Microsoft Standalone System Sweeper Beta–Rootkit remover

 

You have been directed here to download and install the beta version of Microsoft Standalone System Sweeper Beta, a recovery tool that can help you start an infected PC and perform an offline scan to help identify and remove rootkits and other advanced malware. In addition, Microsoft Standalone System Sweeper Beta can be used if you cannot install or start an antivirus solution on your PC, or if the installed solution can’t detect or remove malware on your PC.

Microsoft Standalone System Sweeper Beta is not a replacement for a full antivirus solution providing ongoing protection; it is meant to be used in situations where you cannot start your PC due to a virus or other malware infection. For no-cost, real-time protection that helps guard your home or small business PCs against viruses, spyware, and other malicious software, download Microsoft Security Essentials*.

To get started, make sure that you have a blank CD, DVD, or USB drive with at least 250 MB of space.

Download 32-bit version download 64-bit version

Should I download the 32-bit or 64-bit version?

Dead sections of screen on 11.04 Natty

 

I had a weird problem that sections of the screen, small section a few centre meters wide were dead to the mouse, you could not click on them, could not use the mouse track wheel to go up or down pages if the mouse was over them.

They still had video but were dead to the mouse.

Tried compwiz settings, video settings, drivers, nothing but then:

from my home folder:

rm -r .gnome .gnome2 .gconf .gconfd

and a quick init 6 and happy again.

odd.

Is the Length of an Email Address Limited? If Yes, What is the Maximum?

 

Question: Is the Length of an Email Address Limited? If Yes, What is the Maximum?
Answer:

Yes, the maximum length of an email address is 256 characters.

Every email address is composed of two parts. The local part comes before the '@' sign, and the domain part follows it. In "user@example.com", the local part is "user", and the domain part is "example.com".

The

  local part must not exceed 64 characters and
  the domain part cannot be longer than 255 characters;
  the total combined length of all characters (including '@' and punctuation) must not exceed 256 characters.

In sum, an email address can be 256 characters long at most. When you create an address, make sure your user name has less than 65 characters.

 

 

By Heinz Tschabitscher, About.com Guide
http://email.about.com/od/emailbehindthescenes/f/address_length.htm

Enable FIM 2010 and PCNS logging

 

Diagnostics and maintenance

Whenever a password change operation completes, the history is saved in the FIM Synchronisation Service database in SQL Server. Because a large number of password change operations can increase the size of the database, it is recommended that you save and clear the password change history on a regular basis to limit performance issues on the server running SQL Server. For information about clearing the password change history, see the FIM Developer Reference.

Both FIM and the PCNS use the Application log to record activity and failure events. For learning about password synchronisation, it is recommended that you set the logging level to high and monitor the Application log closely during the initial configuration and rollout of password synchronisation.

For FIM, there are four logging levels that are controlled by adding the FeaturePwdSyncLogLevel (REG_DWORD) entry to the following registry subkey:

      HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\FIMSynchronizationServices\Logging

• 0 = Minimal Logging
• 1 = Normal logging (default)
• 2 = High logging
• 3 = Verbose logging

For PCNS, there are four logging levels that are controlled by adding the EventLogLevel (REG_DWORD) entry to the following registry subkey:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\PCNSSVC\Parameters

• 0 = Minimal Logging
• 1 = Normal logging (default)
• 2 = High logging
• 3 = Verbose logging
  

Does not always seem to work without a reboot.

 

Hat-tip: http://certsrv.ru/fim2010.en/html/9537ebeb-80bb-4389-9538-1b65302b70eb.htm

PCNFCFG deleteTarget /N:name & Error deleting the target

 

pcnscfg list shows a target which is wrong but cannot be changed or deleted.

Error message from pcnscfg: Error deleting the target. The target was not found.

This target listed causes PCNS to target this server to sent the passwords to but it can't find it and gives me a 6025 error in eventviewer.

Open ADSIEDIT.MSC

Open the domain, select new Query

Name the query, the query string is ObjectClass=MS-MIIS-PCNS-Target

Find the target, right click and delete.

Restart PCNS and try again.

Hat-tip: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en/identitylifecyclemanager/thread/80e13fb6-a09d-4bfa-b70f-e664ec4c0074

Error: The zone cannot be created. A conditional forwarding zone already exists for that name.

 

I tried to create a secondary DNS zone, but I received the following error: The zone cannot be created. A conditional forwarding zone already exists for that name.

• Connect to the domain controller.
• Go to Start > Run > Dnsmgmt.msc
• Point to the server’s name > Properties > Forwarders ,and remove the domain  that you are trying to create the secondary DNS zone.
• Re-create the zone from the start.

Thanks to: http://vvirtual.wordpress.com/2010/09/28/error-the-zone-cannot-be-created-a-conditional-forwarding-zone-already-exists-for-that-name/

User account control settings (kb305144)

 

The following table lists possible flags that you can assign. The flags are cumulative. To disable a user's account, set the UserAccountControl attribute to 0x0202 (0x002 + 0x0200). In decimal, this is 514 (2 + 512).

 

Property flag	Value in hexadecimal	Value in decimal
SCRIPT	0x0001	1
ACCOUNTDISABLE	0x0002	2
HOMEDIR_REQUIRED	0x0008	8
LOCKOUT	0x0010	16
PASSWD_NOTREQD	0x0020	32
PASSWD_CANT_CHANGE * You cannot modify	0x0040	64
ENCRYPTED_TEXT_PWD_ALLOWED	0x0080	128
TEMP_DUPLICATE_ACCOUNT	0x0100	256
NORMAL_ACCOUNT	0x0200	512
INTERDOMAIN_TRUST_ACCOUNT	0x0800	2048
WORKSTATION_TRUST_ACCOUNT	0x1000	4096
SERVER_TRUST_ACCOUNT	0x2000	8192
DONT_EXPIRE_PASSWORD	0x10000	65536
MNS_LOGON_ACCOUNT	0x20000	131072
SMARTCARD_REQUIRED	0x40000	262144
TRUSTED_FOR_DELEGATION	0x80000	524288
NOT_DELEGATED	0x100000	1048576
USE_DES_KEY_ONLY	0x200000	2097152
DONT_REQ_PREAUTH	0x400000	4194304
PASSWORD_EXPIRED	0x800000	8388608
TRUSTED_TO_AUTH_FOR_DELEGATION	0x1000000	16777216

Note In a Windows Server 2003-based domain, LOCK_OUT and PASSWORD_EXPIRED have been replaced with a new attribute called ms-DS-User-Account-Control-Computed.

Property flag descriptions

· SCRIPT - The logon script will be run.

· ACCOUNTDISABLE - The user account is disabled.

· HOMEDIR_REQUIRED - The home folder is required.

· PASSWD_NOTREQD - No password is required.

· PASSWD_CANT_CHANGE - The user cannot change the password.

· ENCRYPTED_TEXT_PASSWORD_ALLOWED - The user can send an encrypted password.

· TEMP_DUPLICATE_ACCOUNT - This is an account for users whose primary account is in another domain. This account provides user access to this domain, but not to any domain that trusts this domain. This is sometimes referred to as a local user account.

· NORMAL_ACCOUNT - This is a default account type that represents a typical user.

· INTERDOMAIN_TRUST_ACCOUNT - This is a permit to trust an account for a system domain that trusts other domains.

· WORKSTATION_TRUST_ACCOUNT - This is a computer account for a computer that is running Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000 and is a member of this domain.

· SERVER_TRUST_ACCOUNT - This is a computer account for a domain controller that is a member of this domain.

· DONT_EXPIRE_PASSWD - Represents the password, which should never expire on the account.

· MNS_LOGON_ACCOUNT - This is an MNS logon account.

· SMARTCARD_REQUIRED - When this flag is set, it forces the user to log on by using a smart card.

· TRUSTED_FOR_DELEGATION - When this flag is set, the service account (the user or computer account) under which a service runs is trusted for Kerberos delegation. Any such service can impersonate a client requesting the service. To enable a service for Kerberos delegation, you must set this flag on the userAccountControl property of the service account.

· NOT_DELEGATED - When this flag is set, the security context of the user is not delegated to a service even if the service account is set as trusted for Kerberos delegation.

· USE_DES_KEY_ONLY - (W2K/W2K3) Restrict this principal to use only Data Encryption Standard (DES) encryption types for keys.

· DONT_REQUIRE_PREAUTH - (W2K/W2K3) This account does not require Kerberos pre-authentication for logging on.

· PASSWORD_EXPIRED - (W2K/W2K3) The user's password has expired.

· TRUSTED_TO_AUTH_FOR_DELEGATION - (W2K/W2K3) The account is enabled for delegation. This is a security-sensitive setting. Accounts with this option enabled should be tightly controlled. This setting allows a service that runs under the account to assume a client's identity and authenticate as that user to other remote servers on the network.

UserAccountControl values

These are the default UserAccountControl values for the certain objects:
Typical user : 0x200 (512)
Domain controller : 0x82000 (532480)
Workstation/server: 0x1000 (4096)

An Important Message from Dell Australia

Dell's global email service provider, Epsilon, recently informed us that their email system was exposed to unauthorised entry. As a result, your email address, and your first name and last name may have been accessed by an unauthorised party. Epsilon took immediate action to close the vulnerability and notify US law enforcement officials.

Whilst no credit card, banking or other personally identifiable information was involved, we felt it was important to let you know that your email address may have been accessed. While we hope that you will not be affected, we recommend that you be alert to suspicious emails requesting your personal information.

To help protect your personal information online we recommend that you do not provide any sensitive information through email, or open emails from senders you do not know. Dell will never ask for your financial information through email.

Dell takes its commitment to protecting customer data very seriously and has notified the Australian Privacy Commissioner and ACMA (Australian Communications and Media Authority). Dell continues to work closely with regulatory bodies and manage customer concerns.

We sincerely regret that this incident has taken place and we will continue to work with Epsilon to ensure that all appropriate measures are taken to protect your personal information.
Please contact us at anz_cust_serv@dell.com should you have any questions.
Sincerely

Deborah Harrigan
Dell Consumer and Small Business Executive Director
Dell Australia Pty Limited

Not an executable when running Regsvr32.exe on 64-Bit Windows

 

When you attempt to run Regsvr32.exe to register a 32-bit dynamic-link library (DLL) on a 64-bit version of Windows, you receive the following error message:
Filename.dll is not an executable file and no registration helper is registered for this file type.

This behaviour occurs because the Regsvr32.exe file in the System32 folder is a 64-bit version. When you run Regsvr32 to register a DLL, you are using the 64-bit version by default.

To resolve this issue, run Regsvr32.exe from the %SystemRoot%\Syswow64 folder. For example, type the following commands to register the DLL:

cd \windows\syswow64
regsvr32 c:\filename.dll

Paypal? http://www.dunavland.com/paypal.com/

 

Dear Valued Customer,

Your PayPal account was limited! For your security, we need to make sure that your PayPal account is protected. Please click the link below to confirm your account information.

Update Now

What is the problem?

Our system has detected unusual charges to a credit card linked to your PayPal account.

Case ID Number: PP-001-180-753-943

 

Just a reminder:

· Never share your password with anyone.

· Do not use a public computer to access your PayPal account.

Thanks,

PayPal.

 

Help Center | Security Center

Please do not reply to this email. This mailbox is not monitored and you will not receive a response. For assistance, log in to your PayPal account and click the Help link in the top right corner of any PayPal page.
To receive email notifications in plain text instead of HTML, update your preferences.

Copyright ©2011 PayPal, Inc. All rights reserved.

PayPal Email ID PP1263

Back in time

 

Funny how you can go from customer to customer, and here you are again…

• Timeframes that are impossible (for them)
• Customer who think they can keep up
• Old services which are unstable
• Managers who are hamstrung
• Technology that is untested
• Staff who are apathetic
• Network that is failing
• Patches on band aids

But we need to move X to Y because of Z, so lets give it a red-hot-go…

What could go wrong?

Invert text in a cell

 

If cell A1 contains:
microsoft excel

The formula/function in cell B1:
=ReverseCell(A1,TRUE)

returns:
lecxe tfosorcim

 

Please TEST this FIRST in a COPY of your workbook (always make a backup copy before trying new code, you never know what you might lose).

Adding the Macro
1. Copy the below macro, by highlighting the macro code and pressing the keys CTRL+C
2. Open your workbook
3. Press the keys ALT+F11 to open the Visual Basic Editor
4. Press the keys ALT+I to activate the Insert menu
5. Press M to insert a Standard Module
6. Paste the code by pressing the keys CTRL+V
7. Press the keys ALT+Q to exit the Editor, and return to Excel.

Code:

Option Explicit
Function ReverseCell(Rcell As Range, Optional IsText As Boolean)
'http://www.ozgrid.com/VBA/ReverseCell.htm
'Enter the function like this for text:
'=Reversecell(A1,TRUE)
'Or either of the ways below for numeric data
'=Reversecell(A1,FALSE)
'=Reversecell(A1)
'
Dim i As Integer
Dim StrNewNum As String
Dim strOld As String
strOld = Trim(Rcell)
For i = 1 To Len(strOld)
  StrNewNum = Mid(strOld, i, 1) & StrNewNum
Next i
If IsText = False Then
  ReverseCell = CLng(StrNewNum)
Else
  ReverseCell = StrNewNum
End If
End Function

 

 

Came from : http://excel.bigresource.com/Track/excel-cBcjrDfS/ thanks !

We are writing this letter on behalf of x-y-z Inc

 

Dear x y z Administrator:

We are writing this letter on behalf of x y z Inc., ("x y zPictures") who owns certain rights under copyright law in the title x y z.

You are receiving this notice because your Internet account was identified as having been used recently to copy and/or distribute illegally the copyrighted motion pictures and/or television shows listed at the bottom of this notice. This notice provides you with the information you need in order to take immediate action that can prevent serious legal and other consequences. These actions include:

1. Stop downloading or uploading without authorization any motion pictures or TV shows owned or distributed by x y z ; and

2. Permanently delete from your computer(s) all unauthorized copies you may have already made of these movies and TV shows.

If this notice is being received by an Internet Service Provider (ISP), please forward the notice to the individual associated with the activities.

The unauthorized distribution or public performance of copyrighted works constitutes copyright infringement under the Copyright Act, Title 17 U.S Code Section 106(3)-(4). This conduct may also violate the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works and The Universal Copyright Convention, as well as bilateral treaties with other countries that allow for protection of x y z copyrighted works even beyond U.S borders.

Copyright infringement also violates your ISP’s terms of service and could lead to limitation or suspension of your Internet service.  You should take immediate action to prevent your Internet account from being used for illegal activities.

An MPAA website, www.respectcopyrights.org, offers step-by-step instructions to ensure that your Internet account is not being used to violate the copyright laws.  Also, the site can point you to an array of legal choices for enjoying movies and TV shows online. You can also learn there how theft of motion pictures and TV shows damages our economy and costs thousands of Americans their jobs.

Please contact us at the above listed address or by replying to this email should you have any questions.

We are providing this notice based on our good faith belief that the use of motion pictures and television programs owned by x y z Industries Inc. in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owners, their agents, or the law.  The information in this notification is accurate. Under penalty of perjury, we are authorized to act on behalf of the owners of the exclusive rights that are being infringed.  This letter is without prejudice to the rights and remedies of Columbia Pictures, all of which are expressly reserved.

We appreciate your assistance and thank you for your cooperation in this matter.  In your future correspondence with us, please refer to Case ID x y z.

Your prompt response is requested.

Respectfully,

D. Brewer
Enforcement Coordinator
Peer Media Technologies, Inc.
copyrightqs@mediasentry.com

------------------------------

INFRINGEMENT DETAIL
--------------------

Infringing Work: x y z
First Found: 31 Jan 2011 03:08:14 EST (GMT -0500)
Last Found: 31 Jan 2011 03:08:14 EST (GMT -0500)
IP Address: x y z
IP Port: 51413
Protocol: BitTorrent
Torrent InfoHash: x y z
Containing file(s):
x y z .[x y z.com].torrent (x y z bytes)

Don't run with five Active Directories, it helps no one

 

The group of companies have had some level of manual Active Directory integration for the last three years but with the appointment of … this program has been accelerated to better make use of the environment. Currently user population suffer from a series of issues which hinder business and irritate users:

1. Duplicated logons across several systems (Network, business applications)

2. No common and automatic contact list/GAL across the group of companies

3. No simple way to share files on file servers

4. A lack of a central and organisation based … services

5. No free-busy calendar outside of each specific organisation.

These issues make work harder and less efficient then it can be with double handling by user support and data management teams. To address these issues the general plan for organisation consolidation seeks to target the following:

1. A single and consistent contact list/GAL across all organisations

2. Simple and common shared folders and files

3. A single Intranet across the group of organisations with the ability to host general and specific business information

4. Common email platform across all users while maintaining the organisational persona for external email

5. Free-busy across all users

6. Movement to a common Office365/BPOS messaging system.

Over and above these the users are able to share a common internal environment with a common logon experience and desktop look and feel.

Snakes on a plane; ahem Snakes on a phone

 

Where is the middle ground?

 

An average of about 3Kb, but a peak of 7.6Mb...

VDI is so simple

 

I don't know why everyone doesn't do it. At least we have a grip on it…

Agenda to review VDI rollout

 

Understanding the design goals for VDI (Customer)

Understanding the Datacentre/storage/ESX and servers (Customer)

 

Keys to VDI (Vendor)

The current physical desktop

Optimising the desktop for VDI

Application deployment (XenDesktop, Xenapp, Streams and in-gold-image)

Printing, logon scripts and other scripts

Home folders, USB, drive redirection

Profile Manager

Persistent verses non-persistent desktops

 

VMware details

DR, HA, DRS, VMotion

Clusters locations, and replication

Building out production

Keep and upgrade or Rip and replace pilot

VDI went live

Well, it has been two months work (one month for two TC's and a PM) but we went live with VDI for the first 150 users, 4500 to go.

The solution is based on 6 x (2 x 6 CPU AMD), VMware servers in a cluster with HR/DRS and it is smoking fast. There are two more servers acting as provisioning and file services with the same specifications. We are planning on about 10 users per-core and need storage to suite.

The OS is Windows 7 32-bit, Adobe CS5, Office 2007, Java, Flash, Shockwave, Silverlight. It has 30GB C-Drive and a 10GB D-Drive. Each VDI session gets 3GB of RAM and a .5GB swap file. To use it is just like the first logon to a new W7 computer and usage and screen is great, again just like hardware.

Application are native, streamed in if they start in about or less then 1 minute to start and Traditional Citrix servers for problematic apps.

There were lots of little problems to address, such as: VMxnet drivers, SOE look and feel, Printers, bad apps, slow apps, java apps, dealing with image revisions, Windows 7 firewall, networking, building it twice on two hardware platforms just to name a few.

But it looks great in production.

Transfer your Ubuntu application packages to a clean install

Transfer your packages to a clean install
5/01/2010 by Tyler James

With all the new installs of Ubuntu and clean upgrades going on right now, I thought I'd point out a few great ways to package up the apps you have currently and prepare them for a clean Ubuntu install. This can be useful if you're installing the same applications on a number of computers, or simply know exactly all of the programs you need and want to preserve this for a clean install. There's two great ways to do this, one which works well on computers with an internet connection, and one which works great when you don't have a connection.

Method #1
The first method works off of a little command line utility called Dpkg-Repack, which can be used to repackage any apps installed from apt into a deb, which can then be installed cleanly anywhere. With a little terminal-fu, this can be used to package up everything you've installed from the Software Center or apt into a giant deb.

We do this with three simple commands:

* sudo apt-get install dpkg-repack fakeroot
* mkdir ~/dpkg-repack; cd ~/dpkg-repack
* fakeroot -u dpkg-repack `dpkg --get-selections | grep install | cut -f1`


This installs the program along with fakeroot, which is used to allow selecting without conflicts of permissions. Then the second command creates a directory to store the deb in, and then lastly the third command which will take some time to complete will package up the installed applications into the big huge deb. Theres now a directory in the home folder with the deb.

Now, to reinstall this whole set of applications, we move the whole thing over to a usb drive and copy it over to the new computer or new install, and run:

sudo dpkg -i *.deb
This will install everything packaged up, even without an internet connection!

Method #2
The second way of doing this doesn't create a large package, but rather a small list of apps that can be used to direct your computer to what to reinstall. This requires no installation of anything to actually run the command, but does require an internet connection. Now, this creates a list of everything, even standard system stuff, so don't get freaked out if theres stuff you've never seen on it before. Any overlap with standard stuff works itself out, it won't reinstall or duplicate things. The really nice thing about this method is that you can manually add or subtract stuff from the list.

To do this, run this command:

* sudo dpkg --get-selections > installedsoftware

Then, all you have to do is copy that folder over to the home folder of the next computer and/or after the clean install, and then run:

* sudo dpkg --set-selections < installedsoftware

Remember, this second method requires an internet connection.



From: http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2010/05/with-all-new-installing-of-ubuntu-and.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+d0od+%28Omg!+Ubuntu!%29&utm_content=Google+Reader