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Category Archives: Technical
SharePoint Server 2010 Preliminary System Requirements
Here is some advance info on what to expect with Microsoft’s release of SharePoint Server 2010. For our hosting clients, you have nothing to worry about, Inland Pacific Consulting is already running Windows Server 2008 and SQL Server 2008 64 bit editions, so the upgrade will be seamless when Microsoft releases SharePoint 2010. Below is the preliminary information from the Microsoft SharePoint Team Blog regarding the release of SharePoint Server 2010:
We’ve heard loud and clear that you want system requirements information as early as possible to assist in your budgeting and planning, so today we’re happy to announce (and confirm) some preliminary system requirements for SharePoint Server 2010:
- SharePoint Server 2010 will be 64-bit only.
- SharePoint Server 2010 will require 64-bit Windows Server 2008 or 64-bit Windows Server 2008 R2.
- SharePoint Server 2010 will require 64-bit SQL Server 2008 or 64-bit SQL Server 2005.
In addition to the requirements listed above we also wanted to share with you some preliminary detail about SharePoint Server 2010 browser compatibility.
To ensure the best possible experience across multiple browsers we’re focusing our SharePoint 2010 engineering efforts on targeting standards based browsers (XHTML 1.0 compliant) including Internet Explorer 7, Internet Explorer 8 and Firefox 3.x. running on Windows Operating Systems. In addition we’re planning on an increased level of compatibility with Firefox 3.x and Safari 3.x on non-Windows Operating Systems. Due to this focus Internet Explorer 6 will not be a supported browser for SharePoint Server 2010.
So, what can you do today to get into the best shape for SharePoint Server 2010?
- Start by ensuring new hardware is 64-bit. Deploying 64-bit is our current best practice recommendation for SharePoint 2007.
- Deploy Service Pack 2 and take a good look at the SharePoint 2010 Upgrade Checker that’s shipped as part of the update. The Upgrade Checker will scan your SharePoint Server 2007 deployment for many issues that could affect a future upgrade to SharePoint 2010.
- Get to know Windows Server 2008 with SharePoint 2007, this post is a great starting point.
- Consider your desktop browser strategy if you have large population of Internet Explorer 6 users.
- Continue to follow the Best Practices guidance for SharePoint Server 2007.
- Keep an eye on this blog for updates and more details in the coming months.
Below are a few common Q&A’s (which we’ll add to as required)
Conficker Worm Targets Microsoft Windows Systems
Original release date: March 29, 2009
Source: US-CERT
Systems Affected
- Microsoft Windows
Overview
US-CERT is aware of public reports indicating a widespread infection of the Conficker worm, which can infect a Microsoft Windows system from a thumb drive, a network share, or directly across a network if the host is not patched with MS08-067.
I. Description
The presence of a Conficker infection may be detected if a user is unable to surf to the following web sites:
- http://www.symantec.com/norton/theme.jsp?themeid=conficker_worm&inid=us_ghp_link_conficker_worm
- http://www.microsoft.com/protect/computer/viruses/worms/conficker.mspx
- http://www.mcafee.com
If a user is unable to reach either of these web sites, a Conficker infection may be indicated (the most current variant of Conficker interferes with queries for these sites, preventing a user from visiting them). If a Conficker infection is suspected, the infected system should be removed from the network. Major anti-virus vendors and Microsoft have released several free tools that can verify the presence of a Conficker infection and remove the worm. Instructions for manually removing a Conficker infection from a system have been published by Microsoft in http://support.microsoft.com/kb/962007.
II. Impact
A remote, unauthenticated attacker could execute arbitrary code on a vulnerable system.
III. Solution
SQL2008 Copy Database Wizard Fails On Step Five
We have been testing SQL Server 2008 for several weeks with no problems until we tried to copy databases from our SQL2000 and SQL2005 servers and found that the Copy Database Wizard would fail on step five and not copy databases from either SQL2000 or SQL2005. After doing a Google search, I found several references to others having a similar problem, with the solution being to make sure that the accounts running each instance of SQL were the same, or other permissions related issues.
Changing users and adjusting permissions from the defaults did not solve the problem, not could I find anything on the Microsoft Support site searching for this issue regarding SQL2008, though there were similar issues that were addressed for SQL2005.
FaceBook Users Beware
BBB Warns: Your Facebook Friends Could Actually be Hackers, Scam Artists, and ID Thieves
FaceBook, one of the most popular social networking sites on the Internet, has become the target for several different phishing scams. Here is brief list of some of the scams you should be on the look-out for:
Friend in Distress:
Scam: Facebook users may receive a message in their inbox from a friend claiming to be in a dire situation — such as stranded in a foreign country — and needing money wired to them. The recipient doesn’t realize that their friend’s account has been hacked and that the message was sent by scammers. The Facebook user has no way of recovering the wired money after they learn that their friend is safe and sound.
Error message 0x800C0133 and 0x800c013C
Help! I can’t receive my email.
Lately, I’ve received several calls from clients that were unable to receive email. This was a bit of a different problem than I have had to deal with in the past, as most email help requests I get are not being able to send email, with the culprit usually being that port 25 has been blocked by the ISP providing the Internet connection. This was a huge problem a few years ago when SBC decided to block port 25 for all of their customers without telling them. Our phones were ringing off the hook.
This error is usually reported by people using Microsoft Outlook Express and is often accompanied by “All of my email is gone. How do I get it back?”
Error message 0x800C013C = Inbox is Full
This error often indicates that your inbox is full or that your Outlook Express data file Inbox.dbx has grown too large. Try moving messages in the inbox to another file on your computer, then try to receive email again. If this does not fix the problem, try the steps in the next section “Error message 0x800C0133″.
Error message 0x800C0133 = Corrupt Inbox
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Know your BITS and BYTES!
Know your BITS and BYTES!
The amount of data being stored electronically has been growing exponentially. I had never heard of some of the new terms for the larger amounts over Gigabyte such as PB, EB, ZB or YB until recently. How many will you recognize?
| Bit | A bit is a binary digit, taking a value of either 0 or 1. For example, the number 10010111 is 8 bits long, or in most cases, one modern PC byte. Binary digits are a basic unit of information storage and communication in digital computing and digital information theory. | |||
| Byte | 8 Bits | |||
| KB | Kilobyte |
1,024 Bytes |
8,192 Bits |
|
| MB | Megabyte | 1,024 KB |
1,048,576 Bytes |
8,388,608 Bits |
| GB | Gigabyte | 1,024 MB |
1,073,741,824 Bytes |
8,589,934,592 Bits |
| TB | Terabyte | 1,024 GB | 1,099,511,627,776 Bytes | 8,796,093,022,208 Bits |
| PB | Petabyte | 1,024 TB | 1,125,899,906,842,624 Bytes | 9,007,199,254,740,992 Bits |
| EB | Exabyte | 1,024 PB | 1,152,921,504,606,846,976 Bytes | 9,223,372,036,854,775,808 Bits |
| ZB | Zetabyte | 1,024 PB | 1,180,591,620,717,411,303,424 Bytes | 9,444,732,965,739,290,427,392 Bits |
| YB | Yotabyte | 1,024 ZB | 1,208,925,819,614,629,174,706,176 Bytes | 9,671,406,556,917,033,397,649,408 Bits |
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Consent Prompt Behavior
Here is an alternative to disabling UAC – an option some call "Quiet Mode" – and essentially leave UAC enabled but elevates the all administrator accounts to assume it is okay to run the item in question. Note, this will effectively disable the protection that UAC provides, but will not disable IE's Protected Mode.
UAC (User Account Control) is the 'feature' that causes those annoying Windows Vista pop-up warnings that present when you try to perform certain functions or start certain programs that tell you permission is required to perform the function or open the program. These pop-ups only happen when you have UAC turned ON, which is the recommended setting to 'protect' your computer–or more precisely to stop you from installing anything onto your computer that has the potential to cause harm.
Advanced users can safely turn this feature OFF, as it is assumed that advanced users will know what should and should not be installed on their machines, and they know not to click on links in email from senders that they do not know, etc. So, it would seem simple enough for advanced users to just turn UAC off and not be annoyed by these warning pop-ups–but here comes the catch: There are some third party products that will not work properly with UAC turned off. One of these popular products is Intuit's QuickBooks. (I've written about this here.)
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Linux Operating System Security Flaws May Have Compromised Your Certificates.
WHO IS IMPACTED AND WHY?
For customers who host their sites on a Debian OS (or its derivatives) to generate a key pair used to request a certificate, that key pair (and the corresponding certificate) is vulnerable.
This is due to a flaw in the Debian-specific random number generation that results in relatively predictable key pair values, making them highly exploitable.
WHAT CAN YOU DO?
If you or your customers are running Debian operating systems and derivatives (such as Ubuntu) released between September 17, 2006 and May 12, 2008 you should deploy a recently released Debian patch and revoke and replace all SSL and Code Signing certificates for which keys were created on these operating systems. Debian has released a testing tool to confirm whether your certificates are affected. This tool and other useful information can be found here:
http://lists.debian.org/debian-security-announce/2008/msg00152.html
NOTE: Inland Pacific Consulting does not host any accounts on Debian Operating Systems. We host strictly on the new Microsoft Windows 2008 64 bit operating system. Consequently none of our clients are effected by the above security flaw.
Posted in Alert, Technical
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Windows Vista, Java, ieSpell and IE Browser Crashes–Mystery Solved
Here's yet another story about strange and quirky things happening for supposedly no reason. (It turns out there is a reason, but why Microsoft would think that a user would know this intuitively is beyond me.) So many things that seemingly 'go wrong' in Vista that are actually caused by the 'enhanced security features' Microsoft incorporated into Vista to protect users from viruses and other attacks while connected to the Internet.
As a preface to the story, let me briefly explain one of these 'protection enhancements' called "Data Execution Prevention" or "DEP". Data Execution Prevention (DEP) is a security feature that is intended to prevent a program from running in a place in your computer's memory that is not usually intended to run programs. This helps prevent certain exploits of your system. However, there are some programs that need to use this 'protected' area legitimately, and this is where the problems begin.
And now back to the story–when browsing to some web sites, I noticed that Internet Explorer would crash and I would sometimes get a warning something to the effect of 'DEP or Data Execution Protection had to close the program to protect me'. I was already somewhat familiar with DEP because of some other problems I experienced previously, so I decided to use the same fix–add Internet Explorer to the list of programs that would not be protected by DEP. (DEP protects programs from executing in certain memory areas that are considered off-limits for safety reasons.)
So, I proceeded to unprotect Internet Explorer and try navigating to the site that was giving me all the problems. CRASH! I was stumped, but since it was only this one website that I really wasn't that concerned if I got to or not, I just ignored the problem.
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Is it time to put your graphics on a diet?
One of the most frequent mistakes made by novice web designers is putting huge images on their web pages—images that are too large and take too long to download. Images need to be optimized for quick loading and proper style proportions before putting them on web pages. There is a delicate balance that needs to be achieved between file size and picture quality as the majority of load time for a web page comes from the images.
There are three areas where bytes can be shaved off your images: bit depth (the number of colors), resolution (the density or number of pixels per inch the image contains), and the dimension (the actual length and width of the image).
The actual dimensions, or size, of your image is the easiest to achieve, but avoid just setting the dimensions for the image in your web authoring program. You need to resize your image to the proper dimensions before inserting it in your web page; otherwise your image will appear smaller, but in fact the entire large image is still being downloaded. The dimensions are being restricted, but the size of the image being downloaded has not changed.
The resolution and bit depth are a bit trickier, but fortunately there are various tools to aid you in accomplishing this. One of the best is Adobe Photo Shop, though this solution is pricy and has a relatively steep learning curve; it is best left to professional web developers and graphic artists.
One of the best and easiest to use image optimizer programs for novice web masters is available free from Bluefive Software and can be downloaded here. Try it out; I’m sure you’ll like it. You can even use it to optimize your images before you send them in your emails—your friends will thank you.
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