Networking AND WWW

MS 70-113 Free Paper

2008-12-04T23:58:00.001-05:00

Microsoft recently introduced performance based testing exam. I recently took the 70-113 exam & loved it. It is an innovative way of knowing how someone would perform in real scenarios as oppose to selecting an answer from MCQ (multiple choice questions) format. The exam was divided into two performance labs, which requires you to perform series of tasks on a virtual server environment. The tasks were selected from a range of different topics on Windows 2008 Server including Active Directory, GPO, FSMO roles, DNS, DHCP, Certificate Services and other general topics. At the end of the two labs there were 37 questions in old MCQ format. There was no scoring or result for the paper as it was a promotional paper, so there is no pass/fail criteria.

The first 3000 test takers will be given three free vouchers for other exams. Microsoft have extended the offer till December 17th for the free 70-113 Windows Server 2008 Active Directory, Configuring exam. 70-113 covers the same topics as 70-640.

To perform well on this exam you should grasp ins & outs of windows 2008 Server, especially Active Directory. I see that the “..first 3000 takers getting three free vouchers..” statement has made lots of people to go for the paper even without knowing anything about Active Directory and finishing the paper in quick time – just to get 3 free vouchers. In my opinion this offer should have a catch like first 3000 free exam takers with certain % score rather than just the first 3000 takers. That way MS could have got the true value out of this free exam.

Check the links below for some more details about the exam

http://blogs.technet.com/betaexams/archive/2008/10/27/registration-for-pilot-70-113-extended-until-december-17th.aspx

http://mcpmag.com/reviews/exams/article.asp?editorialsid=122

Check the links below to prepare for the test or to see Win2008

TechNet Virtual Lab: Managing Active Directory – Directory Services

Windows Server 2008 – Learning Portal

Prometric Testing Site

Free Windows XP & Vista

2008-11-05T22:22:00.001-05:00

Free, yes absolutely free VHD images of Windows XP with SP2, SP3 & IE6, IE7 & IE8 and also Win Vista with IE7 are available from Microsoft site as free downloads. It is a great way to test websites using different versions of IE.

Internet Explorer Application Compatibility VPC Image

Check the link below for other free VHD images of Microsoft products including Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, SharePoint Server 2007, ISA 2006 firewall, Exchange Server 2007, BizTalk Server 2006, Identity Lifecycle Manager 2006, forefront and system Center products.

Run IT on a Virtual Hard Disk

Free Updated AntiSpywares

2008-01-10T21:42:00.000-05:00

LavaSoft Ad-Aware has released a new free version of their anti-spyware tool Ad-Aware 2007 Free.

The Ad-aware 2007 free detects and removes worms, Trojans, spywares, malicious items from your system. This new version removes the older version if you have it installed. The version is Microsoft Windows Vista compatible. This new version adds the program as a service for better protection from new threats.

Another good free anti-spyware tool is Spybot Search & Destroy. Their newer version sits in the system tray and actively monitors system for suspicious system behavior.

Technet Trial Software Center

2007-11-04T11:28:00.000-05:00

Technet Trial Software Center offers a single place to use trial versions of MS software. Check the link for details.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/bb736012.aspx

LUA Least Privilege to User Accounts

2007-01-01T18:03:00.001-05:00

Few years back, I was working in development center. Every developer wanted to have full system rights to install everything they want. End result was lots of system failures, viruses, Trojans & what not on the network.

Giving users limited access to system by making sure all application functionality work was a difficult task. At that time I read few articles on the topic. (Read my comments & input on the topic at the bottom of these articles)

1. Keys to the Kingdom

2. Local Admin Rights, Right or Wrong

Since then Microsoft has done a lot of development in making sure applications work with limited-user access. Least-Privilege to User Accounts (LUA) has benefits of increased security, manageability, productivity, reduced cost & reduced privacy.

Check these articles for more details on the topic.

1. Applying the Principle of Least Privilege to User Accounts on Windows XP (Downloadable white paper)

2. Using a Least-Privileged User Account

3. Browsing the Web and Reading E-mail Safely as an Administrator

4. Running with Special Privileges

5. Aaron Margosis' Non-Admin Blog

6. Elevating privileges for an administrator

VisualStudio2005 SP1

2006-12-19T20:37:00.001-05:00

Service Pack 1 for Visual Studio 2005 has been released by Microsoft in mid of December. For details on improvements in VS SP1, check the link below.

Download VS2005 SP1

MS Office Accounting 2007

2006-11-01T22:22:00.000-05:00

Redmond giant also released Office Accounting 2007, a tool to manage your business finances. The express version of the product is available as free download from their IdeaWins website for the product.

The salient features of the product are:

· Off course free (Express version only)

· Look & Feel of Microsoft Office

· Customer & Financial Information in one place

· Have tools to sell online through eBay and get paid faster

· Startup Wizard helps you setup company quickly

· Import from Intuit Quickbooks, MS Money, MS Excel

· Customized Estimates, invoices & Pay orders

· Manage payroll & taxes with ADP’s integrated payroll service

· Use integrated PayPal to get paid faster

· more

The product is targeted at small or home-business users.

MS OfficeLive

2006-11-01T22:06:00.000-05:00

Microsoft has released OfficeLive in beta. Office Live offers a domain name, email accounts, business management applications like customer, project & document management tools. Office Live solutions are offered at three levels:

· Office Live Basics

· Office Live Collaboration

· Office Live Essentials

In beta all three solutions are free. After beta only Office Live Basics will be offered as free.

Windows Media Server Licensing

2006-10-19T22:01:00.000-05:00

While working on a streaming media project, I found Windows Media Licensing has lots items.

Streaming Media Server is part of Windows 2003 Server as free add-on. To encode streaming media files you can use Windows Media Encoder. Digital Rights Management (DRM) can be used to more protection of your media contents. There are many things to facilitate your streaming media.

I will cover streaming media later some time. For now see the below links on licensing of Windows Media technology.

1. Windows Media Licensing Fees and Royalties

http://tinyurl.com/y3g3lk

2. Licensing Windows Media Technologies to Create and Distribute Audio and Video Content

http://tinyurl.com/y689lj

3. Deciding Which Version Is Right for You

http://tinyurl.com/y355zw

4. Windows Media Licensing Program

http://tinyurl.com/y3p7za

Dont blink your eye use eEye BLINK Personal

2006-10-03T23:21:00.000-05:00

Stop blinking you eyes & download the free personal edition of eEye Blink. I recently came across this great tool from eEye Digital Security. It has some powerful features as:

· Intrusion Prevention

· Application & Network Firewall

· Identity Theft Protection

· Vulnerability Assessment

· Registry Protection

· Execution Protection & more

The Blink professional version costs $59 per system. Check the demo of the product for an overview.

eEye also offer some other free utilities.

Microsoft Acquired DesktopStandard

2006-10-02T23:30:00.000-05:00

Microsoft acquired DesktopStandard a company which provides compliance, security & Standardization tools. DesktopStandard provide some of their tools as free which are PolicyMaker Registry Extension, GPOVault, and PolicyMaker Software Development Kit.

Check their website for more.

2006 Salary Survey

2006-08-31T20:18:00.000-05:00

Check this out:

http://mcpmag.com/salarysurveys/

System Administrator Day

2005-12-09T18:36:00.000-05:00

No one’s life is miserable than that of a System Administrator in an IT company.

I found a site & came to know that there is day celebrated as “System Admin Day” .. in appreciation of their efforts.

On the site they have some nice pictures, some funny things on ‘System Admins’ & they have a song on System Administrator Day & Video as well. Some of the articles I like on the site are:

Why you can’t find SA
In week in the life of SA
101 things you don’t want your SA to say

Visual File Comparison

2005-11-29T11:17:00.000-05:00

Document comparison is not new today. I remember there were limited command line options in DOS days. It allows you to compare two files (often different versions of same document) for differences.

There are lot of tools which provide you these functionalities. You can use fc.exe command in windows. Or you can check WinDiff from Microsoft as well. But Recently I found a free version of a tool called ExamDiff which allows you to compare two files visually. It has a nice GUI with the support of command line parameters. I had two versions of a SQL scripts with a lengthy code. With ExamDiff I found out the difference in the two within seconds.

You can look for some other File Comparison tools.

Get Alive with Windows Live

2005-11-22T10:31:00.000-05:00

Microsoft has introduced Windows Live - a beta version of their hosted email & IM service with lots of other cool features to come. All you need is a registered domain.

Windows Live will offer features like:

Email & Instant Messaging for your domain
20 domain email accounts each with 250 MB
Virus & Junk email Protection
MSN Spaces Integration
Windows OneCare Live (virus scanning, firewall settings and software backups)
Live Search

Check the Ideas of Windows Live The service will make & keep you aLive.

Google Analytics

2005-11-14T13:01:00.000-05:00

Gogole Analytics will provide free hosted Web analytics service that businesses can use to track the effectiveness of online marketing campaigns

Some highlights of this service are:
- Free Service
- Learn how visitors interact with your website
- Identify the navigational bottlenecks in your site
- Finding how profitable your keywords are across search engines and campaigns
- Pinpoint where your best customers
- Easy-to-understand visually enhanced reports
- Available in different languages
- Integrated with Google AdWords

Google Analytics
http://www.google.com/analytics/

Features Detail
http://www.google.com/analytics/feature_fast.html

SQL Server 2005 & VisualStudio 2005

2005-11-08T09:09:00.000-05:00

Microsoft has released new version of its databases called SQL Server 2005. Along with that they've also released visual Studio 2005. Both the products have been released in multiple editions.

Microsoft Releases SQL Server 2005, Other Packages
http://tinyurl.com/9xsgk

SQL 2005 Site
http://www.microsoft.com/sql/

SQL 2005 Editions Comparison
http://tinyurl.com/9kxcw

Visual Studio 2005 Site
http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/

VS 2005 Products
http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/products/

You can download the Express versions of SQL 2005 & VS 2005 for free. These versions are small in size.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/

I've to leave now to get my hands onto these products, but before that on my work ;-)

Virtual PC 2004 or Virtual Server 2005

2005-11-02T12:52:00.000-05:00

With the acquistion of Connectix, Microsoft entered into the world of virtualization. Forget about the virtual world of MATRIX :D I'll talk on the virtual world of IT Systems.

They released the product with the name of MS Virtual PC 2004. Later they also launched Virtual Server 2005. So what is the difference between these two?

Virtual PC 2004 allows you to run multiple OS simaltaneously on desktops. Where as Virtual Server 2005 was designed to run many OS on servers. There is a document from Microsoft which compares the features of the two products.

Virtual PC vs. Virtual Server: Comparing Features and Uses
http://tinyurl.com/davyq

You can also check this Techrepublic article
http://techrepublic.com.com/5138-10880-5678323.html

Product Sites
MS Virtual PC 2004
http://www.microsoft.com/virtualpc
Download Page
http://tinyurl.com/5ul6k

MS Virtual Server 2005
http://www.microsoft.com/virtualserver
Download Page
http://tinyurl.com/4ygvo

Do check the FAQ's pages of the two products. Also view these webcasts to learn more.
http://tinyurl.com/7dcf2

Road map to Project Management

2005-10-20T17:02:00.000-05:00

What is it?

Project management is a methodical approach to planning and guiding project processes from start to finish.

Every Project Manager’s wish is to accomplish his project goals on time with available resources. PM can achieve the goals, but finishing it with the constraints of the project is big achievement of that PM. Constraints may include time limit, budget, standards to follow etc. Good planning in the beginning can save you from a lot of hassle in the middle of the project.

I’ll quote these words about Project Management which I read today. “There's never enough time to do it right first time but there's always enough time to go back and do it again.”

The Project Map gives you guidelines for doing your project right the first time. The Project Map discussed here outlines three phases of project.

Build a plan
Track & Manage Project
Close the Project

This map applies to Microsoft Project & Project Server products. You can go through it here.

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/assistance/HA010745311033.aspx

Sharepoint Portal Server 2003 SP2 Released

2005-10-19T15:49:00.000-05:00

Microsoft has released the service pack 2 for Sharepoint Portal Server (SPS) 2003.

Description of SPS 2003 SP2
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/887623/

Issues that are fixed by SPS 2003 SP2
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/906337/

Download SPS 2003 SP2
http://tinyurl.com/ac6zj

SQL SP to search for string in all tables in a DB

2005-10-12T10:04:00.000-05:00

When working on SQL databases, from time to time you feel the need to search for a integer / string in all the tables of a databses. While there are queries written by many but I found this one handy.

http://tinyurl.com/7c2ho

I wanted to search for a string while I was working on MS Project server database in production. This query solved my purpose.

1. Run the script (go to url above) in Query Analyzer for the database in which you want to search for a integer / string

2. Use the syntax mentioned or try one in the examples section to search for integer / string
3. View the results by querying the ##tmpSearchResult table

(Imp: Play with the script in your testing environment then use in production. Use it at your own risk.)

Security Enhancements in Office 2003

2005-09-07T19:16:00.000-05:00

Microsoft Office 2003 comes with a lot of security enhancements. To lower the security threats through office applications one should know what security features are available in office 2003 & how they work.

Office 2003 security technologies are divided in three groups:

a. Digital certificates and signatures
Digital Signatures
Code Signing
ActiveX Controls
Macros
Smart Tags
Macro Security Settings
Trusted Sources

b. Data protection and recovery
File Access Controls
Digital Signatures & Encryption
Personal Information Removal
Data Recovery with Auto Recovery
Anti Virus API
Information Rights Management (with RMS)
Permission Policies
Sharepoint Services

c. Application-specific features
Document Protection

With these security features, you can control access to confidential documents and lower security threats. Implementation of Office 2003 security requires better understanding of Office 2003 application, Windows platform security & other security services / products available from Microsoft like RMS, Certificate Services, GPO etc.

At the end don't forget to update your Office applications with latest service packs & patches. That is a separate discussion (Patch Management) but you can use Office Update button on the home of Microsoft Office site to check & update your office applications with latest patches.

For more on Office 2003 Security check these.

1. Office 2003 Security Enhancements
http://tinyurl.com/cty5n

2. Microsoft Office 2003 Editions Security Whitepaper
http://tinyurl.com/3tgwm

3. Macro Security Levels in Office 2003
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/assistance/HA011403071033.aspx

4. Working with Trusted Trust Publishers
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/assistance/HA011403091033.aspx

Exchange Server Badmail Deletion and Archiving

2005-08-22T09:39:00.000-05:00

On Exchange Server if messages have problem, those messages are moved into bad mail directory. Too many Bad mails can fill up space on server. To lower the burden of bad mails on System Admins, Microsoft released Bad Mail Admin utility. It can:

Automaticall delete / archive files in badmail directory of SMTP virtual servers
Put a limit on the size of the bad mail folder

You can download this free utility for Microsoft Exchange from http://tinyurl.com/6pxo5

EMS MS SQL Manager

2005-08-18T17:56:00.000-05:00

MS SQL Enterprise Manager is a powerful tool. But if you are looking for some administration tool for MS SQL / MSDE go for EMS MS SQL Manager.

It comes in two versions Professional & Lite (Compare). It’s a powerful database management tool with:

Easy Management of db objects
Advanced Data Manipulation Tools
Powerful Security Management
Visual / Text tools for Query building
Data import / exports
Administrative Tasks
& tons of other features

EMS MSSQL Manager Lite for Windows is free. You can download a copy from their website.

Microsoft Virtual Desktop Manager

2005-08-11T10:36:00.000-05:00

Virtual Desktop Manager is a small tool in Microsoft Power Toys for XP. It allows you to:

- manage 4 desktops from your taskbar
- gives you 4 times the monitor space
- Preview button provides a snapshot of 4 desktops

http://tinyurl.com/2meyw