How many people back up their files?  Honestly.  Raise your hand if you do.  Chances are if your hard drive fails, you are one of the vast majority of computer users who would be up a certain creek without a paddle.  Backing up isn't hard to set up, especially now that software like Allway Sync exists.  Follow these instructions and relax in the knowledge that your data is safe.

1. Visit Allway Sync's download page to download the latest version.  Run the installer once the download is finished.
2. The default settings are good for this installation—read over it if you like, but most users can click right through.
3. Allway Sync will run once the installer is complete and will automatically begin the walk-through for creating a new backup job.
   1. Hit Control+R to give your backup a descriptive name (e.g. Nightly Documents Backup)
4. Choose A Source Folder :: Click Browse on the left-hand side and choose the folder you'd like to backup.  Most users would consider backing up their My Documents folder, but also consider other locations of important files such as accounting software or email.
5. Choose A Destination Folder :: Where do you want to store your files?  The dropdown list of locations gives you quite a few options.  Not only can you backup to a removable drive or network location, but multiple online storage vendors are also provided so you can backup to an offsite location with ease (OffsiteBox.com gives 50mb for free and Amazon S3 runs $0.15/GB used/mo + $0.10/GB transferred—less than $1.50 a month to maintain 5gb of data for most users).
   1. If you're backing up to an external hard drive, choose Removeable Drive from the list.  Choose the drive from the dropdown list, and make sure that Bind to drive characteristics is checked so that it will continue to backup even if the drive letter changes.  Then, in the path textbox, enter a directory for the backups to go into (e.g. f:\backups\)
   2. If you're backing up to a network location, such as a file server located on your network, choose Network folder.  Click Configure, and enter in the connection details.  For example, if your file server is called super-file-storage, the UNC path to your directory on there may look like \\super-file-storage\files\myusername\backups\ depending on how it’s configured.  If you need to provide a username and password, you can also do that here.
6. 
   Allway Sync’s default action is to synchronize two folders, which you can see by the middle arrow indicator.  Since you're configuring it for backups, click on the arrow pointing from your source folder to your backup folder (the highlighted choice in the image).  This means that files will only be copied from your source directory to your backup directory, not the other way around.  If you want to guard against accidentally deleting a file, uncheck Propagate deletions.  This will leave all files in your backup, regardless of whether you delete them in your source folder.
7. Now, you're all set to backup!  Click Analyze to begin the process.  This will tell you that there are substantial differences in the two folders, and that this is normal.  Click Ignore.
8. Once this is done, click Synchronize.  This will perform the backup while showing you the progress.  Congratulations—you've just backed up your files!  What good is just one backup, however?  We need to set this to run automatically so your backups aren’t dependent on you.
9. From the menu, click Job –> Properties.  Under your backup job, click on Automatic Synchronization.  The easiest way to set up synchronization is to perform the backup at a specified interval (Through the specified period with a Periodicity of 6 hours).  You could also have it run when the computer is idle for a certain amount of time or when file changes are detected.  Setting the delay for either to 1 hour will make sure Allway Sync doesn't run too often, but it's really up to you.  Make sure you don't leave too many options checked, or you may find that the program runs too often.  Hit OK when you’re done.
   1. For advanced control over when your backups should run, scroll down the list to Use Windows Task Scheduler, then click Configure.  Click New, and set your parameters.  You may, for instance, want to choose Daily at 12:30 PM if you know your work computer will be on and you'll be at lunch.
   2. There are a number of other settings that can be configured, such as what files to include or exclude or retaining multiple versions of important files (in case you made edits you later need to undo).

Backups are useless unless you’re sure that you can get the files back.  Every once in a while, take a look inside your backup folder to make sure that the files you want backing up are there and that they’re being kept up-to-date.

Hope this helps!  Please feel free to ask questions below in the comments.  Remember: a few minutes setting this up will save you days of frustration and/or hundreds of dollars when your hard drive does eventually fail.

Space!  The final frontier, in terms of what users need more of.  One of my clients was running a custom-built (read cheap) file server that had a few issues.  The chassis and motherboard are from Norco, a company that creates products for people with plenty of time to kill.  If you need something dirt cheap (and don’t mind getting your hands cut up on the rough edges), this will do quite nicely.  However, the server would randomly reset its BIOS settings across boots, meaning that patching Windows became a fingers-crossed affair to see if the server would come back up gracefully.  Also, the expandability was nil as was the warranty.

With these issues in mind, I recommended a Dell PowerEdge 2900.  I configured it with 2 500gb 7.2k SATA drives in RAID 1 for the system partition, and 6 1TB 7.2k SATA drives in RAID 5 for the file storage.  This setup yields 4.54TB of usable space on the storage virtual drive.  Future expandability would be handled using a PowerVault that would hook into the PERC 6 controller.

I installed this into their rack myself, which wasn’t easy as this thing weighs in at over 100lbs.  Getting it onto the versa-rails was a delicate process, but once it’s in place, the whole thing is solid.  HD Tune gives good numbers, with 250Mbps sustained.  This needs to support roughly 200 users, with quotas managed through Windows 2008 File Server Resource Management.  So far, three virtual machines have also been moved on to the server, as the 2ghz quad-core Xeon and 12gb of RAM have more than enough processing power to handle a few low-load VMs such as an XP developers sandbox, a domain controller, and a test web server.

What are you buying for file storage?  Managed SAN devices?  Traditional file servers like this?  Going straight to the cloud?

UkNuke has an authentication module for DNN that allows a developer to use the Facebook Connect to allow users to log in to his/her site.  Very cool, except the page they created that is shown to users after returning to your site from the Facebook login page is crowded and a little confusing.  How ‘bout some jQuery hiding that’ll give the user two options: I’m new here (shown by default) or I’ve already have a username here (hidden).

UkNuke’s installation walk-through seems fairly straight forward, and does a good job at warning developers as to potential pitfalls (don’t log out of your host account!)

Has anybody tried this out on a production site?  Now that everyone and their mother (except mine) is on Facebook, this seems like the easiest way to attract visitors without the turnoff of having to go through yet another registration procedure (or yarp, as I like to call them).

One of my clients was experiencing some odd wireless dropouts on the computer set up the farthest from the router.  They mentioned that it started around when they gave their wireless key to a neighbor so he could get online.  It seems like a neighborly thing to do, until you consider that this new computer that they have no control over is on the same network as all of their machines, as well as their file server.  I told them I was uncomfortable with that setup, but if they wanted to share their access, I would find a way to make it work.

They have a WRT54G v8 that I had them purchase from NewEgg, on which I decided to swap out the stock firmware with the open-source DD-WRT firmware.  There’s a great walk-through on SimpleHelp.net that covers the additional VxWorks Killer step necessary for the v7 & 8 models.  The DD-WRT firmware gives you near-complete control, especially over things like wireless transmit power (the stock setting is between 20-40mw) which I leave set to DD-WRT’s default setting of 70mw.  After setting up the wireless network and the security, I went back downstairs to find that the signal was now solidly stable.

But what about their neighbors’ access?  Using the extremely well-written guide available from Pennock’s World about setting up multiple BSSIDs using DD-WRT, I was able to get multiple wireless networks running off of one router.  The rules in the firewall section stop any traffic going between the two networks, while still allowing the second network access to the internet.  They can even be set with their own security schemes, so the neighbors can use any old WEP-enabled device while all of the important computers connect via WPA2.

I’m running Windows 2008 on my Fujitsu S7220, using it to test various blog and CMS solutions, and it’s a great OS.  As much as I love XP, I’m really impressed with a lot of the UI improvements that went into Vista (which flowed into 2008 and is improved even more in Windows 7).  I don’t hear a ton of talk about it, and I get the feeling that a lot of people who grumble about Vista (Becky!) just haven’t taken the time to learn their new surroundings.  One thing I didn’t realize I use all the time was the searchable start menu.  No more sorting your start menu to make things easier to find—it’s a built-in quick launch that doesn’t suck.  Luckily, for people running XP, there’s hope.  LifeHacker featured a download called ViStart (clever…), which gives XP users the useful bits without needing to upgrade.  I’m going to slipstream this onto my next XP image—that’s still 90% of all the installations I do at work.  Most of the Vista-on-XP programs out there are kinda hokey and just for show, but this one brings some really useful functionality back to the most widely used desktop OS.

I rebooted my main web server at work the other day after some patching only to find that it wouldn’t come back up remotely.  I walked over to my server room to take a look, and sure enough, it was hung at the RAID controller config screen telling me one of the drives had dropped from the array and asking how to proceed.  One of the first things I had done coming on to this position was to insist that all of our critical systems had backup plans and were properly RAIDed, so aside from the annoyance of a hard drive failing, I breathed a sigh of relief—something I had spent $500 (of someone else’s money) on was finally paying off!

So, I sit here now, watching the progress bar tick ever closer to complete (at 27% right now, I have a ways to go…) and writing my thoughts on how our next server setup will run.  It’s technically already running, but just hasn’t been completely switched over yet.  The new server is a Dell Poweredge 2970, with a whole bunch of cores and a whole lotta ram.  Using Hyper-V, it’s running two domain controllers (for two different domains), a web server, and an app testing server.

Backing up the web server?  Take a snapshot of a virtual drive.  Drive fails?  Hot swap a new one in (after, of course, being alerted way before it actually goes).  I’m not in a huge hurry—we’ve had the new server running for months now, but the old one is still chugging right along, server up pages like it’s its job.  And once this array is finished duplicating (50%!), that new drive had better get comfortable cause it could be there for quite a while.

Finally!  For the longest time, I’ve been jealous of the great urls that blog solutions like WordPress and even BlogEngine.net give us.  I realize that DotNetNuke is an amazing platform that is virtually limitless in its modularity and expandability, but c’mon—can we PLEASE get some nice looking URLs built-in to the platform?

Enter iFinity Friendly Url provider

Using Bruce Chapman’s amazing Friendly Url provider from iFinity, I was able to get it working by making the wildcard ISAPI modification in IIS (thanks to Kyle over a PowerDNN.com for making the change).  It would be nice to have this sort of control within the control panel, but IIS 7 provides for overriding defaults from within web.config (although I was told by Kyle that people have been having issues getting an already working DNN install migrated over…)

web.config entry

Here’s what it took for me to get the beauty working.

<add name="DNNFriendlyUrl" type="iFinity.DNN.Modules.FriendlyUrl.DNNFriendlyUrlProvider, iFinity.FriendlyUrlProvider"
    includePageName="true"
    logCacheMessages="false"
    regexMatch="[^\+a-zA-Z0-9 _-]"
    urlFormat="HumanFriendly"
    redirectUnfriendly="false" <!--needed to stop redirect on / -->
    parameterHandling="ordered" <!--needed to get blog to work!-->
    pageExtensionUsage="never" <!--here’s where the magic happens!-->
    doNotRewritePage="(\.axd)|(/DesktopModules/)"
    ignoreFileTypeRegex="(?&lt;!linkclick\.aspx.+)(?:\.pdf$|\.gif$|\.png$|\.css$|\.js$|(?&lt;!exif\.aspx.+)\.jpg$|\.html|\.htm|\.axd|\.swf$|\.flv$"
    checkForDupURls="true"
    doNotRedirect="SearchResults;"
    replaceSpaceWith="-"
    doNotRedirectRegex="[.]*(/logoff.aspx)"
    forceLowerCase="true"
    redirectWrongCase="true"
    useBaseFriendlyUrls=""
    triggerDictionaryRebuildRegex="&amp;ctl=tab|/ctl/tab|/Admin/Tabs/"
    allowDebugCode="false"
    cacheTime="1000"
/>

Are you using this on your DNN site as well?  What has your experience been with URL rewriters (PageBlaster, HREF Exchanger, iFinity, Vertrian?)

Stuff breaks.  Hardware, software, users—everything eventually needs to be fixed.  Take a look at any tech guy’s (I use that term with no gender bias—girls can be “guys” too!) usb stick and you’ll get a glimpse into how they fix what’s broken.  Remember: these programs are powerful, and with great power comes the ability to screw up your computer in less than 10 seconds.

ComboFix

ComboFix has already saved me countless hours of searching a computer for odd activity.  It picks up on all sorts of random stuff that antivirus programs like Symantec miss.  Their site has a great walkthrough where you can also download the software.  They update it regularly, so while it doesn’t hurt to keep a copy on a flash drive, you’ll want to download the latest version when you have the ability.  You may also have to set your region settings back after using it to get your clock to display normally.

SysInternals

The suite of SysInternals utilities is the brainchild of Mark Russinovich and Bryce Cogswell, who have both joined Microsoft when their company was bought in 2006.  Microsoft continues to host their software, giving implicit approval of their utilities.  They’ve got utilities for  My favorites?

Process Explorer – tells you everything you’d ever want to know about what’s running on your computer.  Task Manager on methamphetamines.

Rootkit Revealer – catches rootkits by scanning for differences between raw disk info and what’s reported through Windows APIs.

Autoruns – like Nirsoft’s strun utility, shows all programs that start with the computer.  A little too much info for end-users, but great for troubleshooting.

PsTools – a bunch of command line tools for working on a computer remotely.

Nirsoft

Whew—where to begin!  Password recovery tools, network monitoring tools (CurrPorts!), and a ton of other tools.  Definitely big on the password recovery stuff, to the point that Symantec routinely quarantines some of the programs as being capable of stealing passwords!  Verboden equals must have.

What am I missing from my list?  What do you have in your toolbelt?

Philly, the city that I call home, has made the switch to weekly recycling pickups starting with the new year.  This is great news, as money gets tight and so many programs find themselves on the chopping block.  My fiancée and I live on a side street in South Philly, and I’m amazed at the amount of recyclables that pile up.  Since we’ve been living here, I’ve averaged at least a full 20 gallon bin of bottles and cans a week--just from walking up and down our block.  Now, researchers have empirical proof that chaos begets chaos—that people can be “morally swayed by the state of their surroundings.”  As New York City found in the past two decades, trash and graffiti invite people to break laws.  They already knew that the effect exists, but they were surprised by the size of the effect.

So, this Monday, get out and clean up your block.  If you live in a place like Center City that already pays people to clean up after you, then come down to a less privileged neighborhood and lend a hand.

Netsh is a valuable command-line tool available from Windows 2000 onwards.  I recently had a client who was unable to get his wireless adapter to repair, no matter how many times he rebooted, repaired, disabled, etc.  It would associate with the access point but never pull a correct IP.  Instead, it kept going to some non-self assigned IP (202.61.xx.xx)  All it took were the following commands (he didn’t have any special settings, so when in doubt, reset everything you can!)

netsh interface reset all
netsh winsock reset

A quick reboot later, and the wireless jumped right on and got a valid IP from the DHCP server.

Additional Netsh Resources

• Microsoft’s KB article – basic usage and description of the various contexts
• Petri has more advanced uses for the tool.
• Microsoft Technet Command Line Reference – Using Netsh