So it seems like the best way to go about centralizing Windows Events in an Enterprise is to use GPO, but if you can't or don't want to involve Active Directory GPOs, here's a guide on using one server to go out and collect Windows Events from other servers on your domain. Things you'll need: Windows Server 2012 or …

Over the past couple weeks, I've looked into a number of ways of parsing and importing Windows Forwarded Events into SQL Server: from using SSIS to LogParser to PowerShell to setting up a linked server to the "Forwarding Events.evtx" file. Ultimately, the only thing that worked was PowerShell's Get-WinEvent …

Read this updated post instead. It's superior in a number of ways ;) Alright, so I've wanted to setup a Remote Desktop Gateway for years, but the configuration seemed so.. time-intensive. Then I moved to Belgium, my living situation changed and I didn't want to setup a whole new VPN server to access my virtual lab. …

I recently discovered NoMachine's NX while looking for an easy way to encrypt VNC. NX, if you aren't familiar with it, is generally a PITA to setup, but well worth the pain (on Linux anyway). All traffic goes over SSH and while the performance isn't as great as Windows' RDP, it's faster and more secure than VNC. …

Need to uninstall xquartz but keep running into the following error? macbook:~ clem$ sudo launchctl unload -w /Library/LaunchAgents/org.macosforge.xquartz.startx.plist launchctl: Error unloading: org.macosforge.xquartz.startx For whatever reason, you have to run this particular unload as a regular user and not as root …

Recently, a colleague requested that I perform a backup of a development site collection at https://sp.ad.local and restore it to the test site collection https://test.ad.local/sites/sp. The test site collection was one of two site collections on the test.ad.local web app. It's been a while since I've done anything in …

I've known about SQL Database Snapshots for a while, but never really took the time to use the feature. Lately, I've gotten into mirroring again and decided to play around with Database Snapshots. I should clarify at this point that I'm speaking about the native SQL snapshot capabilities, and not a filer technology …

Note: This post targets OS X Lion and Mountain Lion era networking. Modern macOS releases use pf instead of ipfw/natd and Internet Sharing behavior and interfaces have changed. The approach below remains historically accurate for those versions but is not intended for current macOS. It appears Apple changed the way NAT …

I recently modified my Parallels DHCP settings because I'm really particular about the internal subnets I work with in the lab (192.168 is the ugliest subnet ever). Once I modified the file at /Library/Preferences/VMware\ Fusion/networking (OS X) my Parallels Desktop erred out and said Interface vmnet1 is not present. …

Each time I start a new contract, the first thing I do is search for all SQL Servers across any network/subnet to which I have access. While the documentation I get is usually paltry or non-existent. When it does exist, it's usually only for the production SQL Servers. Sometimes, most production SQL Servers aren't even …