The 2011 Volkswagen Jetta that we get in the United States is a different animal than the one enjoyed throughout Europe. European Jettas are fitted with a multi-link rear suspension setup, upgraded wiring harness to handle more complex optional features and more upscale interior materials. Why don't we get these things? The main answer is cost. Strong sales would show that the Jetta is in high demand, meaning Volkswagen could realistically introduce the upgraded European features by way of a mid-model change, perhaps by 2014. Will it happen? Somehow, we tend to doubt it... but a lot can happen in three years.
Source : Autoblog
Web farm framework has in built extensibility to work with any load balancer. The intent of this article is to show how you can use a load balancer like F5. Integration with a load balancer like F5 is great with WFF because it allows you to simplify the management and deployment of your web farm (in presence of a load balancer) without having to do these operations manually. These benefits and provisioning details are discussed in more details in WFF detailed walkthroughs. Through its extensibility model, the Web Farm Framework is able to communicate with the F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) through the LTM's open SOAP/XML based API. This API allows WFF to make dynamic configuration changes
With the free Microsoft utilities LockoutStatus and Acctinfo of the Account Lockout and Management Tools, you can quickly access a user account’s lockout status, unlock the account, and reset the password. Source : 4sysops
Download : Microsoft’s Account Lockout and Management Tools.
Group Policy Search is a free online tool from Microsoft that allows you to find Group Policy settings easily. When I discovered the power of the System Policies in Windows NT 4, I wondered why Microsoft didn’t offer a search tool that allows to me find all policies easily. I had to wait only 15 years until I stumbled across the Group Policy Search service. Source : 4sysops
Microsoft released its very first official Office app for iPhone today – OneNote Mobile, which is available in the U.S. iTunes app store only and free for a limited time. OneNote Mobile for iPhone is a note taking and organizing app. It allows you easily create and edit notes that can include text, photo and list. With automatic SkyDrive cloud sync capability, you can always keep your OneNote notes up to date on your iPhone, and access them from anywhere – your phone, your PC and browser. Source : LiveSide.net
Ashley McGlone has a great script up for merging GPOs together through powershell. I wish I had this script five years ago. At the time I was searching for a way to combine or merge GPOs, but there simply wasn’t a way to do it. And today there still isn’t a way to do it… until POWERSHELL! Almost every environment I see (including my own former environment) has a collection of GPOs that have evolved over time and really need to be consolidated and cleaned up. In Windows Server 2008 R2 we released a new PowerShell module for Group Policy administration. I haven’t seen much written about it, and I don’t think many people realize it is there.
Excellent wrap-up of DFS on non-MS OS Hi all, Ned here again. I’ve been asked a few times if other operating systems can utilize DFS Namespaces running on Windows Server. It’s a sticky wicket; as a “voice of Microsoft” my statements carry a lot of weight - deserved or not. It’s not smart or ethical for me to say that something not made by Microsoft works well, works better than something else, or doesn’t work at all. In some cases, lawyers may be summoned from Vhoorl. Complete article : Ask the Directory Services Team
Earlier this summer I blogged about IIS Express. IIS Express is a free version of IIS 7.5 that is optimized for developer scenarios. We think it combines the ease of use of the ASP.NET Web Server (aka Cassini) currently built-into VS today with the full power of IIS. Specifically: It’s lightweight and easy to install (less than 5Mb download and a quick install) It does not require an administrator account to run/debug applications from Visual Studio It enables a full web-server feature set – including SSL, URL Rewrite, and other IIS 7.x modules It supports and enables the same extensibility model and web.config file settings that IIS 7.x support It can be installed side-by-side with the full IIS
WSUS Offline Update is a free portable tool that allows you to download updates for Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7, and all Office versions and install those updates on computers with no Internet connection. Source : 4sysops
IIS 7.5 Express is a simple and self-contained version of IIS 7.5 that is optimized for developers. IIS 7.5 Express enhances your ability to develop and test web applications on Windows by combining the power of IIS 7.5 with the convenience of a lightweight web server like the ASP.NET Development Server (also known as Cassini). The benefits of using IIS 7.5 Express include: The same web server that runs on your production server is now available on your development computer. Most tasks can be done without the need for administrative privileges. IIS 7.5 Express runs on Windows XP and all later versions of Windows. Many users can work independently on the same computer. Download details Internet Information Services
Migrate Web applications between IIS 6.0 and IIS 7.0 with ease Synchronize your server farm efficiently Package, archive and deploy Web applications more easily
For more information, see the following articles: Web Deployment Tool Overview Installing the Web Deployment Tool Source : Bink.nu
Microsoft also is releasing the 1.0 version of its free, open-source “Orchard” content-management system (CMS). Like WebMatrix, Orchard’s goal is to require users to do less coding, making the product appealing for a less techie audience, Microsoft is hoping. Source : www.zdnet.com
Ref : orchardproject.net
The free Microsoft tool WSUS ClientManager allows you to add Windows workgroup computers to a WSUS server. To add multiple computers to WSUS, you can use the REG file that WSUS ClientManager creates. Source : 4sysops.com
Download : wsusworkgroup.codeplex.com
I was recently talking with some good friends about tips for performance and what an IIS Administrator could do on the server side. I also see this question from time to time in the forums @ http://forums.iis.net . Of course, you should test individual settings in a controlled environment while performing load testing before just implementing on your production farm. IIS Compression enabled (both static and dynamic if possible, set it to 9) If you are running IIS 6, check this article out by Scott...(read more) Source : The Official Microsoft IIS Site
Planning guide for server farms and environments for Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 Planning guide for sites and solutions for Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010, Part 2 Capacity planning for Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 Source : microsoft.com/downloads
This is a list of free e-books that are useful for Windows administrators. It will be regularly updated. Source : 4sysops
GDism ELDI is a free GUI for DISM of the WAIK (Windows Automated Installation Kit) that allows you to manage WIM images. GDism ELDI Source : 4sysops
Organizations are always on the prowl for cost-effective storage solutions. In a number of previous posts, whenever a free storage product is mentioned, TechRepublic members frequently suggest FreeNAS as an alternative to StarWind, Openfiler and other software storage solutions. By its name, FreeNAS is a free solution. In this gallery, FreeNAS will be installed as a virtual machine and provisioned as a Windows file resource using the common internet file system (CIFS) storage protocol. Source : TechRepublic
