Jun
3
Hosting FTP server on windows or linux
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There is some discussion going on internally regarding the ftp services at a client’s site. ftp is currently hosted at an isp as a paid service they have asked us to bring internally in order to save money. Other staff have exclaimed that it should be hosted on a linux server, no doubt because of security and strongly advocated against using windows to host this ftp service. I on the other hand don’t mind windows and using iis to host a public ftp server. I know many of you out there will gasp at this (mostly blackhats) but I think there are other things to worry about first in terms of security and this isn’t one of them. As long as windows patches are religiously applied and passwords regularly changed, that should be good enough. The tool is already there and its part of windows so it doesn’t make sense to provision another server with another OS that will just sit in a corner outside of the domain under everyone’s radar. My take is that we should take all precautions to block out intruders but not at the expense of cost, ease of use, and ease of implementation.
What do you think?
Jun
1
Commuter Challenge
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In our never-ending quest to help the environment, AMIN Solutions always show our support for alternatives instituted by others to keep a green earth. We believe we have the most effect because we usually need to drive to get to our clients for our professional on-call services and our monthly maintenance services.
With this commutter challenge, we will try and reduce our carbon footprint by taking public transit to/from client sites.the only real challenge is getting to one of our clients in aldergrove. There must be bus service to that office. Also, we will push for remote control access to systems instead of going onsite. We can definitely do this for all our on-call support issues.
Here is link to the commutter challenge website for more info Http://www.commuterchallenge.org
Mar
25
We at AMIN Solutions HQ are again participating in the earth hour 2009 movement by shutting down all computers, monitors, printers, and our lights for 1 hour this coming Saturday at 8:30pm. More info at www.earthhour.org. How hard can it be without a computer for 1 hour? I’m sure I can manage but what about mobile devices like blackberies. I wonder if they count because I am addicted to it and would probably not last an hour without it.
Mar
25
Free web hosting
Filed Under Services | Leave a Comment
Everyone is looking to save money these days. If you can avoid paying monthly fees to host your website, then why not? There are a lot of hosting sites out there just like the one I am using here at 110mb.com. Use web redirection and masking if you want to use your own registered domain name. If you want a quick site without installing scripts, use google’s blogger. Check out these two sites, completely setup using blogspot.com - www.lutongpinay.com and www.smartchoicetreatment.com. You can hide the navigation bar at top and include your own favicon so that you don’t see the blogger icon in the URL. Its fairly easy to setup and is free. Let me know if you need more info on this.
Jan
30
Vista Ultimate looks good
Filed Under Training | Leave a Comment
We recently completed upgrading all the computers at a client’s site to Dell Studio Hybrid running Vista Ultimate and MS Office 2007. This was a complete change for everyone at the office. I showed everyone the basics like:
-changing the desktop background;
-changing the logon picture;
-alt+tab (2-dimensional) is replaced by WindowsKey+tab (3-dimensional);
-using the Dell dock to keep desktops uncluttered and auto-hiding it;
-using the Google sidebar to add gadgets like weather, maps, news, etc;
-changing the start menu to classics WinXP if desired;
-location of Printers group in Control Panel;
-adding shortcut icons in MS Office suite on the top bar such as open file, save, save as, print, quick print, print preview, and spell-check.
I also redirected them to a couple of online tutorials that are free. Free tutorials are hard to come around http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/en-CA/default.mspx and http://www.learnthat.com/software/learn/1159/Free_Microsoft_Windows_Vista_Tutorial/page/1
Immediately after the upgrade, one of the users somehow inverted their entire desktop upside down. I helped the user by forwarding them this tip below. I thought this was just hilarious but it can happen to anyone.
ctrl+alt+right key = screen rotated 90° to the right
ctrl+alt+down key = screen rotated 180° (upside down)
ctrl+alt+left key = screen rotated 90° to the left
Jan
22
I received the following videos for participating in a survey so I thought I might as well spread the wealth. These are learning videos and show you how to drive more traffic to your site. There are 10 videos and they explain SEO, use of keywords, pageranks, etc. It’s important to understand SEO because it doesn’t matter how great looking your site is if no one knows it exists. Enjoy!
Video 1: What is Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?
Video 2: Understanding How the Search Engines work
Video 3: Top Search Engine Optimization Myths
Video 4: 5 Steps to improve your website Search Engine Optimization
Video 5: How To Get Listed On Google And Other Search Engines in a few days
Video 6: Overview of Free Web Site Submission to Search Engines
Video 7: How To Boost your SERPS in Google and ranking in other search engines
Video 8: Understanding What Pagerank Is
Video 9: Understanding Keywords and Keyword Strategy in Search Engines
Video 10: 5 Free Ways to get Search Engine Traffic
Dec
13
Completed 2-day Project Management course
Filed Under Training | Leave a Comment
It seems like I’ve been taking a lot of courses lately. This one ran from Dec 10-11, 2008 and was titled “Understanding Project Management”. It was a grueling two days where we covered all the concepts and best practices of project management. We covered three scenarios (lab exercises) and presented our projects individually and as part of a team. It was exhausting and I’m glad I survived it. Here is a copy of my certificate of completion and this gives me 18 credits head start if I decide to continue with my PMP designation with Project Management Institute (PMI).
Dec
12
VCP Certificate
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Not to show off too much but here is a copy of my VMWare Certified Professional certificate. Pretty proud of this because I get to use the skills I have learned in implementing enterprise features like High Availability, VMotion, and DRS. We have actually spent a lot of time with using in production and it worth taking the course and writing the exam.
Oct
28
VMware Certified Professional on VI3
Filed Under Training | Comments Off
Hurray. I passed the VCP 310 exam today with a score of 83% (passing was 70%). This was a hard exam with a lot of confusing questions. It covered VMware Converter Enterprise which I haven’t had much exposure to other than in the lab. I use VMware Converter Standard (the free edition) to convert physical servers to virtual machines and this seemed to help but a lot of it was just guess work. Other questions were vague simply because I have not used it in production, like DRS (Dynamic Resource Scheduling), HA (High-Availability), or fiber-channel LUNs. With DRS, I didn’t know what a red cluster means in the VirtualCenter inventory list, or what New Task Wizard allows you to schedule. These questions that I didn’t know peaked my interest in those topics and you bet that I’ll quickly find out what I didn’t before with some research and lab work. We are also just weeks away from implementing a full VirtualCenter installation with DRS, HA, and NFS. Getting certified in VMware allows me to fully appreciate the technology getting implemented at my other client and am looking forward to pushing it to its limits.
Oct
25
VCP 310 exam on Tuesday
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I have left it to the last moment again and I am now struggling to prepare for the VMware VCP 310 exam. The exam will be held at the BCIT campus downtown and am a little unsure what I feel about it. I took the VMware Infrastructure 3.5 Configuration and Support course beggining of the year and am now just attempting to write the exam. I have been using VMware ESX 3.0 from since then but have not had much exposure to VirtualCentre, VMotion, HA, or DRS which I am sure will be on the exam. I have all the literature and some test preparation kits so I am all set. I just have to sit down and focus.
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