Recently I had a need to schedule a monthly defrag on all of the client machines in one of the networks that I manage. As usual, finding an efficient way of centrally deploying such a task is much easier than going to each machine and manually creating the task. I accomplished this by editing the SBS_LOGIN_SCRIPT.bat that is present on all SBS 2003 servers by default. Of course, if you are not in an SBS environment, you can apply this to any other login scripts that you may already have or create a new one and deploy it through Group Policy.

For my purposes, I needed a defrag to run automatically monthly on all machines so I used an app called schtasks.exe that is already installed on all 2000/XP machines. You can read the syntax by typing “schtasks /?” at the command prompt. Below is the line I added to my login script.

schtasks.exe /create /SC MONTHLY /D 20 /TN DefragMonthly /TR “C:\Windows\System32\defrag.exe\”C: -f” /ST 00:45:00 /SD 06/01/2009 /RU SYSTEM

Now, let me explain that as it may look cryptic..

/create – Indicates you are creating a scheduled task.
/SC – Specifies the Schedule Frequency (MONTHLY in this case).
/D – The Day of the month is should run (the 20th of each month in this case).
/TN – The Task Name (MonthlyDefrag in this case).
/TR – Task Run specifies the task to be ran or the application to be executed (”C:\Windows\System32\defrag.exe\”C: -f” in this case ((defrag.exe /? for more info on this))).
/ST – Start Time is the Hour at which the task should start in 24 hour format.
/SD – The Start Date, pretty self explanatory.
/RU – The user to run the task as (SYSTEM in this case – Must be SYSTEM or and Administrator).

After adding the above line to the Login Script, a new scheduled task will be added to the machines that run the login script. You can then wait until after the schedule was set to be run and check if it ran.

That is it for now..

DigitalKid (Jason)
www.954network.com

Accelerators: These allow you to complete tasks (Such as Spell Checks, Mapping, Translations etc). There are endless numbers of accelerators that you can add to IE 8 – Social Networking, Search, Translations, Maps and On and On. You can find the gallery of Accelerators here: http://ieaddons.com/en/. Some seem very useful, others not so much - Most of which are entertaining and will contribute to your Internet time wasting by adding direct interaction with sites like Face Book and others.

Enhanced Navigation Features: IE 8 has added a few new features to navigation. One that I find to be pretty cool as a techie is the Compatibility View feature. Since IE8 is a new release, some sites may not display properly within the browser. That is where Compatibility View comes in. You can find this feature next to the “refresh” button on the address bar. This is similar to the “User Agent String Utility” accept now these features are built right into the browser – No need to install a second application.

Speaking of the Address bar, there are a few enhancements here as well. For example, if you cannot remember a site that you visited a few days/weeks/months (depending on your history settings and browsing habits) IE 8 Will search across all aspects of your history and suggest sites. This is especially useful when doing research online.

Tab Grouping is also a helpful feature. When you click a link that opens another tab, the 2 related tabs (having the link in common) are color coded to each other. They are also opened next to each other as opposed to at the end of the tabs as with IE 7.

Increased Performance: Now IE starts quicker and loads pages faster. I am somewhat skeptical of this as I think it also depends on how many add-ons and plug-ins and other features that you have installed/enabled. I guess results will vary from user to user. I can say that it definitely loads faster for me but I have very few add-ins enabled and virtually no plug-ins installed.

InPrivate Browsing: Browse the web without saving history Cookies etc. This is useful when using a public computer or a friends PC. No form or password data (or any other data) is maintained on the computer after it is entered into the sites that you visit. This is also useful for the paranoid and those trying to “Cover their Tracks”.

Web Slices: Keep track of changes to your favorite sites. This is basically like a favorites system. For example, if you wanted to keep track of what is going on on MSNBC, you would see a green “Web Slice” icon in the upper right corner of the browser. By clicking the Web Slice icon, you add this site to the web slice favorites bar so that you can keep up with that “Slice” of the web.

Smart Screen Filter: Websites that have been deemed unsafe can be screened using this feature. You can also submit a site to the list of questionable sites. This does not seem very useful to me personally but may be useful for parents etc. You can enable this feature by clicking on the “Safety” drop down on the Right side of the browser window and choosing “InPrivate Filtering”.

All in All, my experience with Internet Explorer 8 so far Has been a good one. I will have to use it for a few more days before I am sure that I like it though and I will definitely have to thoroughly test it before deploying it to any of my clients. As with any new browser, it will take some time to learn all of the new features and test as many sites as possible for compatibility and functionality. I will also be testing the Web Slice features as I have always HATED the favorites system.

Jason (Digitalkid)
www.954network.com

Now that we have that out of the way, I have seen a lot of people wondering how to configure email alerts from Symantec BackupExec. Most are having issues receiving the alerts once they have configured the server settings. The application seems to not want to send email through a local Exchange Server (Relay). I have had this issue in the past myself and have a few ways to get around this that I thought I would share with you - so lets get started.

First off, when configuring the Alert Settings, in older versions of BackupExec (9.X, 10.X, 11.X), you will notice that there are no options for SMTP authentication, which means you need a relay. One way around this is if your ISP allows you to relay through their servers when behind an IP assigned by them. If this applies to you, you can ask them what their outbound SMTP server address is and use that as a relay. This typically works with BellSouth and FDN in my experience. Ask your ISP or just test this configuration and see if it works with your Internet Provider.

The second method is relatively easy and only requires that you use localhost as your SMTP server. You can do this in a few situations. The first is if you have BackupExec installed on your Exchange server or SBS Server locally. Simply open Exchange System Manager, Expand Administrative Groups > First Administrative Group > Servers > [You Server Name] > Protocols > SMTP. Right Click the Default SMTP Virtual Server and choose properties. Go to the Access tab and click the Relay button. You should see that your local subnet as well as the local host are allowed to relay. If you do not see this, add these items to the allow relay list and configure BackupExec to use Localhost (127.0.0.1) as the mail server. Test these settings under the recipients configuration. This should also work for remote machines, just add the IP address of the remote machine that you want to allow to relay.

The third method uses the MAPI configuration. To do this, you will need to create a contact in Active Directory Users and Computers that has the email address that you would like to receive alerts to assigned to it. I am not going to go into how to create a contact in this post. After creating the contact, open BackupExec, go to Email and Pager notifications. Choose the MAPI Configuration tab and specify your Exchange Server under MAPI mail server. For mailbox name, Specify the contact that you created earlier. When messages are sent to this contact, they should go to the email address that is associated with the contact. I am not sure if this works on servers that are remote to the Exchange server though so you will have to experiment if your BackupExec installation is not on the same machine that Exchange lives on.

If all of the above do not work for you, I suggest upgrading to the latest version of BackupExec (version 12.X as of this post) which allows SMTP authentication to be configured for outbound email. Alternatively, you could install SMTP on a remote server (whether it runs BackupExec or not) and allow relay only from the servers that you want alerts sent from. This can be done under Add/Remove Programs > Add/Remove Windows Components: Under – Application Server > Internet Information Services > SMTP Service. I will not go into the details of this configuration but it is fairly easy to set up and as always, google.com can assist.

Jason (Digitalkid)
www.954network.com

Microsoft has not yet released a patch but is aware of the vulnerability and has released an advisory HERE as well as a work around that can be performed by Administrators HERE. This vulnerability is considered Critical. Users should remain vigilant when surfing the Internet and check often for future updates to patch the flaw if the work around is not performed.

UPDATE: Microsoft has released a patch for this flaw through Windows Update. You can find more information about the patch HERE.

Jason (Digitalkid)
www.954network.com

I should also mention (As mentioned in the article above) that the WiFi (Airport) does not work out of the box nor does the sound or power options (Sleep, Dim etc.) or the LAN connection. The wireless is an easy fix but I am still working on the others and will post my results, if any, when I find a solution.

Lets Get Started!

1. Get a USB External Hard Drive if you do not already have one and Delete Partitions. Then create a 5 Gig FAT32 Partition. You can use the rest of the space as you see fit. I used the rest as an NTFS partition so that I could transfer files back and forth from my Vista Machine to the S10 (MAC) knowing that I would have no network connectivity to download WiFi Drivers.
2. Download the following applications:
   a. Leopard HD Install Helper – HERE
   b. MSIWindowsx86.iso – Sorry, you will have to hunt this one down!
3. Run the Leopard HD Install Helper. Select the Image (MSIWindowsx86.iso) and The Destination drive (The FAT32 Partition) and click the start button. You may notice that the app is in a different language or is all question marks. Included in the Zip file is a GUI reference image.
4. Once you have accomplished the above tasks, Restart the S10 and During boot, Hold the “FN” key and push the “F11″ key (FN+F11 = F12 for Boot Menu).
5. Select your USB external Hard Drive to boot. You will receive an error stating “No Operating System Found”, hit enter and you will be presented with the boot selection screen. Choose MAC Installation and Push Enter.
6. Once in setup, Choose your language and click next.
7. You should now be at the Welcome Screen. You now need to prepare your internal hard drive for the installation. Click “Utilities > Disk Utility”.
8. At this point, you need to choose what drive to format and create partitions on. I went with the internal HDD which had XP Pro on it. erase/format the drive. I went with Mac File System (Journaled).
9. After this step is complete, click the continue button on the Welcome Screen and select the newly formatted drive to install the OS to. Click install and go get some coffee, it will be a while.
10. Once you reboot after the installation completes, you will be asked if you wan to transfer information from another Mac or backup and various other options. This typically results in an endless loop of rebooting regardless of your choice. You can bypass this step by booting with the -s option as follows:
    a. when you boot the machine and before you reach the login page, hit any key.
    b. You should now be at the terminal, type /sbin/fsck -fy and hit enter.
    c. Then type /sbin/mount -uw / and hit enter.
    d. cd to /Volumes/YOUR DISK HERE/var/db and type touch .AppleSetupDone and hit enter.
11. After completing the steps above, type passwd to set a root password for the laptop. Do not forget this password. Type exit and hit enter to reboot.
12. At the login window, login as root with the password that you just created. Go to System Preferences and create a regular user to your specifications. Log out as root and back in as the user you just created.

You are now running OS X on your Lenovo S10 but the WiFi still does not work. This is a relatively easy fix and can be accomplished using the instructions below.

1. Unplug the USB drive from your new OS X Installation and plug it into a machine with Internet access.
2. Download the Drivers from this thread – HERE and extract the files to your external hard drive on the second partition that you created. Plug the drive back into the S10 and copy the extracted file to your home directory.
3. To install the Driver, open a terminal window and cd to your home directory if necessary. type sudo ./bcm43xx_enabler_0.5.1pre.sh and enter your password when prompted (Alternatively you can log in as root and follow the same procedure minus the sudo). Accept all defaults and reboot. You should now be able to connect to your wireless network.
4. I then updated the sysytem with System Preferences > Software Update. It is safe to update to 10.5.5 and all other updates that may be available although You will need to run the network installation script mentioned above after the update. This also breaks the screen resolution requiring you to install yet another driver (Read On!).
5. Download the video drivers HERE as well as Kext Helper HERE (and please, RTFM with Kext Helper!)
6. Once you have downloaded those packages, unzip them and drag the Kext files into Kext Helper, type in your Root password and click easy install. Reboot.

That is as far as I have gotten with mine as well like the forum mentioned at the top and the guide that I followed. I am going to try to work on the sound as well as the Power Options and LAN connection over the next few weeks and will post any results in the future.

UPDATE:After alot of google searches, I got the audio to work on the S10 Under OS X. Thanks to THIS post. It was actually pretty easy to execute, just took a while to find the article linked above!:

You need the following applications:

• AzaliaAudio.pkg.zip
• Audieee 1.0.1
• Apple Developer Tools (On DVD or Download from ADC)

Basically, all that has to be done is to Remove AppleHDA.kext if it is installed (System Drive > System > Library > Extensions). Install AzaliaAudio and Re-Boot. Install the Apple Developer Tools. Launch Audieee.

That’s It! Now your sound should work flawlessly. I also put Audieee in my start-up programs under my user preferences so it auto starts when I log in.

Jason (Digitalkid)
www.954network.com

1. 1. Aero - Vista has a new pretty user interface with lots of neat and exciting features but is it really necessary? If you are not one that is interested in aesthetics but rather functionality, turning off all of the effects is possible but it will make your snazzy new Vista box look like an XP machine. Here’s how:
      a. Click Start and Right-Click Computer. Click Properties.
      b. In the “Tasks” Section on the left, click “Advanced System Settings” and accept the UAC prompt.
      c. In the next screen, click the settings button under the performance category.
      d. Click the radio button labeled “Adjust for best performance” and click Apply.

See what you think of this setup. You can customize which effects are enabled in the list to adjust to your liking. One way or the other, reducing the number of effects will improve overall performance as well as battery life on laptops.

2. Unnecessary Services - As with past versions of Windows, there are some services that are started by default that are necessicarily required for proper operation but there are trade offs. To get to the services list, Click start and in the search field type “services.msc” (Without Quotes) and hit enter. Accept the UAC prompt to continue. You will now see a list of services, their current state and their start up state. Below is a short list of some that can be stopped and disabled as well as a brief word about what functionality you will loose.

1.    a. Bluetooth Support – Loose the ability to use Bluetooth devices.
      b. Diagnostic Policy Service – This disables the searching for solutions when a program crashes.
      c. IP Helper – This enables IPv6 over IPv4 networks, which is not commonly used.
      d. Windows Error Reporting – Disables sending of error reports to Microsoft.
      c. Server – Enables you to share files on your network. If you do not share files, you can disable.
      d. Tablet PC Input Service – Enables Tablet PC Pen and Ink input. Disable if not using tablet PC.

I am sure that there are many other services that can be disabled based on the way you use your computer but the above can be disabled by most users without adverse effects.

3. Disable Startup Items - Disabling start up applications has always been a no-brainer when trying to speed up your computer. The less applications that are loaded into memory at start up the faster the start up will be and the less memory will be consumed once start up is complete. This can be done in MSCONFIG as with previous versions of Windows. To access MSCONFIG, click start and in the search dialog, type “msconfig” (Without Quotes) and hit enter. Go to the start up tab and disable anything that is not necessary. These settings will vary from computer to computer but you can re-enable anything that seems to have an adverse effect.

4. Limit Windows Search - Windows Vista has Instant search which means that it constantly scans and indexes the files that are on your computer and when you search for something it can be found quickly. While this sounds like a great option (Which it is) the indexing can be a burden on performance. Luckily there is a way to adjust what windows will search/index.

   a. Right-Click Start Button (Windows Pearl) and choose “Properties”
   b. Click “Customize..” and scroll through the list for Search.
   c. Adjust what is searched on your start menu to your preference.

You can also adjust what is indexed to your liking under Control Panel > Indexing Options or Disable indexing all together by Stopping the Indexing service (You can find the service in the same location mentioned in number 2 above – Unnecessary Services).

5. Disable Thumbnail View - While some like to see a thumbnail of the image files etc. when browsing their folders, I prefer details. This will speed up the time it takes to scroll through folders and navigate through other directories. Do disable thumbnail view, do the following.

   a. Open your My Documents Folder.
   b. Click Tools and choose Folder Options.
   c. In that window, click the “View” tab and check the top box labeled “Always show icons, never thumbnails”
   d. Click “Apply to Folders”

This speeds up browsing folders and files. You can also change the default view to one of the other views (Details, Icons, Thumbnails etc) by changing it in the view menu and then following steps b, c, and d above. As it goes, I am sure there are many other things that can be done to speed up Vista, so if you have any, feel free to post-em here!

Jason (Digitalkid)
www.954network.com

The Scenario: When you go to boot your Windows XP machine, you are presented with the message – Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM (or SOFTWARE, SAM, DEFAULT or any variant). In this example, I will use the file “SYSTEM” as this is the one I see corrupted most often.

Luckily, this issue can be taken care of by replacing these files from the recovery console (Or your favorite Linux Live Distro). This article assumes that you already know how to set the CD-ROM as the first boot device in your BIOS and that you know the local Administrator password to the computer. Lets get started.

1. Insert your Windows XP CD and boot to it. When you are at the first screen, presenting options choose “R” for the recovery console.

2. Choose your windows installation if prompted and log in as Administrator to the Recovery Console command prompt.

3. Make a backup of the file that the error mentioned. Create a directory somewhere (md tmp) and copy the file C:\windows\system32\config\system to the tmp directory that you created above. (EXAMPLE: copy C:\windows\system32\config\system C:\tmp\system.bak)

4. Next delete the problematic file. (EXAMPLE: delete C:\windows\system32\config\system)

5. Finally, copy C:\windows\repair\system C:\windows\system32\config\system

Reboot your machine with your fingers crossed and see if you are able to get into windows. Below is the link to the MS article that outlines this procedure exactly.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307545

Jason (Digitalkid)
www.954network.com

1. Make sure you have anti-virus software: This is one of the most important items to ensure that your computer remains safe from Internet Borne threats. There are plenty of solutions available, some of them free (AVG Free Edition – ClamWin) and some better than others. If you go the free route, I recommend AVG. If you decide to purchase an anti-virus suite, some good ones are AVG Professional, Symantec products and Computer Associates (CA) products. Any level of protection is better than none at all. Also, make sure to keep your software up to date as well as your subscription.

2. Patch your Operating System / Applications: Microsoft regularly releases updates to all of their products. This includes Security updates, Service Packs and feature enhancements. Make sure to visit the Windows Update site at least monthly and keep your computer up to date. This is also very important and should never be taken lightly. You hardware or other software vendors may also release patches.

3. Pay Attention to Emerging Threats: From time to time you will here about a new virus, flaw or vulnerability on the news or elsewhere. When these bulletins are released, read up on them and assess your risk; apply any applicable updates and avoid any pitfalls mentioned. Just be sure it is legitimate. There are some hoaxes out there so make sure you only follow any instructions from a trusted source.

4. Beware of your Click: Some sites have advertisements that may be appealing, usually telling you that your computer is infected, that you should clean your registry or other various “tips”. Be ware of these as most of the time, they are designed to do more damage than good.

5. Active-X: The word alone strikes fear in my mind;. Never install an Active-X control that is not from a trusted source. If you do need to install an Active-X control, lets use Adobe Flash Player, do not install it from a site that asks you to do so. Go directly to Adobe’s site to download the plug-in!

6. Keep an eye on the URL: when going to any site, it is important to make sure that you are on your intended site and not a phishing site made to look like your intended destination. Check the URL (Web Address) in the address bar to make sure it is spelled correctly and is in fact the site you are looking for.

7. Certificates: If you navigate to a site and get a certificate warning/error prompting you to either accept or not accept a certificate, it is usually a good idea to not accept it. There are exceptions to this rule though. For instance, if your organization has a site to access email remotely (Outlook Web access or otherwise) and your administrator has made you aware of the certificate error you will see, it is usually okay to accept the certificate.

8. Email Attachments: I am sure that we have all heard this one but it is worth repeating. If you receive an attachment on an email, do not open it unless you trust the sender. Even then, you should first save the attachment to your hard drive and scan it for viruses before opening it. You never know if someone you trust has a virus and is inadvertently sending it to you.

9. Password Protect Your Computer: You should always password protect your computer and change the password every now and then.

10. Passwords on the Internet: when you choose a password for a site to which you belong (a bank, credit card etc.) you should always choose a complex password. This means a password containing upper and lowercase characters as well as special characters if you are able. Also make your password at least 7 characters long and never have your computer remember these passwords for you.

If you follow these steps and use common sense when surfing the Internet you can greatly reduce the risks that you face. Remember that there are a lot of other people connected to the Internet and some percentage of those people are out for one thing, to steal from others. Do not be a victim! Be mindful of your personal information and activities on your computer and you will avoid future sorrow.

Jason (Digitalkid)
www.954network.com