Miranda has reached version 0.6.0.8 Alpha (it is a test build). Stable version is 0.5.1 Miranda is a universal messaging client supporting a variety of protocols including ICQ/AIM/MSN/Jabber/Yahoo/IRC/Gadu-Gadu/Tlen/Netsend. It has a large number of plugins available as well. Plus Miranda is fast and does not waste tons of resources like original ICQ and MSN clients do. You can find screenshots made by various users on Miranda screenshots page. Miranda download links: Miranda Stable 0.5.1 , Miranda Build 0.6.0.8 Alpha ImgBurn has reached version 2.1.0.0 . ImgBurn is a free utility used to record CDs and DVDs. It supports a variety of disk image formats and various drives. I suggest using this utility together with ISO Recorder (ISO Recorder allows creating DVD and CD images which can be burned using ImgBurn). ImgBurn download link: ImgBurn 2.1.0.0 Download Meanwhile, FlashGet has reached version 1.73. FlashGet is extremely powerful download manager with lots of functions. The good thing about FlashGet is that it manages to get most out of your existing Internet connection. This drastically reduces time of downloads. I am using it at the moment as well. It has a banner in the top part of the windows but it is a small price to pay for stable performance and saved time. FlashGet 1.73 download Technorati : network, utility, windows Del.icio.us : network, utility, windows Ice Rocket : network, utility, windows
Recently I needed to upgrade a VoIP phone Grandstream GXP-2000. The procedure is quite simple if you have all required components. Disclaimer: Guys, use this guide at your own risk. I can not guarantee that this guide will work for you. You will be responsible for the damages done to your phone. The main issue may arise only if you try using some weird firmware not compatible with your GXP-2000. First of all, you need firmware for your Grandstream. Please keep in mind that some phones might have this version already. You can download pretty recent version here: Release_GXP2000-BT200_1.1.0.16.zip Then you would need a TFTP server, such as TFTP Desktop (you can download a trial from here: TFTP Desktop Download Link) Having installed TFTP Desktop, unzip firmware into the folder where you installed TFTP Desktop. Start TFTP Desktop Server. Please make sure that port UDP 69 on PC with TFTP Desktop is accessible from your local area network (you might need to configure firewall on your windows machine for that). Now access your phone on http://IPaddressofthephone (default password: admin) and set IP address of TFTP server for updates to match the actual IP of the PC where TFTP Desktop is installed. You have to make sure that the phone uses TFTP for updates not HTTP. You can possibly set the update frequency 1 Day (for old version of the phone). Then reboot the phone and monitor TFTP Desktop activity. You ll see how the phone requests various files and downloads them. Leave the phone for 5 minutes to complete updates (just to be sure). If the phone does not restart on its own reboot it manually. On the second boot the phone might perform another update by downloading a number of files from TFTP server (i.e. your PC). After the update, the phone shall reboot again. Then it comes online and you should get the phone with firmware updated. It is a simple procedure and there should not be any issues if everything is done carefully. Technorati : TFTP, firmware, grandstream
ComputerWorld Australia published an interesting article on virtualization: A Virtual Breeze. This article would be useful for IT managers or system administrators who are only thinking about implementation of virtual servers in their IT environment with practical examples of implementations and opinions from IT managers. The article describes various aspects of virtualization such as Hardware used Reasons to virtualize particular server Licensing issues Storage System management Costs and benefits (aka Investments) Personally I liked the article. P.S. Meanwhile, Brien M.Posey wrote an excellent article on actual virtual machines deployment: The How's and Why's of Server Virtualization Technorati : virtualization, vmware Del.icio.us : virtualization, vmware Ice Rocket : virtualization, vmware
In many situations we need to reset the Local Administrator password and add Domain Admins to the Local Administrator group on a server or client machine without visiting each machines. If you don't know the password and don't have access to the severs, you can run this simple script as a Startup/Shutdown script (Computer Configuration->Windows Settings-> Scripts (Startup/Shutdown) in conjunction with Group Policy. Create batch file (.bat extension) using notepad and add the following commands: Net User Administrator <your password> Net Localgroup /Add "Administrators" "Domain Admins" The first command changes the Administrator password to <your password>. The second command will add the Domain Admins group to the Local Administers group on the local machine. Add this batch file as either a Startup or Shutdown script. Leave it there for a while or enable the "force restart" of the servers. Have fun! Technorati : change password, group policy, script, shutdown script, startup script Del.icio.us : change password, group policy, script, shutdown script, startup script Ice Rocket : change password, group policy, script, shutdown script, startup script
PFrank (Peter's Flexible Renaming Kit) has reached version 1.75 PFrank is a flexible filenames manipulation utility supporting a big number of features. In fact it has more features than any other application used for file renaming I ve seen. Plus it is free. You can download PFrank from here: PFrank Download page Technorati : PFrank, Rename, Windows Del.icio.us : PFrank, Rename, Windows Ice Rocket : PFrank, Rename, Windows