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MS Outlook authentication fails after Ubuntu 12.04 upgrade

John Sorensen — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 20:30:23 +0000

After upgrading to Ubuntu 12.04 my MS Outlook 2007 (installed in wine) started failing to log in and kept prompting me for credentials and eventually after being entered in too many times locking my Active Directory account. After looking at the logs I saw that the issue stemmed from NTLM which was upgraded during the distro upgrade and started defaulting to NTLMv2 instead of NTLM.

To correct this issue I did the following:

1) Open smb.conf (in Ubuntu it is located in /etc/samba/)
2) Add “client ntlmv2 auth = no” to the networking section.
3) restart winbind. ($ sudo service winbind restart)

That’s all, enjoy.

Remove “Safely remove hardware” icon from 2008R2 server on vSphere5

John Sorensen — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 16:39:01 +0000

I have 3 identical Windows 2008R2 server VMs hosted on an vSphere5 server for testing a Citrix XenApp 6.5 deployment. After a few weeks I noticed that one server had the “safely remove hardware” notification icon. Anyone could see the possible problems that something like this could have. The other 2 servers did not have this icon which was odd seeing they all came from the same template. After much time spent on google and many forums and trying many things (mostly registry editing) nothing worked on removing this icon. I eventually found a work around that did remove that pesky notification Icon. What I did that actually worked in removing the icon was I had to manually edit the VMs config file (“servername”.vmx). At the end of the config file I added:

devices.hotplug = “false”

After booting the VM backup the icon was gone.

Here is the VMWare KB article:
Disabling the HotAddHotPlug capability in ESX/ESXi 4.x and ESXi 5.0 virtual machines

Citrix ChangeUser Mode Batch Script

John Sorensen — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 15:20:35 +0000

I wrote this to assist the helpdesk at my work for when they install something or make changes to our Citrix enviroment. We have been using it for a long time and thought I would share, plus its always a good reference of how to use “choice” in bat files.

What this does is first check for admin rights and if admin rights are found then queries the current mode. It then offers 4 choices, 1 – Install mode, 2 – Execute mode, 3 – Cancel and Exit, and 4 – Query Current Mode. If install mode is chosen the mode will be set to install until enter is hit which places the server back into execute which works well if installing many software packages.

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:: Change Citrix User Mode
@echo off

:: check if run under local admin account
IF NOT EXIST C:\Users\Administrator\*.* echo Must be run under local admin account.
IF NOT EXIST C:\Users\Administrator\*.* echo If available right-click and select "Run as administrator"
IF NOT EXIST C:\Users\Administrator\*.* echo Script will now exit.
IF NOT EXIST C:\Users\Administrator\*.* pause
IF NOT EXIST C:\Users\Administrator\*.* exit

C:
echo.
echo ******************************************************
echo ** ATTENTION!!! Must be ran with Admin credentials **
echo ******************************************************
echo.
echo.
echo Current Citrix User Mode is:

change user /query

echo.

echo Choose a Mode:
echo.
echo 1 - INSTALL Mode
echo 2 - EXECUTE Mode
echo 3 - Cancel and Exit
echo 4 - Query Current Mode

choice /C:1234

IF errorlevel 4 goto QRY
IF errorlevel 3 goto CNL
IF errorlevel 2 goto EXE
IF errorlevel 1 goto INS

#------------------------------------------

:EXE
change user /execute
echo **********************************
echo **** SERVER IS NOW IN EXECUTE ****
echo **********************************
echo.
PAUSE
CLS
echo Current Citrix User Mode is:

change user /query

echo.

echo Choose a Mode:
echo.
echo 1 - INSTALL Mode
echo 2 - EXECUTE Mode
echo 3 - Cancel and Exit
echo 4 - Query Current Mode

choice /C:1234

IF errorlevel 4 goto QRY
IF errorlevel 3 goto CNL
IF errorlevel 2 goto EXE
IF errorlevel 1 goto INS

#-----------------------------------------------

:CNL
exit

#----------------------------------------------

:INS
change user /install
echo **********************************
echo **** SERVER IS NOW IN INSTALL ****
echo **********************************
echo **** When finished making ****
echo **** changes press "Enter" ****
echo **********************************
echo.
echo Press enter to return to Execute Mode
pause
change user /execute

echo.
echo **********************************
echo **** SERVER IS NOW IN EXECUTE ****
echo **********************************
echo.
pause
cls

echo Current Citrix User Mode is:

change user /query

echo.

echo Choose a Mode:
echo.
echo 1 - INSTALL Mode
echo 2 - EXECUTE Mode
echo 3 - Cancel and Exit
echo 4 - Query Current Mode

choice /C:1234

IF errorlevel 4 goto QRY
IF errorlevel 3 goto CNL
IF errorlevel 2 goto EXE
IF errorlevel 1 goto INS

#--------------------------------------------

:QRY
CLS
echo Current Citrix User Mode is:

change user /query

echo.

echo Choose a Mode:
echo.
echo 1 - INSTALL Mode
echo 2 - EXECUTE Mode
echo 3 - Cancel and Exit
echo 4 - Query Current Mode

choice /C:1234

IF errorlevel 4 goto QRY
IF errorlevel 3 goto CNL
IF errorlevel 2 goto EXE
IF errorlevel 1 goto INS

Why Linux doesn’t come with a defrag utility

John Sorensen — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 18:02:59 +0000

A while back I tried to explain to someone why I am never really concerned about the need to defrag my linux systems, well at least not nearly as much as any windows system. This site is one of the simplest explanations I have seen so far.

Why doesn’t Linux need defragmenting?

PSN Backup and Running… for the most part…

John Sorensen — Sun, 15 May 2011 23:57:26 +0000

As most know by now the Sony PlayStation Network started being restored last night. As of now it appears that most of the US is up but there are reports that some users are still having problems changing their password, for example me. I updated my system but then when I tried to change my password I received the error “80710D36″. I tried several times and just kept getting the same error. After I did a bit of googling I returned back to my PS3 and tried it again and it allowed me to change my password. So it appears, I am guessing, that the servers are just being overloaded so my advice is to just keep trying. There was mention of an email being sent out but I never received one nor needed it to change my password. Another explanation being floated around is that PSN is being attacked again. Hopefully it is just a simple DDOS attack and not something more sinister. If that is the case then something further may need to be done to secure the network or at least catch the “hackers” causing all the headaches. But once again I hope that is not the case and the errors are just caused by the load of users trying to access the network at one time. Keep your fingers crossed I guess.

For more info checkout PlayStation Blog – May14th

PSN Timeline update

John Sorensen — Tue, 10 May 2011 18:43:29 +0000

Patrick Seybold, a Sony spokesperson has cleared up a “rumor” that PSN would not be up until May 31st as reported first by Bloomberg. Seybold is stating that no such date has been announced and that they are trying to restore functionality as quickly as possible. Today, May 10th, Seybold released a statement on the PlayStation Blog saying “At this time, I can’t give you an exact date, as it will likely be at least a few more days.” A few days compared to 20 days is a big difference. Hopefully by next weekend at least basic functionality will be up but as most have learned by… don’t hold your breath.

PlayStation Blog – PSN Restoration Timeline Update

Sony is not the only company with problems…

John Sorensen — Tue, 03 May 2011 17:50:14 +0000

Sony’s press release today notified users that along with PSN being compromised their SOE services were compromised as well. They are unclear if they stem from the same incident or the SOE findings were just a byproduct of researching the PSN incident.

To keep this whole “Sony fiasco” in perspective a good place to look is DataLossDB. One example, and the largest data breach known, shows that Heartland Payment Systems, a credit card processor had 130,000,000 (yes that is 130 MILLION) records stolen in 2008. If you look long enough at DataLossDB you soon come to realize that no company, industry or organization is safe. Hell, even the New York Yankees had a breach on April 27th.

Check out DataLossDB

PSN Outage – Day 12

John Sorensen — Mon, 02 May 2011 20:13:43 +0000

Sony has been trickling out information bit by bit but mostly to combat all the rumors swarming on the web and twitter. The newest press release from Sony released today (5/2/2011) talks mostly about the rumors of a database containing credit card information being up for sale. Sony says that this is false, at least to the best of their knowledge. Another point/clarification made in the press release was in regards of the psn user passwords. It turns out that the passwords were not stored in “plain text” but stored as hash values. I personally think if they would have mentioned this in the initial press release it would have saved many of us some headaches. Granted, using hash is not “hacker” proof but at least its something.

Unfortunately Sony still has not come out with a firm date when PSN will be back except saying it would be back sometime this week.

Sony Playstation Blog – Press release 5/2/2011

PSN Outage – Day 7

John Sorensen — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 13:33:17 +0000

Even though the PSN network has been down for 7 days it was only yesterday that Sony admitted that the worst case scenario has happened, user information was obtained during the breach. The breach took places between the 17th and 19th of april allowing the attackers almost two days to obtain what they wanted before Sony shutdown PSN. As an Admin I can understand why they had to shutdown but as a PSN user I am frustrated and now hearing that possible credit card info could have been obtained makes me (and many others) mad as hell. I mean come on… it’s Sony, out of most company’s you would think that this one would have had the proper security in place but apparently not.

So now me along with 75 million other users sit and wait, wait for the outage to be over with, wait for another SLOW response from Sony, wait for another vague update, wait for Sony to rebuild PSN (what ever the hell that means), and most importantly wait to see if my credit card info is at risk.

For more info…
Sony Blog Update – 4/26
Sony PSN Q & A
Sony PSN Outage Update 4/26

Geek.com – What to do….

NDR 550 5.4.4 from Exchange

John Sorensen — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 21:12:16 +0000

A few users at my company randomly receive NDR’s Containing the information below when they send to a recipient not on our domain…

Generating server: YOURSERVER.YOURCOMPANY.COM

IMCEAMAILTO-someone+40remotedomain+2Ecom@YOURCOMPANY.COM
#550 5.4.4 ROUTING.NoNextHop; unable to route ##

Although I do not know why and it happen’s so rarely that I am not worried about it I thought I would at least post the fix in case I forget, like I said, it rarely happens.

To change/fix it do the following…

Open Contact Email Setting:

Next you will see a box similar to the one below. The email type must be set to SMTP.

VMware: Can not add ESX 4.1 host to vCenter 4.0

John Sorensen — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 18:43:33 +0000

If you try to add an ESX 4.1 server to a vCenter 4.0 server one of two things will happen. First the initial connect will succeed but shortly after being connected the host will disconnect with no visible errors. If your lucky the second thing you may see is the actual error “A general system error occured: internal server error: vmodl.fault.HostCommunication”.

Unfortunately the only way to solve the problem (that I know of) is to upgrade the vCenter to 4.1, but beware… 4.1 is x64 only and as far as I know there is no 32bit version. If you do decide to upgrade remove host and then re-add as you normally would.

Personally, I am just going to reformat the server and install ESX 4.0 and perform the vCenter upgrade at later date then upgrade all the ESX servers.

Shutting down ESX guest from command-line/ssh

John Sorensen — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 20:00:19 +0000

This can be done through the Service console or through SSH.

The path to the configuration file will referred as . This get be obtained by using the command ” vmware-cmd -s listvms”

1) log into the esx server that the guest is located. (I use SSH personally)

2)Run the following command to get a list of the register guests config files on the esx server
vmware-cmd -s listvms

Output would look like:

[root@ESXHOST ~]# vmware-cmd -s listvms
/vmfs/volumes/4ba33211-381fb8d0-bc97-0010186458a2/GUSET1/GUEST1.vmx
/vmfs/volumes/4ba33211-381fb8d0-bc97-0010186458a2/GUSET2/GUSET2.vmx
/vmfs/volumes/4ba33211-381fb8d0-bc97-0010186458a2/GUSET3/GUSET3.vmx
/vmfs/volumes/4ba33211-381fb8d0-bc97-0010186458a2/GUSET4/GUSET4.vmx
/vmfs/volumes/4ba33211-381fb8d0-bc97-0010186458a2/GUSET5/GUSET5.vmx

3) Verify the state of the guest before attempting to shutdown.
vmware-cmd getstate

Output would look something like “getstate() = on” if the guest was on.

4) To perform a “soft” shutdown use the following:
vmware-cmd stop
To perform a “hard” shut down use:
vmware-cmd stop hard

If the virtual machine does not power off, it has likely lost control of its process. You need to manually kill the process.

Caution: The following is to be used only as a last resort option. This could cause issues with either the guest or even the host.

To determine if the virtual machine process is running on the ESX host, run the command:

# ps auxwww | grep -i .vmx

The output of this command appears similar to the following if the .vmx process is running:

[root@ESXHOST ~]# ps auxwww | grep -i GUEST1.vmx
root 16035 0.0 0.1 58648 728 pts/0 R+ 14:52 0:00 grep -i GUEST1.vmx
root 24502 0.0 0.2 3152 1228 ? S s May03 0:18 /usr/lib/vmware/bin/vmkload_app –sched.group=host/user /usr/lib/vmware/bin/vmware-vmx -ssched.group=host/user -# name=VMware ESX;version=4.0.0;buildnumber=208167;licensename=VMware ESX Server;licenseversion=4.0 build-208167; -@ pipe=/tmp/vmhsdaemon-0/vmx363998c9947311ce; /vmfs/volumes/4ba38321-381fb7d0-bc97-1010186458a2/GUEST1/GUEST1.vmx

The first output line can be ignored because this is the process info from the actual command ran.
The process ID (PID) that we are looking for in this example is 24502 (in bold). Take note of this number for use in the following steps.

Caution: Ensure that you identify the line specific only to the virtual machine you are attempting to repair. If you continue this process for another virtual machine the one in question, you can cause downtime for the other virtual machine.

If the .vmx process is listed, it is possible that the virtual machine has lost control of the process and that it must be stopped manually.
1. To kill the process, run the command:
# kill
2. Wait 30 seconds and check for the process again.
3. If it is not terminated, run the command:
# kill -9
4. Wait 30 seconds and check for the process again.
5. If it is not terminated, the ESX host may need to be rebooted to clear the process.

List all DB’s along with size for SQL Server 2000/2005

John Sorensen — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 18:53:26 +0000

For backup reasons I needed a list of all the MS SQL databases along with the size of each DB on our MS SQL servers. To do this log into the SQL server and go to SQL Enterprise Manager and select the server you need to query under “SQL Server Group”. Once highlighted goto “Tools” then select “SQL Query Analyzer”. In the query window type the following:

EXEC sp_helpdb;
GO

Once entered press the F5 key to submit the query. After completed you can either manually select the data you would like to copy or save as.

Format and Partition a Second Hard Drive in Linux – (ext3)

John Sorensen — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 18:10:36 +0000

For the purpose of this example, a second hard drive was installed into a Linux system where the drive is recognized as /dev/hdb. Only one partition will be made in the following example./dev/hdb1.

fdisk

First, you will need to run the fdisk command in order to partition the disk. For this
example, I only want to create one ext3 partition. Here is an example session:

[root@linux2 etc]# fdisk /dev/hdb
Device contains neither a valid DOS partition table, nor Sun, SGI or OSF disklabel
Building a new DOS disklabel. Changes will remain in memory only,
until you decide to write them. After that, of course, the previous
content won't be recoverable.

The number of cylinders for this disk is set to 4865.
There is nothing wrong with that, but this is larger than 1024,
and could in certain setups cause problems with:
1) software that runs at boot time (e.g., old versions of LILO)
2) booting and partitioning software from other OSs
   (e.g., DOS FDISK, OS/2 FDISK)

Command (m for help): n
Command action
   e   extended
   p   primary partition (1-4)
p
Partition number (1-4): 1
First cylinder (1-4865, default 1): 1
Last cylinder or +size or +sizeM or +sizeK (1-4865, default 4865): 4865

Command (m for help): t
Partition number (1-4): 1
Hex code (type L to list codes): 83

Command (m for help): w
The partition table has been altered!

Calling ioctl() to re-read partition table.
Syncing disks.

Create ext3 File System

The next step is to create an ext3 file system on the new partition. Provided with the
distribution is a script named /sbin/mkfs.ext3. Here is an example
session of using the mkfs.ext3 script:

[root@linux root]# mkfs.ext3 -b 4096 /dev/hdb1
mke2fs 1.27 (8-Mar-2002)
Filesystem label=
OS type: Linux
Block size=4096 (log=2)
Fragment size=4096 (log=2)
4889248 inodes, 9769520 blocks
488476 blocks (5.00%) reserved for the super user
First data block=0
299 block groups
32768 blocks per group, 32768 fragments per group
16352 inodes per group
Superblock backups stored on blocks:
        32768, 98304, 163840, 229376, 294912, 819200, 884736, 1605632, 2654208,
        4096000, 7962624

Writing inode tables: done
Creating journal (8192 blocks): done
Writing superblocks and filesystem accounting information: done

This filesystem will be automatically checked every 36 mounts or
180 days, whichever comes first.  Use tune2fs -c or -i to override.

Mounting the File System
Now that the new hard drive is partition and formated, the last step is to mount
the new drive. For this example, I will be mounting the new hard drive on
the directory /db.

NOTE: You will first need to create
the /db directory before mouting the disk! (e.g. mkdir /db)

What I typically do is to edit the /etc/fstab file and add an entry for the
new drive. For my example, I will create the /dev/hdb1 entry as follows:

LABEL=/                 /                       ext3    defaults        1 1
LABEL=/boot             /boot                   ext3    defaults        1 2
none                    /dev/pts                devpts  gid=5,mode=620  0 0
none                    /proc                   proc    defaults        0 0
none                    /dev/shm                tmpfs   defaults        0 0
/dev/hdb1               /db                     ext3    defaults        1 1
/dev/hda2               swap                    swap    defaults        0 0
/dev/cdrom              /mnt/cdrom              iso9660 noauto,owner,kudzu,ro 0 0
/dev/fd0                /mnt/floppy             auto    noauto,owner,kudzu 0 0

After making the entry in the /etc/fstab file, it is now just a matter of
mounting the disk:

[root@linux2 /]# mount /db

[root@linux2 /]# df -k
Filesystem           1K-blocks      Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/hda3             37191660  11016692  24285724  32% /
/dev/hda1               101089     12130     83740  13% /boot
none                    515524         0    515524   0% /dev/shm
/dev/hdb1             38464340     32828  36477608   1% /db

Error 1606 when upgrade to Backup Exec 13 (2010)

John Sorensen — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 19:46:04 +0000

When attempting to upgrade to Symantec Backup Exec 2010 from Backup Exec 12 error 1606 is given and “barks” about access to a network location. This occurs when Backup exec has previously been upgraded, for example from 11 to 12. For some reason the install is looking at the an older upgrade version which causes it to fail. The fix for this can be found on Symantec’s website but they provide a link to the “Windows Installer Cleanup Utility” that has been discontinued and is no longer available from Microsoft. Also… don’t let the “Network Location” fool you, it seems that the location can be pointing to several different places which caused some un-necessary reading on symantec’s (garbage) knowledge base site.

Symantec Knowledge base article – http://seer.entsupport.symantec.com/docs/346798.htm
(Also posted below)

Windows Installer CleanUp Utility – http://majorgeeks.com/Windows_Installer_CleanUp_Utility_d4459.html

Document ID: 346798

http://support.veritas.com/docs/346798

Upgrades to Backup Exec 2010 fail with “FATAL ERROR: Error 1606.Could not access network location \IDR\Data.”
Details:

The above failure occurs on systems that were previously upgraded from another version of Backup Exec. The issue is caused by the Microsoft’s Installer (MSI) database listing multiple installations of Backup Exec, which causes the 2010 installer to default to the older version of Backup Exec when looking for the upgrade files.

For Example, a user who upgraded from Backup Exec 12.0 to 12.5 may see this if both versions of Backup Exec are listed in the MSI database.

The issue can be resolved by performing two steps:

1. Download the Microsoft Uninstall tool and remove the older version of Backup Exec from the MSI database – http://support.microsoft.com/kb/290301

2. Change the following registry key to match the version of Backup Exec which you are currently upgrading from:

Warning: Incorrect use of the Windows registry editor may prevent the operating system from functioning properly. Great care should be taken when making changes to a Windows registry. Registry modifications should only be carried-out by persons experienced in the use of the registry editor application. It is recommended that a complete backup of the registry and workstation be made prior to making any registry changes.

HKLM\SOFTWARE\Symantec\Backup Exec For Windows\Backup Exec\13.0\Install\Upgrade Version

Possible Values:

Backup Exec Release Product Version

BEWS 11d 6235 11.0.6235.0

BEWS 11d 7170 11.0.7170.0

BEWS 12.0 12.0.1364.0

BEWS 12.5 12.5.2213.0

After performing these two steps, the upgrade should complete as expected.

Excel opens blank spread sheet

John Sorensen — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 15:45:50 +0000

This happens when something dealing with the file associations with excel stop working correctly. I am not sure what the exact cause is but I have only seen this in Citrix environments with Office 2007 installed. Opening spreadsheets through the excel program itself works correctly but trying to open a spreadsheet by opening the file through explorer or though a shortcut wont work.

To fix the problem…

1. Go to the folder options in control panel and select the “File Types” tab.

2. Navigate to the “xlsx” extension and click advanced. Under actions highlight “Open” and click “Edit”.

3. In the “Application used to perform action” box verify that the path to the excel executable is correct and then remove any switches that come after it. You will probably have to remove something like “/dde” or “/n” for example.

4. Once removed add /e “%1″ so that the box should read something like what you see below:
“C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12\EXCEL.EXE” /e “%1″
NOTE: the “” around %1 are important.

5. Now uncheck “Use DDE”. Click OK and close out of all windows.
NOTE: if you reopen the advanced settings for the “open” action you will see that the DDE option has been re-checked off even though you un-checked it. This is ok.

If this works you will need to repeat this process for all of excels extensions that are affected like “csv” and “xls”.

Verizon’s Worry Free Guarantee.. not so free – UPDATED

John Sorensen — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 13:19:07 +0000

I finally received the HTC Incredible from Verizon and at first sight the phone is great. Besides having to get used to a new interface I really have no major complaints, only minor ones, except for the fact that they shipped me a defective phone. I noticed the first when talking it the persons voice on the other end sounded like they were talking into a tin can. I tried it on speaker phone and it worked and sounded perfect. I updated the tower information by dialing *228 but that dint help. Over the past few days it has just gotten worse so I finally called Verizon to have it returned for a new one. The first tech support person I spoke to said that swapping the phone should not be a problem seeing that it is with in the first 30 days and still falls under the “worry free guarantee” and it should be free. She then transferred me to the next level tech support person who said the same thing, that is until he went to enter it into the computer. After about 30 minutes of “can you please hold” he finally came back and told me that it was NOT free. That I had to pay a restocking fee of 35 dollars. He thought it was a mistake in the system and checked with his supervisor who said that it was not a mistake. I was not happy about this to say the least and he offered a few other alternatives all boiling down to returning the phone and waiting again to get a new one. I told him I just wanted a phone to actually work and to just charge me then. Because he felt bad, I guess, he put 150 minutes on my account.

Give it to Verizon to find a way to screw me over… again. After all the delays with the incredible then to send to a defective one is crap but then to throw salt on the wound and charge me a restocking fee… Verizon is a joke. To bad AT&T’s network is crap or I would have ditched this company along time ago.

UPDATE – 6/8/2010

Well its been over a week now since I called about getting a replacement and still no fedex guy. When I spoke with the verizon rep last week he said I should have it by last Thursday… well its now Tuesday and nothing. I guess I will have to call AGAIN!

Infected with net.net virus

John Sorensen — Tue, 25 May 2010 16:12:16 +0000

It has finally happened, last night I was infected with the net.net virus. I was searching some forums, not sure which ones, and out of no where java errors started exploding on my screen while images were loading. That is usually never a good sign and I knew something was up. I closed my browsers and opened task manager and saw some oddly named processes. Then a popup notice appeared saying “Windows defender” was deactivated… also not a good sign. I then turned to “msconfig” to see if any new items have been added to my startup. I saw “net” was now in my startup programs. I than went into my “system32″ folder and sorted by date to look for any files that have been created with the past few minutes. I saw a program by the name of “net.net” along with a dll file named “ernal32.dll” (notice the missing “k”) plus an executable file that’s name appeared to be random generated and all were created with in the same time frame, a minute apart, and very recently. I immediately moved the files to a different location and renamed them, just in case by some chance they were system files I didnt just want to delete them. I then removed the “net” from startup and rebooted. After reboot no new files were created.

Now before I go any further let me explain that I did not have a anti virus installed… I know… I know. Even my wife gave me crap about it. I did have trend installed at one point but then it expired and I upgraded my laptop to win7 and just never got around to it, and again I know, not an excuse. Well so I then proceeded to attempt to go and download “Microsoft Security Essentials”, I have heard actually some pretty decent things about it and thought I would give it a try but when going to the down load page I would get an II7 error saying the file did not exist. Umm… ok, that wouldnt be the first time I had problems downloading something from Microsoft so I went to Trend Micro and tried to use there online scan tool called Housecall. After downloading I tried to install it but then received some odd errors. I tried to then install spybot and that to failed saying that the site could not be contacted. At this point I knew something was very wrong and even though I removed the virus, at least I thought so, something was still not right. I checked my host file to see if any changes were made and found that in tact but saw a new ICS file has been created. Because I was short on time and didn’t want to deal with it all that point I did a system restore because I had no idea what else could have been changed in my system files. Luckily I had a restore point from the night before and I made no changes since then so I knew it would be ok to restore to that point. After the restore I was “mgically” able to download and install “Microsoft Security Essentials”. I scanned my laptop and found one virus and cleaned it out. I did also run “Housecall” from Trendmicro which showed no infections.

What was probably the most disturbing about this was that besides going to a webpage (a legit web dev forum) there was no other interaction needed for this virus to do its work. Most of the time I see people with popups or some other request for interaction. This required none of that. Even though I have seen it before his is the first time I have had this happen to me so my lesson has been learned. It doesnt matter if your vigilant and careful when surfing the web or not, if you dont have an antivirus installed your at risk.

If you need more detail then what I provide on removing “net.net” you can find them every where… just Google it. But if you have a restore point then use that followed by a full system scan with a reputable antivirus. I chose “Microsoft Security Essentials” simply because it is free and even MS critics have nothing bad to say about it. Additionally you may want to use a free scanning service like Trends “Housecall” for a second opinion. I have always been a big fan of Spybot as well, for spyware though, not viruses.

Still Waiting HTC Incredible!!! – UPDATED

John Sorensen — Mon, 24 May 2010 14:55:01 +0000

I ordered the HTC Incredible on May 10th from Verizon online. When I ordered it through the Verizon website it said that it would be shipped out on the 21st. The 21st and no email from Verizon with a tracking number so I called to speak to a rep and they were unable to give me a ship date. The rep’s best guess was that it could possibly be shipped on June 1st, 11 days after the original ship date and a month after I actually ordered the phone. When I checked the order status on the site before today I would see a message stating “will be shipped in 2 to 3 business days”… well this has changed. The message now states “will be shipped based on inventory availability”

So I paid for a product that has NO ship date. I dont understand what Verizon’s thinking is behind this. If you don’t have product in stock then don’t sell the product or at the very least provide an accurate date on when the product will be shipped. Don’t provide me a date then just not ship it with out any notice or consideration. I hate paying for something that I cant see, cant touch, cant use.

UPDATE – 5/26/2010

Well it finally arrived today. 5 days after the original ship date. Now bare in mind that I had it Fedex “over night” so if I did have it shipped the normal ground shipping it probably would have been another 5 days. But when all is said and done… the phone is awesome. In the little time that I have used I already was able to setup my accounts for email and IM, find and download the apps that I needed to replace the ones I used on my iTouch. Now its time to just play with it. I might write a post in few days about what I think about it if people ask me too.

Backup Exec 12 Stays Queued

John Sorensen — Thu, 06 May 2010 13:42:49 +0000

Now there are MANY reasons why Backup Exec will go into a “queued” status but in this case I was running a SQL backup job that was backing up to a “Backup-to-Disk” folder located on a external (My World) WD harddrive. In an attempt to resolve the issue I tried restarting the services, reinstalling the agents, and rebooting the server itself, formatting the external drive. One if not all of these normally does help but sometimes they will not and the job will go back (and stay in) a queued state when the job is ran. For some reason from time to time this will happen when ever attempting to backup to external drives using “Backup-to-Disk” folder.

The only fix I have been able to find that actually works is creating a new “Backup-to-Disk” folder and then reconfiguring the job to use the new folder.

I still have not figured out why this happens (yes I looked at events) and if anyone has any insight on possible reason please share them with me because, to put it bluntly, its annoying.

When I have time to look further into this I will update the post with my findings.

Backup Exec Release	Product Version
BEWS 11d 6235	11.0.6235.0
BEWS 11d 7170	11.0.7170.0
BEWS 12.0	12.0.1364.0
BEWS 12.5	12.5.2213.0