Wednesday, January 31, 2007
Cisco IOS is Affected by Multiple Vulnerabilities
Most people have probably already seen the cert advisory over security vulnerabilities found in Cisco IOS if you have not then you might want to have a read of the link because if you use Cisco hardware then you might be affected and it's a sure bet that the vulnerabilities will be exploited soon.
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
Password Mangement Software
Passwords are a real (but necessary) pain in the neck. These day's it seems that every site requires registration and if you are being good by being secure with different passwords at each site then it will very quickly become unworkable. What is needed is a good tool to manage all the passwords.
Like all software, there are many commercial password management systems out there but when I was looking for a password management tool I was looking for something simple, secure and free. What I found was Oubliette which fits the criteria perfectly. unfortunately, the software is no longer under active development but the last released version has worked for me with no obvious issues or flaws. the only change I am in the process of making to the software is to convert the installation to MSI that way I can deploy the software via a GPO.
Like all software, there are many commercial password management systems out there but when I was looking for a password management tool I was looking for something simple, secure and free. What I found was Oubliette which fits the criteria perfectly. unfortunately, the software is no longer under active development but the last released version has worked for me with no obvious issues or flaws. the only change I am in the process of making to the software is to convert the installation to MSI that way I can deploy the software via a GPO.
Monday, January 29, 2007
Hosting Companies
Several people have asked me to recommend hosting companies and over the past few years I've used three. This blog is hosted by Gradwell but I've also used 1 and 1, Rackspace and TDM
Rackspace is much more of a full on commercial hosting solution but the support from them is truly second to none and the interface for managing the site is very easy indeed. The whole system has been setup for very quick and easy management of hosted server environment. Generally shared servers are setup in a few hours and dedicated servers take a day. The whole process is very smooth and the staff very helpful.
Gradwell offers several different packages. The package I use is the agency hosting lite package which proves a decent amount of disk space, full hosting, email and a host of other things. The really nice thing about Gradwell is that it's easy to bolt on additional servers that you need. For example, if you need more web space then it's easy to add additional space for a small additional fee. The control panel has recently been updated and is reasonably easy to use. Support is very good with some calls being answered by Peter Gradwell himself and the stability of the service has increased in leaps and bounds over the past 12 months.
1 and 1 offers very good value for money and a range of hosting options. At one point I was going to host this site on 1 and 1 but due to a nasty customer services experience which has left me feeling that 1 and 1 don't really care too much once the money has been received.
Saying that, they do offer a range of packages for a decent cost.
TDM are also a corporate-only hosting company but rackspace they are NOT. The support has been poor but they do offer a range of services up and beyond the normal hosting packages but the few times I have had to deal with them I've found the communication from them to be poor but the actual support quite good. In fairness to TDM I've never used them for anything I have wanted to host - I have had to speak to them for the company I was working with.
Rackspace is much more of a full on commercial hosting solution but the support from them is truly second to none and the interface for managing the site is very easy indeed. The whole system has been setup for very quick and easy management of hosted server environment. Generally shared servers are setup in a few hours and dedicated servers take a day. The whole process is very smooth and the staff very helpful.
Gradwell offers several different packages. The package I use is the agency hosting lite package which proves a decent amount of disk space, full hosting, email and a host of other things. The really nice thing about Gradwell is that it's easy to bolt on additional servers that you need. For example, if you need more web space then it's easy to add additional space for a small additional fee. The control panel has recently been updated and is reasonably easy to use. Support is very good with some calls being answered by Peter Gradwell himself and the stability of the service has increased in leaps and bounds over the past 12 months.
1 and 1 offers very good value for money and a range of hosting options. At one point I was going to host this site on 1 and 1 but due to a nasty customer services experience which has left me feeling that 1 and 1 don't really care too much once the money has been received.
Saying that, they do offer a range of packages for a decent cost.
TDM are also a corporate-only hosting company but rackspace they are NOT. The support has been poor but they do offer a range of services up and beyond the normal hosting packages but the few times I have had to deal with them I've found the communication from them to be poor but the actual support quite good. In fairness to TDM I've never used them for anything I have wanted to host - I have had to speak to them for the company I was working with.
Sunday, January 28, 2007
Change of Domain Name
Just a quick update to let you know that this blog's URL is changing to http://blog.gdwnet.com. If you access it via http://www.gdwnet.com then be aware that this page will be changed from being a redirector to an index page for some other sub domain sites I'm setting up.
If you are ONLY interested in the blog then you might want to update your bookmarks.
If you are ONLY interested in the blog then you might want to update your bookmarks.
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
Sharepoint 2007
Last week I was asked to install Sharepoint portal server 2007 onto a windows 2003 server. I've used sharepoint many years ago and figured that the installation would not be too difficult so I downloaded the ISO file from technet and fired the installation up to be hit with a message that I was missing a whole list of pre-requisties. This was the start of roughly four days of fun and games getting Sharepoint working.
To install Sharepoint you need to have the following installed:
ASP.Net 2.0
.Net Framework 3.0
NTFS formatted file system
IIS
I assume that most people will read this will know how to install the above items, anyone new or new-ish to Windows may have some problems especially as things like .Net Framework requires a trawl through Microsoft's site - Why this couldn't be included on the installation CD remains a mystery.
Once the pre-requisites were in place the installation was fairly simple and uses the new 'single button' installation in Microsoft office. When the installation is complete a configuration wizard launches that goes through 10 configuration steps - All of which are hands off and once done your Sharepoint server should be up and running.
The one thing that tripped me up was a slightly over-zealous blocking policy on McAfee. This was causing a couple of nasty browser error messages. It took a while to figure out that something in McAfee didn't like that sharepoint was dynamically creating a file called webresource.axd and then executing it. The result was that most buttons in sharepoint didn't work and several javascript error messages stating "library not regsistered" or "webform_postbackoptions is undefined". A red herring was several dozen DCOM error messages in the registery where NETWORK SERVICE is not granted access to a DCOM object. It seems that even with this security restriction it still all works.
Make no mistake that even once installed it's not just a matter of clicking and using, There is still a fair amount of work that needs to be done to get the best out of it as a system. Right now I have only got the basics up and running but I'm planning on looking at the intergration between sharepoint and Office with the goal of being able to save an office document directly into sharepoint.
To install Sharepoint you need to have the following installed:
ASP.Net 2.0
.Net Framework 3.0
NTFS formatted file system
IIS
I assume that most people will read this will know how to install the above items, anyone new or new-ish to Windows may have some problems especially as things like .Net Framework requires a trawl through Microsoft's site - Why this couldn't be included on the installation CD remains a mystery.
Once the pre-requisites were in place the installation was fairly simple and uses the new 'single button' installation in Microsoft office. When the installation is complete a configuration wizard launches that goes through 10 configuration steps - All of which are hands off and once done your Sharepoint server should be up and running.
The one thing that tripped me up was a slightly over-zealous blocking policy on McAfee. This was causing a couple of nasty browser error messages. It took a while to figure out that something in McAfee didn't like that sharepoint was dynamically creating a file called webresource.axd and then executing it. The result was that most buttons in sharepoint didn't work and several javascript error messages stating "library not regsistered" or "webform_postbackoptions is undefined". A red herring was several dozen DCOM error messages in the registery where NETWORK SERVICE is not granted access to a DCOM object. It seems that even with this security restriction it still all works.
Make no mistake that even once installed it's not just a matter of clicking and using, There is still a fair amount of work that needs to be done to get the best out of it as a system. Right now I have only got the basics up and running but I'm planning on looking at the intergration between sharepoint and Office with the goal of being able to save an office document directly into sharepoint.
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
Predicition - Vista uptake to be slow in 2007
Several people have asked me why I don't think Vista will make many inroads into the O/S market in 2007.
My reason for this is quite simple, Whilst Vista will be forced onto new machines and laptops thanks to Microsoft's naked PC policy many who are IT professionals or know enough to understand some of the jargon will avoid Vista like the plague because of it's perceived heavy handiness against 'ripped' DVD's and CD's - Ripped in this context means legally purchased CD's and/or DVD's but where the contents has been ripped from the CD or DVD in order to allow playing on the PC or for transfer to a 3rd party device (e.g. iPod).
There is some truth in the rumor that Vista employs some heavy-handed content protection but it's only for high quality content played over certain interfaces. I'm no DRM expert but the information listed here makes for very interesting reading. If I understand this correctly then even without premium content being played certain A/V devices will STILL have to check in with the O/S every 30 milliseconds and this will be a massive performance hit.
The second crippling factor for Windows Vista are the tricks it employs to ensure that nothing in the Kernel is tampered with. This hasn't gained as much notice as the DRM additions but it's been around for a while. An article on the register website does indicate how third-party personal firewall and anti-virus vendors think that Microsoft is playing foul with them over locking them out of the Kernel all in the name of security.
Vista's launch and sales figures will be very interesting indeed...
My reason for this is quite simple, Whilst Vista will be forced onto new machines and laptops thanks to Microsoft's naked PC policy many who are IT professionals or know enough to understand some of the jargon will avoid Vista like the plague because of it's perceived heavy handiness against 'ripped' DVD's and CD's - Ripped in this context means legally purchased CD's and/or DVD's but where the contents has been ripped from the CD or DVD in order to allow playing on the PC or for transfer to a 3rd party device (e.g. iPod).
There is some truth in the rumor that Vista employs some heavy-handed content protection but it's only for high quality content played over certain interfaces. I'm no DRM expert but the information listed here makes for very interesting reading. If I understand this correctly then even without premium content being played certain A/V devices will STILL have to check in with the O/S every 30 milliseconds and this will be a massive performance hit.
The second crippling factor for Windows Vista are the tricks it employs to ensure that nothing in the Kernel is tampered with. This hasn't gained as much notice as the DRM additions but it's been around for a while. An article on the register website does indicate how third-party personal firewall and anti-virus vendors think that Microsoft is playing foul with them over locking them out of the Kernel all in the name of security.
Vista's launch and sales figures will be very interesting indeed...
Tuesday, January 09, 2007
2007
2007 promises to be another packed year in the IT industry with a raft of new releases coming out of Microsoft.
Personally, I can't see Vista making much of a dent in Operating Systems sales apart from people who are buying new pc's and don't have much clue - Vista will be forced upon them no matter if they want it or not.
Office 2007 looks gorgeous and I do like using it - But does it REALLY offer anything new? In the grand scheme of things no it doesn't. It's just another suite of office applications and let's be honest Office 2003 pretty much provided all the necessary applications and fixed a few glaring problems from previous versions.
Exchange 2007 - This I can see having a lot more impact. Exchange 5.5 is no longer supported although many places still use it and interestingly enough, Outlook 2007 will not work on Exchange 5.5 although there is no tech note to indicate this but it is referenced on slipsticks site
I'll be covering Exchange 2007 more in a few weeks time.
Away from Microsoft will we also see Fedora Core 7 released at the end of April.
2007 could also see the introduction of the 1TB drive although once formatted you will only get about 800GB usable... even so the thought of 4 or these in a machine is quite something...!
As for this blog, I'm planning small updates (tricks, tips, etc) once a week or so with larger "here is how to do THIS" type articles once a month or so.
I wish everyone a fantastic 2007.
Personally, I can't see Vista making much of a dent in Operating Systems sales apart from people who are buying new pc's and don't have much clue - Vista will be forced upon them no matter if they want it or not.
Office 2007 looks gorgeous and I do like using it - But does it REALLY offer anything new? In the grand scheme of things no it doesn't. It's just another suite of office applications and let's be honest Office 2003 pretty much provided all the necessary applications and fixed a few glaring problems from previous versions.
Exchange 2007 - This I can see having a lot more impact. Exchange 5.5 is no longer supported although many places still use it and interestingly enough, Outlook 2007 will not work on Exchange 5.5 although there is no tech note to indicate this but it is referenced on slipsticks site
I'll be covering Exchange 2007 more in a few weeks time.
Away from Microsoft will we also see Fedora Core 7 released at the end of April.
2007 could also see the introduction of the 1TB drive although once formatted you will only get about 800GB usable... even so the thought of 4 or these in a machine is quite something...!
As for this blog, I'm planning small updates (tricks, tips, etc) once a week or so with larger "here is how to do THIS" type articles once a month or so.
I wish everyone a fantastic 2007.
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