I recently started to use my home lab after 6months of not having any time to use it and unfortunately I had completely forgotten what I had set the password to on my KEMP Loadbalancer. Thankfully I haven't changed deleted the bal account and was able to use a simple method to get into it again...
1. Log into the KEMP console using the username pwreset
2. Use the password 1pwreset
3. The console will now indicate that the password for the bal account has been reset to 1fourall which you can now use to gain access to your loadbalancer again
KEMP Technologies was founded in 2000 in New York and they specialise in creating load balancing products. They offer hardware, cloud, virtual and bare metal load balancers.
One of the best things about KEMP is the offer a completely free version of their product, it isn't a waterdown version of their product but a fully featured Layer-7 load balancer, with only one drawback, it is throttled to 20Mbps throughput. However the free appliance can be seamlessly upgraded to a paid license at any time.
A KEMP appliance is extremely easy to set up and get running within a virtual environment and can be managed via a web browser session. A great resource available from the KEMP Technologies website is templates to help you configure certain load balancing services, such an Exchange 2010/2013/2016, Microsoft RDS, VMware Horizon View, MobileIron MDM and Dell Wyse VWorkspace to name a few.
With the free version support is limited to the KEMP Community forums, templates and excellent install guides. But this hasn't been a hindrance in the home lab or small office installations I have encountered. However, should you need it there are options you can buy to provide telephone support.
As I'm sure you are all aware MS Ignite this year was held in Atlanta in September for those of us not lucky enough to be there in person Microsoft have kindly put the session online via YouTube so we can view them. With over 1000 sessions it can be a daunting task trying to figure out which ones to watch and which ones not to. I've put together a list of six sessions I really enjoyed watching and think would be of benefit to you guys as well.
Mark has had similar sessions at TechEd and Ignite in previous years and they are always very informative. He gives an insight into how the SysInternals tools can help to troubleshoot issues with malware, error messages, blue screens of death, and much more.
I've been catching up with some of the sessions from MS Ignite via the on demand function and one of the interesting events I tuned into was the "Discover what's new and what's coming from Microsoft Outlook" with Julia Foran, Allen Filush and JJ Cadiz.
Within the session they talked about how they have used customer feedback to help develop a better more intuitive and productive tool.
The new features that should be starting to roll out to Office 365 subscription users in the new few months are as follows;
Focused
They received a lot feedback about the Clutter facility and how emails were getting lost in there when users forgot to check there so they have introduced the Focused view that will help to show a user on opening Outlook the important emails while the not so important emails will go into the Other view. This feature can be seen in this video:
@mentions
Within emails you will now be able to use the @ symbol and then type someone's name to help bring to their attention something in particular within that email. This will be especially useful within emails that have many recipients. It's very like the mentions facility that Twitter and Facebook currently utilise so the hope is that users will be able to adapt to this new feature easily.
Shared Calendars
One of the major issues we're all aware of if we've used calendars within an organisation is that shared calendars can be a pain to set up, access and view. This is set to change. Microsoft have put a lot of effort into developing a better and easier to manage system. The ability for an end user to share their calendar with a colleague has now been simplified and easy to understand. Accepting that invite to be able to view a shared calendar is much more initiative and grants instant access.
It used to be the case that you could only view a shared calendar from your Outlook client and that wasn't reliable all the time, but now you will be able to see your colleague's calendar from your Outlook client, your OWA session, or your mobile device (iOS, Android and Windows). Which is a great move and will be extremely handy for the one the go worker.
The free/busy time availability has also had some development. Microsoft have made it that Outlook will learn the top 50 users that you schedule meetings with and help to populate their free/busy information instantaneously. No more waiting on Outlook to find and display that info which was unreliable, it will now be available immediately, blink and you'll miss it loading! And the even better news is that you will be able to see the free/busy information on the go, so if you are trying to schedule a meeting from your mobile device you will get feedback on your meeting attendees availability there and then.
Others
There are also some other features coming along, which include the ability to see a small preview of any image files you are attaching to emails, so you can see if you're sending the right one.
Outlook will be easier to set up on first run if you have signed into the device with your Office 365 account, which will be music to IT Administrator ears.
If you receive an email regarding flight information or an online order Outlook will render all the useful information; flight number, check in details, tracking number, etc at the top of the email so that it easy to find and see.
The future definitely looks bright for the features and functions of Outlook and I look forward to seeing them rolled out. If you would like to hear more and see these features in action please take a look at the MSIgnite session at https://myignite.microsoft.com/videos/4076
Also if you would like to participate within the development of Outlook please visit Outlook Uservoice and give Microsoft your feedback.
Looking for a laptop backpack is always a daunting task. i-Stay is a UK brand that launched in 2012, part of their brand is a non-slip bag strap that has received commendation from The Royal College of Chiropractors. The non-slip straps have the potential to help users avoid any aches and pains that come with carrying a heavy load.
i-Stay is0402
I have been using the i-Stay laptop/tablet backpack (is0402) for several weeks to travel to and from work. The bag was easily able to accommodate my laptop, charging cables, mouse, mobile phone, pens, notepads, water bottles and wallet with ease. The non-slip straps did their job in helping to secure the backpack on my back/shoulders and it felt quite comfortable with everything loaded in it.
There are various pockets at the front of the backpack to help you store your smaller items in easy to reach compartments. There is also a strap at the back that can be used to hook over your roll on luggage if you were travelling.
As the i-Stay brand is relevantly new it isn't instantly recognisable as a laptop bag, which is a good selling point for a commuter. I did try to fit all my work gear and a change of clothes into the bag and wasn't able to, it's not as large as my Swissgear Synergy.
i-Stay is0402
The i-Stay is0402 is a good bag if you are travelling too and from a regular place of work and the bag feels like a quality product. I would definitely recommend this bag to someone.
If you are still running vSphere 5.0 or 5.1 in your environment, it's time to consider upgrading to 5.5 or 6.0 as VMware will end their general support of 5.0 and 5.1 on the 24th August 2016.
After the 24th August 2016 VMware will no longer issue security patches, updates or bug fixes for vSphere 5.0 or 5.1 which could have a negative impact on your server applications and hardware hosts.
Upgrading hosts within a production environment is never a simple or easy task but it's definitely one you should look into and start planning.
This script enables you to pull together the Name, Primary SMTP Address, Organizational Unit and Last Logon Time information. This information can be useful if you are trying to find out which mailboxes are being used or not. This script has been tested on Exchange 2013 only.
