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Interesting new blog propped up by MSDN ... Think we're going to get bloggage from the Hack0rs that work for M1cr0s0ft ;-) Worth bookmarking and keeping an eye on this one.
http://blogs.msdn.com/hackers/
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SCCM2007 is now RTM!
Wow, cannot wait to start administrating this product in production. Happy days!
Rather than redo what's out there, I might as well link straight back to Rod Trents posting that qoutes Bill Anderson
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Here's a scenario, which most of you will hopefully NEVER encounter!
- You're SMS environment is both centrally and locally managed.
- You have SMS Administrators at the top tier watering the hierarchy, making sure it's all green-lighted and healthy.
- You have admins at some of the down-level sites maintaining their sites health
Now say that the Centralised support model is rejected by the local site, but they won't disconnect from you're hierarchy, and you do not have the rights or permission to disconnect their site.
You want them out of the hierarchy!
You could purge them from the DB with a preinst /DELSITE, but eventually they will pop back up in the database after they replicate to their Parent site.
Here's a cool way to drop them like a bad habit! It's so simple it's laughable!
Remove the offenders Address from the Sender, then change the SMS_SITE share to either block their computer account (Advanced Security) or the Service Account (Standard Security) they are using. That simple!
Then purge them from you're DB with a PREINST /DELJOB and a /DELSITE and forget about them. At least, until they call regarding the Site Status\Component Status\SMS_LAN_SENDER component, complaining about Access Denied status messages appearing hehe!
Any other novel ways you've come across for blocking down-level child sites from communicating???
I know, best practice is to disconnect them, but as in the above example, sometimes reality doesn't meet with theory :-<
Had some good feedback on this, thanks guys. And Ed, I wrote in the removal of the address, an obvious step but this wouldn't be complete without it!
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I stumbled in to this on my travels. A tool that helps save battery power in Vista.
Not tried this, will install it later tonight but thought i'd link it as a cool new tool.
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Heads up!!!
The Vista Squad are having their next meeting on the 6th of September, in London.
They have Mike Taulty and Stephen Lamb presenting, so should be a really cool meeting!
http://vistasquad.co.uk/blogs/announcements/archive/2007/08/10/vista-squad-3-0.aspx
The location will be:
Microsoft London (Cardinal Place), 100 Victoria Street, London, SW1E 5JL.
And here is the Agenda:
6:30pm – 7:30pm
Stephen Lamb: Windows Deployment
7:30pm – 8:00pm
Break
8:00 – 9:00pm
Mike Taulty: WPF and Silverlight
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Today I had to deal with Status Filter Rules on multiple SMS2003 Primary site servers that where being wiped and replaced by an OS Patch.
The OS patch is being rolled out across the corporation, it shouldn't touch SMS but it does, every company has it's quirks ;-) And, as a result, I am starting to see sites not returning any status messages due to the OS patch tweaking the Status Filter Rules.
I wasn't looking forward to removing them by hand then putting in the correct ones, so I had a look around on the internet. Found just what I wanted, curtesy of Dave Fuller who has a good VBScript to Import\Export via WMI the Status Filter Rules. Result, and it works for SMS2.0 and SMS2003!
Here's the link to his article detailing the scripts, with a script download link and some advice on how to use them. Open the VBScript files and check out the comments section for detailed usage covering Primary or Secondary Import\Export.
First, I exported the Status Filter Rules from a known good SMS2003 Primary Site server. Then, I wrote a wrapper CMD script that takes two inputs, the ServerName and the Sitecode for the Server which then invokes the Import script:
Here's the CMD wrapper:
@ECHO OFF
ECHO Site Name: %1
ECHO Site Code: %2
IMPSFR.vbs /C=%1:%2 /D=%1:%2 /F=E:\StatusFilterRules\SMS2003-RTM-Primary-StatusFilterRules.INI
Nothing special there, just how I managed to shave off a handful of seconds from typing out the Export scripts command line ;-)
Thanks Dave, even though this was written over 4 years ago it's still usable and helped ease the pain from my task!
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Handy blog about using MS Outlook to get access to you're Windows Live\Hotmail inbox
http://msmvps.com/blogs/petizme/archive/2007/08/15/use-hotmail-or-live-on-outlook-w-connector.aspx
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Freakonomics interviewed Sudhir Venkatesh, a professor of sociology at Columbia University about his research into street gang life. He has a book coming out in 2008, called Gang Leader for a Day.
Q: How do gang members see themselves as fitting in with society at large? Do gang members have a real comprehension that the things they do — dealing drugs, engaging in violence, destroying property, scaring people — are widely perceived as not only illegal but also morally wrong?
A: Many gang members who attain leadership status are deeply conscious of their perception by wider society. They tend to make two arguments when discussing their behavior: first, that whites also work in the underground economy but are not prosecuted (or stigmatized) to the same degree (just look at the differential rates of punishment for powder cocaine and crack cocaine — the former is distributed by whites to a far greater degree); and second, that corporations also engage in criminal activity, but are rarely viewed as outlaws — not just Enron, but oil and other companies that have established histories of supporting anti-democratic regimes in developing counties to secure their own profits.
Full article here
Great article about how street gang leaders perceive themselves, contrasting themselves against white-collar crime (supporting anti-democratic regimes), and white drug dealing. If you've not read the Freakonomics book, you owe it yourself to pop out and buy it!
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I wrote a quick script to generate RDP session shortcuts to all my SMS Site servers. And i've uploaded it here for general consumption
I tend to generate the RDP sessions once in a while, to cover any new\removed SMS Site servers, put them on a network share somewhere then shortcut the folder back to my Start Menu so it expands out when I hover out it. Makes it easy to launch RDP sessions.
You can find the file and a loose description >here<
Don't forget folks, you HAVE to modify the name of the Central site server, as well as the destination folder in the CONST definitions at the top of the script file