Author Archive

Mail Enable Mail Server
Friday, February 13th, 2009 | Author: Stephen

Smooth working of Mail server totally depends upon Mail Enable Mail Transfer Agent , as the name suggest, Mail Enable MTA is a program running on Mail Server responsible for transferring email messages between computers over the Internet.

Mail Server works with other programs in collaboration  to make up what we know as Messaging System. Messaging system must work without any flaws to keep smooth movement of Inbound and Outbound emails. Mail System uses following protocols to send and receive email messages.

SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) – For Sending emails

POP3 (Post Office Protocol 3) or         -  For Receiving emails.

IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol)

At any point you found out that emails are not reaching their destination, there are high chances of these emails would get stuck in Mail Queue. Only way to release emails from mail queue is to restart mail services. Restarting mail services is done from Mail Server. Make sure before restarting mail service you ask anyone who has good knowledge of doing it.

Windows Error Reporting
Saturday, December 06th, 2008 | Author: Stephen

C:\DOCUME~1\USER~1\LOCALS~1\Temp\WER8bd7.dir00\w3wp.exe.mdmp

C:\DOCUME~1\USER~1\LOCALS~1\Temp\WER8bd7.dir00\appcompat.txt

Above error pop ups when Error Reporting is enabled on your system and w3wp.exe faces an error.
Windows Error Reporting increases Hard Disk space , by adding above pop ups in two different dump files i.e. HDMP and MDMP
HDMP (Heap Dump) – Uncompressed error dump file generated by Windows when a program has an error or crashes.
MDMP (Mini Dump) – Compressed Heap Dump files are saved as Mini dump (MDMP) files and may be sent to Microsoft as part of an error reporting process.

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Remove Viruses without using Antivirus !
Friday, October 31st, 2008 | Author: Stephen

One of the ways by which Computers get affected by viruses is through USB Pen drives. Anti viruses are unable to detect them and even if they do, in most cases they are unable to delete the virus. Following are the precautions you can take when plugging USB Drive on your Computer.

Whenever you plug a USB drive in your system (which you think is infected by virus), do not open it -  Do not click ‘OK’ !
click on ‘Cancel’. Now open Command Prompt by typing ‘cmd‘ in run box.
Type dir /w/a and press enter.
Above command will display list of files in pen drive. Check in the list if the files are not

* Heap41a
* New Folder.exe
* Autorun.inf
* svchost.exe
* Ravmon.exe
* or any other exe file which may be suspicious.

If any of the above files are present in the list, then your USB drive is infected. To remove these files, type the following command in command prompt
attrib -r -a -s -h *.* and press enter.
This will remove from files  Read Only, Archive, System and Hidden attributes .

The files which you will now be looking on are the junk files (viruses) and can be deleted using  del command. Delete all those files which you find suspicious. To be on a safer side, just scan again your  USB Pen drive using a anti virus to check whether it is free of virus or not.

Hotlink Protection
Sunday, October 26th, 2008 | Author: Stephen

What is Hot linking ?

The process of direct linking to websites files such as images, videos etc is called as Hot Linking. It is like using an image (tag/image link) which you have found on someone else web page, and would be using on your blog. Every time the blog is browsed image will be shown because it is Hot linked from it’s original source.

This becomes a point of concern when your website is Hot linked by someone else.

Let me explain
Every website has a fixed bandwidth (bandwidth - Amount of data transferred from website to a users computer). When any internet user browses a website and if that website is hot linked to your site then your website’s
bandwidth is used in transferring the requested data.
??? => This means you are paying for the bandwidth which is not used by you.

To overcome Hot linking(Bandwidth Theft) Hotlink Protection is used. It prevents other websites from directly linking to files (as specified above) to your website.
Hotlink Protection can be set from Plesk Control Panel as well.

Host Header Settings
Tuesday, October 21st, 2008 | Author: Stephen

To set more than one website on server you are required to set Host Headers
Procedure to set Host Headers
1) Load  IIS (Start >>> Run>>>type “inetmgr” hit enter)

2) On left pane, expand server name, then click “Web Sites“>>>right click on right pane>>>select  New>>>Web Site

3) Website Creation Wizard will open , here you have freedom to write absolutely anything (we will write – Testing) >>> Click Next

4)Under IP address and Port settings
Enter Ip address and port number (Default port – 80) and Host Header for the website >>> Click Next

5) Enter the path for Websites Home Directory and tick (check) “Allow anonymous access to this website” >>> Click Next

6) Under Website Access Permissions , necessary permissions for using ASP , Run Scripts can be used as per requirement. >>> Click Next

7) Click Finish and you’re done.

Backup and Restore MySQL database using phpmyadmin
Monday, October 13th, 2008 | Author: Stephen

Log into Plesk Control Panel and  steer yourself to “phpMyAdmin

For Backup of MySQL database click on Export.

1) Make sure that entire database is selected for Export, and not just one table.
All the Tables under Database list should be added in Export List.

2) Now, follow the steps given
select “SQL” for output format
Check “Structure”
and “Add AUTO_INCREMENT” value
Check “Enclose table and field name with back quotes”
Check “DATA
check use “hexadecimal for binary field”
Export type set to “INSERT

3) Check “Save as file”, it is not necessary to change the file name.
Click “GO” to download the backup file.

Backup of your MySQL database is created !

Now, for Restoring backup of MySql database

1) Click on SQL tab, to start restoration of your backup file.

2) Un-Check “Show this query here again”.

3) Browse to your database backup file.

4) Click – “GO”

Backup is Restored !

Large MySQL Backups:

Error: MySQL has gone away

To restore large SQL backups there are 2 setting that you will need to take of:

1. Make sure that you PHP upload size is great than your MySQL backup file, this setting will be needed to be changed in php.ini file. Only those who has server administrator access would be able to make changes in PHP.INI file. Hence you will have to contact your Hosting provider if you are hosted on a Shared server. But if you have a Dedicated Server then this file is normally stored in C:\Windows\php.ini or you can esily get the path from phpinfo() page. The option that you need to change is upload_max_filesize. It is also suggested that you increase the following parameters as per the size of your MySQL backup file:

max_execution_time = 30     ; Maximum execution time of each script, in seconds
max_input_time = 60    ; Maximum amount of time each script may spend parsing request data
memory_limit = 8M      ; Maximum amount of memory a script may consume (8MB)

2. You will need to increase the MySQL buffer size in MySQL configuration size, the file is my.cnf in Linux server and my.ini on Windows Server. The parameter that you need to change is:

read_buffer_size

By default it is set to 1MB, if the entry is not present then add it under [MYSQLD] section.

Please Make sure that you restart IIS webserver after making change to php.ini and restart MySQL after making changes in my.ini file.

If you looking backup MySQL using VBS or ASP script then refer the link below:

How to backup MySQL using VBS or ASP script.

How to have Remote Assistance
Tuesday, October 07th, 2008 | Author: Stephen

Remote Assistance
is performed between 2 systems. One asking for support/help is called Novice and other which will provide support/help is called Expert.

1. To open Remote assistance, navigate yourself as shown below.

rd1aw9 How to have Remote Assistance

2. Open Help and Support Center by clicking Start, and then clicking Help and Support. Following window will open up.

rd2fo2 How to have Remote Assistance

Click on => Invite someone to help you (shown inside red outline)

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When you first learn about ‘Remote Desktop‘ and ‘Remote Assistance‘, you might easily make it out that both services are the same. They allow you to remotely control a PC from any where, let it be on your local network or even over the Internet. Although there are some important differences that we need to check between these two services.

1] Remote Assistance uses Windows XP/2003 Terminal Services to share desktop and other resources between two PCs.

Terminal Services - It is a way of using RDP (Remote Desktop Protocol), which allows users to connect to their Windows XP desktop or a dedicated server (Terminal Server) combining with VPN (Virtual Private Network) with the help of which users can connect to their office network remotely and work with their applications.

Virtual Private Network – Creates a secure connection between private networks.

In a *Remote Assistance Session* -

Both users must be present at their respective PCs and must agree to establish a connection.

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