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[Keith] Welcome to A Couple Of Admins Podcasting. I'm Keith Albright

[Rich] and I'm Rich Niemeier.

[Keith] This is Episode 17 recorded on September 25th, 2007.

Chit-Chat - What's going on with you?

[Steve]

[Rich]

[Ted]

[Keith]

  • 24 hours of adrenaline story - shopping cart pet peeve
  • What would you do?
-I get an email to one of my accounts which is obviously SPAM. It's a PayPal? phishing attempt and I don't even have a PayPal? acct.
-I like to dissect these things, so I look at the destination of the website and it looks like a legit company (just not PayPal?) and the page is buried in the URL in /web/fonts. So, I figure I'll experiment and go to the root and, as I suspected, it is a legit trucking company in Texas.
-So, here is my question. As an Admin, should I figure out how to contact the company and let them know they are compromised? What would you do?
-Here's what I did...

Housekeeping Items

[Rich]
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[Ted]
*

[Steve]
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[Keith]
*Should I post a blog entry or drop a quick audio note when we are not going to release a show? Send your feedback to Feedback [at] acoupleofadmins.com

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Listener Feedback

From listener Scott Rutkowski:

HI Rich and Keith Steve and Ted.

Just wanted to let you guys know what a great podcast you guys produce and I really enjoy listening to it.

Just wondering Keith on the last show when you talked about podcamp philly, you mentioned a person who does some kind of a blog or podcast towers and tarmacs. Is towers and tarmacs an actual podcast or just a blog?

Just curious cause I didn't see it mentioned at all in the show notes when you mentioned the promos you did at podcamp philly.

Keep up the great work with the show.

[KEITH] I emailed Scott back and just wanted to let everyone know that I don't know if it is a podcast or not, but the link to Benet Wilson's blog at AviationWeek? is in the show notes in case you are interested.

Link: http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/blogs/commercial_aviation/TowersAndTarmacs/

From listener Pete: Pete is a friend and former co-worker who has recently started listening. He wrote in to say:

I really enjoyed the episode 13: Code of Ethics. I think Rich said it best that IT integrity or ethics are an ingrown character trait that most IT professionals have. [KEITH] Thanks Pete

News
Microsoft: 'Secret' updates were for Windows Update via InfoWorld?

-Microsoft claims updates sent out to Windows XP and Vista machines without users knowing about them were for the Windows Update mechanism, though the company acknowledged it could have been more "transparent" before changing files on user computers.
-The company's response came after users expressed concern over updates to XP and Vista machines that were pushed out even when they had turned off the automatic updating feature of Windows Update.

[Keith] Mixed emotions on this one. I understand where Microsoft is coming from, but they need to realize that when a user checks off that box that it is disallowing ANY changes/updates, they should respect that. From a systems management perspective, they've violated every concept of change-control process. Yes, it is related only to the Update Package, but that doesn't mean it won't cause problems with the next round of updates, etc. Then again this is the same company that brought WGA to fruition......

[Rich]

[Ted]

[Steve]

Link: http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/09/13/Microsoft-says-secret-updates-were-for-Windows-Update-itself_1.html

OLPC UPDATE

-Cheap laptops: the new ethical gift
-For $399 (£197), customers in the US and Canada will be able to purchase two laptops - one for themselves, the other for a child in a poor country - as part of an initiative called 'Give One, Get One'.

Source:TIMES ONLINE Author:Jonathan Richards Date:SEPTEMBER 24 2007

[Keith]

[Rich]

[Ted]

[Steve]

-Offical OLPC website about the Promotion

Link: http://www.xogiving.org/

US version of IT Crowd may be history before it is even started

-Found a story from mid Sept that says they may not be able to make an IT Crowd for US market.
-

[Keith]

[Rich]

[Ted]

[Steve]

Link: http://www.zap2it.com/tv/news/zap-nbcmaydroptheitcrowd,0,7647371.story

-Pudding ad supported online phone calls

Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/24/business/media/24adcol.html

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Steve's Topics

  • Topic 1
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-Link: http://
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-Link: http://
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-Link: http://
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-Link: http://

Rich's Topics

  • Server Core Installation of Windows Server 2008
-What is Server Core?
-Isn't it about time?
-Benefits of a Server Core Installation

The Server Core installation option of Windows Server 2008 provides the following benefits:

  • Reduced maintenance. Because a Server Core installation installs only what is required to have a manageable DHCP, File, Print, DNS, Media Services, AD LDS, or Active Directory server, less maintenance is required.
  • Reduced attack surface. Because Server Core installations are minimal, fewer services and applications run on the server, thereby decreasing the attack surface.
  • Reduced management. Because fewer applications and services are installed on a server running the Server Core installation, there is less to manage.
  • Less disk space required. A Server Core installation only requires about 1 gigabyte (GB) of disk space to install and approximately 2 GB for operations after the installation.
- I like the concept will need to wait and see.....
-Link: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/servercore.mspx

SIW

-System Information for Windows

"Everything you want to know about your PC".

-Just a little utility to take a look under the hood.

Link: http://www.gtopala.com/siw_buy.html]

  • Topic 3
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-Link: http://
  • Topic 4
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-Link: http://

Ted's Topics

  • Topic 1
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Keith's Topics

  • I have found the 10th level of Hell
-Symantec SMTP again. Active Directory Sync stops working. Find service won't start.
-I look for knowledge-base articles and nothing matches.
-I call and start speaking with someone and they take my info and supply a case#. She transfers me to the techs who answer and ask if this is a new case, to which I say yes. They then ask me my info and assign a case#. I explain I already had one and she says, "Why did you tell me this was a new case?" I explain it and she says, "Oh, what was the other case number". I give it and she says, "Oh, I would have had to give you a new one anyway since those are different." WTF!?!?!
-I'm on hold for 40 minutes until someone picks up. She is very helpful, but it's not working. She sends me a link to a KB article...which should have come up on my search but didn't and I am to call her back if it doesn't work.
-It doesn't So I finally start manually running the commands to start the service and it tells me my config file is corrupt. Sho nuff, it's an XML file and is is missing a bunch of close tags. I fix and it still won't start. Long story short, I searched the KB with the name of the config XML file and found an article that showed how to revert to original and strip the logs and DB of any entries. That worked and the service now starts.
-Link: http://
  • XML Editor
-In trying to edit the XML config file for Symantec, I found a nice little freeware XML editor called XML Marker
-It gives you open/closed tag status on the fly and it was nice since I was dealing with a damaged file whose format I didn't know, I didn't have to search for open/close on every tag. It kept giving them to me.
-If you have any other XML editors you like, drop a note to the show and we'll mention or link to them.
-Link: http://symbolclick.com/
  • Free Office Productivity Suite....and it's not OpenOffice?
-Lotus/IBM is offering a free productivity suite for Windows and Office. Lotus Symphony
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-Link: http://symphony.lotus.com/software/lotus/symphony/home.jspa
  • Topic 4
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-Link: http://

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Website Picks

Rich - http://www.sketchcast.com Nice little widget that records you drawings and then can be embedded in your webpage

Steve - http://

Ted - http://

Keith - http://sectools.org/ A list of 100 top Network Security tools. List is old (2006), but I've found plenty of great tools I had never been exposed to before. Take a look and you might find something you hadn't known about.

Last Call

Anyone....Anyone....Buehler.....Buehler....

Closing

All right, well that is it for the show. For listener feedback; you can email us at RichandKeith? [at] gmail.com or you can post a comment on the main site at ACoupleOfAdmins.com or, if you use iTunes, write a review. Lastly, you can drop any show ideas or topic requests on the wiki. There is a link to the wiki on the main show site. If you would like to participate in the show; either through an interview, a segment contribution, or any other way, please let us know.

Thanks everyone.