Brasso.

That’s right. Todd Dailey discovered that scratches in the iPod nano can be polished out using Brasso metal polish. I’m constantly surprised when a simple, old-school method seems to be just as good as many new and expensive tech fixes. And, I’m sure plenty of grandparents would have something to say about this too, even if they don’t know what an iPod does.

This actually looks like a simple fix for any iPod scratching. I don’t have a nano yet, but I’m going to try using Brasso on my iPod Photo this weekend.

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Microsoft released the Office 2003 SP2 today. The service pack contains both new and previous bug and security fixes. Just the sheer volume of previous fixes included in the package should make it a boon for slipstreaming into current MSI’s - but the new patches warrant some testing. Rumor on the web is that SP2 causes few, if any, issues. My first install on a clean XP SP2 system went well, but a well-used, XP SP1 system prompted to have Acrobat Reader 6.x upgraded to v7. Home users should probably apply immediately. Administrators, check and double-check, lest Office SP2 end up breaking Acrobat or even access to corporate document management/hide-and-go-seek software.

The one feature getting the most discussion is the newest Outlook junk-mail filter update. I strongly agree with Ed Bott’s review of the Outlook anti-phishing features. At least get the Outlook filter update - even if skipping Office’s SP2 for now.

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Dozens of Beginner to Advanced (weighted on advanced) software and tech cheat sheets.

Need a head-start on unfamiliar IT stuff before a big meeting? Skip the cheat sheets and head over to these IT guides and tutorials. Plenty of straight-shooting Linux and enterprise software evaluation info, short on Windows and Microsoft product guides…

Again, thanks to Alex Scoble for the original link listing. Alex happens to be the brother of the Scoble. It’s weel worth reading both of their blogs. Alex an IT manager who is certainly more entertaining than I am when blogging about IT, and Robert is one of tech blogging’s hubs (and I envy that he has that kind of freedom working at Microsoft).

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Who uses multiple, nested Org Units in Active Directory? Anyone using Group Policies beyond a bare minimum should be…

A very fast description of Microsoft’s Active Directory summarizes the reasons for various AD structures. The simplicity of the explanation and the recommendation to use Org Units to better delegate administration make it worth saving to your help desk’s knowledge base. Thanks to Alex Scoble for the original link.

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The WMI repository on one of our Exchange 2003 servers recently became corrupted, interrupted outgoing mail handling, and flooded the event logs. After some research I found the corruption isn’t entirely uncommon on Windows Server 2003 or even Windows XP systems. It is indicated by event ID’s 40, 42, 47, 63 from the WinMgmt process, event ID 3006 from the LoadPerf process, and event ID 9098 from the ExchangeSA and MAD monitoring processes. Trying to track a message in the Exchange message tracking center also displayed error code 8004100e.

I confirmed it was a WMI error by running WBEMTEST (just type “wbemtest” into the run dialog). Then click “Connect…” and try to connect to “root\microsoftexchangev2″. Should connecting to that path fail, try to connect to “root\cimv2″. If that works then WMI needs to be cleared and reregistered on the server. The script below is configured to close the Windows Management process, clear the repository, reinstall WMI, and restart the process - which should fix the errors on Windows Server or XP without a reboot. (Thanks to Luke Edson for the basis of this script. The script makes heavy use of the mofcomp compiler, see Microsoft’s description of mofcomp utility.)

WMI Repair Script (run as .BAT file):

net stop winmgmt
c:
cd %windir%\system32\wbem
rd /S /Q repository
regsvr32 /s %systemroot%\system32\scecli.dll
regsvr32 /s %systemroot%\system32\userenv.dll
mofcomp cimwin32.mof
mofcomp cimwin32.mfl
mofcomp rsop.mof
mofcomp rsop.mfl
for /f %%s in (’dir /b /s *.dll’) do regsvr32 /s %%s
for /f %%s in (’dir /b *.mof’) do mofcomp %%s
for /f %%s in (’dir /b *.mfl’) do mofcomp %%s
mofcomp -n:root\cimv2\applications\exchange wbemcons.mof
mofcomp -n:root\cimv2\applications\exchange smtpcons.mof
mofcomp exmgmt.mof
mofcomp exwmi.mof
net start winmgmt

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Arthur Fuller is a well-known SQL guru and developer, but his system administration skills don’t reflect enough respect of his server. In this account of a bad SQL Server 2005 Express install he foo-bars his server by installing SQL Server 2005 Express on the same box that runs SQL Server 2000.

Database servers, the programs that provide the database functionality, don’t share resources well. These programs aren’t related to simple file-based Access or Borland databases. Those file-based programs are glorified text files and don’t require the resources that ACID compliant databases do. To be and ACID database requires real time access to server memory, logs files, and OS resources. By running two databases on the same system the most basic requests for resources from the OS can conflict, causing greater queueing and resource demands than splitting the instances to two equivalent servers, which drive up processor load and dramatically impact performance.

From experience, running both SQL Server and MySQL on the same development system, with no active users, does cause delays in both programs. That being said, multiple SQL Server versions on the same system definitely cause conflicts - something to remember if you’re going to demo MSSQL 2005 (virtualized OS’s via VMWare or Microsoft Virtualization Server are a different story, but if you’re smart enough to install enough RAM to support them then you can make up your own mind on running multiple SQL Servers).

Carry this one step further and try to keep Exchange, which uses its own databases, any other databases (Advantage, MySQL, Oracle, etc.), and any beta software on separate system and never have to recover from Mr. Fuller’s problem.

Update: “You can also install SQL Server 2005 side by side with SQL Server 2000 or SQL Server 7.0″ according to Microsoft MSDN. It “must” be OK if Microsoft says it will work, just remember that RAM use could double once that second instance starts allowing connections. (added 11/17/2005)

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Following client-support sessions using Windows Remote Desktop or Remote Assistance I’m often asked by clients to help them do the same thing to and from their home and office PCs. Often they’re surprised to find that the $50 they saved by ordering XP Home will keep them from remotely accessing a home PC, but those office PCs that did get XP Pro are ripe for remote access.

Here is a quick summary of the most common Windows Remote Desktop (RD) client tips and alternate clients:

• There aren’t any easy exploits of RD that I’m aware of, but changing the default RD port from 3389 to something else is much less likely to invite script kiddies in. This Microsoft Support article describes how to change the listening port of the “server”-side of the RD connection.
• Changing the listening port is also a convenient way to allow access to multiple PCs within the office. Just give each PC that needs to be accessed remotely a different listening port. Then configure the firewall (or Linksys router/switch/pseudo-firewall) to reserve the IP of each machine and forward traffic from each port to the corresponding IP. (Just check a list of common IP ports to make sure you aren’t going to interfere with other ‘net services.
• The RD client is built into Windows XP, but it’s lacking from older versions of Windows that are still in use, like Windows 2000 or ME). The client app can be installed on OS’s as old as Windows 95 with this client installer from Microsoft.
• Mac, Linux and other *NIX users don’t have to be left out either. An official Mac Remote Desktop client is available from Microsoft. There is also an X Window-compatible Terminal Services/Remote Desktop client.

Oh, and if you have a server in your office - consider a purchase of Terminal Server or Citrix. They make managing the remote access and security of this type of thing MUCH easier - not to mention the time they can save by reducing patch and software installations to only a few desktop-host servers.

Article tagged: Mac, UNIX, windows, remote, desktop, RDC, client, protocol, window, mode, terminal, services, IP, port

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