In this week’s newsletter
Wither Windows management? 5G anxiety! Still need SBS support? Sinofsky on the 10th anniversary of the iPad. Ask Our Readers: Need to index our file server. Categorizing messages in Outlook. Admin Toolbox. TV on, brain off. And lotsa more.
Enjoy this week’s issue of WServerNews and feel free to send us feedback on any of the topics we’ve covered — we love hearing from our readers 🙂
Got questions? Ask our readers!
WServerNews goes out each week to more than 200,000 IT pro subscribers worldwide! That’s a lot of expertise to tap into. Do you need help with some technical problem or are looking for expert advice on something IT-related? Ask Our Readers by emailing your problems and/or questions to us at [email protected]
Editor’s Corner
This week’s observations and ruminations from Mitch Tulloch our Senior Editor…
Wither Windows management?
Fellow IT professional Jeremy Moskowitz pinged me a few weeks ago asking whether I had gleaned any sense of where enterprise readers of our newsletter are leaning these days with regard to how to manage Win10 going forward in their workplace. I thought it might be helpful if I redirected Jeremy’s inquiry to you, O Newsletter Reader, and ask you to respond in brief so we can get some indication of where the Win10 management landscape is actually heading (as opposed to where MDM solution vendors are all telling us it’s heading). Here then is an edited excerpt from Jeremy’s email:
I’m starting to maybe detect a trend in Windows 10 management land.
People seem to be sl-o-wing-down of rolling out Windows 10 and other security and management enhancements.
I have a theory here.. and maybe there’s a poll or something you could throw out there in some un-biased way to get some good data, and, make it interesting and something to participate for readers.
The basic question is: “Are you considering a push toward some MDM system away from on-prem GP/Active Directory … and is this causing you to re-think or stall your plans for Windows 10 rollouts and security projects? Or are you staying with on-prem GP/AD and SCCM for the forseeable future?”
We’d appreciate receiving as many responses as possible from our readers concerning this question, so if you have some thoughts to share (even brief) on this subject please respond by emailing us at [email protected] thanks! If we can garner enough responses on this we’ll summarize them in a future newsletter issue.
5G anxiety!
As the push towards upgrading mobile networks to 5G accelerates, concerns have been arising about whether the technology is secure:
As 5G Rolls Out, Troubling New Security Flaws Emerge (Wired)
https://www.wired.com/story/5g-vulnerabilities-downgrade-attacks/
Maybe this is a red herring as most technologies including almost all software ends up getting released with vulnerabilities being discovered in it afterwards. But then there are the health scares associated with 5G technologies:
Health Scares Slow the Rollout of 5G Cell Towers in Europe (Bloomberg)
Even right here in lil’ old Winnipeg my home town there are citizens who are concerned about this:
Local group sounds alarm over 5G cell towers (Winnipeg Sun)
https://winnipegsun.com/news/local-news/local-group-sounds-alarm-over-5g-cell-towers
How do our readers feel about 5G? Share your thoughts by emailing us at [email protected]
Still need SBS support?
Believe it or not there are still small businesses out there that are running Microsoft Small Business Server (SBS). And there are still places you can get support for SBS if you need it. Susan Bradley (The Patch Lady) has some details in this article:
Patch Lady — Still running Small Business Server? (AskWoody)
https://www.askwoody.com/2020/patch-lady-still-running-small-business-server/
Sinofsky on the 10th anniversary of the iPad.
And finally, take a look at what Steven Sinofsky the former head of Windows development at Microsoft has to say in this Twitter thread on how Apple’s release of the iPad ten years ago impacted him and his colleagues at Microsoft:
https://twitter.com/stevesi/status/1221853721363013632
They were all wrong at Microsoft when they expected Apple to release a pen-based tablet based on Mac OS. Steve Jobs fooled them all. That’s what linear (Win 95/98/2000 to Win XP to Win 7 to…) thinking gets you as opposed to Apple’s “think different” approach to technology. Wow.
Got more thoughts about anything in this newsletter?
Email us at [email protected]!
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Ask Our Readers: Need to index our file server (new question)
Scott Schaffer who works as the Network & Systems Admin for a law firm sent us the following question which we’re hoping some of you readers may be able to respond to:
We are looking for an inexpensive service/product to index all of our file server files and contents s I would like to know what people are using to do this. Also has anyone set up Windows Search index service on a 2016 server?
If any of our readers can answer this or offer suggestions or recommend a solution that Scott could use, please shoot us an email at [email protected]
Tip of the Week
>> Got any IT pro tips you’d like to share with other readers of our newsletter? Email us at [email protected]
Categorizing messages in Outlook
When Outlook 2013 came out many users of earlier versions of Outlook complained it had now become more difficult to assign categories to messages because of the way the flag, category and attachment icons jumped around when you moved the mouse pointer over the list of messages displayed in Outlook. If you’re still struggling and annoyed with this behavior, there’s some simple keyboard shortcuts you can use to assign categories to your selected message.
For example, I’ve defined three categories in Outlook for classifying messages I receive in my Inbox:
- Important (RED)
- Keep (GREEN)
- WAIT (GREY)
I can assign one of these categories to a message by right-clicking on the message and selecting Categories like this:
It’s much easier though if I use the keyboard to assign these categories to a message:
- Ctrl+F2 categorizes the selected message as Important (RED)
- Ctrl+F3 categorizes the selected message as Keep (GREEN)
- Ctrl+F4 categorizes the selected message as Wait (GRAY)
The keyboard shortcut CTRL+F2 is in fact displayed in the above screenshot, but you may have trained yourself over the years to ignore such subtle popups because of the frequency with which they appear in Microsoft Office software.
BONUS TIP: Check out the following article on SlipStick Systems for more about using Categories in Outlook:
https://www.slipstick.com/outlook/outlook-categories-and-color-categories/
P.S. Got a favorite keyboard shortcut you’d like to share with our readers? Email us at [email protected]
Admin Toolbox
>> Got any admin tools or software you’d like to recommend to our readers? Email us at [email protected]
Learn more about data protection for the multi cloud, including Cloud Tier, cloud backup and Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS).
http://www.wservernews.com/go/7f1wlm1j/
WSCONFIG is a powerful command line menu user interface for configuring many features of Windows clients and servers:
https://wizardsoft.nl/products/wsconfig
Fossil is a simple, high-reliability, distributed software configuration management system:
https://www.fossil-scm.org/home/doc/trunk/www/index.wiki
WS Display Settings is a tool to save and apply Windows display settings to and from file as well as adjust the monitor’s brightness/contrast/color settings itself:
https://wizardsoft.nl/products/wsdisplaysettings
Mailbag
Two weeks ago I explained how I configured the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Alt+(minus) in Microsoft Word to paste text as plaintext as opposed to how it was formatted in the source I copied the text from. Last week in our Mailbag we heard from reader Mads Lomholt who uses a different approach that involves bringing up the Paste Special dialog by pressing Ctrl+Alt+V and I responded that from my perspective that involved too many clicks of keyboard and mouse.
Another reader named Jon Hill has now waded into this discussion with the following short email:
Alt-H-V-T does the same thing!
Well yes it does, thanks! Except that it’s not quite like that i.e. it’s a sequence of key presses, not a single multi-keypress. In other words, you can paste the current clipboard contents into Word as plaintext by pressing the following keys sequentially:
Alt
H
V
T
I still prefer my own method however because it only requires a single keypress of three keys simultaneously:
Ctrl Alt –
Mind you, I still sometimes end up right-clicking and selecting Keep Text Only under Paste Options in the menu that appears when I right-click in a Word document. Old habits die hard…
Factoid – TV on, brain off
Last week’s factoid and question was this:
Fact: It’s estimated that by 2022, 45% of the traffic over the Internet will be between and amongst things, rather than people.
Question: Does this mean humanity is going to lose its supremacy over Planet Earth? Is the Cyberpunk Apocalypse we’ve all been fearing finally in sight? Or is going to be Cyber-Nirvana instead?
Bruce Anderson who works for Minnesota IT Services came up with the best answer for this one:
What does it mean? More jobs for support tech! No matter how robust we get in our code, there is always a need for support engineers. The more code being spread wide means more necessity for support engineers. I see it being neither Cyberpunk Apocalypse nor Cyber-Nirvana. Just one more use for tech.
Yay, that means we’ll all still have jobs in the years to come 😉
Now let’s move on to this week’s factoid:
Fact: The more attention-grabbing a television program or online video is, the more likely you’ll keep watching it but the less likely you’ll understand or remember what you just saw.
Source: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/11/181112131629.htm
Question: I notice this a lot whenever I hang out in a pub or sports bar. Regardless of what’s playing on the TV screens hanging everywhere from the ceiling, the scene on the TV keeps changing every 2-3 seconds and as a result I find my eyes glued to the screen while my brain switches off. Anyone else experience this?
Email your answer to [email protected]
Subscribe to WServerNews!
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Conference calendar
>> Got an IT conference or event happening that you’d like to promote in our newsletter? Email us at [email protected]
Microsoft Business Applications Summit
April 20-21, 2020 in Anaheim, California
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/BusinessApplicationsSummit
Microsoft Build
May 19-21, 2020 in Seattle, Washington
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/build
Microsoft Inspire
July 20-24, 2020 in Las Vegas, Nevada
https://partner.microsoft.com/en-us/inspire
Other Microsoft events
Microsoft Licensing Boot Camps – Dec 9-10 in Seattle, Washington
https://www.directionsonmicrosoft.com/training
Infosec conferences
Cyber Security Summit – Nov 21 in Houston, Texas
https://cybersummitusa.com/houston19/
Cyber Security Summit – Dec 5 in Los Angeles, California
https://cybersummitusa.com/losangeles19/
Other conferences
European SharePoint, Office 365 & Azure Conference – Dec 2-5 in Prague, Czech Republic
https://www.sharepointeurope.com/
SharePoint Fest – Dec 9-13 in Chicago, Illinois
https://www.sharepointfest.com/Chicago/
Podcast Corner
Azure Sphere in 2020 with James Scott (RunAsRadio)
Introducing Cisco IOS XR7 (Heavy Networking)
https://packetpushers.net/series/weekly-show/
The Art of Learning (Virtually Speaking)
https://www.vspeakingpodcast.com/
CWNP Certifications (Clear To Send)
Introduction to DevSecOps (The CTO Advisor)
https://www.thectoadvisor.com/podcast
Alexa O’Brien on Wikileaks, intelligence and influence (Risky Business)
https://risky.biz/netcasts/risky-business/
Office 365 News (Microsoft Cloud IT Pro Podcast)
https://www.msclouditpropodcast.com/
Breaches and browsers (Microsoft Cloud Show)
http://www.microsoftcloudshow.com/podcast
New on Techgenix.com
Review: Self-service key recovery solution Specops Key Recovery
Helpdesks spend way too much of their time unlocking users’ computers. Specops Key Recovery is a self-service solution for this problem. Here’s our review.
https://techgenix.com/review-specops-key-recovery/
Enabling firewall and VMs in Azure Storage accounts: Best practices
When enabling firewall and VMs in your Azure Storage accounts, make sure you follow these best practices or you may get a few pesky error messages.
https://techgenix.com/enabling-firewall-and-vms/
Don’t risk your production environment: Build an Azure lab to test Exchange
Microsoft doesn’t recommend using Azure as your main platform to run Exchange. But it can be useful as a lab to test Exchange features.
https://techgenix.com/test-exchange-in-an-azure-lab/
Endpoint security best practices and policies to mitigate risks
Failure to adequately secure endpoints can have catastrophic results. Here’s a look at the most important endpoint security best practices.
https://techgenix.com/endpoint-security-best-practices/
Simplifying complex networks: A guide for enterprises
As networks grow in technological capabilities, they are harder to manage. Here are some tools for simplifying complex networks that have become unwieldy.
https://techgenix.com/simplifying-complex-networks/
Fun videos from Flixxy
Porsche ‘The Heist’ – Super Bowl Commercial 2020
If given the choice of all the cars in the legendary Porsche Museum in Stuttgart, which car would you choose if you had to catch a stolen Porsche?
https://www.flixxy.com/porsche-the-heist-super-bowl-commercial-2020.htm
Mentalist Oz Pearlman
Mentalist and professional magician Oz Pearlman amazes the judges and audience of America’s Got Talent 2020
https://www.flixxy.com/mentalist-oz-pearlman-americas-got-talent-2020-the-champions.htm
Marcelito Pomoy Sings With Dual Voices!
Marcelito Pomoy performs both Celine Dion and Andrea Bocelli’s parts in this rendition of ‘The Prayer’!
https://www.flixxy.com/marcelito-pomoy-sings-with-dual-voices-americas-got-talent-2020.htm
11-year-old Alexa And Her Eight Dogs
11-year-old Alexa and her eight dogs with an amazing performance on America’s Got Talent 2020
https://www.flixxy.com/11-year-old-alexa-and-her-eight-dogs-americas-got-talent-2020.htm
More articles of interest
Mobile device security key trend in top 10 most read stories of 2019
Mobile devices provide productivity benefits but introduce security concerns, a delicate balance for IT pros that surfaces in this year’s list of most read stories.
Top 10 virtualization strategies of 2019
As virtualization technology continues to advance, admins must use different strategies to manage their complex data centers, such as vCenter maps, hybrid cloud and more.
Finding the right fit for business process automation
Learn best practices for successful process automation, ranging from how a business can evaluate the BPA opportunity, how to make a smart investment in a BPA tool, and more.
Are containers on Windows the right choice for you?
Containers have grown in popularity, but there are some considerations to weigh before you decide to migrate Server 2008 workloads to this technology.
Send us your feedback!
Got feedback about anything in this issue of WServerNews? Email us at [email protected]