Alex Scoble's IT Notes - An Information Technology Blog

Good Tape Backup Software?

Veritas Backup Exec has always been a bit problematic. Odd errors that are hard to troubleshoot. False failure reports. Slow backup throughput sometimes, for no obvious reasons.

So I've been wondering what products are out there in the same price range ($3000-5000 to protect 10 servers) that are good and solid. BTW that price range automatically excludes Netbackup or Legato.

Oh, and it has to run on Windows, but it would be good if it was able to back up *nix systems. Also has to be able to backup open files, Exchange 2003 and SQL 2000 dbs.

Packed House for Tomorrow's Chautauqua on Corporate Blogging

Well, pretty much as expected interest in Robert's seminar on corporate blogging was high (at least for us) and we will have a packed house tomorrow for lunch when Robert does his thing.

My thanks go out to my brother for coming over and doing this for my firm.

Page File Size Settings in Windows for Systems With High Amounts of RAM?

The rule of thumb used to be that page file (both minimum and maximum to minimize fragmentation) should be twice the size of actual RAM.

These days, with servers routinely having 2 or more gigs of RAM, I find this size of a page file to be excessive.

I typically cap page file size at 1024MB regardless of physical RAM nowadays, however, I just saw a knowledgebase article on Veritas website that suggests that the page file should still be twice RAM.

Am I wrong in thinking that this is ridiculous and that your server will be on it's knees crawling long before it ever gets close to using that much pagefile?

If I am wrong and there are good documented reasons why pagefiles should still be double size of RAM, let me know.

How to Crack, Unprotect or Remove Document Protection in Word

Ever run into situation where someone sends you a read-only password protected Word document, but wants you to make changes?

Here's how to crack it if you are using the newer versions of Word:

If you are using office XP or 2003, you can change the view to HTML-Code using Microsoft Script-Editor by pressing the [Alt]+[Shift]+[F11] key combination.

Search for "Password" and you will find somethimg like this:
  <w:DocumentProtection>ReadOnly</w:DocumentProtection>
  <w:UnprotectPassword>19E8E61E</w:UnprotectPassword>

To remove the protection:
  -Just remowe those two lines, and after saving the document , the protection is gone.

To remove the password:
  -replace the Password, here "19E8E61E", with "00000000", save the Document and close "Script-Editor".

Alternative you can save your document as .html and use a html-Editor.

Now if I could only figure out how to crack protected Acrobat files.

Note that this does not work for File Open password protected Office files. Office encrypts the files with a 40 bit key for this type of protection. To break that you have to use either a brute force password hacker or a decrypter that tries all possible key combos until it finds the right one.

There's actually a free command line utility, named GuaWord that will decrypt Word documents. Keep in mind that it takes a few days to go through all the combinations to find the right one.

There are also other 3rd party tools to do the same thing that cost from between $30-60 dollars for a single system license.

Intrusion Detection Systems (IDR) and Enterprise Incident Response Systems

My boss handed me this article on "Safeguarding Corporate Information". It talks about how new laws require companies that store data about individuals to have adequate security procedures and practices in place to not only protect the data but to also allow for prompt alerting when attacks and intrusions take place.

She asked me to look at it and see if our network meets the standards set forth in the article. After reading it, I'd have to say that it does not.

While we take reasonable measures to protect private data, we do not have systems in place that alert us if an intrusion takes place.

Which means that now I should probably start looking at Intrusion Detection Systems and other means to prevent intrusions and to collect the data necessary to meet the requirements of these laws.

Anyone know of any good IDS systems that are relatively easy to set up, that work well and don't cost an arm and a leg? I'd say anything above $5000 is right out, with $2500-$3000 being a good goal for a business this size.

Also, I was talking to some colleagues today about their plans for security of their network and they were told that Microsoft's ISA is a rock solid security solution. I don't particularly like application firewalls like that or Checkpoint because they are expensive and run ontop of a multipurpose OS (Windows). These tend to crash more often than the OS on a Netscreen for instance, are more complicated to set up and keep patched and are just plain harder to manage because if you have a problem, you have 3 vendors you need to call: the firewall vendor, the OS vendor and the hardware vendor. Whereas, with a firewall like a Cisco Pix, Netscreen or SonicWall, you have a single point of contact.

Anyhow, if anyone knows of any good IDS solutions that meet the requirements that I outlined above, please let me know.

When Support Techs Pass The Buck

I've been writing about the problems we've been having with the quad-band phones. So the last thing I was told by a RIM tech was that the phone wasn't designed to work unless signal strength is at least -80db. Well, I've found this to be pure bullshit, pardon my francais.

First off, the quad-band phones from T-Mobile don't work around my building even when signal strength is as high as -75db. Second off, when I'm in other areas, the phone is able to find the proper network with lower than -80db signal strength.

What does this mean? Either there's a design flaw in the phone, or there's a problem with the way that T-Mobile handles their networks. Now I've heard that T-Mobile locks their quad-band phones so that they can't connect to the 850mhz band which Cingular uses, but I'm not sure if that's true. If it is true, it would explain my issues as there is a Cingular tower in this area that delivers higher signal strength to certain parts of the building. Suppose that the quad band phone sees this network and tries to talk to it, instead of the lower strength T-Mobile network, but can't because T-Mobile has the phone set up so it can't communicate at this band. Suppose that the phone gets confused and does not try to connect to the other band tower because it's algorithm is such that it will always connect to the tower with -80db or higher strength.

Either way, the building isn't the issue as my 7730s work and the 7290 gets same signal strength ONCE it has connected to the network. The towers are probably working to spec otherwise I'm sure a lot more people would be complaining about this issue in my area, particularly as quad-band phones get used more and more. So it's either a design flaw made by RIM or a problem with the way that T-Mobile sets up the phones. Either way, it's something that should be fixable and should certainly be fixed.

We are the customer. We want the features that the 7290 has to offer. In fact we need the memory that it has. T-Mobile and RIM should bend to make it work for us, especially as we are pouring money into their coffers every month.

Now, I'm sure some people will say, good luck, companies don't care about business as small as yours, well, I say that they better. Small businesses are the main driving force in today's economy. They employ more people and generate more wealth than large companies. Plus, our needs are not as diverse or as large as a large company, so if someone like T-Mobile or RIM can't satisfy the needs of the small business, how can they possibly hope to satisfy the needs of a large business which has much more complicated requirements?

At any rate, we are paying for the phone and the service and that entitles us to have a working phone and working service, regardless of how big or small we are.

So RIM and T-Mobile fix the !@#$ing phone!

Exchange Licensing for Site with Front and Back end

Here's an interesting tidbit. Apparently, CDW's Microsoft Licensing sales reps have been told that if your back end is running Exchange 2003 Enterprise, that your front end must as well. Some Microsoft sales reps are telling the same story as well.

Well, I got word from KC Lemson (through my brother) that this is not true. That it's perfectly legal to run Standard on the front end and Enterprise on the back end. Apparently, this wasn't the case with 2000 as front end/back end functionality wasn't available in Standard back then.

So save yourself $2200 or whatever it is when setting up your Exchange organization in this manner and get Standard for your front ends, unless you need Enterprise to do clustering or for other features only supported on Enterprise.

Brother Also Blogs About Getting Reconnected Through Blogs

How interesting. I blog about a friend finding me again after 9 years through my blog and the next day my brother, Robert, blogs about the same thing.

Netscreens No Longer Support Manual Key Dial-Up VPNs

Starting with Netscreen OS 5.0.0 Netscreen devices no longer support Manual Key Dial-Up VPNs.

Big deal for me as I now have to change all of my VPN users (the ones that are left any how) to Autokey VPNs. Oy what a pain.

But as they say, out with the old, in with the new. I'm sure that this will have benefits later on down the road. I just hope that they will outweigh the costs of making the change.

Blogs As Social Connectors?

Who says that being on the internet is antisocial? Best friend from high school that I hadn't talked to in almost 9 years contacted me last Thursday night through email. He found my blog after wondering what I was up to and did a little searching.

I was flabbergasted to say the least. Always nice when someone out of the blue contacts you like that and really points to the value of having a blog in the first place.

He wouldn't have been able to find me otherwise as all my phone numbers are unlisted. Now that's being antisocial. :)