Shoretel phones while using Skype as a backend

 Another area I have done research is through the microsoft philanthropy they offer us integration to the skype business desk phones to the shoretel phones. This would allow us to remove shoretel server and VPN and allow us to run the pc connected as it is to the computer. The computer would run over existing CAT 6 cable or CAT 5e. All connections would be made through the skype instance on the computer.
 complement shoretel phone infrastructure.

One advantage of using skype instead of shoretel server is that cell phones which can run skype can answer phones for the person when logged on. For me, this is a huge plus because it protects the identity of users cell phones because no calls without the Skype for business app would be forwarded to them. There is also a product to help secure these cell phones. noticed it seems that Shoretel has moved more to voip using skype using a partnership with microsoft. This uses both our shoretel phones and integrates as an app as described in the link in my previous email. This makes the the infrastructure for IT easier to manage because microsoft would handle this based off salesforce logins as opposed to hardware components vlan. We don't even need static ips. Typically there is a cost assocoated with using skype as a phone line, however philanthropies provides this to us free of cost. Here is the link to azure: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/philanthropies/product-donations/products/azure

https://www.shoretel.com/news/shoretel-now-offers-enhanced-microsoft-skype-business-integration-mid-market-and-enterprise

https://www.shoretel.com/news/press-releases/shoretel-earns-worlds-first-skype-sip-interoperability

http://mobile.eweek.com/blogs/first-read/shoretel-enhances-uc-integration-with-skype-for-business.html

http://www.pcmag.com/review/348091/shoretel-connect-cloud

https://rcpmag.com/articles/2016/10/01/ready-for-business.aspx?m=1

https://telecomreseller.com/2017/01/13/audiocodes-ip-phone-achieves-microsoft-skype-for-business-online-certification/

https://redmondmag.com/articles/2016/09/01/making-the-call.aspx

http://www.ucstrategies.com/unified-communications-expert-views/clarity-connect-cloud-contact-center-solution-covering-your-premises-and-cloud-options.aspx

Here os a short pdf about it https://www.shoretel.com/sites/default/files/SkypeForBusiness_AudioCodes_ST_14_2_AppNote_0.pdf

One of the most important things about online services that have recurring things is that Skype has a giant boost in years of experience plus they have giant server farms due to their cloud hosted 365 and azure products. Here is PCMag's take. http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2496994,00.asp it compares different products.

Super Sunday Surprises

We all need some good news on the verge of perhaps a stressful week. This post is to attempt to do that.

Verizon is planning to offer unlimited data after much pressure from competing brands including Tmobile.

Open project is a project management toolkit that is open source and supports scrum and agile. It uses code available on GIThub.

I found a way to connect Windows 7 machines to active services in Microsoft Azure. There is a process to get it free from Microsoft. To do this go to techsoup and get a authorization code. Next head to http://eligibilityweb.azurewebsites.net/ In this task, you enable Azure AD Domain Services for your directory. Perform the following configuration steps to enable Azure AD Domain Services for your directory.

Navigate to the Azure classic portal (https://manage.windowsazure.com/).
Select the Active Directory node on the left pane.
Select the Azure AD tenant (directory) for which you would like to enable Azure AD Domain Services.

Select Azure AD Directory

Click the Configure tab.

Configure tab of directory

Scroll down to a section titled domain services.

Domain Services configuration section

Toggle the option titled Enable domain services for this directory to YES. You notice a few more configuration options for Azure AD Domain services appear on the page.

Enable Domain Services

Note

When you enable Azure AD Domain Services for your tenant, Azure AD generates and stores the Kerberos and NTLM credential hashes that are required for authenticating users.
Specify the DNS domain name of domain services.

The default domain name of the directory (that is, ending with the .onmicrosoft.com domain suffix) is selected by default.
The list contains all domains that have been configured for your Azure AD directory – including verified as well as unverified domains that you configure in the ‘Domains’ tab.
Additionally, you can also type a custom domain name. In this example, we have typed in a custom domain name 'contoso100.com'.

Warning

Ensure that the domain prefix of the domain name you specify (for example, 'contoso100' in the 'contoso100.com' domain name) is fewer than 15 characters. You cannot create an Azure AD Domain Services domain with a domain prefix longer than 15 characters.
Ensure that the DNS domain name you have chosen for the managed domain does not already exist in the virtual network. Specifically, check if:

you already have a domain with the same DNS domain name on the virtual network.
the virtual network you've selected has a VPN connection with your on-premises network and you have a domain with the same DNS domain name on your on-premises network.
you have an existing cloud service with that name on the virtual network.
The next step is to select a virtual network in which you'd like Azure AD Domain Services to be available. Select the virtual network and dedicated subnet you created in the drop-down titled Connect domain services to this virtual network.

Ensure that the virtual network you have specified belongs to an Azure region supported by Azure AD Domain Services. Refer to the Azure services by region page to know the Azure regions in which Azure AD Domain Services is available.
Virtual networks belonging to a region where Azure AD Domain Services is not supported do not show up in the drop-down list.
Use a dedicated subnet within the virtual network for Azure AD Domain Services. Ensure you do not select the gateway subnet. See networking considerations.
Similarly, virtual networks that were created using Azure Resource Manager do not appear in the drop-down list. Resource Manager-based virtual networks are not currently supported by Azure AD Domain Services.
To enable Azure AD Domain Services, click Save from the task pane at the bottom of the page.
The page displays a ‘Pending …’ state, while Azure AD Domain Services is being enabled for your directory.

Enable Domain Services - pending state

Note

Azure AD Domain Services provides high availability for your managed domain. After you enable Azure AD Domain Services, notice the IP addresses at which Domain Services are available on the virtual network show up one by one. The second IP address is displayed shortly, as soon the service enables high availability for your domain. When high availability is configured and active for your domain, you should see two IP addresses in the domain services section of the Configure tab.
After about 20-30 minutes, you see the first IP address at which Domain Services is available on your virtual network in the IP address field on the Configure page.

Domain Services enabled - first IP provisioned

When high availability is operational for your domain, you see two IP addresses displayed on the page. Your managed domain is available on your selected virtual network at these two IP addresses. Note down the IP addresses so you can update the DNS settings for your virtual network. This step enables virtual machines on the virtual network to connect to the domain for operations such as domain join.

Domain Services enabled - both IPs provisioned

Note

Depending on the size of your Azure AD tenant (number of users, groups etc.), synchronization to your managed domain takes a while. This synchronization process happens in the background. For large tenants with tens of thousands of objects, it may take a day or two for all users, group memberships, and credentials to be synchronized.


Task 4 - Update DNS settings for the Azure virtual network
The next configuration task is to update the DNS settings for the Azure virtual network. Task 4: Update DNS settings for the Azure virtual network
In preceding configuration tasks, you have successfully enabled Azure AD Domain Services for your directory. The next task is to ensure that computers within the virtual network can connect and consume these services. Update the DNS server settings for your virtual network to point to the two IP addresses at which Azure AD Domain Services is available on the virtual network.

Note

Note down the IP addresses for Azure AD Domain Services displayed on the Configure tab of your directory, after you have enabled Azure AD Domain Services for the directory.
Perform the following configuration steps to update the DNS server setting for the virtual network in which you have enabled Azure AD Domain Services.

Navigate to the Azure classic portal (https://manage.windowsazure.com/).
Select the Networks node on the left pane.

Virtual networks node

In the Virtual Networks tab, select the virtual network in which you enabled Azure AD Domain Services to view its properties.
Click the Configure tab.

Virtual networks node

In the DNS servers section, enter the IP addresses of Azure AD Domain Services.
Ensure that you enter both the IP addresses that were displayed in the Domain Services section on the Configure tab of your directory.
To save the DNS server settings for this virtual network, click Save on the task pane at the bottom of the page.

Update the DNS server settings for the virtual network.

Note

After updating the DNS server settings for the virtual network, it may take a while for virtual machines on the network to get the updated DNS configuration. If a virtual machine is unable to connect to the domain, you can flush the DNS cache (eg. 'ipconfig /flushdns') on the virtual machine. This command forces a refresh of the DNS settings on the virtual machine.
Task 5 - Enable password synchronization to Azure AD Domain Services
The next configuration task is to enable password synchronization to Azure AD Domain Services.

In preceding tasks, you enabled Azure AD Domain Services for your Azure AD tenant. The next task is to enable credential hashes required for NTLM and Kerberos authentication to synchronize to Azure AD Domain Services. Once credential synchronization is set up, users can sign in to the managed domain using their corporate credentials.

The steps involved are different based on whether your organization has a cloud-only Azure AD tenant or is set to synchronize with your on-premises directory using Azure AD Connect.


Task 5: Enable password synchronization to AAD Domain Services for a cloud-only Azure AD tenant
Azure AD Domain Services needs credential hashes in a format suitable for NTLM and Kerberos authentication, to authenticate users on the managed domain. Unless you enable AAD Domain Services for your tenant, Azure AD does not generate or store credential hashes in the format required for NTLM or Kerberos authentication. For obvious security reasons, Azure AD also does not store any credentials in clear-text form. Therefore, Azure AD does not have a way to generate these NTLM or Kerberos credential hashes based on users' existing credentials.

Note

If your organization has a cloud-only Azure AD tenant, users that need to use Azure AD Domain Services must change their passwords.
This password change process causes the credential hashes required by Azure AD Domain Services for Kerberos and NTLM authentication to be generated in Azure AD. You can either expire passwords for all users in the tenant that need to use Azure AD Domain Services or instruct these users to change their passwords.

Enable NTLM and Kerberos credential hash generation for a cloud-only Azure AD tenant

Here are instructions you need to provide end users, so they can change their passwords:

Navigate to the Azure AD Access Panel page for your organization at http://myapps.microsoft.com/
Select the profile tab on this page.
Click the Change password tile on this page.

Create a virtual network for Azure AD Domain Services.

Note

If you do not see the Change password option on the Access Panel page, ensure that your organization has configured password management in Azure AD.
On the change password page, type your existing (old) password and then type a new password and confirm it. Click submit.

Create a virtual network for Azure AD Domain Services.

After you have changed your password, the new password will be usable in Azure AD Domain Services shortly. After a few minutes (typically, about 20 minutes), you can sign in to computers joined to the managed domain using the newly changed password.

Here is the documentation for getting Windows 7 on Azure domain join https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/active-directory-conditional-access-automatic-device-registration-windows7 Basically it involves downloading a MSI that can be run on the Windows 7 machines and can be pushed out using the existing services as a group policy. To block any computer from getting this update go to the computer and go to regedit as an administrator and click on the folder containing the policies and remove system from having write access. go that computer and go press windows key and the r key for run and type in regedit and navigate to HKCU\Software\Policies
HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies and right click and navigate to permissions and select deny for full control and read for the user name "system" https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/816102/how-to-use-group-policy-to-remotely-install-software-in-windows-server-2008-and-in-windows-server-2003

eligibilityweb.azurewebsites.net

eligibilityweb.azurewebsites.net

Amazon Cloudfront slowness results in web pages not working on a timely fashion

there are many dependencies of loading a website such as all the images and scripts that run. A big site like Bestbuy does not have everything on one web server, instead they run a network of servers some on web servers which are contracted out. It appears by looking at some of my Twitter feed that one of the contractors web server had a slow response. Perhaps if this problem persists, a good cookie removal program such as ccleaner could help you get all of the residue from the previous visit out of the system so you can get a good fresh view with the website. Cookies sometimes remain even if one were to press F5, close their web browser or restart their computer. A more complicated method is to use private mode or use a different browser profile such as the how to geek article below explains. It is possible to use other methods other than cookies to have the relay entry point access the targeted information on the web server. I have inserted the wikipedia article for your enjoyment purposes only as to how this works.

http://www.howtogeek.com/139705/how-to-use-multiple-browser-profiles-in-any-browser/

https://support.mozilla.org/t5/Install-and-Update/Use-the-Profile-Manager-to-create-and-remove-Firefox-profiles/ta-p/2914

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAML_2.0#Web_Browser_SSO_Profile
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Server_farm

DEFINITION
server farm (Web farm, Web server farm)

Posted by: Margaret Rouse
WhatIs.com


Word of the Day
A server farm is a group of computers acting as servers and housed together in a single location. A server farm is sometimes called a server cluster. A Web server farm can be either (1) a Web site that has more than one server that provides Web hosting services using multiple servers.

Microsoft Anniversary puts the screws to the partition table

I recieved a question when someone asked about why a person had two MBRs. I guessed it was related to the new kernel structure in Windows 10 aanniversary edition. Here is my answer: Hello, I have four theories about what could be temperamental.

The first two have to do with applying Windows update 1607 also known as the Anniversary update:

Theory 1:

Have you tried to restore using an older media? If so the computer might have thought that the updated boot record could be from Linux and written a new MBR. source: http://www.easeus.com/partition-manager-software/windows-10-1607-update-stuck.html

It might be looking at the C partition which might have been accidentally set to active. According to the article here: https://www.partitionwizard.com/partitionmagic/accidentally-marked-drive-c-active.html

Theory 2:
The second question I have for you is Do you have Linux distribution on this disk or have you ever used this disk for any Linux distro?

Explanation: In the Windows 10 anniversary edition Microsoft reworked their kernel to make it more like Linux. The update has thrown many people off guard who have have used other operating systems along side the Windows system. This has been particularly troublesome for those who use LVM (which stands for Logical Volume Management. It is a system of managing logical volumes, or filesystems, that is much more advanced and flexible than the traditional method of partitioning a disk into one or more segments and formatting that partition with a filesystem).

Theory 3:
Question: Have you ever had success with Windows 10 and the current combination of motherboard and other hardware you are using?

If not: Check your hard drive in Disk Management , is windows installed to a GPT or MBR disk. Mine is MBR. You can't install Win 10 on UEFI firmware with secured boot enabled and CSM disabled if the disk is MBR. The disk has to be GPT. Is it possible for you to tell us a little about who made your computer (for example Dell, HP so we can help look at the motherboard manual)

Source: https://www.cnet.com/forums/discussions/no-csmsecure-bootuefi-options-in-bios-cant-install-win10/

Theory 4:
Have you ever used or attempted to use bitlocker on this computer.

Neat PC troubleshooting tools

I would use SFC /SCANNOW rather than chkdsk. As explained at https://www.sevenforums.com/performance-maintenance/325080-sfc-scannow-chkdsk-whats-diff.html the major difference: chkdsk checks disk for hardware issues. SFC is system file check and checks for missing or corrupt windows system files. Since the hard drive is brand new, I doubt that you would see a hard drive that is already bad. Besides if I'm remembering correctly your screenshot of speccy did not indicate that the SMART was tripped. I would go to Window's System Reliability Monitor described in the CIO article here: http://www.cio.com/article/2998906/windows/how-to-work-with-windows-10-reliability-monitor.html If you need any help interpreting BSOD (blue screen of death messages) I would suggest Nirsoft's Blue Screen Viewer, win crash report, and App Crash Report listed here: http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/blue_screen_view.html http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/application_crash_report.html http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/what_is_hang.html If memory is an issue, I recommend you look at http://www.howtogeek.com/260813/how-to-test-your-computers-ram-for-problems/ Other tools/resources http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/wise_pc_1staid.html https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/notmyfault.aspx http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/ultimate_boot_cd_(ubcd).html Good luck and wishing you a speedy recovery

Reminents of the POODLE attack

Someone asked me why a certain webpage was not working. I answered:
Hello, this appears to be remnants of a disjointed encryption security standard. Encryption keeps websites such as logons private. After the Poodle attack of 2014, there was a movement to use SSL 2.0 instead of SSL 3.0. Previous to 2014, no one had a problem with SSL 3.0 encryption and thus it became a abandoned standard. Here is a web page explaining how encryption works and how to adjust the SSL settings in Firefox: http://security.stackexchange.com/questions/70719/ssl3-poodle-vulnerability

Should you really want to visit this webpage in the future, you might want to try enabling SSL 3.0 or some other SSL/TLS combinations


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/POODLE

Cheers, Rob

Exciting things coming to Microsoft Windows

Not to be hating Microsoft or advocating other operating systems but For a LONG time Microsoft has been a industry leader but not its being challenged by the likes of Linux and Mac. I see this competition as being very good for driving innovation particularly in the graphics processing aspect. I've found Linux Mint to be a wonderful operating system. Mozilla has been working hard on B2G OS and Google has been working with Chromium OS and Safari, obviously a Mac thing. This might be because Windows, no matter how good it is relies heavily on Since cost prohibits me from buying a Mac, I am left with a good alternative in Linux Mint. Looking around at web developer conferences I see a lot of Macs. This may because the graphics processing engine that Microsoft includes is slower. However, there are new things around the horizon. Microsoft is making their operating system more like Linux using a similar with process calls using pico processes. I also see project Vulkan driven by the khronos group as a good innovation. Around November 2006 we saw different ribbons and this was largely driven by the SVG and Windows presentation framework innovation. Around November of 2007 Mac released their competing Quartz graphics processor. I'm not saying that Linux is better but since there are various distributions there is more competition than Microsoft would like to acknowledge. https://fossbytes.com/microsoft-ubuntu-linux-windows-10-creators-update/ https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/B2G_OS/Architecture http://www.amd.com/en-us/innovations/software-technologies/technologies-gaming/vulkan https://coderwall.com/p/wgkneg/what-is-the-best-os-for-web-development-community-protip