Recorded: May 8, 2007
Your Hosts: Keith Albright and Rich Niemeier
Show Length: 1:54:28

Rich and I discuss development of IT policies and procedures; how to start and why they are important. In addition, I throw in a couple of my thoughts on how to audit yourself and how to handle an audit. Rich talks about his move from the Treo to the Blackberry and his battles with a SCO Unix box that died. Rich uncovers some new Virtual Machine appliances available from Microsoft. We discuss Microsofts proposed $3 educational software bundle for developing countries. I attended a seminar on wireless network troubleshooting by Fluke Networks and we discuss their products as well as our own personal experiences troubleshooting wireless systems. This episode marks the debut of our show promos that we’ve asked other podcasts to play. Take a listen and we hope you enjoy.

Thanks everyone.

Links mentioned in this podcast:

• Fluke Network AnalyzeAir Spectrum Analyzer
• Microsofts VHD Test Drive Program
• Microsofts $3 Educational Software Bundle
• Google’s Website Translator
• Airtroductions.com
• SANS Security Policy Project

Download Here

I gleaned this one from the “Windows Weekly with Paul Thurrott” podcast……  Apparently there was an update released for MS Outlook 2007 to fix a problem with calendar items marked private, but the bonus is that it improves performance of Outlook significantly.

Update for Outlook 2007 (KB933493)

I applied the patch and did notice an improvement. Would I call it significant; not really.  But, I am also currently running Office 2007 on an AMD Sempron 2600 box.  Nothing is running all that great on this system anyway. This is the same system on which I had to put blackhole entries for two servers at Microsoft so that my system wasn’t constantly utilizing resources to “phone home”.  By the way, those hosts are as follows:

127.0.0.1              config.officebeta.microsoft.com 

127.0.0.1              microsoftofficesystem.org

Something about the use of the word BETA in the FQDN freaks me out. I’d be interested to know if anyone else is having this problem.

Check it out if you are running Outlook 2007 and let me know if you are finding better results than I am.

Keith

A quick note on a couple of recent Microsoft patches that you might find relevant.

If you have installed the Microsoft MS07-017 (KB925902) patch and had a problem with your systems receiving the following errors:

application_executable_name - Illegal System DLL Relocation

The system DLL user32.dll was relocated in memory. The application will not run properly. The relocation occurred because the DLL C:\Windows\System32\Hhctrl.ocx occupied an address range reserved for Windows system DLLs. The vendor supplying the DLL should be contacted for a new DLL.

Check out the following MS Knowledgebase article and related patch.  I’ve downloaded the patch and applied it successfully to my systems with the Realtek Audio software.

MS Knowledgebase Article 935448

Update for WindowsXP (KB935448)

I use the Kixtart scripting language for my login scripts, so it was easy to deploy the original patch as well as the follow-up Realtek patch using the following script:

AT ( 1,1) “A critical security patch is needed on your computer.”
AT ( 2,1) “Please wait while your system is updated……..”

IF EXIST (”C:\WINNT\$NtUninstallKB925902$”) OR EXIST (”C:\WINDOWS\$NtUninstallKB925902$”)
             AT (4,1) “Microsoft Exploit Patch already applied”
             IF EXIST (”C:\WINNT\$NtUninstallKB935448$”) OR EXIST (”C:\WINDOWS\$NtUninstallKB935448$”)
                          AT (6,1) “Realtek Patch Already Applied”
             ELSE
                          IF @producttype = “Windows XP Professional”
                              AT (6,1) “Installing Realtek Patch…..”
                              SHELL “\\DOMAINCONTROLLER\NETLOGON\PATCHES\KB935448.exe /QUIET /NORESTART”
                          ENDIF
             ENDIF

ELSE
             if @producttype = “Windows 2000 Professional”
                AT (4,1) “Patching Windows 2000 Professional…….”
                SHELL “\\DOMAINCONTROLLER\NETLOGON\PATCHES\2000.EXE /QUIET /NORESTART”
             endif

             if @producttype = “Windows XP Professional”
                AT (4,1) “Patching WindowsXP Professional……..”
                SHELL “\\DOMAINCONTROLLER\NETLOGON\PATCHES\XP.EXE /QUIET /NORESTART”
             endif

ENDIF
AT (8,1) “Your system has been patched.”

Hopefully you find this useful. 

Oh, and if you are not using a robust scripting language, you should check out KiXstart.  It’s released as CareWare, so please do your part and make a donation to one of the listed organizations.

KiXtart website

Keith

Recorded: April 15, 2007
Your Hosts: Keith Albright and Rich Niemeier
Show Length: 1:37:11

Rich and I discuss whether IT Industry certifications matter anymore. We discuss our own personal experiences in obtaining our own certifications as well as how we viewed them when hiring employees and vendors. Throw in a couple of news items and our website picks and you’ve got yourself a podcast. I apologize if the volume is a little low on this recording. I had planned to put a new PC (by new, I mean a used PIII I bought at a computer show) in place for the recording and load Ubuntu on the old laptop I’ve been using, but the sound card in the new PC was sounding awful. So, I put the old laptop back into the mix….and I couldn’t get Rich’s volume up through the Griffin iMic. (Luckily I hadn’t started loading Ubuntu). I’m working on the setup now and hope to have it golden by our first anniversary show.
Thanks everyone.

Links mentioned in this podcast:

ExtremeTech - Are You A Slob?

Hydrogen Pollution Story

Cloaking WEP

Windows Server Update Service RC1

ProxMox Mail Security Gateway

Pain.NET application

SANS Security Policy Project

Download Here