Lyle Epstein's Systems Engineer Blog » Uncategorized

Office 365 is down for over 3 hours causing business disruption

Lyle Epstein — Sat, 20 Aug 2011 00:40:24 +0000

Well Microsoft’s new Office 365 solution goes down causing business disruption. Sometimes I wonder if this cloud nonsense is just another bad joke.

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What is the correct model number?

Lyle Epstein — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 19:43:52 +0000

Today we received a batch of new Seagate Enterprise hard disks, which should have been model ST2000NM0011. It looks like someone in the label department in Thailand made a mistake, as the model number is shown with a 1 (1TB) and a 2 (2TB). After plugging it in, it was detected as a 1TB drive. Glad to know we can’t always rely on stickers.

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White House wants to impose tougher penalties for software piracy

Lyle Epstein — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 21:12:00 +0000

The White House is currently reviewing a new set of much tougher laws for software piracy, including jail time of up to 20 years. There are several other items in this list of recommendations that do not pertain to software, like drug offenses, but all fall in the intellectual property category. If you want to see what these new limits are about take a look at http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/ip_white_paper.pdf

I am pretty sure this one will get signed into law. This is a good thing, as software piracy hurts everyone.

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Microsoft’s Windows Live goes to WordPress

Lyle Epstein — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 03:24:40 +0000

This was a shock I was not expecting. Microsoft is actually moving it’s Windows Live accounts to WordPress. There must be some logic to this from Microsoft. Probably more focused on the cloud.

Dear Windows Live Spaces customer,

We are very excited to announce our collaboration with a premier and innovative blogging service, WordPress.com, to offer you an upgraded blogging experience. We’ll help you migrate your current Windows Live Spaces blog to WordPress.com or you can download it to save for later. On March 16th, 2011 your current space will close.

With the new release of Windows Live services, we’ve made a series of changes and improvements across our products. We chose to partner to provide our users with a fantastic blogging solution. However, we realize the changes will have an impact on you – this email aims to address any concerns you may have.

Why is this happening?

Our customers have asked for richer blog functionality including an integrated statistics system, continuous saving of drafts and improvements to spam-fighting technology. To deliver the best possible blogging experience, we are collaborating with WordPress.com to provide their free service to you. For those of you that already have a blog on Windows Live Spaces, we will make it easier for you to get started while helping you move what you’ve already built up on Spaces.

What is the timeline?

Starting the end of September, 2010, when you visit your Windows Live Space you’ll be given the opportunity to upgrade your blog by migrating it to WordPress.com and to download your content to save for later.
As of January 4th, 2011, you won’t be able to make changes to your Spaces blog, but you can continue to review past posts, download your content to save for later and upgrade your blog to WordPress.com.
On March 16th, 2011 Windows Live Spaces will close and you will not be able to access or migrate your blog on Spaces.

What you need to do before Windows Live Spaces closes

Starting the end of September, when you visit your space you’ll have the following options:

Upgrade your blog by migrating to WordPress.com – We will provide a simple way to move your blog posts and comments to WordPress.com.
Download your blog – You can download your old posts to keep a copy with you. You can also do this and then migrate to WordPress.com.
Delete your space – If you decide that you do not want to have a space anymore, you have the option to delete it permanently. If you want to save your content, please make sure to do that before deleting your space.
If you can’t decide, take some time – Over the next few months, Windows Live Spaces will continue to be accessible while you make your decision. But we’re very excited about what you can do on WordPress.com and hope you’ll decide to take advantage of this improved blogging experience.

Note: some content such as gadgets, guestbook, lists, notes and draft posts won’t be migrated. See FAQs for more info on how to preserve this type of content.
Go to your space to choose an option that’s right for you.

What you can expect by moving to WordPress.com

All of your posts, comments, and links will transfer, and you will have the option to share your blogging updates with your Messenger friends.

On WordPress.com, you’ll get tools to help you track how your blog is doing and who’s visiting. You’ll get tagging that enables people to find you, and for you to find like-minded people. It includes great blog comment functionality, and trackback spam prevention to help keep your experience clean. Check out more.

Thanks for using Windows Live and we hope you enjoy the new blogging experience.

Sincerely,

The Windows Live team

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: What is WordPress.com ?
A: WordPress.com is a free blogging site, similar to Windows Live Spaces. On WordPress.com, you’ll find great themes and widgets to customize your experience, tools to help you track how your blog is doing and who’s visiting. You’ll get tagging that enables people to find you, and for you to find like-minded people. It includes great blog comment functionality, and trackback spam prevention to help keep your experience clean.

Q: What happens to my Windows Live Spaces content and what can I migrate?
A: Here’s a list of different functionality available on Windows Live Spaces today and what you can expect:

Blogs and comments: If you choose to migrate or download, your blog content (including inserted photos, videos and comments) comes with you.
Photos: Photos not part of your blog but part of Windows Live will continue to live on SkyDrive and, if you choose, you can continue to share them with others. Photos that were part of your blog will be migrated if you choose to migrate your blog. If you add any other modules provided by other services that shared your photos, those will not be migrated.
Visitors will know where to find you: If you migrate, existing links to your blog and specific articles will continue to work and your visitors will be redirected to your new location on WordPress.com. You’ll also be able to keep your friends up to date with your latest posts on Windows Live Messenger.
Private blogs: If you have a private blog, your blog will be checked as private unless you choose another option during migration. You’ll be able to share your blog back with your Windows Live Messenger friends or just choose to select a few people to invite to WordPress.com.
Gadgets, guestbook, lists, notes, and draft posts: Unfortunately, you won’t be able to move these. You might consider publishing your draft posts over the coming months and moving content in lists and notes into your blog before migrating.
Profile and Contacts modules: That information stays on Windows Live. You can add your new blog to your Profile and share it with your friends.

Q: What can I expect between now and the date Windows Live Spaces closes?
A: Starting at the end of September 2010, when you visit your space you’ll be given the opportunity to upgrade your blog by migrating it to WordPress.com and to download your content to save for later. Your space will continue to be available for you to publish to. As of January 4th, 2011, you will lose the ability to make changes to your Windows Live Spaces blog, but you can continue to review past posts, download your content to save for later and upgrade your blog to WordPress.com. On March 16th, 2011, Windows Live Spaces will close and you will not be able to access or migrate your blog.

Q: Where can I learn more?
A: Are you a parent of a child who uses Windows Live Spaces? Do you have a private blog? Do you use Writer to publish to Windows Live Spaces? Do you have other questions? Please visit our Help Center for additional information and resources.

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Mass Email Worm Outbreak: W32.Imsolk.B@mm

Lyle Epstein — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 06:27:37 +0000

This just came out, Mass Email Worm Outbreak: W32.Imsolk.B@mm . Detailed information obtained from Symantec include:

Symantec Security Response has observed a global mass mailer worm spreading and affecting hundreds of thousands of computers worldwide. This appears to be a new attack – likely originating from a botnet – however, it is similar to the classic old school mass-mailing viruses like Nimda, Melissa and the Anna Kournikova virus from 2001.

The new, malicious computer worm spreads using a socially engineered email attack. The threat arrives in the form of a standard email that directs the recipient to click on a link embedded in the email. This link points to a malicious program file that is disguised as a PDF file, hosted on the internet. When the user clicks on this link, their computer downloads and launches the malicious file.
Symantec customers are protected from W32.Imsolk.B@mm both today and in the future using updates, as well as the products and services outlined below.

How do I protect my organization against W32.Imsolk.B@mm worm threat?

Customers with Symantec Antivirus (SAV) or Symantec Endpoint Protection (SEP) are protected
- Rapid Release signature of Sept. 9th rev 023 or later detects and blocks this threat.
- This signature set will stop all new infections.
- A fully certified regular definition set (dated Sept. 9th) known as rev 024 provides these protections.
Symantec Security Response has created a Symantec Endpoint Protection Application and Device policy to prevent infections / execution of the threat and any side effects caused by the threat. The policy can be found here.

What does the threat do?

The worm uses e-mail for its initial propagation (an e-mail purporting to include a link to a requested document). The e-mail looks like the following:

Hello:
This is The Document I told you about, you can find it Here.
Please check it and reply as soon as possible.
Cheers,

Once the link is followed, it downloads the W32.Imsolk.B@mm threat, which infects the computer. Once inside, it can spread rapidly via shared drives and removable drives. It also attempts to spread via e-mail by gathering e-mail addresses from the compromised computer.

The main characteristics of the worm’s functionality are as follows:

Primary mode of infection: email recipient clicks on link
Infection spreads through
- Email send to contacts from address book of victims
- Mapped drives via autorun
- Instant messenger transmissions
Disables various security related programs, but not Norton or Symantec products

Best Practices

Symantec is encouraging computer users to use the following security best practices:

If you are currently suffering infection, your best protection is to obtain the latest signature updates for Symantec Antivirus or Symantec Endpoint Protection
If your systems cannot get access to the latest updates:
- Disable network sharing for the infected systems and/or disconnect them from the local network and Internet.
- Disable AutoPlay to prevent the automatic launching of executable files on network and removable drives and disconnect the drives when not in required.
- Apply the updates. Remove the infection and restore the host to the network.
Technical Support already has the following knowledge base articles on the topic:
- How to prevent a virus from spreading using the "AutoRun" feature
- Preventing viruses using "autorun.inf" from spreading with "Application and Device Control" policies in Symantec Endpoint Protection (SEP) 11.x This includes specific instructions on how to use the policy feature of SEP to disable autorun.inf files.
Keep antivirus definitions up-to-date.
Avoid clicking on links and/or attachments in email messages.
Configure mail servers to block or remove email that contains .SCR file attachments.

Symantec products that can strengthen your organization’s security

Mail Security for Microsoft Exchange

Outbreak detection: Identify that an active outbreak is occurring because of the volume of traffic generated by the same “Here you Have” email
Internal mail filtering: Block all internal traffic of the “Here you Have” email using Content Filtering
Mail store / inbox cleanup: Seek out and eliminate the “Here you Have” email from Mail Stores and end user inboxes

More Information Purchase Today

Brightmail Gateway Small Business Edition

Multiple layers of defense: Has over 20 different antispam technologies that can block new threats as they emerge.
Updated rules: Brightmail Gateway updated both antispam rules and antivirus rules to block this attack immediately after it was detected on Sept. 9th. Symantec deployed a combination of predicative and aggressive rules to ensure complete protection.
Global Intelligence Network: Protection includes a 24×7 team of analysts and technicians as well as real-time feeds from the Symantec Global Intelligence Network. Brightmail Gateway automatically downloads updated rules as frequently as every second to respond to new threats.

Source: http://www.symantec.com/outbreak/index.jsp?id=w32imsolkbamm

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Internet Explorer 9

Lyle Epstein — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 15:17:09 +0000

Ah, tomorrow. http://www.beautyoftheweb.com/?ocid=ie9_bow_A10D3ED8-DFF9-4A68-8D3A-09188F66C4FD&fbid=wH8CRXXWi7G

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Drive Savers hard disk crash demo

Lyle Epstein — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 06:32:54 +0000

I found a rather interesting demo on how a hard disk works, and how it can crash as well. This link, provided by Drive Savers. Check out the SSD Failure, that one is my favorite!

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Junction Points in Windows Vista/7

Lyle Epstein — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 21:42:39 +0000

Have you ever noticed when you browse your profile that folders like history, Application Data and Temporary Internet Files have shortcuts instead of actual folders?

These are called Junction Points. This technology was introduced in NTFS 3.0 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTFS_junction_point but were not used for mainstream use until Windows Vista, as well noted at http://www.svrops.com/svrops/articles/jpoints.htm .

So what is the point of these? Well, the basic point is that you can create these Junction Points to be pointers to point to other actual Hard Links of folders. Say for example, you installed a program in c:\Program Files. Now let’s say that your C: partition became full and you added another hard disk. What if you wanted to “move” the C:\Program Files to say E:\Program Files ? Well, if you just moved the folder, and then ran your apps, they would certainly bomb and never run. But if you created a Junction Point from c:\Program Files to point to E:\Program Files, the programs would not know the difference and would run as expected.

So how do you view where your Junction Points are and how do you make new ones? Well, traditionally you would use the tool MKLINK command line tool, but hey, I am a GUI user, so how would I do this in Windows? Well, I found a great tool for this, called Junction Link Magic at http://www.rekenwonder.com/linkmagic.htm

This tool works really well, and besides the fact that you can edit Junction Links, you also can edit Symbolic Links as well as Mount Points. Now you really can master your hard disk and where things are at.

Just one note, you can’t create a Junction Link to network shares, but that is what Libraries are for in Windows 7.

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The case of a full hard disk

Lyle Epstein — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 06:14:10 +0000

Today I was working on a clients computer with a strange problem. It had a 80GB hard disk, and very few applications installed on it but the disk was almost full. What was even stranger, was the data was being stored on the server. As this was a very old Windows XP machine, I thought it could be anything. first I verified it had the proper service packs installed, and that looked fine. Then I looked at directories trying to find what was using up so much space. I found that the C:\Windows\Installer folder had over 50GB of space.

Doing a little googling, I came across some articles that talked about the same issue. One I found, was http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en/sqltools/thread/07db294a-79e5-4a5a-916c-6a51e44a5aa4 . This article pointed to using the MSIZAP.EXE application.

On this perticular computer, I downloaded the MSICleanup tool, and then dropped to the command prompt. I executed the command “MSIZAP.EXE G!” which removed all of the orphaned .msp patch files. This cleared the disk space back to almost 80%, which was a lot better then 1%

Another tool I used to help figure this out was VisDir, which shows all the directories and how much space they are taking. Please visit http://www.sb-software.com/visdir/

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Free software downloads

Lyle Epstein — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 08:30:46 +0000

During this Thanksgiving week, I was having a discussion with a friend of mine on the future of software and pricing. Somehow, during the conversation, a website came up I had not seen before, called Giveaway of the Day, at http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/ . It is rather interesting, as it allows you to download full versions of software during a limited time. The trick is, you have to check it often as the software keeps changing on the site. Not bad for a little work to visit the site to get free software!

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