When it comes to back-up, though, are you prepared? Backup plug-ins for WordPress databases are fairly common, but what other techniques can be used? Scripting to the rescue!

On Unix-type systems, it’s easy to find one of the many example scripts online, customize them to your needs, then add the script to a nightly cron job (or launchd on Mac OS X systems). Most of these scripts use the mysqldump command to create a text file that contains the structure and data from your database. More advanced scripts can loop through multiple databases on the same server, compress the output and email you copies.

Here is an example we found online a long time ago and modified (thanks to the unknown author):


#!/bin/sh

# And we're done
ls -l ${backupdir}
echo "Dump Complete!"
exit


Once you verify that your backup script is giving you valid backup files, these should be added to your other backup routines, such as CrashPlan, Mozy, Retrospect, Time Machine, Backup Exec, PresSTORE, etc. It never hurts to have too many copies of your critical data files.

To make sure your organization is prepared, contact your 318 account manager today, or email sales@318.com for assistance.

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Last week, German software company ARCHIWARE released version 4.0 of its enterprise backup solution, PresSTORE. This version is for new installations only – version 4.1, planned for release in October, will support upgrades from existing 3.x deployments.

The new features of PresSTORE 4 can be found on the company’s website, but here are some highlights:

• New interface to simplify management
• iPhone app for remote monitoring of jobs
• New desktop notification system to alert users of actions
• Progressive backup – “backup without full backup”

Aaron Freimark also wrote a post about the new version on the Xsanity site that talks more about the Xsan-specific features.

As before, PresSTORE is supported on Mac OS X (10.4 and higher), Windows (2003, 2008, XP, Vista and 7), Linux and Solaris. Backup2Go Server is only supported on OS X and Solaris.

PresSTORE support is great – during testing of the new version, the iPhone monitoring app was crashing. Within a day, a new version was available in the App Store that addressed the exact issue. Bravo!

To learn more about PresSTORE (including pricing options), please contact your 318 account manager today, or email sales@318.com for more information.

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As with all major software upgrades, be sure to backup your current environment using iTunes before proceeding with the installation. This Apple knowledge base article describes the process in detail.

The upgrade process is also managed in iTunes and took a fair amount of time to complete on an iPhone 3GS. Reports of slowness and instability on older hardware were confirmed on one test 3G unit we tried, but others report no issues.

So what do you get after upgrading? Some key features:

• Folders – works as advertised and helps reduce the number of pages you need to scroll through to find the app you need.
• Mail Improvements – welcome options for combined inbox and threaded discussions.
• Multitasking (3GS and 4 only) – double-click the home button to reveal a row of other running apps you can switch to right away. Might take some time to get used to this one.
• Home screen wallpaper (3GS and 4 only) – purely cosmetic, but nice in day-to-day use.
• iBooks app – just like the iPad version, only smaller. Bookmarks are supposed to sync between the two versions, but it doesn’t seem like one knows what the other actually holds as far as books go.
• Camera – older hardware gets the digital zoom feature, but quality is, well, like a digital zoom.
• Bluetooth keyboard support – haven’t tried this, but could be useful.

The new iPhone 4 hardware enhances some features of iOS, such as FaceTime video conferencing, improved camera performance, HD video support/editing and the high-quality retina display.

To find out more about how to utilize the iPhone platform in your organization, call your 318 account manager today, or email sales@318.com for more information.

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Our first site upgrade went smoothly, although the automatic upgrading of certain plugins still fail and must be done manually. As always, it’s a good idea to make complete, tested backups of your site files and database dumps before starting the upgrade process.

WordPress 3.0 offers a lot of new online publishing options – call your 318 account manager today, or email sales@318.com for more information.

UPDATE: Our second site upgrade had to be reverted to version 2.9.2 temporarily due to an issue with the WP Events Calendar plugin. Since we had our site backups readily available, this was a quick and easy process.

In other WordPress community news, Automattic (the company behind WordPress.com) announced a beta program for VaultPress, an online, automated method of backing up and securing your WordPress-based website.

The beta plans start at $15/month and include protection for the entire WordPress environment, including the WordPress files (theme, plugins, options), content (posts, photos, videos, audio files), and all comments. Implementation is via Vaultpress plug-in.

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You can now download the free Find My iPhone app, enabling you to locate a misplaced device directly from iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch while on the go. After installing it from the App Store, just launch the app and sign in to quickly locate your devices on a map and access the other Find My iPhone features — Display a Message or Play a Sound, Remote Lock, and Remote Wipe.*

The Find My iPhone web application on me.com has also been updated with a full-screen map view. Clicking your missing device on the map lets you access all the Find My iPhone actions to help you recover your device and protect the information on it.

Learn more about improvements to Find My iPhone here.

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We are pleased to let you know that Sonic Solutions purchased the Retrospect backup and recovery software from EMC on May 18, 2010 and is responsible for all aspects of the Retrospect product line and business going forward.

Retrospect will be part of the Roxio Division of Sonic, a leader in digital media software. Adding to our broad range of products for content creation and management capabilities for businesses and individuals, Retrospect plays a critical role in expanding the Roxio business in the backup category. We understand that backup and recovery is critical to both your business and to your customers, and the Retrospect product line significantly enhances our ability to meet these needs.

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Whether you are installing it for 2 computers or 2,000, 318 can help with all aspects of your upgrade. Contact your account manager today, or sales@318.com for more information.

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There are a number of architectural changes that may need to occur in order to most effectively support these devices, so if you find that some changes need to occur in your environment, contact your 318 account manager for assistance.

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As part of WWDC, Apple also hands out a number of design awards. If you have any applications you would like to nominate for a design award then you can do so here.

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But if you do have 2 SANs, completely separate from one another, you cannot then have a client on both. Therefore, having multiple SANs isn’t exactly MultiSAN. MultiSAN means going from having a single metadata controller that controls your entire environment to having a slightly more object-oriented approach to metadata controllers. Which brings us to the question “do I need MultiSAN?” My answer is an if/then statement. If your metadata controller’s fsm or fsmpm processes are spiraling out of control then yes, you may (or you may have corruption in metadata somewhere. For coming up with the answer to my question I posted an Xsan monitor app awhile back on my apps page. But if your fsm/fsmpm processes barely tip above 1% and you’re still having bandwidth problems then look at stripe breadth/block size, fabric and defragmentation before considering buying a bunch of iron to move metadata controlling off onto dedicated hardware.

Now, if you do decide to integrate MultiSAN then to do so is a very straight forward process. First add the all of the metadata controllers as clients to the SAN. Then, create the volume. When creating a volume you will eventually come to a screen to define Volume Failover Priority. Here, you will see each of the clients that you have installed (in the beginning this might only be the metadata controllers). Check the box for each of the clients that you would like to be a metadata controller (I recommend no less than two but in most installations no more than 3 metadata controllers per volume). In this screen you can then also set priority by dragging each controller higher or lower in the list of controllers. If you only have two metadata controllers then the primary would be at the top of the list followed by the backup metadata controller. When you are satisfied with your configuration click on the Continue button and complete the volume configuration as you normally would. You can also invoke the Volume Priority screen from within Xsan Admin for pre-existing volumes.

This article was initially posted at http://krypted.com/mac-os-x-server/defining-multisan/

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http://dev.chromium.org/developers/design-documents/sandbox/osx-sandboxing-design

Their use of sandbox is really over and above what we’ve seen from any other vendor. Each installation contains 3 distinct sandbox profiles (currently I have 4.0.249.49 and version 5.0.342.9 although mileage here may vary according to updates), each profile allowing access to only files and resources that are absolutely necessary to complete the task that the process that leverages them requires. You can see the specific resources that are accessible by looking at these profiles. The profiles are located at:

• /Applications/Google Chrome.app/Contents/Versions/4.0.249.49/Google Chrome Framework.framework/Resources/renderer.sb
• /Applications/Google Chrome.app/Contents/Versions/4.0.249.49/Google Chrome Framework.framework/Resources/utility.sb
• /Applications/Google Chrome.app/Contents/Versions/4.0.249.49/Google Chrome Framework.framework/Resources/worker.sb

cat /Applications/Google\ Chrome.app/Contents/Versions/4.0.249.49/Google\ Chrome\ Framework.framework/Resources/renderer.sb

You can then edit the profiles easily. For example, if you want to enable debug logging for sandbox, etc. This allows you transparency into what Chrome is doing but also allows you to further tighten security. Although, they have really taken their time to secure Chrome well and locked things down, so we doubt much further restriction is necessary or really possible. Overall, Chrome provides a great example of taking sandbox to the next level and extending it much more into the applications with graphical user interfaces than we’ve seen it extended to thus far.

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http://vil.nai.com/vil/5958_false.htm

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Stratopherix (http://www.stratospherix.com) has released FileBrowser, an application for the iPad that can mount a file share and provide access to the resources on the share. FileBrowser will allow you to connect to servers and then access files as you would from a regular desktop computer, wirelessly or over a network connection.

If you find that you cannot access file shares once installed, then we have seen some policy issues on file servers (mostly those that do double-duty as a domain controller) or if you are remotely then you might need to either forward ports to the server or first establish a VPN into the environment. If you still cannot access them then contact your 318 account manager and we will be happy to assist with any needs you might have.

Happy File Browsing!

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While many will be standing in lines for hours at Apple stores around the country, you can also contact 318 and we will work with you to get an order processed without having the long wait. 318 has also been working with many customers preparing to deploy the iPad, and so if you have Exchange integration or mass deployment questions please feel free to contact your account manager today, or for new customers, the office at 310-581-9500.

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Mac OS X Client
Mac OS X Server

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• The merge with WordPress Multi-User (and multisite capabilities)
• Better support for custom post types
• Better menu management
• New default theme “Twenty Ten” (preview here)
• Custom Navigation
• Custom Backgrounds
• Choose username for the first account, rather than using ‘admin’
• New template files for custom post types
• Author specific templates
• jQuery updated to 1.4.2

The code merge between “normal” WordPress and WordPress MU is a major undertaking. This will also allow BuddyPress to officially be installed on non-multiuser sites. The new default theme and ability to easily modify backgrounds should allow non-designers to create a nice custom site without having to know too much about theme design. The WooNav addition looks great and the elimination of the default admin user is something we talked about in our last post on WordPress security.

This will be a major release that should be tested in a non-production environment before being deployed on your server. 318 will be ready to help you with this upgrade when it’s released – call us at 877.318.1318 to schedule an appointment today!

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After reading Sarah Gooding’s WPMU.org article, 7 Quick Strategies to Beef Up Your Security, we decided to take a look at our own WordPress settings here on the 318 Tech Journal.

Deleting the Default Admin User

Creating a new user with admin permissions, then logging in as that user and deleting the default “admin” account is great advice. Just make sure you assign all of the old admin users posts and links to the new account. Another caveat, if you are using the WPG2 plugin with a Gallery2 installation, make sure to remove the Gallery2 user links before deleting the old admin account.

Don’t Use the Default “wp_” Table Prefix

SQL injection attacks are very real, and this tip can help mitigate risk of infection. The WP Security Scan plug-in mentioned in the WPMU.org article has a built-in tool to help automate this change, but it can also lock you out of your dashboard. The trick is to make sure each user’s meta_key settings in the usermeta table match whatever prefix you choose:

wp_capabilities –> newprefix_capabilities
wp_usersettings –> newprefix_usersettings
wp_usersettingstime –> newprefix_usersettingstime
wp_user_level –> newprefix_user_level

Whitelisting Access to wp-admin by IP Address

This is typically done via .htaccess files and the AskApache Password Protection For WordPress plug-in mentioned in the WPMU.org article can help get the settings correct, although that plug-in has specific server requirements in order to run (it will run some tests for you to see if your server qualifies). If you do set this up, beware of dynamic IP address changes, which can lock you out in the future.

Other Items to Consider

• Consider using a local MySQL application like Sequel Pro or the command line mysql tools for database configuration instead of public web-facing tools like phpMyAdmin. If you do use PMA, you should lock down access as much as possible using .htaccess controls (or other methods).
• Tools like the WP Security Scan plug-in mentioned above or Donncha O Caoimh’s WordPress Exploit Scanner plug-in can help identify file permission issues in your WordPress setup.
• Using SSH/SFTP instead of FTP to access your server is always good advice, even when you are using whitelists.
• Stay up to date on both WordPress core files and all of your plug-ins.

318 is here to help you with all of your WordPress needs – call us today at 877.318.1318!

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We also have a number of sessions this year:

Hands-on Snow Leopard Server: Collaboration Services with Charles Edge
2/10 – 1:00PM to 3:00PM

Push: The Next Generation of Collaboration is Snow Leopard Server with Charles Edge
2/11 – 4:30PM to 6:00PM

Advanced Integration with Final Cut Server with Beau Hunter
2/12 – 3:30PM to 5:00PM

iPhone Mass Deployment with Zack Smith
2/13 – 2:30PM to 4:00PM

We hope to see you there!

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Want help integrating the iPad into your Enterprise? Let 318 know if you have interest with mass deployment, purchasing or development: our developers are on hand to work with you on commercial and enterprise applications as needed!

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Exchange 2007 has a lot of prerequisites that need to be installed before you can install Exchange 2007. Instead of going through a bunch of Wizards and using trial and error to make sure you have everything installed, you can set them up using a command line.

The first command that should be run is:

ServerManagerCmd -i PowerShell

This will install and configure everything that Exchange 2007 needs for PowerShell.

IIS has several components that need to be installed to use Exchange 2007. You can create a quick batch script that includes them all. The following commands need to be run:

ServerManagerCmd -i Web-Server
ServerManagerCmd -i Web-ISAPI-Ext
ServerManagerCmd -i Web-Metabase
ServerManagerCmd -i Web-Lgcy-Mgmt-Console
ServerManagerCmd -i Web-Basic-Auth
ServerManagerCmd -i Web-Digest-Auth
ServerManagerCmd -i Web-Windows-Auth
ServerManagerCmd -i Web-Dyn-Compression

If you plan on using RPC over HTTP (Outlook Anywhere) you will need to run this command after all of the IIS commands have finished:

ServerManagerCmd -i RPC-over-HTTP-proxy

After running these commands you should be ready to run the actual setup files. When you run setup.exe you should see that everything before option 4. Is greyed out. Option 4. is what triggers the install. If anything has not finished look through the command lines to make sure no errors have shown up.

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The App is available on the App Store.

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First and foremost, granular ACL’s won’t translate completely. Secondly, although you might have effective write privileges via ACL’s, if you don’t have write privileges via POSIX, it will *look* like you don’t have privileges when you do an `ls` on the mounted NFS volume, however, if you try to read or write a file, it will work without issue. Poorly written software might inspect the POSIX permissions and determine that you don’t have access when you really do. Most software will attempt to read/write an asset and will report errors when encountered (as it should).  Lastly, ACL inheritance IS honored over NFS as well, so any files/dirs your users will create will have the appropriate ACL’s assigned on the backend, though displayed POSIX permissions once again won’t be especially accurate.

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- It features the ability to bind a variable number of finger clicks, taps, swipes, pinch and other gestures to functions like Middle Click , Hold Down Both Mouse Buttons , Spaces , Expose, Dashboard etc.
- Touch Sensitivity implements a single point control for a number of factors impacting the algorithms of the taps, swipes, pinche and other gestures.
- Tracking Speed adds the ability to increase the maximum mouse speed by a extra 200%.
- Also featured is a real-time display of the fingers touching the surface of the mouse that you can enable to test and monitor the way the mouse sees fingers.

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Beenverified.com has released a “free” app that allows you to run background checks right from your iPhone. While this isn’t a new idea, the app is well designed and you get three free searches a week. Since it’s just been released, you can only run one search at a time due to high server demand, but the searches are accurate and in-depth. It was able to produce not only basic information about those of us that have tried it, but also gave a complete histories of houses, including past owners, past occupants and the house’s current market value, amongst other things!

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http://mergebookmarks.sourceforge.net

Note: The script also looks at existing bookmarks and doesn’t merge in duplicates.

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1. Improved filesystem reliability
2. Improved cvfsck (the Xsan filesystem repair tool)
3. Resolves QuickTime reporting “invalid public movie atom found” on playback
4. Eliminates “An unknown disk has been inserted” message when mounting Xsan volumes (occurs in Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard only)

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Developed by 318 Inc., ASR Setup Toll is an application for setting up Apple Software Restore (“ASR”). In the context of the ASR Setup Tool, ASR is used for setting up a multicast stream that can then be leveraged for imaging Mac OS X computers.

We hope you enjoy!

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sleep 3; screencapture -iw ~/Desktop/filename.png

When you run that full string as a command you’ll have 3 seconds after hitting enter to highlight your target window, at which point your cursor will switch to the photo in window selection mode. Alternatively, you can run:

sleep 3; screencapture -iwc

Which will capture the picture to the remote machines clipboard (and can then be copied via ARD, and opened in Preview (File->new from clipboard).

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