Microsoft Surface – an asset to Information Technology

The Microsoft Surface Pro can be an asset to the Information Technology industry with its versatile ability to accept hardware and applications already in the industry.

Microsoft Surface Pro with Microsoft GPS during wireless site surveys.

   

inSSIDer on Microsoft’s Surface Pro

Ubiquiti Spectrum Analyzer and the Surface Pro

Microsoft’s Surface Pro can us 99% of the software on the market.  The versatility of this tablet makes it a good choice for IT Professionals.

Amazingly, you don’t need special apps and most of the software on the market for Windows based computers is free.   For licensed software,  the Windows 7/8 software will work on this tablet.

Look for updates soon on Windows 8 and Microsoft’s Surface.

Microsoft Attack Surface Analyzer test your system’s security

Microsoft’s Attack Surface Analyzer will take a quick snapshot of your computer’s state before and after the installation of software.   IT Professionals can asses their organization’s applications.  Other IT personnel can use this to look at the risk of software installed.  Be sure to read Microsoft’s overview of this software.

 

Scanning (baseline)

 

Once this scan is ran, a new scan can be ran to compare the newly installed product changes to your computer.

 

 

 

The Report

 

 

Microsoft Joulemeter calibrates your portable battery

Want to calibrate your batter on your laptop?  Microsoft Joulemeter (.90 mb download) does just that.

From Microsoft Research:

“Joulemeter is a software tool that estimates the power consumption of your computer. It tracks computer resources, such as CPU utilization and screen brightness, and estimates power usage.”

Checklist :

• Make sure your battery is above 50%
• Remember to leave your computer idle when this takes place
• Your screen brightness will change (disable Flux if you have it installed) and turn black
• Be Patient

 

Ready to calibrate

 

Phase One

 

 

Phase Two

 

 

Phase Three (Power Model)

 

 

Windows System Control Center – An all in one tool for IT professionals

The Windows System Control Center is an all in one tool that offers a ton (hundreds) of features.  These features are compatible with Windows XP, Windows 7 and Windows 8.

The installation can be made to a portable drive or installed on a computer.  During the installation, new software can be installed allowing features to be added or updated.

 

 

 

During this installation process, you may get virus alerts but the software is safe.  These alerts are false positives (the software accesses key areas that control Windows).

 

Click Allow or Safe in your anti-virus control panel.

 

 

Initially you will have 264 software installs.

 

Once the features are installed (This can initially take a few minutes),  The control center opens to dozens of categories and hundreds of features allowing you to tweak Windows or to correct problems.

 

 

Free library for IT Professionals and the everyday user

I’ve featured Microsoft’s Technet before; but now Microsoft has even more to offer at their TechNet site.  And 99% of it is free.  The how-tos and downloads are unreal.   You can’t possibly read all of the material but it is the best resource for Microsoft products.

With thousands of articles, Technet is broken into categories where you can narrow down your search for what you need.

Articles are added daily along with scripting and every operating system you can imagine.  Visit the gallery here or visit on-line learning, virtual labs and the learning center and certification information.

Can’t get enough information?  Here’s the Microsoft Wiki which has an unbelievable amount of resources and links.  Need drivers, service packs or other downloads including evaluations?  Visit there download center.

Below is a tiny portion of their resources.

 

Speed up your computer using FancyCache

I’m always cautious when I hear about caching programs.  Mickey sent me Bill Mullin’s link over to TechRepublic where Romex’s FancyCache is reviewed.

In its Beta release, FancyCache offers a simplex program that uses unused memory to boost the speed of your hard drive.  But does it work?  Yes.  My Dell Inspirion is already fast, but with FancyCache, programs do open quicker and the computer is even more responsive.  With the ability to tweak how I wanted to cache, I used 2gb of the 6gb of RAM on board in the settings.

The default settings alone were convincing enough to show how my computer sped up after a few minutes of use.   Although my computer is a 64bit laptop, the caching methods used and the read/write cache algorithms did boost performance.

FancyCache is certainly beneficial for 32 bit users who are locked in at 3gb of RAM.   FancyCache can take advantage of memory above this limit to speed up your computer.   And whether you do or don’t elect to install FancyCache, at least tweak your settings in a 32 bit computer to tweak your memory.  (See our Link)

The only problem I had was once I downloaded the software, it said it was expired.   A quick check on their website and keys can be obtained here.   The latest key is valid until July 2013.

Will I buy this product?  I’m not sure yet, time and use of Fancycache will tell.

 

How to measure your hard drive speed.

 

 

Optimizing MySQL on Server 2008 R2

Server 2008 R2

• install Wincache by Microsoft

Optimizing IIS
(http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee377050(v=bts.10).aspx)

Edit the my.ini file found in the MySQL installation

http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/optimization.html

• Set the innodb_buffer_pool_size=1G   Resource
• Set the Max_Allowed_Packet = 100M
• Set Key_Buffer_Size=512M
• Set query_cache_size = 128MB

• query_cache_limit = 4MB

• table_cache=512
• tmp_table_size = 64MB

Adjust your settings accordingly.

Note: Many of these settings can be made to the my.cnf file in Linux installations

Our performance increast?  50% savings on average (load times)

Using a GPS to perform a Wi-Fi survey

It is important to perform a wi-fi survey so that you can determine not only the perfect place to locate your access point or bridge but to gain an understanding of the channel co-existence challenge you may face.  With wireless access points in surrounding neighborhoods and businesses, you will need to  perform a survey by walking around and mapping out the BSAs (Basic Service Area) of wireless that surrounds you and your organization.

Below is an example of our school’s perimeter.  Matt, Chris and James, students in the Computer Information Technology, class performed a survey using a Microsoft GPS and Vistumbler.  This survey revealed access points and their channels of current wireless at our institution and  includes APs in surrounding businesses and neighborhoods.  These were mapped using Google Earth after exporting their KML file from Vistumbler.

This type of survey allows IT professionals to analyze data exported to ensure the correct channels can be used at their organization.

After exporting the wireless information, you can analyze each access point or wireless device by clicking on it.  Below is an example of the information exported into Google Earth.   Each device shows SSID, Network Type, Mac Address, Channel, Security, Encryption Type, Data Rates, Latitude, Longitude and Manufacturer information.   Analyst using this information can also determine the best placement of wireless devices along with channel information.

Channel co-existence is when access points share channels that are very close to one another.

802.11 wireless on 2.4 Ghz has three non-overlapping channels.  These channels are 1, 6 and 11.  The closer channels are, the more likely interference will take place.  With the amount of wi-fi in use today, IT professionals have to chose between 2.4 Ghz and 5 Ghz and and try to select channels that are not in use if possible.   Professional access points and bridges can also adjust power as necessary.   A dense population can make this very challenging.

If you look at the students’ survey by zooming out to see how many access points can be seen, this is what you are looking at!  Now you can see why site surveys are important at your organization.

In addition to this survey, a secondary survey using a spectrum analyzer is very important to search for interference from other sources.  (See our review of the Airview Spectrum Analyzer)

Channel information (Chart from Wikipedia)

 

Here’s another look at a wireless survey showing vertical lines and signal strength.  (James M. KML survey)

InSSIDer 3.0 Personal

InSSIDer 3.0 Personal Edition is available for download at Metageek.  InSSIDer 3.0 is an excellent tool used to analyze and see your wireless APs.

Note:  If you currently use InSSIDer version 2.1 and use the GPS features, 3.0 personal does not have this feature.  

Realtek Ethernet Diagnostic Software

Although it is published on Realtek’s site, many endusers and IT techs miss this download.  The Realtek Ethernet Diagnostic Software is an excellent piece of software that allows for diagnostic troubleshooting of your network card.   Remember, download the latest driver for performance and reliability.

Found here  (Look for Windows Diagnostic Program), the software allows you to do the following:

• See the MAC address of your card
• IP Address
• Link Status
• Stats
  
• Cable tests
  
• Adjust Advanced Settings (Remember to turn off everything but Flow Control)
  
• Create Virtual LANs
  
• Diagnostics
  

Find your routers

How many devices do you pass through before surfing the web?

Detect Multiple Routers over at PCWinTech is an excellent program to find your routers.

In the scenario below, our home computers go through a wireless router and on to a router
(non-wireless) supplied by the ISP.  (Two Gateways)

 

In our home, I have multiple routers setup and as you can see on the pic below, I am going thru three wireless routers and then the ISPs router.   (Reconnected to another wireless router).

VMware Player Review – Virtualization that’s easy

VMware Player allows for the installation of a virtual machine onto your workstation.  This means of creating a second operating system within your operating system allows you to test or use an operating system of your choice.  The user-friendly interface is truly the easiest virtualization software there is.  Anyone wanting to try Windows 8 or any Linux distro can use this software to test operating systems.   VMWare Player can be downloaded here.

VMware Player is fully customizable and the wizard provides instructions that are well written and with easy to find settings.  Kudos to VMware for providing this excellent piece of software in an easy to use interface.

Remember, once you start the VM,  if you click the mouse in the window, it will take focus.  To release the mouse,  press Ctrl-Alt.

You must also remember to protect any OS in a VM.  (Antivirus information)

The first thing you will need is an .iso of your operating system of choice.

Above is the ISO for 32 bit Windows 7 with SP 1.

Next, install the VMWare Player.   The installation is straight forward and easy even for a novice.

Now start the VMware Player by double clicking on the icon on your desktop.   In this scenario we created a new virtual machine.

The New Virtual Machine Wizard walks you through step by step in setting up your operating system.

The wizard will ask for a location of the ISO or you can install from your DVD drive.  Select the appropriate location at this time (below).

Enter your product key and information if prompted to do so.  The Easy Install Information automates the installation process.  You can of course customize Windows and reset passwords, enable the Administrator account and change information once the operating system is installed.

Once the wizard reaches the customization stages for your hard drive, you can adjust this to meet your needs.

You can select the Customize Hardware button to adjust memory, processors and other hardware.   Remember to give your host machine plenty of memory.   Do not use more resources than you have.  This may cause lockups or other errors upon launching your OS.

One of the best features is the Network Adapter Advanced Settings.  It allows you to bridge or NAT (Put your OS on a separate network – hidden from other computers on your network).  Bridging your network allows your virtual computer to be ‘seen’ by other computers as though it is a physical computer.   Because you are sharing a network card, you can limited the bandwidth (Inbound and Outbound traffic) of the virtual computer.

You can also generate a MAC address for the computer at this time.

The screenshot below (post install) shows the virtual computer when bridged (on the same network).

It is important to keep an eye on the resources of your host computer.  You can do this by using the Windows Task Manager.

Once you finish, Windows will launch into setup mode.   You will see a message alerting you to other devices that can be used (Webcams and other devices) if they are available.

As you can see from the screen shot below, the IP address is on the network with my other computers.  This allows the computer to share out documents and to utilize any device within the network.

The VMware player tools provides drivers and other features.

Installing the tools

Once the tools are installed, a restart should be made to the operating system.

Remember the option to use other devices during the setup – items such as the Webcam?  Click on Player when the VM starts and you will see the other devices.

You should also run a side by side comparison on the Task Manager’s to ‘see’ how much resources you are using.   As you can see, the host (left) is maxing out the memory of the host computer.   The virtual computer is not utilizing all of the allocated memory.   Therefore the 2Gb of RAM allocated can be tweaked by decreasing the memory if performance is not an issue.

Once the VM is shutdown, you can adjust the settings in the console.

With dozens of tweaks and configurations, one of the best is the defragment, expansion and compact option under the hard disk in the virtual machine settings. (Compact only sorts the graintables but has no effect on size – optimizing your vm)

Overall VMware’s Player is an excellent tool that can be used (non-commercially) by anyone wanting to experiment with or run other operating systems.  VMware Player is an excellent virtualization tool that allows users to install and test or run another operating system.   The performance is based on shared resources of the host computer.  The ease of setup is definitely a pro.  Users should make every effort to ensure they have adequate resources on the host computer and the maximum amount of memory and other resources can be dedicated to the virtual machine.