Aw yaille! I just wrote up a whole explanatory blog post then lost it so this one will likely be brief... or not. Recently, we found that one of our DNS servers was resolving external hostnames unacceptably slow -- about 5 seconds, give or take. The resolution was so slow, in fact, that all of the clients hopped on to …

My blogless friend Zach shared this great tip with me: if you would like to test ping times to a machine from an outside source, telnet to route-server.ip.att.net. There, you will be presented with a command line which allows you to ping from the AT&T servers.

This is more of a post for proper keywords. My previous entry titled "Import MaxMind City CSVs into SQL Server 2005" assumes the user has already conducted research to find that MaxMind's free GeoIP database provides the functionality to look up the location of an IP address. So, if you wish to quickly and …

Inspired by kitty0's GeoIP Demo (site no longer online), I created two scripts which automatically import the free MaxMind GeoIP City database (legacy) into SQL Server using VBS and BCP. The VBS file can be set as a Scheduled Task for MaxMind's free once-a-month updates. I also created a SQL Server UDF to access the …

This user-defined function (only available in SQL 2000 and above) is part of a larger project I'm working on. PARSENAME in SQL Server is my new favorite function.. Thanks to Jeff Smith for the heads up. 1CREATE FUNCTION [dbo].[IPtoNumeric] (@strIP varchar(255)) 2RETURNS bigint 3AS 4BEGIN 5 DECLARE @intIPNum bigint 6 IF …

Damn, the ADsDSOObject rocks! This script, which weighs in at less than 20 lines, finds all machines running any form of Windows Server on a given domain. Note that this script isn't useful in finding domain controllers, but rather any machine running Windows Server. …

This is a bit recycled from the last post but I'm reframing it so that Googlers can easily find the solution. I've gotten Bluetooth to work in Windows Server 2k3. Here are the steps: Download the bt_stack_rtm.exe and extract to a temporary directory. Navigate to that directory and, within the ENU directory, copy …

Update (2025): Who knew that protocols would evolve? Seems that Microsoft changed the order at some point or maybe Addison-Wesley and O'Reilly were both wrong? Seems unlikely. Anyway, this is the order that feels right and is documented by Microsoft in the undated reference, Microsoft TCP/IP Host Name Resolution Order …

[super old post, reposted] A few weeks ago, I asked in an IT forum if it was possible to have a "perma-VPN" connection with Windows XP. Note from 2025: Windows Server 2003 has been out of support for years. The content below reflects what worked in 2006 and is kept for historical reference. After searching …

Note (2025): This post is from 2006 and references legacy macOS components like the Internet Connect app and cron. On modern macOS, Internet Connect is discontinued and launchd/LaunchAgents are the preferred way to schedule tasks. The original content is preserved for historical reference. This bandaid is mighty handy …