Various cool software and more
For newbies on the MS-SCCM server here is another cool utility, it is aimed at the support role and will give you easy access to log-files and status of SCCM agents.
SMS Client Center – http://sourceforge.net/projects/smsclictr
And as its open source its quite cheap 😉
Thanks to: knudsen-consulting.com for sharing this tip 🙂
During one of those late nights browsing the net I stumbled across what turned out to be a time-saver in the high-roller end, what is the real interesting thing is that it is a was a total coincidence I got to think of an alternative use for a small utility aimed at a complete different audience.
If you are using MS-SCCM 2007 you know the hassle of hardware certification of new and old pc-models. If you wish to keep a tight leach on which drivers you install to the PC’s you deploy using MS-SCCM, you have to figure out which drivers are actually needed and obtain unpacked versions. Now even if this may sound like a very simple task, experience quickly makes you think twice, take a modern Laptop PC and try to see how many odd hardware devices it contains.
The process has so far been to install the PC using your installation CD, then download the drivers from the manufacture and install them and figure out which driver was related to which unknown hardware device. Then you would need to unpack the strange driver packages and figure out which files was actually required and import them to SCCM. Often you would end up with installation packages which could not easily be unpacked (if at all), and you would have to do a lot of manual labour and testing to obtain the drivers.
Well think again… and let me cut your hardware certification time to a fraction… Now you take your new laptop out of the box, start it up and let it install the preloaded OS. Then install “Driver Magician” and use the build in backup function to extract the drivers, finally import the extracted driver-directory to SCCM and you are done, the pc model can now be deployed using SCCM.
“Driver Magician” was not actually made with this in mind, it is actually what I would describe as a geek tool. It is intended for those who often install their computers and wish to minimize the time it takes to install the drivers, but believe me as a side effect it does a VERY good job of hardware certification for use with MS-SCCM.
This mean you can likely save at least 4-6 hours per pc model you need to hardware certify.
Piece of pie..
Watch a geeked YouTube intro, mind you this is not aimed at SCCM usage but more the original intend.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uq6U0y25mE
Have you ever met the annoying dialog box stating that the file you are trying to delete can’t be deleted – stating that it is in use (even though you KNOW this NOT to be true?).. Sure you have, especially running Vista (strangely enough I seem to see this issue more often on my Vista box than on Win2003/xp) ..
Well anyhow, there are ways to deal with that (not guaranteed, but quite often it works)..
http://ccollomb.free.fr/unlocker/
is a small freeware utility that will assist in resolving this, it can quite often delete a file that states its locked.
UPDATE Nov 2009;
Also check https://readmydamnblog.com/?p=1045 for an alternate utility in a 64bit version (Lockhunter)
Virtualization now cross platform
Adobe has taken application virtualization one step further than Softgrid/Thinstall, now you can use the web aware Adobe Air applications on any compatible platform (basically any web-able os).
Its an interesting idea that surely will appeal to many web-service providers.
Another free WinZip replacement (supports many formats incl RAR), have not tested it yet but it looks promising.
A different solution for online backup is to use Jungle Disk. Jungle Disk is a software that utilize the Amazon S3 storage network which is very fair priced (approx $0.18 pr GB a month + an upload fee of about the same).
The solution has a quite good agent software (also comes in a USB version, so you can carry your online disk) which allow for scheduled backups, bandwidth throttling etc. etc. and the security seem quite convincing.
In the near future I will be comparing this with the www.Keepit.com solution, my feel for now is that Keepit is more home user aimed and Jungle Disk is usable for both, however the low FIXED price for Keepit do seem tempting.
Update Apr 8th, 2008: Please see warning against Keepit.com elsewhere in my blog
A company www.Keepit.com offers 2GB of free online backup-space (at least in Denmark) which may be quite nice for many users, may be enough to store your pictures and mail.
The client software is not the worlds most advanced I have been told, but again for home users it may be quite sufficient.
https://www.keepit.com/dansk/Home
Pay and get more :-), should you be willing to pay DKK 29 ($4.5 or €3.9) you get unlimited storage space. Seem like a quite reasonable solution.
I have not tried this yet so I am uncertain about security and encryption etc, but I have been told that it indeed uses encryption and your data should thus be safe from prying eyes.
First you get the happy news, Truecrypt will now offer system drive encryption, and you go to bed with a big grin on your face..
Sorry for being the carrier of bad news, but you might as well wipe that grin of your face and start rethinking your security plans.. Sure, we are not talking revelation of a super master key for all encryption, but still the guys at Princeton University did a good enough job of making smiles fade..
The idea is; RAM is not erased the second the computer is turned off, it will take anywhere from seconds to minutes before RAM is reset to “0”, and as the encryption key is found in ram (For most software, including Bitlocker and Truecrypt) what these people do is to boot a usb device and dump the entire ram content before it fades… They even slow down the process via an air cooling spray adding almost unlimited time to do their ‘evil’ deed.
Revealing the keys and compromising data will in most cases (not all it would seem) require a rapid response from the potential hacker, the technique require physical access to the computer within minutes after it is turned off (not true for hibernation or sleep mode mind you). However Bitlocker even in some configurations seemed ‘hackable’ even if turned completely off (cold).
Sounds like science fiction, well the you tube video they produced seem somewhat convincing.
Steps you can do to to counteract this;
DONT use hibernation or SLEEP mode.
If possible use the “enter a password” at bootup.
In bios disallow booting from USB.
These steps will not make you 100% secure, but will make things way more difficult.
For more details;
http://citp.princeton.edu/memory/
Be careful what you have on your laptop when entering the USA, the security checks are no longer limited to your physical goods, according to the Danish online magazine ComOn.DK quite a lot of people have had to hand over their passwords to their laptops, in order for the Security personnel at the US airports to search their computers.
Disturbing is the only word I can think of.
Some stupid ¤#?# at Microsoft has seen fit to change the parameter to Mstsc (Remote Desktop) in SP1 (Vista/Win 2008) and SP3 (XP). Before you typed “Mstsc /Console” to connect to the console session at a server (basically some not so well written applications only worked here), but that was then – now say hello to “Mstsc /Admin”…
Even more genius, the /Console is SILENTLY IGNORED… just so it will take you longer to figure out what is wrong, AND of cause all third party Terminal Services applications will no longer be able to connect to console. Yes I know, of cause new versions will be released… but what #¤”% would have been wrong with leaving the /Console for backwards compatibility.
And why, well because Windows 2008 no longer needs this (yeah we heard this one before ;-)), ok cool – but hey Windows 2003 still does and will be around for QUITE some time still (we still have one or two NT4 servers running)..
Sorry no price for that one guys.
