Ant Drewery

Some time ago my blog stats stopped updating. I was using Jeff Minard’s WP-ShortStat plugin that was based on ShortStat by Shaun Inman. I did a little digging at the time and ran some MySQL DB maintenance as I was convinced I’d reached some sort of limitation in my hosted environment. This didn’t help and I let the matter drop as I was busy with other commitments. 

It now seems like this is a known issue that began when I upgraded to Wordpress 2.02. Luckily Markus Kämmerer has continued development of the WP-ShortStat plugin, adding new features as well as fixing the bug. You can get the updated plugin at http://blog.happyarts.de/wp-shortstat/. Installation is a breeze and my stats are updating once again.

There has been a lot of discussion recently about the changes to daylight savings time in the USA. The changes have come about due to the 2005 Energy Policy Act. In previous years, DST in most of the USA ran from the first Sunday in April until the last Sunday in October. From 2007 DST will be from the second Sunday in March to the first Sunday in November. I’m based in the UK so these changes do not affect me directly but I work for a global company with a global Windows/Exchange environment so there is an impact to address.

Microsoft has had a patch available to address the issue since late November 2006. This has recently been updated to include DST changes in other time zones around the world. My recommendation is to deploy this patch to ALL Windows machines in your environment. The patch can be distributed via WSUS if you have this facility available.

Once the patch has been deployed you may need to correct entries in the Outlook calendar. Microsoft have provided two tools to do this. The first (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/931667/) is a tool that needs to be run individually for the affected users. The tool requires user interaction so you may want to distribute a link to a file share along with detailed instructions on how to run it and it’s potential impact. You should also give examples of why the tool is necessary so that the users have a good understanding.

The second tool is for Microsoft Exchange (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/930879) and will allow you to update the calendars centrally. If you are going to take this approach you need to carefully consider the risks of a blanket update. KB930879 lists the pros and cons of this method.

You can find more information from Microsoft about the DST changes here: http://support.microsoft.com/gp/cp_dst

UPDATE:

There are now patches for Blackberry (http://www.blackberry.com/select/dst2007/index.shtml) and Windows Mobile (http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile/daylightsaving/default.mspx).

I came across this useful site to create a FavIcon for your website: http://tools.dynamicdrive.com/favicon. 

Technorati Tags: FavIcon

This script will remove proxy addresses for a specific SMTP domain from a specified list of users. You can change the domain by editing the strSMTPDomain value in the script. The input file called users.txt is a list of display names. For my needs I reformatted the output from my previous script. By specifying the domain and the list of users it reduces the chances of any mistakes.

The script takes the input file and processes each listed user. It checks all the proxy addresses for the user and deletes any that match the specified domain. Two output files are produced. The first is a processing log which lists whether each user was found and how many addresses were removed for that user. The second file is a log of all addresses removed which can be used as a reference in the event of a mistake.

You can download the script here: StripLegacyProxyAddresses.vbs.txt

Part of the way my current employer has grown is through acquisitions and mergers. Consequently we’ve been supporting more than 10 legacy SMTP domains from various shipping lines. Now that we’re decommissioning our systems it’s time to do some housekeeping and discontinue these domains.

The first step was to check that all objects had their primary SMTP address set to the main domain name. This was done more than a year ago but needed to be reconfirmed. A custom LDAP query that included the syntax  (!mail=*@our_main_domain.com) sufficed.

Next I wrote a script that exported all SMTP proxy addresses for user objects. This was to be used as a reference in the unlikely event that problems arose down the line. The LDAP query can easily be modified for groups, contacts and public folders. It’s not the most exciting of scripts but it does the job. You can download it here: AllSMTPProxies.vbs.txt

As I wanted to be very specific and meticulous in the removal of legacy proxy addresses I wrote another script that targets a specific SMTP domain. In this script you can specify the domain by changing the strSMTPDomain value. The script will then only export the names and addresses for proxies that match the SMTP domain. You can download the script here: SpecificSMTPProxies.vbs.txt

In my next post I’ll be using PutEx in a script to remove proxy addresses from AD objects.

By default MySQL only permits connections from the server on which it resides. Although this makes for good security there may be times when you need to access the database from elsewhere. This might be using ODBC from your office or maybe a script running on a separate web server.

Using a SSH client like PuTTY connect to your MySQL server. You then need to edit /etc/my.cnf (# vi /etc/my.cnf).

Under the [mysqld] section comment or remove the skip-networking line and add the bind-address=IP_of_MYSQLserver line e.g.

Save the file then restart the MySQL service (# /etc/init.d/mysqld restart) 

Now using the MySQL admin tool of your choice create your user accounts but specify the host that they will be connecting from. For example if you are creating a user that connects from the IP address 80.65.35.43 the username will be in this format: username@80.65.35.43

With some guidance from my colleague Ben Christian I’ve been working on several VBScripts to assist with the decommissioning of our systems. The scripts range from simple reporting to modifying objects. By posting them in this blog someone else may get some use out of them. They are posted "as is" and I accept no liability arising from the use of them.

This script simply creates a tab delimited text file showing all users with their logon script and object’s distinguished name. You’ll be notified by a prompt when the script has finished processing. Simply open the resulting text file with Excel to see the information formatted into columns. You could modify the script to output to a CSV file if you don’t use commas in your display names. Download the script here: WhichLoginScript.vbs.txt

When run on your BlackBerry Enterprise Server the following command line will export your installed licence keys to a text file. Replace c:\beskeys.txt with the path and filename of your choice.

bcp besmgmt..licensekeys out c:\beskeys.txt -c -T

Thanks go to Doug for this tip.

Technorati Tags: BlackBerry Enterprise Server, BES

I thought it was one of those things that only happened to other people but I’ve become a victim of identity theft. Despite shredding documents and being cautious when entering personal information on the Internet someone managed to get enough information about me to change the address on my credit card and go on a £12,000 (US$20,000) spending spree! The credit card company have frozen the account and are now investigating.

Whilst you can’t guarantee to protect yourself completely you can take some sensible steps towards prevention and minimising the possible impact:

• Shred all documents using a cross-cut shredder before putting in the trash.
• Be very aware when you are entering personal information over the Internet. Is the site asking for too much information about you?
• Make use of online banking facilities to regularly check your bank and credit card statements for unusual activity.
• If you don’t receive expected statements/documents by post chase it up with the sender ASAP. This is what prompted me to contact my credit card company as I also couldn’t view my account online.
• Don’t answer security questions from cold callers even if they claim to be from your bank/credit card. Politely decline then call them back on the official customer service number. That way you know you’re speaking to someone from the company who called you.
• Check your credit history on a regular basis to ensure no one is taking credit out in your name. Sites like www.creditexpert.co.uk can provide a service where you’re notified by email or SMS if there are any changes to your credit report.

I had a call from a user today who had forgotten her password to a couple of PST files. I was about to look at some commercial software when I came across this great process on Slipstick that will remove the password completely. The caveat is that it won’t work with Outlook 2003’s Unicode format PST.

http://www.slipstick.com/problems/lostpw.htm