Monthly Archives: January 2012

Jan202012

Major outage for BT Business Broadband customers

Many of our clients were having internet connectivity issues this morning, after discovering that they were all BT customers we thought that we would give them a call.

BT confirmed that some of their Business customers will be experiencing problems connecting to the internet, effecting businesses all over the UK!

Glad to say that although the issues are still ongoing, all of our clients have now had their internet connection restored :)

You can check the current status of BT Business Broadband here

 

Jan192012

Don't be a careless charity

The guardian reported yesterday about a care provider who lost a memory stick containing personal information about 160 individuals, including in some cases information about their mental health and care.

The memory stick was unencrypted, meaning anyone that found the memory stick could access the data. We work with lots of charities and care providers so if you don’t have policies and procedures in place for your staff to know what to do when they need to transfer data we can advise you. We can also work with you to implement industry standard data encryption, including USB memory sticks.

So don’t risk ending up in the news for all the wrong reasons, give us a call and we’ll help you with your data protection and compliance responsibilities.

Jan172012

Laptopamabob – Simples!

Just a very quick post that has very little to do with IT, but it’s been amusing me all day and thought I would share!

Last night I caught the new comparethemarket.com advert with Aleksandr and  Sergei and found it most amusing! For those who haven’t seen it, you can find it below.


Good effort comparethemarket.com – an advert that is instantly memorable but not cringeworthy or infuriating – yes I mean you Gocompare!

Simples!

Jan142012

VSS failed on Server 2008 – backups fail and performance sluggish *Fixed*

Over the last few days I have been wrestling with a SBS2008 server which was having performance issues and VSS (Volume Snapshot Service) failures. Investigations showed the following sysmptoms:

  • Sluggish performance in Windows although CPU and RAM usages at normal levels.
  • Built in Server Backup fails with VSS Writer errors
  • VSS Writers section in registry is empty (not even the default Microsoft Vss Writer)

With the registry entries not being there, it became clear there was some corruption or failure of the inbuilt Microsoft VSS Writer. Recreating the vss writer should do the job I thought, but upon googling for a script I couldn’t find one. There are plenty of posts about recreating them in 2003 but those scripts aren’t valid. So I wrote my own which worked a treat. If you find yourself in the same situation try creating the script below as a batch (*.bat) file called SERVER2008VSSFIX.bat and run it with Administrative permissions.

As soon as the script ran the performance returned and I was able to take a backup successfully. Is always worth a reboot after performing this fix though.

 

Script:

rem FILENAME:SERVER2008 FIXVSS.BAT
rem

net stop “System Event Notification Service”

net stop “Background Intelligent Transfer Service”

net stop “COM+ Event System”

net stop “Microsoft Software Shadow Copy Provider”

net stop “Volume Shadow Copy”

cd /d %windir%system32

net stop vss

net stop swprv

regsvr32 /s ATL.DLL

regsvr32 /s comsvcs.DLL

regsvr32 /s credui.DLL

regsvr32 /s CRYPTNET.DLL

regsvr32 /s CRYPTUI.DLL

regsvr32 /s dhcpqec.DLL

regsvr32 /s dssenh.DLL

regsvr32 /s eapqec.DLL

regsvr32 /s esscli.DLL

regsvr32 /s FastProx.DLL

regsvr32 /s FirewallAPI.DLL

regsvr32 /s kmsvc.DLL

regsvr32 /s lsmproxy.DLL

regsvr32 /s MSCTF.DLL

regsvr32 /s msi.DLL

regsvr32 /s msxml3.DLL

regsvr32 /s ncprov.DLL

regsvr32 /s ole32.DLL

regsvr32 /s OLEACC.DLL

regsvr32 /s OLEAUT32.DLL

regsvr32 /s PROPSYS.DLL

regsvr32 /s QAgent.DLL

regsvr32 /s qagentrt.DLL

regsvr32 /s QUtil.DLL

regsvr32 /s raschap.DLL

regsvr32 /s RASQEC.DLL

regsvr32 /s rastls.DLL

regsvr32 /s repdrvfs.DLL

regsvr32 /s RPCRT4.DLL

regsvr32 /s rsaenh.DLL

regsvr32 /s SHELL32.DLL

regsvr32 /s shsvcs.DLL

regsvr32 /s /i swprv.DLL

regsvr32 /s tschannel.DLL

regsvr32 /s USERENV.DLL

regsvr32 /s vss_ps.DLL

regsvr32 /s wbemcons.DLL

regsvr32 /s wbemcore.DLL

regsvr32 /s wbemess.DLL

regsvr32 /s wbemsvc.DLL

regsvr32 /s WINHTTP.DLL

regsvr32 /s WINTRUST.DLL

regsvr32 /s wmiprvsd.DLL

regsvr32 /s wmisvc.DLL

regsvr32 /s wmiutils.DLL

regsvr32 /s wuaueng.DLL

sfc /SCANFILE=%windir%system32catsrv.DLL

sfc /SCANFILE=%windir%system32catsrvut.DLL

sfc /SCANFILE=%windir%system32CLBCatQ.DLL

net start “COM+ Event System”

Jan132012

Creating your own custom-length ethernet cable using a crimping tool

Although ethernet cables are commonly sold as fixed lengths such as 3 or 5 meters, manually shortening the cable is a simple and cheap process!

Excess cable is always a minor health and safety concern as someone could easily trip over an unmanaged cable.

What you will need:

  • RJ45/Cat5e Crimping tool
  • RJ45/Cat5e Connectors
You can buy both pieces of kit for a total of less than £5! (Amazon.co.uk)

Lets get started!

Use the smaller blade on the crimping tool to strip the ethernet cable and expose the 8 internal cables.

Striping the cable

 Once the internal cables are exposed you will need to untangle them and rearrange them into the correct order, this is the most important stage as the finished ethernet cable will not function if this is not done correctly.

Starting from the left; White and Orange, Orange, White and Green, Blue, White and Blue, Green, White and Brown, Brown.

Separating the cablesArranging the cables

Once you are certain that the cables are arranged correctly, trim the cables to the same length using the second blade mounted on the crimping tool.

Trimming the cables

After trimming the cables we are now ready to insert them into the RJ45 connector.

Inserting the cables into the connector

When inserting the cables, it is important to ensure that the clip on the connector is facing downwards and that you apply enough pressure so that each cable is in contact with the relevant pin at the end of the connector.

Cables inserted inside the connector

The final step is to “crimp” the connection. This ensures that the cables will maintain a connection with the pins.

Insert the connector into the RJ45 slot on your crimping tool (It will only fit into the correct one, the middle slot in my case.) and apply pressure on the handles until you hear a clicking sound.

The crimping!

Now all you need to do cut the cable down to the desired length and then crimp the other end!

Jan42012

Microsoft take Comet to court for selling counterfeit copies of Windows

Microsoft have just announced that they are to sue the UK electronics chain Comet for allegedly selling over 94,000 illicit copies of Windows XP and Vista (although probably mostly XP!!)  to unsuspecting retailers when purchasig new PCs. The pirate media was supposedly created in a Hampshire manufacturing base. Microsoft said:

 

“As detailed in the complaint filed today, Comet produced and sold thousands of counterfeit Windows CDs to unsuspecting customers in the United Kingdom,” said David Finn, associate general counsel, Worldwide Anti-Piracy and Anti-Counterfeiting at Microsoft. “Comet’s actions were unfair to customers. We expect better from retailers of Microsoft products — and our customers deserve better, too.”

 

This legal wrangle comes as Microsoft step up their efforts to thwart the pirates from releasing their Windows 8 2 weeks before the official launch – as DrinkorDie did with Windows 95 back in the day.