Today’s awesome-fun-completely-outrageous activities included role playing that hopefully illustrated the difficulty in enabling your employees without being a doormat.
Homework:
More computer fixing today!
Cartney brought in a Vista box that had a good amount of spyware installed and Nick brought one in that *should* have had a good amount installed. We found out later that the owner of the computer NIck brought had reformatted and reinstalled the night before (and *still* had Nick bring it in!).
Homework:
We knocked out two chapters today — chapters seven and eight.
Chapter 7 covered WANs and WAN connection technologies. We talked about various ways to connect “here” to “there”, including POTS, ISDN and T-carrier lines.
In chapter 8, we discussed network security, most importantly, dealing with the discussion of firewalls.
Homework:
More discussion and fun today! In celebration of my completely clogged sinuses, we let out class a little early.
You’re welcome! 
Homework:
Today we fixed a couple of computers.
Most interestingly was a newish Vista machine that had a stop error and was thus impossible to access. Turns out that that stop error is a symptom of a particular Vista bug of which there is a hotfix. Apparently though, the fix needs to be installed before the stop errors happens. Oops.
Homework:
Today’s class was all about connections. We discussed both wired and wireless network connections and made a couple of Cat5 cables — crimping the RJ-45s and everything. Most of you commented that the second, third and fourth connectors you made were much easier than the first, and that would make you normal.
Homework:
I got this from Nikki today:
Thank you all so much for the flowers. Isaac is doing great. We brought him home last wednesday and he sleeps pretty much all the time. I can’t wait to see you all again!
Nikki
Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile
Tonight’s class was spent taking the checkpoint exam and doing a “class reboot”, so to speak. Windows Server 2003 was installed on our HDDs after a fresh format. Next week, we’ll Activate (please make sure you bring in Server keys from past classes!) and set up AD and then start working on a fresh Exchange organization.
Homework:
Having to log onto multiple domains can be a time and bandwidth hog — in order to make our lives easier, Microsoft introduced with Windows 2000 the ability to have Global Catalogs. Global Catalogs keep copies of the objects within their own domain and partial copies of other domain’s objects in order to make their access easier. We saw the effect of this by logging on (using UPN, or user@child.domain.local) before and after raising our domain functional levels. When we were operating at Windows 2000 Mixed, we were able to log on with no problems, the domain controller simply asked the child domain if the credentials were legit and then we were let in. On a large scale, this can create bandwidth and efficiency issues.
Upgrading to Windows 2000 Native mode moves the responsibility of authentication from the domains to the Global Catalog servers. We turned off our GCS and tried to log in using UPN. This time, it didn’t work.
In addition, we also talked about server roles and how to transfer/seize them. Remember that the tool you’re looking for is NTDSUTIL.
After a blood drive, we came back and light-headedly moved our way through Users and Groups. The main thing I want you to pull away from this lesson is to know what the two types of groups are (Security and Distribution) and the three types of scopes there are (Domain Local, Global, Universal). Microsoft’s best practices dictate that Domain Local groups are to be used for resource access while universal groups are to be used to hold users. So, for example, if I want all 100 users in the Finance department to be able to print to a particular printer, I would first create a Global Security group for the Finance users and then a Domain Local group for the Printer. I would then give the Print permission to the Domain Local group, and add the Global Security group to the Domain Local group in order to facilitate that. Making sense?
Homework:
I’m posting this just to give the ones of you who read this blog a bit of a head start.
On Tuesday, I’ll be handing out the requirements for the Network+ Project that will be due on June 17. If you’ve had me for A+, the project will be similar — the only difference is that you will not have a set budget; you will get to create that budget.
Anyway, the requirement sheet that I’ll be passing out on Tuesday is available for download in the Files section under Network+. Enjoy!
