Daily IT Matters [DIM]

This is my first post using the windows Live writer

New Release! Windows Live Writer 1.0 (Beta) Update with Windows Live Gallery This update to Windows Live Writer 1.0 (Beta) features: Tagging support Support for Blogger Beta Improvements to categories And more...(details below) You can also now visit the Writer community on Windows Live Gallery to download more plugins and extensions for Writer. Some of the plugins currently featured on Gallery are: "Blog This" Extensions for IE & Firefox Emoticon, Eventful, and Flickr plug-ins for inserting more rich content RESPONDING TO YOUR FEEDBACK The release of Windows Live Writer and the Windows Live Writer SDK was a very exciting moment for our team. We are so pleased to see so many people not only blogging with Writer but also creating Writer Plugins. The Writer team would like to thank all of the people who have been using Writer and/or creating plugins, especially those who took time to provide us feedback. We have received some terrific input over the last month and have ...

 

A new era of network sniffing has begun at Microsoft with the soon to be released Network Monitor 3.0. So, it seems appropriate that we create a Network Monitor Blog site to accompany it. [So this is what a Blog feels like, nice!] The Essentials Microsoft Network Monitor 3.0 Beta 2, where is it? We currently have a Beta version of Network Monitor 3.0 available on our Microsoft Connects site (http://connect.microsoft.com), you'll need a passport account. Select "Available Connections" and look for Network Monitor 3.0. Once you sign up, it will appear in your "My Participation" section. Feel free to download, provide feedback, and use the newsgroups. Microsoft Network Monitor 3.0 Beta 2, what is it? Network Monitor 3.0 is a total overhaul of our previous Netmon2.x program. We actually threw out everything and started from scratch. This has produced a much easier and safer way to analyze network traffic.. DLLs for parsers have the inherent problem of overru...

Wow, its already Wednesday; time for another entry. Last week I wrote about the new user profile policy settings for Windows Vista. This week, I want to highlight a couple policy settings included in the Windows Logon Options. The Windows Logon Options policy settings are located under both the Computer and User Configurations\Administrative Templates\Windows Components\Windows Logon Options. This policy category has six policy settings, equally divided between user and computer configurations. These policy settings apply to computers running and users logging onto Windows Vista. Earlier versions of Windows will ignore most of these policy settings. Read the explain text of each policy setting before you combine these policy settings with earlier policy settings in a single Group Policy object. I’ll start with highlighting two of the three policy settings under the Computer Configuration. The first of these is the Display information about earlier logons during user logon. When enabl...

This time around I’m going to spend some more time on working with Event Logs from the command line. I’ll cover some how to perform some common tasks using wevtutil.exe. Enumerate Event Logs Wevtutil el – This command will list out a lot of logs but the main logs you’ll want to look at are Application, System, and Security. In addition, the Setup log is helpful if you are having problems installing roles, features, or patches. When viewing a log it’s a good idea to redirect the output to a text or xml file to make it easier to read. Common switches that come in handy /c:5 – Count. Specifies how many records you want returned, in this example 5 /rd – Reverse Direction. By default the oldest events are displayed first, so if you used the /c switch to dump 5 events you would get the first 5 in the log, probably not the events you’re most interested in. To see the 5 most recent events you would specify /c:5 /rd:True /f: - Format. By default the output is raw xml and when dumped out t...

Why do I need a deny rule to make an allow rule for a custom protocol work correctly? Protocol definitions include lists of primary connections, secondary connections, and associated application filters. Each primary connection includes a port range, which may cover one or more port numbers. When traffic is sent to an ISA Server computer, ISA Server uses the port on which it arrives to identify its protocol.   When a policy rule allows traffic for a certain protocol, the Firewall service checks the definition of the protocol and passes the traffic to all the application filters associated with the protocol definition for processing. If traffic of a specific type is sent to a port corresponding to a predefined protocol that is associated with an application filter and you do not want the application filter to process this traffic, you can define a custom protocol that has the same primary and secondary connections as the predefined protocol but is not associated with the application fil...

Management and Security Considerations for Instant Messaging in the Workplace Introduction Over the past several years, instant messaging (IM) has evolved from a tool used almost exclusively by computer experts and systems administrators into an everyday communication mechanism for business users. Technology research firm the Radicati Group estimates that in 2004, 13.9 billion IM messages were sent per day, with an increasing number of these used for business collaboration. [1] Clearly, increasing numbers of businesses are realizing that real-time communications such as IM can help streamline communications and save consider­able time and money. As instant messaging technology is embraced by information workers and their organizations, it is important that system administrators and information technology (IT) professionals within these organizations recognize both the value and the potential risks posed by this new technology. Businesses must ensure that, like every other technology ...

http://www.cert.org/tech_tips/WIDC.html This document outlines suggested steps for determining whether your Windows system has been compromised. System administrators can use this information to look for several types of break-ins. We also encourage you to review all sections of this document and modify your systems to address potential weaknesses. The term "Windows system" is used throughout this document to refer to systems running Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows Server 2003. Where there is a distinction between the various operating system versions (e.g., a capability available to only one OS version) the document will note this as such. In this document, we make a distinction between the terms "auditing" and "monitoring". We use auditing to indicate the logging or collection of information and use monitoring to indicate the routine review of information obtained by auditing to determine occurrences of specific events. This document does not provi...

 Interesting post from Technet. At A Glance: Windows Server 2003 R2 Print Management Using Group Policy to control printer settings Gaining control per user or per machine Windows Server 2003 R2 has a truckload of neat new features, one of which, the Print Management Component, includes great tools for use with Group Policy. The Print Management Component can centrally manage almost all aspects of the printers on your network. And even better, it lets you deploy printers to users or computers via Group Policy so you can ensure that whenever a user moves from machine A to machine B, she keeps her printer mappings. It can even ensure that every user on machine C will have the same printer settings. Put Group Policy to Work Before you can begin using the Print Management Component, you need to perform a number of steps. First you will have to update your Windows Server™ 2003 schema to match the Windows Server 2003 R2 schema. If you want to use Windows Server 2003 to perform printer manage...

From Technet: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/exchange/articles/emailsecurity.mspx The relatively recent and rapid rise of e-mail as a means of communication has created opportunities and challenges for the software industry and businesses worldwide. As recently as 1986, the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) was formally established in an effort to document Internet standards and influence best practices for using the Internet. In the nineties, the popularity of the World Wide Web transformed the computing landscape, as millions of computer users rushed to the Internet for business and recreation. Software companies developed popular e-mail client and server software, providing enhanced functionality via free downloads and high-end commercial applications. Along with the growth of the Internet and Web browsing, many companies released Web-based e-mail solutions, frequently supported by advertising and often free to the end user. Commercial providers of enterprise sof...