The IT Crownd

This has been an issue for all IT departments for ages - nice to see that Microsoft finally got in this space with something free! http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=46899 Basically this is a GPO, GUI and client dll which allows you to change the local admin password on your Windows machines! Yea! We've had this working now for about 5 months and is awesome, my security guys are very impressed :)

This has been an issue for all IT departments for ages - nice to see that Microsoft finally got in this space with something free! http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=46899 Basically this is a GPO, GUI and client dll which allows you to change the local admin password on your Windows machines! Yea! We've had this working now for about 5 months and is awesome, my security guys are very impressed :)

Still here.  Got promoted though in a slightly different role. Have loads to say but no time to write it down!

Wow! Ok so I am somewhat behind the times here but I was investigating how to "stand up", to use the LINUX community parlance, an instance of the excellent MediaWiki on a Windows 2012 box and came across a Microsoft blog talking about WebPlatform Installer 5.0 So far this is awesome. Basically download it and have a play. You simple select from the lists what you want the installer to download and install - I think it even installs the required Windows features for you too - it happened so quick I'm not sure!? Want MySQL database?  MediaWiki?  Just select em.  Then click install - I had to provide MySQL root credentials to setup MySQL. More when I know how it went - initial thoughts are that this is MAGIC! Happy Friday!

Ok so this isn't really to do with patching well only slightly. I use the awesome, https://www.ultimatewindowssecurity.com/patchanalysis/default.aspx site to assist with understanding the slew of patches which avalanche their way into my world each month. Using the website below I can convert the HTML tables of Randy's analysis into a CSV! http://www.convertcsv.com/ For free! Astounding!

Something we use here in Cambridge is FileSender for sending large files around... https://www.assembla.com/spaces/file_sender/wiki Simple straight forward.  Done. Once I implement it myself I will write some more!

We have a Kace appliance. A Kace 1000. We "found" this a couple of weeks back and I was duly dispatched to set about configuring and understanding it. After some help from Dell we obtained a DVD to re-image the appliance to v6.3 I am now in the process of sorting out the LDAP integration (done) Patching Windows (done) Dell (done) 3rd Party (done) software installation (done) agent provisioning (almost there!) More news when I have finished things. Oh and thanks to those @ ITNinja! http://www.itninja.com/