Vol. 12, #26 - Jul 9, 2007 - Issue #632 New CounterSpy Version 2.5 Released Editor's Corner ScriptLogic Sold To Quest: Good News. Own An Xbox 360? You Just Got A 3-year Warranty! Yearly Yankee Hardware/Software Reliability Survey Quote Of The Week Admin Toolbox Admin Tools We Think You Shouldn't Be Without Tech Briefing Wi-Max Research Boom Hits Nortel Xen Virtualization Will Catch Up To VMware In 2008 Optimize Disk Configuration In SQL Server Hacking For Dummies: Test Your Firewall Rules Multi-Core Systems vs. Multi-CPU Systems Network Access Protection (NAP) Is Almost Here: Get Ready How To Install And Configure An Edge Transport Server Windows Server News Six Security Updates Planned For Next Patch Tuesday Experts Weigh The Good And Bad Of Windows Server Core Getting To Know The RODC For Windows Server 2008 WServer Third Party News New CounterSpy Version 2.5 Released WServerNews Fave Links This Week's Links We Like. Tips, Hints And Fun Stuff. WServerNews - Product of the Week Ninja Disclaimers for Exchange: Only $99.95 Per Year Faster systems, faster backups, reduced help desk costs - best defrag PerfectDisk 8 for servers and PCs is the defragmenter preferred by Microsoft MVPs and the world's largest companies. Exclusive Space Restoration Technology(tm) gives total free space consolidation. AutoPilot Scheduling(tm) give you control and minimizes resource usage. Patented optimization, and all done in a single pass - once and done. Windows IT Pro, Redmond Magazine, CNET and others' top picks. Save 20% now. http://www.wservernews.com/070709-PerfectDisk-8 Editor's Corner ScriptLogic Sold To Quest: Good News. During the 4th of July 'recess' something positive happened. Quest has been a big player in our field for a long time. They have also made a series of smart acquisitions over the years, that have made Quest into a real leader in the Windows management space. Their next prize is ScriptLogic. Since they bought Fastlane Technologies, one of the leaders in Active Directory migration tools, they continued with Aelita, which also had a few great Windows server management tools. More recently, Quest took another one of the best ones, by acquiring Vintela, which built tools connecting Linux users to AD. ScriptLogic has become a strong contender in the desktop management space, and they are very good in automating server tasks. Looking at earlier Quest acquisitions, they will integrate Scriptlogic in their product line and provide good support for it. I just talked to Brian Styles at TechEd a few weeks ago. He's the ScriptLogic founder and the driving force behind its innovation. At that time he could (obviously) say nothing about the pending deal, but he told Dave Kearns, the editor of Network World's Windows Networking Strategies Newsletter: "Well the plan is to continue to operate and grow independently, as a subsidiary. So I am here and everything should remain relatively unchanged, only better." That's good news for Windows network managers. Own An Xbox 360? You Just Got A 3-year Warranty! Because of unacceptable hardware failures, Redmond decided to extend the 360 warranty to 3 years for everyone. The company said it will take a pretax charge of more than $1 billion to repair defects in its next- generation game machine. "As of today, all Xbox 360 consoles are covered by an enhanced warranty program to address specifically the general hardware failures indicated by the three flashing red lights on the console. This applies to new and previously-sold consoles. While we will still have a general one year console warranty (two years in some countries), we are announcing today a three-year warranty that covers any console that displays a three flashing red lights error message. If a customer has an issue indicated by the three flashing red lights, Microsoft will repair the console free of charge-including shipping-for three years from the console's purchase date." Yearly Yankee Hardware/Software Reliability Survey Here is your chance to tell us which OS is most reliable in your view. Yankee Group and Sunbelt Software would like to invite you to participate in a 10 minute survey that quantifies the reliability of some of the top printer and network infrastructure devices and over one dozen server operating systems. The intent of this survey is to poll user experience and identify the reliability of these respective hardware devices and server OS platforms and highlight user patch management trends and the impact on productivity to the organization. This is an independent survey. There are no vendor sponsors and no vendors had input into the questions. All responses will be kept confidential. As our way of saying "Thank You" for your participation, anyone who completes the survey is eligible for a free copy of the full Yankee Group Report once it is published by sending an email to: ldidio@yankeegroup.com. Link: http://www.wservernews.com/070709-Survey Quote Of The Week "There are laws to protect the freedom of the press's speech, but none that are worth anything to protect the people from the press." -- Mark Twain And thank you for being a WServerNews subscriber. Hope you enjoy this issue of WServerNews! Warm regards, Stu  |   Email me: feedback@wservernews.com Admin Toolbox Admin Tools We Think You Shouldn't Be Without Must Have Freeware. Self Service Password + Web Active Directory. Download now! http://www.wservernews.com/070709-NameScape Reclaim up to 95% of your .pst files with PSTCompress 3. Download your trial copy today: http://www.wservernews.com/070709-PSTCompress-3 World's only Vista-certified defragger. Speed up your servers and PCs today with PerfectDisk 8. Windows IT Pro winner, Microsoft's preferred: http://www.wservernews.com/070709-Raxco-Defragger Run VMs? How do you handle disaster recovery and high availability? Use the World's Number One "DR/HA in-one" tool: Double-Take: http://www.wservernews.com/070709-Double-Take New Radmin V3 is a complete, secure and lightning fast Remote Control tool designed by and for system admins. Supports Vista - Try it out! http://www.wservernews.com/070709-Radmin-V3 Tech Briefing Wi-Max Research Boom Hits Nortel Just as a heads-up, what I expected a few years ago is coming true, however a little later that I though. Some one said to me the other day: "It takes longer than it takes". But Wi-Max is coming! Nortel Networks is spending 10 times as much on mobile wireless Wi-Max technology research today as it did a year ago, part of an initiative by Nortel chief technology officer John Roese in his first year at the post. InfoWorld has the story: http://www.wservernews.com/070709-Wi-Max-Research Xen Virtualization Will Catch Up To VMware In 2008 In this exclusive article, Burton Group analyst Chris Wolf discusses VMware versus Xen and what IT managers should know about new virtualization products and security threats. http://www.wservernews.com/070709-Xen-Virtualization Optimize Disk Configuration In SQL Server Proper disk configuration can result in a lifetime of high performance for SQL Server databases. Go beyond storage capacity requirements and consider drive performance. In this tip, database architect Denny Cherry outlines best practices for designing your disk subsystem, including choosing the right disk array. http://www.wservernews.com/070709-Optimize-SQL-Server-Disks Hacking For Dummies: Test Your Firewall Rules Before someone else hacks your firewall, test your firewall rules during the self-hacking process to test your network's security. Learn about the tools involved in this excerpt from Chapter 9, "Network Infrastructure," from, Hacking for Dummies, 2nd edition. http://www.wservernews.com/070709-Firewall-Rules Multi-Core Systems vs. Multi-CPU Systems In this tip, learn why a dual-core system may give you better performance and better value than a dual-processor system. http://www.wservernews.com/070709-Core-vs-CPU Network Access Protection (NAP) Is Almost Here: Get Ready IT managers are always on the lookout for new ways to secure their corporate networks, in order to address growing and changing threats to information security due to factors such as outside contractors, vendors and business partners who bring laptops inside your firewalled environment, or high-speed residential Internet connections that provide "always-on" connectivity for your staff members. In this article, find out how Network Access Protection (NAP) will be an integral offering in Windows Server 2008 and how to prepare for it. (registration required) http://www.wservernews.com/070709-NAP How To Install And Configure An Edge Transport Server Exchange MVP Brien Posey explains how an Edge Transport server works and provides step-by-step instructions on how to install and configure it to filter your Exchange 2007 organization's incoming and outgoing email. http://www.wservernews.com/070709-Edge-Transport-Server Windows Server News Six Security Updates Planned For Next Patch Tuesday Redmond will release six groups of security patches next week, fixing bugs in Excel, WinXP, Vista, and W2K3. Cyber criminals will e-mail their 'prospects' a maliciously encoded Office attachment. If that social engineering worked, the hacker gets access. Obviously Redmond is not releasing further details on the flaws it's fixing until Tuesday. Make sure you apply these patches soon, as the exploits will follow in -HOURS- these days. Three other less- critical updates are also planned. They include "important" updates for MS Publisher 2007 and WinXP SP2 as well as a fix for Vista. More at Redmond: http://www.wservernews.com/070709-Patch-Tuesday Experts Weigh The Good And Bad Of Windows Server Core Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Server Core and its nine server roles offer a new way to administer Windows Server. Experts explain what you need to know about the set-up-and-go installation option. SearchWinIT has the story: http://www.wservernews.com/070709-Windows-Server-Core Getting To Know The RODC For Windows Server 2008 One of the most common questions surrounding the new Active Directory technologies for Windows Server 2008 involves the read-only domain controller. Active Directory expert Laura Hunter breaks down the key details of the RODC and how it can increase AD security and flexibility. http://www.wservernews.com/070709-RODC WServer Third Party News New CounterSpy Version 2.5 Released Here is some news from our marketing people. Sunbelt Software announced this week an upgrade to its award-winning antispyware tool, CounterSpy. The new version 2.5 delivers several new features. If you are a CounterSpy user, you should have seen this new Version 2.5 come down to your machine by now. Keep in mind that the independent reviewers at Download.com recently gave CounterSpy 5 stars, compared to the three stars for Spy Sweeper and Spyware doctor. The code in this update went to both the consumer and enterprise versions by the way. Improved Active Protection(tm) performance: CounterSpy's Active Protection has been improved to deliver better, overall system performance while continuing to provide robust real-time protection for users' PCs. Several performance-tuning programming techniques have been implemented to reduce Active Protection's already low system resource requirements. Support for Windows Vista 64-bit: CounterSpy now adds to its current 32-bit support for Windows Vista full support for 64-bit versions as well. Additionally, CounterSpy also supports both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows Server 2003 SP1 and higher. Architecture enhancements to VIPRE technology: CounterSpy's hybrid engine merges spyware detection and remediation with Sunbelt's VIPRE technology (Virus Intrusion Protection Remediation Engine). Because VIPRE incorporates both traditional antivirus and antimalware techniques, enhancements have been made to CounterSpy's underlying architecture that will enable advanced delivery of software and definition updates. Get yours here: http://www.wservernews.com/070709-CounterSpy WServerNews Fave Links This Week's Links We Like. Tips, Hints And Fun Stuff. A friend of mine locally had a fun idea so I decided I'd let you all know. It's a real estate 'buyers market' in our area now. Like to go on a Florida House Hunt Safari perhaps? Drop by our office too! Sign up at this site: http://www.wservernews.com/070709-Florida-House-Safari Sprint-Nextel customers: squeaky wheel gets the -- termination?. They recently notified some customers that their accounts would be involuntarily terminated by the end of this month because these people made too many support calls to customer service. That's one way to handle your tech support volume! ;-D http://www.wservernews.com/070709-Sprint-Nextel Many people are wondering which Senators voted for and against the cloture vote that defeated the Immigration Bill. The roll call vote is available for all to see here: http://www.wservernews.com/070709-Immigration-Bill Guess which profession gets more money from drug makers than doctors? http://www.wservernews.com/070709-Psychiatrists Some people make it an art to scam the scammers. They use the same tactics of deceit and subterfuge to exhaust the resources of these criminals. The next two sites are fun to read. They call themselves "scambaiters": http://www.wservernews.com/070709-419eater http://www.wservernews.com/070709-Scamorama I QUIT ! - Fifteen Reasons Why You Left Your Last IT Job. Good slide show: http://www.wservernews.com/070709-Quit-IT World's Quickest Street Legal Car - 0-60 mph in 1 second. You just spent 1.4 million on a Bugatti Veyron and you get smoked at a traffic light by this Vauxhall Victor... 0-60 mph in 1 second! - 9.3 liter V8 engine - 2,200 brake horsepower - Fuel "Economy": 5 mpg http://www.wservernews.com/070709-Quickest-Car College Student's Guide to Credit Card 'Investing' http://www.wservernews.com/070709-Credit-Card-Investing "Reverse engineered" bi-directional car. A Polish car enthusiasts modified an old Fiat. It even has 4-wheel-steering. Must be fun to drive!!! http://www.wservernews.com/070709-Reversed-Engineered-Car 1.618 has been called "Nature's Number", the "Golden Ratio" or the "Golden Number". Pythagoras wrote that "it manifests in the whole of creation". 1.618 can be seen in flowers, sea creatures, music, art, architecture and in human morphology and physiology. It is second only to pi in its ubiquitousness. http://www.wservernews.com/070709-Fibonacci Bill Gates is being knighted, but runs into a "Critical Error". http://www.wservernews.com/070709-Sir-Bill WServerNews - Product of the Week Ninja Disclaimers for Exchange: Only $99.95 Per Year The product is aggressively priced at $99.95 for unlimited mailboxes per organization. Ninja Disclaimers offers robust policy-based disclaimer functionality, allowing you to create automatic global and user-based disclaimers for all outbound email for Exchange 2000 and 2003, with Exchange 2007 support available late July. Designed to be seamlessly implemented within an organization without interrupting existing antispam and antivirus solutions. Configure disclaimers based on specific users, groups, domains, or public folders. 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