Month: July 2006

Extending the ISA Firewall’s SSL Tunnel Port Range (2004)

Extending the ISA Firewall’s SSL Tunnel Port Range (2004)

Having problems connecting to SSL sites that use an alternate port number? No problem! Check out this article for an explanation of the problem and a quick fix.

I finally had a use for this fix. In the last year I had my two of my websites hacked so I decided to investigate ways to improve security. Some of the options I was looking at was sftp, ssl ftp, and accessing the files via a browser using https. UPdating the site using a browser with a SSL connection looked simple and easy but my firewall was stopping me from using the non-standard SSL port. This fixed my problem.

Linksys.com – SPA3102

Linksys.com – Products/Business Solutions/VOIP/Linksys Voice System/SPA3102

The SPA3102 is an improved version of the SPA3000. It includes one FXS, one FXO, a router/firewall, and some intelligent call routing. Pretty slick!

Reinstall and Restore Win XP Activation

Reinstall and Restore Win XP Activation

If you have to reinstall Win XP on the same equipment, you know what a pain it is to reactivate XP. This simple guide tells how to backup and restore two small files so you can avoid reactivation.

I never knew this. This could be handy. Activation is so annoying.

Microsoft Kills Off ‘My Private Folder’ App

Microsoft Kills Off ‘My Private Folder’ App

Microsoft quietly added the free encryption utility earlier this month, and then just as quietly deleted it. The utility allowed users to encrypt and store files inside a private folder.

When I first saw this product I thought it was a TrueCrypt me-too product without the documentation. The nice thing is that it got the blessing of Microsoft. Besides the blessing from Microsoft I could not think of a reason for me to switch from TrueCrypt to ‘My Private Folder’. In a way I am sorry to see it go. There is a serious security/identity theft issue with laptops that encrypted virtual disks/folders can reduce. Ophcrack shows how easy it is to crack operating system passwords so a pragmatic person has to assume that the operating system passwords will be compromised fairly quickly. Encrypting sensitive data without using the operating system passwords becomes a step improvement in security. Using TrueCrypt is not the perfect answer but it is better than no security.

RE: On My Way to Microsoft!

On My Way to Microsoft!
I’m very pleased to announce that Microsoft has acquired Winternals Software and Sysinternals. Bryce Cogswell and I founded both Winternals and Sysinternals (originally NTInternals) back in 1996 with the goal of developing advanced technologies for Windows. …

I wish Mark and Bryce good luck with their new employer. I have always found that their utilities and knowlege to be first rate. I am hopeful that both Microsoft and the rest of us will benefit from having them as Microsoft employees.

Difficulties with KB917537

It seems a lot of folks had problems with KB917537. After patch Tuesday I let my SBS install the patches. All of the patches failed to install. Then the server asked me to reboot. I tried a second time and it failed the same way. I tried a third time using an express Windows Update and it failed again. So I went off to do other things.

In a day I started hearing about the problems people were having with KB917537. So I went back and updated everything but KB917537 via a custom Windows Update. It worked. Finally I tried the “really” manual approach. I downloaded the patch file and ran the executable. It finally worked!

VMware Delivers Free VMware Server

VMware Delivers Free VMware Server

I have become a fan of VMware. I have used VirtualPC in the past but became interested in their products when they offered VMPlayer for free. When they offered free usage of the server product and encouraged the VMTN appliance community, I switched.

My use has generally been in two areas:

  1. Testing new slipstreamed installations of Win XP.
  2. Playing with pre-built appliances.

The first appliance I started playing with was Asterisk at Home or now know as Trixbox. I have downloaded several versions over the last couple of months using BitTorrent. There is a bit of learning curve for this product and I did not want to waste time setting up a test box. There is a market for supporing this product but I do not have a customer right now.

The second appliance I have started playing with is a couple of Nagios/Groundworks variants. Nagios is an open source network monitoring program and Groundwork Open Source is a free version of a commercial variant of Nagios. Due to some recent discussions I had with my son in which he maintained that our internet access sucked, I decided to investigate the matter further. I originally downloaded a prebuilt Groundwork Open Source system by Tony Su of Su Network Consulting. The good news is that he had built it. The bad news is that he released it as a virtual disk drive rather than a virtual appliance. As a result it was a little harder to set up than Trixbox. To compound the problems the network adapter needed to configured before it would do anything. Trixbox configured the network adapter during startup so this was new territory for me since this was a SUSE box.

Along the way I found a posting about baywatchos. It was a Groundwork Open Source system built upon Centos which is the same operating system used by Trixbox. My familiarity with Centos and the fact that it had Webmin already installed were pluses for me. The author even provided a nice Getting Started document in English. After a brief configuration I had it working. Gianluca, you did a fine job!

My next project will be to move these virtual appliances to my ghetto box and see how well they run. This should be amusing. Groundwork has some pretty stiff hardware requirements.

Aimless Ramblings from a Blithering Lunatic . . . : Eureka!

Aimless Ramblings from a Blithering Lunatic . . . : Eureka!

If I schedule a backup of a Sharepoint site using stsadm, then I can restore that site – but only if the destination server has the same system state and STS_Config database as the original server. Not normally gonna happen in a disaster recovery scenario. OR – I could schedule a backup of a Sharepoint site using smigrate, and get a backup set that I can restore to any site on any Sharepoint server at any time, without having to worry about system state or the presence of other databases such as STS_Config. Take a guess what I’m going to be using for my scheduled Sharepoint backups going forward . . .

One of the biggest challenges with Sharepoint is backup and restore. Actually let me redefine backup and restore by the tasks we hope it will accomplish.

  1. Total restore. This is when we want to recover the entire backkup from a disk drive failure, theft, fire, hurricanes, etc.
  2. Partial restore. This is when we want to recover a specific file or group of files. The classic example of this is when someone calls and says they accidentally deleted the document or presentation they were working on yesterday.
  3. Archival restore. This is when we are asked to keep archives of files or groups of files for a period that goes beyond the backup retention cycle. Compliance laws typically push this requirement.
  4. Migration restore. This is a bit more complex. This is when we want to save the data in one format or structure and restore it into a different structure or format. This happens when we change data bases, operating systems, or storage technology.

The present Sharepoint backup technologies cover the total restore task pretty well. The partial and archival restore tasks are covered best by third party products. It is the migration restore task that the author is talking about. The standard backup is not independent from the template or the STS_config. By using the smigrate utility you can migrate your data to a new format or new server. The price is right. Obviously, this is worth further investigation!

Offline files finally fixed

My XP box had a problem with offline files not synchronizing. I would click on the offline files icon and it would say it had one file that needed to be synchronized.  I would synchronize the files and then in a minute it would go back to saying it had one file to synchronize. It would synchronize again when I logged off but it would still have one file needing synchronization. I tried to find the file but everything looked like it was synchronized.

I finally decided to do something drastic. I booted up in safe mode and deleted the CSC subdirectories. I had a couple of Gigabytes in the subdirectories when it should only have been 400 MB. Something was really screwy. There were a couple of files above the subdirectories.  I guess I was curious what would happen so I left the files them alone.   When I rebooted everything worked fine. It did take a few minutes to sync the offline files but that was small price to pay to get rid of this annoyance.

Gpg4win – EMail-Security using GnuPG for Windows

Gpg4win – EMail-Security using GnuPG for Windows

Today I upgraded from 1.0.1 to 1.0.3 and experienced problems verifying files. I could not verify a file with GPGee or WinPT. The files had been verified under 1.0.1. GPGee said I had an invalid key and WinPT did not show any results. GPA did verify the file. I re-installed a second time with an uninstall, reboot, and install to see if was an installation error by me. I got the same errors. I have reinstalled 1.0.1 and it verifies the files again.

TrueCrypt 4.2a updated

TrueCrypt v4.2a
TrueCrypt is a software system for establishing and maintaining an on-the-fly-encrypted drive. On-the-fly encryption means that data are automatically encrypted or decrypted right before they are loaded or saved, without any user intervention. No data stored on an encrypted volume can be read (decrypted) without using the correct password or correc…

This is an open source programs I use everyday. I think it is essential for your sensitive data if you still run your laptop with XP Home.

Updating BlackBerry software

Yesterday when I was paying my T-Mobile bill I checked out the downloads section for my BlackBerry phone and found that they had posted a new software version for my phone. The Desktop software was the same version. So I downloaded the new version and updated my phone. The good news is that it added some nice features. The bad news is that the browser was missing, I was having problems syncing with Outloook, and both PocketDay and Opera Mini are broken.

I cleaned up the browser problem by downloading new service books. This also created new icons for my business and personal email accounts. This feature I liked! I cleaned up the Outlook error by deleting the offending contacts(i.e. They were mistakes!). I did find a newer version of the Desktop software on BlackBerry’s website but it did not fix anything. I fixed the PocketDay problem by downloading a new version. I still have not gotten Opera mini to appear. When I try to download it from the website I get a HTTP 500 server error with the error detail referring to a javalang.NullPointerException error.

RE: Revisiting RSS reader choices

Revisiting RSS reader choices
As a result of not resolving the “Feed errors – “Web failure” … forbidden” issue that I started about a month ago, I’ve had to rethink my use of RSS Bandit. I’ve really enjoyed using RSS Bandit, and feel that I’ve contributed some knowledge to the community, but with an unresolved problem, I’ve had to move on. If you’re interested in my evaluation of RSS Bandit v.1.3.0.42, GreatNews 1.0 Beta (Build 370), RSSOwl 1.2.1, Feedreader 3.05 and Abilon 2.5.3 build 196p, you can read it at http://daviding.com/blog/index.php/archive/revisiting-rss-reader-choices/ .

I guess I am a sucker for trying out new RSS readers. After reading his post I decided to give Greatnews a try. At least it had w.Bloggar support in it. That was good since the Blog This support for WordPress did not work as expected. The feed I tried Blog This on had a bunch of %20 in the url that got converted into 20. My first surprise was to see how small a download it was. It was less than 1 MB. Both RssBandit and RssOwl are about five times larger. My second surprise was that it loaded pretty quickly compared to RssBandit. My initial guess is that it does not use as much cpu as RssBandit. I probably need to review my cleanup settings in RssBandit. My third surprise was that its default newspaper layout was visually appealing and easy to work with. I had tried out some newspaper layouts in the past but never liked them.

I like this reader and plan on giving it an extended tryout.