July 2007 - Posts

• World Analytics

  Here is an interesting gadget I ran into that shows some unusual and random world stats.     SOURCES These stats may be verified at the listed websites. World Population: US Census Bureau Population growth rate: CIA World Factbook Prison Population: UK Homeoffice Divorces (US Only): Wikipedia US Illegal Immigration: Wikipedia Abortions: Wikipedia Mothers dying during botched abortions: World Health Organization HIV infection: Avert Cancer incidence: UICC Earth Temp: Wikipedia Species Extinct: National Wildlife Federation Oil Production: CIA World Factbook Cars produced: Mation Master Bicycle Production: Earth Policy Computer production: Top Secret Death stats: World Health Organization Posted Jul 28 2007, 07:39 PM by caneja with no comments Filed under: misc

• What is greylisting?

  Upgrading our shared hosting platform to SmarterMail Version 4 has allowed us to utilize the greylisting method to fight spam. If you are experiencing a spam issue then this is the setting you should not be without. Some of our customers have reported a 90% reduction in SPAM thanks to greylisting. In this article I will be covering what greylisting is all about and how we are able to allow the use of this spam fighting method at Appliedi.net with the implementation of SmarterMail 4. Smartermail 4 is available as both shared hosted and a dedicated hosted solution. The greylisting method will temporarily block email from any sender it does not recognize.  If the email is coming from a  legit mail server then it will attempt to redeliver the message. Most spammer tools will not attempt redelivery and this is what greylisting relies on to get it's effectiveness. However, as with everything else out there you must pay a price.  The disadvantage to greylisting (and this is not just in Smartermail 4) is the receipt must wait 15 minutes for a message delivery if the sender is not trusted by the SmarterMail 4 server. NOTE:  It is important you keep in mind that the time parameter can be modified and may be different for other implementations and systems. Two alternatives exist to the methodology discussed above: 1. Add the email address(es) or domain name(s)  to your list of trusted senders. 2. Mark an email as "not spam". This causes all spam filtering for that email to be bypassed. As mentioned earlier, since our Smartermail 4 hosted solution is configured to reject email for 15 minutes by default this may cause a small delivery attempt delay. If greylisting is not for you then here is how you can bypass it. 1. Login  to your Smartermail 4 server by going to mail.yourdomain.com 2. Select Settings -> My Settings 3. Check the Bypass Greylisting option. 4.  Click Save. Click here to learn more about Smartermail 4 hosting. Posted Jul 27 2007, 01:25 AM by caneja with no comments Filed under: SmarterMail 4

• How to Remotely Reboot Windows 2000 or Windows 2003 via CLI using the Shutdown command.

  The following command may be executed from a local machine having network access to the remote host you wish to reboot via command line. shutdown /r /m \\SERVERNAME Administrator privileges are required to reboot a windows server therefore the account you are using locally must have administrator privileges on the remote host. If this not the case then you may try the following. 1. Open a network share to one of the remote server's hidden drive (ie- \\serveranme\C$).  This will force the remote host to prompt for authentication. Once the credentials for an account with administrative access are entered you will have a session established with that server via that account. 2. Create a local account and run the windows command prompt as that the username. If the only account with administrator privileges on the remote host is "administrator" then reset the administrator account's password on the local server/workstation to match the remote server's password.  Right click on the command prompt while holding shift and select the "RUN AS" option. Here is the full command reference:       SHUTDOWN [logoff_option]  [/m \\Computer] [options] logoff_option:     /i         Display the GUI (must be the first option)     /l         Log off. This cannot be used with /m or /d option     /s         Shutdown     /r         Shutdown and Restart     /a        Abort a system shutdown.                (only during the time-out period)     /p         Turn off the local computer with no time-out or warning                (only with /d)     /h         Hibernate the local computer (only with /f )     /e         Document the reason for an unexpected shutdown of a computer options:    /m \\Computer  : A remote computer to shutdown.    /t:xxx         : Time until system shutdown in seconds.                     The valid range is xxx=0-600 seconds. [default=30]    /c "Msg"       : An optional shutdown message [Max 127 chars]    /f             : Force running applications to close.                     This will not prompt for File-Save in any open applications.                     so will result in a loss of all unsaved data!!!    /d u:xx:yy     : List a USER reason code for the shutdown.    /d P:xx:yy     : List a PLANNED reason code for the shutdown.                      xx Specifies the major reason code (0-255)                      yy Specifies the minor reason code (0-65536) Options in bold are for Windows 2003 only Example: To create a desktop shortcut that will immediately shutdown your system - set the shortcut Target Properties to: C:\Windows\System32\shutdown.exe -s When using this command to reboot a server, the shutdown process will normally allow about 30 seconds to ensure each running service has time to stop. The shutdown can be made faster if all the services are first halted using NET STOP e.g. net stop "Microsoft Exchange Internet Mail Service" net stop "Microsoft FTP Service" net stop "Some other Service" SHUTDOWN /t:25 /r Typical Reason codes: E = Expected  U = Unexpected    P = planned (C = customer defined) Type Major Minor Title U 0 0 Other (Unplanned) E 0 0 Other (Unplanned) E P 0 0 Other (Planned) U 0 5 Other Failure: System Unresponsive E 1 1 Hardware: Maintenance (Unplanned) E P 1 1 Hardware: Maintenance (Planned) E 1 2 Hardware: Installation (Unplanned) E P 1 2 Hardware: Installation (Planned) P 2 3 Operating System: Upgrade (Planned) E 2 4 Operating System: Reconfiguration (Unplanned) E P 2 4 Operating System: Reconfiguration (Planned) P 2 16 Operating System: Service pack (Planned) 2 17 Operating System: Hot fix (Unplanned) P 2 17 Operating System: Hot fix (Planned) 2 18 Operating System: Security fix (Unplanned) P 2 18 Operating System: Security fix (Planned) E 4 1 Application: Maintenance (Unplanned) E P 4 1 Application: Maintenance (Planned) E P 4 2 Application: Installation (Planned) E 4 5 Application: Unresponsive E 4 6 Application: Unstable U 5 15 System Failure: Stop error E 5 19 Security issue U 5 19 Security issue E P 5 19 Security issue E 5 20 Loss of network connectivity (Unplanned) U 6 11 Power Failure: Cord Unplugged U 6 12 Power Failure: Environment P 7 0 Legacy API shutdown FULL Article from MS KB Article Posted Jul 04 2007, 05:24 PM by caneja with no comments Filed under: Windows 2003