June 26th, 2009
Here is a short little bit of information I had to use at my work recently. I needed to join a Windows XP embedded thin client to a 2008 Active Directory domain through a firewall. I needed to explicitly open certain ports in order to make the communication work. Windows XP embedded utilizes the same ports needed as windows Vista and supports IP V6 protocol. The ports needed to open are as follows.
Application protocol Protocol Ports
Global Catalog Server TCP 3269
Global Catalog Server TCP 3268
LDAP Server TCP 389
LDAP Server UDP 389
LDAP SSL TCP 636
LDAP SSL UDP 636
IPsec ISAKMP UDP 500
NAT-T UDP 4500
RPC TCP 135
RPC randomly allocated high TCP ports¹ TCP 1024 - 65535
49152 - 65535²
June 22nd, 2009
I just went through upgrading the hard drive in my Mac Book Pro. This turned out to be a more complex task then I originally thought. My Mac Book Pro has a 160 gig hard drive. I have this hard drive divided equally between Mac OS 10.4 and Windows Vista utilizing Boot Camp. This first problem is Mac OS 10.4 does not officially support Boot Camp. I have a beta version running. Cloning my Mac OS then trying to create the boot camp partition fails because the Beta version of Boot Camp no longer works.
The first thing I did was go to the Apple store and purchase Leopard 10.5 for my computer. I performed and upgrade of the OS. This upgrade automatically upgraded my Boot Camp and kept the Windows Vista intact and working after the upgrade.
Next I downloaded Winclone from here http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/25932
The original web site http://twocanoes.com/winclone/
seems to no longer work. I created a back up clone of my Vista OS to an external hard drive.This was pretty pain free. Next I booted up on my new Mac OS 10.5 DVD and started the disk utility from the menu. I created a backup of my Mac OS to an external drive as well. I purchased an external hard drive enclosure I could place my soon to be new 500 gig mac book hard drive in. Make sure you format the drive as GUID or Boot Camp will not work. This is found on the options button in the disk utility. I backup the old hard drive onto the new one.
Now that I have back up of all my stuff it is time to install the new hard drive. I have installed hard drives in Mac Book but not a Mac Book Pro. The regular Mac Book is easy. Just remove the battery and three screws and pull the tab and slip the new drive in. The Mac Book Pro is more complex. Personally I say Apple could have used better engineering on the design surrounding the placement of the Hard drive. I recommend referencing a web site like http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,2845,2119528,00.asp
or http://www.powerbookmedic.com/Take-Apart-Repair-Manuals-p-1-c-258.html
The advise I have here is make sure you have a T6 size Torx driver before you begin.
After playing PC mechanic boot up on the new hard drive. Great it works. Now run Boot Camp and partition the drive then exit the utility before continuing. If you get an error that Boot camp will not continue it is one of two things. Either you did not format the drive with the GUID option in the disk utility or your drive is fragmented. You can purchase a defrag utility called iDefrag. iDefrag can be found here http://www.coriolis-systems.com/iDefrag.php It costs about $30. Now run Winclone again and choose the restore option. Point to the image you saved earlier and restore it to the new partition not your Mac OS partition. That is what I did to complete and the hard drive replacement when running boot camp on Mac 10.4 OS.
June 20th, 2009
I have been working in the IT field for about 13 years. I have worked on pretty much every type of system and seen all kinds of situations. I wanted to share some of my knowledge and experience to maybe help others. I know I often search around the Internet looking for some obscure problem solution and sometimes I have to just figure it out for myself.
I am the lead IT Sys Admin for a division of a fortune 500 company. I also offer consulting services on the side out side of my regular job to other companies. I work of everything from web site design to Cisco networking services to Windows network solutions. I use all Mac computers at my house for my personal use so I am experienced with those as well.
I will try to post new interesting items I come across in my job and IT consulting business.
Glenn Gorichs