Great Admin Book

I have been reading a book the past couple of days called The Practice of System and Network Administration by Thomas A. Limoncelli, Christina J. Hogan and Strata R. Chalup that I really want to recommend to any new system or network administrator. I have really felt like I am all alone out there a lot over the past year and a half that I have been a new admin, and I wish I had this book a year ago. It looks to be a top level, yet very practical step-by-step guide on how to get your IT Department (no matter how big or small) into to shape. It also focuses on those areas which are important no matter what your industry. I really can't recommend this book highly enough. I got it for the move I am planning, but I already see that it will help in many other areas as well.

Desktop Support - Linking Contacts in Office 2007

When working for a small company, I am finding that it is often necessary for me to be the desktop support technician as well as the backup gal, server dudette, and network wirer. I guess this is perfect for me, since I have always been more of a jack of all trades, master of none type of person anyway. I can also usually track down the answer to any question, if given enough time and resources (usually 2 minutes and Google).

That is what it took to find the answer to the question for today. I had a user ask me today how to link contacts in Office 2007. He said he had done it in the older version, but could not find any information on how to do in 2007. I personally have never linked contacts, so I had no idea what he was talking about, but as he seemed quite distressed, I jumped on Google to see what I could find. Thankfully, this article by Jennifer Kershaw was just what I needed to be the hero today.

Here is the quick rundown; Open Outlook 2007, go to Tools --> Options --> Contact Options --> check the box next to "Show Contact Linkin gon all Forms" and wallah! Now each contact has a box at the bottom right allowing you to link contacts to other contacts in your list.

Exchange Trouble Leads to Learning

Why is it that I always learn best by fire? Why can't I sit down with a tech book and read about issues, problems and tools BEFORE I have a fire to put out? Oh well, I don't. I usually only learn tech tricks by having to put out fires on the job. This was the case last week when our main Exchange server stopped sending mail and started to hold all the messages in the queues.
I had not had to track anything in the queues before this, so looking at and using the Message Tracking Center Tool was new to me. I found some useful information on how to do this at two sites; Computer Performance and Amset.info.
But for quick information on how to get to your queues, what you should see, and some quick troubleshooting tips I recommend these sites to get you started. And by all means, check out you queues, see how messages normally flow so that when you do have a problem you will know how things should work and may just be able to quickly resolve your trouble.

Backup Exec 9 and Exchange 2003

So I had a bit of a panic attack over the weekend after our VP of IT called Friday to ask me to send him over a copy of our backup procedure. I had the procedure ready (in my head at least, just needed to put it to keyboard and paper) but I also realized that in our backup of our Exchange server, we were not doing mailbox backups.

We use Backup Exec version 9, and we are backing up the drives and the Information Store and the Shadow copy Components, but not the mailboxes and public folders. So, I started worrying and reading as frantically as I could. What I found after reading quite a bit and trying (and failing) some test backups was that I didn't need to backup the mailboxes.

According to the Help, "mailboxes and public folders are already included in the Exchange server database backups, but if you want to make the restore of a mailbox or folder easier, you can also select one or more mailboxes or public folders for backup seperately from the database." Now, ideally, I do want to backup the mailboxes seperate. However, until I get that figured out, I am still backing up the data and can restore it in the event of a failure.

Now, back to getting the account setup correctly so I can backup the mailboxes individually. . .more on that later.

Earth Day - Use Your Computer to Help Others

It is earth day, and I am sure there will be plenty of blogs and companies out there who will focus on how to reduce our carbon footprint, save energy and the like. So I thought I would be a little different today.

I am suggesting that all you geeks out there put your computer and your large brain to work and actually help our fellow man. You can do this by actually having some fun yourself and improving your vocabulary. Yes, in addition to feeling good about yourself for helping someone else, you are also helping yourself.

Go on over to FreeRice and fill up as many bowls as you can by guessing. . .I mean choosing the correct word. If you find that you have been extra blessed this year, or just have some spare money sitting around, give sponsorship a try.

There are many people throughout the world who exist on a bowl of rice a day. Take this even further and try this for a week yourself.

Symantec System Center Console

Pushing NAV to client PCs

I don't have to go into SSCC too often, and I tend to forget from time to time exactly how to push the client software to new computes, so I thought I would document it here and then if it helps someone else, well great.

After opening SSCC and unlocking my server group, I need to choose my server from the left hand pane. Once I have done that, I go up to Tools -> ClientRemote Install and accept the default option for the Location, then in the next box, I need to choose the PC names from the left box and move them to the right box. Once I have picked all the new PCs, I can click on the Finish button and NAV will install on the PCs that I chose.

The next step is to figure out how to add computers that aren't on the list. . .

Treo 680 with Exchange E-mail

I had to setup my first Treo 680's today for a couple of our new sales guys. It wasn't too difficult, but the instructions I was given by our AD Admin were a bit off so I wanted to document the steps here for the next time I need to setup these up.

1. Install the SIM and batter and charge the battery.

2. Call the support number to initiate the phone number.

3. Install the Palm Software (via a disk in the box) on the user's desktop.

5. Connect the device to the desktop.

6. Setup e-mail by going to Mail, Menu, choose Microsoft Activsync from the provider drop down and continue filling in the information as you get it from your e-mail administrator.