INSYNC Consulting of Virginia

I.T. BLOG extraordinaire...

February 13, 2008

My Open Source Epiphany

The Open Source effect happened to me last year.
In February 2007
I had a few clients that needed an Anti-Spam solution and didnt have the budget to support an expensive solution. I first looked at all the commercial offerings from the usual suspects (McAfee, Trend, Kaspersky, Symantec, Eset, F-Secure) but realized that even though these systems were probably on some GSA list, they didnt perform to my level of expectation specifically because they had no way to increase their basic functionality due to their closed-source nature. In other words, when the spammers changed tactics, you had to pay more money for the new version of product xyz. So then I looked at three Open Source offerings hosted on Sourceforge: Spamassassin, DSpam and ASSP.

SpamAssassin was easy to eliminate as it had only a fraction of the methods used by ASSP.
DSpam was a baysian-only classifier, although written in C, offered a failed methodology to fighting spam: let it all through and then apply Bayesian statistical analysis to eliminate the spam. Dumb.
ASSP was the best option. It used techniques that successively eliminated spam based on a cascading set of smtp rules, that when finished, ended with a bayesian classifier. In other words, ASSP eliminates spam with easy to use rules first, then uses Bayes as a last resort. Its use of PCRE or regular expressions provide a powerful admin tool for stopping spam as it evolves from simple windows Outlook address book email blaster to advanced phishing tool.

After implementing ASSP in two clients networks, I realized that there are more functions for Open Source to assume in our conversion from proprietary Microsoft networks. The licensing issues are profound. MS Open License document is hundreds of pages long. As the years go by, there are no new functions worth purchasing from Microsoft that Novell hadnt already implemented decades before in Netware, or that the Open Source community has found working replacements for recently.

And its not just the cost or the "Microsoft Tax" (try buying a Dell laptop without Windows) that forces us to evaluate Open source: its the fact that Microsoft has no new ideas and has not for years. Do not call shadow copies a new idea.
The only thing SMB companies need Microsoft for these days is the fact that our line-of-business applications are Windows programs. If you could get Office (you can) Quickbooks (coming) or Accounting software(rudimentary) for Linux, Microsoft would be toast. A client recently switched from ADP Payroll to a bank-provided system. Its uses a web browser. Dont need Windows for that.

The Industry says Linux has won on the Server front and I tend to agree. There is no feature on Microsoft servers you cant get elsewhere. Linux cannot any time soon win on the Desktop for this single reason (a reason that 100% of the industry press fails to realize): that the Windows Desktop has both kernel-mode and user-mode components and thereby a faster graphics system than Linux. The Linux X-windows based desktop runs as a user-mode program no different than Notepad. The Linux windowing environment has two competing and incompatible (QT or GTK) graphics systems and thereby cannot be taken seriously until it moves down to Ring 0. And because vendors cannot afford to support dual desktop programming environments, Linux on the desktop is years away. And please, do not even consider Java as anything but a toy. Its too slow.
December 5, 2007

The Starbucks Effect

The Starbucks Effect describes a production throughput queue stall that occurs when the Order takers(Sales) queue-up many more drinks than the baristas(Production) can make in a timely period. This is usually coupled with the dreaded "talking instead of working" phenomena experienced at my local branch. This results in a push-pull inchworm-like throughput metric for the store operation.

Is the answer to take fewer orders per period, waiting for some output before starting again?
Or to change the employee task mix to include more makers than takers during rush hours? (yes).

Other wise known as - "Shut the hell up and work."

Just my
November 14, 2007

Unified Threat Management

From Wikipedia:
Unified Threat Management (UTM) is a term coined by Charles Kolodgy[citation needed] of International Data Corporation (IDC) in 2004 which is used to describe network firewalls that have many features in one box, including junk e-mail filtering, anti-virus capability, an intrusion detection (or prevention) system (IDS or IPS), and World Wide Web content filtering, along with the traditional activities of a firewall. These are application-layer firewalls that use proxies to process and forward all incoming traffic, though they can still frequently work in a transparent mode that disguises this fact. However, if this uses too much processor time, the higher-level inspection can be disabled so that the firewall functions like a much simpler network address translation (NAT) gateway.
July 31, 2007

Does your Inbox look like this?

Get rid of SPAM once and for all.
Yes, ive used GFI Mail Essentials, Symantec Brightmail and Barracuda.
And tons of client-only filters that kill the SPAM after you get it.
These solutions suck.
Reason?
They rely on regular updates, cost lots of money, and require constant babysitting.
And some (Barracuda) are simply Open Source re-packaged and marked up.
You know what to do.
(804) 595-2183.
July 31, 2007

Website Browsing Lockdown with no added Software
Need to lockdown your employee's browing habits,(MySpace, YouTube)
but don't want to install an invasive piece of software like McAfee or Norton,
nor do you want an expensive proxy or difficult to maintain firewall,
My solution just takes minutes to install and is foolproof.
Call me for the answer to website lockdown.
May 14, 2007

Terminal Services Remote Printing Fix
I was going to keep this one for myself, but here goes.
Terminal Services in Windows 2003 and XP will connect your remote (home) printer to the Server most of the time.
Most of the time doesnt include USB Printers or Client-Side Network printers.
(Seems that only LPT and COM ports are considered respected printing customers.)

Add the registry entries listed in the link below to your system.
Then when you connect to a Terminal Services server, your printers should show up.
Click Here
April 17, 2007

Your Hard Drive is slow and getting slower
I recently had a client who purchased a new DELL Inspiron 1705 Laptop.
He remarked that he could not listen to CDs and do work at the same time.
I checked the XP SP2 registry and was shocked to find that the unit was sent from the factory in PIO Mode.
For those who dont know, there are two ways to access disk devices: PIO and DMA.
PIO is Programmed Input Output and is very slow because the main CPU does all the data transfer between the drives and main memory.
DMA is Direct Memory Access and uses a motherboard chipset secondary processor to transfer data, freeing up the CPU.

The DMA speedup can be as great as 10 times the PIO transfer rate.

The Design flaw is in the registry, or the Windows OS for that matter, in that Microsoft chose NOT to put the system into the fastest possible disk data transfer mode and keep it there.

(This problem though does not affect SCSI or SATA Controllers as there is no PIO legacy hardware in them.)

Since this fix requires a boatload of Registry fixes, its easier to download these reg files to your system.
This is for the Primary IDE Controller
This is for the Secondary IDE Controller
(You need both).

Happy Listening
February 7, 2007

Restoring your Sound
Your sound card just mysteriously stop working?
I get so mad how these things happen in the first place.
How did this registry entry get whacked?
Hello? Microsoft? have any design issues lately?
If your sound card just stops working, fire up REGEDIT.EXE and navigate to this key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\drivers32

Create a new DWORD key called "wavemapper" with a value of "msacm32.drv".
Also, check to make sure there is another DWORD key called "midimapper" with this value "midimap.dll"
Or just click here to download/import the .reg file to fix this automatically
Instant sound.
December 12, 2006

This is why I dont use Open Source Databases.
The one thing microsoft did right:
SQL Server performance table
Do you see MySQL in this table?
November 30, 2006

Drivers causing Blue Screens not found on Google.
This is really starting to piss me off.
Why cant computer malware companies just admit they are losing the battle.
Not only that, Google needs more indexing servers to keep up with the new viruses.
I guess their stadium full of half a million servers isnt enough to find
the SONYPVL3.SYS driver.

Bah Humbug on these malware detectors.
Plan of attack:
1. MSCONFIG
2. Check Registry for named .SYS drivers
3. DIR C:\Windows\*.EXE /O:-D -> Check for new EXEs
4. CHKDSK C: /r from XP Boot CD
5. MEMTEST
6. Driver Verifier
7. Run Spyware progs
November 19, 2006

COMCAST Powerboost.
My Friend John tells me the Comcast TV Commercials for Powerboost are playing like crazy in Chicago.
Here in Richmond, VA am getting CLOSE TO 30Mbps download speeds.
November 19, 2006

Bad Code
Ok, now I find another bundle of joy called SCVHOST.EXE. (Misspelled)
There is a valid SVCHOST.EXE. Its the program that runs alot of other Windows programs.
SVCHOST runs many of the Services in kernel mode or user mode not under Explorer.exe.
Nice place to allow a trojan to run. Services usually run with one of Three system permission
levels that allow almost total control of the machine. (Local SYSTEM, Network Service or Local Service).

Either way, Im again bothered that the trojan scvhost.exe even was allowed to install on the machine with
both SpySweeper and NOD32 running.
October 29, 2006

I am the Crap Cleaner
I love finding new trojans, viruses and spyware before Symantec, McAfee, NOD32, and Webroot do.
This time it was a program called OLE2.EXE.
There is a legitimate OLE2.DLL, but this EXE gets 5 hits on Google.
Wonderful. 5 whole hits?
This year its OLE2.EXE, last year it was NAIL.EXE.
Nine hits for NAIL last year. This year its over 95,000.
Then, what does a nice IT geek do?
He "submits a sample for review", with email address of course
What happens?
Nothing. No updated signature file, no email communication, nothing for months if ever.
And no thank you.
But, its common fare.
I should send these companies a bill.

So what is the solution?
Windows Vista will not let anything download or run unless you run as an admin user.
Thats their way of saying "You screwed up". But, at least we know who did it.

Have a Daily backup of the Windows Registry.
You have no excuse for NOT scheduling this command.
Its so easy here it is:
NTBACKUP BACKUP SYSTEMSTATE /F "C:\SS.BKF"
Done.
Here are the steps below:

If you have Windows 2000 or XP Home, or dont have NTBACKUP on your system,
download it here.
October 22, 2006

Screw Up, Blue up:
So, here I am doing a regular System State Backup from Remote, and wham,
Client's Main Windows 2000 Server (GC, DC, DNS, DHCP) boots into STOP Error 0A in NTSOSKRNL.EXE
(A no-problems-found CHKDSK pass turns into 13-hour Server recovery ordeal)
Lesson learned: Make daily and weekly backups of Windows Server's System States
October 5, 2006

Router Madness:
Replace Linksys, D-Link, Buffalo and Netgear routers with IP Cop.
Why?
Much more functionality for the price: usually in maximum inbound ports, Syslog, traffic analysis (kill those music streams)
July 4, 2006

Enterprise Reporting:
Implement browser-based Reporting via Crystal Reports Server when you need to deploy to a constantly changing audience: Don't have to create a version per target audience.
Get the Developer Edition for $500: comes with the 5-user version of Crystal Server, normally $7000
People want to take their Outlook with them:

Outlook Web Access, from Club Med browser Outlook 2003, "RPC over HTTP", from Club Med laptop

We are talking about getting acccess to the Exchange Server from outside the company firewall.
Add Newsletter, Poll and Forum sections to your company site.
People will come back to spend more time with your company, products, services and people.
Add a decent set of ADWORDS and HTML Meta tags to your website.
So People will find you in the first place.
There was an article I read called "$10,000 per web page".
If you are serious about your online presence, you need to treat each page as a potential money making endeavor for your firm.
Mix Open-Source (Freeware) and Commercial software freely:
Why?
Well, its free and usually works better then stuff from Redmond.
Put Digital Certificates on everything:
Why?
Jeez you ask alot of questions.
Because security sucks without them.
Put some decent wires in your building.
Wireless doesnt solve all yer problems.
What every Accountant needs under the tree:
INSYNC creates functional, easy-to-reach Disaster Recovery plans.
I Include GHOST partitions on DVD and Step-By-Step recovery instructions in case I am at Club Med.
Actually, Im doing this for my Clients now.
Download my Disaster Recovery Strategy (Printable Word Document)
Upgrade all Windows 2000 servers to 2003
Enhances Remote Desktop printing, be able to undelete files with the new
Shadow-Copy service and get some enhanced disk performance as well.
Disaster Recovery goes better too with 2003.
R2 works better with SANs and offline storage.
(All these things Netware had years ago).
Install the INSYNC Portal in your business:

Yes, I provide this for free.
- Help Desk: Create and Track I.T. Service Calls to INSYNC via browser.
- Application Installations: Central place for all your Company software (License Numbers and CD-KEYs)
- Servers: Quick shortcuts to your Server's Vendor-Supplied Management Tools or Remote Access Portals
- HW/SW Inventory: Eases Asset Management with quick acccess to Company PC specs.
- EMAIL: Local network shortcuts to Email WebAccess
- Wiring Plant: Shows the Wiring in your Building in an Excel spreadsheet.