This tool, created by Boris Yanushpolsky, is a bit of a godsend for those that have spent any time whatsoever working with SCOM. The utility allows you to select multiple rules, monitors, or discoveries, and will allow you to create an override, disable, or enable them.

In a quick test, the tool worked great and has already saved me heaps of time and frustration!

Download utility from Boris’ MSDN blog
Original announcement

First you should know that Microsoft includes a small handful of useful scripts with the Group Policy Management Tool. You can find them here: %programfiles%\Gpmc\Scripts (2003) or here: %ProgramFiles(x86)%\Microsoft Group Policy\GPMC Sample Scripts\ (x64 2008). The one We’re looking for today is called BackupAllGPOS.wsf and it does exactly what the name implies. Usage is as follows:

BackupAllGPOs.wsf [/Comment:] [/Domain:]

In my environment, I wanted to backup all GPOs to a central location on the file server. What I didn’t want was to retain multiple copies of the GPOs as the likelihood of restoring something that was older than a day is fairly low. My total GPO backup size works out to around 3Gb so a weeks worth of backups works out to over 20Gb. I’ll rely on our file server backups for this.

I created a simple batch file that first deleted the backup folder, then recreated it (ensuring all GPO backups from the previous day were gone), executed the GPO backup script and spit out a simple log file. It looks like this:

rd /s /q “\\[file server]\[backup location]\GPOs\”
mkdir “\\[file server]\[backup location]\GPOs”
cscript “%ProgramFiles(x86)%\Microsoft Group Policy\GPMC Sample Scripts\BackupAllGPOs.wsf” “\\[file server]\[backup location]\GPOs” > \\[file server]\[backup location]\GPOs\GPOBak.log

This seemed to work quite well so the next step was to automate it. Easy-peasy. I created a scheduled task to run the batch file (above) daily at 3:00am.

Restores are probably the easiest part. Simply launch the group policy management tool, right click the domain and choose Manage Backups, enter the UNC path of your backups into the field, choose your backup to restore and hit restore. Done and done.

Hopefully you’re doing this (or something similar) because the alternative sucks and losing something like a GPO can definitely put a downer on the day.

CoRD, the most feature-filled, multi-connection RDP client for OSX has released an updated version to their client. I stopped using the client quite some time ago due to performance issues experienced when connecting to Windows 7, Server 2008, as well as Vista however this new version seems to fix those issues.

Here is list of new features. For the full list of added features, bug fixes, and known issues, please see the official announcement here.

New Features:

• Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 support (rdesktop core upgraded to 1.6.0)
• Disk and printer forwarding (Experimental. Disk works well usually, printer works in some cases)
• Ability to set default connection settings for new servers, Quick Connect connections, rdp:// URLs, and
• Ability to add custom screen resolutions from the Preferences window
• Searching for servers: search by label or hostname, similar to Spotlight (jump to search: Cmd-Opt-F, then hit enter to open connection, or up/down to change selection)
• Font Smoothing (ClearType)
• Ability to set HotKeys (Cmd-1-9) for saved sessions
• Keyboard shortcut to toggle between Unified and Windowed modes (Cmd-U)
• Keyboard shortcut for Quick Connect Box (Cmd-G)
• Shift-Return in Quick Connect now connects to a console/admin session
• ‘Show in Finder’ option in the server contextual menu
• Ability to keep server list sorted alphabetically
• Ability to select update feed (stable/beta/nightly)
• Initial support for IPv6 addresses
• Support for creating connections from the command line
• Full 10.5 and 10.6 support, Universal 32/64-bit binary
• Other enhancements

See the official announcement and changelog here: http://sourceforge.net/forum/forum.php?forum_id=986237

Visit the site: http://cord.sourceforge.net/ to download the latest version.

Here’s what you’ll need:

• 1 soup bowl
• saran wrap
• 1 banana peel
• some juice or wine (optional)
• toothpick or fork for poking small holes

Now that we have the ingredients, let’s begin shall we?

Step 1: Place the bowl on your counter.

Step 2: Put the banana peel into the bowl.

Step 3: Pour a small amount (just enough to cover the bottom) of juice or wine into the bowl.

Step 4: Cover the bowl tightly with saran wrap. It is important that you stretch it out over the top and sides to ensure a tight seal.

Step 5: Poke a between 10 and 15 holes randomly throughout the saran wrap. Be sure to not make them too big, or too small. The idea here is that the fruit flies will be able to get in, but not out. This is the idea behind a trap. :)

Step 6: Wait.

I’ve suggested this to a few friends who have also had incredible success with it, so give it a try!

Update: I’ve also found that a central vacuum cleaner (sans the end accessories) works equally well and it’s a lot more fun. Spend 5-minutes sucking up as many fruit flies as you can. It’s fun, try it!

Enjoy!

Episode 1

Episode 2

Episode 3

Check to ensure the Windows Installer Service is not disabled and is running, if not, enable the service and/or start it. If the service was already running restart it and try the install again. You can do this by clicking Start>Run>Type Services.msc>Click Ok>Look for Windows Installer Service>Start/Enable the service.

This worked for me on a Windows Server 2003 SP2 box.

Site: speedtest.net
Test machine: Macbook Pro (latest iteration) running Leopard

Via USB: 2.73 Mb/s downstream and 0.2Mb/s upstream with 202ms latency

Via Bluetooth: 0.90Mb/s downstream and 0.24Mb/s upstream with 171ms latency

I’ve only run these tests one time so it’s entirely possible that I’ll acheive better throughput or lower latency from a different physical location, or under a lower system load. These results definitely exceed my expectations. The setup is very slick (as tethering should be), and the hit on battery life seems to be significantly less than PDAnet. Throughput is definitely greater while connected via USB when compared to my experience with PDAnet (WiFi) however Bluetooth tethering, as expected, is much slower.

Overall, a great addition to the iPhone firmware!

So what next? Find a loop-hole—and as it turns out, it’s a pretty simple, perhaps obvious one. Here is what you need to do:

Step 1: sign out of your iTunes account within iTunes. This one is pretty simple. Click Store>Sign out.

Step 2: change your country preference within iTunes. This one is also rather simple. Select iTunes Store from the left menu within iTunes (this is the same way you normally would access the iTunes store to purchase music/movies/apps etc). Scroll down to the very bottom where you see a drop-down menu beside My Store. Change this to United States.

Step 3: sign up for a new iTunes account. Again, this is easy (noticing a trend here?). Click the Sign in button on the top right hand side of the iTunes Store (you should already be there). You will be prompted to either create a new account, or to sign in. Simply create a new account. If you don’t have a US address, which many of you won’t, make something up. 90210 always works for me :)

Note: you’ll likely wish to create this account without a credit card (unless you have a US card). Here is a link to the instructions for creating an iTunes account without a credit card: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2534. It’s important to note that you must be within the App store section of the iTunes store in order to create an account without a credit card on file.

Step 4: verify your iTunes account. You should receive an e-mail requiring you to confirm your account. Click the link at the bottom of the e-mail.

Step 5: log into your new iTunes account. On the top right hand side of the iTunes Store section within iTunes, click Sign in then enter in your newly created credentials.

Step 6: search for Skype within the iTunes Store, download it, then sync your iPhone. Voila! You now have Skype on your Canadian-issued iPhone.