So You Are a System Administrator!?

I am not a Unix System Administrator! I was just searching google for something and came to this. I like the starting part :)

"Any trained monkey can administer a system that is working correctly. Such systems rarely, if ever, need external human, or simian, guidance. The system gets some sort of stimulus or input, makes decisions, takes actions, and most likely emits some sort of product or information"

FreeBSD Ports: What To Do When Things Go Wrong

Should Outlook 2003 block graphics from downloading?

By default Outlook 2003 doesn't download pictures from external sources included in HTML codes. Putting images inside HTML codes is a method that spammers use to find active and working email addresses so leaving this feature intact is suggested but if you receive regular HTML emails find the work-around here:
Set Outlook 2003 to automatically download graphics
You can also stick to the default settings and force picture downloads on every email individually or adding a specific sender or domain to to safe sender list by right clicking on a blocked image and select the options available:

Blogger's Missing Feature: Category of Posts!

I wonder why the guys at Blogger haven't arranged for the post categories yet! You can find many questions about whether or not Blogger supports categories in different forums and you can only find one disappointing answer : "NO!"
With comments now available for posts the only thing I would like to have on my blog is to set a category for every post so that visitors can have easier and faster access to the information they are interested in.

Dr Paul Mockapetris predicts web future

"Ten years from now, we will look back at the net and think how could we have been so primitive."
"Ten years from now, we will wonder how it was so hard to find things on the network too"

And Dr Paul Mockapetris who created the Domain Name System (DNS) also predicts that there will be no need for phone numbers and only web addresses are all what we will need in future to communicate:
Net pioneer predicts web future

Free Windows RSS Feed Readers / News Aggregators

After trying out a couple of Feed Readers, now I am taking up SharpReader. Among all free news aggregators I found this one simple and easy to organize.
You can find a list of some free news aggregators here:
Top Free Windows RSS Feed Readers / News Aggregators

Repairing Exchange databases with ESEUTIL

I have been called in to repair Exchange Server databases a couple of times so far. All had the same symptom; the mailbox stores couldn't mount and it came after a server migration, power failure or backup restore.
In all those cases I couldn't fix the problem without the help of ESEUTIL, Event Viewer and Microsoft's online support. This very interesting post goes through a step by step process to troubleshoot and fix an Exchange database issue by using ESEUTIL and some other great notes that an Exchange server administrator should not miss :
Repairing Exchange databases with ESEUTIL - when and how?
You feel like standing in the middle of hell when your Exchange Server stops functioning during business hours and you keep receiving calls from sales, marketing, accounting and worse of all, your Boss!!!

Yahoo is catching up with Gmail!

With 100MB of email storage, email search and auto complete feature Yahoo is trying to catch up with Gmail! 100MB of storage will be satisfactory for many users especially those using yahoo's messenger. Google has definitely seen and planned for competitors before its Gmail service announcement and we should expect something great from gmail soon. I prefer to have a Gmail notifier integrated into google's toolbar.

My Digital Camera Choice : Canon PowerShot A75

Finally, after months of research on digital cameras I made my decision and got a Canon PowerShot A75. Before coming to this decision I changed my mind from brands to brands and models to models, from PowerShot to CyberShot and from canon A70 to G5 and back to A75! I read hundreds of Amazon and Cnet customer reviews, emailed lots of friends asking about their digital camera and checked different sample images and videos and at last PowerShot A75 was my choice.
Here are my first shots:
Iran/Tehran : Legrand on the tower!
Macro Sample
North Tehran 1
North Tehran 2

Explaining IP Helper Addresses!!!

An innovative way to explain what "Cisco Router IP Helper-Address Command" is and how it should be configured! Let your UDP broadcasts pass through:
Trinity explains IP Helper Addresses
Well, Some people have their own way to explain things!

Spike : Copy, Paste, Collaborate on the Net!

This is something that comes to everyone's interest, especially those having no email system in place or working in a workgroup environment or home networks. An easy to use and handy tool that help you share the content of your clipboard in the network! It means that once you copy a text, PDF, MP3, Word Document, ... File into the clipboard, members of the network running spike on their machine can copy and paste it to their machines,it is that easy!!
Download It From Here :
Spike from Porchdog Software

Some Guidelines:
1- By default your clipboard will be shared and exposed to everyone having spike installed so not a bad idea to remove the checkmark next to share on the context menu of History clipboard entry and create a new clipboard and share this new created clipboard. This way you can easily drag & drop those contents which you want to be shared from History to the new created clipboard in my case "secure" :

2- Still want to expose your clipboard to everyone but looking for security? Go to Network tab in preferences and just set a password so that everyone trying to access your clipboard should first present a password:

THANKS TO THIS POST:
Adam's Mindspace

e-mail mistakes that make you look bad

This will give you some email attitude! Don't think you are anonymous when sending emails, you can be followed up by checking the header part of your email, Sending email to the wrong person in your address book can be another disgrace! Forgetting the attachment, using your personal email account instead of business account and clicking the send button to fast and ... You'd better check it yourself:
8 e-mail mistakes that make you look bad

Spyware Explained

You should get acquainted with these evils behind the scene and know the symptoms and a couple of tricks to protect your PC from them:
Spyware Explained

Configuring an Inbound and Outbound SMTP Relay

Thomas Shinder which is popular for his great "Configuring ISA Server 2000" and "ISA Server Beyond" books has started the first part of an article addressing how to configure an inbound and outbound SMTP relay to keep the mail server secure. In This part he has tried to go through the relay concept, what a relay is and why it is important. He has also pointed out to an online utility whereby you can check your relay configuration and make sure it is not open to Spammers:
Configuring an Inbound and Outbound SMTP Relay