In this week’s newsletter
Updating remote devices. Are cloud backups safe? How to add CA certificates to Firefox. ADMX templates for Firefox. Presenting the cloud clipboard! Smile you’re on camera — everywhere! Toronto puts a submission hold on Google. Managing your remote connections. Bucking the automotive touchscreen trend. Plus lots more — read it all, read it here on WServerNews!
Also be sure to check out our latest issue of FitITproNews:
FitITproNews Special Issue: COVID-19, remote work and maintain (or embracing!) fitness
You can subscribe to FitITproNews and other TechGenix newsletters here:
https://techgenix.com/newsletters/
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!
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Editor’s Corner
This week’s observations and ruminations from Mitch Tulloch our Senior Editor…
Updating remote devices
Now that so many businesses and organizations are having employees working from home instead of the office, ensuring the PCs and other devices these workers are using are properly patched is becoming a headache for many of us.
The solutions and mitigations you apply will depend of course on which product or platform for patch management your company is using. If you’re using a Microsoft solution like Windows Update for Business, Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) or System Center Configuration Manager (ConfigMgr) then the following article by John Wilcox may be of help as it includes a number of suggestions you can implement:
Optimize Windows monthly update deployment for remote devices (Microsoft Tech Community)
If you’re also using a product like PatchMyPC that integrates with ConfigMgr and extends its patching capability, then the recommendations in the above article may still be helpful for optimizing your patching environment.
If you use a third-party patch management solution like PDQ Deploy, Ivanti, BatchPatch, Ninite, or a solution from Atera, GFI, SolarWinds, Automox or other vendors, then your best bet is probably to check your vendor’s support forum for any recent questions or recommendations that can help you enhance the delivery of patches to your managed devices.
The important thing however is to ensure you come up with a workable solution for keeping employee devices properly patched while they work from home. This might involve more than just tweaking your patching infrastructure — for example you may also want to rework your remote access solution or even work with your ISP to increase bandwidth connectivity for those working from home.
Now on to some other stuff…
Are cloud backups safe?
The following article may stir up your thinking a bit on this subject:
Ransomware Attackers Use Your Cloud Backups Against You (BleepingComputer)
How to add CA certificates to Firefox
If you have Firefox deployed in your enterprise as users’ default browser, you’ll probably want to read this to make your life easier as an admin:
CA/AddRootToFirefox#Import_via_Policy (Mozilla Wiki)
https://wiki.mozilla.org/CA/AddRootToFirefox#Import_via_Policy
ADMX templates for Firefox
Also, in case you didn’t know you can use Group Policy with Firefox by downloading some ADMX templates from GitHub:
Customizing Firefox Using Group Policy (Windows) (Mozilla Support)
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/customizing-firefox-using-group-policy-windows
I’ve heard from several colleages however that you’re better off get PolicyPak instead and using it to do all your Firefox configuration on client devices as several colleagues have reported problems using Mozilla’s ADMX files. You can get PolicyPack here:
Presenting the cloud clipboard!
Ever need to copy and paste something from one PC to another? Check out this announcement from Microsoft:
Copy and paste across Windows 10 devices using cloud clipboard (Windows Community)
https://community.windows.com/en-us/stories/cloud-clipboard-windows-10
Smile you’re on camera — everywhere!
Sometimes the best ideas come from our European friends:
EU mulls five-year ban on facial recognition tech in public areas (Reuters)
Let’s hope this happens, and that the rest of the (civilized) world follows along!
Toronto puts a submission hold on Google
And finally, for those of you who think the idea of “smart cities” is pretty dumb comes this news of how the Canadian city of Toronto caused the mighty giant Google (aka Alphabet) to back down on its plans to “smartify” a portion of the city:
You Can’t Fight City Hall. But Maybe You Can Fight Google (The New York Times)
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/10/world/canada/toronto-sidewalk-labs-google.html
And while I’m not opposed in principle to the idea of making cities “smart” I do resist the idea that we need to trade our personal privacy to make this possible. What do other readers think about this? Email me at [email protected]
Got more thoughts about anything in this newsletter?
Email us at [email protected]!
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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]
Managing your remote connections
Want to view all of your remote connections in a tabbed interface? Check out mRemoteNG:
And for those of you who are currently using RDCMan and are happy with it, you should be aware that Microsoft recently deprecated RDPMan:
https://portal.msrc.microsoft.com/en-US/security-guidance/advisory/CVE-2020-0765
Admin Toolbox
>> Got any admin tools or software you’d like to recommend to our readers? Email us at [email protected]
The native reports of Office 365 do not allow you to measure the individual messaging activity of your users. Promodag Reports can do it, download a trial version!
http://www.wservernews.com/go/2kbxxwya/
ManageEdge is a free program for Windows 10 that lets you manage Edge favorites:
http://www.ghacks.net/2016/08/25/edgemanage-favorites/
Back4Sure is a simple free backup program with some nice extra options for more advanced users:
http://www.ukrebs-software.de/english/back4sure/back4sure.html
This Outlook 2013 add-in adds extended appointment calendar to see events for several upcoming days, and enhanced new email notification system to delete/flag incoming emails:
https://outlook2013addin.codeplex.com/
Mailbag
In last week’s newsletter we mentioned that many organizations have jumped on the Zoom bandwagon because of the coronavirus situation and are using the application for enabling remote work, hosting meetings with clients, or providing support to customers. We also mentioned that there are a number of alternatives to Zoom and asked what other platforms besides Zoom our readers may be using. A reader named who works in a U.S. Federal Government agency responded as follows:
We use Adobe Connect. It is more secure than other products and can handle 1,000 users.
Readers who are looking for a secure remotework solution may want to take a close look at this one.
Factoid – Bucking the automotive touchscreen trend
Last week’s factoid and question was this:
Fact: Old programming languages never die, they just keep on supporting critical infrastructure indefinitely, right?
Question: How many mostly dead programming languages have you programmed with during your IT career? I count four for myself: ALGOL, APL, BASIC and COBOL. Can anyone beat that?
Clint Chaplin a Senior Principal Standards Engineer at Samsung Research America beat me on this one:
I have five: COBOL, APL, BASIC, PL/1 and PASCAL
The count now stands at five — do I hear six? Anyone?
But let’s move on now to this week’s factoid:
Fact: Honda bucks industry trend by removing touchscreen controls
Question: I’m so glad to hear this. One of the reason I still hold on to my old 3-series BMW is because it has no dashboard touch screen, all the controls are still manual switches and knobs. This makes it easy for me for example to change the climate control settings (temperature, fan etc) without anything more than a glance that I’m hitting the right button or knob. How to other readers feel about this issue? Email your answers to [email protected]
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Conference calendar
NOTE: Because of the concerns surrounding the COVID-19 situation some of these conferences may be moved online or even cancelled. Please check the conference websites for the latest updates.
>> Got an IT conference or event happening that you’d like to promote in our newsletter? Email us at [email protected]
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
Microsoft Licensing Boot Camps
For dates and locations see https://www.directionsonmicrosoft.com/training
Cyber Security Summits
For dates and locations see https://cybersummitusa.com/summits/
Other conferences
Future Tech Summit – May 15 in Santiago, Chile
https://www.collabsummit.eu/en/
PowerShell Conference Europe – June 2-5 in Hannover, Germany
European Collaboration Summit – June 8-10 in Wiesbaden, Germany
https://www.collabsummit.eu/en/
Evolve – June 8-10 in Las Vegas
https://evolvetechconference.com/
RSA Conference Asia Pacific & Japan – July 14-16 in Singapore
https://www.rsaconference.com/apj
VMworld – Aug 30 – Sept 3 in San Francisco
https://www.vmworld.com/en/us/index.html
Interop – Sept 21-24 in Austin, Texas
European SharePoint, Office 365 & Azure Conference (ESPC20) – Nov 9-12, 2020 in Amsterdam
https://www.sharepointeurope.com/
DevOpsCon – Nov 30 – Dec 3 in Munich, Germany
Podcast Corner
‘Keeps,’ ‘Stops,’ and ‘Starts’: It’s about time for time management (The T-Suite)
https://techgenix.com/podcast/the-t-suite/
Exchange in 2020 with Gareth Gudger (RunAsRadio)
A Wireless Upgrade Case Study (Heavy Networking)
https://packetpushers.net/series/weekly-show/
VMware Tech 4 Good (Virtually Speaking)
https://www.vspeakingpodcast.com/
SMB Wi-Fi – EnGenius Cloud (Clear To Send)
vSphere 7 and Kubernetes (The CTO Advisor)
https://www.thectoadvisor.com/podcast
MongoDB’s new encryption plus AlphaSOC and SecureStack (Risky Business)
https://risky.biz/netcasts/risky-business/
Zoom, Teams, and Slack, Oh My! (Microsoft Cloud IT Pro Podcast)
https://www.msclouditpropodcast.com/
Catching Up on the Latest Microsoft Cloud News (Microsoft Cloud Show)
http://www.microsoftcloudshow.com/podcast
New on Techgenix.com
Microsoft 365 administration: Configuring Microsoft Teams
In this second part of our ongoing series on Microsoft 365 administration, we take a deep-dive into configuring Microsoft Teams.
https://techgenix.com/microsoft-365-administration-configuring-microsoft-teams/
When only a hard reboot will do: Datacenter remote management power cycling
Sometimes only a hard reboot can get your datacenter running. These remote management power cycling options may save you a trip in the middle of the night.
https://techgenix.com/datacenter-power-cycling-hard-reboot/
Lessons from Hollywood: Effectively leading remote meetings
Worried about the prospect of leading remote meetings during the coronavirus pandemic? Don’t worry, Hollywood has some role models for you to follow.
https://techgenix.com/leading-remote-meetings/
Review: Cloud and on-premises monitoring software Site24x7
Keeping a close eye on your infrastructure is a daunting task. Site24x7 is designed to monitor both your on-premises and cloud resources. Here’s our review.
https://techgenix.com/site24x7/
Troubleshooting Azure Linux VM boot errors due to file system changes
Knowing how to fix a boot error on an Azure Linux VM will help anyone studying for Linux certification as well as admins who must do this in their jobs.
https://techgenix.com/azure-linux-vm-boot-errors/
Fun videos from Flixxy
Astronaut Offers Isolation Advice From The International Space Station
How can we stay engaged and healthy indoors? Can’t think of anyone better to give advice than NASA astronaut Jessica Meir.
https://www.flixxy.com/astronaut-offers-isolation-advice-from-the-international-space-station.htm
Do Re Mi – Covid 19 Version
Maria and the Von Trapplings know how to deal with any situation!
https://www.flixxy.com/do-re-mi-covid-19-version.htm
‘I Want to Know What Day It Is’ – Foreigner Parody
It’s Friday, right? Or maybe it’s Wednesday? Someone help! A parody of the song ‘I Want to Know What Love Is’ by Foreigner.
https://www.flixxy.com/i-want-to-know-what-day-it-is-foreigner-parody.htm
Difficult Times For The Easter Bunny
The easter bunny has a difficult time, but decides that as long as you work together with others, everything is possible.
https://www.flixxy.com/difficult-times-for-the-easter-bunny.htm
More articles of interest
Using a pandemic recovery plan template: A free download and guide
Outbreaks like the latest coronavirus can spread fast. Download our free pandemic planning template and read our step-by-step guide on pandemic planning for businesses.
Coronavirus could spur desktop-as-a-service adoption
Some organizations — like a city in California and a university in Australia — have turned to desktop as a service in the face of disruptions like the coronavirus.
ITIL and DevOps: Can they coexist?
Frameworks and methodologies must keep pace with technology stacks. ITIL fell too far behind between the release of ITIL 3 and ITIL 4, but there might be a middle ground.
Updated Exchange Online PowerShell module adds reliability, speed
Microsoft assists Exchange Online administrators who rely on PowerShell by reworking the underlying functionality of several cmdlets used to manage the hosted email platform.
Send us your feedback!
Got feedback about anything in this issue of WServerNews? Email us at [email protected]