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. ############## route-server.ip.att.net ############### …

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, I created two scripts which automatically import the free MaxMind GeoIP database (which resolves IP addresses to city locations) 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 …

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. CREATE FUNCTION [dbo].[IPtoNumeric] (@strIP varchar(255)) RETURNS bigint AS BEGIN DECLARE @intIPNum bigint 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's 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 …

I found this gem in Addison Wesley's Inside WIndows Server 2003: A simple way to remember the order in which TCP/IP uses these tools is the phrase "Can We Buy Large Hard Drives?" The first letters are keys for cache, WINS, Broadcast, Lmhosts, Hosts, and DNS. Update: I just found the DNS query resolver …

[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. After searching for awhile, I found that Microsoft calls perma-VPNs "Demand-Dial Interfaces" and these can only be found in the Windows Server family, not Windows …

This bandaid is mighty handy for pesky OSX disconnects. I don't really know what causes it and unfortunately, I don't have time to fully figure it out. I do know that changing my gateway back to my local gateway helped tremendously. Also, changing my default nameserver to a local nameserver helped too. Now, I get …