If you’re using Microsoft Windows Server Update Services (WSUS), there may come a day when you need to move the updates to another drive. Once WSUS has been installed, the WSUS Administration tool doesn’t let you do this, but you can do it using a command line tool called wsusutil found in C:\Program Files\Update Services\Tools. I’m running version 3.0 SP1.

The command is:

wsusutil movecontent logfile.log x:\WSUS

(where x: is the new destination)

If you have already copied the content (make sure you’ve set the correct permissions), you can run:

wsusutil movecontent logfile.log f:\WSUS -skipcopy

NOTE: This is separate to the WSUS database itself, this only applies to the actual patches.

To see the other uses of wsusutil, run it with no arguments:

C:\Program Files\Update Services\Tools>wsusutil.exe
Windows Server Update Services administration utility. Try:
wsusutil.exe help checkhealth
wsusutil.exe help configuressl
wsusutil.exe help configuresslproxy
wsusutil.exe help deletefrontendserver
wsusutil.exe help listinactiveapprovals
wsusutil.exe help removeinactiveapprovals
wsusutil.exe help export
wsusutil.exe help healthmonitoring
wsusutil.exe help import
wsusutil.exe help listfrontendservers
wsusutil.exe help movecontent
wsusutil.exe help reset
wsusutil.exe help usecustomwebsite
wsusutil.exe help listunreferencedpackagefolders

Posted on March 27th, 2008 to catagory: Articles
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If you’re yet to hear about Google Sitemaps, here’s a quick overview of what it is and how it works. Keep in mind this is quite new, therefore subject to change. After all it’s Google Sitemaps Beta!

Google Sitemaps offers a new way for webmasters to have more control over the spidering (is that a word?) process. Not only can you now tell Google what you want to be indexed, but you can also tell Google the priority and update frequency of your content.

So how do you get started?

First, you must have an account with Google, you will already have an existing account if you use Google free services, such as Gmail, Groups or Alerts. You must activate your Sitemap account by uploading a blank file with a unique ID in the file name. Once it’s uploaded, you’re ready to submit your URL.

Next thing you have to do is choose how you’re going to generate your Sitemap file. There are many ways you can do this, and lots of tools to do this. Try Googling to find an application for your platform or script in your preferred language. Google offers a Python script with good documentation.

Once you’ve generated your Sitemap file (sitemap.xml), Google then needs to know about it. You do this by a common HTTP request, it looks like this:www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/ping?sitemap=sitemap_urlDepending on what tool you’re using, you may have to set up a scheduled job for this ( i.e. cron for UNIX folk).

Next thing you should do is check your My Sitemaps area at Google. Your URL should now be listed. If not, it’s time to go over the steps listed in Google’s documentation. There’s stacks of information that explains the major aspects of Sitemaps and the Sitemap protocol. The FAQ is very informative.

Here’s what your My Sitemaps page should now look like:

Posted on October 17th, 2006 to catagory: Articles
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A friend of mine asked me to troubleshoot a problem he was having with authenticating to an SSH server. Like most problems, the answer could be found buried in logs, or in this case, debug output. For those who use SSH and don’t know about -v, it time you learnt about this wonderful switch. In the UNIX world, -v usually denotes verbostiy, that is, the level of detail that the program will display. Most programs you run from the command line support -v, and often -vv and -vvv. The more v’s, the higher the level of verbosity.

Start up an SSH session from the command line:

ssh username@host -v
ssh username@host -vv
ssh username@host -vvv

If you aren’t using -v while troubleshooting, try it out, it will make your life a whole lot easier.

Posted on December 15th, 2005 to catagory: Articles
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There are now devices (or at least more of them) that provide native OS X drivers, so this document is now slightly redundant. See http://keyspan.com:16080/products/usa19hs/ for example.

After purchasing the Targus USB to Serial (PA088) Adapter, I found that the driver included was for Windows only. I needed this to work under OS X 10.4. After searching the Targus website, I found out that this device is only compatible with Windows. Hmmm.

This adapter is made for newer hardware that doesn’t come with serial ports. There are several adapters (or converters) on the market, the Targus PA088 Adapter was the only one I could find at a nearby shopping center. It took some trial and error, but here’s how I managed to get it working under OS X.

First I downloaded the Magic Control driver from the MCT website:

http://www.mct.com.tw/driver.html

It appears this link is no longer valid.

Thanks to Mitch for finding the file, you can download a copy here.

Please note, this probably won’t work with newer Apple hardware, it was originally performed on a PPC PowerBook a few years ago.

Then I edited the plist file installed by the driver:

vi /System/Library/Extensions/USBSerialDriver.kext/Contents/Info.plist

Then I replaced the following 2 ID’s, by those found in System Profiler (under USB):

idProduct
230
idVendor
711

I then changed the permissions to 755 on all the files under (I compared this to the other drivers) the driver folder:

/System/Library/Extensions/USBSerialDriver.kext

Then, I ran kextload, and it worked:

sudo kextload /System/Library/Extensions/USBSerialDriver.kext
kextload: /System/Library/Extensions/USBSerialDriver.kext loaded successfully

You should now see a new serial device appear in /dev:

crw-rw-rw- 1 root wheel 2, 0 Dec 6 21:15 tty
crw-rw-rw- 1 root wheel 9, 8 Dec 6 18:54 tty.Bluetooth-Modem
crw-rw-rw- 1 root wheel 9, 6 Dec 6 18:54 tty.Bluetooth-PDA-Sync
crw-rw-rw- 1 root wheel 9, 2 Dec 6 21:16 tty.USB Serial
crw-rw-rw- 1 root wheel 9, 0 Dec 6 18:54 tty.modem
crw--w---- 1 root tty 4, 0 Dec 6 18:54 ttyp0
crw--w---- 1 root tty 4, 1 Dec 6 21:50 ttyp1


You can now access the serial port via /dev/tty.USB Serial ala UNIX!

Posted on December 6th, 2005 to catagory: Articles
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I recently wrote an article for Macromedia’s The Edge newsletter briefly summarising the benefit of using alternative web browsers, in particular Firefox.

Far from a complete look at the importance of web standards, it will hopefully expose many web designers and developers to the many resources that the Internet has to offer. The article should also work towards getting more people to take a closer look at Firefox, which is a great browser for many reasons. If you’re interested, you can read the article online at Macromedia’s website.

Posted on September 26th, 2005 to catagory: Articles
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If the Windows XP Bootloader gets erased or corrupted, you can repair it without a complete reinstall. Below describes how to do this. More useful Windows tips can be found at WindowsInternals.com.

Disclaimer: Attempt this at your own risk, I assume no responsibility for any data lost.

Boot from the Windows XP CDROM in to the “Recovery” prompt. If you have not set an Administrator password, leave it blank. The Windows XP documentation (Help and Support) has a section on the Recovery Console if you’d like to learn more.

Then run:

bootcfg /rebuild
fixboot
fixmbr

Posted on June 25th, 2005 to catagory: Articles
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Broadband technology (as with most information technology for that matter) has come a long way in the past few years, however expect the odd glitch now and then. There can be many reasons why Internet connectivity or web sites fail, the trick is to try and isolate where the problem is.

This article describes what you should check if you have a problem with your Internet connection, for example, accessing a particular web site. Please note: If you call your service provider support staff, they will most likely go over these exact same things, so using this checklist first may save you some time.

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Posted on May 29th, 2005 to catagory: Articles
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Ok, so you’ve got data on ISO’s (or CDROM) you need to access all the time, for example the images of your favourite distro. You can extract the file to directories on your hard disk, or you can directly mount them as a file system!

It’s very straight forward, simply run the following command with the appropriate parameters. If you run into any problems, man is your friend. Your local Linux User Group is also always a great place to find helping hands.

mount -o loop -t iso9660 isofilename mountpoint

There are all sorts of information on file systems and CD formats at Linux.com which may be of use if you’d like to know more.

Posted on May 29th, 2005 to catagory: Articles
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If you’ve got a few boxes around your workspace, you occasionally might like to be logged on as root (you normally shouldn’t be logged on as root unless you really have to, use su or sudo instead!) and watch something on one screen while working on another. No problem, until the screen blanks. Of course you can move a mouse, or hit a key. But wouldn’t it be good if you stop the screen from going blank in the first place? Well you can, simply follow the steps below.

Open the following file in your favourite text editor.

vi /etc/rc.d/rc.local

Edit the following line, I always prefer to include comments.

# Turn off screen blanking, the default is usually 10 minutes
setterm -blank 0

Your screen will now always stay on.

Posted on May 29th, 2005 to catagory: Articles
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This article is still ongoing. I decided to publish it because I figured it still might help some individuals even in this primitive state.

First things first. What exactly is a user group? A user group is a group of people that get together by interest in a particular technology. It may be a programming language, it may be an Operating System, or even a generic technology just to name a few. User groups are also often referred to as Special Interest Groups (SIG’s).

Running a user group can be a very rewarding experience and a great way to meet like-minded people in your area. It can also be quite a bit of work, but as the old saying goes “many hands make light work”, the more helpers you’ve got the easier it gets. From my experience, if you’re giving something to the community, the community (or at least part of) will be happy to give something back.

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Posted on May 29th, 2005 to catagory: Articles
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