Creating Bootable Windows 7 Install USB Keys On The Easy

A few months ago I wrote a post on how to take a Windows 7 ISO image and install it to your USB drive to make a bootable Windows 7 Install USB Flash drive. The process wasn’t that difficult, but for some of you dropping to the command prompt might be a bit scary, or if you are not tech savvy at all, it’s like I was speaking a completely different language! Microsoft actually made a really cool tool that makes this process easier for the average Joe. Their tool takes you step by step through taking a Windows 7 ISO file, and either using it to burn it to DVD, or to install it directly to USB. It really is so easy, than I’m sure your Grandma could probably do it! The tool is called the Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool. There are some system Requirements...

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Uninstalling Exchange? Getting an Error Saying, “Object is Read Only”? Here’s Your Fix!

My company upgraded to Exchange 2010 about a year ago. It is really awesome, and I’m glad we did. We did not, however, ever remove the only Exchange 2007 server we had. It’s just been sitting in our data center, using up power, and expensive Microsoft licensing. I finally decided that since we were in need of more VMware resources, it would be a good time to decommission Exchange 2007 for good, order some more RAM for it, and re-purpose it for VMware. I started on this last week. You see, in order to remove an Exchange server from your environment, you have to do several things in order to make it go smoothly and cleanly. One of them is to make sure you remove all public folder replicas to your new Exchange server. That can take several days....

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Tracking Down Account Lockouts in Windows Server 2008 and 2008 R2

You have all probably had to troubleshoot account lockouts right. I mean, it comes with the territory for a Windows admin. Sure, some of you may be Help Desk workers, and you unlock the account then send the user on their way. What if a certain user’s account keeps getting locked out though? Like chronic back pain, the user keeps coming to you telling you that their account is locked out again. It sounds like a deeper problem. Lucky for you then that Microsoft has an old tool to help you look for account lock outs on domain controllers so you can see which computers the accounts are getting locked out on. Then from there you can check for stuff like scheduled tasks with old passwords, viruses using old credentials, hacking attempts, etc. It’s...

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Can Microsoft DPM Backup a SQL Failover Cluster in an Untrusted Domain? Hell No!

So here is a scenario I have been working on at work for the last day or so. I have set up two sets of failover SQL server Clusters. Four servers total. If you don’t know why someone would do that, it is for high availability. If one of the SQL servers goes offline, it will fail over to the second node in the cluster, and nobody is the wiser. It’s a good thing to do so you can do maintenance during business hours without interruptions, and just to generally cover your bases so you don’t get woken up in the middle of the night due to an outage. My company’s network is set up kind of weird. I manage multiple domains. This is because I also manage a hosting environment for clients. We backup our servers currently with Microsoft Data Protection...

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When Coders Become Taggers

I was on indefinite hold with HP Lefthand Support for work the other day. Since I was stuck to the phone listening to terrible hold music, I decided to surf the interwebz with my good friend Stumbleupon. That’s when I cam across a strange video that I thought I would share with you. Have you ever learned a new programming language? maybe it is C++, C#, or whatever. Hell, have you ever learned a simple scripting language? What is the first program you learn to write? Almost always it is something that pops up and says two magical words, “Hello World!” I would have to say that every book I ever had on any computer language had to begin with some sort of Hello World exercise. I suppose if you do that sort of thing too much you might end up going...

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Microsoft Network Load Balancing in VMware

At my day job we do, among other things, website hosting. For one of our clients with a dedicated server they wanted two front ends load balanced using Microsoft’s Network Load Balancing (NLB). Easy enough right? Well, not so much. If you configure NLB in Microsoft, the default setting for the cluster is Unicast mode. The problem with Unicast mode is that although it works well with most routers and layer 2 switches, it causes switch flooding. Switch flooding is when all ports are flooded with NLB traffic, even to nodes not involved in the NLB cluster. VMware virtual switches by default prevent switch flooding. According to VMware: On an ESX [ESXi] host, the VMkernel sends a reverse address resolution protocol (RARP) packet each...

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How To P2V Windows 7 For Use in VMware

Sorry I have been off for a while. As my last post said, I have been working on getting back into shape for martial arts  and studying for my VCP exam. Speaking of VCP, I have discovered a really cool little trick for converting a physical Windows 7 machine into a VMware virtual machine. Now I know what you are saying, why not just use the VMware converter tool? Well, that is a good question, and the answer is simple. It doesn’t quite work right for Windows 7. Every time I tried it would either fail to convert, or if it did convert, when I powered it on I would get a really cool Blue Screen of Death! Anyway, I found a post on IT Knowledge Exchange explaining a method that actually works! Sure, it’s not ideal, but if it works, it works...

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Bauer-Power’s on Hiatus!

I have decided to take a little bit of a hiatus from blogging here at Bauer-Power. I have a lot of stuff I have to catch up on in real life, and I really want to focus in on that. Don’t worry though, Bauer-Power isn’t going anywhere, just taking a short break. I promise I will pick up writing on the blog here around mid December. Just to let you know, I have two really important certifications I am working on right now. One is for my VMware VCP4 certification for my career, and the other is to certify my second degree black belt in Karate with the World Martial Arts Ranking Association (WMARA). Did that last one catch you by surprise? That’s right, when I was in fourth grade my parents put me in Karate at East-West Karate in Littleton Colorado under Fred Bode. Mr. Bode developed his own...

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Coolest Browser Speed Test Evah!

Recently I made the switch away from my old time favorite Firefox to Chrome again. I tried Chrome when it first came out, and wasn’t that impressed, but lately Firefox has gotten a little too bloated and actually slows down my system. Chrome on the other hand has improved dramatically, and has actually simplified my life. Especially with the Sync option, so now all my settings and plugins move with me no matter what computer I am on! Anyway, we have all seen various bench mark tests done with browsers. How long does it take IE to load a page next to Safari, or Firefox vs Chrome. What about a browser versus a potato gun? How about a browser versus sound waves? All using high speed cameras! Check it out! How cool was that? How many of you have made the switch to Chrome? Why or why not?...

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Share your Keyboard and Mouse With Other Operating Systems

Back in the day, at my first IT job every one had multiple test computers under their desks. This was when the idea of virtualization was still fairly new, and a lot of people hadn’t adopted the idea of running test machines virtually. Lots of these test machines ran different operating systems. Some ran Windows, some ran Linux, and some even ran Solaris. It just depended on what the person was working on, or was trying to learn. Many of us also had multiple monitors, or KVM switches hooked up so we could work with all these machines. It would have been really nice to setup multiple monitors, and simple share one keyboard and mouse pair right? I mean all you have to do is drag the mouse to another monitor, and bam! You are working on a different...

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Edit PDF Forms Online For Free

You ever get emailed PDF forms, but you don’t have any way to edit it electronically because it’s locked, or you don’t have Adobe Pro or Standard? Yeah me too. In fact, my HR department sent out a questionnaire to the team the other day as a PDF. Most people just printed it out, and filled it out by hand. Not me though, I found a tool that let me fill it out electronically for FREE! This tool is an online tool and it is called Fill Any PDF! The idea is simple, you take a PDF that you need to fill out, you upload it to their site, and fill it out, then download the edited version! If you are worried about passing semi sensitive document across the Internet, the site is encrypted with SSL. I wouldn’t however trust them with anything top secret....

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How To “Hack” a Combination Padlock

First of all, before I get into this really cool padlock trick, I want to say that last week was really good for blogging! If you follow me on Twitter at all, you know I was in VMware training all last week. Since I do a lot of VMware work at my day job, a lot of the class was redundant. I had to take it however to satisfy a requirement to take the VCP certification. Anyway, while the teacher was talking about stuff I do normally, it gave me a chance to catch up on the blog! Ok, so back to the topic. You all want to break into lockers or whatever right? Well, let me just say that doing so is illegal, and I assume no responsibility if you misuse this information! So I found this really cool tutorial from The Thrillest. Just follow this chart,...

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The Last Password You Will Ever Need

I have found the best, free, cross platform, cross browser password manager of all friggin’ time! Yes, you read that correctly, the best of all time, and it is free! Why does one need a password manager? The answer is because like most people these days you probably have multiple accounts, on multiple websites across the Internet. To be secure you should have different passwords on all those sites to keep the bad guys guessing. Most of us don’t though right? Most of us use the same password for everything so we can remember it. That or we rotate a few passwords all the time. At least that is what a lot of the users at my company do. What a password manager does is it allows us to use random, or semi-random passwords on all the sites we use....

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Unix/Linux Command Cheat Sheet!

I know I write a lot about Linux, and Ubuntu, but the fact remains that at my day job I am primarily a Windows admin. What does that mean? Well, it means that I don’t always get the chance to play in a Linux terminal. In fact, most of the time if I want to do stuff in Linux for the blog, or whatever, I have to mess with it on my own time. Now some Linux commands are easier to remember than others because I use them more than others. Stuff like cd, nano, ls, sudo and so forth are used almost every time I do something in Linux. Other stuff like showing system uptime I rarely use, so I have to look up those commands. Well, a writer for Fosswire.com named Jacob Peddicord created a really cool Linux/Unix quick reference cheat sheet, and he made...

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Tech Chop Ep 4: When a Sledge Hammer Meets a Dlink Router

Almost a year ago exactly my family and I moved into a new house. With that house I decided I wanted to upgrade our wireless Internet from 802.11G to 802.11N. Why not right? I mean with 802.11G you only get about 54Mbps, and with 802.11N you get up to 300Mbps. Seems like a no brainer. Well, I decided to take a trip to Fry's and get myself a new 802.11N router. That's when I found a Dlink DIR-615 for sale. It was around $25 if I can remember correctly. After I got it all set up I thought it would work out pretty great. I was wrong. I had nothing but problems with that router. So many problems in fact, I decided to make this episode of Tech Chop about it. I figured I would give my review, then smash the living crap out of it with an 8lb sledge hammer! Enjoy the destruction! Do...

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Exercises in Wastes of Time: Star Wars in ASCII

I have seen this in the past, but I am fairly sure I have never blogged about it. Not sure why not, I mean on a scale of zero to Über Geek, this thing breaks the scale. You see, someone with a crap load of time on their hands went ahead and re-created Star Wars using only ASCII art! The guy who created this is Simon Jansen. There are a couple of ways you can watch this ridiculous waste of time. The first and easiest way is to browse to http://www.asciimation.co.nz. There you can watch the show via a simple web browser, as well as read the FAQ’s to find out little tid bits like how it was made, and why. For instance, here is a quote from the FAQ’s on why it was made: [Q] Why (oh God, why)? [A] Well, it seemed like a good idea at...

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How To Enable Remote Desktop Remotely

I was stumbling around the Internet today when I came across a post written by my buddy Karl over at AskTheAdmin.com. This article didn’t come from his blog though, it came from the IT Knowledge Exchange. Still, I thought this post was really useful, so I thought I would share it with you here. His post showed you how to enable Remote Desktop (RDP) remotely using the remote registry feature in Windows. Now I have checked, and this method works on Windows 2003 Server all the way up to Windows 2008 R2. The only thing you may have to make sure you have working though is the remote registry service on the target machine. Here is how you do it: First log on to another machine on your network. Open Regedit Click File –> Connect network...

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Ubuntu 11.04 Going to Unity? Bauer-Puntu is Sticking With Gnome!

I heard through various sources on the Internet that the folks at Canonical, the makers of Ubuntu are planning on getting rid of Gnome in the next version of Ubuntu which is scheduled to release in April of next year. Getting rid of Gnome? Yep, you read that correctly. They are making the full switch over to the newer Unity interface. Now this sort of makes sense. I mean for one, they are now using Unity in the Ubuntu Netbook Remix version which is pretty slick. Also, the man who helped start the Unity Project, Mark Shuttleworth, is also the man behind Canonical, the company that started Ubuntu. It's what we call in the business, Synergy! Is Unity such a good idea for the desktop though? I'm not so sure. Some of you might think so. Then...

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Get a Graphical View of You Hard Disks

I am sitting in a VMware class right now learning about how to install, configure and manage VMware vSphere 4.1. The thing is I do this stuff every day at my day job. So why am I here? Well, you have to take a VMware class if you want to take the VCP4 exam. It’s required. It’s also very lame! Just give me a book, and let me go take the test! Don’t make me take a $4,000 useless class! Anyhoo, so needless to say, I’m not paying very good attention. At this moment we are learning about attaching iSCSI storage. Like I said, I do this all the time. I get it! Instead, I am surfing around on StumbleUpon looking for cool stuff, and I found something you might find interesting. It’s a Windows tool that not only shows you where all your disk space is...

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Bauer-Puntu Linux 10.10 is Available!

Bauer-Puntu 11.04 is out! As promised, I have released a new version of Bauer-Puntu Linux due to it’s surprising popularity! For instance, just last month Bauer-Puntu 10.04 was downloaded over 6,000 times! That is 5,999 times more than I ever thought. Who knew that it would be so popular?I think the popularity really stems from my Bauer-Power video where I show people how easy it is to reset or blank local administrator passwords using Bauer-Puntu and CHNTPW. I also did another video showing how easy it is to hack WEP keys using Grim Wepa and Bauer-Puntu. If you are wondering, yes both of those packages are in the new release!I did something a little different with this version. I tried it in the past, but it was too hard to do before. This...

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How To Make Network Manager Applet Work After a Minimal Install of Ubuntu

I am in the process of making Bauer-Puntu Linux 10.10. This time around I wanted to try my hand at using the Ubuntu Minimal CD so I can keep the distro small, and not have a lot of stuff I don’t use on it. I tried this for version 10.04, but I couldn’t get the proprietary drivers to work right. This time around, that worked fine, but for some reason the Network Manager Applet would not show up in the notification area like it would if I did a full install of Ubuntu. After searching around for a while, I finally got it to work! I will walk you through setting up a Mininmal install of Ubuntu, then how to get Network Manager Applet to work. Once that is working, you should be good to go on the rest of your customizations. Download the latest...

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Add “Run” To Windows 7

I have never blogged on this topic before because I figured most people already knew this, or didn’t care. It turns out that a few of you still don’t know that the Run line in Windows never went away, they just hid it. Why? I don’t know. I just work here! When someone describes how to open a command prompt in Windows what do they say to do? Click Start >Run type in CMD and press OK right? Or at least something similar to that. Sure by default you can type CMD in the search box and get the same thing, but what if you want to browse the admin share on another computer in the network? The search box doesn’t help you there. To turn “Run” back on in Windows 7 is pretty easy though so don’t fret. Just do the following: Right click on Start...

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How To Sync iTunes Playlists with Android

So you have finally decided ditch your pretentious hunk of junk known as an iPhone, and decided to step up to the big leagues and got yourself a Google Android device? Good man (or woman)! Now you are almost ready to cry to your momma because you have created Gigs of music in iTunes, and have created the ultimate collection of play lists and they are lost forever! Am I right? You are afraid that you made a mistake switching to Android because you can't easily sync those playlists with your sweet Google "muscle phone"! Well dry your tears you sissy, and take the first bus out of namby pamby land because I have a program that will solve all your problems!I mentioned a few weeks ago that I managed to fix my wife's iPhone 3G until I completely...

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