Rod Trent at myITforum.com : Internet

Poll: Facebook or Google+?

rodtrent — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 01:18:28 GMT

Quick, simple and to the point, but feel free to leave your comments…

The Deployment Guys gets a Facelift

rodtrent — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 15:37:45 GMT

You may have noticed that we have gone through a facelift here at the Deployment Guys blog – We now have integration to our Twitter and Facebook pages as well as an easier way to search for the posts that you need quickly (via the search box and the Tags list on the right hand side of the page)

The Deployment Guys gets a Facelift - The Deployment Guys - Site Home - TechNet Blogs

There’s more than just one System Center “Whitby” beta…

rodtrent — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 19:10:17 GMT

“Whitby” is Microsoft’s “cloud” search app (powered by Bing) for locating information about the various System Center products. Over time, you’ve heard about this one, or that one, but there are quite a few available already – even some for not-as-yet released products. See below…

VMM: http://cloudsearch.cloudapp.net/default.aspx?p=1

OpsMgr R2: http://cloudsearch.cloudapp.net/default.aspx?p=2

ConfigMgr 2012: http://cloudsearch.cloudapp.net/default.aspx?p=3

Management Pack Authoring: http://cloudsearch.cloudapp.net/default.aspx?p=5

ConfigMgr 2007: http://cloudsearch.cloudapp.net/default.aspx?p=7

PowerShell: http://cloudsearch.cloudapp.net/default.aspx?p=8

System Center 2007: http://cloudsearch.cloudapp.net/default.aspx?p=9

System Center 2012: http://cloudsearch.cloudapp.net/default.aspx?p=10

App-V: http://cloudsearch.cloudapp.net/default.aspx?p=11

Med-V: http://cloudsearch.cloudapp.net/default.aspx?p=12

Internal MSD iX Training: http://cloudsearch.cloudapp.net/default.aspx?p=13

Dropbox authentication: insecure by design

rodtrent — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 11:12:30 GMT

For the past several days I have been focused on understanding the inner workings of several of the popular file synchronization tools with the purpose of finding useful forensics-related artifacts that may be left on a system as a result of using these tools. Given the prevalence of Dropbox, I decided that it would be one of the first synchronization tools that I would analyze, and while working to better understand it I came across some interesting security related findings. The basis for this finding has actually been briefly discussed in a number of forum posts in Dropbox’s official forum (here and here), but it doesn’t quite seem that people understand the significance of the way Dropbox is handling authentication. So, I’m taking a brief break in my forensics-artifacts research, to try to shed some light about what appears to be going on from an authentication standpoint and the significant security implications that the present implementation of Dropbox brings to the table.

Dropbox authentication: insecure by design

Microsoft’s Rules on IE Virtualization are Confusing and “Crippling”

rodtrent — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 17:28:25 GMT

There’s an interesting article over at TechTarget.com (IT pros fume over Microsoft's rules against IE virtualization). You might remember that I took this topic up a few weeks ago when Microsoft asked Spoon to yank IE off their web site. Since then, the situation has taken on a life of it’s own, uncovering something that has been brewing for quite a while. Spoon is only getting caught in the middle of a topic that has been hot for a while and only getting hotter. Gartner is even now weighing in.

The basic story is that Microsoft says “No” to IE virtualization, yet customers say “Yes” and do it anyway. I’m guessing the customer will win out eventually.

I was asked to comment on this topic last week, but unfortunately didn’t have the time to comment prior to the release.

I suspect Microsoft will eventually have to update the public to eliminate confusion over licensing and virtualization rules of Internet Explorer. Stay tuned…this could be one to watch, particularly as Microsoft continues it’s push to be the leader of “The Cloud” and virtualization practices.

Read TechTarget’s article

Microsoft Asks Spoon.Net to Take Internet Explorer Off the Cloud

rodtrent — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 02:44:46 GMT

Spoon is one of those really innovative products/services that has some serious promise in the world of the Cloud. I was first made aware of Spoon during TechEd 2010 US in New Orleans in the Expo. It was a bright spot. Since then, I’ve been watching their progress.

Spoon stores apps in the Cloud and allow you to run each application without having to install the application on the local computer. It’s really neat stuff and you should check it out when you get a chance. There’s a lot more to what Spoon is and does, but you can find that out at their web site.

As Microsoft is pushing “Cloud Power” and promoting that they are “all in” it’s ironic that Microsoft has requested that Spoon drop versions of Internet Explorer from the Spoon servers.

http://www.spoon.net/Browsers/

On Spoon’s web site today it reads:

Microsoft Internet Explorer

Microsoft has asked us to remove Internet Explorer from this service.

We hope to work with Microsoft to restore cloud-based access to their browsers shortly, but in the meantime we have disabled access to Internet Explorer.

We will post more information as we learn additional details. Please check back with us soon, follow us on Twitter @spoonapps, or join our Facebook page at facebook.com/spoonapps.

Interestingly enough, all other major browsers are still be served by Spoon like Firefox, Chrome, Safari, and Opera. Also interesting is that Internet Explorer remains a free download from the Microsoft site and I’m sure there are quite a few instances and different versions sitting in VMs all over the world. It’ll be interesting to see what happens and what Microsoft’s communication will be on this.

Download details: Microsoft Download Manager

rodtrent — Thu, 20 May 2010 19:36:38 GMT

The Microsoft Download Manager enables you to download files from the Internet in a more reliable and faster way than using a browser alone. Using the Download Manager makes it easier to download large files such as an application or multimedia files. The Download Manager has been specifically designed to manage file downloads from supporting Microsoft Web sites in a secure and reliable way. Once started, the Download Manager displays an easy¬-to-use interface that shows the status of downloads and enables you to resume downloads if they have failed. The Microsoft Download Manager currently supports downloads from Web addresses starting with http://.

Download details: Download Manager

Internet Explorer Cumulative Update Releasing Out-of-Band

rodtrent — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 19:27:20 GMT

Today we issued our Advanced Notification Service (ANS) to advise customers that we will be releasing security update MS10-018 tomorrow, March 30, 2010, at approximately10:00 a.m. PDT (UTC-8). MS10-018 resolves Security Advisory 981374, addressing a publicly disclosed vulnerability in Internet Explorer 6 and Internet Explorer 7. Internet Explorer 8 is unaffected by the vulnerability addressed in the advisory and we continue to encourage all customers to upgrade to this version to benefit from the improved security protection it offers.

The Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC) : Internet Explorer Cumulative Update Releasing Out-of-Band

Google Dropping Support for IE6

rodtrent — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 16:05:44 GMT

In order to continue to improve our products and deliver more sophisticated features and performance, we are harnessing some of the latest improvements in web browser technology. This includes faster JavaScript processing and new standards like HTML5. As a result, over the course of 2010, we will be phasing out support for Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 as well as other older browsers that are not supported by their own manufacturers.

Google Dropping Support for IE6 - brentdpayne's posterous

What does this mean exactly? For Windows systems you may start to experience problems for customers or users still running Windows 2000, since Windows 2000 cannot be upgrade to IE7 or above. Its time to move those old dogs off older operating systems.

Microsoft Online Services Team Blog : New Sign-In Application and Update Notifications from the Application

rodtrent — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 20:05:07 GMT

Microsoft Online Services is releasing a new version of the Microsoft Online Services Sign-In application (version 1.0.1423.65). This new version includes bug fixes and new capabilities announced via this Team Blog in the December Service Update. The capabilities include support for additional languages as well as support for service lifecycle prompts within the Sign-In application; these prompts provide notification about the status of your subscription.

The new version of the application will be available from the Microsoft Download Center for users and IT administrators that wish to manually download and install the application.

Microsoft Online Services Team Blog : New Sign-In Application and Update Notifications from the Application

Facebook quizzes result in monthly phone charges…

rodtrent — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 19:17:06 GMT

I learned this the hard way this week, and wanted you all to be aware of a particular scam on Facebook. After scrutinizing our mobile bill this week, we found a few charges that made no sense. We called Verizon to chat about it and found out something interesting.

Apparently, there are certain quizzes (and probably other things) on Facebook that will automatically sign you up for “SMS text news” services that charge a monthly fee. They can do this when you have your mobile phone setup to receive SMS texts from Facebook. Once we knew what was happening, I was able to unsub from the service simply by replying to the text with the word “stop”.

But, its a bit unnerving that there are folks out there that do this purposely and write apps that will scam you like this. The lesson here is to be very careful which applications you allow to interact with your Facebook profile. Each application is supposed to include small print, particularly if it signs you up for a paid service, however, some don’t follow good Internet-citizen guidelines. Just like anything, you have to watch out for yourself.

You can also check with your cell provider. Verizon has the ability to block these types of things happening, so yours may, too.

Is IT Ready for End-User Self-Help Portals?

rodtrent — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 23:03:23 GMT

End-User self-help portals are getting more and more exposure in web articles and industry magazines. This survey is to help Matrix42 understand what you IT administrators are thinking and planning around end-user self-help portals.

http://www.myitforum.com/absolutepm/polls/matrix42.asp

Need to send out group voice messages? AbbyMe does a good job for free…

rodtrent — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 15:01:31 GMT

The interface is built on Flash, so its clunky and unresponsive at times, but AbbyMe does a good job. Since I coach high school soccer, I needed a way to send out messages to home phones en masse. Some other offerings charged about $40 for 4 months of services, but AbbyMe is a free service.

AbbyMe

Add the IE8 ADM file to available GPOs

rodtrent — Thu, 28 May 2009 22:24:00 GMT

This little utility installs the IE8 GPO settings on your domain controller so that the IE8 GPO settings are available for you to populate throughout your hierarchy. Distribute it using your favorite software distribution app, or install directly on the domain controller that houses the GPMC.

Download: IE8 GPO Installation

Installation developed with SMS Installer.

Download IPF and ADM Files SMS Installer Script and ADM File

Following MMS 2009 on Twitter

rodtrent — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 19:39:04 GMT

A bunch of folks have asked me recently about “who” to follow at MMS, and “how” to do it. I just saw today that Stefan has already taken the time to put this information together. Great job, Stefan!

So, as to not duplicate the wheel, check out Stefan’s blog post:

Stefan Stranger's Weblog - Manage your IT Infrastructure : Following MMS 2009 on Twitter