I recently had two fully patched Win Server 2008 R2 servers that were failing PCI scans using the McAffee Secure online service. IIS Crypto made short work out of what would’ve been a longer after hours change. It even has a PCI button that you can just click and it configs the server for compliance. Saved me a ton of work. Microsoft needs to start turning this off by default though and maybe even ask if you want it turned on, just a thought for the guys at Redmond.

In a unique twist, even after verifying the registry keys were correct after running the tool, McAffee still complained about the problem after a post-change scan. Qualy’s SSL Site Analyzer, a nifty and free online tool, actually passed it with flying colors. Another interesting venture of theirs is the HTTP Client Fingerprinting Using SSL Handshake Analysis project, which produced a mod for Apache and some other interesting reads at the bottom of the page, enjoy.

First, I set the built in error action variable to stop on any error, even non-terminating ones:

$ErrorActionPreference = "stop"

Then I use this code block to trap the error and send an email.

# Capture any execution errors and email.
trap {
$body = $_|out-string
Send-MailMessage -To "Your Email <youremail@yourdomain.com>
" -From "From Email <fromemail@yourdomain.com>
" -subject "Script Execution Error" -Body $body -priority High -smtpserver mail.yourdomain.com
break
}

SQLPSX – Powershell extensions for working with SQL. This is way better than instantiating your own SQL objects in your scripts. It’s free and you can’t beat that.

NetCmdlets – Excellent additional cmdlets with a ton of extra functionality to add to Powershell. I’ve been using it a lot for it’s built in S/FTP abilities and it works great. Although it’s not free, a single license won’t break the bank.

Powershell IIS Snap-in – I’ve been using this Microsoft-produced snap-in to create scheduled backups of IIS 7 configs, and it can be used for much more.

Also check out the Powershell User Groups site @ powershellgroup.org to find a PS user group in your area.

The group offers membership on a company basis only but hopefully one day they’ll open it to individual membership. However, they’re currently offering a Transitional membership for those between jobs. You can check out their Benefits page to learn about everything they have to offer members.

One of the great things about the group is their huge involvement in helping kids, especially the Boys & Girls Club, who recently named them Corporate Sponsor of the Year. They’ve provided computer labs, mentoring programs, and scholarships to hundreds of local youth. As of last year, they’ve given out 17 scholarships totaling over $54,000. This is already an impressive achievement and they plan to ramp this up in the future.

They’ve held the annual Tech Jam event since 2002, and this year is a return to their original party theme which featured a Battle of the Bands. Dubbed the “Summer Party with a Purpose”, they’ve invited the local technology community to join them August 26th, 2010 at the Ritz in Ybor City starting at 5:30pm. Groups competing in the battle will be playing live music while attendees network and participate in a silent auction, enjoy cocktails and food, and raise money for at risk youth in the Tampa Bay area. The event is sponsored by Bright House Networks, Veredus, and CIBER.  Anyone is invited to attend and there will be a door charge that is still being finalized.

Lori Taylor, VP of Marketing and Operations for the group, says they’re getting ready to announce the process for bands to apply and the musicians will be from local technology companies.  At least one band member must be a TBTF member.  They’re also in the process of collecting items for the silent auction and will know more of what will be available in July or August.  She also noted they’re seeking silent auction donations, sponsorships, and volunteers for the event. Those interested in participating can contact Deanne Langton at (813) 341-8283 or dlangton@tbtf.org.

I plan to attend the event for a follow up article on its sure success. TBTF has done a huge amount of inspiring work in the local Tampa area, and here’s to seeing them reach their goal in 2015!

Clearly this trend will only continue, with our work and homes dominated by a growing reliance on technology. Only time will tell if this is a good or bad thing of course, with technology providing everything from communication and news, mobile computing , business applications, and ways to stay instantly connected to friends, family, and even work. What will the future hold? What will be the next great technological leap? Will Google take over the world? Will there ever be anything that trumps the mainstay Windows operating system?  What will the next killer app be, and wouldn’t you like to be the one that turns it into a household name? Post your thoughts and ideas! Feed the ether!

The top ten is below and you can view the full list here:

But how do you know which version of the site/app you’re looking at is if you don’t have a way of identifying it? Worst case scenario, you could accidentally change code for a QA site when it really should have been the dev site if you’re not careful. Using different URLs is a typical choice but that can result in wild variations that are just plain ugly, disorganized, and sometimes end up being ridiculously long or making no sense.

Since users depend on DNS to resolve URLs, a great trick to differentiate between these environments is implementing zones to distinguish one from the other. You can create zones for each part of the process, allowing development and other teams to use the same URL for every environment/system, avoiding different and confusing names. This makes things trivial to identify, for example;

site.lab – Lab
site.dev – Development URL
site.qa – QA
site.uat – UAT
site.reg – Regression
site.com – Production

Match the URLs on the server side and everything is nice and neat. The possibilities are endless and keeps a tidy, organized, uniform URL scheme across the infrastructure that easily identifies things and takes very little time or effort. You can take this a step further with your database designs on the backend, use Active Directory domains for added features and security, and even match your system names. Granted there are plenty of other ways to accomplish this, but the zone method doesn’t require a lot of work and is visually simple for the end user. What methods do you use for this purpose? Post to discuss!