If you run your own DNS server, or even if someone runs DNS on your behalf, here are some great tools to have in your toolbox:

 http://www.dnsreport.com/tools/dnsreport.ch?domain= *Insert domain name here*

This will give you a report of the health of your MX records and associated dns entries.  For example: if your DNS is set up wrong, or if you have conflicting information.  Has some great contextual information on how to repair the issues it finds.

This site is a sister site to www.DNSstuff.com, which has many other DNS and networking tools.

www.whois.sc is also a great utility for doing WhoIs lookups.  Same goes for www.completewhois.com

You can find out your external IP address at www.checkmyip.com, www.whatsmyipaddress.com, and www.ipchicken.com

Of course, don’t forget about www.dshield.org to see if you’re on an attacker list, or Gibson’s Shieldsup and Leaktest tools at www.grc.com

Finally, there are many spam lookup lists (rbl/sbl/xbl) so don’t forget to see if your IP is on any of these lists.

This page has a collection of default passwords:

http://www.phenoelit.de/dpl/dpl.html

Vyatta, the open source router project is going for the gusto by trying to compete with Cisco and attract medium and large corporate customers.  They plan to give the product away for free and charge for support plans.  See http://www.vyatta.com

Read this article on how to remotely enable remote desktop on a windows 2003 box when it doesn’t have remote desktop enabled already.

These look like some great screens… the prices aren’t all that bad either.

From: http://msgoodies.blogspot.com/

Just figured out that hex-to-decimal can be very, very easy from the command prompt:Set /a 0x7a

Next step might be to convert it into an error message:

Net helpmsg 122

This can be done in a one-liner:

Set /a e=0x7a & (net helpmsg %e%)

Note the parenthesis – without, the e environment variable does not exist when net… is parsed by the interpreter. With parenthesis, it is treated like a separate line.

If you get an error number like -2147024891, you have to remove the upper 16 bits before you get the real error number:

set /a “-2147024891 & 0xffff”

Note that the quotes are necessary to treat & like a bit-wise and.

Try this to get around it:

REG add HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System /v DisableTaskMgr /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f

Or you can use the GP Editor:

• Click Start, Run, type gpedit.msc and click OK.
• Navigate to:

User Configuration
=> Administrative Templates
==> System
===> Ctrl+Alt+Delete Options
====> Remove Task Manager

• Double-click the Remove Task Manager option.
• Set the policy to Not Configured.

More great tips are available at Ramesh’s Site: http://windowsxp.mvps.org/Tips_Page.htm

An interesting question came my way recently:

Q: Do you know of a way to copy/extract the windows 2000 application
event log via a script from a different physical server?

A: Turns out there is a nice function in WMI for this:

‘Create a FileSystemObject
Set oFS = CreateObject(“Scripting.FileSystemObject”)
strComputer = “servername”Set objWMIService = GetObject(“winmgmts:” _
& “{impersonationLevel=impersonate,(Backup)}!\\” & _
strComputer & “\root\cimv2″)

I’m about ready to switch to a new pc with Vista Beta 2.

For this process, I’m compiling a list of “must-have” applications - send me the name of your favorite must-have application and I’ll publish it here when I have the list finished.

Here’s what I have for starters:
Symantec or AVG
Antivirus
Windows Defender
Outlook 2007 Beta
Office 2007 Beta (Word, Excel, PowerPoint)
Frontpage
Project
Visio
OneNote
TCPView and TDIMon
PSExec and PSKill
Wireshark
VMWare Server or Virtual Server
Blackberry Manager (for dialup internet access)
UltraVNC
PrimoPDF
Examdiff
Hyena
Eventcomb
Tenable Newt
Nessus
Superscan
pcAnywhere
Winzip or Tugzip
WinGrep
Hamachi
AutoRuns
Filemon
Regmon
Handle
ProcExp
JAlbum
Tunnelier SSH Client
FileZilla
Nero
Treeview
QTODBC
Blat
Java and Perl
PFE32
BGInfo
ListDLLs
WOLTools
SNMP Tools (getif)
GPMC