OpenDNS – Why? Can something free be good?

OpenDNS – I use it and like it and yield it like a Zen master:  OpenDNS

Regardless if any blocking is used, the tool still provides an auditing/oversight function. OpenDNS is a high availability DNS service; it has a very proven track record of dependable service. If there were a cost it would be sellable; however, it’s ‘free as in beer’ so that is an even easier sell. If for nothing else it could be used as an introductory mechanism to helping your client discover the value of such web oversight of his office staff. Some would rather not bother; some will require access to this information on a as-needed basis, some are overreaching power mongers. It’s not a one size fits all thing.

As for if you trust them in their expressed intention of being a good neighbor in the ‘net’ as to their reason for providing this FREE service, that’s for you to sort out. As a skeptic looking for my clients best interests, I’ve not been given any telltale signs of any bait-n-switchery or other less than forthright underpinnings. It seems legit.

One downside I’ve discovered with OpenDNS is with optionally your logo integrated; when done your logo is displayed on an informational html page whenever something doesn’t resolve or is blocked. Although at first I thought this good in that I’d have a track back mechanism for people who were false-positive blocked that would enable finer adjustments, white listing, …etc. However, instead it put me in the position of a web ‘door-man aka bouncer’ of sorts. I really don’t advocate putting yourself in that front and center thug/gate-keeper position unless you have a service agreement in place as well as some pre-existing expectations, instructions, and explanations as to the who?, what?, and why? of web filtering in writing and distributed to all under your wise and almighty judicious power.

RWW with your own logo

To add your own logo to the SBS Remote Web Workplace aka RWW you merely need to replace the file shown below, RwwOEMLogo.gif, with your own .gif formatted logo.   The default is a blank 135×20 pixel rectangle – whatever size you bring in that fits in the RWW form window should be good to go.  The size of the header logo at the top is 448 x 175 pixels and its name is login.gif in case you want to modify it to carry that same look for use on the bottom logo.

Now Windows Home Server integrates this same RWW feature.  I’ll bet Kevin a dip of Graeter’s black-rasberry-chip that this works exactly the same in WHS.

Here’s my site in action:

Here’s another way I found it useful.  To notify those on vacation on cruise ships, skiing, or otherwise impractical to call that their access is suspended due to password security breach of a dismissed employee.  Can’t say that many words so brevity has its limits.  **FYI – notice something else customized?**

***late breaking update***

If you want your logo centered rather than alligned to the right you can make this happen.  Edit and search through the logon.aspx for this picture file’s name – ‘RwwOEMlogo.gif’.  Preceding it is the HTML code align=right.  Change “right” to “center” and you are golden.

A special note to the Paint.NET tool at www.getpaint.net .  It rocks!

SharePoint – New Beta Extranet Collaboration Toolkit

FYI – I’m putting this on my list of thing to research & explore for 2008. If an “easy” extranet SharePoint site can be made possible, I’m VERY interested and I think many businesses might benefit from this too.

The Extranet Collaboration Toolkit for SharePoint helps enhance security by creating each collaboration site as a SharePoint site collection. This ensures that teams using one collaboration site will not be able to view documents on another site, unless they are explicitly given access.  In addition, the toolkit puts all external users in ADAM (Microsoft’s lightweight directory service), rather than in the organization’s primary internal directory.

The benefits for your customers include:
Boosts security.  The toolkit allows team members to store and share documents centrally on their organization’s server, instead of e-mailing documents to others across the Internet.  And instead of giving VPN access to external team members (therefore granting them access to everything on the internal network), site owners can give external members access to just the team collaboration site.

Easy to deploy.  Automated tools and step-by-step instructions allow customers to deploy this Solution Accelerator quickly and easily – in as little as two hours, instead of weeks or months without the toolkit.

Easy to use.  Once the toolkit is deployed, team members can set up their own SharePoint collaboration sites in minutes.  The toolkit’s web-based interface makes it simple for team members to share documents and collaborate with each other across the Internet.

Reduces IT costs and boosts productivity.  Project team members can manage sites on their own, freeing up scarce IT resources to focus on higher-return activities.

Thoroughly tested.  The toolkit is extensively tested in our labs, and verified by customers and partners under real-world conditions.

The Extranet Collaboration Toolkit for SharePoint is now in Beta and available via MSConnect!  To learn more about the toolkit, click here.

Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies Team Blog : New Beta Extranet Collaboration Toolkit

SBS Server Managment – a couple of missing web UI’s

Many days and issues along the way I’ve been able to succeed in solving a quirky SBS-Server Management web page display failures issue.  At some point the busted SBS R2 machine has had its IIS settings modified for the Default Website.

I followed KB842693and found that I needed to add an additional address to the Default Website, 127.0.0.1 – TCP port 80 – no host header.  Somehow someway it got removed along its life but I’ll never know why; at least it’s straightened out now.

With this simple modification all went golden.  SBS Backup, Monitoring & Performance Reports, and the integrated Update Services home all returned to functionality.  No re-installations needed.

With the help of Google I found that quite a few people had written about this same issue and going back nearly 4 years.  For instance here’s such a discussion from Susan Bradley:  Issues with Monitoring and Reporting or Backup Snap-in?

As many of us assume preconfigured (and often to a bad result) SBS machines, this kind of scenario is unfortunately likely to recur.  So if ever you run across odd IIS behavior then this post will be here to help us out.

Throw another Log on the fire (or on SBS)

While troubleshooting disappearing free space from a customer’s SBS system partition I found  a terrific resource, a list of all the log files on our SBS boxes.  Wow what a great list and just in time for bed! 

http://blogs.technet.com/sbs/archive/2005/11/14/414454.aspx

The ones I found to contain the largest amount of data were from IIS and from Exchange.  In Exchange the Default SMTP Virtual Server is typically the specific location to change the log target storage directory.  Open the IIS Admin interface and go to the property sheet for each website to configure logging changes.

It’s like the Energizer Bunny …going …going  …going  (or was that a pharmaceutical ad stuck in my head?)  Those logs never get automatically deleted by default.  Watch out!