RND(tech) - Windows

LaCie brings Lightscribe to the rest of us

nospam@example.com (Khanh Tran) — Tue, 17 Oct 2006 15:16:33 -0700

LaCie announced today that they now offer a complete Lightscribe solution for all platforms. That means now Mac OS X and even Linux users can write labels to Lightscribe media with Lightscribe drives. Lightscribe is a technology that allows you to etch silk screen quality images on the label side of CD/DVD media. Up until now, the technology was limited to Windows users due to lack of software. Now with the LaCie LightScribe Labeler for MAC OS, SureThing for Windows and LaCie LightScribe Labeler for Linux, we have software available to the three major OS platforms. Did I forget to mention the software is free from LaCie? Yes, it really is.

See:
http://www.lacie.com/lightscribe http://www.lightscribe.com

disabling NetBIOS over TCP/IP in Windows via BIND DHCPD

nospam@example.com (Khanh Tran) — Thu, 27 May 2010 08:31:40 -0700

This is scarce information on the Internet, so I'm reposting!

NetBIOS can be disabled now that it's fairly ancient networking. You're using TCP/IP and DNS right?
I don't use Microsoft DHCP or DNS servers, so finding the information to set this is hard to come by. To disable NetBIOS over TCP/IP in an ISC DHCP server, add the following to your dhcpd.conf:

option vendor-encapsulated-options 01:04:00:00:00:02;

It's that easy!

Exchange PowerShell script to sync contacts in an OU with a CSV file

nospam@example.com (Khanh Tran) — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 10:37:00 -0700

This was an extremely difficult topic to find information on, but very easy to write in Windows PowerShell. It seems a lot of others are syncing contacts in OUs across forests for multi-company organizations or similar. In my case, I'm the email admin at a college and need to populate contacts in our Exchange GAL from a CSV file. We use CSV imports due to the fact that we use multiple mail platforms and export address information from our ERP/SIS system for students.

My old process was to use CSVDE to import the CSV file into the ActiveDirectory OU "Students". However, this process required that I delete all 1,800 or so contacts and then reimport. This was not very elegant. So, after a lot of fruitless searching, I decided to write this script to handle our Student OU that contains only contact objects for the Exchange GAL.

This script first checks the existing contacts, based on email address, against the CSV file. If they exist in the file, great, do nothing, otherwise, delete the contact in the OU. Next, if the file has new contacts to import, import them! The script has two variables up in the "customizations" section that you can change for your specific OU and of course, the path to your CSV file's location. The structure of the CSV file is:

displayName,mail,givenName,sn,mailNickname,Company

The PowerShell (.ps1) script is below for anyone who could benefit from this. Make sure you run it as a user that has access to the OU you're syncing and enjoy!



#

#Exchange 2008 Contact sync with CSV file



#

#Set customizations here

$syncOU="Students"

$importFile="C:\temp\ExchangeImport.csv"



#

#Global Variables

$removeCounter=0

$addCounter=0



#

#Check existing contacts in OU against CSV file, delete if not found

write-host "Checking existing contacts for deletions..."

$existingContacts = get-recipient -resultSize unlimited -organizationalUnit $syncOU -recipientType MailContact | 

    select -expand EmailAddresses | %{$_.smtpAddress}

$existingContacts | forEach-object -process {

    if ($_ -ne $NULL) {

        $i = $_

        if (import-csv $importFile | where-object {$_.mail -eq $i}) 

            {}

        else 

            {

            write-host "Removing contact: " $i

            Remove-MailContact -Identity $i -Confirm:$false

            $removeCounter++

            }

    }

}



#

#Check CSV file for new addresses against OU, create if not found

write-host "Checking CSV file for new contacts..."

import-csv $importFile | 

	forEach-object -process {

		if (get-contact -erroraction silentlycontinue -organizationalUnit $syncOU $_.mail) 

			{} 

		else 

			{

            write-host "Adding contact from CSV file:"

            new-mailContact -Name $.displayName -FirstName $.GivenName -LastName $_.sn `

                -Alias $.mailNickname -ExternalEmailAddress $.mail `

                -PrimarySmtpAddress $_.mail -OrganizationalUnit $syncOU

            set-contact -identity $.mailNickname -WindowsEmailAddress $.mail -Company "$syncOU"

            $addCounter++

            }

    }

    

#

#Statistics Output

write-host "Attempted to delete " $removeCounter " contacts from the " $syncOU " OU."

write-host "Attempted to add " $addCounter " contacts to the " $syncOU " OU."

Installing Windows XP on a Dell Inspiron 1525 (downgrading from Windows Vista)

nospam@example.com (Khanh Tran) — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 21:36:46 -0700

I recently came by a new Dell Inspiron 1525 that someone I know purchased. It originally came with Windows Vista Home Premium loaded from the factory, but the owner (like many others) preferred Windows XP Professional. With a little help from the links below, you can install all of the necessary drivers needed to get this laptop working with Windows XP!

First off, you'll need the SATA drivers on a USB floppy. There are other means of satisfying the Windows XP installer's lack of SATA drive support, but you're own your own past this link:
SATA controller: Intel Corporation 82801HBM/HEM (ICH8M/ICH8M-E) SATA AHCI Controller (rev 02)

Once XP is installed, I went straight for the wireless card driver:
Dell Wireless 1390 (Broadcom BCM 4311) Windows Update has the Creative Labs Webcam (built in to the top of the screen) and the Marvell Yukon 88E8040 PCI-E Fast Ethernet Controller drivers. If you need the wired ethernet controller driver before the wireless, you can try the Marvell site and search for the Yukon family driver. It will have the driver, plus other utilities if you need support for things like 802.1q VLANs, etc.

Finish out the drivers, chipsets, and Dell hotkey support with:
SIGMATEL STAC 92XX C-Major HD Audio Chipset Conexant D330,HDA,MDC,v.92,modem Touchpad Intel GM965 (Video Card) Dell Quickset Ricoh R5C833 (Flash Drive controller)

This particular Dell Inspiron didn't have bluetooth installed (the BIOS showed no card, even though there was an LED for it), but if your's has the Dell Wireless 355 Bluetooth Module, you'll need the XP Downgrade patch to enable Bluetooth and then the actual Windows XP Driver