Final Stretch

The very last set of classes for my undergrad degree!

I had posted previously that I would have only needed 9 hours to finish my degree. Turns out that I was missing an elective. Here's the very last of my classes (till the Masters).

Note: you may have to stretch your browser window to see everything

Current Schedule

Status	CRN	Subj	Crse	Sec	Level	Cred	Grade Mode	Title
**Web Registered** on Mar 31, 2009	52114	CEN	3722	521	Undergraduate	3.000	Regular	Human Computer Inferface
**Web Registered** on Mar 31, 2009	53788	CIS	4253	522	Undergraduate	3.000	Regular	IT Ethics
**Web Registered** on Mar 31, 2009	53659	CIS	4412	145	Undergraduate	3.000	Regular	IT Resource Management
**Web Registered** on Apr 01, 2009	54017	CIS	4365	522	Undergraduate	3.000	Regular	Computer Security Policies

Total Credit Hours:	12.000
Billing Hours:	12.000
Maximum Hours:	14.000
Date:	May 17, 2009 06:31 pm

Editing hosts file on Leopard

Editing my hosts file is something I do on a regular basis. I check my web-clip widget for updates from http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm and when I see one, I download the plaintext and update the contents of my hosts file.

On XP, it's straight forward, "Open With..." the host file and choose notepad. Save the changes and DONE!

On Vista, similar concept, except you have to first run notepad.exe as Administrator, then browse and open the hosts file. If you do the XP method, you will not be able to save the changes directly, but rather "Save As..." your changes.

Finally, on Leopard (haven't confirmed on Snow Leopard or Tiger, etc.) you have to sign in, enable the root user, sign out, then sign in with the root user. That's just way too inconvenient. There are two methods, the latter being preferred, to update the hosts file without having to terminate all open apps:

• Run the following command to open the hosts file using pico in the terminal as root

sudo pico /etc/hosts

This method works just fine given "normal" edits to the hosts file. In my case however, I'm adding 597kb worth of text -- 16358 lines of known unwanted domain names.



• Run the following command to open the hosts file using TextEdit as root

sudo /Applications/TextEdit.app/Contents/MacOS/TextEdit /etc/hosts

This method is the command-line way of doing things the Vista way. There is no GUI in OSX (that I'm aware of) that performs this action.

Hope this helps any hosts-file editing OSX or Vista users.

19 Sleepless Hours

My last full semester as an undergrad. NEVER take 19 hours in one semester and work ~30hr/week =)
Below are the results from this past Spring semester.

Next session is Summer: starting May 11th and ending July 17th. 12 credit hours, then I have my Bachelor of Science in Information Technology!

Here's the breakdown:

Note: you may have to stretch your browser window to see everything

Undergraduate Course work

CRN	Subject	Course	Section	Course Title	Campus	Final Grade	Attempted	Earned	GPA Hours	Quality Points
12803	CEN	4031	521	IT Software Engineering	Off-campus - Sarasota	B	3.000	3.000	3.000	9.00
16150	CIS	4935	145	IT Senior Project	Tampa	A	5.000	5.000	5.000	20.00
15142	COP	4610	521	IT Operating Sys.	Off-campus - Sarasota	A+	3.000	3.000	3.000	12.00
14951	COP	4703	195	IT Database Systems	Off-campus - Tampa	C	3.000	3.000	3.000	6.00
16163	COP	4930	141	IT Seminar	Lakeland	S	1.000	1.000	0.000	0.00
14953	EEL	4782	145	IT Computer Networks	Off-campus - Tampa	A	3.000	3.000	3.000	12.00
14955	EEL	4782L	145	IT Computer Networks Lab	Off-campus - Tampa	A	1.000	1.000	1.000	4.00

Undergraduate Summary

		Attempted	Earned	GPA Hours	Quality Points	GPA
Current Term:		19.000	19.000	18.000	63.00	3.50
Cumulative:		95.000	91.000	90.000	286.27	3.18
Transfer:		23.000	20.000	20.000	56.00	2.80
Overall:		118.000	111.000	110.000	342.27	3.11

Consulting 2 of 2

With the design part down and the implementation part up, things started to get a little tedious. I had begun to learn of the idiosyncrasies of SBS 2008 and discover [the hard way] about various faulty things in the office.

To begin, the RJ-45 cable in the upstairs office was bad -- took a good two hours to realize what it was. Luckily there were 4 new wires run specifically for the server yesterday.

The proprietary WYSIWYG site/email was an annoying learning curve as no one, not even the people who setup the account in the first place, knew how to get anywhere or do anything when it came to DNS, nameservers, website source files (before I found out they don't work independent of the hosting site) or anything managerial for the domain name.

I don't have access to 64bit hardware so I have never been able to fool with Exchange 2007 implementations and the like (eg: hyper-v). Exchange System Manager was significantly different, which was an expected curve. All of the details on the behind-the-scenes of the Internet Address Management Wizard are here.

Now, my top three [Windows] oddities (start from the bottom):

1. Under any circumstance, DO NOT disable IPv6 on the network adapter!
   

   If you uncheck the IPv6 protocol from your network interface card on your Windows SBS 2008 server you may see the following issues after a reboot:
   
   

   • Microsoft Exchange services fail to start
   • Server hangs at "Applying Computer Settings..." (can eventually logon after 30 - 60 minutes)
   • Network icons show as offline
   • Various Application and/or System Log events

   
   After researching why the system was getting hosed on boot, unchecking the IPv6 option on the network adapter was not the "proper" way to disable it.
   

   SBS 2008 is designed to fully support IPv6 and has IPv6 enabled by default. Most users should never need to disable IPv6, however if you must disable IPv6 here is how to disable it properly:

   and it goes on to talk about a registry hack.  What's up with that?



2. The backup drive given by Dell with the purchase of the server doesn't work with the backup solution that's part of the server.
   

   Unable to Perform Scheduled Backup on a PowerVault™ RD1000
   Removable Disk Drive Using Windows Server Backup Tool
   Dell Ref: 168102:
   If you attempt to schedule backup on a PowerVault RD1000 removable disk drive using the Windows Server Backup tool, the following error message is displayed: No disks are available for use as a backup destination.
   This is an expected behavior as the Windows Server 2008 operating system lists the PowerVault RD1000 disk drive as a removable drive. Windows Server Backup tool does not allow scheduled backups on removable devices. You can however perform a Backup Once operation using the Powervault RD1000 removable disk drive.

   
   um. . . k. A scripting backup solution it is.



3. Server Manager console crashes often.
   
   Not too sure why the glorified .mmc console was dropping dead on me frequently -- a few Windows Updates later and I was good as SP2.
   

Consulting 1 of 2

Since Wednesday of last week I've been free from my scholastic responsibilities (with exception to my very last final which I took today). With the extra time on my hands I've been able to get back with the few handfuls of people who have asked me for various IT help, consulting or otherwise, over the semester that I had turned down due to lack of time. One of my more recent tasks is a complete IS overhaul for a local autobody shop.

I've known all the associates for many years and have done trades of services with a handful of them :). They had a slosh of old Dell workstations each with their own unique OS oddities and all with the same common slowness of a 4-year-old non-formatted, typical-end-user run machine. The network environment was strictly workstation based and the definition of a server was known as: "the [vague] front computer" that if crashed, would take the business with it. The company website was some proprietary WYSIWYG site-builder site with CNAME redirection for the "www", "smtp", and "mail" headers. Primary email was a single address from the ISP with an ISP domain name running POP3 and mapped into Outlook Express. Each associate also had their own business email address from the site-builder site configured identically to the ISP address. However, only one person actually used their business address cause no one knew their password and the one that was using it just happened to have it saved as a connection in the client from long ago. With the minor exception of an external HD plugged into the "server" that is backed up to on a when-I-remember-to-do-so basis, there was no data protection.

Ouch, a full redesign from the ground up was needed. After discussing business needs, desired direction, and various Q&A, a server was proposed and ordered:

PowerEdge T300:
Quad Core Intel® Xeon® X3363, 2.83GHz, 2x6M Cache, 1333MHz FSB T3Q283 1 [223-6139] 1
Memory:
8GB DDR2, 667MHz, 2x4GB Dual Ranked DIMMs 8G4D6S 1 [311-7154] 3
Operating System:
Microsoft® Small Business Server 2008, Standard Edition with Media SBS8 1 [410-1992] 11
Chassis Configuration:
Chassis with Hot Plug Hard Drive and Redundant Power Supply HPR 1 [330-0316] 28
Hard Drive Configuration:
Hot Plug Add-in SAS6iR(SATA/SAS Controller) support 2 Hard Drive-RAID 1 ASSHR1 1 [341-6358] 27
Primary Hard Drive:
500GB 7.2k RPM Serial ATA 3Gbps 3.5-in Hot Plug Hard Drive 500SH 1 [341-6345] 8
2nd Hard Drive:
500GB 7.2k RPM Serial ATA 3Gbps 3.5-in Hot Plug Hard Drive 500SH 1 [341-6345] 23
CD/DVD Drive:
16x DVD-ROM Drive, Internal, SATA 16DVD 1 [313-6121] 16
Floppy Drive:
No Floppy Drive NFD 1 [341-5437] 10
Power Cords:
Power Cord, NEMA 5-15P to C13, wall plug, 10 feet, Quantity 2 2WP10FS 1 [330-0580] 38
Network Adapter:
Intel PRO 1000PT 1GbE Dual Port NIC, PCIe-4 1000PD 1 [430-0959] 13
Hardware Support Services:
3Yr Basic Hardware Warranty Repair: 5x10 HW-Only, 5x10 NBD Onsite U3OS 1 [987-4722][987-9140][990-1817][990-1818][990-2309] 29

RD1000:
RD1000, Ext USB Drive with bundledSW RD1 1 [223-4678] 1
RD1000 Removable Disk Media:
QTY 1, Removable Hard Disk Cartridge for RD1000 , 500GB Native/1TB Comp 500GB 1 [341-7177] 8
Hardware Support Services:
1Yr BASIC SUPPORT: 5x10 HW-Only, 5x10 NBD Onsite U1OS 1
[981-0120][985- 5298][985-5329] [985-5347] 29

After all the business apps were housed, hosted, and accessed from the fully redundant server configured as a DC, email migration would take place. Email functionality was transitioned from the webhost to the SBS '08 server. The client's ISP's SMTP server was configured as a smarthost.
The website remains with the host due to the propriatory nature of the site. Once a "real" site is created it will be hosted on the server.
Workstations are being backed up by the users in preparation of being flattened and joined to the domain. Restrictions through the user account and through group policy will prohibit the deterioration of the client systems from the effects of end-user "stuff". Upon joining to the domain, group policy will direct all users home folders (my docs, desktop, favorites, etc) to a respective, exclusive folder on the server.
A backup schedule will be in place, pushing a full backup to the PowerVault drive on a daily basis and being taken home nightly.