A necessary tool for anyone running Windows clients and servers. Process Explorer gives you a deep view into processes running on a Windows system. It allows you to view a process’s associated dlls, file handles, open files, open directories, etc. A great tool for tracking down potential issues with a running application.

Download Process Explorer v14.1 here.

Mozy is currently protecting about 90GB of data for me across 2 computers. It is easy to use – set it and forget it – backup. Just sign up, install the agent, select what you want/need to be backed up and it goes. You can access back ups to do restores online or they will send you DVDs of your data in the event of a catastrophic failure.

Here is a quote from the email I just received:

Thanks for being a valued Mozy subscriber. For the first time since 2006, we’re adjusting the price of our MozyHome service and wanted to give you a heads up. As part of this change, we’re replacing our MozyHome Unlimited backup plan and introducing the following tiered storage plans:

You may add additional computers (up to 5 in total) or 20 GB increments of storage to either of the plans, each for a monthly cost of $2.00.

My cost only increases by a few cents per month. I think I was paying $4.95 each month for each computer (some discounts for paying for a 2 year term etc.) so the $9.99/month which includes up to 3 computers is only $.09/month than what I am paying now (and there are still some other discounts for a 2 year commitment).

I still think this is a fair price for the service and the peace of mind is well worth it so I plan to continue using Mozy.com to provide remote backups of my home PCs.

Still wish they had a Linux client.

Dropbox also allows you to share and sync folders with other Dropbox users or give public access to files that are placed in a “Public” folder. I tested out the Public access and I was able to give other, non-Dropbox users, online access to files by just sending them URL to the file – this could be very handy, just remember the “Public” folder is just that so watch out what you put in there. Mobile access is available with apps for the iPhone, iPad, Andriod, and Blackberry.

The Basic Dropbox service gives you 2GB of Dropbox storage for FREE and there are paid levels for 50GB and 100GB. Once you create an account you can earn an extra 250MB of storage (up to 8 GB of total storage) for each person you refer to Dropbox. A buddy of mine got an extra 250 for me so sign up using this link so I get an extra 250 for you. (Thanks!)

I would fight off a velociraptor to protect my @Dropbox. http://db.tt/UJeK5SH

Version info (Changelog) can be found here and you can download it from right here.

Bare Tail is a handy little free utility that allows you to monitor log files on Windows real-time. Basically a GUI of the Unix command tail -f.

Allows you to tail monitor multiple files. Pretty neat check it out here http://www.baremetalsoft.com/baretail/index.php

The Windows 2003 Resource kit contains a command line tail utility that is also pretty handy.

Use Defraggler to defrag your entire hard drive, or individual files – unique in the industry. This compact and portable Windows application supports NTFS and FAT32 file systems.

And it’s free for personal and commercial use.

Use the Stage wizard to download the patches before using remediation. This downloads and prepares the patches while the host is still online. This decrease the amount of time the host is off line (in maintenance mode) will applying patches.

Stage and Remediate in Upate Manager

You can stage at the cluster and Data Center level to prepare all hosts in the cluster for remediation.

Update Manager Stage Wizard

Shortcuts in Home-Inventory-Hosts and Clusters

Stage and Remediate Host - Cluster and Data Center

Just updated to ESX 4.0.0 build 175625. Staging took about 3 1/2 minutes total and remediation took about 12 minutes per host (this include Entering maintenance mode, VM migration, patch installation, reboot, exit maintenance mode). Three and a half minutes of savings may not seem like much, and across three hosts it really isn’t that big of a deal, but across 20 hosts that would make a huge difference.

Awesome new vSphere feature!

“Mozy is a simple and safe way to back up all the important stuff on your computer. A copy of your data is stored in a secure, remote location for safekeeping, so that in the event of disaster your data is still retrievable.”

Sign up for an account, install the client, select the files you want to backup, and that’s it. There are some tweaks to allow more bandwidth to be used for backups, or backup only when idle but I just selected all the defaults. The initial backup took about 10 days for 45GBs of data, but now my data is quickly backed up daily. I am sure they are using some sort of source de-duplication similar to AVAMAR.

Here is a capture from my Mozy account of my backup data

I have not tried to do a restore yet, but I have browsed through my backed up files on the Virtual Drive created when you install the Mozy Client and using the Web restore online.

Mozy’s web restore interface

If anyone from Mozy reads this… I wish you had a Linux Client!!!

Awesome free tool to help troubleshoot Active Directory/LDAP configurations.

Download BGInfo from Microsoft