Sync Your Passwords with Keepass & Dropbox

Everyone has a lot of password and you most likely, like me, can't remember them all all the time. There is a great piece of software out there called Keepass that lets you keep all your passwords locked up in a digital "password safe" encrypted and all. Keepass is simple to use and works really well. Too well in fact, since you will most likely forget all your passwords once you start using it! Having a local copy is the way to start off, but when you have multiple computers you will most likely want your Keepass database to move along with you. This is where Dropbox comes in. If you're tech savy you most likely already have a Dropbox account. The way that Keepass and Dropbox unite is to allow your password database to sync between all machines as you update it. Before you start anything, make sure you have Keepass and Dropbox installed on all computers (and mobile devices) you want your database to sync to. Then just drop your Keepass database file into a folder on your Dropbox account and make sure all devices are set to sync that file. Once the database is there, just point Keepass to the new, Dropbox location of the database file and any changes you make will not be made to all machines.

Get Dropbox Here: Dropbox.com
Get Keepass Here: Keepass.info

Microsoft Exchange 2010 & Mobile Device Control

Being new to working with Microsoft Exchange 2010 I was surprised to see how much power it has over mobile devices that are connected to an Exchange server. While doing some work for an upcoming audit I found that not only can you control WIFI, Bluetooth and even camera settings on connected phones, but completely wipe the phones as well. Now when finding this out of course it had to be tested, and thankfully my boss offered up his iPhone to be the "test device". It was more just to see if it actually worked then anything and oh did it do its job.... too well. Just by clicking the "Wipe Drive" option the phone suddenly powered off and rebooted. It was stuck on the Apple logo for about half and hour and when it came back it was if he just bought the phone. We were both shocked since we just assumed it would wipe out any emails or contacts that were associated with the company but no, EVERYTHING was gone. All his apps, all his contacts... everything.

This small but powerful feature is phone to test out but gets very scary if you think about it. Someone could very easily erase an unsuspecting users enter personal phone by accident, or even on purpose if they really wanted to. It does come in handy when a phone is lost, stolen or someone is fired without getting a chance to clear out any settings. But when it comes to a setting such as a college campus where thousands of students can be connected to the Exchange database makes it very scary. Being that I used to work for a college IT department the idea that someone has the power to wipe a students phone, who really has no idea how they are connecting to the network, makes me nervous. I'm surprised we haven't seen stories about more accidental wipes happening but I'm sure the time will come when something goes kind of screwy and hundreds of phones get wiped.

Using Hiren's Boot CD to Recover Lost Causes

One of the first problems I had to face at my new job was a computer where the local user password was forgotten. Actually they've been changed a few times, so we just couldn't find the one that worked. Once the computer was removed from the domain there was no other way to log in, so ater doing some searching I found Hiren's BootCD. It did the job, did it well and fairly easily too! All I had to do was boot up the Hiren's CD, launch the password recovery application and was able to reset the password. This allowed me to actually log in using a local account, change a few settings and put the computer back on the domain. The CD has some other pretty cool features as well like booting up into a Windows XP live session or even a Linux live session. Other tools include ghosting options, partitioning options and several applications that let you run thourugh diagnostics on the machine or even run a pre-boot virus scan. I recommend just burning this disk and just putting it in your collection. You never know when you'll need but assuming you work in IT, I assume it won't be long before you will. You can download and create the Hiren's BootCD by going to their website at: http://www.hiren.info/pages/bootcd