Friday, March 14, 2008

PC Repair System on a USB thumb drive

Here is another great collection of utilities... It was created to be a PC Repair toolkit that would fit on a 32MB usb drive so it doesn't take much space... It has TONS of really great apps and they all are portable so they can run off the network or off a usb thumb drive. Here is the list of utilities in the collection.

* DCoT Menu
* Active@ ISO Burner
* AutoCompress
* Brute Benchmark
* CCleaner
* CDmage
* DriveImage XML
* Double Killer
* DTaskManager
* encopy
* Eraser
* ERUNT
* explore2fs
* File Assassin
* Filemon
* Hash
* HDDScan
* ICE ECC
* LC ISO Creator
* LSASecretsView
* NTREGOPT
* Patcher
* PMMon
* ProcessExplorer
* ProduKey
* Regmon
* Restoration
* Roadkil’s CommTest
* Roadkil’s Disk Image
* Rootkit Revealer
* SequoiaView
* System Information for Windows
* TweakUI
* Universal Extract
* Virtual CD Control Panel
* What Changed?
* Why Reboot?
* WirelessKeyView

Get it here:
http://dailycupoftech.com/usb-drive-systems/3/

Thursday, March 13, 2008

Log Me In FREE!

Have you ever wanted a free web based computer remote control product? Well here it is...
https://secure.logmein.com/products/free/

Whats the catch? Well the only thing I can find is that it's an upsell... They give you a trial of the PRO version and then assume that when it's over that you will be so use to the PRO features that you will pay for them... The free one however has plenty of features for me...

Update:
I wanted to circle back around to this post and add some new findings. First off thanks to dwproctor for the info on Team Viewer. I really love it, and I have started to use it for remote support of friends/family (Free version is For personal use only). Also you can install the free version and use it for a more permanent connection to a PC like logmein. You must use their client app however, so it lacks logmein's easy web interface.

I have also come across (thanks Trista) another great remote support web product. Join.me is a really quick web based conferencing software. It works great as a quick remote control app. You can have the user run (No install needed) the very light weight application and gain full remote control of the users PC. The client is web based so no install needed on either end. http://join.me

All items above have iOS (and possibly other) apps (Logmein, Team Viewer, and Join.me)

ANT the network utility

I came across a really nice network utility the other day. Well it's more of a collection of network utilities. Most everything in ANT can be done via regular command line but it's just nice having access to them via a click of a button. ANT includes these tools:

# Network Port Scanner
# Share Scanner
# TraceRoute
# Ping Utility
# NetStats
# Advanced DNS Utility
# ARP
# Route Configuration
# Adapter Configuration
# IP Configuration
# IP Availability
# Command Test
# Whois Client

And best of all it's FREE! After you install it on a computer you can run ANT from the .exe file alone, so you could keep it on a USB stick or out on your network for quick access.

http://www.dreamsyssoft.com/advanced-net-tools/

Monday, March 3, 2008

It's about TIME

Linux/Debian:
To view the current Date/Time type "Date". If you time is wrong and you want it to set automatically use NTP. NTP is the time protocol that computers use to synchronize their clocks with others on the network/internet.

The main package is ntpdate, and the server that ntpdate looks at for syncing is "/etc/default/ntpdate".

After making changes to "/etc/default/ntpdate" don't forget to restart the service by typing "/etc/init.d/ntpdate restart".

If you want to change the current time right away using a time server type "ntpdate [time server]", make sure to turn off ntpdate service first "/etc/init.d/ntpdate stop".

If your timezone is wrong use tzconfig to change the timezone.

LINKS
NTP:
http://www.debian-administration.org/articles/25

More Advanced info on NTP:
http://www.crazysquirrel.com/computing/debian/ntp.jspx