Archive for 'September, 2010'

A “Career Campaign” voucher that is good for only one exam is subject to slightly different rules. Instead of a percentage off for booking the exam, you actually pay 15% more on the initial payment, however that 15% extra allows you to have a second shot should you fail the exam. If you pass it on the first try, yes, that means you paid an extra 15% for a single exam – but at least you had peace of mind knowing you can retake for much cheaper. If that’s any consolation.

Let me give you three examples:

1) Jessica is a SysAdmin who wants to get an MCITP in Enterprise Messaging for Exchange 2007. That particular MCITP requires three exams: 70-632, 70-633 and 70-634. She selects a 3-exam Career Campaign pack voucher. She uses that voucher when signing up at Prometric.com for each of her three exams. She receives a 15% discount when she pays for each exam and also gets a free second shot with each exam should she fail it.

2) Wesley is a SysAdmin who needs just one more exam to finish his MCITP:Enterprise Administrator (that would be me, by the way). He uses a single exam voucher to book his exam. He pays 15% more (a total of $143.75 USD) but has the added protection of a free second shot should he fail his first attempt (which wouldn’t be the first time that has happened).

3) Finally, Tara is an IT noob who wants to go certification crazy. She uses a 5-exam pack to book each of her 5 exams. She pays 20% less for each booking and also receives a free second shot for each exam. Tara is happy. Microsoft is happy. The trees are happy because certifications from Microsoft are sent via PDF and no longer printer on paper. Rejoice!

Some other bits of useful information convcerning this promotion:

• FULL DISCLOSURE ALERT: For every voucher code that is successfully used, I receive 10 points in my Learning Rewards account. I can convert those points into “Rewards”. Currently there is only one reward available: a three month XBox Live Gold card, which is utterly useless to me since I don’t own an Xbox.
• If you fail an exam, you must request a retake voucher using this Prometric form. You must wait 72 hours after failing an exam to request a retake voucher.
• Only commercial exams (070) are eligible for this offer.
• You have to obtain the voucher and sit for the exam by June 30, 2011
• If you have questions you can contact Microsoft at [email protected]
• You can only register one exam at a time and you cannot register for a second exam until you have taken the previous one.

Without further rambling, here are some USA Career Campaign vouchers free for the taking. If you use a code, post which one you used in the comments so I can remove it from the list. If you need more, want codes for a different country or want to make a “bulk order”, let me know. I can create as many as necessary in any country on the planet.

Career Campaign – 5 Exam Pack (USA)

• 5V007DU6A5
• 5V007DVL6M
• 5V007DWQ68
• 5V007DXHCC
• 5V007DYNS9
• 5V007DZK8E
• 5V007E022F
• 5V007E1UWX
• 5V007E25V2
• 5V007—– [used]

Career Campaign – 4 Exam Pack (USA)

• 4E0076VGKQ
• 4E0076WF0K
• 4E0076XUEB
• 4E0076Y36Y
• 4E0076ZVGL
• 4E00770UA0
• 4E00771PAT
• 4E00772NAR
• 4E00773V9V
• 4E00774NPJ

Career Campaign – 3 Exam Pack (USA)

• 3W0074KZSZ
• 3W0074LA9G
• 3W0074MJG5
• 3W0074NMDD
• 3W0074PGHY
• 3W0074QXFG
• 3W0074R10R
• 3W0074SZ0U
• 3W0074TWRH
• 3W0074U1B9

Career Campaign – 2 Exam Pack (USA)

• IV007BTLQ5
• IV007BUY6V
• IV007BVCNY
• IV007BWPXY
• IV007BXGLP
• IV007BYP0G
• IV007BZ35Z
• IV007C0LTJ
• IV007C12LG
• IV007C2H3V

Career Campaign – 1 Exam Pack (USA)

• 0S007D2YYK
• 0S007D3AV4
• 0S007D42A0
• 0S007D5BZP
• 0S007D6MYW
• 0S007D7FR2
• 0S007D89FD
• 0S007D9EHX
• 0S007DA3JF
• 0S007DBU2J

It’s usually fairly easy to find out the current service pack level of a Microsoft Product. Normally, the product’s version information includes the information “Service Pack: #” or something similar. Not so with Exchange 2007. To find out an Exchange 2007′s service pack level, you must first find the build number and then compare the build number to this Microsoft KB article.

To find your build number from the Management Console select “Server Configuration”, right-click your server and select “Properties” and look on the “General” tab.

To find your build number from the Management Shell, run get-exchangeserver against the Exchange server in question. You will want to pipe the output into a different view to be able to see the full version number; for example get-exchangeserver | list. Look for the “AdminDisplayVersion:” line. The “Exchange Version” line, according to this article, refers to “the minimum version of the product that can read the object” and is not the number you need.

Then, compare the build number to Microsoft KB158530. As an example, I am running build 240.6 which equates to Exchange 2007 SP1.

For further reference, check out KB152439 “How to determine the version number, the build number, and the service pack level of Exchange Server”

My Problem:
A user running Outlook 2007 SP2 and connecting to Exchange 2007 on a SBS 2008 machine receives this rather long-winded error:

“Cannot add to the server Junk E-mail Lists, you are over the size allowed on the server. The Junk E-mail Filter on the server will be disabled until your Junk E-mail Lists have been reduced to the size allowed on the server.

Would you like to manage your Junk E-mail Lists now?”

My Solution:
Have the user clear most, if not all of the entries in the “Blocked Senders” list (or the Safe Senders and Safe Recipients list, but I suspect that those are less likely to be filled).

Apparently there is a collective limit of 1024 entries in the Blocked Senders, Safe Senders and Safe Recipients lists.

As witnessed by the previous article, the blocked senders list is virtually useless for stopping spam and should only be used for stubborn senders and mailing lists that don’t honor or have a unsubscribe feature. If that wasn’t enough, so says the wise Sembee of Exchange Server fame.

If the problem persists, attempt to clear the Junk Email folder’s offline items by right clicking on the Junk Email folder, selecting Properties and clicking “Clear Offline Items” on the General tab.

While searching for some good deals on web hosting, I discovered an amusing trait of many of the hosting companies that I looked at. That trait illustrates a very important buyer’s rule: Never pay the sticker price.

I was checking out FatCow.com for hosting and was inspecting the checkout page when I had a change of heart. I clicked the close button for the tab but was greeted with this passionate plea:

Okay, first I’d like to say that I hate any kind of hijacking of my tab when I try to browse away from a tab. It is evil. Unless it saves me some money… in which case it’s still evil, and I still cast suspicious glances at the business practices of the company, but I’ll save my eGold any way I can.

If you click on “Cancel” in the warning message above, you’ll be sent to this page:

It should be noted that in spite of FatCow’s deal, I was won over by SiteGround for all of my hosting needs. They’re not so bad… but beware that their DNS management is terrible. That warrants an entirely different post, however.

FatCow isn’t the only place that uses this grey-area marketing tactic. Even while shopping at GoDaddy, thinking that they had the best prices for registering six TLDs for a new business venture, I abandoned my cart when @NameCheap said they could do better. Ultimately I ended up sticking with NameCheap, however a few days later I received an email from GoDaddy saying that they were willing to take a percentage off of the items that I had abandoned.

The moral of the story is to never pay full price for anything. If you’re buying something online, it’s worth clicking around, closing windows, abandoning carts and just going away for a while. If that doesn’t cough up anything, you can always write customer service and ask for a better deal. The worst they could say is “No”.

Let’s be honest. Everyone is jealous of us IT folks if for no other reason than we have access to the server room. It’s important, mysterious and powerful; everything that we wish was true of us (instead of just being ignored, marginalized and pasty). If there are any windows looking into your server room, you will see a fresh set of greasy face and fingerprints on it each day because people can’t help themselves when they see pretty patch cables and blinken lichten. If you notice any other greasy body parts have been pressed against it, call security immediately.

IT people like the server room for the impenetrable sense of solace which comes from a room that needs a key card or a Ford F350 traveling at highway speeds to get into. When the pressures of userland get to be too much for us, we can always sit in the cool isle, sip a Red Bull and plug straight into the OC-24 line to play Halo 3 on our favorite team server.

Oh sure, if the Halon/FM-250 dumps then we’ve got roughly 24 seconds to save our game and bequeath our level 80 WoW character to our nearest kin, but that’s what shell scripts are for, right? I’ve had nightmares about being locked inside the server room just like that Brady Bunch episode where the kids get locked in Sam’s meat locker and only Bobby was small enough to wiggle through a broken window on the door. It’s for that very reason that I bribe a child from the corporate daycare center to sit behind the Catalyst 9000 with a hammer and wait for my signal. I just hope no one asks where all the graham cracker crumbs are coming from.

Speaking of food in the server room, there’s no better place to have an IT picnic than in a sealed room where the accounting department can’t infiltrate. Because, if they did manage to get inside we’d have to explain how twenty-two large triple-meat pizzas for only 9 people is a business expense. And we’d have to turn in our receipts before we could attempt to tamper with the line items… namely that item involving two rolls of quarters from the cashier to play Q*Bert with.

All this server room love gets an epic ice bath when we discover that members of the executive team have access. Does the CEO really need to get into this room? The same man who swore that it was our wireless network interfering with the remote controls for his 40 inch flat screen TV mounted above his desk does not need to be in the same room with the database servers (hint: remotes need batteries to work). He shouldn’t be in the same room with a Furby.

Even worse is when members of the building maintenance crew have access. CEOs are trouble enough, but they don’t usually carry screwdrivers or reciprocating saws. Of course, it’s only a matter of time before we reverse engineer security’s keycard system and lock everyone but us out. Then we’ll retreat to our icy depths and begin our long awaited takeover.

I hope security will let Pizza Hut deliver.

Since “good artists copy and great artists steal” then I’m destined for a couple of pyramids built in my honor. Why? Because I’m going to totally rip off the likes of such blogs as “Stuff White People Like” and “Stuff Christians Like” with my own twisted take on things. Behold, “Stuff IT People Like”.

Over the next several Fridays I’ll be releasing a few of the bizarre rantings that I’ve scribbled down concerning us IT folks and our idiosyncrasies. They are full of gross generalizations, oversimplifications, regionalisms and total insanity. In other words it’s just like reading an SAP marketing brochure only hopefully involving fewer migraines and no homicidal urges.

I’m sure you will agree with me, disagree with me, laugh a little, cry a little and flame me a lot in the comments because of how wrong I am… because we all know how IT people like to be right (yes, that’s probably going to be an upcoming post).

These “Stuff IT People Like” (SITPL) posts tend to focus on the administrator / help desk / operations manager role. I am not delving too deeply into developer humor because, well, my experience with development involves a summer using Metrowerks CodeWarrior on  Mac OS 7.6. If anyone wants to contribute developer posts let me know. I certainly include developers under the larger heading of “IT People” and I know developers like stuff just as much as SysAdmins and help deskers. Of course, it would be even more awesome if someone decided to rip me off and start a “Stuff Developers Like” blog.

Stuff IT People Like. The SysAdmin blogosphere might never be the same… even though it probably will be.

The Problem:

I added a Windows XP SP2 machine to a SBS 2008 domain via the Connect Computer application and could no longer use Remote Desktop to access it from across a VPN connection.

The Solution:

Make sure your VPN connection is assigning you an IP address on the local subnet. After a computer is joined to a SBS 2008 domain, it appears that the default remote desktop exception restricts access to the local subnet only. Some VPN connections can assign a remote computer a remote IP address or retain that remote PC’s native LAN IP address.

For example, I use SonicWALL’s Global VPN client. In its current configuration it presents remote PCs to the office network with the IP address that the remote PCs have on their native network. For example, my home network is 192.168.11.x while the office is 192.168.168.x. When I use a packet sniffer on the office network, all traffic coming from my computer is seen as coming from 192.168.11.101 rather than a 192.168.168.x address provisioned via the office’s DHCP server. This is fine under default workgroup conditions but does not work using SBS 2008′s default Group Policy. When I connected via a PPTP VPN using one of the office servers as the endpoint (via RRAS), I could successfully RDP into the machine in question because the PPTP VPN provisions a local IP address for the tunnel adapter.

You must either find a way of assigning a local IP to your VPN connections or edit the group policy to allow the scope of the remote desktop connection to include the remote subnet or “Any computer (including those on the internet)”.

The Long Story:

I had a Windows XP SP2 workgroup machine that I join to my new Small Business Server domain. Immediately afterward, I could not access the machine via remote desktop from my workstation that is located across a VPN connection. I attempted to access the PC using both a local account and a domain account. I double checked to make sure that my account settings in the RDP connection were accurate. Still no luck.

Read More →

According to this months issue of Processor Magazine, Lantronix is working on a service that will allow remote administration of just about any device via a web browser. The service is located at www.AccessMyDevice.com which is not currently showing any information other than a signup form to be notified when the service launches.

No word yet on how exactly it’s going to be accomplished, but I suspect some kind of device physically attached to your appliance / server / switch / toaster over that will phone back to a centralized management server and allow changes to be made from there.

Personally, I’m intrigued because of my favorable experiences with the Lantronix Spider, but at the same time, I’m hoping it’s not a purely SaaS based central management option. Perhaps for smaller deployments it would be favorable, but in larger deployments I prefer to have my own servers be the management head.

Does anyone have a particular way they prefer to manage remote devices, particular serial connections, without punching holes in the firewall?

Last Monday the 6th’s Freebie Monday giveaway of a free Transcender practice exam has been won by a certain SysAdmin named Tim. His winning submission is a Nagios control panel screenshot of an HP DL360 Windows server with just over 137 days of uptime:

Two things are encouraging about this entry. 1) 137 days of uptime isn’t heinous by comparison to some other long in the tooth instances that almost all of us can think of, and 2) Tim has decided to create a Nagios warning that alerts him when any machine has 60 days of uptime and a critical warning at 90 days. Good job Tim!

Of course, perhaps there are plenty of people out there with vastly longer uptimes, but they just didn’t find a Transcender practice exam to be enough of an enticement for what could be considered public embarrassment.

Here’s to shorter  hardware uptimes and longer service uptimes!