Online backups

We all occasionally suffer lost of vital documents, or entire hard-drives full of them. Backups are an essential tool in preventing most loss…. but performing them is often a tedious task. Copying files and/or burning them to disk is time consuming and easily overlooked when you are overwhelmed. A few months ago I found Mozy, it provides a free, and simple interface that schedules and backs up your files online…. as such all you need to do it schedule it and forget it (of course your computer also needs to be online).

Restoring files is done through their web interface, and while it sometimes takes a few hours, you get an email notification that it’s available for download as a ZIP file.

You get 2GB for free and can purchase more… referrals get you (me in this case) an additional 256MB… please check it out at: https://mozy.com/?ref=3UEYUK

Video Blogs (Vlog?)

When I first started subscribing to Podcasts, I used a variety of client software. Notable was iPodder “Lemon” (now known as Juice). Soon after that I found Democracy Player (now Miro), a client that natively supported video in addition to the common audio (MP3) standard. Both clients are free and available on many common platforms.

In the video space, I’m a regular watcher of:

OpenDNS

I’ve used EveryDNS (free service) for years to host my DNS services.    Recently I found that they now offer public DNS service for lookups as OpenDNS.   While I still run my own private DNS server for caching and various private addresses.  I now do a simple forward lookup to their servers to gain the extra services they provide… notably Phishing  and typo protection.

Setup is very simple for most users, and even a non-technical person should have no problems following their installation instructions for a single computer/device or an entire network.
Happy networking!!!

Mozilla cache folder

Due to my UNIX background,  I’ve found it helpful, for both security and performance reasons to relocate your ‘cache’ or temporary files to a new location (Unix/Linux gurus may prefer /tmp/) here’s the simple process for doing this on a Windows machine using Firefox.

This is useful for several reasons:

* Moving many of your ‘tmp’ files/folders to a single location makes it easier to “clean house”.
* If you move ‘tmp’ to a separate drive or partition (like in UNIX), your primary drive will be less fragmented and may even show increased performance.

Firefox didn’t make this as easy to change as MSIE, but it’s a trivial matter. Find and edit the prefs.js file in your Profile directory and add the following…

user_pref(“browser.cache.disk.parent_directory”, “C:\\temp\\Mozilla”);

Alternately, you can type “about:config” in the URL/address line of the browser and add the String…

browser.cache.disk.parent_directory with a value of “C:\\temp\\Mozilla”

If you want to keep your existing cached files, you can always copy them over from the old location.

For Windows XP with MSIE6/7, the disk cache location is easily changed in the Internet Control Panel, on the General tab, Settings button. Microsoft seems to change that control panel with every new OS/browser version, but it’s generally named similarly on different configurations.

Good luck !

Windows Remote Desktop (aka Terminal Services) Port Change

There often becomes a need to remotely access/administer a Windows machine.   While I’d normally recommend using a different method such as an VNC connection over a VPN or a SSH Tunnel, you MAY get away with using the built in services.   Even so, using the default port 3389 may prove troublesome with some security mechanisms such as firewalls and proxy servers.   Here’s a simple way around it all…To change the default port for all new connections created on the Terminal Server:

  1. Run Regedt32 and go to this key:
    • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Terminal Server\WinStations\RDP-Tcp
  2. Find the “PortNumber” subkey and notice the value of 00000D3D, hex for (3389). Modify the port number in Hex and save the new value.
    • NOTE: Ports 80 and 443 are recommended because they route well across various networks.

Good luck… now go out and find a “safer” method!

Windows file cleanup/housekeeping

Since I routinely run WAMP servers (see previous article) and develop primarily on Windows machines, I find that a lot of garbage remains on these machines. Often these files are created temporarily and not deleted and/or are created for some perceiver performance gains. Additionally, its often nice to schedule cleanup operations for times when you are not using the machine…. here’s a few common items to consider.

@echo off echo ======= DELETES =========
del /q %windir%*.log
del /q %windir%*.tmp
del /q %windir%securitylogs*.*
del /q %windir%SoftwareDistributionDataStoreLogs*.*
del /q %windir%msdownld.tmp*.*
del /q %windir%$hf_mig$*.*
del /q %TEMP%msdownld.tmp*.*
del /q %TEMP%*.dat
del /q %TEMP%*.log
del /q %TEMP%*.tmp
del /q %TEMP%*.xpi
del /q %TEMP%sess_*.*
del /q %TEMP%logs*.*
del /q c:*.log
del /q c:logs*.*
del /q /s %USERPROFILE%*.dmp
del /q /s %USERPROFILE%SIDisttemp*.*"
echo ======= Prefetch ==========
del /q %windir%Prefetch*.*
echo ======== DEFRAG ===========
%windir%system32defrag.exe c: -f -v >%TEMP%batch_defrag.txt
echo ========= done ============

Options….

echo ======== ANALOG ===========
cd c:analog6.0 analog +glocalhost.cfg
echo ========== IP =============
%windir%system32ipconfig.exe /all > %TEMP%batch_ip.txt
echo ======== NETSTAT ==========
%windir%system32netstat.exe -a > %TEMP%batch_netstat.txt

NOTE: this entry will be updated occasionally!

WAMP Servers

I often find myself administering WAMP (Windows, Apache, PHP/Perl/Python, mySQL) servers…. usually this occurs because it is better ‘supported’ (or perhaps ‘tolerated’) configuration in a corporate alternative to the more common LAMP (Linux… etc.) variety. This gives you the benefit of a centrally controlled operating system while maintaining a mostly open source server environment. Albeit with Microsoft’s poor security record, you’ll be patching it a LOT!

Many common distributions exist… here’s some helpful resources with downloads:

If you are a Java shop, you might also consider the following…

Configuration of each of these is a topic in it’s own right. If you need a shortcut to development, you may want to check out this!

Good luck!!!

Places I’ve Lived…

I began my life as a “Navy Brat” as such, my family moved every few years… later I too spent six years in the Navy prior to settling down in the Chicago area for school and work… here’s a history of my journeys.

  • Rice Lake, WI
  • Pensacola, FL
  • Todendorf, Germany (03/1974 – 03/1976)
  • Ft. Meade, MD (1976-1979)
  • Adak, AK (1979 – 1982)
  • Winter Harbor, ME (1982-1985)
  • Adak, AK (“again!” 1985-1988)
  • Rice Lake, WI (August 1988- July 1989)
  • “Boot Camp” Great Lakes, IL (July – Sept. 1989)
  • Groton, CT (Oct. 1989 – Dec. 1990)
  • Pearl Harbor, HI (Jan. 1991- July 1995) – onboard SSN-725
  • Rice Lake, WI (July 1995- Oct. 1995) – mostly traveling.
  • Glendale Heights, IL (Oct. 1995-1996)
  • Palatine, IL (1996-1997)
  • Wood Dale, IL (1997-1998)
  • Carol Stream, IL (2000-November 2007)
  • Plainfield, IL (November 2007-present)

Alpine Slide

After hearing about this for years, I finally got to try this exciting event/sport. The closest location to Chicago that I can locate is at Chestnut Mountain in Galena, IL (apx. 3 hrs away on the Iowa border). While it’s advertised as “safe for the entire family”, it’s VERY easy to get carried away and get hurt…. i left some ‘skin’ on the ramp myself, leading to some ugly “road rash” on my arms 🙂

Check it out…

http://www.chestnutmtn.com/summer/