Windows Tip: Determine bandwidth using WMI script

By Mitch Tulloch, MTIT Enterprises

Did you know that you can use WMI to measure your machine's network bandwidth using a script? To use this script, copy the text provided in this article into Notepad (with Word Wrap turned off) and save it as ReportBandwidth.vbs. To run this script on a Windows Vista machine, open an elevated command prompt and type cscript reportbandwidth.vbs /? to view a list of different arguments you can use with this script.

Read the full article here.

Windows Tip: Using FR and RUP in mixed environments

By Mitch Tulloch,MTIT Enterprises

Folder Redirection (FR) and Roaming User Profiles (RUP) are two
separate but complementary methods for enabling users to roam between
different computers on your network and access their desktop
environments together with their personal data and settings. Here's a
tip that provides recommendations on how to implement FR and/or RUP in
mixed Vista/XP environments.

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Unix Tip: The language of power

By Sandra Henry Stocker

If you have any role in dealing with the power provided to the systems you manage, it's useful to be familiar with the terminology used to describe power and power devices such as UPS systems. Let's examine some of the terminology that you are likely to hear when people are talking about power provided to computer systems.

Read the full article here.

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Create a security awareness program in three steps

By Brent Huston, MicroSolved, Inc.

Security awareness programs may seem like they should be easy to implement, but in reality, they require skills that most security teams don't regularly practice. To help you on your way towards a brighter security future, we've identified three steps required to create an effective awareness program.

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Storage Tip: Intelligence for unstructured data

By David Hill, Mesabi Group

IT organizations have the skills to deal with the data growth caused by unstructured data - and deal with the growth you must. But just as with previous data revolutions (first to a focus on online transaction processing systems, which use structured data, and then to semi-structured information, such as e-mail, office productivity, and HTML documents), the heightened awareness and utility of unstructured information can only make the place of data even more central to an enterprise.

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What No One Ever Tells You About Blogging and Podcasting

If you think a blog might provide value to your business, but you haven't blogged before, Ted Demopoulos, author of What No One Ever Tells You About Blogging and Podcasting recommends starting a "throw-away" blog. Blogging about a hobby, for instance, is good practice for the real thing. After that, he recommends that you keep your writing personal, conversational, and link out to other blogs and sites.

Read the full article here.

Windows Tip: Determine bandwidth using WMI script

Did you know that you can use WMI to measure your machine's network bandwidth using a script? One of these scripts lets you use the Win32_PerfFormattedData_Tcpip_NetworkInterface performance monitoring class to report network bandwidth for each local adapter on the machine. This can be useful when you want to see the actual bandwidth of a network adapter, for example when you want to troubleshoot situations where your adapter autodetects the wrong speed for the network.

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Unix Tip: Power outage 2007

By Sandra Henry Stocker, ITworld.com

The power was gone and the UPS was keeping the systems up, but without air conditioning, the computer room was already heating up. "What", I asked myself as I surveyed the computer room that morning, "are my priorities?". I could wait for the auto-shutdown script, set to be triggered by a low-battery event issued by the UPS, to kick in and begin the graceful shutdown of servers. "But how hot", I wondered, "will the room be by then?" Better to run the script manually and the sooner the better.

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Unix Tip: Last workday of the month: A retake

By Sandra Henry-Stocker

One of my articles last month described an approach to determining whether some particular weekday happens to be the last workday of the month. While no one took me up on the challenge to turn this script into a densely packed on-liner, one reader offered a version that has a particularly interesting advantage. Instead of being implemented as code which can be inserted into any script in which you want to execute certain commands only on the last workday of the month, this script is a standalone that you would use to invoke other scripts or specific commands when it's the appropriate time for them to run -- when it's the last workday of the month.

Read the full article here.

Windows Tip: Managing Windows Firewall in mixed environments

By Mitch Tulloch, MTIT Enterprises

If you migrate all the desktops in a given organizational unit to Windows Vista, you can simply manage the firewall on these computers using the new Group Policy node found under Computer Configuration\Windows Settings\Security Settings\Windows Firewall With Advanced Security. But what if your OU will contain a combination of Windows XP and Windows Vista computers? What's the best way to use Group Policy to manage the Windows Firewall on these computers? Here's a brief answer taken with permission from the soon-to-be-released Windows Vista Resource Kit.

Read the full article here.

Storage Tip: Not your father's backup/restore software

By David Hill, Mesabi Group

If you are looking at traditional backup/restore with the extra-added appeal of disk, contact the vendors in your market space with whom you are familiar (and those could be through your current storage hardware vendor). If you are interested in overall recovery management or a new technology, such as continuous data protection, you can contact companies that focus in those spaces. If, on the other hand, you are looking at a storage hardware solution, then you will know that the vendor that you are choosing also has a backup/restore story and probably one that involves disk-based backup as well. In any event, you are likely to find at least one -- and probably more than one -- company that will meet your needs.

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Shred your data to stay ahead of the pack

By Sumner Lemon

Jeff Jonas, the chief scientist and distinguished engineer at IBM Corp.'s entity analytic solutions group, has developed a means of sharing corporate data without revealing what that data contains.

This technology, called anonymization, effectively "shreds" information, making it possible for companies to share information about their customers with governments or other companies without giving away any personal data. Over time, Jonas believes companies will increasingly use anonymization to defend their data, and corporate well-being, from competitors and identity thieves.

In this interview, Jonas discusses anonymization and how protecting customer privacy will make companies more competitive.

Read the full article here.

Storage Tip: Testing with confidential data

By David Hill, Mesabi Group

IT personnel will eventually need to use a copy of confidential information for test and development purposes. Data security cannot be compromised, but the business must continue to move forward with new tested software functionality.

What are the options?


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Three security technologies to watch

By Brent Huston, MicroSolved, Inc.

Three security-related technologies that are worth watching are: Security information management and unified threat management products, buffer overflow protection shims, and source code assessment tools.

Read the full article here.

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Windows Tip: Enabling weak crypto in Vista

By Mitch Tulloch, MTIT Enterprises

If you're planning on deploying Windows Vista on mobile computers that remotely access your company network using a virtual private network (VPN) connection, you must be aware that support for weak or non-standard cryptographic algorithms has now been removed from Windows Vista. This can result in compatibility issues with certain VPN servers and the result is that some clients may not be able to connect to your corporate network after upgrading them to Windows Vista. Here's an explanation from the Windows Vista Resource Kit concerning why this change was implemented, plus a workaround you can use if you can't upgrade your VPN servers or don't have access to high-crypto for regulatory reasons.

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Security Tip: Keep your cool

Security managers have to keep their cool and clearly communicate with CIOs during a crisis affecting company networks. Otherwise, trying to educate CIOs in a panic mode will complicate how an attack is countered. Above all, what you don't want is executives coming down to the offices of people that are doing the actual technical work says Microsoft security architect Greg Galford.

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Security Tip: Password cracking reminder

By Brent Huston, MicroSolved, Inc.

Attackers have made a quantum leap in password cracking in the last few years. Time is no longer on our side. In many cases, it is faster to crack the password than to change it across an enterprise, especially if politics, change controls and cross-platforms are involved. Quite simply, we must checkmate attackers before they get the password hashes.

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