All Blog Posts (85)

There are still many server environments around where it seems to be normal that each and everyone from the IT department acts as a domain administrator. Mostly this is tolerated because of the simplicity of server management. The same is true for a lot of service accounts which are being used on server side.This way the application administrator doesn't have to worry about any access rights locally and within the Active Directory infrastructure.

The easiest way to reduce the domain…

I see there are four suspiciously spam-like posts in the blog feed, which I saw in my RSS reader.

Unless, of course, "discount Uggs" is a reference to some SAN controller I am not aware of?

Discuss.

We all know that malware is evil, but like most evil things there are some valid uses for them (that's true, right? Evil things can have uses, even in a Time Bandits sort of way? I thought so.)

Well, in case you don't believe me, here are the top 10 uses for malware that don't require you to be evil.

10. As a little present for the…

Prior to remotely installing Office 2010 to your company, you'll want to run the admin tool, also known as the Office Customization Tool.

We have a video which demonstrates using the Office Customization Wizard. We'll also…

A profile in PowerShell is nothing more than a script file that is run when the shell starts. This file is very handy to create variables, functions, or change settings that you find you use a lot. Instead of having to re-import a library of functions or change the shell's settings each time you start up PowerShell.

The variable $profile holds the name of the file that you are using for the current shell. PowerShell doesn't create this file, so it won't exist out of the box, but the…

The Internet is full of successful protocols such as HTTP, FTP, DNS, SNMP, IMAP and myriad others. Let us not forgot those protocols that never quite reached stardom, or died right out of the gate. Here are the top 10 protocols that, for one reason or another, never made it mainstream.

10. HTTPf

Hyper Text Transfer Protocol fecure

Similar to HTTPS but everything is encrypted by converting to old English.

9. FCP

File Corruption Protocol

Never really…

In a recent post entitled Security Administration - Tradeoffs I discussed the dangers of making things worse in an attempt to make them better. All changes have a downside, however small, and if you can't see a downside it means you haven't analyzed the change sufficiently.

This was brought into stark contract when I read this…

Okay, now you've got some servers consolidated using virtualization (you are consolidating servers, right?) But what do you do with the old boxes? Sure, you could donate them to a charity or recycle them in an eco-friendly way. But where's the fun in that? Here are some other ideas.

10. Cubicle space heater.
9. Fill with sand for large zen garden.
8. Add realistic wind noise to flight simulator game.
7. Glue front panels on…

I was on a long haul international flight a few days ago, trying to endure 14 hours in a metal tube. As my troubleshooting mind usually does, it was thinking of ways to make the flight more comfortable and efficient. I had all kinds of wonderfully impractical ideas about ways to speed up baggage collection and deal with the poor sucker in the window seat needing to use the lavatory with two sleeping people blocking the path (one reason I always get an aisle seat.) As I was thinking of my…

In the course of our duties as Sys Admins I'm sure we've all "pushed the wrong button" a few times. If you haven't yet, you probably haven't been a Sys Admin very long.

About 10 years ago while working on a project which was wrought with political and technical paranoia I decided to prepare my own "Lysine Contingency" in the event that the…

We all get frustrated from time to time (yes, even system administrators.) One very common way that we let off a little steam is with a few well-chosen words. It's one thing to let loose with a string of invective that would make a sailor blush out of sheer laughter when you're alone, but it's just not good form to do it while sitting at a user's desk with them watching over your shoulder. That is, unless you want to go to that $&#@% HR sensitivity training again.

We're all…

Photo by quacktaculous

After a standard 22 hour shift of remote software deployment, getting medieval on UAC and completely wrecking the…

At work I’m trying to get my head around our virtualisation, like many companies we have sort of just sprawled as the days went on building new VM’s for almost any request just so we didn’t have to buy any more ‘expensive’ hardware. I have been working with Virtualisation software for the past 4 and a half years, almost from the day I started my current job.

During this period I have worked…

Anthony has many years of experience with technology solutions and is now working with large customers around securing their environments. Since launching…