Author: Dexter

Getting around RDC protocol

Posted on September 5, 2012 by Dexter

From a Windows perspective, you kinda need Windows remote desktop protocols. Even if you don’t know what it does, your IT admin uses this on a daily basis if he/she is running a Windows based environment.

Remote Desktop in a nutshell is the ability to “drive” another Windows based computer remotely. So what happens when you’re trying to connect to a Windows computer, from a non-Windows computer?

I ran across this when working on a super old Windows 98 computer. As used as I was to many Windows 7 commands, taking a quad leap backwards felt as unnatural and old fashioned as you would think. I’ve even memorized the command line to bring up the remote desktop protocol from run line:

mstsc -v: thebigoldserver.somecompany.com

See? Nice and simple. But the command prompt on the Windows 98 computer simply gave me the error that such a command did not exist.

Once I realized that it wasn’t 1998, I had to rethink my approach. So, how could I connect to a server without the RDP program?

2x Client. This little guy is touted as an RDP solution (thus the anti-citrix bandwagon). The great thing about 2x is that it does not require any older version of RDP to work (as many software vendors tend to do: repackage their software using existing run times).

I’m also an avid visitor of portableapps: programs that can run directly from a USB stick. The website offered the 2x client as a portable application. Onto the USB stick it went, along with a few other useful utilities.

2x works with OS X, android and multiple distributions of Linux as well. So there really is another way to get around the RDC protocol.

-Dexter

How to: Be a freeware champion

Posted on August 21, 2012 by Dexter

Windows in general can a be a pain in the ass.  There’s tonnes of software on the market that’s pricey depending on what you want get done.  Sometimes you need an enterprise class solution for your vexing problem and it can only be achieved by dropping a few thousand dollars.

 

And sometimes, just sometimes you can peruse the freeware section of a website and be astounded by what is lying in wait that can be your perfect solution.  The problem therein is which website offers the safest surfing experience?  Can you trust a websites freeware?  Is it really malware just waiting for you to execute?  There’s never an easy answer.  So here’s a sure fire list of websites that offer freeware that I know and use on a regular basis:

 

Gizmo’s freeware
http://www.techsupportalert.com/
A real nugget of free applications that do everything.  All content is nicely organized in categories that make sense.  Most freeware is crapware free and each software has independent reviews based on a 5-star rating system.  All pro’s and con’s for each software is listed, and offers up screenshots for any software you’re wary of installing.

 

NirSoft
http://www.nirsoft.net
For all the IT Administrator essentials, most are packed away in this must-have website.  Utilities range from wireless sniffers, DNS checkers, password recovery options to system tweaking tools.  Everything is laid out right on the main page heading style.  This website scores extra points as all software is developed by the same programmer Nir Sofer, and most are stand alone executable files that do not require installation!

 

Major Geeks
http://majorgeeks.com/
One mother of a download site, Major Geeks has been a staple of the internet and continues on with it’s tradition of offering all it’s freeware hosted locally on it’s internal servers. Just about anything can be found right here.

 

So go on, give it a shot and see what you can download.

 

-Dexter

How to: Save your contacts in Outlook

Posted on August 1, 2012 by Dexter
Here’s a protip: Save your contacts!  Should your computer need to be reformatted or upgraded, you run the risk of losing the contacts you email on a frequent basis.
Why is this?
When you start typing a name in your address field and Outlook offers completion suggestions, that’s called auto-complete – and that does NOT get backed up anywhere.
Solution?
Copy that person into your address book.  When you get a new person’s email, right click on their name in your outlook, and choose “Add to Outlook Contacts”
It’s really that simple: plus it takes away [some] the woes of your IT Administrator.
-Dexter

How to: locate product numbers and serial numbers on HP and Dell computers

Posted on July 28, 2012 by Dexter

You have to know the serial numbers of HP computers and servers in order to get warranty.

If you run Dell machines, you need the Dell asset tags in order to get warranty.
As it turns out, many times you’ll be no where near your computers but have remote access (hopefully).  So how can you get either the HP Serial Number or the Dell Asset tag remotely?  Read on.
For both cases you need to open a command prompt: many of you should be familiar with this, if not, goto the Start menu and type in ‘CMD’ to bring up the familiar black DOS prompt.
See the below table to obtain the corresponding information on the right:
command information
wmic bios get serialnumber HP: shows Serial Number, Dell: shows Dell Asset tag
wmic csproduct get name HP: shows model name: Dell: shows base model
wmic /namespace:\\root\wmi path MS_SystemInformation HP: shows product number, Dell – nothing man, just nothing
This handy spot of information might come in handy for you one day if your ILO or Dell Open Manage software isn’t installed.
-Dexter

How to: Check your .Net Framework version on Windows 7

Posted on July 26, 2012 by Dexter

.Net Framework was easy to spot in the older versions of Windows XP, if you went and checked your ‘Add or Remove Programs’ section of control panel you’d see it plain as day:

As Windows matured, the .NET Framework became intertwined with the operating system.  So it became tougher to figure out if you actually had it installed.  A hint for anyone using Windows 7 right now: if you’ve installed Service Pack 1, you will undoubtedly have it installed: it’s required to run most, if not all of the fancy graphics engine behind aeroglass and most of the search functions.
If you’re ever inquisitive enough to wonder which version you have installed, you’ll notice your listing of installed programs and windows updates will usually not have it listed – again, this is because it’s such a core component of it’s Common Runtime Language, it’s become a given.
Websites offer up ways to see what version you have by way of checking directories and registry items.
I however, prefer a more direct approach instead of copying and pasting version numbers into Microsoft’s website – a little tool that’s downloaded doesn’t require any other run time to show you exactly what version you have installed: Asoft version detector.
Just Download and run right from the desktop, and it gives you all the juicy details you need.
So why would you need to know the version?  In my case it was work related as a program needed a particular framework to run a monitoring tool.  I can’t even speak as to why you would need it.  But it’s just a damn handy, if not very cool way of knowing what you got installed.
-Dexter

My love letter to Drobo

Posted on July 25, 2012 by Dexter

Drobo is a US based firm that makes storage devices for home and small business. The amount of bays available range from 2 to 10 and you can purchase disks of any size, and all the units offer protection using their home-grown BeyondRAID.

I personally don’t own a drobo, I have to use one at one of my jobs and it’s quite painful, the list below will explain why:

  1. You have to use the Drobo Dashboard for everything.  The Drobo Dashboard is a windows based platform, and installs a Drobo service into your windows registry. It only takes up 20 MB of space, but you have to use it to configure shares, administrator passwords, IP addresses, and most of the other tools including copy jobs and so forth. The dashboard is java based so it seems to take a long time between clicks to get somewhere useful. Waiting to get to the admin panel takes 4 clicks, and clocked in about a minute. That might not seem like a long time, but when you’re pressed for time waiting for some animation to finish, it gets very tiring, very quickly. I’d prefer to see a web browser interface. My home NAS has it, and it can be accessed anywhere as long as I can forward the right port.
  2. It’s slow.  Copying to and from this thing caps out at 20MBps. That’s on a good day. It’s surprising since I’m running full GB nics forced with 9000MTU’s on each Drobo. This is using a Cisco catalyst 2960 with full Gig duplexing turned on. I can copy files from PC to PC at close to 80MBps – why does this drobo with 10TB of storage only recieve a quarter of that speed? I thought “maybe it’s just the computer I’m using”. So after installing SSH with many reboots (see below) I logged in and did a “rm-r” command from putty. The command seemed to take up to 5 minutes to work on one 4GB file.
  3. The apps don’t always work.  The Drobo website says it’s a simple: from the GUI (that has to be loaded from Windows), enable the droboapps check-mark (in a place that doesn’t really make sense). Then the unit restarts (why, I don’t know). When it restarts, it produces a new share called droboapps. Put whatever droboapps you can find from the Drobo website into this folder and restart [again] so the folders expand and install. However, the apps don’t always work properly – I tried to get ssh working and after restarting how many times it still didn’t show port 22 as being open. The same thing happened with Rsync: after finally getting ssh to work after about 5 reboots I tried Rsync from the command line, only to be shown ‘Rsync is a not a recognized command’. Lovely.
  4. You can’t view the log files.  The log files on the Drobo are all encrypted when you generate them. Why would a company encrypt their log files in the first place? Some of the most useful features of any NAS or storage unit is the ability to view history in the log. Useful information such as boot times, RAID configuration, share points, local users, groups, even being able to see a TIME stamp would be helpful, instead all I have is the GUI, that can only be loaded from a local computer, and only has basic options.
  5. You don’t know what kind of RAID configuration you’re getting.  When you first set up the RAID array, it doesn’t specify what type you want, it just seems to create it’s own RAID structure (see BeyondRAID). The only option you’re presented with is “protect my data”. I don’t even know what that button really means, it just does SOMETHING and the amount of free space I have somehow changes.
  6. Copy jobs aren’t saved on the the unit.  There’s a Drobo copy feature you can access that allows you to copy information from a PC to the Drobo.  I found this useful as I could copy another network share onto the Drobo.  However, that option disappears when you change computers or open the Drobo GUI on another computer – the job should stay with the drobo device. Just annoying
  7. Barely any features.  No USB connections, no eSATA connections, no print service ability, droboapps are sparse if not dismal.

Perhaps I’m a little critical on the Drobo offering, as I had tested all performance with one unit. When another showed up on my desk I had to configure a replicated backup solution I was a little perplexed why both had terrible transfer performance. Drobo insists that the ISCSI transfers are fantastic, but I don’t plan on putting any virtual media onto this yet as I’m not certain it will break past the 20MBps threshold I consistently achieve. The original intent for this was to be used as a file server, given the poor performance I can’t in good conscience recommend it. The other painful point is the lack of Active Directory integration, the linux file permissions just don’t work for a business with a Windows Domain Controller.

I’m hardly the first person to complain about Drobo units, and by the looks of things I certainly won’t be the last.

Drobo seems to reply back to every piece of negative media, which makes me wonder if the company is attempting more damage control and not enough development.  I’m certainly not fishing for anything here, with my experience with this device there’s certainly no way one would find it’s way in my home.

Specs:
Model: Drobo Pro FS - (2 of the same model )
Disk config: 8 x 2TB WD Green 5300 RPM drives for both
Role of Drobo Pro FS (1): backup to disk location
Role of Drobo Pro FS (2): replication of backup to disk

 

-Dexter

How to: uninstall Trend Micro OfficeScan [locally]

Posted on July 24, 2012 by Dexter
This applies if this is true to you:
*it is Windows XP/Windows 7
*A Version of Trend Micro OfficeScan, probably 10 or above
*Computer is offline, or not connected to network
*You don’t know the uninstall / unload password
*the computer was part of your domain, but is no longerTrend Micro makes a great product, so great in fact that’s it’s near impossible to crack uninstall the product if you forgot the uninstaller key.This is generally an easy thing to do if you access to the Trend Micro admin console.  Of course, that would be too easy.  My case involved a computer from a company that was bought out, had the software installed and needed our company’s AV installed.Go to the Trend Micro Office Scan Client directory; usually:  C:\Program Files\Trend Micro\OfficeScan Client\Locate and open Ofcscan.ini with notepad (or any other text editor).

look for the

[INI_CLIENT_SECTION]

change the value of the Uninstall_Pwd to:
!CRYPT!523F7DC2E525044E2800FCDEA7E5D78B70C0A4165387060525E3EE66D5D2D2F460EA361E712B5F871FD473C7A6C

and change the value of Unload_Pwd to:
!CRYPT!523F7DC2E525044E2800FCDEA7E5D78B70C0A4165387060525E3EE66D5D2D2F460EA361E712B5F871FD473C7A6C

save and close the file.

Unload officescan by right clicking the icon on the bottom dock and choosing ‘unload’.

for the password, enter:  “trendmicro” (without the quotes).

You can now uninstall the program with the same password!

-Dexter

How to: Add Ctrl+Alt+Del to your Windows 7 Computer

Posted on July 19, 2012 by Dexter

If your computer is part of a Windows Domain, you will likely see this screen staring at you first thing in the morning:

Most Windows domain computers offer the basic security principles in place, such as the now famous Press CTRL +ALT+DEL screen you’re familiar with.
The screen itself is meant as a security measure to deter humans and bots alike from logging in, as the keys are strategically placed so they’re not pressed accidentally.
If you’re not part of a domain, but would like the added security that CTRL+ALT+DEL offers, you can do it with a few simple steps:
1. From the start menu, type “netplwiz”
2. Click the Advanced tab, and in the Secure Logon section, place a checkmark on “Require users to press Ctrl+Alt+Delete”
3. Hit Apply, and OK.  And log off to see the changes!

How to: Export Android phone contacts to Microsoft Outlook

Posted on July 11, 2012 by Dexter
Topic originally covered in a another article.
This set of instructions is a bit misleading.  Misleading if you have the following set of circumstances:
-Microsoft Office Outlook  2007 – 2010 to import the files into
-Windows 7, or any Windows platform
These instructions ask you export your contacts from your android phone using:
people->options->import/Export to SD Card
You get one singular .VCF file for your troubles.  Once you get that .VCF file onto your computer it’s not a simple task of dragging it to your outlook.  Outlook only imports one contact from that .VCF file into your contacts.
Here’s the thing: the Android phone converts all your contacts into one really big .VCF file.  That one file has multiple contacts inside – Microsoft office only imports the first entry it sees.
Microsoft Outlook can only import .VCF’s, or rather only sees .VCFs as using the <STARTVCF> and <ENDVCF> headers in the file.  Once it sees the first <ENDVCF> it stops importing.  How incredibly novel.
Here’s the trick: you need to convert the .VCF file into a .CSV.  Happily, there’s a solution online.  The link will upload the file for you and output it into a .CSV file.
When you import into Outlook, choose file->import from a file.  And you map the fields so it all makes sense.

How to: Export Text from Any Screen

Posted on July 11, 2012 by Dexter
There’s just some things you can’t copy from a Windows explorer pane.  The other night I was trying to copy and paste the list of Windows KB updates from my computer.  As is with some windows panes, it’s actually a table built from a SQL query a la Windows that has no copy/paste functionality.

A solution exists in free 3rd party software:  Nirsoft, a treasure trove of Windows executable files that require no installation offers SysExporter.


As the name of the software implies, it can lift the text off any text based program you see on your screen.  I happily could copy and paste the KB names of the Windows updates I wanted to manually download into an Excel sheet and was on my way.


-Dexter