I have been busy analysing the data and system backups carried out at the Tiscali data center to audit it and replan it according to the new starategy in place at workplace site.
We have been working at Tiscali for a few days to configure the hardware and carry out pre-requisites like labeling the tapes, diagnosting any issues and updating the backup server.
The Backup technology used at data center is of high spec and utilises Dell PowerVault 132T Auotloader attached to the SAN (Storage Area Network). The autoloader can hold upto 23 tapes altogether with storage capacity of 500GB on each tape with the aid of 2:1 compression by default.
In principle it means we can backup upto 12TB. I have started working on the ideal strategy considering the resources available.
Nigell garett, had problems with the outlook configuration. He tends to saty away from office at client sites and therefore works offline most of the time. the problem he is facing is that the when he configures an email while working offline, he can not send/recieve his emails. In principal, when the user works offline but is connected to some sort of network the outlook should send any new configured emails as usual which would be actually send when next time you go online. With Nigell, all the emails which he configures while offline but connected to the network go into the outbox and do not get out of there even on doing send/recieve (F9). After going through his local outlook settings I managed to find that under send/recieve properties there is an option with edit the settings under which his outook was not ticked for offline access.
Another issue was that on his laptop he could never manage to disable any network connection.
It used to come up with an error window saying that more than one network protocol has been initiated by administrator or any other user which does not allow plug and play properties.
On looking for it and carrying out various diagnostics I found that there was nothing wrong with his network drivers or the hardware infact it was that there is service known as Digital Line Detect in windows which was not running creatind all these problems.
Lisa Bentham had ordered 3 new Dell servers. Two Dell PowerEdge 1950 and one 2950 for supporting various clients. The 1950's have windows environment while 2950 is a red Hat Linux machine. I along with Chris had to get them up and working on the rack and configure it to be used via KVM across the network with real Ip addresses and remote control sessions. WIndows configuration was straight forward but Linx was was a bit interesting and had something to learn about since it was the first time I was configuring a Linux machine.

Go live deadline for corporate email signature for all WorkPlace employees is tomorrow and many people have logged calls with inability of different sorts in editing their details using GALMod utility by Microsoft.
In order to resolve the issue, I managed to find a alternate way of allowing the end user to edit their personal details on the Active Directory. There are very few people who are aware of the free utility provided with Windows XP Professional called Address Book which can be accessed under Accessories. This allows you to view everyones details on the domain and by granting few of the privileges to the users through active directory it can even allow them to edit the details.
In the Active Directory, by going to the domain I could delegate control to the users to mange their personal information. this allowed the people having problems with GALMod utility to surpass the affect of the local outlook settings and edit their details.

Martin had received a 300MB zip file from a client (3GB after extraction) through FTP site and needed it to be unzipped. He could have unzipped locally from his machine but that would have meant that it would get extracted to temporary internet folders on his laptop first and thus create unwanted huge network traffic. So the idea was to extract it locally on the WEB Server. I gathered the connection details and using the Windows Server 2003 unzip tool did the extraction without affecting the network pipe.

Stuart Love has always had problems with his demo laptop due to conflicting services and chunks of applications being hosted on single operating system (Windows Server 2003). To overcome critical issues related to crucial business machine we have come up with a plan to implement virtual machines on a new high spec laptop using Virtual Server 2005 R2 which is a microsoft solution for virtualisation of operating systems.
It enables us to install several operating systems on a single host operating system without affecting the resources of the host operating system (hard drive, memory and optical drives) and each virtual operating behaves as if a different laptop.
For successful implement we have brought a Dell Latitude D820 machine with Duo core processor, 160Gb hard drive with 7200rpm and 4GB memory to allow machine to cope with several operating systems at an instance. All the virtual machines are supposed to be isolated from the internet to avoid any virus problems since this machine would be hosting our bespoke software applications. However virtual machines need to talk among each other and with the host and vice versa.

Andrew Burgess could not access his sales folder on file share which had some critical work. On investigating I managed to find that its been deleted and the last time he accessed it was around 10 days ago. I logged into the file server and first of all did search for that folder on not being able to find it I had to goto the backups and restore it.

The signature for development are now in pilot phase and it seems working fine till now.
In order to test the signatures the users need to write DISCLAIMER TESTING in the subject.

I am also auditing the phone lines across all our offices.

The incremental backup for Monday night did not run. On logging into the backup server it prompted with a error message to insert correct media for the job. On having a look at the online media, the slot for monday's media was empty and even after running the scan/inventory did not get detected.
I had to physically go the server and have a look at it. the tape had got stuck for some reason and just on ejecting and inserting back in I could manage to do the backups.

We have been working on migrating our WINS server onto a windows 2003 server. After migrating there have been problems.
One of the users claimed that he could not access the shares on some of servers and also could not see all the computers on the network. That meant that his machine is not pointing to the new wins server.
Now, to troubleshoot we had three options. One, that if the wins is locally set up on his laptop. Second, VPN is pushing out wrong wins or third that his laptop is connected to different domain which points to old wins server.
He was asked to run the command prompt and using ipconfig /all while logged in to vpn and find the wins ip adreess. As expected it was pointing to the wrong wins server.
It came out some changes be made on the vpn 3000 concentrator. I used webvpn to make the relevant changes. Under configuration>user management>groups>internal users group>genaral I changed the primary wins address to the new wins server and secondary to the old one.

To confirm it I connected to the vpn and did ipconfig to find the wins getting pointed out to the new ip address.

In view of auditing the ports on the patch panel in the server room I had to audit a list for all the ground ports across the building to ensure easy allocation of ports (network and phone ) in future.

I first noted down all the ports on the patch panel and then manually found the ground port each one is connected to on the patch panel itself. Secondly I would need to go to each ground port and find out if they are active, if not then mark them as inactive in the audit.

We are done with documenting the things to do for preparing for the new corporate signature. The software is now in test period. In the active directory a new group called Signature Test Group has been created and users been added to it for testing it.
The documentation has been kept as simple as possible to make it understandable for non IT departments as well. But still we were flocked with queries straight away by testers. Problems like Why can't I see my signature while composing email? That is because the signatures are added once the user sends the email and it goes to the exchange server where it gets the user credentials from the Global Address List in Active Directory.

To standardize the email signatures for all employees we had configured our exchange server 2003. According to new settings each external email we would a prefix of a company logo and disclaimer.
but before implementing it we would have liked to make everybody aware of it and provide them with sufficient details to edit their present signatures.
I had been working on this and created a document for the same.

Nigel is satisfied with the upgrades done to his desktop to fix the problem with outlook crashing. After discussions with people at Nouvveau ( our CRM team) it was decided to add some patches to the client software for CRM V3.0 provided by Microsoft.
He has now asked me to implement the same patch for his laptop as well. It is still on testing and if every thing goes fine then we would be looking at wider implementation for the department which uses CRM.
I had already received the media for Veritas backup Exec 11d last week but got the serial keys just today. I thought it to be straight forward as it used to be before to activate the product currently running on the trial key. Due to security changes made by Symantec we now had to login to a licensing portal at symantec website and then using unique customer number and order number track the softwares we bought. That was not enough, then I was supposed to create individual license catalogs for all the 6 different serial keys provided. At last the activation product keys are supplied at email address used to login to the portal.

The backup server which I configured has been using a trial version of Symantec veritas backup exec 10d so I had to get it licensed.
I called the reseller and for a quote according to our requirement i.e. 1 x main backup software; 5 x remote agents; 1 x tape library software (autoloader).
Nigel Garett's outlook still has not been behaving itself and keeps on crashing. I had alook at it and due to irregular pattern for failure its actually difficult to diagnose the real route cause of it.
Meanwhile, I had to build a new demo machine for Stuart Love. He wanted this new demo laptop for future installations since he reckoned Demo2 was absolutely cluttered and would not be able to cope anymore further installations. Apart from standard server on his laptop he requires a demo tool kit called Business Objects which has very high prerequisites. I demands a web server and a database server for its complete functionality and is not very straight forward to install.
I have finished building the server on the laptop with all latest updates and anti virus console as of yet. Even installed Sequel server 2000 standard edition with SP 3a.

I have been working on setting the tape library for carrying out the backups. I have eventually been able to resolve all the issues and getting it started.
After getting it replaced I had to decide which backup software to use on it for backups. Ended up installing the Veritas 10d and refering to the manuals to get my hold onto how to configure it.

Firstly I had to install the remote agents to the machine we wanted to back up. The remote could be pushed out using the add remove tool in the control panel. Select the Veritas software and click change. Now go through the wizard to do push out the remote agents to the required servers and desktops.

Second step is to create the device pools. It is a group of storage devices that can be targetted for backups. If you run the veritas software for backups and select the device tab you would find the tape library beeing used. If you load the tapes into the autoloader they would all be monitored in the device tab. Initially they don't have any name assigned to them so by right clicking onto each of them you have to first catalog(name) them appropriately.

Ater that, thirdly I had to create a media set. A media set is logical group of storage media for which you can specify how long data will be appended or over write protected. After creating media sets we can target backup jobs to it.

Backup jobs could then be created individually or by using policies. Policies contains the data selections we specify for backups and all the details like what when and how it will be backed up.
it can reflect the back strategy created and simply managing the large number of backup jobs. Backup jobs actually allow to associate a policy with a selection list.

Eventually after all I allows to monitor the running and scheduled back up jobs.

Ryan and Jay had concerns with having to work again on the same corrupted hard drive though it has been fixed now. To convince them I had to run some diagnostic tools which writes and reads of the disk.
The dell diagnostics CD when used to boot the system uses a Windows 98 PXE and downloads all the drivers and enters a diagnostic utility. The custom tab can be used to test the hard drive comprehensively.

We have a mission critical laptop called DEMO which is used to host all our application software's to the prospective clients. Due to fact that they all use different versions and configurations sometimes they clash and give blue screens of error. With the amount of services running on it it is next to impossible to analyse or diagnose the cause of the problem.
So just to be on the safe side because we can not afford to loose this machine it was advised to the consultant who the machine belongs to get it backed up.
The problem is that the machine has Windows Server 2003 on it and backing up windows has never been easy especially with this much amount of data on it.
I used Acronis Server Image 2003 to back it up across the network. But that was not the end of it. I was told that people in the past have managed to backup but in the last four years no body has been ever able to restore it. That means I now had to test restore it.
Now there are few restrictions when you restore a machine. I had to analyse that before going ahead but eventually I was able to restore it back onto another machine.

From yesterday as far as Dell Server 2003 is concerned using Winternals ERD Commander I could get all the data off the corrupted hard drive by putting that hard drive as secondary onto another system and just copied onto the hard drive of that system. But what happened eventually was that now I could not boot off that hard drive and hence not retrieve the server data files. I had to repair the Windows XP which already existed on the hard drive and then boot off that and access server files. It all worked well but to restore the Dell Server back we needed to get the 120GB corrupted hard drive right. So to achieve that we tried wipping off the hard drive using tool called DiskWipe.
After that I used the reinstallation CD for Dell server 2003 which comes along with the system to format the drive and do a fresh install of Windows Server 2003. the hard drive seemed to be working fine now. Next job would be to migrate the files recovered using ERD back to this reinstalled hard drive for doing that I had to dual boot the system using both the hard drives and then successfully migrated the stuff off it.

Dell engineer has replaced the Autoloader but as far as making backup's is concerned that is still got to be tested. But at the moment we have made sure that the Autoloader works fine in terms of loading and unloading tapes to the tape drive.
Next step would have been to set up the Veritas software to do backup's but one of the mission critical servers broke down and we had to look at that as priority1.
This is Dell Server 2003 which is very crucial box as used to support one of the major clients. It failed to reboot. Martin identified the problem trying to connect to it remotely. When he couldn't he asked us to have a look at it. The system did not boot up and kept coming with the message Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to reboot and the problem continued.
We first tried booting of the utility partition and ran the diagnostics. It came with errors which seemed like those for the hard drive. Then after running the custom test for hard drive it was evident that it is the hard drive failure.
First attempt was to fix it. I first used Bart's PXE to fix the hard drive partition but not to much help. Then went on to using Knoppix which is recovery tool with Linux on a CD. The system boots of the CD and is said to be capable of fixing most of the problems though not in this case. Thought of why not swap the hard drive with another machine just to make sure that it is the hard drive and nothing else than that. Put the hard drive onto another PC and same problem existed.
Last option was to try and get as much data as possible off it onto another location.

After several attempts and looking at all possible issues we have been struggling to get Autoloader Tape Drive up and working. We have a Dell Gold Support for it and hence logged a call with Dell yesterday.
Discussed the whole issue with dell support. The problem seemed to be much more serious than intended. He asked me to open up the top lid of the autoloader. On opening I found that one the tapes was stuck in the tape drive and failed to eject. Thre was nothing that he could do and ordered a replacement of tape drive. Now we are expecting a Dell installation engineer to come and replace the faulty tape drive.

I have installed and configured the Varitas tape drive backup software.
We had a priority 1 call to set up Tom Preston's email account to redirect all emails to his google mail account since he had left the company and had requested for accessing his emails for couple of weeks.
In outlook 2003, select Rules and Alerts in Tools tab. Using this I could redirect all his emails to his googlemail account and also to Tony Knight, who's Tom's manager so that he is aware what all is being forwarded to him.
Matt Brown in Australia needed some software's urgently. We couldn't allow him to copy it across the network because that may slow down the pipe. I copied it onto the web server folder for for Australia and Matt could install it across the internet using FTP site address.
Craig's laptop desktop rotated at 90 degrees left by its own. He called us to resolve it. Generally it is under desktop properties to configure it but unfortunately it was not there. I had to find out the shortcut (keyboard) to resolve it................Ctrl+Del+Arrow keys allow you to change the angles of your desktop (only in case of Dell's).

Working on setting up the PowerVault 122T LTO2 Autoloader for backup's. I faced quite afew problems. First I had to install a SCSI card in the server. Upgraded the drivers for it and then from dell website downloaded the drivers for autoloader and tape drive within it. the machine has detected the hardware change but can't get the autoloader up and working. Autoloader requires a Backup software for managing backup's so installed Varitas backup solution for the same.
Now that needs configuring.

Our network provider wanted to provide us with some new client softwares related to better network connectivity and administration tools. The files are big and even due to security reasons not advisable to sent through emails.
The solution to this is either they ship CD's or we provide them with an access to our FTP site where they can upload and we can download straight away and its secure as well.
How it all works? We have a web server (meaning it can be accessed from around the world) and every web server has an ftp( file transfer protocol) site. To manage the ftp we have ftp secure server software. using this software we can configure he site and authenticate different users to access our web server as much as we want to. Every user is given a home drive on web server which they can access for uploads and downloads. So every time some files are to be exchanged customers can log into the ftp site using their provided username and password.

James Thompson's machine was not fixed yet and I had a deadline to sort it before lunch. The problem was that the system used to freeze if you eject and load the DVD RW ROM. I tried everything out from replacing the dvd rom, IDE cable, BIOS settings, local settings of the machine, ran dell diagnostics but nothing helped. One thing was for sure that it was due to some driver or service running on his machine because when logged in safe mode (system only uses the drivers and services critical for running the machine) it seemed to get fixed.
After spending quite along time with it I realized to individually stop services one by one and check alternatively how does the rom react to it. I came across one service controlled by InCD.exe which created the problem. I disabled the service permanently and hence resolved the issue.
Hollywood wanted me to look into a P1 customer log which required a new ftp access setting up for the customer. I took the details down from him and logged into our web server. Using the FTP secure server I configured access for a new user and filled in the relevant details. There is a standard which is followed to configure a new user so that it becomes easier for anybody to troubleshoot in case ant thing goes wrong. Hence I had to go through the documentation meant for this purpose.
Kim needed a spare laptop for doing some work from home. We had a Compaq NX9010 machine which could be given away. Steve asked me if I could re-install the OS and configure it for her.
I formatted the hard drive and booted the system. It did not pick up the network drivers. Went to HP website and looked for the relevant driver but even after installing them I could manage to get it working.

Its been quite long that we have been looking at making a backup strategy for some of the critical machines in MK. Eventually its been decided to configure a Dell PowerVault 122T LTO Autoloader tape drive on mkhqfile server for this purpose.
Steve has asked me to look into the installation and configuration of it onto our network. Hence I have been keeping busy studying manuals preparing successful strategy for the same.

Steve has always been obsessed about not allowing people to copy huge data files over the network in cases where you tend to use those files pretty often since it traffics the network pipe. So we want to test with some alternatives for it. Ben has just had a new laptop and looking to migrate all the stuff from his old to new machine. We were eager to utilize cross over ethernet cable to transfer data files. Its a bit tchi stuff but cost effective.
You join the machines in parallel using an ethernet cable and create a sort of LAN between them with static IP addresses. It allows you to access the shared stuff on the other machines and because systems are connected together it doesn't bother the network at all.

How to expire an Active Directory user account? I was delegated a task to expire some of the active directory user accounts from specific dates. These accounts were meant for some contractors and guests which leave on that date.
I log into the active directory server and goto active directory users and computers tool. Then select the user right click goto properties. Select account tab in the list and select expire account from the date as required.

A call was logged to allow some of the employees to access support emails i.e support@workplacesystems.com. How to do it? It is configured using Active Directory. In Active Directory users and computers tool there are Incidental Mailboxes which contains support email. If you right click on that goto properties under Exchange Advanced you can find mailbox rights. Just enter the name of the person who you want to give access to and click check names. Provided the employee is the member of the Domain Users it would get authenticated and allow him to access the specified emails.
In Outlook 2003 the mailbox of the user can be configured by opening Email Accounts in control panel and then opt change email account hence more settings. Goto advanced tab and add mailbox you want to view i.e support in this case.

Then I needed to set up a new Incidental Mailbox called fogbugz@workplacesytems.com. The best way to do without any confusions is to copy one of the existing mailboxes and fill in the details. Then configure the properties as required.

Tessa had accidently denied the Sbase software (used for customer services) when prompted by mcafee firewall. She was working from home at the moment using Cisco VPN and could not log in to Sbase. We had to reconfigure her mcafee to allow sbase. She had VNC o her machine and hence I took control of her machine.
To reconfigure McAfee Right click on the icon and click options. Goto firewall settings which shows all the available network connection and logs the locations you have been through. Under VPN connection click internet browser. I could find logged setting to deny Sbase simply right clicked on it and allowed.
Kate had asked me create an ftp site for a new client so that we could upload all softwares and patches for them. Remote desktop to our web server. We use a ftp file server software for administration and configuring our ftp site. With the aid of a document and wizard created a new client login and password.Allotes space to them on th server and copied couple of documents. Now using web browser opened the ftp site logged in as client to verify if I can see the files I have copied for them.
Jo had been experiencing problems with wireless at MK. According to her she could connect to the wireless in the office but it kept on dropping. Actually she's been using a BT broadband router at home and hence installed a BT adapter(device driver). Unfortunately the adapter doesn't seem to be working fine with our internal wireless network. So I had to uninstall her BT software and install the Intel Pro Set mini adapter. Added the work wireless profile and her home BT one as well.

Alan Stephens, Sales Consultant, could not access all the folders under sales on share server. The properties of the sales folder gives full access to all of the sales department. He could get in the sales folder but could not see all the sub folders.

I have now finished with creating new active directory and VPN accounts for the LSI people sitting in USA. A compiled document has been creating to assist with deployment procedure.
The consultants have been experiencing problems with wireless. So wehad decided to put up a repeater router around that area to boost the signal.
Steve had alloted me the task to configure and deploy it. It was not straight forward since to configure the repeater you need to know the configuration of the actual router. I had to first find out the configuration of wireless router and with aid of the instruction manual I managed to configure the repeater.

I have been busy building Cerian's new laptop. Apart from the standard build comprising basic device drivers and some security softwares I had to configure Sequel Server 2000 Personal edition for handling databases, SnagIt 8 for documentation, PC Anywhere for supporting remote clients, Net Support Manager, Visio2000, Citrix, Aqua data Studio for analysing databases to name a few. Installed SBase, our internal call management system which uses oracle application forms.
I had the job of setting up VPN accounts for some colleagues working in LSI Consultants, North America. I had to log on to the VPN concentrator and create accounts with username and passwords which could allow them to access our network resources.
Further I added their credentials onto to Domain Controlller (Active Directory) which would give them complete access to our network.

Since last weekend I have been working on preparing a next financial year budget for supporting infrastructure of company.
Steve gave me rough outline of what all needed to be done. The most important being the Microsoft Software Asset Management for the whole company including our branches in America and Australia. After critical analysis of Microsoft Licensing Method its been found that we are on the verge of getting Microsoft Gold Partner Certified. I have created a document explaining the effect on our free licenses entitlement in case we get Gold Certified.
The next stage would be to create a group policy in Active Directory to scan all the machines across our LAN and WAN to perform software auditing task.
We could use Microsoft Software Analyser to scan all the machines and further polish the document explaining if we need any further licenses.

Dick McDonnielle had a scan meassage from McAfee Microsoft Outlook find vulnerability (925938). A buffer overflow message with description that a vulnerability exists in Miscrosoft Outlook that may allow for denial of service attack. A user would have to open a malicious e-mail attachment for an attack to occur. A successful attack would allow execution of code at the rights level of the victim's user account.
On following the recommendations I managed to download a update i.e. was KB924085. A microsoft office update and also updated his McAfee. I scaned his machine and that message did not occur again.

We had a task to install a business intelligence application Business Objects Enterprise on demo machine. After going through prerequisites we found that it reqired a database server and web application server which required configuring before hand.
We installed SQL Server 2005 and Java Web Application servers. Going through notes I had to develop a new empty database with login id and password as required.
Started with the installation and immediately message that it could not execute some file. I had to copy the contents of the disk onto the C: drive and run the files from there. After installation we could not log in to the application. It was asking for server name, login id, password and authentication. After comprehensive study of the installation notes it was found out that during application a default administrator and user account are created. We used those credentials to log in now. Every thing seemed fine until Stuart came back that he could not do anything when not networked and because the laptop was meant for giving demonstrations it had to work without a network. Then after some difficulties we manged to find out what could be the problem.
The application used Java web application server which always requires an IP address. When the system is not networked it would not have an IP address. So we created a network connection called loopback which has a private IP address and allows to make your own mini network.

We recieved the Dell PowerEdge SC440 server today which was supposed to be used to support Travelex applications. It was shipped without the operating system so the first task was to install OS on it. After successfull installation I noticed that the machine did not pick up the gigabit network controller driver so I had to put in the server installation CD and run the utility to update drivers only after going throught the installation instruction manual. The problem was resolved and I could now go to microsoft website and insatll all the security updates. Afterwards I installed the mcafee anti virus and joined it to domain. Then created a domain user account in the active directory and configured the machine for using that user account.

Sarah had problems with her notebook's keyboard and mouse. the cursor would keep drifting towards left whenever she tried to write anything anywhere. Her mouse pad did not work fine either. I first tried to look at the settings but could not find anything. Then opened the keyboard and replaced with another one. It worked fine after replacement revealing the cause of fault.

James's Dell Optiplex GX620 did not recognize the Lite-On DVD ROM. Tried to first scan for any new installed hardware in contol panel. Then replaced that ROM with another one which did not help at all. I simply meant that computer did not recognize any ROM. Rebooted the system and went to the system setup or bios menu. The CD or DVD ROM device was disabled. I enabled that and the system now recognized the device.

John Shouler had a couple of problems with his Dell Latitude D810. It did not allow him to write anything in the address bar. If he opens my computer and writes an address of some other location in the address bar there it does not allow him. Secondly the control panel kept on refreshing on its own. After looking at them I diagnosed it to be .net framework problem and after updating it I managed to resolve both the isues.
He even had an issue that there was message that popped up right hand bottom corner of the screen saying that wireless adaptor not installed. Actually he did not have his wireless adaptor enabled so I had to go to device manager and enable his wireless adaptor.
Later in the day we had a machine which had come down from Telford with some networking issues. It was not able to get an IP address from DHCP. On doing ipconfig it came with an IP address which was from outside our subnet mask. So I went to show all networks under start menu and on LAN connection went to properties. Selected tcp/ip option and found the properties to be set on specific IP address and DNS server settings. On resetting it to automatic the machine could manage to get an IP address.

Yesterday after getting a static IP address for mkhqspap server I installed VNC on the machine and ran the server service so that anybody could log onto it remotely using VNC viewer. After that I was supposed to install Oracle 10g application server disks to its hard drive.
The SBASE server went wrong. It did not display on the screen. I logged a call with Dell technician and diagnosted it to be a motherboard fault.
Jo Rosser emailed that she could not edit an excel file in sales directory under mkfile. It prompted her for a password everytime and because Paul Joy had created it and set the password up she didn't know it and Paul had left the business. I found that excel was password protected and after going through microsoft technet it clearly said that there is no way to disable it if you don't remember the password. So I had to come out with away that Jo could actually be able to edit it.
I Logged on mkfile as an administrator which gave me full control. Now I created another excel document and copied all the contents from the excel document which Paul had created onto new one and gave it the same name and replaced it. Jo could now see the same file at same location and edit it.

I was alone today in the department and there was quite alot to be done. To make things worse my PC went faulty. I had left it on last evening as usual but found it switched off in the morning. On turning it on I found that the screen was not displaying anything though the system was running. I tried changing the monitor first of all which did not help. Then opened the system and replaced the graphic card which had the VGA port on it. Tried again but no joy. It seemed that there is problem with the mother board.
Steve had assigned me a task through email with high priority to configure an application server which would be called MKHQSPAPP. The rest of the details were on mail. I manged to grab a spare laptop and configured my email account onto that machine in order get the details and start with it.
I had to format a system in the server room and reinstall Windows XP on it and name the machine as MKHQSPAPP. After getting the system up and running with all latest drivers and security softwares I was supposed to get a static IP address for it.

Ulrik called with a problem that he could not browse internet from his laptop Dell Latitude D520. Every time he launched the Internet Explorer 7 it came up with an error and did not allow him to browse at all. I had to personally go to his machine and try it out.
It was not that straight forward because I knew that it would probably get sorted if I go to microsoft website and patch his machine but to get there I need browser which is not working.
So I went to task manager and started a new task from there and browsed to the microsoft website and repaired the browser.
Afterwards I had to keep myself busy with software asset management task.

Wireless went down first thing in the morning. Reboot did not help then I had to take the router off and plug in to another ethernet cable. Wireless got picked up now.
Jon Gyngell's machine needed sorting up. His machine had actually crashed and Chris got the hard drive replaced. Steven was building it from scratch and wanted me to start from where he left.
I along with Chris intalled three new dell Power Edge 2950 rack servers in the server room.

I have just returned today from a long holiday abroad. Before leaving I had completed auditing for hardware to be collected from the employees. I could see some of the hardware already been returned in my absence and hence had the task of updating the audit list which was created.

Later in the day Steve asked me to find the compatible memory upgrade to 4GB for a Dell machine. He supplied me with the Asset Tag No. and the Dell Service Tag No. I used the details diagnose that it was Dell Optiplex GX520 which could have maximum of 4GB RAM DDR2 PC2-5300.CL=5.UNBUFFERED.NON-ECC.DDR2-667.1.8V.256Megx64. Then I move on to find the best price for it from Crucial Memory.