The global hosting service provider GoDaddy.com says that a series of internal network events has corrupted its router data tables and caused the intermittent service outages of last Monday. Go Daddy also denies claims made by hackers on Twitter that the outage was due to DDoS attacks against their services. Read the full press release here - http://www.godaddy.com/newscenter/release-view.aspx?news_item_id=410
This Microsoft Test Lab Guide (TLG) provides step-by-step instructions to create the Windows Server 2012 Base Configuration test lab, using computers running Windows Server 2012 and Windows 8. For a test lab based on physical computers, you can image the drives for future test labs. For a test lab based on virtual machines, you can create snapshots of the base configuration virtual machines. This enables you to easily return to the base configuration test lab, where most of the routine infrastructure and networking services have already been configured, so that you can focus on building a test lab for the product, technology, or solution of interest. Download the guide from here - http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=29010
There are always lessons to learn from major incidents. For instance, outages like the one that the global hosting provider GoDaddy has suffered yesterday should remind us of how best online resources are deployed! A must-read RFC about the selection and operation of secondary DNS servers defines the best practices to set up a secondary DNS server for your domain. The Domain Name System requires that multiple servers exist for every delegated domain (zone). This RFC discusses both the physical and topological location of each server when selecting DNS secondary servers. Read more here - http://blog.rootshell.be/2012/09/11/godaddy-outage-rfc-for-dummies/
VGA is almost dead and with new PCs and laptops we get HDMI, but under the hood this brings many other capabilities than just displaying video. HDMI Ethernet Channel could circumvent corporate security in a number of ways, such as through the use of network-enabled display technologies and via HEC-enabled corporate laptops, but the technology is still largely unsupported. Often in a corporate environment visitors will bring their own laptops to meeting rooms to deliver presentations on either a projector or a large-screen TV. Both of these display technologies are commonly network-enabled and often connected to the corporate network. If HEC capabilities are supported by the display device and the visitor's laptop, there is a distinct possibility that the visitor's laptop may become connected to the corporate network, where it could introduce (inadvertently or otherwise) malware onto the network. Download the full nccgroup paper here - http://www.nccgroup.com/secure/6yA0Ulu8kN4%3d/1079/
Zoho's online office apps integrate with Google Drive and users can now open their documents using Zoho's Writer, Sheet & Show – Zoho's word processor, spreadsheet and presentation applications. Zoho offers a comprehensive suite of award-winning online business, productivity & collaboration applications. This integration is not just for viewing files using Zoho's apps, but it also allows users to edit documents and save them back to Google Drive. Users can also create new documents using Zoho's editors and save those documents in Google Drive without needing to create a Zoho account. Read more here - http://www.zoho.com/gadgets/blog/zoho-office-integrates-google-drive.html