dummptyhummpty
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Posts posted by dummptyhummpty
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If you have a LAMP server you can use Orange HRM for the employee structure stuff. It's Pretty easy to use and you could probably use Vtiger to handle the other stuff that way everything is centralized. the paid alrenative is probably MS Dynamics it's windows based and you can probably accomplish all the things you are looking to do, i Just usually go open source first
Hey, that's pretty cool! I'll have to get that setup on my computer and see if it will help in anyway. I know they were planning to use SharePoint Server for document storage, but Ill have to look at Orange HRM as a compliment.
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For my college internship, I've been put in charge of documenting the organizational structure and procedures of a small web design business. The owner wants me to take all of the information in his head and put it on paper so that its easier for others to see. He wants me to outline procedures for when they get a new client or a new project for an exiting client. He also wants to visual see the employee structure (who specializes in what and who is doing what for which client). Currently they use OnTime to manage projects, but not being familiar with it, I don't know if it can help with what I've been asked to do. His goal is to make things easier as the company expands. So far, I've been using spreadsheets and MS Visio to represent the data, but didn't know if there was program (Windows or Mac) dedicated to a task like this. Thanks
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I work in an enviroment where I have 70 production servers, multiple EMC arrays and we're also using 6 dual Quad 2.5GHz ESXi servers with 32GB of RAM along side 2 dual quad 2.5ghz Xeon ESXi servers with 16GB of RAM in our comms room alone, with multiple branch offices and 2 other large offices with a lesser amount of the same kit. I have access to over 2000 server licenses for 2008 and 2008 R2, and an unlimited amount of server 2003 licenses. What works for me may not work for you.
In our environment we are running seperate services on seperate servers or vm's. Our branch offices use a single server running ESXi containing a Server 2008 Core RODC (read only domain controller), a Server 2008 Core print server and a Server 2008 file server.
This being said, ideally seperate services should be running on seperate machines, with the obvious exception of domain controllers and DNS. I preffer this approach because you have more redundancy, something I don't think you can ever have enough of personally. For a lab, you can get away with a lot more concurrent services as they won't be used a great deal and often its important just to have it running.
As for ESX/i vs Hyper-V, you should be familar with both but personally I think VMwares stuff is better. But the vSphere package is expensive, running to around $9000 per host in licensing costs alone. Hyper-V is cheaper by far, but a less mature product.
Best Practices make good templates, nothing more.
Wow, impressive setup. I think I'm going to go with ESXi, but I'll figure out away to get some Hyper-V experience. Anything else I should know?
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Learn on different machines, its what bigger firms will do. Even if you have to adapt to small budgets, you still want your stuff to scale. Usually you would see DE-DAR-DC1, DE-DAR-DC2, DE-DAR-DHCP, DE-DAR-WSUS and so forth, if one box/vm craps out, you only loose once service rather than DELTA going down and you having no DHCP, fileserver or DC.
Also, learn Hyper-V, it is *significantly* cheaper in terms of TCO compared to vSphere (ESX), and your clients will thank you. While its not as mature as VMwares offerings, Microsoft are on to a very strong product with Hyper-V.
Thanks a lot. You've been a lot of help. Besides what's in your previous post, do you have any information on best practices for splitting things up?
In regards to Hyper-V do you think I should use that instead of ESXi to host my virtual machines?
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Start by building a domain, then and stuff like DHCP, Exchange, Fileservers, a WSUS, WDS etc and learn group policy management. Get hold of some course material for the MCITP Server Admin and Enterprise Admin series of exams.
Ok, thanks. Are those services usually run on separate servers or on one machine? I've got some experience with AD, GP, Exchange and WSUS, but most of our clients are small business so it's usually all on one machine since they can't afford multiple servers.
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As soon as I get some extra money together, I'm planning to build an ESXi white box and installed different Windows Server products on it to try and get to know them better and understand how they work and fit together. Are there any websites or books I should read that might have some exercises I could practice? Also, since I won't be able to start this for a few months, is there anything I could do to start planning while I wait? BTW, I have access to all the Microsoft software through my university's MSDNAA.
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Sell it, will cost you more to run for a year than its worth.
Good point. I'm going to save up some money and build an ESXi Whitebox.
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If you don't want it, at least keep the parts. You can use them if your main PC breaks down. Or, you could back up your computer on the two hard drives. That's what I'd do.
Some good ideas, I don't know if any of the parts are compatible with my other computers, but I'll check. I used to use the drives for backup, but those have been replaced with a 1.5TB drive. I guess I could use it as another NAS or something, not that I'm low on space on my existing one.
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I inherited a Dell PowerEdge 700 (P4 2.8Ghz, 4GB Ram, 80GB HD) and added two 500GB drives and a cheap SATA RAID card in hopes of loading ESXi so that I could experiment with Windows Server Products. Unfortunately, ESXi isn't supported on this hardware and Windows Server 2008 R2 requires x64 (which I don't think this is). Should I sell this and put the money (won't be much) towards a new (cheap) ESXi server? I can't really think of anything to use it for except that I was going to play around with web hosting on Ubuntu, but was going to do that in a VM as well. Just looking for some feedback.
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Hey I am trying to find an application that allows me to do Helpdesk, Monitoring, & Asset management all in one. I would like to find an opensource one but any will do. Do you have any suggestions?
We use Kaseya at work, it's not free nor opensource though. We don't use their helpdesk, for that we use AutoTask. I also know of Level and ManageEngine.
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Thanks for all the replies. Looks like I should focus on better learning MS Server products.
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I was thinking about all of the Windows Server "products" (Server/SBS/Exchange/Active Directory, etc) I deal with daily for my job and thought it would be great to learn the Linux equivalents/alternatives. I then go to thinking about how one could replace Windows in a small business setting. I did a Google search and saw many people replace their Domain Controller with Samba, but I'm not sure what the advantage to this is if you are still running Windows on your workstations. Using our clients as an example, I tried to imagine them running both Linux on their server and Linux on their workstations. I see an issue with this as many use programs that would prohibit this (Quicken - Accounting, AutoCad - interior design, MS Access based client management program - Insurance Company, etc) and I was curious to see how you are using Linux in a small business setting.
- What Linux software should I look at and learn as equivalents to Microsoft Server products?
- What benefit have you seen from replacing a Windows server(s) (DC, AD, Exchange, etc) with a Linux one(s)?
- What issues and how have you over come them when replacing all computers with Linux based ones?
- What other ways have you seen Linux used in the small business setting?
Thanks!
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Unfortunately, Hiren's as well as MiniPE are considered warez due to the software contained within them.
Ok, well thanks for letting me know about them.
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The only other ones that I'd recommend that are not in your list are
Super Anti-Spyware -- Picks up things that MalwareBytes does not.
Dial-A-Fix -- Only for Win XP - Repairs basic WinXP catalogs & services that get messed up by infections
HiJackThis Log Analyzer - http://hijackthis.de/ - Parses the HiJack This log for you
There are no all encompassing guides for removal that I know of. It is more along the lines of knowing what order to run things and how to run them (mostly in safe mode if possible and for each individual profile).
If you are setting up a VM machine to infect, infecting it with files from the Malware Database can let you try to fix infections on some of the latest malware.
Thanks, I've heard of those, but haven't really used them.
Are you familiar with Hiren's boot cd?This will let you run a lot of the tools you mentioned above in a dos or PE, which has really helped me out quite a bit in isolating and eliminating troublesome software.
No I haven't. Where do you download the cd from? I look all over, but didn't see a link. I've used UBCD4Win, which seems to be very similar.
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I have always found spybot search and destroy to be useful for removing malware on personal machines, but for a corporate environment you can't beat being able to just take their base unit away and put another one you had prepared earlier in its place. Very little downtime for the user and you can reimage their machine and use it as the spare.
I've used that in the past. Just to be clear, I was asking in regard to the home user and NOT corporate user. For those we usually spend some time on it and if not just wipe it since most users have all their data stored on the server.
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One thing missing from your list is the Microsoft Malicious Software removal tool which is installed every so often by Windows/Microsoft Update or can be manually download.
I forgot about that one, thank you.
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No, I wouldn't. I struggle to answer questions like "I'm a secure?" "Does this make me secure?" "Can't you just remove <insert name of malware>?". Any such questions don't have a yes answer, strictly speaking they are all "No" including the post fixed ", but..." or ", however...".
I was joking. When I worked there, the solution was to just format everything (to save on time, time = money). I realize that there is no guarantee to removing malware, but I don't mind spending some time trying, before I have to grab the Window Disc.
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ok, the only other tool you need:
any one of: clonezilla, dd | gzip, Norton Ghost , acronis true image or any other imaging tool.
The need of the Windows disk has been negated and you have decreased down time.
You'd be a perfect fit for the Geek Squad (speaking from experience).
Edit: I do see where your method might be a better solution. Your method is fine for the corporate environment where everything is standardized and/or stored on a server. I'm asking in regards to home users where they have data scattared all over, may have lost install discs, etc.
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The only tool you need:
Windows Install disk
I disagree, that's the lazy way out.
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I really enjoy trying to remove viruses and I'd like to get better at it. I didn't know if there were any specific websites or books I should read. Also I didn't know if there was some way to practice, maybe infect a VM and try to fix it?
Tools I currently use:
Malware Bytes
ComboFix
Rootkit Reveler
HiJack This
AutoRuns
ProcessExplorer
Are there any guides that would help me use these tools more effectively? Thanks!
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I just bought a new Linksys WRT610n and want to get my network file storage situation settled. I have two 500GB drives that I was using in Raid 1 with a cheap PCIe raid card. The computer it was in is being used elsewhere, so now I have a few options on how to set this all up:
- Buy two USB enclosures and connect the drives directly to the router.
- Put the drives and card in a spare eMachines (AMD 64 - PCIe).
- Connect the two drives directly to the mobo.
- Connect the two drives directly to the mobo of a spare Dell Poweredge 750 (P4 - no PCIe).
I'd like to use some of the space for backups (Time Machine) and the rest for media storage (some of which is valuable). I also have a spare My Book 250GB drive that I would like to use with this setup as well. What's the best way to get all of this setup?
The computers accessing the storage will be:
- MacBook Pro (Wireless N)
- PowerBook G4 (Wireless G)
- AppleTV (Wireless N)
- Linux PC (Powerline Adapter)
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Hi I was wondering if someone could help me? Im trying to get ESX server 3.5 working on a computer, but am confused a little. I installed it on my machine and the install went ok, when it finishes it says that to manage it to connect to it from another computer with such & such web adress. but the problem is, how can I connect to it if the esx server doesn't have the drivers for the nic's installed? how can I install the drivers? I can get to a command line interface.
Any info would be helpful! Thanks!
What's making you think that it doesn't have the drivers for the NICs installed? Have you tried connecting?
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lnxr0x & shonen,
Thanks for the suggestions. lnxr0x, do you just go and setup firewalls or is there more to it? "Perimeter security" is a new term to me so i'm not sure if I might not be thinking of something. This might be similar to what we do at work, but i'll think on it a bit.
taiyed14,
That's been done already and I'm not sure how hard it might be do replicate.
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I was joking with my girlfriend that it would be nice to have a second job to earn some extra income. With the summer coming up, that doesn't sound like such a bad idea. I got to thinking about jobs, using my computer knowledge, that I could do on the weekend or around my work schedule. I'm going to be taking two summer school classes (T/Th from 1pm-10pm) for the next six weeks and I'll be working 20 hours part time all summer. This kind of limits me to smaller jobs. I'm thinking some kind of consulting, but I don't want to do computer repair/troubleshooting. I used to do this for a neighbor and had a bad experience; plus, I just don't enjoy that type of thing.
I'm an independent contractor for another consultant and we mostly manage Windows servers and workstations for local, small businesses. To prevent any conflict of interest, I'd like to stay away from [managing] Windows servers.
I've recently become interested in Linux again (Used to use RedHat 5.2 back in the day) and was trying to see if I could do anything with that. I have experience with OS X as well.
Some ideas I have quickly thought of:
- Sell Pre-Configured Hotspots that the buyer can manage from a website*
- Provide Linux Based Computer Labs (solutions?) to schools*
- I have three older HP servers sitting around, maybe I could put them to use? (or I'm selling them)
- Something to do with Asterisk/Trixbox (had some experience with them at one point)
- Helping people use "Web 2.0" for Marketing (I know very little about marketing - only took one marketing class)
- VM/Virtulization (I'm really interested in this and I could use the practice/experience at work, since we are starting to use it more)
- Car computers? (meh...)
- Something to do with home network setup/layout/design (NAS, Wireless, ETC)**
- EDIT: Something to do with home theater setup? (I'm not good on equipment recommendations though)
*These might be a little more time demanding, and I actually consider them possible business ideas for when I'm out of school in a year. I'm thinking start small now and expand when time permits?
**At work, we do very little with home users. Just the occasional firewall (Sonicwall) and AP.
I'm open to any ideas so please don't hesitate. Lastly, I don't know any programming, but I'm currently learning RoR.
IPv6 & PNRP Class Demonstartion
in Everything Else
Posted
For one of my IS classes my group and I are going to give a presentation on IPv6 and PNRP. We would also like to give a live demonstration to the class during our presentation. I wanted to see if anyone had some ideas on what we could do/how we could do this. Personally, I was thinking we could just hook our laptops up to a router (WRT54G w/ DD-WRT) and show that they have IPv6 address. I was then thinking we could use a Tunel Broker to access some IPv6 websites (ipv6.google.com). I'm not sure if our university will let us plug into their network, but we will figure that out later. Also I know very little about PNRP (going to start my research tomorrow) and I'm not sure how we could demonstrate it. Any ideas? Thanks!