Well, it took over a year, but we now have definitive proof that the Lost USB Drive application works! When I launched the Lost USB Drive Experiment in early June of last year, I wasn’t really sure what to expect. I had all but forgotten about the experiment.
So, imagine my surprise when I had this in my inbox this morning:
Dale,
I recently took over Costa Coffee Eastleigh and have found your USB Memory stick, I’m not sure how long it has been here but if you would like to pop in and collect it I will put it to one side.
Thanks
Matthew Store Manager
Costa Coffee 27-29 Market Street Eastleigh SO50 5RG
To be honest, I was a little shocked! But, at the same time, this totally made my day! Just goes to prove that there are some honest people out there and that a little ingenuity can go a long way!
If any of you are in the area of Matthew’s store, go in, congratulate him on his honesty and integrity, and buy the biggest, most expensive coffee on the menu! Way to go, Matthew!
It is always important to know what is going on in your network. And, from time to time, you should perform a simple audit of your network just to determine what is exactly happening.
This is something that I do on a regular basis using an inexpensive network auditor that I built. (Actually, all I did was install a custom Linux distribution designed for security.)
What You Need
Here are all the tools that you need
An old laptop (if you want it to be portable) or desktop
It’s pretty easy to find a computer that will work and BackTrack is available for free as an ISO. This is something that probably everyone could do with what they have available.
Build The Analyzer
The steps involved to build the analyzer are pretty simple.
We are presently working on a project to convert all of our servers to virtual servers. There seems to be a number of players in this arena and I wanted to just present them for all to see.
Each of these come with an open source/freeware version that can be used indefinitely for as long as you want.
VMWare
Obviously, the big boy in the field. These guys have recently gone public with their stock and have made a big splash. They have several different products but their server virtualization product is what interests me. Here is what their website has to say:
Begin enjoying the benefits of server virtualization with the free VMware Server. VMware Server installs on any existing server hardware and partitions a physical server into multiple virtual machines by abstracting processor, memory, storage and networking resources, giving you greater hardware utilization and flexibility. Streamline software development and testing and simplify server provisioning as you utilize the ability to “build once, deploy many times.”
Provision a new server in minutes without investing in new hardware
Simplify IT testing of patches, new applications and operating systems
The benefits of server virtualization can be realized by a company of any size
Blazing Fast Performance for Windows and Linux Guests
XenCenter Single Server Management
Seamless Upgrade Path to XenServer™ and XenEnterprise™
Free
XenExpress v4 is a free, production-ready virtualization platform that enables everyone to quickly get started with Xen virtualization. Easily installed and seamlessly upgradeable, XenExpress is your on-ramp to Xen and the XenSource v4 product family.
XenExpress v4 offers all of the base performance, tools, and easy to use features of XenEnterprise v4 and is built to run on the broadest range of standard server hardware. It supports dual socket servers with up to 4GB of RAM and can host up to four virtual machines on each system.
XenExpress v4 can be quickly upgraded to the richer capabilities of XenServer or XenEnterprise by the simple addition of a license key, with no need to reinstall software or convert guests.
Virtual Iron provides enterprise-class software for server virtualization & virtual infrastructure management. The product offers comparable capabilities and performance to established proprietary offerings – for just a fraction of the cost.
By taking full advantage of industry standards and open source economics, Virtual Iron dramatically reduces the cost and complexity of virtualization and for the first time, makes production-ready capabilities available to the mainstream market.
A Comprehensive Virtualization Solution
Virtual Iron enables server partitioning for single and multi-server configuration, no downtime virtual server migration (LiveMigrate™), advanced management capabilities for rapid provisioning, high availability and disaster recovery (LiveRecovery™) and capacity management (LiveCapacity™). With these advanced capabilities, users can:
Virtualize enterprise-class workloads running on unmodified Windows and Linux operating systems.
Improve the utilization of current systems and reduce power, space and cooling issues through server consolidation.
Quickly set up development, test and production environments.
Recover from failures quickly, reliably and cost-efficiently.
Match resource capacity to workload demands automatically.
Reduce human labor and errors via policy-based automation.
I spent some time over the past couple of weeks playing with the new Windows Home Server beta. I thought that I would share some of my preliminary findings with my DCoT readers!
I put together a screenshot tour of this new product along with some of my discoveries and opinions, some which may surprise you (e.g. blank administrator password!?). There are over 50 screen captures of how the system installs, configures, and works.
Essentially, it is a small network device that can be used for backups, etc. that sits in your home but you do not use it as a regular day to day operating system.
I would really like to get on the beta list and see how it compares to FreeNAS!
Well, it took over a year, but we now have definitive proof that the Lost USB Drive application works! When I launched the Lost USB Drive Experiment in early June of last year, I wasn’t really sure what to expect. I had all but forgotten about the experiment.
It is always important to know what is going on in your network. And, from time to time, you should perform a simple audit of your network just to determine what is exactly happening.
We are presently working on a project to convert all of our servers to virtual servers. There seems to be a number of players in this arena and I wanted to just present them for all to see.
