In an attempt to get 2 customers VPN’ed both being non-Profits, I had the privilege of buying a Mac-Mini to replace the Mac G5 they had that already had L2TP/iPSec working already. You turn it on set a password or two, allow the traffic through the firewall and … well it is done (its a Mac- that is why people are obsessed with them) .

The other customer likes Macs now too but their server is a Windows Based one – so now we can start from anywhere. So after a few consultations – it seems PPTP is the easiest to set up and use by everyone, but even MS does not recommend and favours iPSec – it now provides it as a client option natively.

Other questions I had were – do I install it on the server? As an endpoint through a router? As the router? PfSense is a clear winner as a router or endpoint for the price (just buy it preinstalled on an appliance was geek inc’s advice. But I have another close associate that LOVES OpenVPN and has had clients on it for years running successfully. Here is my journey and some GREAT links (remember – that is what this blog is all about – links for you and I to refer to and use)

Continue reading →

General

• Setup server DNS if you have to – tools below to check
• Turn on VPN (L2TP and PPTP is what i did)
• Make Open Directory Users …
  • and group if you are using sharing and assign these users to the group
• PPTP?
  • Setup different NON local users in Open Directory
  • then set the services they have access to.
  • Great video here.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gG8HcsQuyjI
• L2TP – local users can access using this protocol
• unblock ports and port forward ports router
  • PPTP TCP 1723 with Protocol 47 or “GRE”
  • L2TP UDP 500
  • http://support.apple.com/kb/ts1629
  • http://blogs.technet.com/b/rrasblog/archive/2006/06/14/which-ports-to-unblock-for-vpn-traffic-to-pass-through.aspx
  • use ipchicken.com to get your ip address

  Set up your client – this is SUPER article with the tweaks and pitfalls to watch out for – scroll down to the client setup part

Here is the nitty gritty. Continue reading →

An SBS server for one of my clients is constantly filling up with IIS logs and now 20GB Sharepoint logs (they don’t use IIS but it was running), update WWUS files for the client computers and share point files (I just found out) and no one uses that either. The drive recommendation at one point in time was 60GB and a good friend of mine who sets up servers recommended this size, set up the server and it has been running for some time now. The is annoyingly the 3rd time I have done drastic steps to reduce the size. Lets see if this one lasts.

Reduce size by:

• installing apps on another drive (Program Files) upon install
• turn off IIS logs
• move your WSUS data to another drive (lots of links for that one on google)
• move your sharepoint dB files!!!
• don’t recommend windows without a yearly service agreement if your a consultant or don’t work for non-profits as an IT person if you have a bleeding heart

How I found large files the upshot is the linked article below helped get rid of a 20GB sharepoint log file … Continue reading →

Error received:

please run sandisk secureaccess from a sandisk external device

just unplug, plug into a diff port and try again. Seems to work. I learned it from the last post here.

So the code in theory is super slick – just use a StringWriter and HtmlWriter and in 2-5 commands it is downloaded to the client (see this link and the caveats that people use to get things working!). NO SUCH LUCK HERE. The main reason is that I have 2 columns with buttons in them at the front – the whole grid is DYNAMICALLY created by myself in the code (that is not included below). The c# code is included below.

So using some other researching I found a couple of concepts that worked together. I am sure there are some other optimizations but this worked.

First, I converted the GridView contents to a DataTable and for all columns 3 or more columns over I filled the datatable. Thanks to this fellow. Because the Gridview has all the source info including column headers etc. it works out great. Continue reading →

Some articles as i collect them are:

• Actually referencing and making diff. levels work together
  • same recommendation as the link above (w. 433 upvotes) – useLegacyV2RuntimeActivationPolicy
  • and again but with a little more if you scroll down (I see a pattern here)
  • a few good links exist with this article as to what useLegacyV2RuntimeActivationPolicy does
    • msdn article on  <startup useLegacyV2RuntimeActivationPolicy…>
    • why it was done
• Background on CLR (major release and side-by-side) vs. upgrade to a CLR (inplace upgrade)

Putting HTML in bulleted lists seems quite straightforward until you try it. The items only accept text and html is rendered as text so you don’t get the html – you SEE the html. OK – so some digging turned up the following useful links. These are good for the same items but I need dynamic html different in one item than the other so I am doing it with html and a div or something.

These links will no doubt prove useful for repeating items that are the same.

• General Discussion telling you what control to use and when
• Using SQL as a datasource (which is what I am doing anyways)
• Good article for more than just repeaters – Five ASP.NET Controls You Might Be Craving

Google had informed them “recently received a notification from Google stating that our website has unnatural links pointing towards [zoho]. This has really damaged our Keyword rankings on Google …” and to remove the links. It was my recent article on a topic about them and some links to them that solved – what should be quite simple but it is QUITE HARD actually and I had been victorious.

Here is an article to help with a redirect that made me clear up Google crawling errors.

What? No – I am not going to remove any links! This is a website is all about STORING LINKS for myself and others reading this. Continue reading →

Optimizing these large tables DOES NOT WORK. It corrupts them and you have to talk to tech support to get backups restored. Even when you ssh into the server and do it “command line.” I reminded myself of this yesterday when I optimized a table forgetting the better way.

First, back up the sluggish table. It had lots of overhead – this is a hint. Another way to back it up, is to copy it to a new table. Here’s how (don’t do this from phpmyadmin because it will for sure time out). I use a mac so I have sequel_pro AND SET THE TIMEOUT  TO 1000 seconds or more in the preferences. If you have access to ssh into the machine – even better.

[sql]</pre>
CREATE TABLE xxx_backupddd_nnn LIKE xxx;
insert into xxx_backupddd_nnn SELECT * FROM xxx;

RENAME TABLE xxx TO xxx_overheadddd_nnn;
CREATE TABLE xxx LIKE xxx_overheadddd_nnn;
INSERT into xxx SELECT * FROM xxx_backupddd_nnn;
<pre>

[/sql]

In my case xxx is the table and ddd_nnn the date and attempt such as 20140303_1.  I run each command line by line and carefully look at the output. Sometimes the server times out even after 1/2 seconds so be watchful.

No tech support phone call or $15 backup recovery fee required. Really – that is not bad for a recovery fee.

So I have had LOTS of attempts to get into a password protected MS 2010 Access database and most people online say it cannot be done (the advice in many google’ed articles) , however one guy gave me the hint to get this solved for me in “Answer 4”.

Scenario:

1. I am connected to SSMS on domain #1 called F which is a SQL Server on Domain D
2. MS Access file is on Domain D on the c drive c:\Temp\dB123.accdb (this c: drive is the one where the SQL Server is running)
3. In SSMS, I made a new Linked Server using the GUI Continue reading →