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Vol. 10, #51 - Dec 19, 2005 - Issue #556
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What Are Your 2006 Predictions?
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- EDITORS CORNER
- What Are Your 2006 Predictions?
- Quotes of the Week
- ADMIN TOOLBOX
- Admin Tools We Think You Shouldn't Be Without
- TECH BRIEFING
- The Business Continuity Institute
- Are Single-platform Databases In Your Future?
- Checklist: How To Prepare SQL Server For Peak Workloads
- DNS Primer: Understanding Active Directory Integrated Zone Design And Configuration
- Windows Security Clinic: Rooting Out A Rootkit
- WINDOWS SERVER NEWS
- Exchange 12 Sees First Trial
- Microsoft's SUS Bug Makes Admins Go Manual
- WINDOWS SERVER THIRD PARTY NEWS
- Which Is The Best Antispyware?
- NETINFO – A Collection Of 15 Network Tools
- WServerNews 'FAVE' LINKS
- This Week's Links We Like. Tips, Hints And Fun Stuff
- WServerNews - PRODUCT OF THE WEEK
- The Sunbelt Kerio Personal Firewall
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Messaging Security in 2006
It becomes a more and more important area; keeping email secure from spam,
viruses spyware and other malware. The most cost effective way to fight these
dangers is to use one software package that does it all, and tightly integrates
with MS-Exchange. You are able to get a fantastic deal for a brand new, advanced
messaging security product. Get a copy of iHateSpam for Exchange before Dec 31-st,
and get grandfathered in the upgrade to Sunbelt Messaging Ninja when it comes out
(in beta now). Ninja gives you policy-based antispam, antivirus, powerful attachment filtering, and during 2006 plugins will be released for disclaimers, content
auditing/filtering, archiving and more! Check out the specs here:
http://www.wservernews.com/051219-iHateSpamExchange
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EDITORS CORNER |
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What Are Your 2006 Predictions?
As you know, I have a Crystal Ball Issue every year. I'd like to
get your own predictions for 2006, both your so called 'wild-ass'
guesses, and extrapolations of early tech trends you have spotted
and expect to hit the big time next year! Send them to my new
feedback address at the bottom of this section? Thanks in advance!
If one of your predictions is included in the Jan 2, 2006 Crystal
Ball edition you'll get a Limited Edition "We Keep The Bad Guys Out"
t-shirt. Here is the link to last year's predictions:
http://www.wservernews.com/051219-2006_Predictions
PS, We are skipping the Dec 26 issue.
Quotes of the Week
"Put not your faith in princes, since they don't produce, they
always steal."
-- Robert A. Heinlein
"Security management is about spending good money to have nothing
happen."
-- Jesper M. Johansson & Steve Riley
"History is a pack of lies about events that never happened told
by people who weren't there."
-– George Santanaya.
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ADMIN TOOLBOX |
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Admin Tools We Think You Shouldn't Be Without
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TECH BRIEFING |
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The Business Continuity Institute
The BCI was established in 1994 with the mission, "To enable
members to obtain guidance and support from fellow business
continuity practitioners." To that end, the BCI has developed a
series of standards and guidelines that have achieved worldwide
recognition and have been incorporated into International
Standards Organization, British Standards Institute and other
official standards. Among organizations helping advance
information assurance and protection, the BCI stands out as a
truly dedicated organization that puts the profession before its
own organizational goals.
It is with this backdrop that the BCI has instituted a series of
certifications. These certifications begin with affiliate and
associate memberships for those who want to join but have little
or no experience in the area. For practicing professionals,
there are the Specialist (SBCI) and Member (MBCI) designations.
The prestigious Fellow status (FBCI) is reserved for those
members with years of experience who have demonstrated a
commitment to the field and who have achieved recognition in the
development of the profession. The BCI Web site is at:
http://www.wservernews.com/051219-BCI
Are Single-platform Databases In Your Future?
As databases get more alike and all of them add the capability to
pull data from multiple sources, sometimes it's simpler to deal
with other problems by moving everything to a single platform.
Interesting article at the SearchWin2000 site.
http://www.wservernews.com/051219-SearchWin2000
Checklist: How To Prepare SQL Server For Peak Workloads
No matter what type of company you work for, chances are you have
to prepare for spikes in SQL Server activity throughout the year.
(Online retailers are in the midst of one right now.) Learn how
to maintain highly available, fast-performing SQL Servers with
this tip:
http://www.wservernews.com/051219-SQLServer
DNS Primer: Understanding Active Directory Integrated Zone Design And Configuration
Microsoft's development of the Active Directory integrated (ADI)
primary DNS zone has some incredible benefits such as built-in
recovery, scalability and performance. Gary Olsen explains what
an ADI primary zone is, how to configure it and how to implement
it in your environment. At the SearchWin2000 site, highly useful,
you do need to register to get in this article but it's free.
http://www.wservernews.com/051219-SearchWin2000_a
Windows Security Clinic: Rooting Out A Rootkit
It's the newest IT administrator headache -- rootkits. So the
SearchWindowsSecurity site asked three gurus how to diagnose one
user's hypothetical rootkit problem. Here's what they said to do.
(Free registration required to read this article).
http://www.wservernews.com/051219-Win_Security
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WINDOWS SERVER NEWS |
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Exchange 12 Sees First Trial
Redmond's 'next-gen' messaging platform has made it into a limited
beta just before end of 2005. The big shocker for a lot of admins
was that E12 will require 64-bit hardware and Windows! About 1400
beta testers are playing with it now, and a wider group of beta
testers will get the goodies by mid-2006. Expect this puppy to
be released early 2007.
Paul Thurrott, a very well known IT-journalist recently wrote about
E12, and had an interview with Redmond's corporate vice president
David Thompson, who runs the Exchange Server Product Group. David
told Paul that email had evolved into a corporate tool as important
as in-person meetings and the phone. As a result, Exchange 12 will
provide various new capabilities, such as Unified Messaging (UM),
in which PBX phone messages and faxes are routed through the server,
and better integration with mobile devices.
E12 has been redesigned with a role-based infrastructure and components
that let you install, on the fly, only those features that the server
needs. There's a lot more to say about E12, so in the coming issue
I will link you to Paul's full write-up next week in his Windows
IT Pro UPDATE e-zine!
Microsoft's SUS Bug Makes Admins Go Manual
The Bink.nu site reported: "Microsoft has run into another problem
with its updates, this time a bug in its aging Software Update
Services (SUS) server software that turned previously-approved
updates into "unapproved."
"For the SUS 1.0 Admins, you may be experiencing some problems
with all your previously approved updates are now showing up as
'unapproved,' said Craig Gehre in an entry on the Microsoft
Security Response Center blog.
SUS servers synchronized after Dec. 12 encounter a corrupt catalog
file that reverts all approved updates to unapproved status, which
requires a manual re-approval of all earlier updates. On Wednesday,
Microsoft posted a document on its Knowledge Base support database
that spells out the problem and offers up work-arounds.
"We are also hoping to make it a bit easier to fix by releasing
a simple script soon," added Gehre. The bug doesn't impact the
update status of SUS clients, or the ability to roll out Tuesday's
patches using SUS 1.0, added Microsoft.
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WINDOWS SERVER THIRD PARTY NEWS |
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Which Is The Best Antispyware?
World renowned IT-specialist and writer Ed Tittel has come up
with a good article where he compared the leading antispyware
tools on the market. The outcome is no surprise: the two tools
you need to put on your shortlist are SpySweeper and CounterSpy.
The data in the article is worth checking out. It saves a lot
of research:
http://www.wservernews.com/051219-Win_Security_2
NETINFO – A Collection Of 15 Network Tools
I ran across a pretty interesting tool called NETINFO. It is a
collection of 15 network tools, organized as independent windows,
to allow network administrators, webmasters, and internet service
providers to isolate faults, process diagnostic data and increase
internal network security.
When you install a network or start to work in the Internet or your
intranet, it becomes clear to find monitoring and management software
ASAP. Why? Because of possible delays or bottlenecks of Internet
traffic. The number of applications is a blessing, given the fact
that every company and every sysadmin have different needs, which
would make a one-size-fits-all approach difficult to implement.
Most network software comes with some level of monitoring and
management capability, but often IT departments appreciate being able
to choose different features. Here is a magic rescue wand – NetInfo.
This multifunctional application analyzes your connection and various
aspects of the Internet in order to isolate potential pitfalls.
Once it determines where the problem lies, NetInfo provides you
with a whole slew of tools that help you solve it. If the problem
lies beyond your realm of control and you don't know whom to
contact about it, NetInfo will give you a name, e-mail address and
phone number. Instead of gathering the information about a host
and the Internet route to it manually, you just enter a hostname
and click Start. NetInfo does the rest for you. By the way, it
allows finding spammers, tracing hackers, hunting mailers and
porn promoters.
Here are some key features of the program:
- Allows to you quickly verify network connectivity to another IP
address on the network
- Displays a list of routers between your system and the destination
- Displays data about users currently logged on to a specified server
- Scans host names for a particular range of IP addresses and displays
the state of each address
- Lists the available network services - HTTP, Telnet, DNS, SMTP,
etc. - for a particular host
- Multi platform: one installation runs on 95/98/Me/NT/W2K/XP, and W2K3
- Developed in C++ for maximum efficiency
Check this tool-collection out over here:
http://www.wservernews.com/051219-NetInfo
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WServerNews 'FAVE' LINKS |
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This Week's Links We Like. Tips, Hints And Fun Stuff
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WServerNews - PRODUCT OF THE WEEK |
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The Sunbelt Kerio Personal Firewall
Sunbelt has now taken over the Kerio Personal Firewall. It's a
really good one, and was given Excellent reviews at both PC Mag
and PC World. If you want to take a look at it, here is the existing
site where you can get a 30-day eval and try it on an XP box. We
will release it next week at the Sunbelt site. Check it out at:
http://www.wservernews.com/051219-Kerio
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