Or, “Why You Really Need to be More Serious About Your Disaster Recovery Program” I believe that most people would agree with the following statement: “No business, school, or non-profit, wants their organization to collapse due to unrecoverable technical issues.” Seems like a no-brainer, right? Well, as true as that … Read More
Protecting Your Data from Ransomware: Cryptolocker and Locky
As an IT service provider, there is no more chilling phone call from a client as “The accounting system is broke and we cannot open our Microsoft Office files either.” A quick login and file check stumbles upon some of the worst evidence of a ransomware attack you could ever … Read More
Google Chrome – “Class Not Registered” Error
I recently ran into a situation where one of our school customers was planning on doing some standardized testing (the FORWARD exam) and the Google Chrome browser application they needed to use for the testing suddenly wouldn’t start for a number of users. The error was: I had not seen … Read More
How to upgrade VMware tools and hardware for Cisco virtual servers
In this article we look at how to upgrade VMware Tools and Virtual Hardware for Cisco CM, PLM, and UC virtual servers. Upgrade your VMware vSphere environment if applicable (outside the scope of this guide) Once your VMware vSphere environment is upgraded, logon to your VMware vSphere Web Client and … Read More
Windows 10 Servicing Branches
Windows 10 is looming large on the horizon for many enterprises as they look to refresh their desktop estates. Understanding what is new in Microsoft’s flagship operating system is vital to making the correct deployment decisions. Unfortunately, as with Microsoft’s arcane licensing terms, understanding the new “servicing branches” in Windows … Read More
How to Balance Security and Compliance
Businesses of all sizes not only face increasing security threats but also greater regulatory compliance requirements. Here are some strategies to help find a balance between Security and Compliance and align your information security activities with your industry/regulatory compliance requirements. Security and Compliance Despite considerable efforts within the information security … Read More
“Help! My Outlook Contacts Are Missing!”
Imagine this scenario… A Microsoft Outlook user gets a new computer. Everything is loaded and it works great. After several minutes of using their new computer, the user shrieks in horror, “All my Outlook Contacts are missing!” You confidently but sheepishly point to the Contacts part of their Microsoft Outlook … Read More
Finding and Removing Old Computer Accounts in Your Active Directory Domain
Any server administrator that works with Windows Server and Active Directory can tell you that it’s not uncommon for Active Directory to be littered with old and stale data, including old computer accounts. It doesn’t matter whether your organization is a small business running a single server or a large … Read More
My Default Domain Policy and Default Domain Controller Policy are broke!
At some point in a consultant’s travels, they will come across group policies that nightmares are made of. Let’s quickly talk about one of those things that happens all too often; modifying the Default Domain Policy and Default Domain Controller Policy. In general, the recommendation is to leave the Default … Read More
Is your data protection policy protecting your employees and students?
It seems like a regular occurrence these days that we’re hearing about a company’s employee records or customer data getting stolen by hackers. Well-known companies like Blue Cross/Blue Shield, Home Depot, Target, Anthem Insurance, and others have fallen prey to data protection breaches that resulted in private information getting stolen. … Read More
Application Analysis and End-User Experience part #2 – picking your poison
In the first part of this article, we discussed the reasoning behind the rise in popularity of client-side metrics, application analysis tools and quantification of the user experience. User expectations are changing, and the focus of monitoring should be equally divided between client and server, rather than weighted towards the … Read More
BrainStorm K20 – that was amazing!
This year’s BrainStorm K20 conference in the Wisconsin Dells was positively electric as education technologists from across the Midwest gathered together to connect, inform, and inspire. We sure hope your school or school district had the opportunity to attend! It was truly an amazing experience! The focus for Source One Technology … Read More
How to Convert VMware VMDK Files Into Hyper-V VHD Files
I use a MacBook Pro in the field daily and find myself needing to spin-up some home-brewed Windows and Linux virtual machines quickly. To accomplish this, I prefer to build and maintain several VM’s utilizing VMware Fusion Pro on my Mac. Granted; VMware Fusion is “I believe” an inferior product … Read More
Application Analysis and End-User Experience part #1 – why should I care?
Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Attributed to Winston Churchill, this quote has a particular resonance for IT projects. Over the past fifteen years or so, near enough every project I have worked from has suffered from the same problem – that there is … Read More
Does 802.11ac Wave 2 wireless require replacing your old copper cabling?
The short answer to that question is, no. Explaining why, however, that’s where things get really interesting… It’s also one of those explanations that require a person to understand the real-world throughput in real-world scenarios for wireless environments, instead of just listening to all the marketing buzz and fancy technical … Read More
How web browsing is crippling your infrastructure & compromising security
Ask anyone what the most resource-intensive applications on their end-user devices are, and you will normally receive a laundry list of software with heavy graphical or number-crunching output. ArcGIS, Solidworks, Google Earth, AutoCAD – these are normally the sorts of culprits one would normally expect a systems administrator to name … Read More
Update Windows Server 2012 R2 KMS host to allow Win 10 activations
Ready to deploy Windows 10 on your domain but still need to update your Windows Server 2012 R2 KMS host so it can successfully activate the clients? Here are the steps needed to make that happen. Prerequisites Your Windows 2012 R2 server must have Microsoft update 3058168 installed (https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3058168) as a prerequisite … Read More
Network Resource Availability and Data Integrity
Part 2 of our Network Remodeling / Redesigning / Restructuring services series In my previous post Active Directory Design, Optimization, and Automation we discussed how your organization’s Active Directory design acts as the core system in which most other network functions stem from. In this post Network Resource Availability and … Read More
An ounce of monitoring – a pound of prevention
With an ever increasing amount of technology, networks, servers and solutions, it becomes more important to monitor all aspects of our systems. Network monitoring gives us a real-time picture of the health and maintenance requirements of our systems and assists us with IT performance troubleshooting. Over the years, we have investigated … Read More
Using the SonicWALL SSL VPN With Windows Domain Accounts Via RADIUS
Setting up the SonicWALL firewall for using SSL VPN is pretty simple, even when it comes to utilizing Windows Domain Accounts via RADIUS authentication. The following article is a step by step guide how to configure the firewall and Windows Servers to accomplish this. Configure Windows Server for RADIUS authentication … Read More
First crack at BrainStorm 2016
Source One Technology, Inc. is proud to announce our participation in Wisconsin’s preeminent conference for the K-20 educational sector. This will be our first time at BrainStorm 2016 (17.0). The three-day conference, which runs between February 28th and March 1st, has a Vendor Expo that is only 4 hours. The rest … Read More
The Quirks of Windows Server 2012 R2 In-Place Server Upgrades
There are basically two approaches when it comes to server upgrades for going to Windows Server 2012 R2 – performing an in-place upgrade, or creating a new server and migrating over the applications/data. While some administrators are adamant that proper server upgrades –must- be done this way, or that way, … Read More
Using PRTG to Monitor Windows Server Backup
While PRTG (available at http://www.paessler.com) has many cool sensors available out-of-box for monitoring valuable network and server related data, unfortunately, it doesn’t have an easy way to monitor the Windows Server Backup service on Windows 2008 R2 and Windows 2012 R2 servers. Today, many small and medium businesses, and even … Read More
Network issues: sometimes it’s the little things that cause the most trouble
Everything in IT is based on something else. We always want to have the newest, latest, greatest technology; Replicating our files shares between two offices, Wi-Fi, VPNs for working from home, Email on our smartphones, etc. There seems to be a bit of magic in a lot of these new technologies. … Read More
Active Directory Design, Optimization, and Automation
Part 1 of our Network Remodeling / Redesigning / Restructuring Services series Active Directory is the central repository for nearly all networks today. Some of the most important roles it is responsible for are: end-user authentication, security, and the ability to automagically control how servers, client computers, and end-users are provisioned … Read More
Network Remodeling / Redesigning / Restructuring Services – Overview
This multi-series blog post will be an overview of Source One Technology’s network remodeling/redesigning/restructuring services. This series will give you insight on the network management tools and protocols Source One Technology uses, how future maintenance costs are actually reduced, and how your network infrastructure can easily adapt over the course … Read More
How does the ‘PC Guy’ buy a laptop?
Family, friends, students and customers ask me this all the time… “I need a new computer; what should I get?” Often times, it seems like they are expecting an answer that is filled with meggerbites and giggerhurts. Introspection sets in when I actually ask – What do expect to do … Read More
Using PRTG to Monitor Your Available DHCP Leases
How many times do we as network engineers get frustrated when one of our DHCP scope ranges gets dangerously close to running out of available lease addresses, or worse yet, actually runs out of available DHCP addresses, and we start getting calls from the helpdesk asking why people can no longer … Read More
Jumping on the Windows 10 bandwagon
On July 29, 2015, Microsoft released their latest version of Windows – Windows 10. This is a new foray into a delivery system of software called “SAAS” (Software as a service.) All legitimate licensed owners of Windows 7, 8, 8.1 were given one year to upgrade. So naturally, the first … Read More