Bye Bye Blogger

My blog is now over at http://www.swifttrain.com

Finally bit the bullet, this will be my last post on Blogger.
Found it ok to use but difficult to do anything but post text so I have followed Rob
http://spaces.msn.com/members/knowledgebyte onto MSN spaces which seems to be very rich in features but not totally convinced performance is quite as good as blogger.

Anyway catch you over on the other side

Mark :-)

XP Class Links

Ad-Aware SE Personal Edition - Reviews and free downloads at Download.com

DNS Stuff DNS tools, DNS hosting tests, WHOIS, traceroute, ping, and other network and domain name tools.

Download details Windows AntiSpyware (Beta)

DriverGuide.com (printer drivers, cdrom drivers, modem drivers, sound drivers, mouse drivers, monitor drivers, etc.) - DriverGu

Grisoft Freeweb AVG Free Edition

makeITsecure

Marks Site (Xp Training)

Microsoft Windows Server 2003 TechCenter

Networking TCP-IP - My Tech Blog

Security Essentials for Windows XP Service Pack 2

Welcome to MCSEworld by Daniel Petri

Windows Server 2003 Home

Zone Labs Download & Buy

TCP/IP Subnetting Example

IP SUBNETTING – MANTRA ********

1) What Sub-net Mask Should I use ?

How many subnets are required ? = 27

Convert this number to low order Binary = 00011011

How many bits used to represent number ? = 5

Convert number of bits used to high order binary and convert to decimal = 248

2) How many subnets do I actually get using this mask ?

128 64 32 16 8 4 2 1

1 1 1 1 1 0 0 0
How Many bits were used for the subnet mask = 5
25 - 2 = no of subnets = 30

3) What are my subnet IDs

128 64 32 16 8 4 2 1

1 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 = 8


Starting at this number jump in increments of the same value (eg 8,16,24,32 etc..)
Until 1 below the subnet mask value ( i.e upto 240) There should be as many Ids as your calculated subnets figure.


4) How many HOSTS do I get per Subnet?

How many bits are remaining for Host ID? = 3 from third octet and 8 from fourth octet ie = 11 bits

11111111 11111111 11111000 00000000
255 255 248 0


2 11 -2 no of hosts per subnet = 2,046




5) What other HOSTS are on my Subnet ?
What value did you increment by {see 2) } = 8s
Which range does the subnet portion of your IP address fit into ?
Are the other hosts in the same range as you ?

Example
If your IP address is 131.107.26.10 with a subnet mask of 255.255.248.0 you fit in the range
Between 131.107.24.1 -> 131.107.31.254


Are these hosts in the same range as you
131.107.24.12 = yes
131.107.35.1 = no
131.107.56.20 = no
131.107.31.254 = yes

Tech Links

Intro to Tcp/IP http://www.yale.edu/pclt/COMM/TCPIP.HTM

Ireland ISP Point of Presence

Irish Free Dial-Up ISP Settings - Software
Eircom Net FreeAccess number - 1892 150 150Username - eircomnetPassword - eircomnetPrimary DNS - 159.134.237.6Secondary DNS - 159.134.248.17Incoming mail server (POP) - mail2.eircom.netOutgoing mail server (SMTP) - mail2.eircom.netnntp (news) server - news1.eircom.netwebspace ftp server - homepage.eircom.netftp server port number - 21default web folder - public_htmldefault web page - index.htm


IOLFreeAccess Number - 1890 924 042

Username - free
Password - freePrimary
DNS - 194.145.128.1Secondary DNS - 194.145.128.2Incoming mail server (POP) - pop.iolfree.ieOutgoing mail server (SMTP) - mail.iolfree.ieProxy - proxy.iolfree.iePort - 8080OceanfreeAccess Number - 1890923204Username - OceanfreePassword - OceanfreePrimary DNS - 194.72.6.51Secondary DNS - 194.72.6.52Incoming mail server (POP) - mail.oceanfree.netOutgoing mail server (SMTP) - smtp.oceanfree.netMore settings can be found at FreeDialupIsps on IIU Wiki

Exchange Service Pack 2 lands

Finally, Exchange SP2 for Exchange 2003 is available for download here
http://tinyurl.com/8gbq4

David Houston who manages the SBS Ireland Users group site http://www.sbsireland.com was the first person to let me know.

So what! I here you say, well firstly it gives us the ability to increase the information store from 16GB to 75 Gb in size which has to be welcome as I am sure a lot of us and our customers are coming close to the 16GB limit.

The update also includes support for SenderID http://tinyurl.com/8gbq4
which could potentially give us a decent tool to limit if not prevent someone spoofing a mail from our/your smtp domain.


Hands up how many of us are getting automated emails from Anti Virus software stating that a mail which we never sent contained a virus.

Good deed for today, please convince all those sys admins you know to turn off the email response that most AV products send to the sender of an infected mail because let's be honest in most cases the email address is spoofed.

The best post I have seen which both details the installation and the benefits of Exchange's new Service Pack has to be Vlad's on his blog.
http://www.vladville.com/articles/exchangesp2sbs2003.asp

who I had the pleasure to meet in SMB Nation in September but unfortunately I didn't get a chance to talk to properly, great article Vlad.

Regards Mark

APC Java issue causes Services to Hang

Thanks to Rob for this one.

Believe it or not the APC software usually version 6.x of Powerchute which a lot of IT shops run which provides the monitoring function for the UPS can cause a Windows Server to be become extremely unstable.

Basically the problem stems from an issue with the Sun java runtime which causes an event ID 7022 Service unresponsive.

Basically if you have a Windows 2000 / 2003 server that is extremely unresponsive before you suspect DNS / Active Directory or any other core service just check if are running a version of Powerchute prior to Version 7 and this just might be your issue.

As I was browsing for something else I came across Mark Wilson's great blog http://www.markwilson.co.uk/blog/ and a very detailed posting on how he resolved the issue

http://tinyurl.com/c6348

Regards Mark

Where has the M: Drive gone in Exchange 2003

Thought this would be interesting to anyone who works with Exchange. Exchange 2000 had a nice feature where you could access a virtual M: on the Exchange Server and access individual emails using explorer or even triggering events based on the existence of an email or not.


This feature is turned off by default in Exchange 2003.

Link to Microsoft Exchange Technical Library
http://tinyurl.com/d5ue8 Take a look at the M: drive section of this linked document it's a Microsoft link shortened with http://www.tinyurl.com

In fairness there was good reason to turn this off, as using an anti-virus product to scan this directory or even restoring to this directory was likely to cause corruption

Even without enabling the M: drive you can still access the virtual file system by using the following syntax.

dir file://BackOfficeStorage/mail.swift.local/mbx assuming your mail server’s FQDN was mail.swift.local this would list all the mailboxes in the information store

Hope this helps

Regards Mark