On Monday morning I took the Vista upgrade exam (70-621). I passed it with a healthy margin (pass mark was 700/900 and I scored 820/900), so I’m happy with that, and it gives me two extra certifications: Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist (Microsoft Windows Vista: Configuration) Microsoft Certified IT Professional (Enterprise Support Technician)
Author archives: John C. Kirk
Vista boot menu
I’ve been dual-booting between Windows XP and Windows Vista for a while, so the boot menu gave two choices: Earlier Version of Windows Microsoft Windows Vista I decided that it would be a bit neater if the first option referred to Windows XP specifically. In Windows 2000/XP, this information was stored in a “boot.ini” file, …
One person’s bloat is someone else’s feature
Most people are familiar with the way that indicators work in a car: you have a stalk sticking out of the steering wheel, and you knock it up or down depending on whether you want to indicate right or left. After you’ve finished your turn, the indicator will automatically turn off. On a motorbike, it’s …
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A+
I recently decided to sit the A+ exams. That’s partly because it’s always good to boost my CV with extra qualifications, and partly because I wanted to review that qualification: if I was recruiting, would this be valuable for someone else to have?
Exchange 2007
I’ve been doing some upgrades this weekend, including the new version of Microsoft Exchange (mail server). This has a couple of small quirks, which it’s useful to be aware of: 1. If you want to use Outlook Web Access, and your server is “mail.example.com”, the address is now: https://mail.example.com/owa/ Previously (in Exchange 2003), it was: …
Train tickets
The latest issue of Computing reported an amusing error in their “BackBytes” column.
Visual Studio vs mIRC
I’m doing some ASP.NET development in Visual Studio 2005 at the moment, and I’ve spent the last half hour beating my head against the wall because of an obscure error message: ASP.NET Development Server failed to start listening on port 1651. Error message: Only one usage of each socket address (protocol/network address/port) is normally permitted. …
The small print of DOOM!
I was going through the log files on my firewall server today when I saw something odd: my PC was trying to send outbound traffic on port 6667 every 30 seconds. At first I thought that this was for my IRC client, but it wasn’t. Instead, it’s a legacy of the “Sky by Broadband” service …
Router passwords
Following up on my recent post about computer security (and my comment about phishing scams being cross-platform), Bruce Schneier has posted an entry about “Drive-By Pharming”. It has a stupid name, and it’s nothing to do with wireless access; there is also some doubt about how feasible the attack vector actually is. Still, it’s worth …
Tales from the spam folder
Since my email address is public, I get a lot of spam: typically 100 messages per day. The Outlook 2003 Junk E-mail filter does a decent job of catching most of it, but there are still some that slip through; I also keep an eye on the spam folder itself, in case of false positives. …