SoCal IT Pro / OCNTUG
Newsletter Volume 2
Number 7
Southern California IT Professional
Association July 1, 2004
Welcome Members, Visitors and
Friends!
Inside this Issue:
New Meeting Feature: MCT Corner
Meeting Announcement: July 8, 2004
Previous
Meeting...
Favorite Third Party Tools: 2xExplorer
Opinions and Commentary Department
Final Notes…
Email the Editor
And Now, The News...
New Meeting Feature: MCT Corner
Beginning at 6:30 pm, each meeting, QuickStart Intelligence will be providing a 30 minute training session with one of its Microsoft Certified Trainers. This month, Anythony Ayo will be giving us a little bit on the new Troubleshooting Exchange course
(#2011).
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Meeting Announcement: Thursday, July 8, 2004
Article by Dick Porter, Membership Chairman
Topic - Server Virtualization
July's presentation is brought to us by agile360, LLC http://www.Agile360.com.
Server Virtualization - The Adaptive Enterprise
President and Principle Founder of Agile360, Omar Yakar speaks on Single point of management for both
virtual and physical servers. Omar has over 15 years experience in the computer and technology industry and most recently had an article on Server Utilization
published in Network World Magazine (May 24, 2004 S16). This presentation is all content, no product promotion.
His topics of discussion include:
- How do we rapidly provision virtual servers
- How do we patch virtual servers
- How do we migrate physical servers to virtual servers
- Live demo of a physical to virtual server migration
Door prizes and software.
As always please RSVP on the http://www.SoCalITPro.org/ website. The link is on the lower left hand side of the home page.
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At the Previous Meeting...
Article by Dick Porter, Membership
Chairman
June's presentation was by Dan Holme from Intelliem.com in
collaboration with Windows & .NET Magazine and Culminis. Dan Holme delivered
an excellent presentation on Microsoft's Software Update Service and the new
Windows Update Service. The presentation was timely, informative and provided
great insight to an increasingly important aspect of system security.
Editor's Note: Mr. Holme spoke rather rapidly, covering a great deal of
information. He said that OCNTUG members would be able to download a .pdf of the
slides from his talk, from http://www.intelliem.com
and that there would be a link for OCNTUG members on the home page. I did find
that link. It leads to a login page, and requires that you register, stating
that you would receive a return email with your login information. I registered,
but never received the login info. So, I registered again, a week later. The
email that I so eagerly awaited never arrived. Ergo, I have been unable to
download the .pdf file to write a brief summary for our members. I suppose I'm
just not important enough to read such erudite information, or perhaps I don't
have a sufficient security clearance to access this secret document. Then again,
perhaps their submit button leads to a trash bin instead of a database.
Eventually, I might get around to writing them, but in the meantime, I'll just
complain...
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Favorite Third Party Tools Department: 2xExplorer
Suppose you want to
quickly transfer files between your harddrive and a network drive, or from a cd
drive to your flash disk...what do you use? Explorer, of course! Doesn't every
one? First you open two copies of Windows Explorer. You're already annoyed at
having a fourth of the screen wasted with another tree. Then, while you're
dragging a file across, a coworker comes into your cubicle and bumps your
shoulder, so your finger lifts from the left mouse button and you lose the file
somewhere in the directory tree, instead of getting it into the correct folder!
Growl...
Why not use 2xExplorer Z1, instead? 
You'll find all of your drives shown along the left rail, including network
and removeable drives. The drive letters will appear after you request that
setting in the Options menu. 2xExplorer has all the neat buttons for most of the
things you'd want to do, but best of all, you don't have to open two Explorer
windows, or resize them, or move them around the screen, or tile them, and
accidentally tile all of your other open windows at the same time…Oh, bother! On
the left is a single directory tree, with the current directory in Boldface. The
center and right panes show the two directories that you may drag and drop files
into. When you click on either pane, the tree pane will shift to that portion of
the tree. There is a setting that causes the file displays to instantly resort
when a file is added. For me, one useful feature is the grid lines in the
display, because without it, I can't see straight at 3:00 am.
Another
feature I find most useful is the ability to synchronize directories with the
click of a button. Differing files will be highlighted in both panes, so that
you can easily drag and drop an entire group, or select, or deselect individual
files. Also, 2xExplorer automatically remembers not only your settings, but
exactly where you left off. When you restart the app, the directory tree and
file panes open exactly as you left them, making it quite handy if you do a
standardized quick file transfer each evening when you leave work.
In
older versions of 2xExplorer, switching between panes caused them to scroll
uncontrollably, but in version Z1, the panes stay where they are, except for the
automatic resort, of course. The program is less than a megabyte, so you can
carry it on a floppy or on your flashdisk; and doesn't affect the registry, so
you can copy it into any folder for quick access. This program work beautifully,
and best of all, it's Freeware!
Sure, I know, you've been using two
Explorer windows for so long it's a habit you can't change. Charles Kettering
said, "If you've been doing something the same way for twenty years, you've
probably been doing it wrong." Try 2xExplorer version Z1! Yes, I've reviewed
2xExplorer before, but I resurected this for those who didn't read it last year,
and to suggest to our readers that if they have a favorite Third Party Tool,
they might write a short article about it, and submit it to the Newsletter for
publication.
Next month, Webroot's Spysweeper (unless someone has
something else they'd like to tell us about).
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Opinions and Commentary Department
(Gripes-R-Us Dept.)
In the
last issue, I commented (griped) about the re-activation process at some length.
You might be interested to know that I did something more than just complain
about it, I went to the Microsoft WindowsServerFeedback.com site and left a
suggestion. I was pleased to receive the following response from them:
Subject: C00015791:Product Re-Activation
Dear Robert,
I
am Jay, a member of Windows Server Feedback Response Team. I just finished
reading your feedback.
Thank you for submitting your detailed
feedback.
The suggestion you have made in your feedback is a good one.
I can understand that it is a bit challenging to re-activate Windows Server
even after some hardware upgrade
The suggestion you have made in this
regard is a good one and I am forwarding it to the Product Development Team at
Microsoft and I am sure they will find it interesting.
Again, I want to
personally thank you for taking the time to send us this suggestion and we
will definitely be interested in any other feedback you may
have.
Sincerely,
Jay
(Windows Server Feedback Response
Team)
----------------------------------------------
Description
of the scenario
One of our OCNTUG members complained that all he did was
add more memory, exchange a CD-ROM drive for a burner, and substitute a larger
hard drive, and Server 2003 told him he had only 3 days to reactivate it. The
software apparently thought it had been put on a new machine. He said it took
20 minutes on the phone with Microsoft to reactivate the
product.
Current workaround method (if applicable)
Value or
impact to your organization
System upgrades are common to many
organizations. Well what if the Senior Admin of a large corporation upgrades
his five-hundred or more servers all at once? Let's see, 500 servers x 20
minutes each equals 10,000 minutes divided by 1440 minutes per day which
equals 6.944 twenty-four hour days to complete the reactivation task, or,
given a single 8 hour shift per day comes to 23.833 days before all servers
are in compliance. That's 166.67 manhours! On the phone! Suppose it's the US
Government with 50,000 or more servers across the country? We're gonna pay
taxes for them to sit on the phone with Microsoft for 1,666,700 hours?
Re-Activating operating systems? Hey, Uncle Bill! Please come up with a better
way! I don't want my income tax refund delayed for 190.132 years because the
IRS is waiting on the phone to reactivate their servers! Is that why my refund
was late this year? I thought electronic filing would be
faster!--Editor
Excerpt taken from the SoCal IT Pro Assoc. Newsletter
for June, 2004. I am the Editor.
Suggested solution
If a machine is
upgraded, simply have the operating system double check the GUID, verify that
it's actually the same machine, and either permit it to continue running
without reactivation, or send a message to the Administrator, asking
permission to connect to Microsoft through the Web and automatically verify
itself. A company should not have to waste time (possibly even down-time) with
re-activations.
As you can see, I didn't have a workaround
for the problem, but I made one possible suggestion for a solution. If any of
our members have another possible solution in mind, I urge you to go to the http//www.windowsserverfeedback.com
website, and give them your solution. Even if our suggestions don't get into a
future service pack for Server 2003, they just might make Longhorn a little
easier for the next generation. --Editor
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Reader Feedback
--Editor
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Final Notes…
> Be sure to be at the meeting by 6:30 pm for the
MCT Corner lesson on troubleshooting exchange!
> If you any
ideas for an article that you might like to write for this Newsletter, or about
any third-party software that you would like to share with our members, please
submit your article to the Editor, contact information below. Please use the
Rich Text Format (.rtf file) for your article, and in the subject line of your
email, put the word, Newsletter, so I don't accidently delete your email. (I
tend to delete emails from people I don't know unless the subject line clearly
indicates something important.)
See you at the meeting on Thursday, July
8, 2004, enjoy!
Robert Holtzman,
Editor
rholtzman@netzero.net
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SoCal
IT Pro/OCNTUG
Newsletter
Volume 2 No. 7
07/01/04
EOF