Alexander’s Blog

Microsoft Office Live Basics features all the basics you need to create your first Web site, including free hosting, Web site statistics, personalized domain name, and e-mail addresses. Microsoft Office Live Basics is currently a beta product but it is FREE during and after the beta. Here are the highlights of the product.

Easy-to-use Web site design tool
Get started fast with our easy-to-use Site Designer tool. Don’t worry —- it was designed with the small-business owner in mind, so you can quickly create your own Web site.

Free domain name and hosting
Select your own domain name (for example, www.northwindtraders.com) and let Microsoft keep your Web site up and running.

5 personalized e-mail accounts
Access your company e-mail using your personalized domain name (for example, jsmith@northwindtraders.com).

Storage and data transfer
More than enough space to promote every aspect of your business and plenty of bandwidth to allow lots of customers to visit your site.

Web site traffic analysis and reporting tools
View the success of your Web site with reporting that lets you see how often people visit your site, what pages they visit the most, and their system and browser information.

Support
Our online support pages are here to answer questions and help you get started by providing quick responses to your most frequent questions. One-on-one e-mail support is also available to address other questions.

Besides Live Basics, Microsoft also offers Live Collaboration and Live Essentials. Click here to compare the cost and features of all three products.

By default, Active Directory performs online defragmentation every 12 hours as part of the Garbage Collection process. Online defragmentation doesn’t compact the database, it only optimizes the data storage. To compact the AD database (ntds.dit), you can perform an offline defragmentation by following the procedure described below.

1. Restart the domain controller.
2. Press F8 and then select Directory Services Restore Mode.
3. Logon as Administrator.
4. Go to the command prompt and type ntdsutil.exe.
5. Type files.
6. Type info and make a note of the path.
7. Type compact to path, where path is the location for the compacted database, e.g. c:\temp, or “c:\compacted database”. You’ll need quotes around the path if there are spaces in the path.
8. A new compacted database called ntds.dit is created in the path you specified in the above step.
9. Type quit a couple of times until you exit ntdsutil utility.
10. Copy the new compacted ntds.dit over the old ntds.dit located in the path listed in step 6.
11. Reboot the domain controller normally.

Whether you are using a dial-up connection or connected to the Internet with a DSL or cable modem, you can configure your Internet Connection Firewall (ICS) in Windows XP to synchronize your computer with an Internet time server by using the following method.

1. Click Start, Connect to, Show all connections.
2. Right-click the network connection and select Properties.
3. Click Settings on the Advanced tab.
4. Click Add and type Internet Time Service in the description box.
5. Type 127.0.0.1 for IP address and type 123 for both external and internal port numbers. Make sure the TCP radio button is selected.
6. Click OK three times to close all dialog boxes.
7. If you are already connected to the Internet you’ll need to disconnect and reconnect for the settings to take place.
8. Now you can double-click the clock on the taskbar, click on the Internet Time tab, and select Update Now to synchronize your clock.

NOTE: If you aren’t using the firewall then you can simply use step 8 to synchronize your computer clock.

An annoying surprise awaits 2 million consumers expected to enthusiastically step forward in the next few weeks to help Microsoft test its new Windows Vista PC operating system. Beta 2 testers can expect to encounter an obtrusive security feature, called User Account Control (UAC). Designed to prevent intruders from performing harmful tasks, the feature grays out the computer screen, then prods you to confirm that you really want to do certain functions.

In early test versions, the queries crop up so often that they interrupt routine tasks, such as changing the time clock or deleting shortcuts. And UAC sometimes triggers an endless loop of dialogue boxes that can be curtailed only by rebooting, says Paul Thurrott, news editor of Windows IT Pro magazine.

“Microsoft completely botched UAC,” Thurrott says. “It’s almost criminal in its insidiousness.”

Microsoft counters that refinements are being continually made. “The final product will be very usable and have a good balance of security,” says Windows senior product manager Alex Heaton.

Security experts worry that Vista users will dismiss the dialogue boxes, clicking through them rapidly and undermining any security benefit. Or they will figure out how to turn off UAC. “Consumers, sadly, are probably going to disable it,” Thurrott says. More info…

Microsoft has released the Microsoft Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool to help remove specific, prevalent malicious software from computers that are running Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Microsoft Windows XP, or Microsoft Windows 2000. The Malicious Software Removal Tool supersedes all virus-cleaner tools that were previously released by Microsoft. You can download the Malicious Software Removal Tool from the Microsoft Download Center. You can also run an online version of the tool from the Malicious Software Removal Tool Web site on Microsoft.com. To run the Malicious Software Removal Tool from either location, you must log on to the computer by using an account that is a member of the Administrators group. If you are running Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, or Windows 2000, you can also run the Malicious Software Removal Tool from the Microsoft Update Web site or by using the Microsoft Update Automatic Updates functionality. If you have chosen not to use Microsoft Update, and you are running Windows XP or Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 (SP1), you may run the Malicious Software Removal Tool from the Windows Update Web site or by using the Windows Update Automatic Updates functionality.

Information on the Microsoft Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool can be located here.

Known issues
1. Typically, when you run the Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool, the tool creates a randomly named temporary directory in the root drive of your computer. This directory will contain several files and includes the Mrtstub.exe file. Most of the time, this folder will be automatically deleted after the tool has finished running or after the next restart. Sometimes, this folder may not be deleted automatically. In these cases, this folder can be deleted manually and has no adverse effect on the computer.

2. A user may log on to a computer at the same time that the Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool is running in the background. (The tool may be running as part of a deployment that uses Windows Server Update Services.) In this case, Windows may inform the user that the current user profile is corrupted and that a new profile is being created. To resolve this issue, the new profile can be removed. The user can logon to the system again at a time when the tool is not running. This issue is most likely to occur on a Windows 2000-based computer. More info…