects, and the goal is to help as many people as possible. So remember, money may provide a jumpstart, but the idea is the thing.

Good luck, and may those who help the most win.

Remember, the deadline is
October 20th, 2008

Guidelines

Google's goal is to set as few rules as possible. However, they ask that you put your idea into one of the following categories and consider the evaluation criteria below.

Categories:

* Community: How can we help connect people, build communities and protect unique cultures?
* Opportunity: How can we help people better provide for themselves and their families?
* Energy: How can we help move the world toward safe, clean, inexpensive energy?
* Environment: How can we help promote a cleaner and more sustainable global ecosystem?
* Health: How can we help individuals lead longer, healthier lives?
* Education: How can we help more people get more access to better education?
* Shelter: How can we help ensure that everyone has a safe place to live?
* Everything else: Sometimes the best ideas don't fit into any category at all.

Criteria:

* Reach: How many people would this idea affect?
* Depth: How deeply are people impacted? How urgent is the need?
* Attainability: Can this idea be implemented within a year or two?
* Efficiency: How simple and cost-effective is your idea?
* Longevity: How long will the idea's impact last?

©2008 Google

Typo3 Web CMS

charles.crampton@gmail.com (Charles Crampton) — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 02:11:00 +0000

Open Source Content Management Software

Typo3 is an open source web content management system (webCMS) that I was introduced to just today (kudos to Kevin at 4tvirtual.com). Typo3 is a PHP-based system that uses MySQL as it's core repository and can leverage Oracle, MS-SQL, ODBC, and LDAP for user extensions. One of the great features of Typo3 is the extensibility that is built into the product - there is an API (a standard nowadays for web2.0 apps), and also a very deep catalog of product add-ons. The add-ons are easily managed using the Extension Manager. It supports Apache and IIS web servers and runs on *NIX, MacOSX and Win32 environments; all of the major browsers are supported as well.

I found Typo3 to have a very rich user editing function using the built-in Rich Text Editor that is very MS Word-like in it's functionality, even including features like a spell checker and clipboard, and an unlimited UNDO function allowing undo of any change a user would make to content. The inclusion of versioning allows you to save a state of the content so that it can be reverted at a later date. You can save versions of a page or a set of pages and edit those versions. You can swap the versions out with a touch of a button. Very impressive for a web application. Typo3 claims that content editors can learn to use the system in a little as 30 minutes to a couple of hours. For advanced users there is even TypoScript for creating templates and template wizards.

Typo3 also has multi-domain capability and multiple sites can exist in a single Typo3 database. User management can leverage existing LDAP directories or you can manage them completely within the application, even assigning users to groups with group extended privileges. Given the multi-domain and site capabilities you would expect Typo3 to have a robust user security model and you would not be disappointed. You can restrict user logins from a specific IP address or domain, leverage LDAP, Active Directory, Novell eDirectory and more, and there is even a login history and user audit trails. Additionally, site admins can receive email alerts of failed and/or successful user login attempts.

Of course no webCMS worth it's salt would be without a workflow approval engine and here again, Typo3 doesn't disappoint. While not extremely robust, simple workflow lifecycle can be set up so that the work of an editor must be approved by a reviewer.

If you're looking for bells and whistles in a webCMS, check out the features list and list of available extensions for Typo3 as well. Banner Ad plugins, Link Management (ie broken link auto-correction), Themes, WEBstats, Affiliate Tracking, Chat, Blogs, and the list goes on.

While I haven't had time to completely explore all of the features available in Typo3, so far I'm extremely impressed. So again, thanks to Kevin at 4t for pointing this one out to me and go check it out.

VMware clones and Windows SysPrep

charles.crampton@gmail.com (Charles Crampton) — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 04:14:00 +0000

Using VMware's clone option is half the battle

Ok, so I called customer "GL" the other day to check on how his VMware ESX farm was doing and he said "great, but I'm having a problem using the OS templates". Of course I asked, how so and thus began the adventure. Now, I'm not a Windows OS expert by any means so if I mis-speak on some of this give me some latitude, ok. Here's the scenario - VMware, via VirtualCenter, gives you the option to set up an OS template with all of your usual utilities installed (antivirus, backup agent, etc.) and then "clone" that template to make rolling out a new virtual server much faster. Well, "GL" had set up the template OS, cloned it, and then used Microsoft's NewSID utility to create a new ID for the server. He did this for seven new virtual servers he was rolling out. All was fine until he went to check the new virtual servers into his Microsoft Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) server. The first server checked in just fine, but each subsequent server replaced the former, always appearing to be the same server OS instance, but remember there are seven of them. Hmmm - odd. So, I did what any good, self-professed non-expert would do - I called a guy who I knew would have the answer. My good buddy and Microsoft Windows OS guru Jeff was on a customer site so he called me back the next day. I explained the problem to him and he provided the answer in short order. I'll spare you the technical browbeating I got from Jeff and just give you the meat of the solution. Jeff's response: "You're using the wrong tool. No, not the VMware tool, that works just fine - the wrong Microsoft tool". And then he was nice enough to explain it to "GL" and I and even sent an email with the solution (for a small price). Jeff's solution: "GL" should have been using SysPrep, not NewSID. Since there was more than just a base-OS in the template, there were other programs that needed new identities as well as the base OS and NewSID didn't do that. So here's an excerpt from Jeff's email:
=====================================================================
To be clear, before you ran Sysprep on the source workstation, you
cleared the AccountDomainSid, PingID, and SusClientId keys (if they all
exist) within the Registry as well as clicked 'Reseal' within the
Sysprep utility?

Here is a script you can run on the source workstation prior to running
Sysprep to test again.

<- CUT HERE ->
NET STOP wuauserv
REG DELETE
"HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WindowsUpdate" /v
AccountDomainSid /f
REG DELETE
"HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WindowsUpdate" /v PingID
/f
REG DELETE
"HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WindowsUpdate" /v
SusClientId /f
NET STOP wuauserv
<- CUT HERE ->
=================================================================

Like I said - Jeff's a guru when it comes to all things Microsoft OS related and that's why my first call was to him. So, lesson learned. VMware templates are a GREAT way to roll out new Microsoft Windows Server OS based virtual servers quickly, just know that there's a little more work to be done before you push the new image into production (and add it to WSUS).

Another great day of fine customer service...

gMail account verification code

charles.crampton@gmail.com (Charles Crampton) — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 12:21:00 +0000

Save that gMail verification code

If you didn't get a chance to read Lifehacker yesterday, make sure you read Gina's post about Google's gMail account verification code. As a prolific user of Google gMail, Docs and Sites which use the same account login, I took her note to heart. If you ever get locked out of your gMail account, Google will ask you for your account verification code, which was sent to another of your email accounts when you signed up for your gMail account. If you didn't discard that email, then go back and find it, print it, print to a PDF and save/archive, store the account verification code in your password organizer; find some way to make sure you can find this again if you need it. If you're like me and have tons of documents on Google Docs, it would be no small disaster should you get locked out of your gMail account, so take Gina's advice and act now to save this information before you need it.

Open Source Backup

charles.crampton@gmail.com (Charles Crampton) — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 03:43:00 +0000

Server and PC backup using Open Source alternatives

Whether you need a desktop productivity suite, network and systems monitoring tools, database, web server or other core application in the datacenter there are plenty of open source alternatives. One option that doesn't get a great deal of attention is the availability of open source backup and recovery applications. While space and time don't allow me to cover all of them, let me hit a few highlights.

Amanda backup and recovery software from ZManda is by far one of the premier open source alternatives for backup. While the server portion of the application runs on Linux, it has agents for Windows, Linux, Unix, Mac, etc. Amanda even has an agent for MySQL. One of the primary advantages to Amanda is the fact this it uses no proprietary drivers to address backup devices, it leverages the operating system device drivers. Also, Amanda uses standard dump and tar for backups so you could restore even when you didn't have the software available. While not a replacement for a large enterprise solution, it gets you backups of your critical data into an easily recoverable format across multiple operating systems.

Restore-EE is another open source backup and recovery program that is available on SourceForge. It has an option to test using the downloadable ISO that has the Ubuntu boot from CD option. If you select to install you'll need a clean server environment, either base hardware, a multi-boot partition or a virtual machine, since it installs a base OS with all the application files.

Bacula is another application for backup and recovery the requires OpenSuSE Linux, FreeBSD, or Solaris operating systems as the server OS. Bacula is also pretty much a linux-focused program with little or no support for Windows platforms; but, if you're a Linux shop this is worth a look.

SnapBackup is an interesting option in that it's a java-based program and will run on most any desktop OS platform (Linux, Unix, Windows, Mac) that supports java. SnapBackup is intended for use as a backup and restore program for desktop PCs, not servers, so it's a great solution for use on your laptop or home PC.

If you're more technical and are looking for some real-time replication and file-based directory synchronization, there are programs like rSync for Linux and Unison, a more cross-platform option. My personal favorite for directory sync from a PC (or server) is Novell's open source iFolder, based on the Mono/.NET framework. Or, if you're a Microsoft shop then DFS (distributed file system) may be your cup of tea.

While file backups are great to have, don't forget to use something like SelfImage to create a bare metal recovery backup image of your hard disk(s) so you can get your PC or server back to a usable state quickly and then worry about file recovery. While not free and open source, an affordable honorable mention in this category is Acronis True Image Home for the low cost of $49.00.

You'll notice I haven't gone off into a hosted, backup software as a service rant yet. While there are plenty of options available out there like Carbonite, I'll save that for another post.

Online File Storage

charles.crampton@gmail.com (Charles Crampton) — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 03:44:00 +0000

AOL xDrive with Adobe AIR

I've been an AOL xDrive user for some time now and have a tendency to try out all the latest online file storage concepts as they hit the web. Lately I've been so caught up in my web travels and testing out new options that I hadn't visited my xDrive account lately. For large email attachments the simplicity of Senduit has been a easy and quick choice to make, and uploading Powerpoint presentations into a hosted Google Docs file has been almost painless. The downside to Senduit is that the uploaded file and it's generated link "expire" in a short period of time and people who backtrack through emails and want to download the file again get an error.

So to have a more permanent link solution without filling up people's inboxes with multi-megabyte files, I revisited my old tried and true AOL xDrive account the other day. Much to my surprise and delight, there is now an xDrive Desktop Lite offering that sports an Adobe AIR interface. I'm still in the process of testing it out and am even using the VMware ThinApp SDK to see if I can create a portable, install-free version of the AOLxDDL application (I'll update you on how that goes later - I still don't have the Cisco VPN client done yet...). Anyway, the AOL xDrive service gives you the ability to upload EXE files, MSI installation packages, firmware updates, bios utilities, and all those other types of files you seem to need access to on an irregular basis. Once there the files can be private or shared with others. For ease of use you can group files together into a folder and share the whole folder instead having to mark and share each individual file. Also, for those files you need to save and you're offsite with limited bandwidth, xDrive lets you save files directly from the web to the xDrive storage, avoiding having to download to your PC.

I know, this has been another one of my "storage as a service" soapbox speeches, but one that should be taken into consideration. I also read over on LifeHacker.com that Dropbox, another online file storage offering, is now coming out of Beta so I'll be checking that one out soon as well.

What do you think about online storage and what's your favorite?

Hulu - the new TiVo?

charles.crampton@gmail.com (Charles Crampton) — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 02:14:00 +0000

Hulu may be my new replacement for cable

So the other day my sister made the comment that I'm always posting really geeky, tech-laden stuff that only appeals to tech oriented people and she really never "gets" most of what I post. Ok, so yeah I revel in the deeply technical stuff but have taken Sis's comment to heart and will try to occasionally write about something that has appeal outside of the datacenter. My latest obsession is with Hulu.com. Hulu was founded in March 2007 by NBC Universal and News Corp and is an online video service that offers hit TV shows, movies and clips, and other online destination sites — all for free, anytime in the U.S. Now for some, that's a big rub 'cause Hulu is blocked for viewers outside of the U.S. right now. For all of us good 'ol red blooded Americans though - not an issue so read on.

According to the Hulu.com website, "Hulu brings together a large selection of videos from more than 90 content providers, including FOX, NBC Universal, MGM, Sony Pictures Television, Warner Bros. and more. Users can choose from more than 850 current primetime TV hits such as The Simpsons, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Office the morning after they air, classics like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The A Team, Airwolf and Married...with Children, movies like Men in Black, Ghostbusters, and The Karate Kid, and clips from Saturday Night Live, Friends and other popular TV shows and movies. "

So why is this my new obsession? I don't have to remember to set the DVR to record a new show or episode that I wanted to catch while I was playing dad taxi to my three lovely children (which I seem to be doing more as they grow older). No, now if I miss Burn Notice or The Office, I can just jump on over to Hulu and watch whenever I get a chance. It's also cool to be able to go back and find some of those old favorite episodes of Married with Children and Miami Vice. This Hulu.com thing has brought me a new problem though - coming up with a better way to stream the video from my PC to the TV. I'll post on that soon as the quest for that solution unfolds.

So, check out Hulu.com and let me know what you think about the content.

Hypertable (beta)

charles.crampton@gmail.com (Charles Crampton) — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 03:24:00 +0000

Massively scalable database - open source too

Based on Google's well known BigTable project, the new entrant into the scalable database space is Hypertable. Hypertable is currently in beta release 0.9.x beta and is designed to manage the storage and processing of information on a large cluster of commodity servers, providing resilience to machine and component failures. According to their website, Hypertable is out to set the open source standard for highly available, petabyte scale, database systems. The goal is nothing less than that Hypertable become one of the world’s most massively parallel high performance database platforms.

Hypertable uses Apache Hadoop HDFS distributed file system, which Hypertable refers to as a third party file system. The Hypertable website contains a great high level architectural overview of how Hypertable is constructed, as well as more detailed documentation on the dependencies and structure of a Hypertable database implementation. Currently the Hypertable project has a few formidable deficiencies to overcome, the most critical being that the master and hyperspace servers are single instance with no cluster takeover capability. These two issues, among others, are currently being addressed by the development team. Given the fact that Hypertable is based on a Google project, this is one to keep your eye on if you are in the market for a massively scalable database. I would also venture to say that you should also consider it for ANY database deployment that needs resilience, even if it's implemented in a single rack versus geographically distributed. Looks like Oracle's Real Application Cluster database architecture may soon have some open source, scalable competition.

Email as a service

charles.crampton@gmail.com (Charles Crampton) — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 03:31:00 +0000

Email should be your next utility.

Anyone that reads my blog posts knows that I'm somewhat biased to software as a service offerings, especially ones that make daily tasks easier. Here is my latest rant: Why is it that small and medium sized businesses continue to run their own email servers? Heck, for that matter why does a business that's not a Fortune 500 company run their own email server? I'm somewhat taken aback by the constant self flagellation many systems admins expose themselves to by keeping email as an in-house service.

I noticed this trend a while back and have continued to ask the "dumb" questions like like why are you still managing your own spam filter, why do you care where your email lives as long as you have access to it, and the list goes on. If this is hitting home with some of you, please read on. Here's my key point: Email is now a utility function. You should treat it like a utility service just like water, electricity or natural gas. Your users don't really care that you spent all last weekend up in the datacenter patching the Exchange server, they just want their email to flow into their mail client uninterrupted and free from viruses, spam and phishing.

Face it, users EXPECT email to work 24x7x365 and you will never get a call thanking you for the email server working, you'll only get rolled under the bus when it doesn't. There's no upside potential to running your own email server anymore. Ok, so all that said, what's a brother to do? Easy, outsource it. There are dozens upon dozens of companies out there that specialize in running whatever variant of mail server you have. Everything from Groupwise to Domino to Exchange to sendmail to Zimbra, you're covered. In fact, you really shouldn't even care what the heck the backend is as long as it supports whatever functions you need in your mail client.

I've heard the excuses of "we're still running Netscape mail" or some crap like that. No better time than the present to roll out a better CLIENT solution to your users. Best to do it now before that old mail server crashes and you can't get it back up in the 10 minutes it takes for the company president to miss an important email and fire your butt. Really, I know we IT people tend to embrace the "if it ain't broke don't fix it" saw, but please people, this is one tool you need to hand over to someone else. Even those of you with regulatory and security issues in the banking, financial services and health care industries, there are partners out there who can give you hosted services that are GLBA, HIPAA, SOX, etc. compliant; trust me, I've got customers who have already done it!!

Here's just one example for you: Google charges $50 per user per year for email hosting, and that includes 25GB of data storage per user, and the ability to deploy Postini email message discovery, compliance and archival for selected users (with some restrictions). Now, if you're a shop with 100 users that's $5000 per year. It would take five to seven years to equal what you're going to have to fork over now for that upgrade to MS Exchange 2007, the spam and anti-virus updates and for that price you don't even have archival set up yet.

If you like running MS Exchange/Outlook or IBM Domino/Notes then go hosted. Pick any of the many companies that specialize in managing hosted Exchange or Domino environments and let it go. They'll do your anti-virus, spam filtering, offer archival options and manage all of the patching, upgrading, redundancy, clustering or whatever other options you choose. There's also the option of going to a managed services contract where the email servers may still physically sit in your datacenter, but someone else monitors, manages, patches, updates, cares for and feeds the little beasts. Don't forget that the day you outsource, you also give up having to manage the constant disk storage defrag hassles, the mail database re-org, inbox size issues, user deleted email by mistake issues (nah, you'll still get that call, but it'll be easier to get back) and many more. Really, it's THAT simple. Then you can spend more time implementing technology that can give your business a competitive edge instead of managing an oh-so-'90s technology that takes up way too much of your time. Am I missing something here? Give me your thoughts on this!!

KBPublisher Knowledgebase

charles.crampton@gmail.com (Charles Crampton) — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 11:49:00 +0000

KBPublisher web-based knowledgebase

The folks over at KBPublisher have released the new paid version of their excellent knowledgebase software. The primary improvement in this version is granular control over user security, thus enabling you to have protected content in the knowledgebase without having to set up a separate sysetem.

KBPublisher can run on Windows, Linux or Unix, requires IIS or Apache, MySQL v4.1 or higher and PHP v4.3.0 or higher. The client is browser-based, supporting Firefox, IE and Safari and just needs javascript enabled.

As many of you know I am a firm believer in building centralized repositories to capture information that some of you still maintain in spreadsheets and word documents. With KBPublisher you can centralize the data (no, not by keeping your spreadsheet on a file share) and make it searchable. In addition to posting information as an article, you can attach files (PDF manuals for example) to the articles as well. And, since articles can be assigned to multiple categories, you can post an article once and see it in different category areas as you drill down into the knowledgebase for information.

Built into KBPublisher is a visual text editor for posting articles and an image upload wizard for posting images to the knowledgebase. Also key is the ability to create secure categories and secure articles that are only accessible by authorized users. This is one way you can have a single repository with both a "public" view, like an FAQ section for end users, and an internal knowledgebase with technical data, server setup information, detailed descriptions of application setup and installation instruction and the like. In addition, you can create categories that can be user maintained so that areas like Sales, Marketing, Adminitration, Warehousing, Transportation, etc. can each have their own knowledgebase of data that are specific to their area of expertise.

Given the extensive feature set, the new paid version of KBPublisher is a bargain at $198 for the basic version with a 10 user limit, Small Biz version, limited to 30 users, is $398 and the Corporate edition is $998 with unlimited users. There is also a $98 Start single-user edition that is limited to 100 "articles".

FileZilla FTP Client

charles.crampton@gmail.com (Charles Crampton) — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 03:39:00 +0000

Free FTP client FileZilla

Ok, so I was at a customer site and we needed to download some patch updates for a program which required an FTP client. The customer didn't have one installed and I suggested downloading and installing FileZilla. File-what came the reply. Ok, so I realize now that not everyone has heard of it before, so I thought I'd pay homage to FileZilla in today's post.

FileZilla Client is a cross-platform FTP, FTPS and SFTP client with lots of useful features and a graphical user interface.

(From the FileZilla website) The features of FileZilla include (among others) the following:

* Supports FTP, FTP over SSL/TLS (FTPS) and SSH File Transfer Protocol (SFTP)
* Cross-platform. Runs on Windows, Linux, *BSD, Mac OS X and more
* IPv6 support
* Available in many languages
* Supports resume and transfer of large files >4GB
* Powerful Site Manager and transfer queue
* Drag & drop support
* Configurable Speed limits
* Filename filters
* Network configuration wizard
* Remote file editing
* Keep-alive
* HTTP/1.1, SOCKS5 and FTP-Proxy support

So, next time you need a full-featured FTP client, don't forget about FileZilla.

Super Mario Flash

charles.crampton@gmail.com (Charles Crampton) — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 03:04:00 +0000

Super Mario on Widgetbox

Ok, so I wasted probably 30 minutes tonight playing the Super Mario Game Flash Widget on Widgetbox.com. For those of you that remember playing that game when it originally came out it's a step back in time. But this is just one of thousands of available widgets on the Widgetbox site. There are scratch-off mystery buttons, embeddable weather widgets, clocks, news clippings, and a whole host of other available widgets, free for the taking and embeddable in your blog, web page, myspace, facebook, etc.

While many of the widgets on Widgetbox are frivolous and fun, there are some very useful additions that could even make it onto your corporate web page like the Forbes.com breaking news widget, Weather.com widget, Google calendar widget and many more that link to quality content.

But, for those of you reading who want to get busy re-mastering the old Mario - here's the link:

http://www.widgetbox.com/widget/supermariobros

See, I told you it was addictive...

Google Sites update

charles.crampton@gmail.com (Charles Crampton) — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 03:24:00 +0000

Google Sites for shared content

Ok, so a while back I wrote a post on Wetpaint and their rich media content "social website" and I continue to be amazed at the variety of options available there.

However, the other day I needed a quick site to use for tracking open items, to do lists, quote requests, quote responses, technical documents, etc. for a customer. As a creature of habit and given my constant use of Google docs I thought I'd dig a little deeper into Google Sites. After taking some time to familiarize myself with some of the page edit and sub-page options I found that Google Sites was a GREAT way to do what I needed. For one particular site (I have since set up at least a dozen) my menu hierarchy now has ten top layers and some pages are up to 3 and 4 layers deep. I set this particular site up to track all open activity items for a customer as well as creating an archive site for issue resolution, open issue tracking, technical document repository, service requests, quote requests (and responses) and the like. Since it's a web-based service (yeah, another one of my Software-as-a-Service rants) it's accessible from anywhere via web browser. Also, to share access to the site it's easiest that everyone have a gmail account (who the heck doesn't by now), that way you can link to shared Google docs, spreadsheets, presentations and the like.

As an example, when you click on "Create new page" the options are: Webpage, Dashboard, Announcements, File Cabinet and List. The list type is interesting in that you can pick from three pre-defined templates (editable) or chose custom and then define column headings and types (checkbox, date, dropdown, text or URL). Each column is then sortable as well. I chose to create "home" pages at the top level and then create cascading levels of repository pages under each heading. The site map link in the upper left hand corner of the site gives a complete hierarchical view of all of the pages, so it's easy to find everything once you create it. I even created a "quick contacts" list, sort of a mini contact list with phone, email, etc. so everyone could have a central place to update their respective information.

Of course the "site" is search-able as well, so don't fret if you can't find something quickly. While the templates for the sites give you some basic backgrounds, don't expect the "rich media" options you get from Wetpaint - at this point so far with my experience, Google Sites is more about functionality than beauty. Given what I'm using it for, that's fine but I could see where embedding podcasts, Youtube "how to" videos, and the like can't be too far off.

I have a few of you that have said you are now looking into Google Sites as an alternative to using Microsoft Sharepoint internally. I can see some limitations on that as a long term option, but if you're talking about an alternative to Sharepoint Services, then you might be satisfied. The primary issue at this point is the lack of detailed, extensible security. If you share the Site, then shared users have access to all content on the Site. You have a choice between collaborators and viewers, but that's it; so I could see using it for information that needs to be share with a whole team, but knowing that all information is visible to every member could cause problems. You could use document passwording and encryption to strengthen the security at the document level, but the document itself would still be available for download.

So, while not a panacea as a team website it only took me about 30 minutes to build the whole environment and upload all of the necessary documentation to get the information centralized and shared. So far, well worth the effort. As always, give it a try and let me know what you think!!

Remote Desktop Access and Control

charles.crampton@gmail.com (Charles Crampton) — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 03:48:00 +0000

The Bomgar Box

If you run a help desk then you either currently use or have tried in the past the GoToAssist hosted service from Citrix. A very good hosted solution and it saves you the trouble of having to run it on your network. But what if you WANT to host your own remote desktop control solution? Enter The Bomgar Box, an appliance-based remote control solution from Bomgar. Bomgar is the brainchild of co-founder Joel Bomgar and began life as Network Streaming and later changed the company name. My good buddy Troy recently went to work over there and turned me on to their solution. Some of the features and benefits from the Bomgar site are listed below:

Features

Bomgar™ enables clientless connection to any Windows, Linux, Mac, or Windows Mobile system by creating a remote desktop connection from your system and the end user's systems to the Bomgar Box outbound through firewalls.

Support Across Platforms

• Gain remote desktop control of Windows, Mac, Linux and Windows Mobile
• Support via screen sharing or command line interface
• Gain virtual control of unattended systems with Jump Technology
• Localize in Italian, Japanese, German, Spanish and French

Provide Fast, Effective Support

• Start a remote desktop connection to multiple systems simultaneously
• Automatically pull system info for quick diagnosis
• Reboot computers & re-initiate the connection automatically
• Transfer files & chat with customers or other reps securely
• Present your screen for training purposes

Integrate with Existing Applications

• Open API
• Create plug-ins with Bomgar's SDK
• Integrate with BMC® Remedy® Service Desk
• LDAP and RADIUS integration
• Customize Bomgar's customer-facing elements

Keep Your Data Secure

• On-site, appliance-based deployment
• Every remote desktop connection protected with 256-bit AES SSL encryption
• Logs and video recordings of virtual support sessions
• Granular management of support rep privileges
• Set group policies for managing permissions

Get the Box That's Right for You

• Scalable deployment models
Bomgar B100 – 1 support rep
Bomgar B200 – 2 to 20 support reps
Bomgar B300 – Up to 300 support reps
Multiple B300s for larger deployments
• Concurrent licensing & unlimited software user accounts

Centralize Support Management

• Define support teams and support request queues
• Create custom exit surveys to monitor rep performance
• Analyze trends with detailed service desk reports
• Authenticate support reps with single sign-on

Another positive to the Bomgar Box is the cost. Whereas hosted solutions like GoToAssist and Webex charge per-use fees for their service, the Bomgar appliance is a one time cost with only a yearly maintenance and support fee after that. If your organization requires a great deal of remote connectivity to end users, you could save a bundle by going to the Bomgar appliance. As always, check it out and let me know what you think.

Linux integration to MS Active Directory

charles.crampton@gmail.com (Charles Crampton) — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 03:54:00 +0000

Using Vintela from Quest Software

Many moons ago I was fortunate enough to stumble upon Vintela Authentication Services (although I don't think it was called that back then). Vintela is now a part of Quest Software and has expanded their product offerings, but the core VAS is still a great solution. What does it do you ask. Well, it makes a Unix, Linux or Mac system become a part of a Microsoft Active Directory domain, enabling centralized authentication and access control. You can then extend the benefits of Windows Group Policies to those non-Windows systems.

For an organization that has a majority of Microsoft Windows-based server operating systems, using Vintela VAS on those non-Windows servers saves the headaches of managing separate NIS or LDAP servers. You then get a centralized place for storing (and managing) user names, passwords, access rights, and more with no need for setup of an LDAP gateway. So, that Mac user over in marketing can now be managed via AD, as well as those new Linux boxes that keep finding their way into the datacenter.

While I'm on this subject, I've run across several instances lately where an application vendor wanted to store access control privileges in Active Directory to fields in the application database, which meant modifying the AD schema to fit a specific application. Well, Microsoft has a great way to overcome this by using Microsoft Active Directory Application Mode (ADAM) which can run on the application server or an XP PC and doesn't require a domain controller. I'll write a longer post about this later, but keep it in mind if you have legacy LDAP or X.500 integration needs or an application-specific security schema. ADAM integrates and replicates with AD, sometimes requiring MS Identity Integration Server 2003, but not always.

If you have a majority of Windows-based servers with an Active Directory domain and group policies, then check out Vintela for bringing those non-Windows boxes into AD.