High Percentage Interrupt Time equated to VMWARE Memory Issue

Just something that came up.

Error: Using Microsoft System Center Operations Manager, an alert was generated that % Interrupt Time had exceeded a threshold of 10.
Environment: Windows 2003 Server 512 MB RAM, 1 CPU, 10 GB free HD Space running Tomcat App Server.
Impact: Although server and service still running, web app would not serve pages.
Notes/ Troubleshooting: Memory was not exceeding threshold on the server; Paging was not above normal.
Resolution: Allocate more memory to VM.
--
P. Alston

Parental Controls Post

First let me say for anyone who stumbles upon this, I don't have kids. So my perspective on parental controls is probably skewed towards the child more than the parent. Controls are a drag. Tracking web history and restricting others is initially frustrating and confusing for the user/kid and the administrator/parent. It does demand vigilance and participation by the parent to provide a safe environment for your family. So partially I had to adopt a mindset that was not my own.

But controls are a part of life. My company blocks websites and protocols to protect data and decrease liability. Auditing Web history and/or keylogging is a bit heavyhanded for industry but the if the circumstances warrant it to protect the company asset, so be it. The changes below are not transparent. The child/user will know they are being restricted.

Administrator to the Computer
Whether Windows, Mac, or Linux, always, always create a low privileged guest account users. It is safer and more secure for the computer and the user/child to have to ask if a program should be installed versus having to remove it later. How to do this in Vista is very simple from the start but that is not where most people approach security. So here is how to do it from the middle.

First of all the must be at least one Administrator account. In most cases, this is the only account. So instead of making the user setup all their Favorites and move documents around, we are going to setup a new Administrator and reduce the rights of the initial user/child's account.

In Vista:
Setup new Admin Account
Start-> Control Panel->User Accounts
Chose Manage another account
Chose create New account give the account a name like Admin or Dad.
Make that account an Administrator.
Log off.

Alter previous account:
Log in as the new Administrator i.e. Dad
Go back into the User Accounts
Start-> Control Panel->User Accounts
Chose Manage another account
Chose the account you wish to reduce the permissions for.
This time choose Change Account type and select user Standard User.
Then choose Setup Parental Controls
Here you can do a lot of things -
You can setup items like web filters, track activity, and prevent the use of certain programs like Limewire.

File Downloads and Program Installs
As a standard user, the child/user will not be able to install any software. Which is a good thing. Extra software means system bloat. System bloat means slower computer and more chances for viruses and malware. You will have to install every piece of software which means you "know" what applications, companies, and some extent people yours kids are interacting with.

Auditing Web History
In order to audit the web history of a user, you have to save it for some duration. This includes preventing it from being deleted.

Start-> Run
From Tech Support Forums:

There is also a "Turn off "Delete Browsing History" functionality" setting in the group policy for XP (run gpedit.msc under User Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Windows Components -> Internet Explorer) that can be set to disable this functionality.

Note: This works in Vista as well, but only effects Internet Explorer. So if the user is using Firefox, Safari, Opera, Maxthon, or any other web browser this will not work. This is why you have to prevent the users from being Administrators to the machine so they cannot bypass your efforts.

You can view the web history in activity reports in User Accounts Control Panel, or logging in as the child/user and view it in Internet Explorer.

End of Part One....

Links:
How to keep tabs on my Teens:
http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/windows/en-US/Help/961FFB00-E793-41B3-BD35-B00442F6A0D71033.mspx

Pulled Chicken and Broccoli Slaw

Too easy to forget but this will remind me next time.

Pulled Chicken:
Split Chicken Breast
Half an Onion (Sliced)
2 cloves Garlic (crushed)
1 cup Barbecue Sauce
Chicken Broth (to Cover)
Hot Pepper Sauce (to taste)
2 Tbl Apple Cider Vinegar

Add all ingredients to crock pot, cook on low for 6 to 8 hours.
Remove lid, two fork shred the chicken, remove bones.
Cook on High for 30 minutes to reduce sauce.

Slaw:
Broccoli Slaw Mix
1/2 cup Coleslaw Dressing (Bought or made)
Make when chicken goes into crock pot. Refrigerate for 8-10 hours.

Serve with Hot Pickles, Dijon Mustard and Tomotoes.

--
P. Alston

Known but just now Realized Creepy Revelation

Check out www.google.com/history. Here you can step back through your Google searches to enlighten or embarrass yourself. In past searches, I have needed to find homepathic flea remedies (for the dogs), various IT related searches on which my job depends, and it seems I cannot spell even the simplest of words - masculine. (No Jokes.) While I knew that Google was retaining search information, I never wanted thought I could be faced with it so easily. I envisioned long court battles and special prosecutors who would only receive blacked out versions of the most relevant bits of my online life. Now I am faced with the ability to retrospectively review my late night lookups whenever I want or don't.

Windows XP Tip: Search AD Shortcut

Looking up people in Active Directory can be really useful especially when you are new to an organization. This was readily available in 2000 so obviously it should be complicated in XP?!? So not must to say here just a link to give you some functionality that you thought you already had.

http://www.windowsnetworking.com/kbase/WindowsTips/WindowsXP/AdminTips/Network/GiveXPabilitytosearchActiveDirectory.html

Enjoy.

Import/Export Users from AD

The linked website explains in more detail the differences in LDFIDE and CSVDE. Luckily the syntax is mostly the same, you can interchange ldfide and csvde in the example script below.

csvde -f Exportuser.csv -s exdc1 -d "dc=example,dc=local" -p subtree -r "(&(objectCategory=person)(objectClass=User)(givenname=*))" -l "cn,givenName,objectclass,samAccountName"

Drop Schema

Thank you BJ for the following content. I wanted to recreated a user. So my DBA Guru gave me this script to remove the schema so the user can be deleted.

**********************************************************

DECLARE DropSchema CURSOR

READ_ONLY

FOR select name from master..sysdatabases where name like 'Some user naming convention%' or name = 'master' or name = 'Tempdb'

DECLARE @DB varchar(40),

@SchemaName varchar(40)

OPEN DropSchema

set @SchemaName = 'user to be dropped'

FETCH NEXT FROM DropSchema INTO @DB

WHILE (@@fetch_status <> -1)

BEGIN

IF (@@fetch_status <> -2)

BEGIN

declare @str varchar(200)

set @str = 'use ' + @DB + ' Drop Schema ' + @SchemaName

print ''

print ('Dropping Schema ' + @SchemaName + 'From ' + @DB )

Print '==================================================='

print ''

print 'Schema ' + @SchemaName + ' has been dropped or does not exist'

print ''

exec(@str)

END

FETCH NEXT FROM DropSchema INTO @DB

END

CLOSE DropSchema

DEALLOCATE DropSchema

Microsoft Word Trick Helps Users Move Content

Just something I found online and did not want to forget. Like hitting F2 to edit a cell in Excel.

ARTICLE
Microsoft Word Trick Helps Users Move Content Help your users help themselves with this Microsoft Office Word trick to move paragraphs or lists.

Find this article at:

http://www.windowsitpro.com/Articles/ArticleID/98907/98907.html

Last Night's Dinner/ Today's Lunch: Lazy Day Peanut Noodle Salad

Last Night's Dinner/ Today's Lunch: Lazy Day Peanut Noodle Salad
http://www.101cookbooks.com/archives/

lazy-day-peanut-noodle-salad-recipe.html

Just a reminder for me....

Made this last night, used Whole Wheat Spaghetti and the pasta water to thin the sauce.

Added Mushrooms, Red Peppers...

Backup Systems/Install Leopard : Part 1

Disclaimer: I will freely admit that I don't know want I am doing 60% of the time. I personally find it disingenuous (although efficient) when you read and online tutorial that has two steps but it takes you ten. So you spend twenty minutes digging through the comments sections to see how many other people had problems and ultimately solved it differently. With that disclaimer, I am documenting my own learning process as fully as possible. You may find it cumbersome, illogical, and amateurish, but as vast as the Internet is, you will likely never find it.

The plan for the weekend was as follows:

• Buy Leopard Family Pack
• Perform full backups of: iMac G5 and Intel Based Macbook (Baby J's Computer)
• Install Leopard
• Setup Time Machine to make full backups to External Disk

Buying Leopard was easy enough, but there was not education staff discount on the Family Pack. (US $199)

External HD Up until now my backup strategy has been to simple copy Documents, Music, and Pictures folders to an external HD. The Hard Drive that I had been using a 120 GB Western Digital Passport was too small for a full backup of my systems. I hoped over to Best Buy and bought a Seagate Free Agent Pro 750 GB External on Clearance. My version does not support Firewire 400, just USB and eSATA. The wife approved of the Espresso case with Amber lighting and it actually matches lamp in guest bedroom.

Disk Utility Using Disk Utility App, reformatted and repartitioned drive into two partitions. Each to act as Startup Disk and Archive locations for the two computers in the house.

RsyncX Simple RsyncX to USB Backup is slow. Slow to catalog. Slow to backup. It took 8 hours to backup 133 GB. A further study is definitely warranted and I just hope Time Machine is faster.

Notes:

• Files are accessible.

• Back to Disk Utility to verify the Archive Volume.

• Disk Verified Ok.

• Rebooted and held down the Option Key and the External Disk was not available as Startup Disk.

• Repaired Permissions on Archive Volume and Macintosh HD

• Things to try - Stop Spotlight Indexing http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/stopspotlightindex.html

Creating Startup Disk I tried to simply copy the Sysytem folder on to the Archive Volume. This resulted in the following error. In the spirit of full disclosure, some time ago, I moved the Library folder by accident and tried to move it back. Since that time then I have had permission and driver issues that have been regularly ignored. So this error is disappointing but not altogether unexpected. So with no Bootable Disk and unable to create a Startup Disk, but a full backup of folders and files. I needed a way to ensure I would be able to access the files and folders after I installed Leopard. A quick check of the Users folder showed me that I could not access the folders of other
users while logged in as me.

So I enabled Root Login. Logged in as root and copied all user folders to an all user backup folder on the external disk. Why? Because I do not understand file permissions and I was afraid I would not be able to recover all users folders if I had to rebuild the machine. FYI: It took a long time and was unnecessary. Once I attached Baby J's laptop to the Ext HD, it was able to access all folders on it. Demonstrating that I would have access to the data without changes any permissions or making special backups. Although, it still did not see it as a Startup Disk.

Actual Installation of Leopard It took just under 2 hours and was easier than anything I have ever done on a computer. I was hoping for more hassle or the need to tweak a few things, but nothing was necessary for non power user like me. It asks a few questions, which are documented in some many places I will not post link. I will say I did the default Upgrade Install, instead of a Erase or Archive and Install. I had already burned half my weekend in practical but luckily unnecessary backups.

Time Machine The time machine setup was simple as well. I changed my backup plan to keep going to and get a good backup using Time Machine. I kept the New External HD attached and used the partition marked Extra as the destination. I will use the WD as the backup drive to Archive the Tiger install on the MacBook before I load Leopard. I still need to come up with more thought out way of dealing with backups considering the additional computers in the house and differing OSes they run on. It took a couple hours to fully backup the system. I do not advise working on your computer during the initial backup as performance was okay at best. So I will have to do a full App compatibility inventory at a later time.

So, Part 1, almost done. I still need to figure out why I could not create a startup disk and test Time Machine. Baby J's laptop is next so maybe I will have better luck there.

Note on Documentation: It was my intention to use Evernote for this post as I am evaluating it as my default note taking program. I tried using Evernote, (review to follow) on the web, but it will not let you insert pictures and now I realize I cannot install the app on the iMac because it is for Leopard only. I have to start reading the fine print. So I used my old standby Google Docs, which works okay but you have to reformat everything to get it to post. Also, here is a helpful Mac OS screen capture post - Screen Capture Tutorial. I told you I knew very little.

Stone Mountain Revisited (03/28/2008)

Two hour road trip to Stone Mountain State Park, between Elkin and Sparta, was a little disappointing. Like so many other natural things that we hypocritically want to be the only one to intrude upon, it has been made more accessible and safe. The summit trail begins with its usual set of switchbacks then turn into a staircase. It was really a let down. I was expecting the rugged hike I slipped on years ago, but it was not to be. After a what seemed 400 steps, my calves were burning. At the top, we found a steel cable handrail/fence separating the rocky outcrop into two sides. There were no signs posted but the intention was clear to stay on the right of the railing. It was a bad day for sightseeing so we kept moving. We hung around at the top for bit but the weather began to change for the worse so we headed down. I did not think holding a steel cable on top of a mountian during a thunderstorm was the best idea. The dogs had a great time and it was good much needed exercise but we will probably hike it again only for the distance and the work out not to get back to nature. We will always have Pisgah for unspoiled hiking, hopefully.