Dave McComb's Blog

Here is a great site to check if your web server is sending pages in compressed format:

http://www.gidnetwork.com/tools/gzip-test.php

This is definitely something you want to have turned on as it saves on bandwidth and download times.

CNET has an interesting article about Hyperic going open source. The Hyperic HQ software monitors what’s happening on company networks and reports events to administrators. This is the type of software that no one who is managing servers should be without, and now the solution is completely open source. Hyperic HQ allows you to:

• Auto-Discover all your software and hardware inventory
• Monitor every layer of your infrastructure
• Control servers and services remotely
• Track configuration, log, and security events
• Optimize your operations with a web-based multi-user portal
• Improve alerts through policy-driven definitions and automatic recovery

Other competing open source solutions include:

• OpenNMS
• Nagios
• Big Brother

Hyperic looks like the most advanced of these solutions, but I’ll be checking them out and updating this review with my findings.

Are the latest four Microsoft security patches not installing for you?  Is KB917537 one of the fixes? Well, it seems that this patch will not install unless you shut down the IIS Admin service and its dependent services manually (thanks Microsoft!).  My suggestion is to uncheck this patch from the list of four new security fixes and install the other three first.  Reboot if necessary after they have installed. Stop the IIS Admin Service and all its dependent services. Install KB917537 and reboot.  Now you’re all set!

Microsoft just released a neat little utility called Private Folder 1.0. It’s unsupported and will only run on “genuine” Windows XP.  What it does is give you a new folder called “My Private Folder” that is password protected to prevent anyone who may be sharing your computer from accessing the files in that folder.  From their web site:

Microsoft Private Folder 1.0 is a useful tool for you to protect your private data when your friends, colleagues, kids or other people share your PC or account. With this tool, you will get one password protected folder called ‘My Private Folder’ in your account to save your personal files. Download and have your private folder today!

No word on what encryption it uses or what happens if you forget the password.  Download it today and give it a try!

Here’s the code to add a timestamp to your vBulletin message board for ad code such as DoubleClick:

 

  

Dell installs all their servers with an annoying Dell background image (1.8MB!!!) on the main logon screen. This image slows down terminal service connections because you have to wait for this high color image to load. The first thing I do is remove this background from any new Dell server.  To do this, edit the registry key:

My Computer\HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Desktop\Wallpaper

Just erase what is there.  You’ll be much happier.

Need to make complete copy of a web site but don’t have direct access to the files? I’ve had this happen for several clients whose web developer would no longer give them access, or who wanted a copy before they terminated their relationship with the web designer. Well, HTTrack is a free utility that does the following:

It allows you to download a World Wide Web site from the Internet to a local directory, building recursively all directories, getting HTML, images, and other files from the server to your computer. HTTrack arranges the original site’s relative link-structure. Simply open a page of the “mirrored” website in your browser, and you can browse the site from link to link, as if you were viewing it online. HTTrack can also update an existing mirrored site, and resume interrupted downloads. HTTrack is fully configurable, and has an integrated help system.

Of course, it will not copy scripts, but for static web sites, it works pretty well.