Over the past year I have had to replace hard drives in computers/servers and laptops but never an iMac. I’d heard that replacing a hard drive in an iMac was quite difficult due to the reason that an iMac doesn’t have a tower, the hard drive is located behind the screen.

The client had previously taken the iMac to the Apple store and was quoted over £500 for this work to be carried out, they phoned us and we said we would take a look but couldn’t promise anything.

I had a look online at some guides/tutorials on how to replace an iMac hard drive and what I would need to complete the job.

I had a good read through the guide to get familiar with the process of the hard drive replacement, had a look what tools I needed to use to remove the glass, screws and to remove the hard drive. I had the majority of the tools in the office but had to order in suction cups as this was used to remove the glass to gain access behind the display to locate the hard drive.

Tools I needed to complete the hard drive replacement:

• Two heavy duty suction cups
• Phillips Screwdriver
• T6 Torx Screwdriver
• T8 Torx Screwdriver
• Working replacement Hard Drive

As soon as the suction cups arrived I was ready to start replacing the hard drive.

The first stage was to remove the Access Door, to do this you have to use a Phillips screwdriver and locate the screw which is under the iMac. After unscrewing the screw I then could remove the access door.

Stage 2 was to remove the glass panel, the glass is fixed into the front bezel using magnets, this is where the suction cups need to be used to lift the glass from the iMac. I had to gently lift the glass from the iMac and place the glass in a safe place.

Stage 3 was to remove the 12 screws securing the front bezel to the rear case, two types of screws are used to hold the front bezel to the rear case. This consists of eight 13mm T8 Torx screws & four 25mm T8 Torx screws.

When the screws are removed be careful not to lift it off without removing the microphone cable which is still connected to the iMac. Disconnect the microphone cable connector and remove the tape.

 iMac with front bezel removed 

Now that the front bezel is removed the LCD temperature sensor needs to be removed from its socket on the logic board. This may need to be taken from behind the logic board.

Remove two of the 5.3mm T6 Torx screws securing the data display cable to the logic board. Use the black tab to pull the data display cable from the logic board. (Bottom centre of image)

Now the screws securing the display panel to the rear case can be removed using a T8 Torx screw, these screws are 12mm in length.

When the screws have been removed you can lift the left edge and rotate it towards the right edge of the iMac. When the iMac is tilted you can see four cables these can be either disconnected or if you have somebody close by you can ask them to prop up the display panel as you should still be able to reach around to disconnect the hard drive.

As you can see the Hard Drive has been located, before lifting the hard drive out of the iMac you will need to remove the pieces of tape securing the hard drive thermal sensor cable from your iMac. Now you can disconnect the hard drive thermal sensor by pulling its connector toward the top of your iMac. In the image above you can see the hard drive bracket you need to press the top of this down to release it from the rear case. When the hard drive is released you can then remove the SATA cables & power cables from the hard drive.

The hard drive will have foam tape covering the hard drive this connects the thermal sensor, this also needs to be removed.

Now the hard drive has been disconnected you can lift the hard drive out of the iMac and remove the two T8 Torx screws securing the hard drive bracket to the hard drive.

Locate your new hard drive and reassemble the screws so it is placed back in the bracket.

When the new hard drive has replaced the old hard drive it can be placed back in the iMac and the SATA cable, power cable and hard drive thermal sensor can be connected to it.

Now its time to start putting it back together, I started off by lifting the display panel back onto the iMac and screwing the eight 12mm T8 Torx screws back on so the display panel was held back in place.

Now the display unit is in place I could attach the data display connector back to the logic board, screw the two 5.3mm T6 Torx screws back in which would then secure the data display cable to the logic board.

Last stage was then to place the LCD temperature sensor connector back into the socket on the logic board.

Before re attaching the front bezel to the iMac I decided to make sure that the hard drive was recognised by the iMac. I then had to install Mac OS onto the hard drive by using a Snow Leopard  installation disk.

I had to use disk utility to format the new hard drive to be used with a Mac OS. The hard drive was formatted to Mac OS Extended (Journaled)

After the hard drive was formatted the installation could begin:

Now I knew that the installation was successful I could then re attach the front bezel to the iMac. Make sure to re attach the microphone cable. Now the front bezel is re attached the 12 screws (Eight 13mm & Four 25mm T8 Torx screws) securing it to the rear case can be screwed back in.

After the screws are screwed back in so the front bezel is attached to the iMac the glass can then be replaced.

Last step is to replace the access door to the iMac

iMac replacement hard drive successful

iMac in working order, hard drive install is a success.

A few checks on the iMac to make sure everything was working as it should be and it was ready to be handed back to the client.

We charged less than half the price that Apple charged to replace the hard drive and the iMac was as good as new.

Thanks to ifixit for the detailed guide. http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/iMac+Intel+20-Inch+EMC+2133+and+2210+Hard+Drive+Replacement/1008/1

The post Replacing a hard drive in an iMac appeared first on Orbits IT.

Exporting Users from Active Directory

1. Open Active Directory Users and Computers on a domain controller and browse to your Users OU.

2. Open the View menu and open Filter Options…

3. Select Show only the following types of objects: and tick the Users option before clicking OK.

4. Open the View menu and open Add/Remove Columns.

5. Choose which columns you would like to display in the .csv file once the data has been exported and click OK.

6. Right click in a blank space within your Users OU and select Export List… from the menu.

7. Name your export and save as a .csv file.

The end result is a list of your Active Directory Users using the columns that you selected earlier.

Finding Inactive Active Directory Users

1. Open an elevated Powershell console on a domain controller as an Administrator.

2. Import the Active Directory module by using the command: Import-Module ActiveDirectory.

3. Use the Search-ADAccount cmdlet to search for inactive accounts. Our example searches for accounts which have been inactive for 30 days or longer. You can change the -TimeSpan parameter to use meet your requirements. Search-ADAccount -AccountInactive -TimeSpan 30.00:00:00 -usersonly | get-aduser -property name,CanonicalName | fl.

Powershell will then display the list of inactive accounts within the timeframe that you set in the command. In this example the Steve, Jed and Tempadmin accounts are inactive.

4. You can also export the results of the command to a .csv file by using the export-csv cmdlet. Example: Search-ADAccount -AccountInactive -TimeSpan 30.00:00:00 -usersonly | get-aduser -property name,CanonicalName | export-csv “C:\ADinactive.csv”.

The results are now displayed in a list which is much easier to view. We can now quickly determine that the Jed, Steve and Tempadmin accounts are enabled in Active Directory but have been inactive for at least 30 days.

We can then pass on this information to the client and they can let us know if any of the accounts need to be removed.

The post Cleaning Active Directory appeared first on Orbits IT.

Some of these systems still use Office 2003 and as it’s only Outlook we need to upgrade we needed to leave the rest of the Office 2003 suite on the PC. Some install without issues, but several times I have been hit with the following error:

“An Office 2003 installation on your computer is corrupted and setup cannot continue. Remove or repair the Office 2003 product and re-run setup”

Repairing the install made no difference.

The Fix:

Open regedit

Navigate to HKLM/SOFTWARE/MICROSOFT/OFFICE/11.0

In there you will see a folder called Delivery

*Export this entry before making any changes*

Rename the Delivery folder to xDelivery

Close regdit

You can now run the installer and upgrade Outlook to 2010 without issue

*Note: If you are using a 64x version of windows, navigate to HKLM/SOFTWARE/WOW6432NODE/MICROSOFT/OFFICE/11.0

The post Installing Outlook 2010 when Office 2003 is already installed – corrupt installation error appeared first on Orbits IT.

I arrived at the location and introduced myself to Toni, who gave me a tour of the building and introduced me to her colleagues (who were all very nice!). After the tour of the building I set up her new 27″monitor and configured it so she could have a dual display (this allowed her to then drop documents on to the secondary display while using her primary display to check her emails and carry on with day to day tasks). Toni then told me what my main task for the day would be – to build an asset register for all of the IT equipment in the building from Desktops, Monitors, Laptops, Servers, Routers, Docking stations, White boards, projectors and a new Security system.

Toni had given me a template that she had created in Microsoft Excel and explained to me the purpose of what the asset register was for and what details would need recording. I then set off to start building the asset register for her, a couple of hours later I returned back to her office to show her my progress and to recharge the battery in my laptop. Once my laptop had recharged I set off to finish the building which in total included 17 different rooms from offices to training & conference rooms. During my trip around the site I met many staff who were all willing to help when I asked them could I asset tag their equipment. I returned to Toni to give her the asset register and she was very happy with all the details that I had taken and the amount of time that it had taken me, it was a pleasure to visit there and I look forward to visiting them again in the future. On my return to the office I had an exceptionally pleasing welcome from my managers who had received the following testimonial:

“Well what a an ambassador for Orbits Dean was today, he listened to my requirements, kept me up to date on his progress and worked very well.  I would have no hesitation in welcoming him back to carry out any other duties and I would be grateful if you could also pass on my thanks to him”.

In view of this my first solo site visit proved successful. I look forward to visiting other clients.

The post Dean’s first solo site visit appeared first on Orbits IT.

The cause?

The Y2k BUG….dum dum dum….

What was the Y2K Bug?

Essentially, it was all down to the understanding that most computers used a 2 digit system for years. Instead of 1976, they understood it to be 76. All well and good until the Millennium arrives and then,  all of a sudden, computers will think they are in 00 and  ’say NO!’.

What actually happened?

Not a lot! Companies made a fortune from, and spent a fortune on becoming Y2K compliant. Some Slot Machines stopped working (but disappointingly didn’t spew winnings everywhere), and the odd bus ticket machine stopped issuing tickets. Other than that, nothing happened. That could have been because of the remedial work or equally it could have been nonsense to start with.

Well now we have a real and present threat. In a little under a year, Microsoft Windows XP will be officially dead. There will be no more updates, no more fixes and no more support from it’s parents Microsoft.

20% of UK businesses say they are planning to continue using Windows XP after this date.

So whats the problem?

Whilst Windows XP is an excellent operating system and, to a lot of people, has only recently been overtaken by Windows 7. However, like all operating systems there are security flaws and vulnerabilities inherent in the software. Microsoft regularly issues updates to fix all manner of holes, bugs and incompatibilities in their software, but only whilst that software is in it’s lifecycle. Once it’s dead to Microsoft, you are on your own.

There are no doubt organisations and individuals who are looking to exploit this opportunity and gain access to systems they know will not be patched are sitting and waiting to strike. Virus’, Malware and SPAM problems are all likely to increase as vulnerable machines become drones for BOT nets and SPAM farms by the bucket load.

The solution? For all but a select few companies, there should be no real excuse to not, at least, seriously consider Windows 7 or maybe even Windows 8.  There aren’t that many pieces of software or hardware that don’t work with Windows 7+ (you even have the built in Windows XP virtual machine functionality if you need it) anymore and those that don’t generally have a suitable, and reasonably priced, alternative that does.

If you are still using  XP and considering getting out before you become part of the XP Bug, give us a call today.

The post Remember the Y2K Bug…….you ain’t seen nothing yet. appeared first on Orbits IT.

We received a report that mail was sticking in the Outbox of Outlook 2010 and new mail was taking a while to arrive (compared to OWA where it appeared quickly). We tried several things including:

• Turning Cached mode off in Outlook
• Disabling encryption between Outlook & Exchange (not to be recommended)
• Upgrading their TP-Link TD-W8960N router firmware
• Checking broadband line for errors etc

The broadband provider identified some sync issues so they scheduled a resync on the line which could take up to 24 hours. In the meantime we fitted a temporary Draytek Vigor 2830 router in place of the TP-Link, as we know these have excellent error handling etc.

Checked in with the client the next day and sure enough all was well. Spoke to the broadband provider and they confirmed the resync had completed.

We all know you shouldn’t assume, but we assumed the line sync had sorted it and today we swapped the Draytek out and replaced the original TP-Link TD-W8960N. Did speed tests and checked Outlook connection and all was fine.

Within the hour, however, the ‘sticky mail’ issue had reappeared.

Googling shows a few people with similar issues but unfortunately no fixes. The latest firmware seems to still have the issues and as it stands we have to state that the TP-Link TD-W8960N is unsuitable for Hosted Exchange. I believe the router is closing connections which Outlook requires to be open at all times. The mail ‘sticks’ whilst the connection is reestablished (up to 5 minutes).

Needless to say the Draytek is back in and all is good with the world.

Have mailed TP-Link to see if there is a fix planned and will up date the post in due course.

Additional details:

Router Make/Model: TP-Link TD-W8960N v3

Firmware version:  1.4.0 release 111108 & 1.4.0 release 110620

Outlook version: Outlook 2010

Exchange version: Exchange 2010

If you are having similar problems, please comment with the make and model of your router and we will compile a list of affected hardware.

TP-Link TD-W8960N v3 Router

The post TP-Link TD-W8960n & Hosted Exchange – Not happy bedfellows. appeared first on Orbits IT.

Some publishers have got round this by listing their books as English, such as Euron Griffith’s ‘Dyn Pob Un’. However, Y Lolfa and other Welsh publishers don’t feel this is suitable . They believe that Amazon could help strengthen the number Welsh speakers, which has fallen from 582,00 to 562,000 since 2001, by specifically listing Welsh language books.

Garmon Gruffudd, managing director, said: “Last year we published Welsh language books on the Kindle but we listed them as English books because Welsh wasn’t a supported language.

“However this year they have refused to put them up through this route because they say that they are in an unrecognised language.”

Gruffudd has published more than 60 titles on Kindle, but has ruled out adding any more.

“It is ironic that our existing Welsh language books are there but the situation now is we can’t put any new Welsh language books on the Kindle,” he said.

“With books available in languages such as Galician, Catalan and Basque, the situation does seem bizarre.

“The alphabet is the same and there aren’t any technical reasons why they shouldn’t be able to support the Welsh language.

“They also recently accepted a book written in Cornish, although this followed a petition to get the book published on Kindle and it was listed as an English book.”

With Welsh available on other ebook readers, such as the Kobo Reader, and a petition to be set up Amazon have issued the following statement. “We are working on adding more languages through our Kindle Direct Publishing portal all the time and Welsh is one that we hope to support in the future.”

For more on this story read TheRegister

The post Kindle – the ultimate tech for reading…unless it’s Welsh you want to read. appeared first on Orbits IT.

The hacking effort is using a dictionary attack to brute force the passwords of the default administrator account.

We have several recommendations owners of any content managed website should take, but especially WordPress sites as these have been the focus of the attack:

• Passwords should be strong. Ideally that means randomly generated, 10+ characters in length and include both upper and lower case, numbers and special characters (!#@?&*^%$;+£).
• Change the username of the administrator account so it is not the default (or other common names including, admin, administrator, root, test, wordpress).
• Restrict the rate of login attempts. By defulat there is no limit to the number or speed with which login attempts can be made, we recommend using either mod_security or a plugin like Better WordPress Security.

If you have a WordPress Maintenance Plan with Orbits, we have already taken these steps and your site should be safe. If you’d like any help maintaining or securing your site, just drop us a line, or call us on 02920 003313.

This particular attack doesn’t seem to have targeted vulnerabilities in the WordPress software or any particular plugin, but it’s wise to keep your installation up to date as out of date systems are always a target for hackers.

More information is available at PC Magazine and some technical details at Securi.

The post WordPress website admin account passwords being brute forced appeared first on Orbits IT.

You look like  you are sending SPAM

With SPAM being a problem for everyone in this day and age, there are more and more systems out there which are looking for servers sending SPAM. If these systems consider your server to be the source of SPAM it will get listed on their database and will become ‘blacklisted’. This means that any other email systems that use these databases for SPAM protection will consider your server a source of SPAM and you will find your mails get rejected or quarantined. Quite often you will receive a ‘bounceback’ explaining the mail couldn’t be delivered. This is an autogenerated email from the recipients server telling you that it has been rejects for whatever reason.

Sending mass mails is a sure fire way of getting flagged as a SPAMMER.

You can quickly and easily check if your server is blacklisted here:

Check for Blacklisting

You could be slowing your server and internet down

If you send one email to 50 people, 50 emails leave your server. If that email is just text then you probably won’t notice it. However, if that email has attachments and – as was the case with one client – the email is 5mb in size, your server has to send out 50 emails at 5mb in size or effectively it has to send 250mb of data out in one go. This is a whole lot of data for any system and on a slower internet connection it can bring things to a crawl whilst it tries to process it. If you send this amount of data AND you are ‘blacklisted’ then you will find you have 50 bouncebacks then trying to come in to your system – slowing things down even more.

You are probably breaching guidelines and regulations

SPAM is such a problem that most countries have regulations and guidelines for electronic communication. The most common act you need to adhere to is the Can-SPAM act, which is a US act but recognised internationally. This act states:

1. Refrain from using false or misleading header information. Your “From,” “To,” “Reply-To,” and routing information – including the originating domain name and email address – must be accurate and identify the person or business who initiated the message.
2. Don’t use deceptive subject lines. The subject line must accurately reflect the content of the message.
3. Identify the message as an ad. The law gives you a lot of leeway in how to do this, but you must disclose clearly and conspicuously that your message is an advertisement.
4. Tell recipients where you’re located. Your message must include your valid physical postal address. This can be your current street address, a post office box you’ve registered with the U.S. Postal Service, or a private mailbox you’ve registered with a commercial mail receiving agency established under Postal Service regulations.
5. Tell recipients how to opt out of receiving future email from you. Your message must include a clear and conspicuous explanation of how the recipient can opt out of getting email from you in the future. Craft the notice in a way that’s easy for an ordinary person to recognize, read, and understand. Creative use of type size, color, and location can improve clarity. Give a return email address or another easy Internet-based way to allow people to communicate their choice to you. You may create a menu to allow a recipient to opt out of certain types of messages, but you must include the option to stop all commercial messages from you. Make sure your spam filter doesn’t block these opt-out requests.
6. Honor opt-out requests promptly. Any opt-out mechanism you offer must be able to process opt-out requests for at least 30 days after you send your message. You must honor a recipient’s opt-out request within 10 business days. You can’t charge a fee, require the recipient to give you any personally identifying information beyond an email address, or make the recipient take any step other than sending a reply email or visiting a single page on an Internet website as a condition for honoring an opt-out request. Once people have told you they don’t want to receive more messages from you, you can’t sell or transfer their email addresses, even in the form of a mailing list. The only exception is that you may transfer the addresses to a company you’ve hired to help you comply with the CAN-SPAM Act.
7. Monitor what others are doing on your behalf. The law makes clear that even if you hire another company to handle your email marketing, you can’t contract away your legal responsibility to comply with the law. Both the company whose product is promoted in the message and the company that actually sends the message may be held legally responsible.

Unless you are putting a lot of effort into ensuring your emails are in compliance, they probably aren’t.

I still need to send mass mails, so what’s the ‘proper’ way of doing it?

The easiest way of sending mass mails and still being Can-SPAM compliant is to use a dedicated mass mailer service. There are many around but Orbits prefer Mailchimp for its ease of use and price – ie Free. We have used it for all of our email marketing and newsletters and without fail it has performed as expected.

Try Mailchimp

If you really must use your own email server for mass mailing, then we would recommend sending your mail through an authorised SMTP server, otherwise known as a smarthost. Sending your mail through one of these servers means that you are not risking your own server being blacklisted and if the smarthost is configured properly it should ensure your mail reached the intended recipient. If you do use one of these services, try to break your mailings down into blocks of 30 or less contacts or you may find the service restricts you automatically.

Orbits IronClad email system has a 100% clean smarthost as part of the package.

Try Orbits IronClad email

The post Email marketing & Mass mails. How to do it properly. appeared first on Orbits IT.

Jargon

Jargon isn’t necessarily bad, in technical and scientific industries it’s essential to convey a specific meaning. Management speak, though, is a type of jargon more often used to cover up wooly thinking or attempt to make the author sound clever. It rarely works.

For business writing, the audience usually isn’t part of a specific technical community and everyone appreciates it when buzzwords are avoided. I was recently told off (quite rightly) for using the phrase “low-hanging fruit” during a meeting. It would have been better to say “do the easy stuff first”.

Most people avoid the most irritating phrases like “let’s touch base”, “paradigm shift” and “blue sky thinking”, but it’s easy to slip into the kind of language the Plain English Campaign fights to avoid. Here is a short list of management speak and what to say instead:

AvoidUse

Unnecessary words

Soon after the low hanging fruit incident, I was inspired to write this post when we spent several hours proof reading the text for our relaunched website and found plenty of unnecessary words or badly phrased sentences.

If the meaning of the sentence isn’t changed, removing intensifiers like really or absolutely, and superlatives like fantastic will make the text crisper and read better.

Sounds salesy and waffly

Orbits offers a fantastic Hosted Exchange service, with enormous 25GB mailboxes and includes incredible support absolutely free.

Punchy and to the point

Our 25GB Hosted Exchange mailboxes come with free support.

There is lots more information at the Plain English Campaign, including examples like this:
Before

High-quality learning environments are a necessary precondition for facilitation and enhancement of the ongoing learning process.

After

Children need good schools if they are to learn properly.

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