Creating remembering complex passwords

The more and more prevalent identity theft has become, the more I have to 'convince' my customers that using their kids names as passwords just isn't a good idea. Here's a general rule of thumb we utilize when talking about passwords with our customers, or with our prospects.

How to pick a password:
1) 8+ Characters long
2) Needs to meet complexity requirements.

Complexity requirements defined:
(pick at least 3 of the 4 items below to make up a password)
1) Upper case letter (A-Z)
2) Lower case letter (a-z)
3) a Number (0-9)
4) Special characters, symbols, punctuation, etc. (Such as: `~!@#$%^&*_+-=[]{};’:”,.<>/?)

How to change your password:
1) Press CTRL+ALT+DEL
2) Click CHANGE PASSWORD
a. Type your old password in the first password box
b. Type your new password in the second password box
c. Type your new password again in the third password box

3) Click OK.


Helpful tips on picking and remembering a complex password:
1) Come up with a sentence, such as “I will climb to the top of Everest in 2010”

Now then, perhaps you could make this your password: Iwc2t^oEi10
I = I
w = will
c = climb
2 = to
t = the
^ = top
o = of
E = Everest
i = in
10 = 2010

How does this password meet complexity requirements?
This password is 8+ characters long and also meets complexity requirements because it 1) contains a number, 2) contains a lowercase letter, 3) contains an uppercase letter. It also contains a special character – so actually this password goes beyond complexity requirements, but that’s OK. There is nothing wrong with a stronger password than what is required.

2) Come up with a sentence, such as “My dream car is a Lamborghini Countach”

Now then, just add any number to the beginning, and an exclamation point (or other special character) to the end: 0mdrialc!

0 = any number (in this case it’s a zero)
m = my
d = dream
c = car
i = is
a = a
l = Lamborghini
c = Countach
! = any special character (in this case it’s an exclamation point)



How does this password meet complexity requirements?
This password is 8+ characters long and also meets complexity requirements because it 1) contains a number, 2) contains a lowercase letter, 3) contains a special character. So, simply by adding a number to the beginning of a string of lowercase letters, and then adding an exclamation point to the end, we’ve made a complex password.

Hope the tips help a bit in remembering and creating complex passwords.

iPhone OS 3.1 Features

Apple yesterday seeded iPhone OS 3.1 and iPhone SDK 3.1 betas to developers for testing, and users have been digging through the new releases to document new features. Among the changes found so far:

- Trimming video clips on the iPhone 3GS now offers the ability to save the edited version as a copy rather than simply overwriting the original file.
- Voice Control over Bluetooth is now available, allowing users to Initiate calls and control music playback via Bluetooth headsets.
- MMS is now enabled by default, but still not supported by AT&T.
- iPhone vibrates when rearranging Home screen icons.
- A "Fraud Protection" toggle is now available in Safari settings.
- iPhone startup and shutdown and app launching times have improved.
- New APIs allow developers of third-party application to access and edit videos.
- OpenGL and Quartz have seen improvements.

Setup Entourage 2008 to connect to Exchange 2007

A couple of weeks ago we went through the process of migrating off of Small Business Server 2003 to Small Business Server 2008. Part of this migration means moving from Exchange Server 2003 to Excange Server 2007. Entourage 2004/2008 wasn't playing nicely with Exchange 2007. I blame Entourage because it is the client rather than the server. Over the past two weeks I have tried various things before finally resolving the issue today. Initially I thought that Entourage connected to Exchange via IMAP but I soon learned that it actually connects via WebDAV in the same manner that OWA does. In the end I had three different items that I needed to have setup properly.

1. WebDAV has to be enabled on the IIS site where OWA is running.
2. Exchange 2007 uses a new method for OWA to connect to the CAS backend server, however it has legacy virtual directories for connecting applications that use the Exchange 2003 methodology. The two folders you need to point your Entourage to are "server.domain.com/exchange" for the mail and "server.domain.com/public" for the public folders.
3. The final piece that you need is to append the user's email address to the mail server address like this: "server.domain.com/exchange/user@domain.com"

MS has this support article: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/931350/en-us

You cannot connect to your mailbox on Exchange Server when you use Entourage for Mac

SYMPTOMS

When you use Microsoft Entourage 2004 for Mac, you cannot connect to your mailbox on Microsoft Exchange Server.

CAUSE

This issue can occur when the URL that is used by Entourage 2004 to connect to Exchange Server is in the wrong format.

RESOLUTION

To resolve this issue, manually configure the Exchange Server account properties in Entourage. To do this, follow these steps:

1.	Start Entourage.
2.	On the Tools menu, click Accounts.
3.	If you already have configured an account, click Exchange, click the account that you want, and then click Edit. Go to step 6. If you have not configured an account, click Exchange, and then click New.
4.	If you do not receive the New Account dialog box, go to step 5. If you receive the New Account dialog box, click Assist me.
5.	Click Configure account manually.
6.	In the various entry boxes, type suitable values. Alternatively, keep previously entered values.
7.	In the Exchange server box, type the value in one of the following formats, as appropriate for the network that you are using: • On the internal network, use the following format: server01.contoso.com/exchange/user@contoso.com • On the external network, use the following format: mail.contoso.com/exchange/user@contoso.com Important If the mailbox resides on a computer that is running Microsoft Exchange Server 2007, you must provide the name of the computer that is performing the Client Access Server role.
8.	On the Advanced tab, enter other details as necessary. Alternatively, keep previously entered values. Then, click OK.
9.	Exit and then restart Entourage. This makes sure that Entourage uses the newly entered Exchange Server account settings to connect to the mailbox on the server that is running Exchange Server.

Microsoft Response Point Addition

Within the last 2 months, we've upgraded our phone system to Microsoft Response point (using the Syspine System). This has been an amazing tool. My friend Austin owns Digital Son, and he is a networking/hosting god! His company is Digital Son, and they have significant VoIP experience, and certainly tried to convince me to try the 'real deal' VoIP phone systems instead of the 'training wheel' (response point) version that I felt more comfortable with.

With that being said, my team can't be happier with Response point. It was a major upgrade to our business, and we've gotten lots of comments from customers on how cool it is.

Here are some commands that I thought I'd share.

8* # = Retrieve parked call (not documented on help screen)
*08# = DND Toggle
Speaker Phone = alternate exit from Menu
Mute = Clears out digits on some setting screens

Suggestion: Default 'Hold Recall' timer appears to be 180 seconds,
but the phone drops the call after 120, so you don't get any
warning. To correct, change 'Hold Recall' under 'Preferences' to 30
or 60 seconds. This can also be done from the web interface.
#*IP(47) Gives phone IP address in the display
#*MENU (6368) Shows phone menu in phone display (Adjust
ringing here and much more)
#=Enter
Call History Key takes you back one level
Lift and replace handset to exit phone menu
UP/DOWN arrows to scroll

872# Code to access external paging amplifier
822# Access to auto attendant
886# Access to Voice Mail

Installing Telnet in Vista

By default, Vista doesn't install the Telnet client. The client is for text-based communication with remote systems. You can install it by following these steps:

1. Click Start then select Control Panel.

2. Select Programs and Features.

3. Select Turn Windows features on or off.

4. Select the Telnet Client option.

5. Click OK.

6. A dialog box will appear to confirm installation. The telnet command should now be available.

Managing email from two different domains on SBS 2003

This tip has been around for quite some time, and we use it at several of our customers. I'm posting it here so that some of our newer techs will have a good reference location for it.

For E-mail, the first thing you need to do is make sure your Internet domain's MX records are pointing to your SBS server's IP address, feel free to use backup a MX record, or even dynamic dns (I do!), depending on your own situation. For the first email domain, follow the normal SBS wizards (Primarily CEICW) to configure your first and primary domain that you will want to use.

Adding additional domains to Exchange To do this, we're going to edit the default recipient policy:

• From Server Management, expand Advanced Management, First Organization, Recipients and select Recipient Policies
• Right-click on the Default Policy and choose Properties
• On the E-Mail Address (Policy) tab, click the New button
• Select SMTP Address from the list and click OK
• Type in the name of the domain in the format @domain.com and choose OK. Leave the check box checked
• Check the box next to your new domain in the Default Domain Properties window, and click OK

Now that you've added this into the policy, Exchange will become aware of this domain and start responding to mail from it. This change will take effect the next time Exchange updates its policies, but you can force the change.

• Select the Recipient Update Service from the console
• Right-click on both policies on the right and choose Update Now

This forces Exchange to update the policies now, so you don't have to wait.

You will now be able to notice all of your users have an 3 email addresses:

• user@domain.local - added by SBS for your internal domain. It's suggested you keep this email address for this user as it is used by some SBS tools
• user@domain1.com - this is the first domain you added using CEICW
• user@domain2.com - this is the second domain you just added

That's as far as I went, since I wanted all my users to receive email from both domains, but what if you don't want this? Micro-manage! To micromanage which users have which email addresses simply:

• Change to the Users' snap-in and right-click on a user
• On the E-mail Addresses snap-in, uncheck the box at the bottom that says Automatically update e-mail addresses based on receipient policy
• Remove any email address you don't want the user to receive email at and add any additional email addresses in your configured domains. Don't forget to keep the domain.local e-mail address!
• Set the primary one to be the email address the user will send email as

There you have it, if your domain MX records are configured correctly, the SBS box will receive e-mail for both domains!

You can add any number of domains using this process. Moreover, you can add any number of email addresses to a specific user within a given domain using micromanage tactics.

Microsoft Launches CRM Online

With the price increase for my target market, the launch of CRM Online (formally called CRM Live) is a great solution. This will allow them to take advantage of the benefits of Microsoft CRM without having to purchase an additional server or enterprise license. Read more about it here...