A quick Internet security audit (and other Internet tools)

Posted on By Mark Wilson

Audit your firewall online, check your privacy and remove spyware.Yesterday, I stumbled across AuditMyPC, which includes a number of tests (and tips) to help improve PC and network security. Most of the information is available elsewhere on the ‘net but it’s nice to find it all in one place. What worried me (and convinced me that the guy who runs this site knows what he is doing) is that the site was able to discover my NATted IP address. Luckily it was only on my PC with the Microsoft Java Virtual Machine (JVM) installed (unfortunately I need the JVM to use my employer’s awful time-sheeting system and, being a consultancy, time-sheeting is pretty important to us!). I know that my public IP address is easily obtained, but the ease at which a bit of Java code discovered information which should only be available from inside my firewall was a bit of a worry, especially on a fully patched Windows Server 2003 (SP1) system!

Whilst on the subject of Internet tools, some of the others that I find useful are Demon’s Internet query tools as well as the tools at network-tools.com (which include a handy feature for converting base 10 addresses to dotted decimal IPv4 addresses), the subnetmask.info network tools and Gibson Research Corporation’s ShieldsUp! port scanner.

More operational advice buried deep in the Microsoft website

Posted on By Mark Wilson

Last month I blogged about some useful operational advice on the Microsoft website and I’ve just found a load more in the MSDN library. Specifically, I was looking at the advice for Microsoft BizTalk Server 2004 operations but there is a whole load of guidance there for pretty much all of the Microsoft server products (although I should also point out that in true Microsoft style, each product group has structured its information differently).

How to take part in some time travel

Posted on By Mark Wilson

So you thought that old version of your website was gone forever? It may have been a little naive of me, but I figured that once I put up a new version of my website, then that was it, the old one was overwritten.

Not so, it seems – today I stumbled across the Internet archive wayback machine, which is a service that allows people to enter a URL, select a date range, and then surf on an archived version of the website. Scarily, I was able to search on old versions of my website going back several years. Not everything is in there, it takes a while to load, many graphics are missing, and if a site wasn’t picked up by the Internet archive crawler then it just won’t appear, but how about seeing old versions of www.microsoft.com?

I guess this can be useful. For example, I used to work for a company called ICL. That name is long since consigned to the history books (they are now trading as Fujitsu Services), but it is still available on the wayback machine. I managed to find a press release from back when the BBC and ICL jointly announced BBC Online in September 1996; as well as what ICL was saying about millennium date compliance in the middle of 1997.

Most web administrators will know that they can control web crawlers (like the one behind the Internet archive) using a robots.txt file in the root of the site (there is even an online robots.txt generator). After the robots.txt file is loaded in the root of the webserver, the wayback machine can be forced to crawl the site, pick up the new file, and remove all documents.

Now it seems I need to go and update the robots.txt files on my websites…

Useful operational advice on the Microsoft website

Posted on By Mark Wilson

Finding information on the Microsoft website is not always easy, but there is some good stuff buried deep there. Like the Windows Server 2003 TechCenter, with topics including:

For anyone looking at developing a set of operational procedures, the Active Directory product operations guide is worth a look. Drill down through this, and it goes right down to the level of commands/clicks in the detailed procedures (e.g. back up system state and the system disk). Other product operations guides are linked from the Microsoft management and operations page for both core products (AD, DHCP, DNS, file, print, WINS) and server application products (Exchange Server, MOM, SMS, SQL Server).

Tracking down the vendor portion of a MAC address

Posted on By Mark Wilson

I was trying to track down the source of an IP address conflict earlier today and I came across two sites offering a search service for the initial 24-bit (6 digit hexadecimal) vendor portion of an Ethernet media access control (MAC) address. The IEEE service is the official one, from where you can also download the complete listing, but MAC finder is also useful as you can use the ?string=00%3a00%3a00 command on the end of the URL (replacing the zeros with the appropriate hexadecimal digits).

New services from Google

Posted on By Mark Wilson

Last night, I read on Owen’s blog that Google has launched its mapping service in the UK (it’s been available in the US for some time), although in true Google style, Google Maps (UK) is still labelled as a beta service. Also launched with UK content are Google Local (UK) and Google SMS (UK).

Taking Google Maps first, the first thing I can say is that it is fast. I can go straight to a place (e.g. the town where I live) and a great bonus is that there is no clicking and waiting for graphics to reload to view the adjacent parts of a map as Google’s maps are dynamic, interactive and draggable. It also has some cool features. For example, if I search on an address, I get a map with a list of businesses in the area (e.g. “Heritage House, Church Road, Egham”). I can then click through for more matching links (through integration with the Google Local service), or I can get directions to or from the referenced location (e.g. from where I live, to where I work). I use the AA route planner to work out my journeys for expense claim purposes and it sometimes takes a while (although it has the advantage of being able to specify some points to travel through where my journey is not necessarily the most direct one as I avoid south-east England’s traffic hot-spots) – the Google results are almost instant and have the added advantage that I can click on any of the steps to see a detailed map of a junction.

To be honest, Google Local was a bit of a disappointment to me, as it relies on data from Yell.com (i.e. paid advertising), but the integration with Google SMS does look useful. For some time now, Google has also been available using the 466453.com domain name (the phone keypad combination to spell Google) and now Google SMS allows quick and easy search results from a mobile phone.

For example, if I’m in Olney and I fancy a fish supper, I could text fish.olney to 6GOOG (64664) and a few seconds later I receive one or more text messages giving me details of local fish and chip shops, (including my favourite fish and chip shop – Enzo’s). You might want to turn off predictive text input first though!

Google SMS also provides driving directions from Google Maps, prices from Froogle, definitions of common words and calculations. Google have even provided a wallet-sized tip sheet for Google SMS users.

For a while now, industry commentators have said that Google needs to stay ahead as the search wars hot up. It may be the world’s best search engine right now, but that can’t be taken for granted as there is plenty of competition, particularly in the emerging desktop search market, and some of that competition comes from Microsoft, a company not known for holding back when it wants some market share. I reckon these new services may be just what we’ve been waiting for.

Child safety online

Posted on By Mark Wilson

In previous posts I’ve mentioned both the Microsoft at work and Microsoft at home microsites. Today I was directed to a new microsite – security at home, specifically the child safety online section.

I’m not sure if the world is really any more dangerous for children than it was when I was a child but I do know the media is all pervasive – we hear a lot more about the unfortunate events that do occur – and that as a parent I’ll do anything I can to ensure that my son is safe. At three months old, he’s a bit young to be using the Internet but this site looks a useful resource for anyone who has children aged between 2 to 17 and who use a computer with a connection to the Internet.

On a related note, a couple of week’s back I wrote about technology’s role in the demise of the English language. Well, for anyone (like me), who’s not as “with it” as we once were (omigod, and I’m only 32 – hellllllp!), whilst reading child safety online, I stumbled across a parent’s primer to computer slang (should that be $14NG?) and the netiquette 101 for new netizens.

!337$p34k 1z m4d

Batch file command reference

Posted on By Mark Wilson

Even though modern versions of Windows have rich scripting capabilities I regularly find myself writing batch (.bat) or command (.cmd) files for automating system tasks, sometimes during migrations from older versions of MS-DOS or Windows which do not have the same command set. I generally consider my batch file writing skills to be pretty good, but I have found the Computer Hope Batch File Help website to be a useful resource for checking syntax between different operating system versions.