Knowing Knoppix - Knoppix for The Complete Beginner

Knoppix (http://www.knoppix.net/) is an astoundingly clever product.

It runs Linux completely from CD. There is no need to install. It bypasses all the software already installed on your PC or laptop. It automatically detects the hardware in your computer, such as video card, sound card, networking, the lot (subject to suitable hardware). When you've finished using Knoppix, simply restart. Your computer will return to your regular system, and it will behave as if nothing has happened. Knoppix is Free Software and open source under the terms of the GNU General Public Licence (GPL).Knowing Knoppix is a beginner-friendly book designed to help with these situations:

<-> You can't start Windows! Disaster? Possibly not. It is often possible to rescue files using Knoppix from crashed Windows computers, even when Windows cannot be started. This guide takes you step by step through the process.

<-> You are curious about Linux, and you want to discover what all the fuss is about.

<-> You want a useful guide to help you get started with Knoppix.

Download the PDF e-book from (3.8Mb):

http://www.pjls16812.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/knowing-knoppix/index.html

Knoppix itself is a 700Mb download. If you don't have the bandwidth, patience or time to download it, go to http://www.thelinuxshop.co.uk where you can order a CD for this and other distributions for around £3.50 per CD with free shipping to the UK (they also accept payment via PayPal).

Great Free Tools & Utilities From KarenWare

This is a small selection of some of the coolest (IMHO) utilities written by Karen Kenworthy (aka KarenWare.com) and best of all they're ALL FREE!

See the rest of the collection on her website... My personal favourites are Directory Printer and E-Mailer II

Directory Printer

Print the names, and other information, of all folders and files on your computer. No more fumbling with My Computer or Windows Explorer, wishing you could print information about all your files. Karen's Directory Printer can print the name of every file on a drive, along with the file's size, date and time of last modification, and attributes (Read-Only, Hidden, System and Archive)! And now, the list of files can be sorted by name, size, date created, date last modified, or date of last access.

http://www.karenware.com/powertools/ptdirprn.asp

LAN Monitor

Monitor your computer's connections to other computers (on your LAN, and on the Internet). See real-time traffic statistics.

http://www.karenware.com/powertools/ptlanmon.asp

E-Mailer II

Send E-Mail from Windows' command line, desktop! This program allows you to define several "canned" e-mail messages. Later, you can send any of those messages by just double-clicking a shortcut icon, or entering a simple command at the DOS command line.

http://www.karenware.com/powertools/ptmailer2.asp

Computer Profiler

View your computer's hidden secrets. Learn more than 200 interesting facts about your computer. Details about your CPU, memory, operating system, even your computer's power source, are all displayed. You can also copy the information to the Windows clipboard, and paste it into a document for permanent storage.

http://www.karenware.com/powertools/ptprofiler.asp

Replicator

Automatically copy and backup files. Automatically backup files, directories, even entire drives! Karen's Replicator copies selected files from one drive/folder to another. Source and Destination folders can reside anywhere on your network. Files larger than 2 GB are supported.

http://www.karenware.com/powertools/ptreplicator.asp

Socket Mobile Power Pack

"The Socket Mobile Power Pack is a small, light weight mobile charging source for users of portable electronic devices such as Pocket PCs, palmOne devices, PDAs, mobile phones, Smartphones, BlackBerry’s, digital cameras,MP3 players as well as Socket products (Cordless GPS receiver, Cordless 56K Modem, Cordless Serial Adapter and Cordless Hand Scanner). It’s a 5 volt battery pack that can charge/run most 5 volt electronic devices and products that draw power from a USB port."

http://www.expansys.com/product.asp?code=116815

.NETCPU

.NETCPU is a company that is offering a development environment based Microsoft's .NET Embedded Technology and a dedicated hardware CPU that can be used to power small devices.

http://www.dotnetcpu.com/

Additional Environment Variables for Terminal Services

ReconnAct! is a free utility that runs on a Terminal Server and creates two new environment variables for the Client IP and Client Name. These variables are automatically updated when a user connects from a different client and can be used to run a script on either connection or disconnection.

Now why didn't MS include this in TS in the first place...!

http://www.brianmadden.com/content/content.asp?id=298

New Products From Apple

iPod Shuffle (get a 512Mb iPod for £69 or 1Gb for £99):

http://www.apple.com/uk/ipodshuffle/

Mac Mini (get yorself a Mac for £339):

http://www.apple.com/uk/macmini/

Apple Store, Regent Street

OK, I'm not a Mac user but I just couldn't resist having a look-around their new European flagship store on Regent Street, London.

Boy was I impressed... this is how computer stores should be... If you are ever around the Regent Street area you should drop-in... especially if you're an iPod/Mac fan!

They also have regular customer events taking place. Details on these and for more information and pictures of the store opening late last year, go to:

http://www.apple.com/uk/retail/regentstreet/

Outlook 2003 Junk/SPAM Filter Update

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=9710921e-7529-4e25-a12a-2ebd96f4e914&DisplayLang=en

Now if only the Exchange 2003 IMF was also updated... :-(

Microsoft Malware Removal Tool Released

As I mentioned on Monday (10-Jan-2005) Microsoft have now released their Malware Remover Tool. The only 'downer' is that is will only run on Windows 2000, Windows Server 2003 & Windows XP :-(

The online version can be accessed at:

http://www.microsoft.com/security/malwareremove/default.mspx

The off-line download (256Kb) is at:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=AD724AE0-E72D-4F54-9AB3-75B8EB148356&displaylang=en

It's also available via Windows Update :-)

Anti-Phishing Toolbar

The Toolbar community is effectively a giant neighbourhood watch scheme, empowering the most alert and most expert members to defend everyone within the community against phishing frauds. Once the first recipients of a phishing mail have reported the target URL, it is blocked for community members as they subsequently access the URL. Widely disseminated attacks (people constructing phishing attacks send literally millions of electronic mails in the expectation that some will reach customers of the bank) simply mean that the phishing attack will be reported and blocked sooner.

The toolbar also:

Traps suspicious URLs containing characters which have no common purpose other than to deceive.

Enforces display of browser navigational controls (toolbar & address bar) in all windows, to defend against pop up windows which attempt to hide the navigational controls.

Clearly displays sites' hosting location, including country, helping you to evaluate fraudulent urls (e.g. the real citibank.com or barclays.co.uk sites are unlikely to be hosted in the former Soviet Union).

Download link: http://toolbar.netcraft.com/

Paint.NET - MS Paint But Better!

Paint.NET is image and photo manipulation software designed to be used on computers that run Windows XP or 2000. Paint.NET is jointly developed at Washington State University with additional help from Microsoft, and is meant to be a free replacement for the MS Paint software that comes with all Windows operating systems. The programming language used to create Paint.NET is C#, with GDI+ extensions.

http://www.eecs.wsu.edu/paint.net/index.html

Free Anti-Virus Tools - Update!

Tomorrow sees Microsoft lunch it's own AV application... though not a full-blown application (such as AVG or Sophos) it is intended as an 'emergency' solution (similar to McAfee Stinger) which will be updated on a monthly basis and distributed via the Microsoft Downloads site and via Windows Update.

For more information, see the following CNN News article:

http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/01/06/microsoft.antivrus.ap/index.html

More on this soon...

Free Cisco Management Tools

Two FREE and very useful administration tools for managing your Cisco® network infrastructure...

Cisco® Network Assistant:

Cisco® Network Assistant is a PC-based network management application optimized for LANs of small and medium-sized businesses with up to 250 users. Cisco Network Assistant offers centralized management of Cisco Systems® switches, routers, and WLAN access points. It supports a wide range of Cisco Catalyst® Intelligent switches from Cisco Catalyst 2950 through Cisco Catalyst 4506. Through a user-friendly GUI, users can configure and manage a wide array of switch functions and start the device manager of Cisco routers and Cisco wireless access points.

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps5931/index.html

Cisco® Security Device Manager:

The Cisco® Router and Security Device Manager (SDM) is an intuitive, Web-based device management tool supported on Cisco 830 series to Cisco 7301 routers. Cisco SDM is shipping on Cisco 1800 series, Cisco 2800 series and Cisco 3800 series routers pre-installed from factory.

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/sw/secursw/ps5318/

Free Anti-Virus Tools

On-Line Scanning:

Trend Micro House Call is an innovative tool for scanning & cleaning viruses and checking your system for other security issues, HouseCall is based on Java Technologie that allows to support almost every platform, for which Trend Micro builds Security Solutions.

http://uk.trendmicro-europe.com/consumer/products/housecall_launch.php

Off-Line Emergency Scanning:

McAfee Stinger is a stand-alone utility used to detect and remove specific viruses. It is not a substitute for full anti-virus protection, but rather a tool to assist administrators and users when dealing with an infected system. Stinger utilizes next generation scan engine technology, including process scanning, digitally signed DAT files, and scan performance optimizations.

It can be downloaded from: http://vil.nai.com/vil/stinger/

Off-Line Preventative Scanning:

AVG Free Edition is the well-known anti-virus protection tool. AVG Free is available free-of-charge to home users for the life of the product! Rapid virus database updates are available for the lifetime of the product, thereby providing the high-level of detection capability that millions of users around the world trust to protect their computers. AVG Free is easy-to-use and will not slow your system down (low system resource requirements).

AVG Free Edition is for private, non-commercial, single home computer use only. Use of AVG Free Edition within any organization or for commercial purposes is strictly prohibited. Your use of AVG Free Edition shall be in accordance with and is subject to the terms and conditions set forth in the AVG Free Edition License Agreement which accompanies AVG Free Edition.

It can be downloaded from:

http://free.grisoft.com/freeweb.php/doc/2/

Office 2003 SP1 Failing Using Office Update Site

Not too long ago I ran into an interesting issue with applying Office 2003 (inc. Project 2003 and Visio 2003) Service Pack 1 through the Office Update site.

The update would kick-off then after a short while it would fail miserably with the error “update was unsuccessful”.

When Office 2003 was installed I ensured that the source files were kept on the local drive, so not being able to locate these was not the issue and as this was a ‘clean’ install the Registry settings weren’t pointing to an invalid location.

There were however several Event Viewer entries such as the one below:

The description for Event ID ( 0 ) in Source ( OfficeUpdateV3 ) cannot be found. The local computer may not have the necessary registry information or message DLL files to display messages from a remote computer. You may be able to use the /AUXSOURCE= flag to retrieve this description; see Help and Support for details. The following information is part of the event: V3_2511485INSTALLMSO11_1399_INTL2004-07-15 16:29:059FAIL00000000 The operation completed successfully..

Based on this I assumed that something had gone awry during the installation of Office. So having ‘repaired’ the installation I tried Office Update again… still the same error. Next option… a complete uninstall and re-install… still no joy… So as a last resort I tried the Full File downloads instead of using Office Update… they worked! Why I have no idea (yet) but it works. So if you have the same proble, you now know what to do!

You can get the Office 2003 SP1 Full-File downloads from:

Office 2003:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=9c51d3a6-7cb1-4f61-837e-5f938254fc47&DisplayLang=en

OneNote 2003:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=07408348-26c9-43bb-9e7e-6151cf15d415&DisplayLang=en

Project 2003:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=1b04c073-e58f-4f42-b76d-6b565a45cdc3&DisplayLang=en

Visio 2003:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=afca0578-e1fb-4540-b0cc-ff83def61cc6&DisplayLang=en

(you want the FullFile downloads NOT the Client downloads)

ActiveSync 3.8 Released

New features list: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile/downloads/as-new38.mspx

Downloadable from: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile/downloads/activesync38.mspx

Pairing an iPAQ 2210 with a Nokia 6230 Using Bluetooth

I recently changed my cell ‘phone and since doing this I was unable to ‘pair’ with my iPAQ 2210. Every time I attempted to pair the devices the connection was rejected for "security reasons".

Having gone through several frustrating hours changing every conceivable setting on the PDA and the 'phone, it transpired that the solution was simple... It seems that Nokia have 'improved' the Bluetooth security of their 'phones, fortunately HP appears to have released a fix for the issue.

See the following link for more details:

http://tinyurl.com/3abr4

London A-Z, Rail & Tube Maps for Pocket PC

If you are a regular commuter in London then this is the application for you! A London Tube Map and journey planner, London Rail Network map and the complete London A-Z Street map all on your Pocket PC!

I've been a regular user of the Tube Map application for a while now, but have recently upgraded to the version with the A-Z street maps - utterly impressed with it - doesn't cost all that much either (£16.00) not much more than the printed copy of the A-Z.

A GB road atlas and sub-way/tube maps for other EU and US cities are also available.

http://www.visualit.co.uk/tubelonpro.htm

HP iPAQ Users' Club

A relatively un-known yet free resource for UK HP iPAQ users:

www.hp.com/uk/mobilityclub

MS Photo Story 3

Follow this link to get to the free download for this great Windows XP application...

http://tinyurl.com/4f869

Microsoft Partner Pack for Windows XP

The Partner Pack is the ultimate application package for your Windows XP PC. Install this package and you will be able to play new games and have more fun, explore the internet in new ways, keep in touch and share information with friends and family, better protect your PC and do more with tools and desktop utilities.

You can download this software package for free.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/partnerpack/

MSN Messenger From a Browser

If you need to have a conversation on MSN but don't have access to the 'full' MSN Messenger application, a web-ified version is available at:

http://webmessenger.msn.com/

This will work on Internet Explorer 5.0 or later, Netscape 7.1 or later, or Mozilla 1.6 or later, running on Microsoft Windows.

Microsoft Anti-SpyWare Beta

Late last year Microsoft acquired GIANT Company Software, a publisher of Anti-SPAM and Anti-SpyWare applications.

The next version of the SpyWare application has now reached beta stage. The beta (6.3Mb) can be downloaded from:

http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/spyware/software/default.mspx

Nerd Quotient

A quick and fun test to see if you are a Nerd (or not)...

http://www.wxplotter.com/ft_nq.php

What's This Blog About?

One of the things I've always noticed about IT is the plethora of information and resources available on-line (or off-line for that matter).

The purpose of this Blog is to provide a link to the ones I've either recently 'discovered' or consider to be noteworthy and also provide a forum for discussing/debating IT related topics.

Welcome...!

Happy New Year to all visitors & welcome to the Blog of SysAdmin101...!