myITforum.com, Inc.

Solarwinds free network monitoring tools

rodtrent — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 20:20:54 GMT

You have to fill out some personal information to get to the download page for each tool, but here’s some tools you may find useful.

SolarWinds Free TFTP Server - upload and download executable images and configurations to network devices - our most popular free network monitoring tool!
NEW! SolarWinds Free Exchange Monitor - our newest free tool delivers a clever desktop dashboard that continuously monitors Exchange to deliver real-time insight into services, mail queue sizes, and host server health.
SolarWinds Free NetFlow Configurator - configure NetFlow v5 via SNMP on supported Cisco® devices - a perfect complement to Orion NetFlow Traffic Analyzer and the NetFlow Real-time Tool in Engineer's Toolset
SolarWinds Free Advanced Subnet Calculator - compute addresses for IP subnets - another perennial favorite in our suite of free network monitoring tools!
SolarWinds Free Wake-On-LAN - remotely power up network PCs

Reminder - Windows Search 4 coming to WU soon

rodtrent — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 18:21:56 GMT

http://www.myitforum.com/absolutenm/templates/?a=5304&z=71

PowerShell ASP

rodtrent — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 16:17:26 GMT

PowerShellASP is an ASP-like template language for Web Applications; templates contain a mixture of markup (HTML, XML or whatever you want to generate) and inline PowerShell code. At runtime, templates/pages are fully translated to PowerShell code and executed as a single unit inside a PowerShell pipeline, with the results sent to the client browser.

http://www.powershelltoys.com/default.aspx

70-298 Section 4.1 Q&A

Garth Jones — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 14:26:29 GMT

Define each of the following, with respect to this exam: Autonomy Isolation Security Boundaries...(read more)

UnprovisionEX Command Line Utility Released

rodtrent — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 14:04:29 GMT

The UnprovisionEx Utility is a simple command line utility that allows users to
remotely unprovision an Intel(R) AMT system without requiring a separate
management console. This utility supports Intel(R) AMT systems configured for
basic, standard and advanced modes (formerly known as SMB and Enterprise
provisioning), using digest authentication (simple username and password) or
Kerberos authentication.

http://communities.intel.com/docs/DOC-1763

Enjoying the MMS 2008 conference, again

pthomsen — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 03:39:00 GMT

Summary: my copies of the DVDs arrived today. It's a chance to enjoy the conference again (and in some ways for the first time).

Many of us have received the MMS 2008 DVDs this week, and others will soon, so now we can finally catch up on the bits we missed. (In fact, this was my worst year ever for attending sessions. Not because I was enjoying the 'activities' (there was some of that), but simply because I had a lot of side meetings and conversations.)

So I loaded up my Zune for tomorrow's hike (Granite Mountain - about 10 miles roundtrip, 3800 feet of elevation game). Despite the speculative aspect of them, I like keynotes, so those are a natural addition. And I'm still keeping an open mind for Powershell, so a couple of those sessiosn are loaded. The State of the Union would be my first choice, but that is only available in PowerPoint form - what happened there? Next week I'll check out the 'meatier' sessions (on the road to a Judas Priest concert). (and I'll post the link to where you get your own copy, if you didn't attend the conference)

So which sessions will you be checking out? (and don't feel obliged to say SI21 and SI22)

p.s. Am I the only one that wishes they'd add in the 'promo' videos? The comedian doing his cheesey bits, the attendees, the rock & roll, and the pre-keynote vidoes? I admit to being shallow enough to being inspired by them, and I'd like to continue that enthusiasm throughout the year. Why do they never make it to the DVD?

One way to separate padded stats from real stats

rodtrent — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 23:08:11 GMT

I've seen in several instances where web sites will show a really neat graph of site stats, displaying a huge amount of traffic, yet you have to pull back and scratch your head because there seems to be very little actual activity on the site.

I could go into examples, but shouldn't site activity somehow relate to actual traffic numbers? Yes, it should. But, traffic numbers can be manipulated in various ways, as I talk about one in particular in my recent post on Sites that provide active content *only* by pulling in information from other places.

From a myITforum.com perspective, we know that there is activity every day in the forums, email lists, new articles, blogs, the Wiki, news, newsletter, FAQs, myITforum.com TV, etc. There's not a single inactive day that goes by on myITforum.com. So, in our case, at least, the traffic does relate to actual activity.

But, as a vendor who might want to advertise on a specific site to reach a specific audience...how do you know the difference? How do you know the stats you are looking at are actual instead of padded? How can you determine if your marketing dollar will see real benefits?

Simple. Ask for activity stats. Ask for how many visitors a day, week, or month. Then ask for details of where activity is taking place, how often, and by whom. Take those numbers and relate them to the traffic stats (btw, traffic stats should be based on page views) you were given. This will give you better idea where your marketing dollar has the most value, and if the traffic stats you were given held any credence.

The last thing you want to do is buy advertising based on traffic stats alone, and then 3 months down the road have to tell management that you only made a couple contacts.

Potential New TechNet Subscribers save 15%

rodtrent — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 22:05:35 GMT

http://blogs.technet.com/matthewms/archive/2008/07/18/are-you-a-technet-subscriber-use-tmsam09-and-i-can-save-you-15.aspx

System Center Data Protection Manager 2007 Feature Pack (x86 and x64)

rodtrent — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 22:02:40 GMT

The DPM 2007 Update Rollup is a feature pack that includes previously released hotfixes alongside several new features aimed to enhance overall applicability and usability of DPM. Added features include: System state for Windows Server 2008 and SQL Server 2008 support, enhanced support for sharing tape libraries with other DPM servers, and support for better utilization of tape capacity by sharing tapes between multiple protection groups media co-location on tapes.

(x86)

(x64)

Email threat - Avoid free Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool

hwaldron — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 20:48:00 GMT

This new malware threat is well done from an HTML and social engineering perspective. Microsoft automatically includes MSRT with it's monthly Windows Update process, and never sends tools like this out using email. These messages should be deleted.

Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool Free Today
http://sunbeltblog.blogspot.com/2008/07/another-fake-ms-spam.html

QUOTE: As we all know, for quite some time now, spam has stopped just being a nuisance, and became a serious potential security threat. It used to be that one wouldn’t get too upset if the occasional Viagra email got through a spam filter. That’s no longer the case: Spam is a significant vector for malware infection through malicious links and social engineering, and if something gets through a spam filter — and then makes it past endpoint protection — one can have all kinds of nasty headaches.

EXAMPLE OF EMAIL MESSAGE CURRENTLY CIRCULATING

Subject: Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool Free Today.

The content in text format.

Click Here! *** Malicious link removed ***

About this mailing:

You are receiving this e-mail because you subscribed to MSN Featured Offers.
Microsoft respects your privacy. If you do not wish to receive this MSN
Featured Offers e-mail, please click the "Unsubscribe" link below. This will
not unsubscribe you from e-mail communications from third-party advertisers
that may appear in MSN Feature Offers. This shall not constitute an offer by
MSN. MSN shall not be responsible or liable for the advertisers' content nor
any of the goods or service advertised. Prices and item availability subject
to change without notice.

2008 Microsoft | Unsubscribe <http://www.msn.com> | More Newsletters
<http://www.msn.com> | Privacy <http://www.msn.com>

Microsoft Corporation, One Microsoft Way, Redmond, WA 98052

Sites that provide active content only by pulling in information from other places

rodtrent — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 20:11:22 GMT

Have you seen this? I’ve seen a lot of it, lately. To increase Google ad exposure, show activity on a site, increase site stats, and/or appear to be a more active site than it is, some sites resort to pulling in RSS feeds from other places to dupe folks into visiting a pretty non-active site.

Here’s one example. I caught a cool article headline, entitled: “ConfigMgr and OpsMgr Maintenance Mode” and thought it worthy to click to visit the site and read the article. Once I arrived at the site, I saw that the actual title of the site itself is called…

Then, at the bottom of the article I wanted to read it says this:

This post originated from and is provided by the MSDN Blogs RSS feed. The original post of the article can be found here.

So, it’s nothing more than a web site that captures posts from Microsoft's MSDN feed and dupes you into initially thinking its an original post.

Shame!

How many other sites can you find like this? Maybe we should start a new hall of shame, similar to the Ad Criminals I started recently.

BTW: Same article, different site. This site is called...

That one makes a lot less sense than the first one.

The MAP Toolkit version 3.1, released last week in Houston Texas at the WPC Conference – Deck provided to User Groups

rodtrent — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 18:44:31 GMT

What is the MAP toolkit?

MAP is an agent-less network-wide IT asset inventory and planning tool (formerly known as the Windows Vista Hardware Assessment tool).

Why is it so popular?

MAP provides multi-product coverage (Windows Vista, 2007 Microsoft Office, Windows Server 2008, SQL Server, Hyper-V, App-V (SoftGrid), SCVMM)
It’s Agent-less!
MAP generates comprehensive proposals/reports.
It’s FREE!

Where can I get it?

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb977556.aspx

Where can I learn even more about MAP?

Baldwin Ng, Senior Product Manager at Microsoft, has passed along his presentation deck from the WPC conference to all myITforum’ers so you can learn more about MAP.

You can download the deck here in the Shared User Group folder:

http://myitforum.com/cs2/files/folders/ugfodder/entry120111.aspx

Wisepackage- Software Packager- Boston MA

rodtrent — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 18:32:22 GMT

Our client, a prestigious management consulting firm in the Boston area, is hiring a Software Packaging Consultant for a 2+ month engagement as soon as possible. The incumbent will join a global IT support team and will be primarily responsible for creating and designing templates used for software packaging.
Important skills include:
Please contact Christy Hoffman at 781-530-3088 or choffman@winterwyman.com

5-10 years of relevant IT experience.
Experience creating and writing templates used in software packaging.
Wise Workbench experience.
Experience developing standards/templates (i.e., WSI, WSE) that would be used in future packaging work by other package/scripting engineers – the creation of reusable code.
Good scripting/development skills in a 32 bit front end application environment (VB Script, Perl, VB or .Net).
Experience with imaging technologies / systems tools administration (Managesoft or Altiris knowledge).
Experience with Wisepackage (they use wisepackage studio 7).
Basic reporting skills (SQL or other reporting tools).
Strong communication skills and background working preferably large global environments.

_____________________________
Christy Hoffman MM
Staffing Manager
Winter, Wyman Technology Contracting
Phone: 781-530-3088
Fax: 781-530-3988
choffman@winterwyman.com
www.wwcontracts.com
www.linkedin.com/in/christyhoffman

Recommended antivirus exclusions for OpsMgr

rodtrent — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 18:21:18 GMT

We’ve dealt with AV exclusions for SMS and ConfigMgr for a long time, so having information about recommended exclusion practices for OpsMgr 2007 is definitely welcome.

While not officially documented, the OpsMgr teams recommends the following:

For the application side:

I. Operations Manager Server:

“\Program Files\System Center Operations Manager\…\Health Service State” and all sub-directories

‘%windir\temp%’ or other directory depends on the directory store for the ETL files (defined in starttracing.cmd)

II. Operations Manager Agent:

“\Program Files\System Center Operations Manager\…\Health Service State” and all sub-directories

‘%windir\temp%’ or other directory depends on the directory store for the ETL files (defined in starttracing.cmd)

III. Database server:

OpsMgr /DW database directory and all other database directories

IV. OpsMgr Console:

\Documents and Settings\<USER>\Local Settings\…\Microsoft.MOM.UI.Console

V. In addition, the following directories:

%installdir%\Health Service State

%installdir%\Config Service State

%installdir%\SDK Service State

%installdir%\tools\tmf

%windir%\temp\OpsMgrTrace

VI. Processes:

Excluding by process executable is very dangerous, in that it limits the control of scanning potentially dangerous files handled by the process, because it excludes any and all files involved. If you do want to exclude the processes – they are documented below:

OpsMgr 2007 – monitoringhost.exe

VII. SQL Database Servers:

These include the SQL Server database files used by Operations Manager components as well as system database files for the master database and tempdb. To exclude these by directory, exclude the directory for the LDF and MDF files:

Examples:

C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL.1\MSSQL\Data

D:\MSSQL\DATA

E:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL.1\MSSQL\Log

VIII. Exclusion of File Type by Extensions:

Real-time, scheduled scanner and local scanner file extension specific exclusions:

OpsMgr 2007 (management servers and agents):

These include the queue and log files used by Operations Manager.

Example:

EDB, CHK, LOG.

Money Mule Recruiters use ASProx's Fast Fluxing Services -

cmosby — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 18:20:37 GMT

Friday, July 18, 2008 Money Mule Recruiters use ASProx's Fast Fluxing Services Just consider this scheme for a second. A well known money mule recruitment site Cash Transfers is maintaining a fast-flux infrastructure on behalf of the Asprox botnet, that is also providing hosting services for several hundred domains used on the last wave of SQL injection attacks. Ironically, the money mule recruitment site is sharing IPs with many of them. Who are these money launderers ( cashtransfers.tk ; cashtransfers...(read more)

Apple secretly installing crapware with latest iTunes update

rodtrent — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 17:17:26 GMT

No notification given…

Vista users greeted with an unexpected surprise: MobileMe

App-V ADM Template Now Available on Connect!

rodtrent — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 17:04:12 GMT

The App-V team is excited to make available a RC version of our App-V 4.5 ADM template. It has just been posted over on the Microsoft Connect site (http://connect.microsoft.com).

The template focus is on registry settings that are well suited to controlling via ADM Template/Group Policy infrastructure and are the most likely to be customized. The ADM Template covers over 40 registry settings, including many of our newest features. For example, the ADM Template includes:

New flags that allow overriding the location configured in the Open Software Description (OSD) file for the Application Source Route (ASR), the Icon Source Root (ISR), and the OSD Source Root (OSR) with the registry value located on the client
New Auto Load settings including when to target apps and what will start an Auto Load
New Reporting Configuration options
New Client Logging settings like maximum log size and number of copies to keep
All permissions settings visible through the App Virtualization Client
Disconnected Operation configuration
Client user interface settings that control how the Tray behaves

Our ADM Template allows controlling Preferences (not enforced policies). For an explanation of the difference, please see the Group Policy Team Blog. When you import the template, you need to go through the following steps to see it in the Group Policy Editor.

1. Click on Administrative Tools

2. Client View on the menu bar. Click Filtering.

3. Uncheck the “Only show policies that can be fully managed” check box.

4. Click OK

We hope this template will make it easier to manage App-V 4.5!

- The App-V Product Team

AVICode offering a free whitepaper for myITforum’ers

rodtrent — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 16:41:12 GMT

…and, also to those that simply want to join in on the myITforum offer. So, if you know someone not a regular myITforum.com participant, you may want to forward this information to them, particularly those who want to save the company time and support costs for troublesome applications.

Get your free copy of the whitepaper: “Line of Business Application Monitoring: Best Practices for Ensuring Application Availability and Reliability", by jumping out to the following link and entering a bit of information:

http://www.avicode.com/myitforumoffer.htm

What is it about AVICode?

Why offer the whitepaper to myITforum.com?

As you know, myITforum.com is the central spot for all things System Center. This includes applications such as System Center Operations Manager 2007 (OpsMgr or SCOM, as some say). AVICode has several products available to enhance and extend your OpsMgr 2007 implementation.

.NET Management Pack - AVIcode’s .NET Management Pack delivers a consolidated view of all .NET applications, featuring health status indicators that identify faulty application components and areas of performance degradation. When a problem is detected, the management pack provides a definitive root cause diagnosis, enabling better problem triage and faster resolution.
BizTalk Server 2006 Management Pack - AVIcode’s BizTalk Server 2006 Management Pack enables organizations to detect and diagnose problems inside their BizTalk Server custom-built applications. The management pack monitors for security and connectivity problems related to incorrect configuration of BizTalk Adapters, detects failures due to erroneous .NET code within custom-built BizTalk Orchestrations and Pipelines, and helps debug data processing errors inside XSLT transformations.
Office SharePoint Server 2007 Management Pack - AVIcode’s Office SharePoint Server 2007 Management Pack detects and diagnoses problems related to custom SharePoint Server-based applications. A complement to the Microsoft SharePoint Management Pack, the AVIcode technology provides deep-dive diagnostics into detected problems within custom-built web parts and BI dashboards, including performance, security, connectivity and application failures. The AVIcode management pack monitors various components of MOSS 2007, including Business Data Catalog and Office Forms Server 2007 activity, Excel Services and Enterprise Search calls. It can diagnose failures due to data inconsistency or incorrect metadata mapping inside a Single Sign On database.
Reporting Services Management Pack - AVIcode’s Reporting Services Management Pack provides monitoring for custom-built Reporting Services reports. The Reporting Services Management Pack provides automated discovery and configuration to make monitoring of the activity inside reporting web services easy. It isolates failures related to erroneous SQL statements and data inconsistencies, identifies performance bottlenecks due to long-running queries, and provides extensible reporting on web service usage.

ConfigMgr and SMS Powershell Script (Beta 1.3)

cstauffer — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 16:38:00 GMT

I put together this PS script to check information on my ConfigMgr 2007 Servers. It can also be used on the SMS 2003 servers. Please review it and let me know if anything needs changed or if you would like to see anything added.

Please be gental this is my first real PS script since learning PS last week so there are bound to be easier and faster ways to do what i am doing but i havent learned them yet so if you have input please keep that in mind.

Just save the attached file as SCCM_Info1.3.ps1 on your c drive

If you have powershell installed on you system you can fire this off by using this command at the command prompt:

powershell.exe -noexit c:\SCCM_Info1.3.ps1

Thanks

Chris Stauffer <><

Create HTML Help Files of PowerShell text files

rodtrent — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 15:43:19 GMT

Too cool!

http://blogs.vmware.com/vipowershell/2007/09/new-htmlhelp.html

Create your own Windows PowerShell manual

rodtrent — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 15:41:19 GMT

The Windows PowerShell teams posts a script that will merge all of the PowerShell text files together into a nice MS Word document that you can peruse, search, and even print.

Looks good…

http://blogs.msdn.com/powershell/archive/2008/07/18/dude-where-s-my-manual.aspx

VMWare blogger, Geert Baeke

rodtrent — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 15:35:27 GMT

With the Virtualization market heating up, it’s good to find new blogs working with all types of virtualization products. This helps cut down on the level of industry and vendor hype surrounding a specific product.

Geert Baeke is intent on working with and posting about VMWare apps.

Check it out.

Site: http://blog.baeke.info/blog

RSS Feed: http://blog.baeke.info/blog/index.xml

What is Intel vPro?

rodtrent — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 15:19:12 GMT

Take the online web-based training to find out:

http://vprotraining.intel.com/

YAMSIA (Yet Another Massive SQL Injection Attack) - TrendLabs Malware Blog

cmosby — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 13:05:10 GMT

Jul18 YAMSIA (Yet Another Massive SQL Injection Attack) by Robert McArdle (Threats Analyst) Clever mnemonics aside, last week we have seen another large scale SQL injection attack (or YAMSIA, if you prefer), this time being orchestrated by a botnet that has become known as Asprox—but first, a history lesson. The code behind the Asprox botnet seems to have been around for quite some time now, but it was only in the last year that it has upgraded to a botnet where its main focus is to send phishing...(read more)

70-298 section 3 Q&A Answer

Garth Jones — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 12:34:52 GMT

Which of the follow are encryptions that can be used for IPSec? 3DES Data Encryption Standard DES TDES Triple Data Encryption Standard Answer : This is a trick questions, all of them are encryptions that can be used by IPSec. DES is acronym for Data Encryption Standard 3DES & TDES are acronyms for Triple Data Encryption Standard...(read more)

70-640 Week 7 Q&A Answer

Garth Jones — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 12:11:00 GMT

Where are Security Templates stored by default on a DC? Answer : %SystemRoot%\Security\Templates...(read more)

New myITforum.com email discussion list: Intel vPro

rodtrent — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 12:07:54 GMT

Our partnership with Intel has really taken off over the past couple weeks, with Intel investing heavily in resources and time to make the partnership work extremely well.

Today, we’ve unveiled a new email discussion list just for Intel’s vPro technology. You can sign-up here:

http://www.myitforum.com/lists/#Intel_vPro_Technology

New myITforum.com email discussion list: Intel vPro

rodtrent — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 12:07:15 GMT

Our partnership with Intel has really taken off over the past couple weeks, with Intel investing heavily in resources and time to make the partnership work extremely well.

Today, we’ve unveiled a new email discussion list just for Intel’s vPro technology. You can sign-up here:

http://www.myitforum.com/lists/#Intel_vPro_Technology

Today’s Download; July 18, 2008

rodtrent — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 11:50:57 GMT

App-V Sequencing Deep Dive

Session Code: VIR450 Microsoft Application Virtualization 4.5 Sequencing Deep Dive Chris Lord Senior Program Manager Microsoft