Crash Course in WAN optimisation
"Making the wide area network (WAN) as fast and functional as possible requires planning, decision making, and troubleshooting -- and the technologies and products involved in WAN optimization are constantly evolving. Get up to speed with this collection of news articles and expert tips." More...

AV Forums
A useful place to for opinions, reviews and advice on the latest audio-visual gear. More...

How Email Works
TELNET to a SMTP host, and issue commands. Very useful for troubleshooting.
More...

Google Hack for free MP3s
Type the following in Google:
-inurl:htm -inurl:html intitle:"index of" mp3 "Black Sabbath"

I'm just downloading "Paranoid" now. It may be illegal but its fair: I've bought "Paranoid" on vinyl, cassette tape, and CD (several times). I have paid Ozzy Osbourne my dues! I came across this Google Hack on tech-recipes.com

XP-AntiSpy
"...a little utility that lets you disable some built-in update and authentication 'features' in Windows XP" More...

Switch from Windows XP to Mac OSX with ease
Good overview for MAC newbies. More...

Broadband Options
From eBusinesslive, an overview for clients. More... Also worth checking out is availability in the client's area. Either with Eircom or another provider More...

Troubleshooting STOP error messages
Great article on aumha.org. More...

ISA Best Practices Analyer
Microsoft has released the Internet Security and Acceleration (ISA) Server 2004 Best Practices Analyzer Tool. More...

Windows XP Resource Kit
Online at MS..."Tools for Troubleshooting". Some basic stuff (CMDCONS etc.) and some interesting System Restore info. More...

SQL 2005 Downloads

SQL 2005 SP1 More...
Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Upgrade Advisor (April 2006 version) More...
Feature Pack for Microsoft SQL Server 2005 - April 2006 More...

Remote Support: how to receive script output via email

Objective: Have script results emailed to you. The example below uses free disk space, but the procedure used below is useful in many situations.

Here's an overview:

[1] Write your script.
[2] Install BLAT
[3] Task Schedule a batch file which calls your script

[1] Write your script
Here's a sample script written in VB. There is tons of info online about WSH so I won't go into a lot of detail. Just ensure the script works locally before trying it on remote PCs. Oh! And don't test it on a live network.

' FREESPACE.VBS
' Report Amount of free space on each disk for each server specified in Input File
' Usage: cscript freespace.vbs > freespace.txt
' Script works fine throws an error on exit...?

Const INPUT_FILE_NAME = "D:\Scripts\Computers.txt"
Const FOR_READING = 1
Const HARD_DISK = 3
Dim strFreeSpaceinMBs
Set objFSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
Set objFile = objFSO.OpenTextFile(INPUT_FILE_NAME, FOR_READING)
strComputers = objFile.ReadAll
objFile.Close
arrComputers = Split(strComputers, vbCrLf)

Wscript.Echo "Free Disk Space Report"

For Each strComputer In arrComputers

Set objWMIService = GetObject("winmgmts:" _
& "{impersonationLevel=impersonate}!\\" & strComputer & "\root\cimv2")

Wscript.Echo "------------------------------------------"
Wscript.Echo "Server: "& vbTab & strComputer


Set colDisks = objWMIService.ExecQuery _
("Select * from Win32_LogicalDisk Where DriveType = " & HARD_DISK & "")

For Each objDisk in colDisks
strFreeSpaceinMBs = objDisk.FreeSpace
strFreeSpaceinMBs = strFreeSpaceinMBs /1048576 'convert to MB
strFreeSpaceinMBs = Round (strFreeSpaceinMBs, 2)
Wscript.Echo "Disk: "& vbTab & objDisk.DeviceID & " " & "Free Disk Space: "& vbTab & strFreeSpaceinMBs & " MB"
Next

Next


[2] Install BLAT
Download it and then install it from blat.net.

Here's the install bit:
Blat -install smtphost.bar.com foo@bar.com
More...

Here's how to send a test email:
blat myfile.txt -to username@yourdomain.com -s "Testing BLAT"

The point here is that Remote Support (username@yourdomain.com) will receive a test mail from foo@bar.com, proving BLAT is working OK. foo@bar.com can be an Administrator email box on the domain you want to monitor.

Troubleshooting BLAT: Add these to your command line: -superdebug -log blat.log
When Blat completes, check the log to see if your attachment was sent as
well. This is your first clue to what happened, if the attachment went, and if the problem is at your end or the far end. Worth noting is that Yahoo! Groups host a BLAT mail list.

OK, that's a script written and BLAT installed. Time to put all the bits together.

[3] Schedule a batch file to call your script

The freespace.vbs script logs to freespace.txt, this file is then emailed to you by BLAT.

REM FREESPACE.CMD
cscript freespace.vbs > freespace.txt
cd blat250
cd full
blat D:\scripts\freespace.txt -to username@yourdomain.com -s "Daily Free Disk Space Report"

In the above example, BLAT.EXE is D:\scripts\blat250\full.

Now just call the above with Task Scheduler! Easy-peasy!

Finally archive the emails you receive: put the free disk space data into an Excel spreadsheet for example. Unfortunately the ever-lovable pie chart may not be an appropriate graphical representation of our data set. Then, when a customer asks you: "based on current data usage rates, when do you predict we should think of buying a new file server?", you can whip out some bar-charts and (with a cheeky grin) intone: "Funny you should ask "I have that information right here!". Note- The above script in [1] could be modified to log freespace to a .CSV file and the results then BLATTED, but that's for another day.

To summarise, here are our cast of characters:
FREESPACE.CMD - a batch file
FREESPACE.VBS - a WSH script
FREESPACE.TXT - a text file
BLAT.EXE - an executable

FREESPACE.CMD is Task Scheduled to call FREESPACE.VBS which creates FREESPACE.TXT which is then emailed by BLAT.EXE to username@yourdomain.com

Troubleshooting Windows Firewall
Some good advice: "When possible, create firewall exceptions for applications, not ports." More...

Install CRM SBE on SBS 2003 Premium with ISA 2004
An excellent guide! More...

DBAN
"Darik's Boot and Nuke ("DBAN") is a self-contained boot floppy that securely wipes the hard disks of most computers. DBAN will automatically and completely delete the contents of any hard disk that it can detect, which makes it an appropriate utility for bulk or emergency data destruction." More...

Vladville Articles
"I firmly believe that a problem should be solved exactly once and I hope that by documenting my solution I can save you some time and my own in the future when I forget how I did things in the first place." More...

Security Monkey Linkage
Includes a link to a Security Wiki and a 'top security tools' list More...

Rewriting Exchange addresses
"The company you work for buys a smaller company. The newly acquired company exists in its own Active Directory forest and has its own Exchange organization. Management wants all e-mails coming from the newly acquired company to reflect the parent company's domain name. There are techniques that can be used to consolidate the networks, but doing so takes a lot of time and requires an extensive amount of planning. You need a plan for changing e-mail addresses now." More...

Stored procedure: Determine last database backup
"Are you sure you have maintenance plans are in place for every new database? Are you sure the backup frequency is correct? Here is a small stored procedure to help you verify such backup information." More...

Tour de SQL: Part I, Versions
"Join us on a journey through the lush fields and tricky backroads of SQL Server 2005" More...

Step-by-Step Guide: Planning your migration to SQL Server 2005
"The new features in SQL Server 2005, the race is on and adoption is in full swing. Many organizations are leveraging these features to ease current issues or gain competitive advantage in the marketplace. So how are DBAs accomplishing this task? In this tip I will outline technical options to consider when migrating to SQL Server 2005." More...

Scripting Service Accounts in the Enterprise
If there's no budget for a third-party commercial tool, this month's free tools can still be a big help. I'm giving you a set of command-line tools (written in VBScript), which are designed to help automate service management. More...

Managing Intellectual Property & IT Security
New Blog: an interesting case history on "Disgruntled employees and Intellectual Property Protection". A useful one to use for customers who insist on thinking their staff are all angels! More...

Securing Your Terminal/Citrix Servers with The Security Configuration Wizard
"The Security Configuration Wizard (SCW) is a so called attack surface reduction tool" More...

Why and how to implement SecurID Authentication
Overview of how to implement SecurID with ISA Server 2004 More...

Radmin.com
Free tools - IP scanner, LAN scanner with remote shutdown capabilities. More...

Registry Edits for Windows XP
From Kelly's Korner. More...

To Citrix or Not to Citrix?
"My advice? Read. Learn. Do your research. You will be surprised how much you can do without Citrix." More...

SBS Blogs

Official SBS Blog

MS SBS Community Blog

SBS Diva

KWSupport (SBS MVP)

SBS Migration
Apparently there are two ways of migrating from SBS 2000 to SBS 2003 on different hardware:

(a) The "Swing" method - see sbsmigration.com

(b) The ADMT method: which requires you to rename your Domain and server and work on each workstation. More...

IpSec
Dave Northey's blog has a very concise (esp. for an MS head!) run-down on how to implement IPSec. Dave writes, "if I can implement domain issolation from one side of A5, it really can't be that difficult". Nice one Dave! More...

Driverquery
Output a list of drivers on an XP Pro (only) machine to CSV
driverquery /v /fo csv > drivers.csv

Tools of the Trade
Windowsecurity.com have a couple of great articles on commonly used tools such as tcpdump, winpcap, nmap, netcat and ettercap : Part 1 & Part 2.

"A program is trying to access e-mail addresses you have stored in Outlook"

Make Those Pesky Outlook Security Warnings Disappear (Carefully!) Using Express ClickYes - Part 1 & Part2