IT Knowledgebase Articles

Microsoft’s newest operating system, Windows Server 2008, has only been released for a few weeks. The new OS features a new version of IIS, Server Core, Virtualization, Security, and all new Management features. Train Signal has released a 6+ hour course on DVD and is currently giving this away for free with any order. The…

Problems in Synchronizing a Pocket PC with Exchange Server 2003 when using SSL and Forms-Based Authentication in OWA As written in my other article (How to Synchronize a Pocket PC with Exchange 2003?), Exchange Server 2003 has many new features tailored for mobile users. One of them is ActiveSync which can be used to establish…

Windows 2000/XP/2003 added the ability to cache DNS lookup results in the client’s cache. This cache can be viewed by typing ipconfig /displaydns in the command prompt: Windows IP Configuration ddlnetwork.net —————————————- Record Name . . . . . : ddlnetwork.net Record Type . . . . . : 1 Time To Live . ….

As I discussed in my previous article – “Share Calendars with Local Users using Internet Publishing“, Outlook 2007 has improved calendar sharing using Office Online. You can share your calendar with everyone, or with only designated people, by publishing your Internet Calendars to Office Online. You can publish and share your calendars with others by…

How can I pre-configure the default language for the folder names inside my mailbox? If you use Microsoft Outlook Web Access to log on to a mailbox for the very first time, the following folders are always created in English: Calendar Journal Tasks Notes Contacts Only the standard Messaging Application Programming Interface (MAPI) folders are…

PowerPoint: Adding an Office Object to a Presentation Office allows referencing another Office application within a document as an icon (see Office: Adding another Document to an Office Document as an Icon) and clicking on it to open. However, when trying to implement this option within a presentation, the next slide is displayed. That is…

What TCP and UDP ports does my Exchange 2000/2003 Server use? For purposes of configuring firewalls or for troubleshooting communications issues, it may be useful to know what TCP/UDP ports Exchange 2000 Server and Exchange 2000 Conferencing Server are using. This article is also true for Exchange Server 2003 installations. Protocol: LDAP Port (TCP/UDP): 389…

Port scanning is a technique used to determine the states of network ports on a host and to map out hosts on a network. In this article, I’ll go over the very basics of port scanning with the NMAP tool. NMAP Overview Port States NMAP will categorize ports as being in one of the following…

What are the considerations for the FSMO placement in Active Directory? Windows 2000/2003 Active Directory domains utilize a Single Operation Master method called FSMO (Flexible Single Master Operation), as described in Understanding FSMO Roles in Active Directory. In most cases an administrator can keep the FSMO role holders (all 5 of them) in the same…

The concept of server virtualization has been around for quite a few years now, but it seems to just now really be taking off.  The basic idea behind server virtualization is that many servers tend to be grossly underused.  It is not uncommon for a server to only use about 10% of its hardware resources. …