Windows Tip: Two Vista tips and a story

By Mitch Tulloch, MTIT Enterprises

Today I've got two tips for you concerning Windows Vista, plus a story from a reader to lighten up your day. First, an article was recently published in the Knowledge Base on Microsoft TechNet that will help you determine which third-party vendors have been certified by the Windows Logo Program as working with Windows Vista. What's really interesting when you read this article is not which vendors' apps are on the list but which vendors aren't listed, such as Adobe, Symantec, McAfee, and so on.

Read the full article here

Unix Tip: Core dumps for dummies

By Sandra Henry Stocker

If once every several years, you have problems with a process and end up with a troublesome core dump, you might be able to extract some useful information from the file before you delete it from your system. In this week's column, we look at an extremely simple script intended to help you analyze core dumps without requiring you to remember the relevant commands.

Read the full article here

Windows Tip: Windows Vista and GPT disks

By Mitch Tulloch, MTIT Enterprises

Windows Vista supports two types of disk partitioning: Master Boot Record (MBR) and Globally Unique Identifier Partition Table (GPT). GPT disks offer several advantages over MBR disks including more partitions (128 instead of 4) and larger partition sizes (theoretically up to 18 exabytes or about 18 million terabytes). But before you run out and get a zillion terabyte drive for your Vista workstation so you can store all your YouTube videos, you need to know the following.

Read the full article here.

Unix Tip: Examining TimeZone data in Solaris

By Sandra Henry-Stocker, ITworld

In last week's column, I encouraged anyone who hasn't already patched their OSes for the imminent daylight savings time changes. This week, we look at a command for displaying timezone data and verifying the date on which the switch to DST will be made.

Read the full article here.

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Security Tip: Apple OS X users feeling the exploit pinch

By Brent Huston, MicroSolved, Inc.

Many Apple users have sat smug about the security of the OS X operating system. Pundits have expounded on its BSD roots, its imperviousness to spyware and malware, and overall lack of public exploits. Unfortunately, a lot has changed. The "Month of Apple Bugs" project has shattered much of the illusions around OS X's security. As of this writing, the project has released 31 public vulnerabilities for OS X and its supporting applications.

Read the full article here.

Storage Tip: Putting privileged information on hold

By David Hill, Mesabi Group

As part of the process of putting data on litigation hold in anticipation of or because of an actual lawsuit against your company, you may put privileged information on hold. Privileged information is any of the following: trade secrets, financial information, or other information that has nothing to do with the lawsuit at hand and can be considered confidential to your company. Your problem is to prevent producing (i.e., delivering) privileged information to the requesting party (i.e., whoever is suing your company) or, if you do produce it, getting it back. Here's what you need to know.

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Unix Tip: Wake up and patch the OSes

By Sandra Henry Stocker, ITworld.com

Time is running out for anyone planning to ready their systems for the biggest time-related change since Y2K -- the 2007 Daylight Savings Time change. As Americans turn their clocks ahead one hour this year -- three weeks earlier than previously, systems administrators will be well advised to ensure their systems will do the same. Timezone configurations on systems from Solaris and Linux to Windows will require updates if not already updated through a patch, OS upgrade or service pack, to accommodate the new dates for switching to and then back off daylight savings.

Read the full article here.

Security Tip: Build a virtual security lab on a shoestring

By Brent Huston, MicroSolved, Inc.

One of the most important aspects of running a good technical security program is giving your technical team members access to an environment where they can refine their skills, perform adequate testing and play with new technologies and applications to keep skills current. Here is a look at the way we have been building prototype security labs on a shoestring.

Storage Tip: Expect digital video to expand its data security role

By David Hill, Mesabi Group

Digital video will expand its data security role and move further into mainstream IT. View it as a good idea to be proactive about taking on additional responsibility. After all, it can provide a little more spice in your life, but more importantly you can view it as a job growth opportunity. Take advantage of it.

Windows Tip: Troubleshooting a USB flash drive

By Mitch Tulloch, MTIT Enterprises

Don't throw away that USB Flash drive too quickly. If the drive fails after connecting to the network it could be an issue with the network.

Read the full article here.

Windows Tip: Restoring individual files from a CompletePC Backup

By Mitch Tulloch, MTIT Enterprises

Windows Vista has a new backup feature called CompletePC Backup that backs up everything on your computer in one easy step. And you can back up everything either to another hard drive such as a removable USB drive or DVD. Then later if you need to restore your computer due to instability or corruption, you can boot from your Windows Vista product DVD while holding down F8 to start the Windows Recovery Environment, select the Windows CompletePC Backup option when it is displayed, and follow the prompts to restore your system from your previous backup to your external drive or DVD.

When you create a backup using CompletePC Backup however, the wizard says the backup can only be used to restore the entire system and that you can't use it to restore individual files. Well that's not true!

Here's what you do using Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1 (still in beta).

Unix Tip: Tracking down disk usage

By Sandra Henry-Stocker

Whenever you run across a root file system that's 100% full, the first thing you are likely to do is ascertain which of many directories are actually stored, rather than simply mounted, within /. Variations of the df and du command are likely to come in handy. However, the process of detailing how disk space is being used and identifying files or subdirectories that can be removed often takes a lot longer than most of us would like.

In this week's column, we'll look at a simple script that can help you determine which directories in / are abnormally large.

Storage Tip: Who's responsible for electronically stored information

By David Hill, Mesabi Group

Who has responsibility for electronically stored information (ESI)? When data protection focuses on its traditional role of business continuity, the majority of responsibility was on IT and not the business functions. However, with the rise of compliance demands and new demands for governance such as mandated by changes to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP), the question of who has responsibility becomes less clear. Your problem is avoiding getting caught in the middle.

Unix Tip: Last workday of the month

By Sandra Henry-Stocker

In a column published last year, we looked at various ways to write scripts that would only run on the last day of the month. Determining whether an arbitrary day is the last day of the month can be done in a number of ways, using the cal and/or the date command. For example, if tomorrow is the first, then today must be the last day of the month. This gets us around the complexity of months with 28, 30 or 31 days.

When a reader recently asked how to write a script that would only run on the last workday of the month, a new twist was added to the old problem. A day is the last workday of a month only if it's a weekday and the following weekday falls in the next calender month. So, I came up with two approaches to solving the new challenge.

Read the full article here.

Daylight Savings Time fix

By Mitch Tulloch, MTIT Enterprises

There are several ways for companies still running legacy Windows platforms to address the impact of these Daylight Savings Time changes on their products.

Read the full article here.

Five Security Mistakes to Avoid

A security auditor shares five of the most common yet problematic mistakes companies make that substantially increase the likelihood of a security breach.