Technology | wyckedone.net

ChromePlus browser

I am a huge fan of SRWare’s Iron browser. It’s based on Google Chromium but without all the Google reporting going on in the background. It’s fast but it has it’s quirks. Namely, in order to use any of the plugins, you have to use a buggy beta build.

Another Chromium based browser I found that seems to do a better job with plugins is called ChromePlus. Like Iron, it has all of the background Google communications stripped out. By default, it comes with the following plugins:

Super Drag & Drop
IE Tab
Mouse Gestures

Info about these addons, as well as a couple of other special settings, can be found on their product page. So far, all of the themes and addons that I’ve tried have worked without having to do any kind of configuration editing like I did with Iron.

I have been testing this browser out for a couple of days now. In that short amount of time I’ve found that the only thing keeping me from making it my number one browser is the lack of plugins that I enjoy using in Firefox. This is based mainly on the fact that almost all sites feel as though they load faster compared to IE and Firefox. I’ll post a comparison if I can find a good way to show if ChromePlus actually is faster (and by how much).

09.Jan.10 Browsers, Internet Comment (1)

Phantom DHCP servers

I recently came across this issue when working with the DHCP servers on the domain at work. Instead of 41 DHCP servers, one for each remote location, the DHCP administration snap-in was showing we had 93! That’s just a few too many.

In order to clean up the DHCP server list, I first opened Active Directory Sites & Services. You have to click View and then Show services node in order to see the available AD services. Then, I expanded Services and clicked on NetServices to see what DHCP servers (dHCPClass records) were listed. I removed all of the invalid records (but not the DhcpRoot record) and then checked the DHCP admin utility. All of the invalid servers were still listed.

The next step was to use ADSI Edit in order to edit the DhcpRoot record found in the NetServices container. Using ADSI Edit, I browsed to the CN=NetServices,CN=Services,CN=Configuration,DC=Domain,DC=Domain container, substitute your domain name after DC=, right clicked on DhcpRoot and chose Properties. I found another list of invalid DHCP servers when I opened the dhcpServers property of the DhcpRoot record. Once I deleted the invalid servers there, the DHCP admin utility only listed the valid DHCP servers.

It was odd that the list was wrong to begin with. Any time a DHCP server is taken off line it is unauthorized first. Only one or two of the invalid servers were servers that had been replaced due to a server crash that resulted in reloading Windows Server 2003. I may need to set up a DHCP server, authorize on the domain and then decommission it to see if AD is removing them properly. I hope it was just a minor glitch carried over from when the domain controllers were Windows 2000 based.

Patience is something you admire in the driver behind you and scorn in the one ahead. – Mac McCleary

23.Nov.09 Active Directory, DHCP, Networking, Server 2003, Windows Comments (0)

Watch the dot

You have to be careful when typing commands. One character out of place can cause strange problems or even total break down. So is the case of a recent SQL backup scheme.

One of the other DBA’s I work with had a problem. They were trying to run full backups of a live database but the backup drive kept filling up. The reason it would fill up was because the old backup files (*.bak) were not being deleted when the next backup ran. One backup file takes up 20+ gigabytes of space (heavily used database). My coworker had tried different commands to make it work but nothing was fixing the issue.

I opened up SQL Server Management Studio and took a look at the Maintenance Plan being used. The maintenance plan had two subplans. The first subplan made a full backup of the database at 3 a.m. every day. The second subplan made a transaction log backup every two hours. I opened up the first subplan in order to review the tasks.

Everything looked normal at first. When I opened up the first task in order to view the details, I saw the problem. The first task, a maintenance cleanup task, is the one set to delete old backup files. My coworker had set it to search the backup folder for the .bak extension. The problem is that you can’t add the dot before the file extension to be found. I removed the period, saved the subplan and launced the full backup job. We knew it was working when it immediately deleted the old backup files and then created the new backup.

One other piece of advice I gave him about the backups was the frequency. This database is used about 18 hours a day. Currently, a database failure at 2 a.m. would lose a full days worth of data. I suggested that he perform differential backups at least every 2 hours and leave the full backup as it was. We did the calculations for the drive space needed and found that he had more than enough room for running differential backups every hour if he wanted. That will definitely help to keep Murphy at bay.

I don’t know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody. – Bill Cosby

22.Dec.08 Microsoft SQL Comments (0)

Finding the cause of the problem

Since implementing the Cisco NAC, I’ve had a few fun calls that could have been avoided with a little more troubleshooting. The calls always start with, “Hey, we’re having some NAC issues here.” and go down hill from there. Here are a few issues initially blamed on the NAC with the true cause of the issue in parentheses.

User shared drives are not mapping at login. (Network cable was unplugged. User was being authenticated with cached credentials.)
No one can log on to the domain when using X computer in Y room. (There was no computer account on the domain. Joined the computer to the domain and logins started working.)
User cannot log on, no matter what computer they try. (User account had been disabled due to administrative request.)
Clicking noise when computer is turned on. (Seriously? A technician actually asked if the recent agent install had caused the issue. A cookie to the correct answer in the comments.)
A projector connected to the computer did not show the shared screen. (It helps if the projector is actually turned on.)

There are a few more in the ever growing compilation list to be posted later. I get at least two calls a weeks that are very face-palm worthy. I’m thinking about setting up a wall-o’-shame at work. Let the guilty party step forth.

Sometimes it’s more important to be human, than to have good taste. – Brecht

09.Dec.08 Humor, Networking, Security Comments (2)

The CAT matters

A network technician called me the other day about a network printer he was having a problem with. He said that he could ping the printer but printing was sporadic. When he tried to bring up the printer’s configuration web page, it would not load. It wouldn’t load for me either (I’m at another location). I asked if he had tried a different network port and he said he had but it still didn’t work.

I decided to check out the printer myself after a few other troubleshooting checks failed. It was nice to get out of the office for the short drive. When I got to the other location, the technician took me to the printer. The first thing I noticed was the color of the network cable. The cable was a dark blue. Those cables, I remembered, were pretty old and no longer being used because they are CAT 5. Almost all of our buildings are wired with CAT 6 for gigabit.

Before changing out the cable, I wanted to try a quick test. I went into the configuration of the printer via the front control panel and changed the network type from “Auto” to “100Mb Full-Duplex” (the printer supports gigabit). The printer was restarted and tested. We could now access the configuration web page and print jobs worked 10 out of 10 times.

The technician said he didn’t have any of the CAT 6 patch cables but would pick some up at our office later. I reminded him to change the network type back to “Auto” after he changed out the cable. Not that it would really matter because I doubt moving from 100MB to gigabit would spit out the prints any faster.