Studying for the CCNA? Here are some useful cheat sheets for pros and students alike.

As mentioned in other posts on this site, I’ve been working on my CCNA certification. Now it’s no secret that this is a difficult test, and while there are many tools out there that will help you study and prepare, the simple fact that you are going to have to know the material inside and out can be daunting. It is for this reason that I’m always hunting for a better way to break down the information.  Click the link after the break.

Continue reading

Duplicate SIDs in Active Directory

There doesn’t seem to be very much agreement on the problems or even if duplicate SIDs are a problem within Active Directory.  I’ve been reading other blogs and some say that its only a problem within work-groups and with Active Directory there is nothing to worry about. Within AD I have seen duplicate SIDs cause machines not to correctly join the domain, and problems connecting to network resources. It only takes a few minutes to run sysprep  so I chose to error on the side of caution.

The best way to prevent duplicate SIDs is to sysprep systems before cloning them.  Microsoft will only offer support for images that have been syspreped.  SysPrep will remove the SID from the reference computer and set the image back to the OOBE “Out of box experience”, but the image will retain the configuration changes ans application install made on the reference computer.

Image building instructions including sysprep to remove the SID:

http://www.shudnow.net/2008/05/05/unattended-server-2008-base-image-creation-using-wsimsysprep/

Note that Sysprep resets other machine-specific state that, if duplicated, can cause problems for certain applications like Windows Server Update Services (WSUS), so MIcrosoft’s support policy will still require cloned systems to be made unique with Sysprep.

Lexmark x9350 Network Printer Product Review.

brett Ok let me start this by saying at this time I’m awaiting the RMA to send my Lexmark x9350 back to our supplier.  We needed a network capable printer to allow us to be able to print from a satellite office to our main headquarters.  After doing some searches online we ran across a decent deal on this x9350. It is capable of both wifi and Ethernet connections and offers the normal multi-function printer tools.  But after we received it and attempted to install it, the problems started cropping up.

Continue reading

Power of Perl – Controlling and expanding Cpanel/WHM through the Cpanel/WHM API

When running a shared hosting environment, it is impossible to stay competitive without the use of some form of control panel. And in the world of linux shared web hosting, no control panel is as widely used as cPanel Inc‘s cPanel/WHM combo. The Cpanel team has put a lot of time and effort into the remote administration of WHM, and through that Cpanel. With a little ingenuity and not much work, really, this API can be extended to include any functions you can imagine, up to and including the system administration of the machine itself. So lets look at the basics thereof.
Continue reading

2010: R.I.P. IPV4?

It’s no big secret that our current numbering scheme for internet protocol addressing is limited, but some sources are reporting its demise as soon as 2010. IPV6 has been adopted as the solution for many, many years now because it’s a virtually limitless numbering scheme. The down-side? IPV6 is rather tricky to understand and implement. Instead of receiving an ip address like 69.51.xx.xx, you’ll now be issued one like 2008:0db8:85a3:08d3:1319:8a2e:0370:7334 once ipv6 is implemented. There’s really no need to panic, though, your operating system more than likely supports IPV6 already and IPV4 will not just disappear over night. Instead, I think we’ll see a gradual decline in the use of IPV4 as IPV6 begins to become more and more of an industry standard. I believe by 2010 there will be more of a hybrid use of IPV4 and IPV6 and not just the flat-out demise of IPV4.

Also, don’t forget to grab your copy of Firefox 3 today!