Last time we talked about when to use data recovery software and 10 features to look for when choosing recovery software.

Today, we’ll take it one step further and look at the steps involved in using one such product. Then, we’ll discuss what to do to keep yourself out of these predicaments to begin with.

Before we can begin, there are a few basics we need to go over.

The Basics That You Need to Know When Using Data Recovery Software

• If possible do a back-up before you try the recovery
• Don’t install the software on the drive that has the problem
• Be sure to save the recovered files someplace other than the problem drive

Installing the recovery software on the unstable drive could write on top of your files. This is a no-brainer if you are trying to recover removable storage like the below example.

In this case you don’t have to do anything special. However, there is an extra step if you want to recover an internal drive.

When recovering an internal drive, you will have to remove the unstable hard drive and connect to a stable computer with a stable operating system. I have dealt with this in the past and had decided to purchase a case that turns my hard drive into an USB connected external hard drive.

This is the cleanest and easiest way but has an additional cost (approximate $10-30 depending on quality and appearance of the case) and slows down the scan because it is running through USB. Buying this is unavoidable in most instances when you are trying to recover a laptop hard drive.

If it is a tower you are attempting to recover, you can bust open a second tower and plug in the unstable hard drive. Then you should see the unstable drive show up in (My) Computer or in Disk Management.

You may, or may not, be able to see some of the files you are looking for without any recovery software at all.

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If you have been following our FTP 7.0 chronicles in the first article we Installed FTP Publishing Service for IIS 7.0 and configured it for anonymous access.

For those with less public needs, the next article covered Setting up FTP 7.0 User Authentication using both Windows authentication and IIS User Manager.

In this article we will cover adding additional layers of security to your FTP sessions.

Setting Up FTPS — FTP Over SSL

Most administrators only worry about keeping data secure once it is on one of their servers. As the bad guys get more sophisticated every day, the need to keep data secure during transmission is no longer only for the realm of e-commerce sites.

By using SSL you can secure your FTP transmission from point to point to guard against interception of the data. There are several things that need to be done before we get to that point so let’s get started.

Setting up a Public Key Server Certificate

Our first order of business is to setup a SSL certificate on the IIS server. Now if you have experience with using SSL on a website for e-commerce or other uses, you know that you can issue this yourself or you can pay a 3rd party service to issue one.

The benefits of the 3rd party are having their assurance that the person who uses the certificate is who they say they are, but in almost all cases this will not be necessary for FTPS use.

For this article I am going to issue a Self-Signed Certificate for our test server to use.

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Nowadays, security is more important than ever. It’s extremely important that user accounts, passwords and hosts are protected from malicious attacks.

Secure Shell Protocol (SSH) is capable of establishing secure encrypted tunnels for carrying data. SSH protocol can be used for remote access to your network devices, for securely transferring files between hosts and even for forwarding application data between workstations.

Various terminal emulators exist that support SSH. Based on my personal experience, SecureCRT and PuTTY are two of the best SSH emulators.

Today I am focusing on how to use PuTTY for establishing SSH remote connections and encrypted data tunnels. If you want, you can download PuTTY for free from www.putty.org.

In this article you can get the necessary steps for configuring and taking advantage of SSH on PuTTY. I also included lots of screenshots to help you along, so let’s get started with configuring PuTTY.

Configuring Basic PuTTY Session Options

After downloading PuTTY, you should set up and store your preferred connections. The steps you need to do this are very easy and straightforward:

1. Launch PuTTY application
2. On the Session Category specify the IP address of the remote host
3. Make sure that the "connection type" is set to SSH. By default SSH uses port 22; if your SSH server is configured to use a different port for SSH then you need to specify the specific port number here
4. Give your session a name and press the Save button (e.g. Remote_connection)

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The newly implemented Read-Only Domain Controller (RODC) in Windows Server 2008 provides a way to increase the security of servers whose physical security cannot be assured.

In addition, it can provide a way for local administrator privileges to be assigned to a user that you need to be an administrator at the local level, but who you do not want to allow a backstage pass into the domain-wide AD database via replication.

However, because the RODC intentionally limits its participation in the enterprise-wide AD structure, it is wise to limit its use to only those times when the additional level of security is required.

Let’s Get Physical

First thing is first. Microsoft has spent the years since the release of the first Windows NT products building up a full scale security model around the Windows Server products. However, security is a mission that never ends.

The hackers don’t sit around eating cold pizza and wearing their thumbs out on Xbox moaning about how they can’t use the buffer overflow trick to gain access to secure systems anymore.

Instead, they sit around eating cold pizza and wearing their thumbs out on Xbox while wondering what would happen if they could somehow parse a command string with a hex editor when the command is actually expecting ASCII text … Or at least that’s what it looks like on YouTube.

I wouldn’t know because I wear a white hat (but not after Labor Day), I don’t have an Xbox, and I have some sort of genetic defect that prevents me from using both my thumbs and index fingers at the same time. Thus, since the days of Playstation and its accursed F1, F2 buttons, I have been relegated to the last kid picked for dodge ball status of video games.

One of the new frontiers of security concerns is theft of computers with important data. You’ve heard all about the many laptop thefts. The RODC exists so that you won’t start hearing about all of the Domain Controller thefts.

Don’t Break It To Save It

The Active Directory system is setup to be a robust and fully scalable way to implement security throughout your enterprise. Past versions of Windows Server products suffered from various scalability issues.

One of those issues was caused by the original domain model that had only one Primary Domain Controller operating with many Backup Domain Controllers. The problem was that too much activity had to take place on the Primary Domain Controller.

In an enterprise with several hundred or even thousands of Backup Domain Controllers, the Primary Domain Controller spent so much time replicating that it could be overwhelmed and unable to handle other requests flooding in. The solution was to distribute the responsibilities of the Primary Domain Controller to many servers instead of just the one.

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Do you ever wish there were just a few more hours in the day so you can get more things done?

Are you constantly looking for more efficient ways of doing things?

Time is precious. That’s why I love anything that can help me save a few minutes each day. And one technology in particular has proven to save time and help me be more efficient and productive.

What I’m talking about is RSS, and although I’ve only been using it for a year, I don’t think I could ever do without it.

If you’re not using RSS you should be … here’s why:

• RSS Saves You Time
  
  Instead of bookmarking your favorite sites and then coming back to them to check for new content, the content is send directly to you as soon as it becomes available. All you have to do is subscribe to the site’s RSS feed.
  
  You’re also eliminating the time you would spend going to a site that doesn’t update on a regular basis by seeing the same information multiple times.
  
  With RSS, you get to tell your favorite sites to send you their updates as soon as they’re available and you get to read the ones you choose at your own convenience.
• RSS Helps You Increase Your Information Consumption
  
  While you’re saving time you’re also increasing your information consumption because you get notified every time the site is updated.
  
  This way you’re on top of all of the latest news, and you don’t even have to go out to look for it. All you have to do is read it at your own convenience and you never miss a thing.
• RSS Eliminates Spam
  
  With RSS you’re not giving your email address to anyone. So the website you’re subscribing to doesn’t have access to your email address — they can’t send you anything you don’t want and can’t give your email address to anyone.
  
  This means no more spam. All you get is clean content from your favorite sites!
• RSS is Easy!
  
  It really is. Subscribing — and unsubscribing — is as easy as a click of the button. You don’t have to contact anyone to be put on or taken off a list, all you do is click.

Today is RSS awareness day … a day to spread the word about the benefits of RSS. Now that you know what they are, go ahead, try it! And see for yourself.

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