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May 2012
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Adobe After Effect CS5

 

LICK THE IMAGE FOR DOWNLOAD


What's new in After Effects

Adobe® After Effects® CS6 software lets you deliver cinematic visual effects and motion graphics faster than ever before with new Global Performance Cache. Extend your creativity with built-in text and shape extrusion, new mask feathering options, and the fast, easy-to-use 3D Camera Tracker

See the top new features in After Effects CS6

Find out more about Global Performance Cache, the 3D Camera Tracker, and other features introduced in this latest version of the industry-standard solution for animation and compositing.

Work faster

After Effects CS6 takes high performance to a new level with new Global Performance Cache, which optimizes and stores your previews so you're beating deadlines instead of waiting for updates.

Create visual effects with enhanced precision and new creative options

Challenge creative bounds. Use the 3D Camera Tracker to smoothly integrate animated 3D objects with 2D video footage. Make effects look the way you intended using variable mask feathering and mocha for After Effects CS6 from Imagineer Systems Ltd.

May 27, 2012
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The next version of Windows, code-named Windows 8, will have a feature of user tile which display user picture or avatar at the Windows Taskbar towards the end of notification area (system tray), ahead of Aero Peek and Show Desktop bar.

Usually, the user tile display the user account picture which is static and motionless. If you interested to set a video, movie or animation as your user picture or avatar which will be shown on Taskbar and represent you throughout Windows, follow these steps:
  1. Create a video clip or convert an existing video or animation into movie file with the following format:
    Video format: WMV (Windows Media Video)
    Height: 192 pixels
    Width: 192 pixels
  2. Save the video with a file name in following format:
    usertileXX.ms-usertiledynamic
    Replace XX with a number starting from 1, and which is the first number not in use sequentially which is not in use by any user tiles in the following folder:
    %ProgramData%\Microsoft\User Account Pictures\Default Pictures
    User Account Tile Pictures Location
    Tip: The folder above also accessible via %ProgramData%\Microsoft\Default User Tiles\Default Pictures.
    Save the video into the above folder too.
  3. Go to Control Panel ->User Accounts and Family Safety -> User Accounts -> Change your look.
    Change Account Picture
    Alternatively, click on the User Tile on Taskbar, and select My Look.
    Change User Tile Picture
  4. Select and highlight the video that you want to set as user account picture (avatar) under the “Default Pictures”, and click OK. Once set, the video will be listed under “Installed User Tiles” too.
Note that above procedure may change when Windows 8 is finalized, where it may incorporates easier way for a video to set as user account avatar.

By Mr. 16x9
May 27, 2012
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Ever feel awe and attracted to a beautiful and elegant font and wonder what is the font name? Wouldn’t it great if it’s possible for you to identify and know what is the font typeface been used so that you can quickly get hold of the font to use on your web design, print media, publications, artworks, or other masterpieces?

WhatTheFont
With the help of WhatTheFont service from MyFonts, identification of fonts used on a picture, graphic, photo or image that you seen on the Internet, magazines, newspapers, posters, books and etc. WhatTheFont is a service available on several platforms that allows user to submit an image and it will automatically find the closest matches from all fonts available in the database.
To use WhatTheFont service, just head to the following URL:
Identiy Font on Image
Using web-based WhatTheFont is pretty easy. Just upload an image file or specify a URL to the picture file, and the WhatTheFont will attempt to recognize the characters in the picture and split the picture into image with just single character. You have to verify that the character specified in the text box below the single character image is indeed meant to be the character highlighted in the image. Once done, WhatTheFound will list of results of matching fonts.
WhatTheFont is not very accurate in identifying the font if the image used is designed in fancy and colorful words. In fact, to get best result, WhatTheFont suggests that the text in the image should be as horizontal as possible, the letters should be around 100 pixels in height, and the characters are not touching each other. Though WhatTheFont recommends the image has as much characters as possible, sometimes it’s more accurate when there is only one or two large characters in the image.

By Mr. 16x9
May 27, 2012
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The Advanced Host Controller Interface (AHCI) is a technical standard by Intel that can speed up hard disk read/write operations by making available SATA’s advanced capabilities such as hot swapping and native command queuing to the host system. Windows 7 and Windows Vista can natively support AHCI, and the AHCI driver is installed and used by default if Windows 7 detects that the computer supports AHCI during installation.

Some older computer disables AHCI support at BIOS level, even though the motherboard’s chipsets support AHCI. Without AHCI, a computer runs even slower when the slow computer supposedly have a little boost with AHCI turned on.
Windows 7 and Windows Vista does not install AHCI device driver if it does not detect presence of ACHI support on the system during installation. As the result, if you enable the ACHI in BIOS after Windows is installed, the system may crash and unbootable.
If you have just notice that your motherboard does indeed support AHCI after you have installed Windows 7 or Windows Vista, but have previously been disabled, here’s the trick the enable AHCPI support in Windows OS. The step has to be done BEFORE AHCI is turned on in BIOS to avoid any system crash.
  1. Type RegEdit into Start Search and hit Enter to start Registry Editor.
  2. If the UAC dialog box prompts and asks “Do you want to allow the following program to make changes to this computer?”, click Yes button.
  3. In Registry Editor, navigate to the following registry key:
    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\msahci
  4. In the right pane, right click on Start and select Modify.
    Registry Edit to Enable ACHI in Windows

    5. 
    1. Set the value data for “Start” to 0, and click OK.
      Enable AHCI Support in Windows
      Default value (when ACHI is disabled): 3 for Windows 7 and 4 for Windows Vista.
    2. Close Registry Editor.
    3. Restart the computer.
    4. Go to BIOS configuration and enable the AHCI support. Save the settings and reboot computer again.
      Hint: A list on keys used to access BIOS for various computer systems.
    5. After system boots up, Windows will automatically install device drivers for AHCI. After installation completed, Windows will restart for one more time.
    6. The hard disk drives are now supporting AHCI standard.
    How to Check if AHCI is Enabled on Windows
    If you’re unsure if AHCI has been enabled or not in Windows operating system, here’s a simple way to verify and determine if the AHCI is already enabled on the system.
    1. Type Device Manager in Start Search and hit Enter.
    2. If the UAC dialog box prompts and asks “Do you want to allow the following program to make changes to this computer?”, click Yes button.
    3. Expand IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers section.
    4. If AHCI driver is installed in Windows, there will be entry that reads something similar to Standard AHCI 1.0 Serial ATA Controller or Intel(R) 5 Series 6 Port SATA AHCI Controller.
      AHCI Driver in Windows
      If you can’t find anything that specifies AHCI Controller, chance is your system don’t have AHCI support in Windows yet (if your system does support AHCI). Follow steps above to enable AHCI in Windows before turning AHCI on in BIOS level.#

      By 
      Mr. 16x9
May 27, 2012
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Here’s a quick how-to guide on how you can track email to it’s originating locationby figuring out the email’s IP address and looking it up. I have found this to be quite useful on many occasions for verification purposes since I receive lots of emails daily due to my blog. Tracking the IP address of an email sender does require looking at some technical details, so be ready to dig your heels in!
There are basically two steps involved in the process of tracking an email: find the IP address in the email header section and then look up the location of the IP address.

Finding the IP address of an email sender in GMail, Yahoo Mail, and Outlook

Let’s go ahead and take a look at how you would do this for Google, Yahoo and Outlook since those are the most popular email clients.
Google’s Gmail
1. Log into your account and open the email in question.
2. Click on the down arrow that’s to the right of the Reply link. Choose Show Originalfrom the list.
Now here’s the technical part that I was telling you about earlier! You need to look for the lines of text that start with “Received: from“. It might be easier to simply pressCntrl + F and perform a search for that phase. You’ll notice that there are several Received From’s in the message header. This is because the message header contains the IP addresses of all of servers involved in routing that email to you.#

To find the first computer that originally sent the email, you’ll have to find the Received From that’s farthest DOWN. As you can see from the above image, the first one is from a computer called “aseem” with the IP address 72.204.154.191. Then it was routed to my ISP’s server at eastrmmtao104.cox.net and so on and so forth till it got to your email server.
The computer aseem is my personal home computer and that’s my public IP address for my house! I’ll go through Yahoo and Outlook before talking about tracking the location of that IP address.
Yahoo Mail Beta
1. Log into your account and open the email (if you’re using Yahoo Mail Beta with the new preview interface, make sure you double-click on the email so that it opens in a new tab)
2. At the top right, you’ll see there is a drop-down option where Standard Header is selected by default.
3. Click on it and choose Full Header.



Again, you’ll see the same information as before, just in a different window:


Microsoft Outlook
1. Open the email in Outlook by double-clicking on it
2. Go to View at the top menu (the menu options for the email, not the main Outlook window) and choose Options.

You’ll get a dialog box where you can set the message options and at the bottom you’ll see the Internet Headers box. For some silly reason, the box is very small and you have to scroll a lot, so it’s best to simply copy and paste the text into Notepad to view it more easily.


Tracking the location of an IP address

Now that we have our originating IP address of 72.204.154.191, let’s find out where that is! You can do this by perform a location lookup on the IP address. My favorites areIP2Location and GeoBytes IP Locator.
GeoBytes gave me a big map of New Orleans, LA along with a bunch of other information about the location itself.
find ip address location
IP2Location also gave me the same information pretty much, including the ISP (Cox Communications). Of course, this is correct since I live in New Orleans!
If you want more information, you can do a WHOIS database search also. My favorite one is the ARIN WHOIS Database Search. This will give you information on who hosts that IP address and their registration information. You can always contact them to try and find more information on that particular IP address.
Have fun tracking down those emails! Questions, comments, or suggestions? Post a comment!
[tags]track email, track an email, track email ip, find email ip address, locate email, find location, locate ip address[/tags]


Best of Luck by

MR. 16x9..........





May 25, 2012
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About three years ago, developer Cameron Morris had a personal epiphany about passwords, he recently told ZDNet's John Fontana: The time it takes to crack a password is the only true measure of its worth.
Not whether it has a minimum of x or a maximum of y characters, not whether it's got blah-blah amount of numbers, not whether it includes your frou-frou leetspeak ch@r@ct3rs, not whether it contains the verboten from lists of taboo words.

Syntax laws like those make up the typical password policy creations most organizations use and that many security practitioners preach.
But if you religiously follow such policies, Morris notes, you get situations like this: Facebook graded as "weak" a password he made up of 35 characters using the first letters of a random phrase, while it deemed a password "strong" when it matched the social network's creation policies, which allow for use of common words.
Morris's Facebook-appeasing password?
                  "cracked1!"
 The time it would take to crack that supposedly strong password, according to tools that Morris has created to estimate password strength: less than one day.
Morris, a developer at defense contractor Partnet, told reporters that he came to his realisation after a half hour spent creating a tough-to-crack password.
That 30 minutes of password creation labor was followed by the realization that he'd have to go through the whole rigamarole again when he had to change it in a month's time.
Stop right there. That has the aroma of a password myth.
Sophos Techknow - busting password mythsAs Paul Ducklin and Chester Wisniewski discussed in a Sophos Techknow podcast,"Busting Password Myths", the idea that regular password changes lead to better security dates back to the days when passwords were stored in plain text files on Unix systems.
Regular password changes actually decrease security, for a few reasons: 1) your poor users are going to start using sucky passwords because they're easy to remember and to increment, and 2) doing something security-related on a regular, predictable schedule (quarterly? monthly?) is a gift to hackers.
This regular password change-out distracts the IT department for a predictable chunk of time on a predictable schedule. Predictability is a gift you don't really want to hand to attackers.
At any rate, being influenced by the myth that regular password change equates to good security, Morris thought it would be neat to set password expiration based on the strength of a password. He couldn't find a way to measure password strength, though.
Hence, he started building a collection of tools to do just that.
Those open-source tools are out now. Morris handed them over to theOpen Web Application Security Project (OWASP) in January.
Morris is inviting people to give them a try. One tool, called Passfault Analyzer, predicts how long it will take to crack a given password.
He also created a Password Creation Slide-Tool that lets administrators configure password policy based on the time to crack, the possible technology that an attacker might be using (from an everyday computer on up to a $180,000 password attacker), and the password protection technology in use (from Microsoft Windows System security on up to 100,000 rounds of the cryptographic hash function SHA-1/).
The tool lets users move a slider bar to increase or decrease the amount of time passwords should take to crack.
Password slide rule
All good, yes? But then came the next step in what came to be a password kerfuffle: Morris's premise and tools quickly lit a fire under SecurEnvoy, maker of two-factor authentication technology.
SecurEnvoy blogged that, basically, Morris was right about password creation policies, but he didn't take it far enough, because, in fact, conventional ID/password security is toast.

By 

Mr. 16x9



May 25, 2012
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Security Related Issue in facebook:
We may have observed the new feature in Facebook’s photo tagging if you have uploaded photos to Facebook recently. The new face recognition feature in Facebook can intelligently suggests the name of the friends for automatic picture tagging. The new feature is called Tag Suggestion where Facebook tries to automatically identify the faces in the uploaded photos based on the other photos where the people are tagged in. Therefore, you could be tagged by Facebook automatically when your friend uploads photos that contain your face in it. Well, it might be a helpful feature to reduce the chore of photo tagging but here are the steps for you to disable Facebook’s facial recognition for your profile if you are not comfortable with this feature:
  1. Login to Facebook.
  2. Click at “Account” link from the top right corner and select “Account Settings” upon login.
  3. Click the “manage” link under the “Privacy” section.


4. Click “Customize Settings” link from the Privacy Settings page.

5. Click “Edit Settings” button from the “Suggest photos of me to friends” under the “Things others share” section.
6. Select “Disabled” from the dropdown menu from the popped up window.

7. Click the “Okay” button and you are done.

Tag Suggestions are enabled by default for all Facebook users.

By

MR. 16x9
May 23, 2012
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During a virtual presentation, the presenter usually sends out the PowerPoint file to the audience in advance or use web conferencing tool such as WebEx, Microsoft Live meeting and etc. However, virtual presentation can be simpler by just using the SlideShow Broadcast feature in Microsoft PowerPoint 2010 without the need to send the PPT file or to share it via web conferencing tool. The only pre-requisite for using this feature is the Windows Live ID. On the other hand, the participating audience will then be able to watch the presentation by just using the web browser.

Here are the steps to broadcast a presentation to the web using PowerPoint 2010:
  1. Make sure you have completed your PPT presentation as changes is not permitted during the broadcast.
  2. Click at “Broadcast Slide Show” option from the “Slide Show” ribbon.

3. From the “Broadcast Slide Show” window, click at the “Start Broadcast” button to begin the configuration of  PowerPoint broadcast service.

4. Enter your Windows Live ID login name and credential. You will then see PowerPoint is attempting to connect to PowerPoint Broadcast Service.

5. Once PowerPoint Broadcast Service completes the configuration, the URL that points to the presentation broadcast is presented. You can choose to email the generated URL directly to the audience by using the “Send in Email” link.
6. Click at the “Start Slide Show” button and the audience who open the URL above will be able to your presentation in live mode.


7. Hit the “End Broadcast” button once the presentation is over.




By 

MR. 16x9
May 23, 2012
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Registry Editor, a main registry editing tool equipped in all versions and editions of Windows operating system, can be disabled, blocked and locked to prevent the RegEdit from been ran or executed by users in order to protect important system registry. Other possibility of Registry Editor been disabled is caused by virus or worm such as W32/Brontok-C.

When Registry Editor is disabled, user unable and cannot open or run Registry Editor anymore. Any attempt to run RegEdit.exe will return the error “Registry editing has been disabled by your administrator”. Hence it’s impossible to remove the restriction on Registry Editor usage by using the Registry Editor itself. However, it’s possible to use various workaround to directly edit the registry to remove the policy that blocks Registry Editor usage.


                                     Enable Registry Editor using Local Group Policy Editor



For user using Windows XP Professional, Windows Vista Ultimate, Windows Server 2003 or 2008 with Local Group Policy Editor and has access to an administrative user account, user can change the registry editor options in the Local Group Policy Editor.
  1. Click on Start -> Run (or Start Search in Windows Vista).
  2. Enter GPEdit.msc and then press Enter.
  3. Navigate to the following location:
    User Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> System
  4. In the Settings pane, locate the Prevent access to registry editing tools option, and then double-click on it to open the settings dialog.
  5. Select Disabled or Not Configured.
  6. Click on OK button.
  7. Try to run RegEdit.exe, and if required (still blocking yet), restart the computer.

VBS Script to Enable or Disable Registry Editor
Doug Knox has created a .vbs VB script that able to toggle between enable or disable the Registry Editor. Right click to download and save the regtools vbs into a folder. Then double click on the VBS file to run it.
The regtools.vbs VB script file will check for the appropriate value related to disabling/enabling of Registry Editor. If the registry key is not found, the key will be created to disable Registry Editor. If the value was found, it will be toggled to its opposite state and you will be informed that you need to log off and log back on or restart your computer. All change by the script is made in HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System.
UnHookExec.inf by Symantec to Reset Registry Values to Default Settings
In many cases, disabling of Registry Editor is caused by virus, worm or Trojan, which attempts to stop user from fixing any changes to the registry, which normally affects changes to one or more of the shell\open\command keys. For example, exefile\shell\open\command key is changed, the virus, worm or Trojan threat will run each time that system run any .exe file. As such, Symantec create a .inf script tool to reset these registry values to their default settings.
WARNING: The UnHookExec.inf will reset registry keys and values related to BAT, COM, EXE, PIF and other extensions,
 beside re-enabling the Registry Editor. Hence, users who just want to re-enable the Registry Editor has to manually modify the .inf file to remove the unnecessary commands.
Download the file UnHookExec. inf UnHookExec.inf and save it to your Windows desktop.
Right-click the UnHookExec.inf file and click install. Action will be taken immediately. No display, nor any notice or boxes will appear before or after running. Try to run RegEdit.exe again, restart and reboot PC if it’s still blocked.

BEST OF LICK...........
BY MR.16x9
May 23, 2012
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 Microsoft Certified System Engineer
Chapter 2: Managing Hardware Devices

Objectives:

•
  • Understand the importance of managing hardware 
•
•
  • Understand the purpose of device drivers 
•
•
  • Configure hardware resource settings and resolve resource setting conflicts 
  • Configure driver signing options
•
•
•
  • Optimize server processor and memory usage
•
•
  • Create and configure hardware profiles
•
•
  • Configure server power options
Introduction to Managing Hardware
•
  • Managing and maintaining hardware is a primary responsibility of a network administrator 
•
  • A wide variety of internal and external hardware components available 
•
  • Key concepts to be discussed 
•
  1.          Hardware compatibility
  2.          Device drivers
  3.         Device Manager
•Hardware Compatibility:
•
  • Server hardware must meet minimum system requirements for Windows Server 2003 
•
  • Microsoft maintains information about compatible hardware 
•
  1.   Previous Windows versions: Hardware Compatibility List 
  2.   Windows Server 2003: Windows Server Catalog  
•


 Windows Server Catalog Web Site:

                



Understanding Device Drivers:


•
  • A device driver is a software interface between an operating system and a hardware device 
•
  • Generally want to use the specific recommended driver for a device 
•
  1.          Affects stability and performance 
•
  • Driver updates are frequent and usually available from manufacturer 
•
  • Driver signing is used to verify that a driver has been tested 

Device Manager:

•
  • Primary tool for managing device drivers 
•
  • Allows administrator to view and modify hardware device properties 
•
  • Should be used soon after Windows Server 2003 installation to verify device detection and functioning 
•
  • Accessible from Control Panel or Computer Management tool 

Accessing Device Manager:

•Control Panel à System à Hardware Tab
•
•Computer Management à System Tools à Device Manager

•
  • Displays non-functioning devices

•
  • Yellow exclamation point

•
  • Displays manually disabled devices

•
  1. Red x

•
  • Allows you to update drivers

•
  • Download driver and install through Device Manager

•
  • Use Hardware Update Wizard


The Hardware Update Wizard:

Activity 2-1: Exploring Device Manager:


•
  • Objective is to explore the use of Device Manager 
•
  1. View properties of existing hardware 
  2. Explore different views of information
•
  • Start à My Computer à Properties à Hardware Tab à Device Manager
•
  • Follow directions in book to complete exercise

Adding New Devices:

•
  • Two main categories of devices 
•
  1. Plug and Play 
  2. Legacy 
•
•
  • Plug and Play devices typically installed and configured automatically 
•
  • Legacy devices typically configured manually 


Plug and Play Devices:

•
  • Windows Server 2003 is Plug and Play compliant 
•
  1. New hardware is usually Plug and Play 
•
  • Installed devices detected automatically 
•
  • Detected devices configured automatically 
•
  1. May need to locate or update device driver 


Activity 2-2: Installing a Plug and Play Hardware Device:

•
  • Objective: 
•
  1. Uninstall device using Device Manager 
  2. Reinstall using Add Hardware Wizard 
•
•
  • Start à Run, type devmgmt.msc 
•
  1. New method for accessing device manager 
•
  • Follow instructions in book to complete uninstall 
•
  • Check uninstall completed 
•
  • Reinstall using Add Hardware Wizard


Legacy Devices:

•
  • Many older devices not Plug and Play 
•
  • Industry Standard Architecture (ISA) bus devices not Plug and Play 
•
  • May or may not be detected by Windows Server 2003 
•
  • Typically must be configured manually 
•
  • Add Hardware Wizard used to install and/or configure  

Hardware Resource Settings:


•
  • Four main types of resources 

•
  1. Direct Memory Access (DMA) channels 
  2. Input/Output (I/O) ranges 
  3. Memory address ranges 
  4. Interrupt request (IRQ) lines 

•

•

•

•
  • Resource settings configured from Resources tab of properties of hardware device in Device Manager 

•
  • Manually configured resource settings may have conflicts
•
  • Resource conflicts can cause device malfunction
•
  • Conflicts determined using Device Manager
•
  1. Resources tab for a device


Resources Tab for Network Adapter Card:

•Conflict list ð

Direct Memory Access Channels:



•
  • Allow hardware devices to access system memory (RAM) directly 

•
  • Information transfer bypasses CPU 

•
  • Common devices 

•
  1. Hard and floppy disk controllers 
  2. Sound cards
  3.   CD-ROM drives 

•
  • DMA channel used by a device can be determined from Device Manager 

Input/Output Ranges:

•
  • Small dedicated memory areas 
•
  • Allocated specifically for data transfer between computer and hardware device 
•
  • Type of device dictates size of memory area 
•

  • I/O ports can be determined from Device Manager 
Interrupt Request Lines:
  • Used to gain attention of the system processor to handle some event

•
•
  • Traditionally, each device had dedicated line
•
  • Trend is toward sharing lines, Windows Server 2003 supports sharing among some Plug and Play devices
•

  • IRQ lines can be viewed and managed from Device Manager 
Memory Addresses:

•
  • Used for communication between a hardware device and the operating system 
•
  • Devices configured with dedicated, unique memory address ranges 
•
  • Windows Server 2003 will automatically allocate memory addresses for Plug and Play devices 
•

  • For legacy devices, address ranges usually specified in documentation
Activity 2-3: Viewing Resource Settings Using Device Manager:

•
  • Objective is to use Device Manager to explore hardware resource settings 
•
  • Open Device Manager in one of the ways described in earlier activities 
•
  • Observe the resources on a display adapter, keyboard, and communications port 
•

  • Configure settings and observe properties on communications port according to explanation in book    
Troubleshooting Resource Setting Conflicts:

•
  • Manual configuration of devices can lead to resource conflicts (overlaps and duplication of assignments) 
•
  • Two methods for checking for resource conflicts 
•
  1. Resources tab in properties of device using Device Manager 
  2. System Information tool 

  • To open, type msinfo32.exe in Run command 

•
  • System Information tool 
•
  1. Reporting rather configuration
  2. Hardware Resources section displays summary info
    •
    Conflicts display conflicts
  3.   Forced Hardware allows identification of manually configured devices
  4. Components displays resource settings plus driver info
  5. Problem Devices shows devices with known problems



Viewing Problem Devices using the System Information tool:

Configuring Device Driver Signing:
•
  • Every built-in driver in Windows Server 2003 is digitally signed by Microsoft 
•
  • Signing ensures compatibility, quality, authenticity, verified to work with hardware 
•
  • Three possible driver signing verification options 
•
  1. Ignore: install any driver whether signed or not 
  2. Warn: show warning if attempt is made to install unsigned driver 
  3. Block: don’t allow installation of unsigned driver  
•
Configuring Driver Signing Options:

Activity 2-4: Configuring Driver Signing Options:


•
  • Objective is to explore and configure settings for device drivers using Device Manager 
•
  • Start à My Computer à Properties à Hardware tab à Driver Signing 
•
  • Explore help topics on driver signing
•
  • Complete assignment to explore and configure settings using Device Manager

Activity 2-5: Using the File Signature Verification Utility:

•
  • Objective is to use the File Signature Verification utility to ensure that all installed system files and device drivers have been digitally signed 
•
  • Start à Run à sigverif.exe à Advanced à Logging 
•
  • Scan files and log results following directions 
•
  • View log 

Advanced File Signature Verification Settings:


Roll Back Driver Feature:



•
  • Common for vendors to release new or updated drivers for hardware devices 

•
  • Fix known issues, take advantage of updated features 

•
  • Driver updates sometimes result in system stability problems 

•
  • When update causes problems, roll back allows  going back to a previous version


•

Activity 2-6: Using the Roll Back Driver Feature:

•
  • Objective is to use Roll Back Driver feature to return to a previous version of a device driver 
•
  • Start à My Computer à Properties à Hardware à Device Manager 
•
  • Follow directions to change to a new driver and then roll back to previous driver for display adapter 

•
The Driver Tab in the Properties of a Display Adapter;

Configuring Processor and Memory Settings:

•
  • Three basic areas to configure for optimal performance 
•
  1. Processor scheduling and memory usage
  2.   Virtual memory
  3.   Memory for network performance
 Processor Scheduling:

•
  • Allows you to configure how processor resources are allocated to programs 
•
  • Default is Background services (all running applications receive equal processor time) 
•
  • Can set to Programs (foreground application receives priority processor time) 

•

•
  • Memory usage options used to configure amount of system memory allocated to executing programs versus other server functions 

•
  • Default is System cache option

•
  1. Computer is acting as network server
  2. Running programs that require considerable memory

•

•
  • Programs option

•
  1. Computer is acting as workstation
  2. Running programs at console

•
Virtual Memory:

•
  • Disk storage used to expand RAM capacity 
•
  • Slower than RAM 
•
  • Uses paging technique 
•
  1. Blocks (pages) of information moved from RAM to virtual memory on disk 
  2. On Pentium, pages are 4KB
  3.   Paged out when not in use, reloaded into RAM when needed 
•

•
  • Area allocated is called paging file 

•
  • Default amount allocated when operating system installed but should be tuned by administrator 

•
  • Name of paging file is pagefile.sys 

•
  • Location of paging file important 

•
  • Two important parameters: initial and maximum size 

•
•
Activity 2-7: Viewing and Configuring Virtual Memory Settings:

•
  • Objective is to explore and configure virtual memory settings  
•
  • Move the paging file to a new drive 
•
  • Start à My Computer à Properties à Advanced tab  
•
  • Follow instructions to move the paging file 
•
Memory for Network Performance:

•
  • Memory used for both server functions and network connectivity functions 
•
  • Server functions use RAM and memory 
•
  • Network connectivity uses only memory 
•
  • If performance is poor, may need to tune network memory parameters 
•
Configuring Server Memory for Network Optimization:

Hardware Profiles:

•
  • Set of instructions defining which devices to start and drivers to load when computer starts 
•
  • Profile 1 created when Windows Server 2003 installed, every device enabled 
•
  • Portable computers change set of hardware device available at different times 
•
  • Can create additional profiles to match situation 

Activity 2-8: Creating a Hardware Profile:


•
  • Objective is to create a new hardware profile for a set of hardware devices 
•
  • Start à My Computer à Properties à Hardware tab à Hardware Profiles 
•
  • Follow directions to create a new profile with no CD-ROM drive or floppy drive 
•
  • Test that devices are disabled when using new profile
•
Configuring Power Options:
•
  • Default power scheme is Always On (monitor off after 20 minutes, hard disks never off) 
•
  1. Can select other predefined schemes or create custom scheme 
•
  • Standby mode 
•
  1. Components shut down and memory is not written to disk (if power goes out, memory information is lost) 
  2. Power supply and CPU remain active 
•

•
  • Hibernate mode 
•
  1. Memory contents saved before shutting down disks
  2.   Can restart with previous applications running 
•
•
  • Uninterruptible power supply (UPS) 
•
  1. Battery backup device 
  2. Best fault-tolerance method to prevent damage with power loss
  3. Can only sustain power for a limited time 
•
•
 Activity 2-9: Defining a Power Scheme: 

  • Objective is to configure a new power scheme 
•
  • Start à Control Panel à Power Options 
•
  • Follow directions to create a power scheme to supplied specifications 
•
  • Also explore configuring UPS (uninterruptible power supply) to provide battery backup for critical equipment

Summary:

•
  • Device drivers 
•
  1. Driver signing 
  2. Driver roll back
•
•
  • Device Manager tool 
•
  1. Primary tool for device management 
  • Plug and play versus legacy devices 
•
•
  1. Installation and configuration

•
  • Hardware Resource Settings 
•
  1. Direct Memory Access (DMA) channels 
  2. Input/Output (I/O) ranges
  3.   Memory address ranges 
  4. Interrupt request (IRQ) lines
•
•
  • Processor Scheduling and Memory Usage 
•
  1. Virtual memory 
  2. Network memory 
•
•
  • Hardware Profiles 
•
  • Power Options  



May 04, 2012

Mr.16x9 blog

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