Wired for Wireless

This covers, how and why build a wireless antenna, what cable to use and why.

Antenna simulation, this is actually more interesting and fun than it sounds. Radio is complicated, I am not proficient enough at physics to teach the theory or explain why radio is the way it is.

What I will try to do is show what I have done so far and what works and where I failed.
Before you even consider making antennas, learn to solder. Now we need to get some proper cables for wireless.

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Enable RDP to XP Desktops on W2K3 Domain

Enable RDP to desktops on domain.

This allows domain users to RDP into their workstations, this uses workstation RDP and NOT terminal server license connections.
You will need:

W2K3 > with ad configured and installed.
WXP
PSexec

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MYSQL – Importing SQL

Say you have a mysql server and have a long list of sql files to import in a specific order. Some files are 20kb some are 400Mb phpmyadmin will keel over and die, all that stress is just unnecessary.

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Crapware – Acer Laptops

Crapware, poor products that are made to carry out some task or function very poorly.

This is my hate list, I really despise these products. If you are a manufacturer of these products please contact me how I am failing at using your product.

I don’t mind Acer, well I do. Bluetooth, ACER fix it !

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Crapware – Any Computer With VISTA Preinstalled

Crapware, poor products that are made to carry out some task or function very poorly.

This is my hate list, I really despise these products. If you are a manufacturer of these products please contact me how I am failing at using your product.

Would it be possible to have a disk with your new laptop/desktop and just install Vista ?

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Crapware – Lexmark x9575

Crapware, poor products that are made to carry out some task or function very poorly.

This is my hate list, I really despise these products. If you are a manufacturer of these products please contact me how I am failing at using your product.

Right now I am configuring a Lexmark X9575 all in one printer. It’s more like failing at configuring.

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Messing about with XP user profiles

Migrating to AD can be a pain, creating new users, migrating the profiles and settings.. oh dear – and keeping your users happy. If you have a small office with about 10 computers/users, there is an easy hack to make the users keep their profiles.

    1. The procedure involves you creating the user accounts in AD;
    2. Adding the computers to the AD;
    3. Giving users full permissions of the profile folder they want to keep so for example “%SystemDrive%\Documents and Settings\andy”
    4. Editing the registry;
    5. Log in with the new username;

      NOTE: these profiles are local computer profiles – they are not roaming profiles.
      OK, join the computer to AD and create a username for the computer user, “andy” for example. Now log into that computer as a domain admin and give “andy” full control over “%SystemDrive%\Documents and Settings\andy”

      Now log into that computer as “andy” the domain account so he gets a uid generated and a profile created – this will be an empty profile.

      Profile generation for AD will create a new profile folder similar to this

      "%SystemDrive%\Documents and Settings\andy.000"

      Log onto the computer as admin again, now go to start > run > regedit > hit enter:

      Now go to: HKLM>Software>Microsoft>Windows NT>CurrentVersion>ProfileList

      here you will find all of the profiles on the computer, the nubers indicade uids, find the uid that has the same “ProfileImagePath” variable as your new domain user account for “andy”

      "%SystemDrive%\Documents and Settings\andy.000"

      now replace this with the local user account profile folder

      "%SystemDrive%\Documents and Settings\andy"

      Reboot the computer and let andy log in with his domain account, all of the profile settings will be there as before joining AD.

      Experiment – may be you find some more hacks.
      Please do tell me if anything is unclear.

      VMWare Trickery

      I use vmware server, it’s brilliant. Here are some reasons to use it.

      • Testing slipstreamed Windows disks (service packs and drivers);
      • Configuring messy software like msSQL, without it crippling your computer;
      • Recovering a backup image ghost/true image to recover some files/settings;
      • Running almost any operating system and no dual boot mess;
      • Preparing for and testing vpn, ssh, pki, deployment;
      • Consolidating servers, have apache2 ubuntu, mssql xp, active directory 2003, all running on the same box. Centralize management and backup policies.

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      netsh: Administrators friend

      Resetting the TCP/IP Stack

      For XP/2003
      Go to start > Run > type “cmd” press enter > then type the following:

      netsh int ip reset resetlog.txt
      

      For Vista
      Go to start > Run > type “cmd” press enter > then type the following:

      netsh int ip reset
      netsh winsock reset
      

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      CleaningComputers on a Windows Domain – [Lazy ADMIN]

      Lately I have been cleaning up too many computers and need to find a way of automating everything.

      A post by “StreamlinePanda” @ Piriform forums (ccleaner people) http://forum.piriform.com/index.php?showtopic=14936

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