Brian Mangan

Being a network administrator is not a job for the weak of heart, or for someone who likes to sleep.

I have a customer that is going through a major personnel transition, where a large portion of the workforce is being asked to leave. Every one of these users are a named user on the network with universal access to a shared network folder.

Many small-businesses forget to consult with IT before they dismiss employees, which is a major mistake. Given that just about every business today is centered around their IT resources, it would be prudent for them to do just that. I feel that companies should consult IT first right after they consult HR, here is why.

In small network operations, companies normally don’t use an enterprise class application with secured database servers, limited user accounts and file level security. Networks are predominantly file based, some perhaps with a server component but it only serves to make database queries faster on single file data stores which are published (Quickbooks, Peachtree).

A scorned user can quicky delete files, or worse edit files in ways that are hard to detect, with no transaction logging to roll back changes if they do occur. Malicious attacks may go un noticed until months later, well outside of any backup rotation.

I feel that when an employee is to be dismissed, IT should be notified before the employee is, so IT can take a network wide snapshot of the data and then disable that users login to network. Email resources should be restricted and physical security to the network server should be verified and tightened if possible. The users workstation should also be disabled if appropriate.

At the discretion of HR,  it would be appropriate the the employee is given his severence pay and escorted off the property. Any removable storage should be collected, evaluated and returned to the employee after it has been verified that it does not contain sensitive data.

These small steps will reduce the heart-ache of your favorite IT guy and give management reassurance that the core of their business is safe.

Having problems with ntoskrnl.exe? try rebuilding the masterboot record…

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927392/en-us

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb457078.aspx

 

Richard Forno has an interesting editorial over at ZDnet about technology addiction.

Yesterday I went for a hike in the local San Diego mountains. My Cell phone does not work up there, which is a double edged sword. I enjoy the safety that a cell phone can provide and coupling it with a bluetooth GPS navigation device it can even give turn by turn directions.

Being out of cell coverage can be a bit unnerving, not having direct access to email or the Internet leaves the user in an information black-hole.

While on a less-popular trail, I realized that the sun was setting, and I wondered what time the sunset would be at, so I could cut the hike short if needed. Normally I would pull up wunderground mobile and pull the date from there. But without service, I was a bit dumbstruck.

This all ties back to technology/information addiction. We have become a society so connected that we can even break down when we get disconnected.

I liked the bit of panic that set in, when I could not immediately access information, it allowed me to clear my mind, and enjoy the beauty of nature.

Eventually I did realize that my GPS has a sunset calculator in it, so much for pulling away from it all.

 I find myself being the go-to guy for system rebuilds for my friends and family.

Today I am doing my normal workload, pushing around numbers and billing customers while multi-tasking a Windows XP reinstall on a thinkpad laptop (model t40).

Thinkpads have to be my favorite laptop to work on (I have three of them at home). IBM writes good drivers for their legacy equipment and uses brand-name hardware for what they don’t make (ATI Video cards, Intel Chipsets and communications gear).

Recovering a Thinkpad is pretty easy if the service partition is still intact. This system nolonger had the service partition.

Given that the OEM drive was dying (bad sectors, sluggish read times)

I am doing a simple install of windows on a fresh drive. Using my custom made Windows XP with SP2 slipstreamed into the install and an autoinstall configuration to save me the tedious install steps of entry of a serial number.

Installing Windows fresh is a 5minute event for myself and the automation takes over.

Once Windows is installed, I bring over drivers for video and NIC. I install both and connect to the Internet and grab IBM’s System Update Utility. This is a great tool for finding the right drivers fast it automatically installs them and performs both embeded controller updates and BIOS upgrades.

I sysprep the system and enter the correct OEM serial number and run windows update and get all of the latest patches (on average about 100mb).

I Copied the files from her old drive to a sub folder and enabled automatic updates on the system.

Total time, 3hours depending on Microsoft’s Windows Update servers.

I have been getting a lot of questions about when to upgrade to Microsoft’s Windows Vista.

At this moment I am telling all of my customers to not upgrade to the new operating system. Though Vista performs just fine on older computers that do well with Windows XP (sans the Aero UI).

Vista is perfect for new computers, and as hardware manufacturers begin to meet the requirements of Vista there will be a larger userbase.

If you really feel compelled to switch to Windows Vista, be sure to run Microsoft’s Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor and Microsoft Application Compatibility Toolkit 5.0.

Over at Microsoft TechNet Magazine Mark Russinovich is doing an article on the core of the Windows Vista operating system.

Part 1: Windows Vista Kernel

Part 2: Windows Vista Kernel

It is not light reading, but it expains a lot about the thought process by Microsoft to try and get it right.

I have taken notice that websites are not considering the printing of their contents anymore. Many sites will offer a print option, but they will still use CSS to layout the page.

Many web browsers print processors do not follow the same rules as the on-screen display, they have to work with trying to get all of the text onto a narrow page and then deal with margins and PCL6 on top of it.

Website developers, if they are going to offer a printer friendly version of their site, they need to take into account that CSS should not be used to control widths of elements.

I personally consider printing a posibility of all pages that I design, and many I do print just to make sure that words, grapics and other page elements do not disappear in the margins.

If a developer feels compelled to design a print page design, they need to lay it out with <table>’s and HTML 4.0 only specifications.

Also, if advertisements are to be included in the print form (I personal annoyance of mine) then they should be of the static type. Flash videos and flash advertisements do not print well unless they are scripted in a manner that has a good single frame with the entirety of the advertising message.