I think I will be sticking with CompTIA certifications

I have been in the IT business for 14 years now. I know this because my now ex-wife was pregnant with my daughter right before I took my first job in IT. Well my daughter's 14th birthday is right around the corner. You do the math.

Since that time I've completed two bachelors degrees in computer networking and network security, and have earned several IT certifications including Microsoft, VMWare and of course CompTIA.

Early on I started with CompTIA certifications just to get my basics down. I quickly earned my A+, Network+ and Server+. After those, I started working on Microsoft certifications and eventually earned my MCSA, then turned around and got VMWare certified.

All of that was great, but really when it comes down to it, I'm a technology generalist. I don't just use Microsoft. I don't just use VMWare. I use a little bit of everything! That's why I've always liked CompTIA certifications. They are not vendor specific! The stuff you learn while studying them are good to know no matter what platform you are using!

Last year I finally got Security+ certified, which brought me back into the CompTIA fold, and just last week I earned my Cloud+ certification. With CompTIA's stackable certifications now, that makes me a CompTIA Secure Cloud Professional (CSCP).

Now I mentioned that I had already taken A+, Network+ and Server+. I took those back when CompTIA's certifications didn't expire, so if you look at my transcripts, CompTIA still recognizes me as being certified in those areas. The problem though is with their new stackable certification program, they don't recognize those certifications as being stackable apparently... I guess that means it's time to renew! At least, I'll renew my Network+ and Server+. I'm not too worried about A+ at this point in my career.

When I renew Network+ and Server+, that will make me  CompTIA Network Infrastructure Professional (CNIP) and CompTIA Cloud Admin Professional (CCAP) certified! 

On top of that, next year they are releasing a brand new single exam Linux+ certification. I plan to take that exam as well shortly after they do. With that and my renewed Network+, I'll be CompTIA Linux Network Professional (CLNP) certified!

I figure after that, I just need to keep these five individual certifications up to date, and thereby keep my stackable certifications up to date and I'll be good to go until I decide to retire.

Early on in my career, I might not have seen things this way, but at this point in my career I would rather keep things simple. I feel like my experience speaks for itself, and just keeping these certifications will just be gravy.

What do you think about this approach? Do you agree or disagree? Do you think it's still important to get vendor specific certifications if you are a technology generalist? Why or why not? Let me know what your thoughts are in the comments.

On a related topic, if you too are pursuing CompTIA or any other certifications, you can get a 45% off discount from PrepAway by using promo code GP264719 at check out! I thought I'd throw that in there.

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If you can't beat 'em, join 'em! Microsoft to dump Edge and create a Chromium based browser!

Well, it's official, Microsoft is reportedly throwing in the towel on their latest attempt at browser relevance and are giving up on the widely unpopular Edge browser! It's kind of ironic too, since it was Microsoft that won the original browser wars of the late 90's when they killed off Netscape Navigator by installing Internet Explorer by default in Windows.

What goes around comes around I guess right? I mean, Microsoft was king of the heap until Firefox and eventually Chrome came around. Well, apparently Microsoft is officially throwing in the towel and will now be making their next browser based on Chromium, the engine that powers Chrome!

From BI:

...Microsoft is moving away from its own EdgeHTML rendering engine and towards Chromium, the web engine that powers Google Chrome. Chromium, first released by Google in 2008, has become the web's predominant standard, thanks to the wild success of the Chrome browser. 

The success of Chromium has become something of a headache for Microsoft, both internally and externally — the Verge reports that employees and customers alike have been "frustrated" that the Microsoft Edge browser doesn't work properly with some websites and apps that were optimized for Chromium. 

And so, it sounds like Microsoft is poised to release a new browser, based on Chromium, that would leave EdgeHTML in the past. Intriguingly, the Verge reports that this move would also open the door for a version of Google Chrome on the Windows app store — the main thing stopping that from happening, so far, is that Microsoft has required all web browsers in the Windows Store to use EdgeHTML. If EdgeHTML goes, so too will that barrier.

What do you think about this? Do you think Microsoft will finally give us a browser worth using? Let us know what you think in the comments!

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How to Deal With an Overheating Smartphone

What causes overheating? You’ve felt it before, on more counts than you’d actually care to remember. How many times have you used an electric device and felt it heating up during usage? It happens to everything from computers and phones to kitchen appliances. But we’re kind of use to the notion of devices with moving parts or computers working on demanding tasks heating up, but overheating phones often catch people off guard, especially if the temperature goes beyond the safe range. Then it’s not a case of your phone being unpleasant to use or slow - it can damage your device or even cause it to catch fire or actually explode. So let’s take a deeper look at the nature of this issue and how to solve it.

Common Causes

Our phones use electricity to run all systems and enable the central processing unit (CPU) to carry out the necessary functions. When activities housed in the central system-on-a-chip (SoP) become overloaded, the CPU slows down hence the occasional long waits for phones to process data and perform operations. This is especially common in android phones with a lower RAM memory capacity. This also has a side-effect: CPU generates heat as it works. Bigger the workload = more heat. Many of us are used to this notion with our computers, but in those we have fans or even intricate liquid cooling systems. But with phones we went a long way to make them as compact as possible, which makes venting excess heat harder.

Graphically intense apps or apps requiring continuous and difficult calculations, such as high-end video games, HD video streaming services and so on, can easily overload your system and cause your phone to overheat. Special case must be made for viruses and malware - viruses and miners abuse your phone’s resources for their malicious intents even if you’re not doing anything demanding with your phone.

Other than overloading the CPU through performing different actions and operations, there are also a number of other reasons known to cause overheating to phones. Heating issues might be brought through the external environment in relation to environmental temperatures. When the phone is directly exposed to sunlight or extreme temperatures, you might receive a warning message to let your phone cool down. Though unless your phone has other heat-related issues, this would be solved by simply moving your phone.

The heat may also come from different parts, such as bluetooth or WiFi modules. When using them for a long time they’re known to heat up as well - not to a dangerous level, but they can contribute to overall issue. A very special case is having a faulty battery - those can cause the worst and most damaging cases of overheating, not only when the phone is used, but also while it’s charging.

How to Deal With an Overheating Phone

Now that we’ve addressed the question “why does your phone get hot”, it’s about time to look at measures to take to prevent and/or grapple with an already overheated device? Is your iPhone really hot and you don’t know what causes the overheating? Is your phone battery getting hot on a frequent basis and you still haven’t stemmed out the root of the problem? Hope the following tips help you tussle with your situation.

It’s always advised not to allow our devices to stay for too long on the chargers. As a matter of fact, experts advise phone buyers to only charge their phones to 80% during the day and only extend to 100% at night when the phones aren’t in use.Better to stick with 80% at all times for increased longevity of your battery life. In the same effect, don’t let your battery life drop too low reaching critical levels - while not critically bad, it’s not optimal.

When charging a phone, place it on top of a hard and cool surface as opposed to a sofa or bed. This is because the ‘clothed’ surfaces will only act to trap heat which worsens the situation. Similarly, if your phone got too heated for any reason don’t hurry to hide it in your pocket or bag - being exposed to air is the best solution here. But don’t place it into an actively cold place, like a fridge. Rapid changes of temperature put strain on the materials and can damage them - plus it may cause moisture to manifest on parts of the device. Just place your device in an open space away from sunlight. If it’s possible you might also want to remove its panels.

Dealing with the main offender - the CPU - might require a bit more of a personal touch. You need to look over how you use your device, how many apps you have running at the same time, how many connection methods are on (cellular, bluetooth, WiFi, 3G, 4G). When playing a game that requires a ton of processing from the SoP you might want to turn off some working in the background. Remember to reboot your phone from time to time. Also remember your cybersecurity tips and check your phone for possible malware if it might be at fault. Updating your apps might also help, as the developers might patch out certain bugs that overworked your phone for no reason.

But always remember than you can only do so much on your own. You can check online if other people with your phone model are having the same issues. If you’re using your phone responsibly but keep having heat-related issues that are not common for your device, then it’s time to contact the manufacturer or the service centre. You might have a defective battery or other hardware and the sooner you take care of it the better.

Conclusion

Future trends in phone technology are promising as newer models are being integrated with ‘internal-cooling-pipes’ that run to the processing unit. These trends will ensure the issue of overheating phones is a thing of the past. Until such models are actually a reality, the safety measures above will go a long way to secure your phone from getting easily overheated. Last but not least, you might also consider a phone upgrade if you are the ‘all-time surfer or gamer’ and just can’t help it.

Since that’s done with, what are the other annoying menaces that you’ve found out drains your battery life? Join the discussion in the comment box as we share more remedies on the same.

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Update for Xen 7.1+ - STOP: 0x0000007B BSOD After Restoring UrBackup Image to XenServer VM

A few months ago I posted about getting a STOP: 0x0000007B blue screen of death on one of my VMs after restoring an image backup from UrBackup in Xen 6.5. My solution then was to create the blank VM that we were restoring to using a Windows XP template.

Well, the other night I was migrating all of my old Xen 6.5 VMs to a new Xen 7.1 cluster, and that troublesome VM popped up again! I got another BSOD when I powered it up in the new cluster!

The trouble this time is that Xen 7.1 doesn't have a Windows XP template! Damn it!

No problem, I did find a solution. If you are getting this error for one of your VMs after moving, upgrading or restoring to Xen 7.1 or newer just use "Other install media" template located at the bottom of the templates list.

After using that template, and attaching the original disk it booted up just fine!

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SQL Query to see how long DBCC CHECKDB will take

Last night while converting a VMWare VM to a XenServer VM I had a little bit of an issue with one of the database VMs, and several of the databases came up as "Suspect."

We decided to follow this procedure here (How to fix a Suspect Database) and it went fairly quick except on the biggest database that was almost 100GB in size.

Well, we wanted to know how long it would take for the DBCC CHECKDB to finish! I'm sure you are here because you are in the same position. Well, here is a query that will give you an estimated completion time so you have a rough estimate on how long it will take:

 SELECT session_id ,  
 request_id ,  
 percent_complete ,  
 estimated_completion_time ,  
 DATEADD(ms,estimated_completion_time,GETDATE()) AS EstimatedEndTime,   
 start_time ,  
 status ,  
 command   
 FROM sys.dm_exec_requests  
 WHERE database_id = <YOUR DATABASE ID NUMBER>  

Fairly simple right? Your output will look like this:

If you are wondering how to find your database_id you can find it by running this query:

 Use <DATABASE NAME>  
 Select DB_ID() AS [Database ID]  
 GO  

Again, fairly simple right? I hope this helped!

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Getting Fog PXE boot working on a Thinkpad T460P, T470P and a T480P

I've been using Fog Project for years. It's my favorite open source operating system imaging tools for large networks. We were using it at my company up until a few years ago when we started buying Thinkpad T460P laptops and my desktop technician at the time couldn't get these laptops to boot. Instead of doing some actual Googling he and my Systems Administrator at the time wanted to use WDS instead.

Well both of those guys have since moved onto other places, and I decided that we were going to save a Windows server license and go back to Fog!

The first thing I had to do was figure out how to get the T460P's, T470P's and now T480P's to boot up to the Fog boot menu. When I first tried booting my T460P, this is the message I received:

Long story short, it got stuck saying No configuration methods succeeded.... Boo!

Well the fix was actually pretty easy. Instead of using the undionly.kpxe tftp file like the documentation says, we used intel.kpxe instead and it worked like a charm! Now we get the Fog boot menu on all models of our Lenovo laptops!

Have you had problems with Lenovo and Fog? What did you have to do to get it to work? Let us know in the comments!

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Active Directory Users and Computers Will Not Open After Azure Site Recovery Test Failover

The other day we wanted to test some database stuff in our Production Azure environment. Obviously, we didn't want to mess with actual Production data, so since we're using Azure Site Recovery for our disaster recovery plan, we decided to initiate a test failover of the impacted systems in an isolated network.

Also, since we're using our own domain controller VMs, we had to fail those over for authentication. This is where I ran into problems. After initiating the test failover of my domain controllers I couldn't open Active Directory Users and Computers. When I tried, I got this message:

Naming information cannot be located because: The specified domain either does not exist or could not be contacted. Contact your system administrator to verify that your domain is properly configured and is currently online.

Well, after banging by head on the wall for a few hours, I finally found a solution. Open a registry editor and browse to:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Netlogon\Parameters

Open the SysvolReady key. If the value of the key is 0 change it to 1. If the value is 1 change it to 0 and ‘Accept’, again change to 1 and accept. Exit registry editor.

Boom! After that I could open Active Directory Users and Computers again without a reboot!

One thing that still didn't work though was Netlogon and Group Policy. To fix that on my two domain controllers in the test environment I had to copy all contents from C:\Windows\SYSVOL\domain\NtFrs_PreExisting___See_EventLog on both domain controllers to C:\Windows\SYSVOL\domain\. When that was done I ran the following on both test domain controllers:

• net stop netlogon
• net start netlogon

After that, Netlogon and Group Policy were working again. I also took the extra steps seizing FSMO roles and deleting the other domain controllers from Active Directory Users and Computers, as well as Active Directory Sites and Services along with their sites. That way I wouldn't have to deal with replication issues in the isolated test environment.

Have you ever ran into something like this? Did you fix it differently? Let us know in the comments!

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