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Wesley David How to Kill a Company in One Step or Save it in Three
by Wesley David | 07 February 2012 | Not rated yet
The majority of companies that suffer a major data loss subsequently go out of business. David Wesley remembers vividly the day when the organisation he worked for found that they couldn't restore their data, and the subsequent struggles that ensued.... Read more...
Matt Simmons Physical Network Layout for the Reluctant
by Matt Simmons | 13 December 2011 |  2 comments |
How do you select the hardware for your network, and connect it all together? How do you then test your network and ensure that it is secure? Our crash course for the reluctant tells you enough of the basics in simple language to get you started. Read more...
Matt Simmons Logical Network Layout for Small Networks
by Matt Simmons | 28 November 2011 |
Matt examines what it’s like to design a network from the ground up, as well as dealing with an existing network that has been undocumented, by analyzing the relationships between the systems Read more...
Matt Simmons Networking - The Crib Sheet
by Matt Simmons | 15 November 2011 |  7 comments |
When anyone mentions network masks and the 'seven layer model' we all nod wisely and hope not to be asked too many questions. No longer need we feel embarassed, as Matt Simmonds has produced the simple cribsheet for 'the rest of us'. Read more...
Barry Morrison Documentation: Shoulda, Coulda, Woulda
by Barry Morrison | 04 November 2011 |  3 comments |
Every sysadmin knows that they should be documenting everything they can; not only is it good practice, it can be the difference between a speedy recovery and a lost job when something does go wrong. Barry Morrison delves into just what you should be covering, even... Read more...
Jaap Wesselius Managing Office 365
by Jaap Wesselius | 03 August 2011 |
As you start to use Office 365 more extensively, it becomes crucial that you understand all of the options for managing your new cloud-based infrastructure. Jaap Wesselius has done the research, and explains all. Read more...
Wesley David High Availability or High Recoverability?
by Wesley David | 01 August 2011 |
Having pierced the veil of confusion surrounding High Availability, Wesley David finds himself asked (and being asked) whether HA is worth the money it burns through. Perhaps it’s more cost-effective to have a recovery process that moves like greased lightning? Read more...
Brien Posey Network Administrators Past, Present, and Future
by Brien Posey | 11 July 2011 |
Even in the short time that PCs have been signficantly networked, what it means to be a SysAdmin has changed dramatically. From the first LAN parties to the lumbering infrastructures of today, the role of SysAdmin has evolved and adapted to the shifting needs of... Read more...
Wesley David The One Way That High Availability Will Help You
by Wesley David | 29 June 2011 |
High Availability (HA) is a term that is beloved of the marketing people, with its connotations of an unspecific sense of reassurance. However, service reliability cannot be bought like bath salts: But, explains a seasoned and cynical expert in the field, HA can be... Read more...
David Njoku Readying your Oracle Database for Your First Apex Application
by David Njoku | 14 June 2011 |
APEX can be a great way to create an application rapidly on an Oracle Database. Although it is generally straightforward, there are just a couple of things you have to watch out for. Read more...
Peter Raganitsch Multi-Language database applications using Oracle Apex
by Peter Raganitsch | 03 June 2011 |
It isn't straightforward to design a database application that has to provide text data in several languages. There are several problems to overcome such as, for example, allowing the translation bureau to work independently, using their own specialised formats.... Read more...
Wesley David Be the Puppet Master! Control Multiple PCs with one Keyboard and Mouse
by Wesley David | 20 May 2011 |
In the average IT department, geek-credibility is bound up with the number of monitors you are simultaneously using. What about going one step further, and running them on several computers at once, with just one mouse and keyboard? Read more...
Wesley David Monitors! Windows Extended Across Windows
by Wesley David | 11 April 2011 |
In any IT department, there is a certain geek-cool to having a whole range of monitors attached to your PC. The more, the geekier. OK, but are you really trying? In these straitened times, Surely it must be possible to harness old PCs and laptops into a huge... Read more...
Wesley David Game-over! Gaining Physical access to a computer
by Wesley David | 15 March 2011 |  18 comments |
Security requires defense in depth. The cleverest intrusion detection system, combined with the best antivirus, won’t help you if a malicious person can gain physical access to your PC or server. A routine job, helping to remove a malware infection, brings it home... Read more...
Brien Posey An Introduction to Microsoft Office 365
by Brien Posey | 13 January 2011 |  1 comment |
Microsoft Office 365 is the hot new Cloud suite coming out of Redmond, but information about it is either hard to come by, or a little fragmented. We asked Brien to take a look, and boil it all down to the essentials that everyone, including non-technical managers,... Read more...
Wesley David 7 Things that High Availability is Not
by Wesley David | 13 January 2011 |
Wesley has heard High Availablity touted as all sorts of technological cure-all for busy SysAdmins and DBAs, and now he's taking a stand against it. There are a range of things that High Availability is regularly confused with (either deliberately or innocently),... Read more...
Wesley David 10 Items that should be in Every SysAdmin's Backpack, Episode 6 - From the Ministry of Silly Tools
by Wesley David | 14 December 2010 |
Wesley David has been doing a lot of thinking about what tools (both physical & virtual) every good SysAdmin should have on hand. He's shared some of those thoughts with us already, and now he rounds everything off with some more light-hearted necessities. Read more...
Dr. Masha Petrova 5 Steps to Making Your Boss Read Your Technical Reports
by Dr. Masha Petrova | 18 November 2010 |  1 comment |
As an IT professional, you probably find it hard to communicate effectively with your less-than-technically-adept manager. Dr. Masha Petrova is determined to help you get your point across, and suggests 5 essential techniques that will get your documentation read. Read more...
Johan Veldhuis Monitoring Mailbox Moves
by Johan Veldhuis | 17 November 2010 |
Mailboxes moves happen all the time, and given how precious the data in mailboxes can be, you should know exactly how to monitor their progress and make sure they transition smoothly. You also need to know what happens when something goes wrong. Johan imparts the... Read more...
Wesley David Ten Things that should be in Every SysAdmin's Virtual Backpack
by Wesley David | 20 October 2010 |  3 comments |
A good SysAdmin needs the right tools, both virtual and physical. As a front-line consultant, Wesley David will be providing suggestions for both in the next few weeks, and here he discusses of the essential software tools that every SysAdmin should have on hand at... Read more...
Dr. Masha Petrova Social Networking for Professional Growth
by Dr. Masha Petrova | 22 September 2010 |  2 comments |
The use of 'Social Networking' for your professional development is no longer just for the pioneers. If you aren't using social Media for your career, then you may be missing out. Dr Masha gives an overview, for the 'late adopters', of the opportunities out there . Read more...
Dr. Masha Petrova Public Speaking 101 - Presenting for Your Audience
by Dr. Masha Petrova | 28 May 2010 |  2 comments |
Continuing her campaign for better technical presentations, Dr. Masha Petrova now provides simple yet fundamental guidance to becoming a great speaker, in 3 easy steps. She even lets us in on the secret ingredient of a fantastic presentation. Read more...
Ben Lye Troubleshooting Windows Blue Screen Errors
by Ben Lye | 06 May 2010 |  3 comments |
The so-called ‘Blue Screen of Death’ has inspired fear in the hearts of mere mortals, but Systems Administrators are expected be capable of casually beating back this sinister beast. So imagine Ben Lye’s distress when he discovered that many aspiring SysAdmins had... Read more...
Dr. Masha Petrova 4 Geek Excuses for Bad Presentations
by Dr. Masha Petrova | 06 April 2010 |  8 comments |
Frustrated by technically interesting yet agonizing conferences, Dr. Masha Petrova leaves geeks with no excuses for making bad presentations, and begins her campaign ensure that the people with good ideas also have good presentation skills to back them up, and get... Read more...
Elie Bou Issa Getting Started with Active Directory Rights Management Services for Exchange 2010
by Elie Bou Issa | 06 April 2010 |  1 comment |
With security concerns being a constant litany, it's worth considering Active Directory Rights Management Services as a powerful tool in your access-control arsenal, particularly when it integrates so neatly with Exchange 2010. Elie Bou Issa kindly takes us, step by... Read more...
Ben Lye Troubleshooting Nonpaged and Paged Pool Errors in Windows
by Ben Lye | 12 March 2010 |  6 comments |
Ben Lye uncovered a memory leak in the nonpaged pool which was crashing his servers with disquieting regularity. Luckily it was relatively easy to troubleshoot, and he's sharing the tools and techniques he used to get his servers back on track in double-quick time. Read more...
Matt Simmons Unteachable Disaster Recovery Techniques
by Matt Simmons | 11 March 2010 |  11 comments |
There are some skills which are extensions of your instincts, and which you can only learn though years of experience. Matt Simmons has this brought home by the fact that he was recently minutes away from a data-loss disaster, and he doesn't quite know how he... Read more...
Ben Lye Active Directory Snapshots with Windows Server 2008
by Ben Lye | 09 February 2010 |
Snapshots are a useful feature of Windows Server 2008. Taking a snapshot of Active Directory as a scheduled task can prove to be a wise precaution in case disaster strikes. Once they are mounted, they can be accessed by any LDAP tool which allows the user to specify... Read more...
Dr. Masha Petrova Social Networking at Professional Events
by Dr. Masha Petrova | 14 January 2010 |  2 comments |
Dr. Masha Petrova compresses, into a small space, much good advice on networking with other professional people. She draws from her own experience as a technical expert to provide a detailed checklist of things you should and shouldn't do at conferences or... Read more...
Dr. Masha Petrova The Art of Dealing with People
by Dr. Masha Petrova | 15 December 2009 |  17 comments |
Technical people generally don't easily adapt to being good salespeople. When a technical person takes on a customer-facing role as a support engineer, there are a whole lot of new skills required. Dr Petrova relates how the experience of a change in job gave her a... Read more...
Dr. Masha Petrova Increase Your Value as a Professional in the Technical Industry
by Dr. Masha Petrova | 17 November 2009 |  17 comments |
It has never been so important to enhance your employability as it is today. Job security can never be taken for granted. Employability, increasing your professional value, means far more than just collecting qualifications, as Dr Masha Petrova explains: It also... Read more...
Matt Simmons Hiring System Administrators
by Matt Simmons | 24 September 2009 |  4 comments |
Hiring someone for a technical post is a task that should never be tackled half-heartedly. Matt Simmons provides some general advice on the subject, illustrated by a recent experience of hiring an IT administrator to help share the load. It opened his eyes to the... Read more...
Matt Simmons Manage Stress Before it Kills You
by Matt Simmons | 29 June 2009 |  27 comments |
The key to a long career in IT is in learning how to cope adaptively with stress. Matt Simmons, like many, didn't realise it applies to everyone until he was rushed to hospital with what looked to be a heart attack. It was a salutary experience. He then discovered... Read more...
Bill Holmberg Change Management- What It Is and Why You Need It
by Bill Holmberg | 02 March 2009 |  3 comments |
Bill Holmberg takes a practical look at Change Management, and list the steps you need to take. To make things simpler, he also provides a sample  Word template you can use to follow through a complete change control cycle on a given project. Leaving nothing to... Read more...
Matt Simmons A SysAdmin's Guide to Users
by Matt Simmons | 26 February 2009 |  4 comments |
What level of trust do you afford users by default? What level of support do you offer users who have low technical skills? Are you creating a system which is more difficult to use with little or no payback? Are you adopting administrative policies as a punitive... Read more...
Matt Simmons A SysAdmin's Guide to Change Management
by Matt Simmons | 06 January 2009 |  1 comment |
In the first in a series of monthly articles, ‘Confessions of a Sys Admin’, Matt describes the issues involved in Change Management, and gives a simple guide. Read more...
Owen Sanderson When Email Collaboration Could Have Changed History
by Owen Sanderson | 26 August 2008 |
In our mission to make history relevant to the busy IT executive, we speculate how Email might have helped pivotal events in history. Could the War of Independence have been due to a misunderstanding? Read more...
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  Exchange (85 articles)

  General (37 articles)

  Virtualization (17 articles)

  Unified Messaging (9 articles)

  Powershell (7 articles)
Phil Factor Using XML to pass lists as parameters in SQL Server
 (Updated 14th Jan 2012, and again 26th Jan 2012)Every so often, the question comes up on forums of how to pass a...  Read more...


 View the blog
Upgrade Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2010
  In this article, the first of two in which Jaap describes how to move from Exchange Server 2003... Read more...

Upgrade Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2010 - Part II
 In Jaap's second article on upgrading straight from Exchange Server 2003 to 2010, he explains how to... Read more...

Goodbye Exchange ExMerge, Hello Export-Mailbox
 ExMerge was a great way of exporting a mailbox to an Exchange PST file, or for removing all occurences... Read more...

Using Exchange 2007 for Resource Booking
 The process of booking various resources to go with a meeting room just got a whole lot easier with... Read more...

Managing Exchange 2007 Mailbox Quotas with Windows PowerShell
 The use of PowerShell with Exchange Server 2007 can do a great deal to ease the task of managing... Read more...



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