Good people at IEBlog announced that IE9 Release Candidate was released. Like always a lot of new features and changes. Feel free to download a copy and test it. Grab install files from here: http://www.beautyoftheweb.com/#/download
You may be contemplating of building a quick test environment using a free virtualization solution on a high spec PC. This is quite a cheap but effective solution, even in large organizations where an IT department or an individual entity can build a test platform isolated from the production environment. Say, a core i7 CPU computer with 6/8GB of Ram and 4TB of storage space would make a perfect test lab! Check Deb's superb article about setting up a base test setup here. Whether you will be using Microsoft's Hyper-V, Citrix's Xen or VMware's ESX make sure that you reduce the threats that a test lab may introduce to your network resources. In the event you will be using Hyper-V as your test environment then I recommend that the virtualized host machine (PC) is NOT joined to the organization's domain but if your admin workstation (Hyper-V Manager) is part of the domain then go for a setup that resembles Client-domain and Server-workgroup as denoted in the Hyper-V Remote Management Configuration Utility web page. To assist you with the installation of Hyper-V from Windows 7 follow this great video by David Davis on VirtualizationAdmin.com – It is very important that with this scenario you might need to set the IP address of your Hyper-V host PC or server in your Windows 7 hosts file. Since, the virtualized host PC or server is not in the domain it may not register itself with the internal DNS! So watch out for DNS issues if you fail to connect remotely and start getting RPC error messages.
Windows Event forwarding requires the setup of forwarding computers and a collecting computer as we have seen in Managing Windows Events. In this post we start by setting up a typical forwarding computer and proceed to the collecting computer setup in another post. Let's assume that we are collecting events from a Windows 2008 server named Win2k8Web, hence our first forwarding computer is Win2k8Web. To set up the forwarding computer follow these steps: We need to configure the Windows Remote Management service first. Log on to Win2k8Web, open an elevated command prompt and type: winrm quickconfig Type Y to the requested changes. These depend on the current configuration but WinRM would need: To start the WinRM service and set it to auto-start. To grant administrative rights when the computer is not part of a domain To allow remote access To create a WinRM listener on HTTP://* to accept WS-Man requests by creating a firewall exception – Note, this firewall exception does not apply to Public networks. Next, we need to add the computer account of the collecting computer to the local Event Log Readers group. Assuming that the collecting computer (my admin workstation in the domain env1.testlab) is named env1client01, then at an elevated command prompt on Win2k8Web type: net localgroup "Event Log Readers" env1client01$@env1.testlab /add In the above procedure we have configured the Win2k8Web host as a forwarding computer where it allows the collecting computer env1client001 to have remote access and collect events. In the post to follow, we will configure the collecting computer.
The wealth of info stored in Windows event logs is astonishing. But most often we miss what we are looking for as the amount of information stored may be overwhelming at times. There are various third-party tools out there that manage and organize event logs in a useful manner; however, I would like to share with you some Event Forwarding Concepts that allow administrators collect and group specific events to one location. With Event Forwarding you can send specific events from individual computers to a target computer or your admin workstation. Then you would be able to view the most important events grouped into one event log/viewer from your workstation rather than connecting remotely to each and every target machine. One of the core advantages of Windows Event Forwarding is that it uses HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) and HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure) protocols to transfer data and as such, the traffic can flow easily through firewalls within an organization, assuming that the organization IT Policies allow web browsing! All traffic generated by the forwarding mechanism is encrypted even if you use HTTP. The implementation process requires a two-part exercise. That is, you need to configure both target (forwarding) and receiving (collecting) computers. Both computers need to have the Windows Remote Management and the Windows Event Collector services up and running. Note, that only Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2003 R2 can have the role of a collecting computer. In addition, you may need to add firewall rules that allow incoming/outgoing traffic to/from services participating in the process.
SAN JOSE, Calif. – Jan. 25, 2011 – Cisco today added new networking, security and storage products to its "Connect" and "Secure" small business portfolios. The new products help enable small businesses to quickly, easily and more securely connect employees and devices with the content they need, wherever they need it. Announcement Highlights New Entry Level Ethernet Switches - In the Connect portfolio,Cisco 200 Series Smart Switches are entry-level managed switches, delivering quality of service (QoS) and security in an easy-to-install switch that is simple to manage, and continues the redesign of the Cisco small business switching products. With these switches, small businesses can create a network to help enable users of PCs and mobile devices to access shared content. Network Security Firewall - The Cisco RV220W is a network security firewall for small offices with business-class wireless security. It offers a combination of faster performance with gigabit Ethernet and the flexibility offered by hybrid VPN capabilities and added security with optional Cisco ProtectLink Web security service. Backup Service for Storage Products - Cisco is enhancing its Secure portfolio for small business by adding an optional, fully integrated online Mozy backup service to its NSS300 Series Smart Storage product line. Cisco small business channel partners can help customers choose between fully on-site backups or a hybrid backup system that is both on-site and online. The fully integrated backup service helps support small business' disaster recovery and business continuity plans, while offering additional selling options to partners. The ease of managing both onsite and online backup from a single interface makes it a very simple solution for channel partners and customers. Cisco Capital Financing Cisco Capital is currently offering competitive financing for small business customers so they can get the technology they need to stay competitive and profitable. Three-year, 3 percent