Cisco ASA 5505 Initial Configuration Commands

One thing I can say about the Startup Wizard in the Cisco ASA 5505, is that it would be kicked out of Hogwarts. Lame joke sure, but so is Cisco for selling something so complex to small businesses. What my customer of eight employees needs is a firewall with the robust dependability of a Cisco PIX with [...]

Adding Windows XP Media Center to a Domain

During another domain migration yesterday, I came across a Windows XP Media Center PC in the workplace. This is certainly common with small companies, especially when they’re bootstrapping. You buy what you can afford and that usually means Home and Media editions of Windows. Those work great for a small network, but of course can’t be added to [...]

Optimize Windows Settings for SSD

So you got a shiny new SSD for your Windows system. As you may or may not know, there is only a finite number of writes to each sector before it becomes unusable, eventually causing the disk to be unusable. So what can you go to make sure it lasts as long as it can? I’ve [...]

Firing a SysAdmin

Recently I had to replace an IT guy who’d gone off the rails. Something odd about this profession seems to cause an unusually high number of them (say, compared to other engineers) to drop off the radar and partially or completely disappear. It usually happens in one of two ways, they start with sporadic attendance, [...]

Cisco ASA 5505 Software Upgrade

So you’re looking to upgrade your Cisco ASA 5505 to the latest and greatest firmware? Well take it from me, don’t update the ASA software first. If the ASDM software is not compatible with the updated ASA version, you will get locked out and have to get out your console cable. Not so bad, but [...]

“Delivery has failed” error When Scheduling a Resource

There are plenty of answers to the error message: “Delivery has failed to these recipients or distribution lists:   Jane Doe Your message wasn’t delivered because of security policies…” In our case, Jane Doe was no longer an employee and her account was disabled. The sender of the message was requesting a meeting with someone who had [...]

Auto-complete Not Working After Outlook 2010 Upgrade

You know you love it, being able to just start typing the first few characters of an address and Outlook “guesses” the rest for you. At least I think you love it, because every time someone’s Outlook is upgraded or they are moved to a new system, everyone notices it’s missing right off the bat. Prior to [...]

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