1-Man IT Department

Back with a Vengeance!

Well, not really a vengeance because I am not really mad at anything. I have decided to try to kick start my blogging career on both my tech blog (what you are reading) as well as my productivity blog. I am starting here, with 1-ManIT, because there have been a lot more changes in my life in this area then any other. I will hit some of the highlights now with more meaningful posts in the following days.

Security Essentials - Day 2 Defense-In-Depth

Well, another day, another 500+ book to go through in Security Training.

Today was Defense-In-Depth day at Security Essentials Bootcamp. I really enjoyed today a lot. We finished the fundamental stuff yesterday and started hitting the ground cracking (literally).

We started with a discussion of what Defense-In-Depth entailed. We hit on multiple layers of protection, the CIA Triad, risk management and the differences between threat and vulnerabilities. Then we began a rather lengthy talk about the differences between viruses, worms and trojans, and hit on some of the big hitters from years past…Melissa, Sasser, Slammer…ahhh, the good ole days. After a brief overview of malware and it effects, we moved on to the next section.

Ubuntu Linux and Compiz Fusion: A Match Made in Heaven

I have recently decided to drop Windows from my life (at least at home). I have chosen Ubuntu linux to be my desktop OS of choice. I found a lot of YouTube vids detailing the use of Ubuntu and Compiz Fusion that have peaked my interest in trying it out.

This is one of the better ones (minus the obvious Hillary Duff fascination the guy has).

Popularity: 68% [?]

A Long and Winding Road

It has been awhile since I have posted here, and since I have been pinged a couple of times in the last couple of weeks, I figured that i needed to start posting here again. So a quick recap of things that have been happening to me since I posted last.

1. I have FINALLY released the bid for the server that will become our new Exchange 2007 Server at work. Working in local government, if I hit a specific amount ($7,500), I have to bid out the machine to at least 3 vendors. I released the bid on June 2, and I will open them on June 18, 2007. I am pretty excited aboout this moving on. This is the one project that needed to get going. We are using Novell Groupwise currently on a Novell 5.1 server that was not configured correctly (e.g. my SYS:Public dir is not at /sys/public it is in sys/mail/public…why, you ask…I have NO IDEA, but it has been this way for over 5 years). I had never spec’ed out an Exchange Server before so I severely underbudgeted for the project for this year. It may be that I get the hardware this year and the software next year first thing. I am getting the OS and Exchange Server software off of state bid, so there should not be any delay in getting it in October or November. (We start our FY in October.)