About Me

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This is a blog for John Weber. One of my joys in life is helping others get ahead in life. Content here will be focused on that from this date forward. John was a Skype for Business MVP (2015-2018) - before that, a Lync Server MVP (2010-2014). I used to write a variety of articles (https://tsoorad.blogspot.com) on technical issues with a smattering of other interests. I have a variety of certifications dating back to Novell CNE and working up through the Microsoft MCP stack to MCITP multiple times. FWIW, I am on my third career - ex-USMC, retired US Army. I have a fancy MBA. The opinions expressed on this blog are mine and mine alone.

2010/07/29

quote o’ da day

"Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys."

P.J. O’Rourke

2010/07/24

Reveal hidden devices server 2008

I do a lot of lab work.  I use virtual images.  I build the base image and then copy/move as needed.  Recently, I took an entire lab build and needed to start it on a new VM host.

The first 2008 DC I started told me that I could not rename the NIC because “…a connection with the name specified already exists.”

Found this article here, which fixed me right up.  The relevant portions are included for reference.

The following procedure will show no-longer-connected devices in Device Manager for Server 2008.

Open a command window with elevated privileges (Start -> Right-click "Command Prompt", select "Run as Administrator")

In the command window, execute the following commands:

SET DEVMGR_SHOW_NONPRESENT_DEVICES=1
START DEVMGMT.MSC

The second command starts the Device Manager. It MUST be started from the elevated-privilege command window for this procedure to work.

In Device Manager, click the VIEW menu item and select "Show hidden devices".

This should show any hidden devices. For network adapters, expand the network adapters node. Right-Click any device you wish to remove, and click Uninstall.

2010/07/21

single cert for ocs/exchange

this is a rewrite of previous post that got thrown away somehow…

Single certificate for OCS/Exchange firewall usage

Certificates can be complicated to understand, difficult to manage, and if you don’t have an internal PKI structure, downright expensive as you move forward with more and more dynamic applications that extend your Unified Communications to your remote users and business partners.

Internal certificates work wonders for your Active Directory Domain Services members. For Unified Communications, where OCS and Exchange are going to be using the same ISA 2006 server as the firewall, utilizing a Subject Alternative Name (SAN) certificate for your edge configuration and your ISA configuration can save you time, management hassles, and possibly provide cost savings as well. For internal servers, an internal PKI is just fine, but for the public interface of your system, you should most likely be looking at using a public-sourced key such as Go-Daddy, Thawte, DigiCert, etc. OCS Federation, remote users, and Public Instant Messaging Connectivity (PIC) demand public certificates. I know that I do not want to ship my internal CA root certificate to a slew of administrators and expect them to get that certificate into the correct spot for our systems to co-exist. But I digress.

The following table shows the SAN names needed on a certificate to support the base OCS and Exchange functions on ISA 2006/TMG/UAG – and I imagine that this certificate construction will work just fine on many other firewalls as well. The table comes from my test domain; you should replace my test domain with your own domain name.

Obtain a public SAN (UCC) certificate from your favorite provider; import the certificate into your OCS Edge server and your ISA server computer account Trusted Root Certificate store and then you can use one certificate for all these uses. This approach leaves you with only the one certificate to manage and renew, or, if life treats you badly, move to a new server.

 

SAN Name (what URL?)

Usage

Notes

1

SIP.tsoorad.net

OCS Edge Server

IM, Presence, Federation, PIC

2

LM.tsoorad.net

OCS Edge Server

Web Conferencing

3

AV.tsoorad.net

OCS Edge Server

A/V

4

OCS.tsoorad.net

ISA Reverse Proxy

Web Components

5

CWA.tsoorad.net

ISA Web Listener

Communicator Web Access

6

DOWNLOAD.CWA.tsoorad.net

ISA Web Listener

Cname for CWA desktop sharing

7

AS.CWA.tsoorad.net

ISA Web Listener

Cname for CWA desktop sharing

8

MAIL.tsoorad.net

ISA publisher

Outlook Anywhere, EAS, OWA, POP, IMAP

9

AUTODISCOVER.tsoorad.net

ISA Web Listener

Autodiscover is used by outlook and OCS.

2010/07/14

Evolution II

For those that don't know about history...here is a
condensed version.

Humans originally existed as members of small bands of nomadic hunters/gatherers. They lived on deer in the mountains during the summer and would go to the coast and live on fish and lobster in the winter.

The two most important events in all of history were the invention of beer and the invention of the wheel. The wheel was invented to get man to the beer. These were the foundation of modern civilization and together were the catalyst for the
splitting of humanity into two distinct subgroups:

  1. Liberals
  2. Conservatives.

Once beer was discovered, it required grain and that was the beginning of agriculture. Neither the glass bottle nor aluminum can were invented yet, so while our early humans were sitting around waiting for them to be invented, they just stayed close to the brewery. That's how villages were formed.

Some men spent their days tracking and killing animals to BBQ at night while they were drinking beer. This was the beginning of what is known as the Conservative movement...

Other men who were weaker and less skilled at hunting learned
to live off the conservatives by showing up for the nightly BBQ's and doing the sewing, fetching, and hair dressing. This was the beginning of the Liberal movement.

Some of these liberal men eventually evolved into women. They
became known as girlie-men. Some noteworthy liberal achievements include the domestication of cats, the invention
of group therapy, group hugs, and the concept of Democratic
voting to decide how to divide the meat and beer that
conservatives provided.

Over the years conservatives came to be symbolized by the largest, most powerful land animal on earth, the elephant. Liberals are symbolized by the jackass for obvious reasons.

Modern liberals like imported beer (with lime added), but most prefer white wine or imported bottled water. They eat raw fish but like their beef well done. Sushi, tofu, and French food are standard liberal fare.. Another interesting evolutionary side note: most of their women have higher testosterone levels than their men. Most social workers, personal injury attorneys, journalists, dreamers in Hollywood and group therapists are liberals. Liberals invented the designated hitter rule because it wasn't fair to make the pitcher also bat.

Conservatives drink domestic beer, mostly Bud or Miller. They eat red meat and still provide for their women. Conservatives are big game hunters, rodeo cowboys, lumberjacks, construction workers, firemen, medical doctors, police officers, engineers, corporate executives, athletes, members of the military, airline pilots and generally anyone who works productively. Conservatives who own companies hire other conservatives who want to work for a living.

Liberals produce little or nothing. They like to govern the producers and decide what to do with the production. Liberals believe Europeans are more enlightened than Americans. That is why most of the liberals remained in Europe when conservatives were coming to America . They crept in after the Wild West was tamed and created a business of trying to get more for nothing.

Here ends today's lesson in world history.

American Evolution

I find this to be very clever.  YMMV.

 

evo_oink

evo_man_big_gulp

2010/07/12

stupidity reigns

The scary part about this is not that I received the item of UCE (SPAM)(junk mail)(whatever), but that this shit exists because there are people stupid (as opposed to ignorant – look up the difference for yourself) to the point that they will get this in their email and say “wow! I had better respond right now!” and send their PIP off into the ether.  Really?!  Just on the sentence construction alone this is a scam.  However, this activity only occurs because someone is turning a profit doing so.

And both side of this are allowed to breed.  I vote for culling the gene pool.

Spam sample follows:

ANTI-TERRORIST AND MONETARY CRIMES DIVISION FBI HEADQUARTERS IN WASHINGTON, D.C.

FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION

J. EDGAR HOOVER BUILDING

935 PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE, NW WASHINGTON, D.C. 20535-0001 DATE 9 7 20 10

ATTENTION: F. B .i

This is not a child play, we are ready to take you to any length if you failed to proof the legitimate of the fund you are about to receive. As a Federal Commission we are here to protect your interest and the interest of all the United State citizens as well as this great Nation. You have been investigated as the beneficiary of the said funds that is why you are in touch with the FBI for a solid proof before the funds will be release to you.

The said funds is now in U.S Bank in your name which has been placed on hold under the custody of the FBI for further verification and proof before releasing the fund to you.

You do not have this document in your files, if you did the fund would not have been hold. We did not believe this at first, but when we saw the transfer we had no option than to contact you.

We have gone through your Identification record and also the information received from you, we have verified a lot of things about you. It has come to the attention of our Money Trafficking investigation department, that you have some funds valued at U.S $10,000.000.00 to your name, The said payment is awaiting adjudication and crediting to you this funds are from Inheritance "willed " from C.B.N Bank Nigeria precisely.

With full concern of The F.B.I and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) wish to remind you of the consequences of remitting such huge sums of money without complying fully with the provisions of the Financial and Allied Matters Decree 5 as amended in sub-section C (6) of 2003, which stipulates that any monitory transaction been done in the United States Of America, must have proper records, which duly guarantees and covers the transaction as legitimate and legally acquired and not criminally or terrorist associated funds. This is due to ongoing terrorist activities/economic crimes on and against the United States of America citizens.

Note that with the information’s we have here, the fund in your name here was release from Federal Republic Of Nigeria. To this regard you are to contact the FBI Nigeria where the fund was release from so that they will issue you the required document because they are the only people that can issue you the document. Nobody else have the right or privilege to issue you this document unless the FBI Nigeria.

You are under an observational /Investigation in connection with money laundering. If your funds comes from a legitimate and legal source, the proper guidelines for you to recover the right of transaction is for you to provide the official monitory transaction release document so that your funds will be legally processed and recorded and accounted for and then finally released to you.

FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION (ANTI-TERRORIST AND MONEY LAUNDERING DEPARTMENT) IS HERE to wipe out terrorism, and will stop at no length in doing our duty for the American people.

You have 48 hours to produce legal proof of the below frozen wired transaction number coded: 34567112 .... 39AZQV9007 owned by you.

You do not have any rights to receive these funds if the documented legal wire information is not complete.

For your own good and benefit, you are advice not to send your money to anybody. It have come to our notice that you have been dealing with scammers regarding the present transaction in your name, with the power imposed on us as a high Federal Commission, you are hereby warn and instruction to terminate your involvement with any people or individual contacting you regarding this present transaction.The said funds is now in our custody in your name as the beneficiary, your dealings should be channel to this office alone, if we find out you are still communicating with Imposters you will be charge for advance fraud communication by the Federal Law.

The very heart of FBI operations lies in our investigations--which serve, as our mission states, "to protect and defend the United States against terrorist and foreign intelligence threats and to enforce the criminal laws of the United States." So follow our instructions properly to avoid any action before you.

We currently have jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal law. So you can see that we can track you down through Investigative programs. We have your address and the evidence and status of your wired funds, so we can arrest you anytime anywhere.

Be inform that the funds under the custody of the FBI was confirmed in your name as the beneficiary, according to the Federal Commission, it is mandatory by law you proof the legitimate of the funds in your name by providing the required document to us, failure to comply with the FBI law, legal action will follow according to the FBI United State Federal Constitution.

You dont have the required document in your possession, this document are only to be issue to you from the paying country NIGERIA, to this regards you are advice to contact the FBI NIGERIA to obtain the document from them to enable the immediate release of the funds in your name.

We have done our verification on your FBI Identification Record with our Social Security Number, the only document left is the required Diplomatic Immunity Seal Of Transfer (DIST) Which should be issue to you from the paying country of the said funds, you are to contact the Federal Bureau Of Investigation(FBI) Nigeria to obtain the above required document, find below their contact information's:

Contact Person: Mrs Vivian Royd

Email: vivian_royd@yahoo.com <mailto:vivian_royd@yahoo.com>

Furthermore, be advice that according to the United State Law together with the FBI rules and regulations, you are to obtain the document from the FBI Nigeria where the fund was transfer from. Also Note that you are to take care of the Document to be issued to you right away, because due to the content of the document and how important and secured the document is, You are to take care of the document by sending to the FBI Nigeria the sum of $250.00 Dollars only for the issuing of the document right away. That is the only way the FBI Nigeria will issue you the document, because they are going to issue you the Authentic and Original copy of the document.

You are here by advice to Contact them through the email address above to acquire from them on how you are going to send the fee to them. Note that you are to do this immediately if you really want your fund to be credited to your personal account and also if you don’t want any action to be fall before you. We have already informed the FBI Nigeria about the present situation, so go ahead and contact them immediately. Your fund is now on our custody and will not be release to you unless the required document is confirmed, After that the fund will be release to you immediately without any delay.

NOTE: We have asked for the above documents to make available the most complete and up-to date records possible for no criminal justice purposes.

WARNING: failure to produce the above requirement, legal action will be taken immediately by arresting and detaining you, justificated and if found guilty, you will be jailed. As terrorism, drug trafficking and money laundering is a serious problem in our community today. The F.B.I will not stop at any length in tracking down and prosecuting any criminal who indulge in this criminal act. FORWARD THE DOCUMENT TO US VIA EMAIL ATTACHMENT AS SOON AS YOU OBTAIN IT.

Faithfully Your's

FBI Director

Robert S. Mueller, III

frontier sucks part five

Well, ticket was opened on 1 July.  Here we are 12 days later.  No one has called me.  I was told 11 days ago that someone would call me and resolve this issue “tomorrow.”  That did not happen.

quotes of da day

“I might be beat on talent, but not on effort”

“Good things happen when you up your effort level”

test 02 Feb

this is a test it’s only a test this should be a picture