The content below is taken from the original (fogg (0.6.0)), to continue reading please visit the site. Remember to respect the Author & Copyright.
PowerShell tool to aide and simplify the creation, deployment and provisioning of infrastructure in Azure
The content below is taken from the original (Using Microsoft PowerShell DSC with Amazon EC2 Systems Manager), to continue reading please visit the site. Remember to respect the Author & Copyright.
Amazon EC2 Systems Manager is a management service that helps you automatically collect software inventory, apply OS patches, create system images, and configure Windows and Linux operating systems. These capabilities help you define and track system configurations, prevent drift, and maintain software compliance of your EC2 and on-premises configurations.
By providing a management approach that is designed for the scale and agility of the cloud but extends into your on-premises data center, Systems Manager makes it easier for you to seamlessly bridge your existing infrastructure with AWS.
In this post, I show you how you can remotely manage your EC2 Windows instances using a declarative based model for instance configuration management at cloud scale. You use Microsoft PowerShell Desired State Configuration (DSC) to define a configuration and then apply it to your instances using Systems Manager.
Systems Manager contains many tools, including Run Command. This tool allows you to execute a PowerShell DSC script on your instances remotely.
So how exactly does this work? Run Command uses command documents to accomplish tasks. There are many AWS managed public documents that you can choose from.
In this post, you use the document called AWS-InstallPowerShellModule. Run Command executes this document that downloads a PowerShell module contained within a zip file from the specified URL. It then allows you to issue commands. You issue commands that execute the cmdlets in the downloaded PowerShell Module.
Below is a diagram of the workflow.
In this post, you can follow these steps using two different approaches:
In this section, I show you how to use Run Command to install IIS by executing a cmdlet from a PowerShell module on a target instance.
http://bit.ly/2sPURgESet-ExecutionPolicy -ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted -Force
Import-Module SSMDevOps
Install-SsmDoIIS
Start-DscConfiguration -Path Install-SsmDoIIS -WaitIn this section, I show you how to accomplish the same thing programmatically.
if(-not (Get-Module -Name AWSPowershell))
{
Import-Module AWSPowerShell
}Set-AWSCredentials –AccessKey <yourkey> -SecretKey <yourkey>Set-DefaultAWSRegion –Region us-east-1$instanceId = 'Enter-your-instanceId'
$source = 'http://bit.ly/2sPURgE'
$commands = @(
'Set-ExecutionPolicy -ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted -Force',
'Import-Module SSMDevOps',
'Install-SsmDoIIS',
'Start-DscConfiguration -Path Install-SsmDoIIS -Wait'
)
$parameter = @{
source = $source;
commands = $commands;
}
$document = 'AWS-InstallPowerShellModule'
$cmd = Send-SSMCommand –InstanceId $instanceId –DocumentName $document –Parameter $parameter$cmd = Get-SSMCommand –CommandId $cmd.CommandId
$cmdSystems Manager offers a suite of tools to help you manage both your EC2 and on-premises instances. In this post, I showed you how you could use Run Command to remotely execute a PowerShell DSC script on your instances. In the next post in this series, I show you how to perform this same example using a different tool, Systems Manager State Manager.
Shaun Breen is a Systems Development Engineer on the Amazon EC2 Windows team. The EC2 Windows team is responsible for producing Windows Server AMI’s and EC2 Systems Manager documents. Shaun enjoys developing solutions that makes AWS EC2 the best place to run Microsoft Windows Server in the cloud. When not working on EC2 Windows based solutions, he enjoys attending sporting events, coaching ice hockey, and spending time with his wife and three children.
The content below is taken from the original (New HPE ProLiant MicroServer Gen10 Powered by AMD Opteron X3000 APUs), to continue reading please visit the site. Remember to respect the Author & Copyright.
The HPE ProLiant MicroServer has been a mainstay of SMB computing and lab environments for years now. STH first broke the HP ProLiant MicroServer Gen8 specs back in 2013, or two site designs and a STH logo ago. HPE often looks to alternative architectures to address special requirements of the SMB/ home office segments with the MicroServer family. The new HPE ProLiant MicroServer Gen10 is no exception featuring AMD Opteron X3000 APUs.
The AMD Opteron X3000 APUs powering the HPE ProLiant MicroServer Gen10 make a lot of sense in this segment. They combine both x86 cores (no need for ARM compatibility) with AMD Radeon graphics. This is really the next-generation of what we had in the AMD Opteron X2000 series in our HPE Moonshot. The new form factor is a 4x hard drive unit with the same sleek design.
HPE ProLiant MicroServer Gen10 Front Labeled
Here are the key specs:
In terms of specs, the exact GPU details were light but they appear to have a 3rd gen GCN AMD GPU core onboard.
HPE ProLiant MicroServer Gen10 Rear And Motherboard With Labels
We were a bit surprised to see a server offering in mid-2017 released with only 1GbE network controllers. The trend has been towards faster networking for some time now.
In terms of PCIe expansion, the new MicroServer has limited PCIe lanes available but HPE has certainly seen demand for using larger devices. Both PCIe slots are open-ended allowing for up to PCIe x16 low profile cards to be installed, albeit with reduced bandwidth.
This is a big win at a Tier 1 OEM for AMD. The new capabilities of the HPE ProLiant MicroServer Gen10 are certainly appealing. Let us not kid ourselves, the HPE MicroServer is a slick looking machine. It is clear that the integrated GPU is a feature HPE saw a need for over the Intel Atom C3000 series‘ 10GbE networking, PCIe lanes and higher RAM capacities. The two Display Ports on the rear of the unit ensure that the upgraded GPU will be used. Overall, this unit will fall into the “we want one to play with” category.
The content below is taken from the original (Protect Your Data By Using Single Sign-On Whenever Possible ), to continue reading please visit the site. Remember to respect the Author & Copyright.
No company, be it a startup or a conglomerate, has a perfect security system. Chipotle’s payment system was hacked, OneLogin experienced a data breach, and even Google had a run in with a bad phishing exploit that left thousands of account compromised from a shared document. In other words, I’m wary about giving any info to companies that don’t have a track record of keeping it safe.
This is just to say all security is hard, and you should get into the habit of keeping your login information secure. Often that means not making a login in the first place. That’s where single sign-on services come in. Not only are they more secure than a normal username and password combo, you’ll have to less login information to manage in the long run.
In short, single sign-on (SSO) services act as your username and password on supported websites, with your primary account (from Google, Facebook, Microsoft, etc) acting as your account.
Using a secure single sign-on service provided by Facebook, Google, Twitter, and Microsoft—among others—provides a second level of security, more than you’ll get from your run-of-the-mill site collecting user login data and storing it in less than ideal places, or with poor encryption standards.
Two-factor authentication is an added layer of security you should be using whenever possible. It prevents bad actors who gain access to your username and password from getting further into your account without a secondary form of identification—usually a text message from a phone or a randomly generated code from an authentication app.
If a site doesn’t support two-factor authentication or single sign-on, be wary. Use a password manager (of course) to create a convoluted password, and if you’re extra cautious, use a false email address (or one of the many email addresses provided by Gmail).
With single sign-on services, sites are required to tell you about the data they’re taking and why. Just like installing an app may prompt you to give microphone or contact access to it, using a single sign-on service will prompt the site to request data like your email or contact list, or the ability to post to social sites on your behalf, and usually let you accept or reject them.
Services that request access to private data (like newsletter subscription services) do have the ability to take said data and deliver it to third parties, possibly without your knowledge. Yes, they’re usually long, but you should read the site’s privacy policy to see what data they collect and what exactly they do with said data. If that happens, cutting them off is easier with a single sign-on service.
The killer feature of using a single sign-on provider is the ease with which you can revoke access to data, usually with just a few clicks. Ever try to cancel an account on some humdrum site? For me it usually means deciding to cancel your account only to be taken to a support page on a forum that tells you cancelling your account means emailing the customer support team, creating a ticket, making sure it gets deleted, not logging in to double-check it’s gone due to the chance you may reactivate it, and hoping your data is destroyed in a timely fashion (it usually isn’t).
Yesterday, The New York Times went deep into some of Uber’s shady business practices. In the…
Of course, using a single sign-on service gives companies access to information they may not normally be privy to, but the convenience of managing your sign-ins from fewer locations coupled with the increased security you’ll have when using single, secure sign-on services like Google or Facebook means you can more easily find and delete the offender.
Your password manager is a great repository for storing passwords, personal information, and other bits of detritus you’d rather get out of your head (like your library card number).
Your password security is only as strong as its weakest link. If you don’t keep your passwords up to date, or if you make the error of reusing them on multiple sites, you’re creating security holes that could be easily filled with something like a password manager.
But the best part of throwing your hands up in defeat and using a single sign-on provider like Google or Facebook? No. More. Passwords! Well, you’ll have to know your Google and Facebook passwords, but other than that, any site using your single sign-on system won’t require you to create another string of text and numbers to remember (or remember to generate and save).
A single sign-on service isn’t immune to attackers, of course. In addition to following steps outlined by your sign-on provider, you can further protect yourself from malicious attacks by using two-factor authentication, keeping your secondary contact information (like your alternate email) up to date, and having a hard copy backup code.
The content below is taken from the original (Save money and make your website better—by killing JavaScript), to continue reading please visit the site. Remember to respect the Author & Copyright.
Bandwidth, storage space and computing power (CPU/RAM/etc.) on your web servers represent a distinct and noteworthy cost for any company with a major online presence.
As traffic to a company’s website increases, most opt to throw money at the problem. More servers. Caching systems. More bandwidth.
But these are Band-Aids—temporary solutions to the problem, solutions that will only suffice for so long before yet another round of “throw money at the problem” is required to keep up with ever-growing web traffic.
The real problem is simple: Your web pages are just plain too big.
Way too big. Enormously large. The average website is 2.9 MB in size (as of May 15, 2017). And that’s just the average—an average that is growing. Fast.
Just six months prior, in November 2016, the average was closer to 2.4 MB. One year before that, in November 2015? It was 2.2 MB. In 2014? It was 1.9 MB. And in 2013? 1.6 MB.
That’s right. The average size of a web page has almost doubled in the last 3 1/2 years. At the current growth rate during 2017 (more than 1 MB per year), the average web page will clock in at over 8 MB in the next five years.
Many (many) websites are far larger the average. CNN.com, for example, currently clocks in at a whopping 5 MB. And that’s for a website that is supposed to just show us the news headlines. Is CNN.com dramatically more useful than it was 3 1/2 years ago? No way. Same basic value and content—but the page sure did load a lot faster back then (even on slower internet connections).
The larger the website, the more bandwidth and storage space is needed. If your website, for example, was 3 MB, and you manage to reduce the page size down to 2.5 MB—you’ve just saved nearly 17 percent on your bandwidth costs. And that is with a measly reduction of 500K in website size.
And, let’s be honest with ourselves, most corporate or organizational websites (we’re talking single pages here, such as the home page) shouldn’t need to be even 1 MB, let alone 3 MB. If you can get your size down from 3 MB to less than 1 MB? You’ve just cut your bandwidth needs down to one-third of what they were. Serious cost savings.
Not to mention the fact that visitors to your website will now experience page load times significantly faster than your competitors—thus increasing the likelihood that those visitors will stick around and actually read your content.
So, how do you get there? How do you get page sizes down so small?
Two simple strategies:
The reality is, a little bit of JavaScript isn’t such a horrible thing. But it’s overused to an absolutely ridiculous degree. And the result is large, bloated web pages that are eating up your bandwidth (and your IT budget) and causing visitors to your site to get annoyed at how slowly your pages load.
One way to help with this problem is to make sure that your web pages load properly and are readable and navigable, using text-only web browsers (such as w3m or lynx).
A very small percentage of your potential visitors will be using text-only browsers. But, by ensuring compatibility with them, you are forcing your teams to produce web pages that load fast, use relatively small amounts of JavaScript, save on your bandwidth/server costs, and, as a wonderful side effect, are more usable for people with vision problems.
Not to mention the fact that if your website loads well in something as “old school” as the lynx web browser, it will almost certainly render properly in almost every web browser on the planet, thus earning you additional platform and browser compatibility without any extra work.
Save money. Make visitors happier. Have a larger potential visitor base.
It’s a no-brainer. Get rid of all that JavaScript bloat.
The content below is taken from the original (Azure Backup cuddles up real close to Windows Server), to continue reading please visit the site. Remember to respect the Author & Copyright.
Microsoft keeps getting closer and closer to being a decent backup vendor.
Last week the company switched on a test of a feature allowing Windows Server Backup to send Windows Server System State data to Azure, then allow restoration of Windows Server from the Redmondian cloud.
Windows Server System State data describes the OS at a particular moment in its life. Windows Server Backup has been around for ages and uses that data to enable restoration of the OS to previous states, a handy trick under many circumstances. Melding that function with Azure Backup means Windows Server users can now use Microsoft’s cloud as the target for their System State data, possibly taking on-premises or managed backup infrastructure out of the equation.
Microsoft’s also promising simple restores of Windows Server to desired states using System State data resident in Azure.
The service costs US$5 a month per set of System State files, plus storage costs, and is granular enough to record things like an IIS server’s “Metabase” configuration descriptions. For that price you can therefore build an off-premises library of Windows Server states to splash down anywhere. And because Azure Backup and Windows Server’s native backup tools integrate, you get a service that looks to require rather less tinkering than setting up third-party backup software.
Azure Backup Server’s also recently hit version 2.0, adding data de-duplication and new features to back up the 2016 editions of SQL Server, SharePoint and Exchange. Hyper-V VMs also now benefit from Hyper-V’s native change tracking feature, dubbed RCT, to make incremental backups flow without needing to pause for consistency checks.
Microsoft’s other weapon is free data egress from Azure when doing restores. Rival clouds typically charge full freight for egress.
On top of services like VMware-to-Azure backup and using Azure Backup running in the cloud to run on-premises backups, Microsoft’s backup services are getting broader and better by the month. And perhaps getting a little too close to backup vendors’ businesses for their comfort along the way. ®
The content below is taken from the original (Permission Granted: Using SharePoint Online, Flow, Azure Automation and PowerShell to Automate OneDrive for Business Permission Requests (Get-PowerShellBlog /u/markekraus)), to continue reading please visit the site. Remember to respect the Author & Copyright.
http://bit.ly/2stB1sh
The content below is taken from the original (A Retro Car Stereo With Arduino Inside), to continue reading please visit the site. Remember to respect the Author & Copyright.
For some car enthusiasts whose passions run towards older vehicles, only originality will do. [Darkspr1te] for instance has an RA28 Toyota Celica from the mid 1970s for which he has gone to great lengths to source a pristine center console to replace a damaged original.
There is only one problem with the center console on a 1970s Toyota, it doesn’t have a DIN cut-out for the standard-sized car radios that have become universal in the decades since its manufacture. Instead it has a cut-out for a Toyota-specific radio in the old style with holes for volume and tuning knobs to either side of a protruding center unit that would have contained a tuning dial and a slot for cassettes or maybe 8-track cartridges.
His solution is an interesting one, he’s put together his own car stereo in an enclosure suitable for the Toyota cut-out. Inside the radio there is an Arduino Mega controlling the breakout boards for an Si4703 FM tuner and a VMusic3 MP3/USB music player, and a PT2314 audio processor. For display there is a set of retro LED seven-segment modules, and an MSGEQ7 spectrum analyser. The result is a modern radio with FM, line-input, and MP3 player, with all the functions you’d expect. There is no onboard amplifier though, but this function is fulfilled by an external unit.
The finished unit is topped off with a very professional front panel, which you can see in his demo video below the break.
We’ve had very few car radios from scratch here at Hackaday, but we have had more than one bluetooth upgrade or addition of a line-in port.
Posted in car hacks
The content below is taken from the original (These subtle smart gloves turn sign language into words), to continue reading please visit the site. Remember to respect the Author & Copyright.
A startup that spun out of Taiwan’s University of Science is working on gloves that can translate sign language gestures into text. Such a concept isn’t new by any means, but the elegance of Yingmi Tech’s hardware deserves some special attention.
The company was actually founded by a team looking to build a less kludgy way to control objects inside virtual reality. But it transpired that the same hardware was sophisticated enough to identify the motion of the hands as well as bends in the fingers.
Compared to other sign language gloves that we’ve seen, Yingmi’s are some of the sleekest and most elegant. The box that houses the gyroscope and batteries is pretty small, and yet each hand has enough power to run for up to eight hours at a time.
There are, however, problems, such as the complexity and size of the Chinese language compared to others. A company spokesperson here at Computex in Taipei said that most smartphones aren’t capacious enough to hold all of the gesture data to encompass natural signed speech.
In a demonstration with the product, one can instead speak in broken sentences, like the phrase "You want Coffee? Milk?" rather than anything more florid. As a consequence, Yingmi is looking into building a cloud-based translation platform to lessen the burden on the local device.
There’s currently no word on when such gloves might become commercially available, but the hope is that if they do come to market, they’ll cost less than $200 a pair.
Chris Velazco contributed to this report.
Click here to catch up on the latest news from Computex 2017!
The content below is taken from the original (Protect Windows Server System State to cloud with Azure Backup!), to continue reading please visit the site. Remember to respect the Author & Copyright.
One of the key endeavors of the cloud-first approach of Azure Backup is to empower enterprises to recover from security attacks, corruptions, disasters, or data loss situations quickly, securely, and reliably. Restoring servers efficiently in the wake of evolving IT threats involves going beyond recovering data alone from backups. Our customers have expressed varying degrees of complexity in how their operating systems and applications are configured. Restoring this dynamic configuration captured in the form of the Windows Server System State, in addition to data, with minimum infrastructure, forms a critical component of disaster recovery.
Today we are extending the data backup capabilities of the Azure Backup agent to enable customers to perform comprehensive, secure, and reliable Windows Server recoveries. We are excited to preview the support for backing up Windows Server System State directly to Azure with Azure Backup.
Azure Backup will now integrate with the Windows Server Backup feature that is available natively on every Windows Server and provide seamless and secure backups of your Windows Server System State directly to Azure without the need to provision any on-premises infrastructure.
The support for backing up System State with Azure Backup agent is available in preview for all Windows Server versions from Windows Server 2016 all the way down to Windows Server 2008 R2!
Follow the four simple steps below to start protecting your Windows Servers using Azure Backup!
The content below is taken from the original (Automate Running Tasks Using Amazon EC2 Systems Manager Maintenance Windows), to continue reading please visit the site. Remember to respect the Author & Copyright.
In Amazon EC2 Systems Manager, a maintenance window defines a specific set of tasks, along with a set of managed instances where those tasks should be run and the schedule for when the tasks should run. Each task also has a velocity and error threshold defined (for example, run the task on at most four instances at a time and stop if there are one or more errors). You can use this to automate running many common systems administration tasks to ensure they run when needed and that you get notified about any problems running the tasks.
In this post, I discuss how maintenance windows work and provide a walkthrough for setting one up.
You can consider the Maintenance Window capability of Systems Manager to be a replacement for tools like cron or Windows Task Scheduler. Instead of scheduling tasks on individual instances, you can use a feature that’s fully integrated with AWS and the rest of Systems Manager that also provides a central access point for task history and notification support.
Here are some of the benefits:
The schedule controls when tasks run. The schedule can be defined as either a cron or a rate expression. There is also a duration that defines how long the maintenance window runs (1–23 hours).
It’s important to note that a maintenance window never stops any running tasks when it reaches the end of the duration; any started task runs to completion. However, when the duration closes, the maintenance window does stop starting any remaining registered tasks.
A cutoff period parameter controls the time after which new tasks aren’t started. For instance, if a maintenance window has a duration of 4 hours and a cutoff period of 1 hour, tasks are started up until 3 hours in.
A target defines one or more instances for which tasks can be registered. That way, you control the instances on which tasks can operate. This is an optional feature.
Define a target by either specifying one or more instance IDs or using tags. Targeting using instance IDs is frequently useful when you’re working with long-running instances, such as a database server. Using tags allows you to target instances dynamically. Every time the tasks run, instances that match the specified tag are identified and used as the targets. This can be helpful in scenarios where you have many instances to target or want to make sure to always run the task for any existing instances. For example, you may have instances in Auto Scaling groups.
Tasks define the actions to be performed when a schedule triggers. If the maintenance window is configured to require registered targets, the task can run for one or more targets. If a task that uses specific instance IDs and the maintenance window requires registered targets, then the task’s target instance IDs must be registered with the maintenance window as well. If registered targets are not required, you can pick any managed instance for the task, by specifying an ID or using tags.
Every task is a Run Command document where you define the parameters and how it should be invoked. When registering the task, specify the name of the document —or ARN in the case of shared documents, along with any parameters required for the document. Parameters are specified as a JSON string and the exact format depends on the document you are using. For the AWS CLI, you can also use the CLI shorthand syntax.
Task priority determines the order in which tasks are run, when multiple tasks are registered. The lower the number, the higher the priority (for example, a task with a priority of 3 runs before one with a priority of 5). If two tasks have the same priority, they run in parallel and to completion before tasks at the next priority level start. This helps to ensure that the most important tasks are run first, in case there are more tasks than can be run in the allotted time.
Finally, you also control how many instances the task should run on at the same time and how many errors to allow before stopping the task. For example, you can run the task for at most two instances at a time, and stop if a single task invocation fails. In this context, an error is anything Run Command considers a failed command invocation (for example, if the application or script invoked returns a non-zero exit code).
Every time registered tasks run, Systems Manager captures the results so you can review the history. Amazon CloudWatch Events is also supported, so you can get notifications about the maintenance window and task execution.
A maintenance window also contains the history of all the times it has run. This allows you to see the results of every task that ran, the corresponding task invocations, and the corresponding Run Command invocation. The history provides a central place to see the status of every task run for the last 30 days. You don’t have to log in to individual instances to see task status of scheduled tasks, as with cron or Windows Task Scheduler.
The sections below show you how to create a maintenance window, register targets and tasks, and view the history of the maintenance window using the AWS CLI and the AWS Tools for PowerShell. All of these operations can also be done using the AWS Management Console.
Before you can start using maintenance windows, there are some prerequisites that must be configured:
The Systems Manager documentation describes how to create a maintenance window using the console or AWS CLI. The following PowerShell example shows how to create a maintenance window that runs every Tuesday at 4PM with a cut-off period of 1 hour:
PS > New-SSMMaintenanceWindow -Name "Every-Tuesday" ` -Schedule "cron(0 16 ? * TUE *)" -Duration 4 -Cutoff 1 ` -AllowUnassociatedTarget $false
When registering a target, you can specify the optional owner-information field, which is passed along in all CloudWatch events raised for this target. This can be helpful when you’re processing events.
> aws ssm register-target-with-maintenance-window --window-ID mw-0123456789abcdef --targets "Key=tag:Project,Values=Website" --owner-information "Website instances" --resource-type "INSTANCE"
PS> $tagTargets = `
@{Key="tag:Project";Values=@("Website")}
PS> Register-SSMTargetWithMaintenanceWindow `
-WindowId "mw-0123456789abcdef" `
-Target $tagTargets `
-OwnerInformation "Website instances" `
-ResourceType "INSTANCE"
> aws ssm register-target-with-maintenance-window --window-ID mw-0123456789abcdef --targets "Key=InstanceIds,Values=i-0123456,i-789abcd" --owner-information "Database servers" --resource-type "INSTANCE"
PS> $instanceIdTargets = `
@{Key="InstanceIds";Values=@("i-0123456","i-789abcd")}
PS> Register-SSMTargetWithMaintenanceWindow `
-WindowId "mw-0123456789abcdef" `
-Target $instanceIdTargets `
-OwnerInformation "Database servers" `
-ResourceType "INSTANCE"
Each task requires an associated role that the maintenance window can assume. In most cases, you can create a single role to use for all tasks. There may also be scenarios where you need to create specific roles for specific tasks, to control more closely the instances and documents that the role is allowed to use. For more information about how to set up a general role to use for tasks in maintenance windows, see Configuring Roles and Permissions for Maintenance Windows.
> aws ssm register-task-with-maintenance-window
--window-ID mw-063b7d9dcd2fac2f0
--targets "Key=WindowTargetIds,Values=abcdef012-3456-789a-bcde-f0123456789a"
--task-arn "AWS-RunPowerShellScript"
--service-role-arn "arn:aws:iam::123456789012:role/mw-task-role"
--task-type "RUN_COMMAND"
--task-parameters '{\"commands\":{\"Values\":[\"ipconfig.exe\"]}}'
--max-concurrency 1
--max-errors 1
--priority 1
PS> $parameters = @{}
PS> $parameterValues = New-Object Amazon.SimpleSystemsManagement.Model.MaintenanceWindowTaskParameterValueExpression
PS> $parameterValues.Values = @("ipconfig.exe")
PS> $parameters.Add("commands", $parameterValues)
PS> Register-SSMTaskWithMaintenanceWindow `
-WindowId mw-063b7d9dcd2fac2f0 `
-Target @{ Key="WindowTargetIds";Values="abcdef012-3456-789a-bcde-f0123456789a" } `
-TaskArn "AWS-RunPowerShellScript" `
-ServiceRoleArn "arn:aws:iam::123456789012:role/mw-task-role" `
-TaskType "RUN_COMMAND" `
-TaskParameter $parameters `
-MaxConcurrency 1 `
-MaxError 1 `
-Priority 1
> aws ssm register-task-with-maintenance-window
--window-ID mw-063b7d9dcd2fac2f0
--targets "Key= InstanceIds,Values=i-0123456,i-789abcd"
--task-arn "AWS-RunPowerShellScript"
--service-role-arn "arn:aws:iam::123456789012:role/mw-task-role"
--task-type "RUN_COMMAND"
--task-parameters '{\"commands\":{\"Values\":[\"ipconfig.exe\"]}}'
--max-concurrency 1
--max-errors 1
--priority 1
PS> $parameters = @{}
PS> $parameterValues = New-Object Amazon.SimpleSystemsManagement.Model.MaintenanceWindowTaskParameterValueExpression
PS> $parameterValues.Values = @("ipconfig.exe")
PS> $parameters.Add("commands", $parameterValues)
PS> Register-SSMTaskWithMaintenanceWindow `
-WindowId mw-063b7d9dcd2fac2f0 `
-Target @{ Key="InstanceIds";Values="i-0a00def7faa94f1dc" } `
-TaskArn "AWS-RunPowerShellScript" `
-ServiceRoleArn "arn:aws:iam::123456789012:role/mw-task-role" `
-TaskType "RUN_COMMAND" `
-TaskParameter $parameters `
-MaxConcurrency 1 `
-MaxError 1 `
-Priority 1
The history for a maintenance window consists of the following levels of detail:
The WindowExecutionId field uniquely identifies a particular execution of a maintenance window and the StartTime field represents the time that the maintenance window was run. The execution ID can be used to get more detail on the tasks run in the maintenance window.
> aws ssm describe-maintenance-window-executions
--window-ID mw-063b7d9dcd2fac2f0
The command returns something similar to the following:
{
"WindowExecutions": [
{
"Status": "SUCCESS",
"WindowId": "mw-063b7d9dcd2fac2f0",
"WindowExecutionId": "75d4e9fb-20db-4c30-bf73-1a2514f59265",
"StartTime": 1479046329.861
},
{
"Status": "SUCCESS",
"WindowId": "mw-063b7d9dcd2fac2f0",
"WindowExecutionId": "c8a2916b-e1de-46fb-800c-c41a9fd4f63f",
"StartTime": 1479047229.861
},
{
"Status": "SUCCESS",
"WindowId": "mw-063b7d9dcd2fac2f0",
"WindowExecutionId": "16551bd0-df3d-4f9d-827c-15a643492ddd",
"StartTime": 1479047588.543
}
]
}
PS > Get-SSMMaintenanceWindowExecutionList `
-WindowId mw-063b7d9dcd2fac2f0
The command returns something similar to the following:
EndTime : 3/14/2017 17:13:07 StartTime : 3/14/2017 16:01:40 Status : SUCCESS StatusDetails : WindowExecutionId : 75d4e9fb-20db-4c30-bf73-1a2514f59265 WindowId : mw-063b7d9dcd2fac2f0 EndTime : 3/21/2017 17:02:02 StartTime : 3/21/2017 16:00:27 Status : SUCCESS StatusDetails : WindowExecutionId : c8a2916b-e1de-46fb-800c-c41a9fd4f63f WindowId : mw-063b7d9dcd2fac2f0 EndTime : 3/28/2017 17:22:16 StartTime : 3/28/2017 16:02:33 Status : SUCCESS StatusDetails : WindowExecutionId : 16551bd0-df3d-4f9d-827c-15a643492ddd WindowId : mw-063b7d9dcd2fac2f0
In the examples above, a single task was run in the maintenance window. To get more detailed information about the task, use the TaskExecutionId field.
> aws ssm describe-maintenance-window-execution-tasks
--window-execution-ID 75d4e9fb-20db-4c30-bf73-1a2514f59265
The command returns something similar to the following:
{
"WindowExecutionTaskIdentities": [
{
"Status": "SUCCESS",
"TaskArn": "AWS-RunPowerShellScript",
"StartTime": 1479046330.269,
"TaskType": "RUN_COMMAND",
"EndTime": 1479046351.331,
"WindowExecutionId": "75d4e9fb-20db-4c30-bf73-1a2514f59265",
"TaskExecutionId": "219d5326-20e5-4014-b7be-1dc13aa9e85f"
}
]
}
PS > Get-SSMMaintenanceWindowExecutionTaskList `
-WindowExecutionId 75d4e9fb-20db-4c30-bf73-1a2514f59265
The command returns something similar to the following:
EndTime : 3/14/2017 17:13:07 StartTime : 3/14/2017 16:01:40 Status : SUCCESS StatusDetails : TaskArn : AWS-RunPowerShellScript TaskExecutionId : 219d5326-20e5-4014-b7be-1dc13aa9e85f TaskType : RUN_COMMAND WindowExecutionId : 75d4e9fb-20db-4c30-bf73-1a2514f59265
In addition to the detailed information about the parameters used for the invocation, the ExecutionId field also contains the command ID that can be used to get detailed information from Run Command.
> aws ssm describe-maintenance-window-execution-task-invocations
--window-execution-ID 75d4e9fb-20db-4c30-bf73-1a2514f59265
--task-ID 219d5326-20e5-4014-b7be-1dc13aa9e85f
This command returns specific information about the Run Command invocation:
{
"WindowExecutionTaskInvocationIdentities": [
{
"Status": "SUCCESS",
"Parameters": "{\"documentName\":\"AWS-RunPowerShellScript\",\"instanceIds\":[\"i-09a618aec652973a9\",\"i-0a00def7faa94f1dc\",\"i-0fff3aab684d01b23\"],\"parameters\":{\"commands\":[\"ipconfig.exe\"]},\"maxConcurrency\":\"2\",\"maxErrors\":\"
3\"}",
"ExecutionId": "654eb74d-d1bc-4c32-8d5f-98d1dc602e94",
"InvocationId": "824d7b43-cd1c-4f9d-927b-97f147acbfc9",
"StartTime": 1479046330.393,
"EndTime": 1479046351.071,
"WindowExecutionId": "75d4e9fb-20db-4c30-bf73-1a2514f59265",
"TaskExecutionId": "219d5326-20e5-4014-b7be-1dc13aa9e85f"
}
]
}
PS > Get-SSMMaintenanceWindowExecutionTaskInvocationList `
-WindowExecutionId 75d4e9fb-20db-4c30-bf73-1a2514f59265 `
-TaskId 219d5326-20e5-4014-b7be-1dc13aa9e85f
This command returns specific information about the Run Command invocation:
EndTime : 3/14/2017 17:13:07
ExecutionId : 654eb74d-d1bc-4c32-8d5f-98d1dc602e94
InvocationId : 824d7b43-cd1c-4f9d-927b-97f147acbfc9
OwnerInformation :
Parameters : {"documentName":"AWS-RunPowerShellScript","commands":["ipconfig.exe"],"maxConcurrency":"1","maxErrors":"1"}
StartTime : 3/14/2017 16:01:40
Status : SUCCESS
StatusDetails : Incomplete
TaskExecutionId : 219d5326-20e5-4014-b7be-1dc13aa9e85f
WindowExecutionId : 75d4e9fb-20db-4c30-bf73-1a2514f59265
WindowTargetId :
To get the specific results from the Run Command invocation (for instance the output of the command), you use the ExecutionId field from the task invocation above with the Run Command ListCommands API.
> aws ssm list-commands --command-ID 654eb74d-d1bc-4c32-8d5f-98d1dc602e94
The command returns specific details from Run Command.
{
"Commands": [
{
"Comment": "",
"Status": "Success",
"MaxErrors": "3",
"Parameters": {
"commands": [
"ipconfig.exe"
]
},
"ExpiresAfter": 1479049930.641,
"ServiceRole": "",
"DocumentName": "AWS-RunPowerShellScript",
"TargetCount": 3,
"OutputS3BucketName": "",
"NotificationConfig": {
"NotificationArn": "",
"NotificationEvents": [],
"NotificationType": ""
},
"CompletedCount": 3,
"Targets": [],
"StatusDetails": "Success",
"ErrorCount": 0,
"OutputS3KeyPrefix": "",
"RequestedDateTime": 1479046330.641,
"CommandId": "654eb74d-d1bc-4c32-8d5f-98d1dc602e94",
"InstanceIds": [
"i-09a618aec652973a9",
"i-0a00def7faa94f1dc",
"i-0fff3aab684d01b23"
],
"MaxConcurrency": "2"
}
]
}
PS > Get-SSMCommand –CommandId 654eb74d-d1bc-4c32-8d5f-98d1dc602e94
The command returns specific details from Run Command.
CommandId : 654eb74d-d1bc-4c32-8d5f-98d1dc602e94
Comment :
CompletedCount : 3
DocumentName : AWS-RunPowerShellScript
ErrorCount : 0
ExpiresAfter : 3/14/2017 16:01:40
InstanceIds : {"i-09a618aec652973a9","i-0a00def7faa94f1dc","i-0fff3aab684d01b23"}
MaxConcurrency : 2
MaxErrors : 3
NotificationConfig : Amazon.SimpleSystemsManagement.Model.NotificationConfig
OutputS3BucketName :
OutputS3KeyPrefix :
OutputS3Region :
Parameters : {[Operation, Amazon.Runtime.Internal.Util.AlwaysSendList`1[System.String]], [commands, Amazon.Runtime.Internal.Util.AlwaysSendList`1[System.String]]}
RequestedDateTime : 3/24/2017 05:37:03
ServiceRole :
Status : Success
StatusDetails : Success
TargetCount : 3
Targets : {}
In this post, I described some of the benefits and helped you get started creating maintenance windows with AWS CLI and PowerShell. Look at the Systems Manager documentation for more details and keep an eye out for more blog posts about how you can use maintenance windows to automate systems management tasks.
If you have questions or suggestions, please comment below.
Mats Lannér is a Software Development Manager on the Amazon EC2 Systems Manager team, responsible for the Maintenance Window, Patch Manager and Document capabilities. When not working on Systems Manager he enjoys working and hiking with his two German Shepherds.
The content below is taken from the original (Wallabot peers 4 inches through walls to identify pipes, wires, and other hidden objects), to continue reading please visit the site. Remember to respect the Author & Copyright.
Jun 1, ’17 12:47 PM EST
Image: Wallabot
The Android-only Wallabot device is apparently designed to help you avoid sawing through a waterline or prematurely snipping an electrical wire by virtue of showing you what lurks beneath your walls before you begin working. The device, which is demonstrated via video below, is paired with your Android and then pressed against the wall, where it renders various objects in a vivid purple, thereby transforming otherwise seemingly boring walls (and other solid objects) into virtual archaeological excavations:
VIDEO
Wallabot DIY
The content below is taken from the original (Google Cloud services are switching Certificate Authority), to continue reading please visit the site. Remember to respect the Author & Copyright.
By Adam Langley, Software Engineer
Earlier this year, Google announced that we had established Google Trust Services to operate our own Root Certificate Authority on behalf of Google and Alphabet. Preparations are proceeding apace and customers that rely on Google services—including Google Cloud services such as Compute Engine, Gmail and others—should be aware that Google will soon begin using a different Certificate Authority (CA). We expect this to have no impact for the vast majority of customers.
Google commonly uses TLS (previously known as SSL) to secure communications between Google services and our users. As part of TLS, a server is required to provide proof of its identity in the form of a certificate that’s signed by a CA. Google has long used certificates ultimately issued by the CA “GeoTrust.”
In the coming months, Google will begin using the GlobalSign R2 CA (“GS Root R2”). As it’s a well-established and commonly trusted root CA, we expect minimal disruption to clients. However, for TLS clients that operate with custom root stores, we recommend that customers and application vendors ensure that their applications trust at least our minimum root set (PEM file).
The Google Trust Services home page contains links for customers and application vendors to test support for Google-operated roots, including GS Root R2. However, because we may use other roots in the future, customers should use the aforementioned root set and not simply the specific roots currently listed there.
More generally, a reasonable root set is not the only factor in ensuring that TLS clients continue to function over time. TLS clients should also meet these requirements to ensure minimal disruption:
We’ve been working hard to ensure that the transition to a new CA is as smooth as possible for users of our services. Feel free to reach out to us with questions or concerns: Google Cloud Platform | G Suite.
The content below is taken from the original (Hybrid Cloud – It’s both the future and the past), to continue reading please visit the site. Remember to respect the Author & Copyright.
We’ve all heard of the cloud by now, it’s fair to say it’s now a mainstream term for many people (not including the weather!) and most would agree it’s the future. When we look specifically at enterprise IT there’s still a discussion to be had on whether you should go public cloud, private cloud or hybrid cloud. There’s even more concepts coming down the line but we’ll stick with these for the simplicity of this post. There’s always some scepticism around cloud, as there is with many ‘new’ IT concepts. But have you ever looked back and wondered if history is repeating itself?
I’m writing this as someone with 17 years in the industry and more as a hobbyist so I’ve been around long enough to work with twinax terminals, 5 1/4″ floppy disks and Windows 3.1. In that time, I’ve seen a lot of change as I’m sure you have too, change is the only constant in IT as the saying goes. Back then, even though we still had things like green screens and the Y2K bug we also started to get things like Hotmail, Yahoo! and Lycos e-mail services and soon many others jumped on board. Every internet service provider would throw in a free email account with your subscription. The concept was that you could read and send email from the internet and not need your own Exchange server, SCO mail server or whatever else. That also meant that you could travel between towns, cities and countries and still access your email when you got there – sounds a bit cloud mobility right? But for convenience, if you had a PC you could also synchronise a copy of this locally so you can read and send emails offline then when you’re next connected your emails are sent. You were controlling and consuming the stuff stored up on the internet from your own PC and this gave people options, some worked online and some worked offline.
Now, I realise I’m probably teaching grannies to suck eggs here but if we look at this conceptually then there are many similarities that we can draw between that and modern day public cloud services. Let’s not forget, the cloud is simply a concept and a concept that in one way or another has been around for a very long time. Nowadays, if you want to work in Microsoft Azure you can do this from the online portal, you can do this locally with PowerShell or by developing things like ARM templates and JSON files and when you’re connected these will run just like synchronising your email in days gone by. AzureStack offers us the next evolution in this concept by blurring the borders of public cloud and private cloud and for many will likely bring together both into a hybrid cloud and for Microsoft at least, that’s a bit part of their future. There are lots of other technologies out there which follow the same pattern and hopefully you can see that. It gives us options right? The best of both worlds.
So, having given this some thought I do believe that hybrid cloud is indeed the future of enterprise IT, but it’s also in some ways the past.
/Peter
The post Hybrid Cloud – It’s both the future and the past appeared first on Hybrid Cloud Social.
The content below is taken from the original (Try Amazon WorkSpaces at No Charge for Up To 2 Months), to continue reading please visit the site. Remember to respect the Author & Copyright.
I am a big believer in hands-on experience. Except under very rare circumstances, the posts in my blog are written only after I have used the service in question. If you happened to read I Love My Amazon WorkSpace, you know that Amazon WorkSpaces is one of my most important productivity tools.
I would like to tell you about an opportunity for you to try WorkSpaces on your own at no charge. The new Amazon WorkSpaces Free Tier allows you to launch two Standard bundle WorkSpaces and use them for a total of 40 hours per month, for up to two calendar months. You can choose either the Windows 7 or the Windows 10 Desktop Experience, both powered by Windows Server. Both options include Internet Explorer 11, Mozilla Firefox, 7-Zip, and Amazon WorkDocs with 50 GB of storage.
In order to take advantage of the free tier you must run the WorkSpaces in AutoStop mode, which is selected for you by default. Unused hours expire at the end of the first calendar month and the free tier offer expires at the end of the second calendar month. After that you will be billed at the hourly rate listed on the Amazon WorkSpaces Pricing page.
To get started, follow the steps in the Quick Setup and choose a bundle that is eligible for the free tier:
This offer is available in all AWS Regions where WorkSpaces is available.
— Jeff;
The content below is taken from the original (Tiny foldable i.MX7 module squishes into 30 x 27 x 8mm), to continue reading please visit the site. Remember to respect the Author & Copyright.
Compulab’s rugged, 30 x 27mm “UCM-iMX7” module runs Linux on a low-power NXP i.MX7, and includes up to 64GB eMMC, WiFi, BT, GbE, USB, and touch-ready LCD. In late 2015, Compulab introduced one of the first computer-on-modules built around NXP’s power-sipping, Cortex-A7-based i.MX7 with its SODIMM-style CL-SOM-iMX7, but it was quickly eclipsed in a race […]
The content below is taken from the original (OpenStack Developer Mailing List Digest May 20-26), to continue reading please visit the site. Remember to respect the Author & Copyright.
[1] – http://bit.ly/2scetfCl
[2] – http://bit.ly/2scetfCl
[3] – http://bit.ly/2rCKikRs
[4] – http://bit.ly/2sc38w9/
[5] – http://bit.ly/2rCNGfl/
[6] – http://bit.ly/2scbpjD/
[7] – http://bit.ly/2rCztPt0
[8] – http://bit.ly/2sbQQ714
[9] – http://bit.ly/2rCyX4i7
[10] – http://bit.ly/2sc7qU4/
[11] – http://bit.ly/2rCvYIM9
[12] – http://bit.ly/2sce1Oy6
[13] – http://bit.ly/2rCviDo/
[14] – http://bit.ly/2scqkKO2
The content below is taken from the original (New AWS Certification Specialty Exams & Benefits), to continue reading please visit the site. Remember to respect the Author & Copyright.
We are making two important updates to the AWS Certification program today. We are introducing two new AWS Certification Specialty Exams and our new AWS Certification Benefits Program, giving you another way to validate your skills and to showcase your expertise.
New AWS Certification Specialty Exams
Our new AWS Certified Advanced Networking – Specialty and AWS Certified Big Data – Specialty exams are designed for people with at least one current Associate AWS Certification and deep hands-on experience in the relevant specialty. These credentials can help you stand out from the crowd, get recognized, and provide more evidence of your unique technical skills.
New AWS Certification Benefits
Designed to help showcase your achievement and further advance your AWS expertise, tiered AWS Certification Benefits include newly designed AWS Certified logos and certificates, digital badges, free practice exams, branded merchandise, transcript sharing, and more. Benefits are accessed based on the AWS Certifications you have achieved. The more exams you successfully complete, the more benefits you will receive.
Access Your Specialty Exams and Benefits Today
Sign in to the AWS Training and Certification Portal using an Amazon account or (if you are an APN Partner) your APN Portal credentials. Then click on the Certification link on the AWS Training and Certification Portal to access your AWS Certification Account:
If you previously had an account in Webassessor, you can link your accounts so that your AWS Certification history shows in the portal (read “I already have an AWS Certification account in Webassessor. How do I access my AWS Certification history?” in the AWS Training FAQ to see how to do this).
Learn More
Check out the AWS Certifications FAQ and the AWS Training and Certification Portal FAQ if you have any questions.
— Jeff;
The content below is taken from the original (Managing Email Signatures), to continue reading please visit the site. Remember to respect the Author & Copyright.
In the early days of email, we didn’t worry so much about applying signatures to outbound messages. Even when Exchange came along in 1996, the focus stayed on the content rather than adding pretty company information at the bottom of messages. Roll on twenty years, the situation is different and it is common to find various disclaimers, logos, and contact information added to messages, sometimes to meet legal requirements (as in the U.K.).
Given that a real need might exist to ensure that messages contain some form of signature information (if only to fully identify the sender), the question is then how best to make this happen when using either Office 365 or on-premises Exchange.
You can use three approaches to solve the problem:
The last two options depend on information extracted from Active Directory to populate fields in email signatures, so making sure that correct user and organizational data are present in the directory is fundamental to success.
Option one relies on users to create and maintain signatures. You can tell users what they need to do to create a suitable email signature through their client of choice. Figure 1 shows how to edit a signature with Outlook 2016.
Figure 1: Editing an email signature with Outlook 2016 (image credit: Tony Redmond)
A signature can pretty complex and include logos and other images. In some cases, companies like to include text to inform recipients that they disclaim responsibility of pretty well everything together with dire warnings of the horrible consequences that await someone who receives a message in error. Other text that you could include is the formal company name, contact information, and registration numbers or other details.
The problem with users is that they forget to do things or create signatures that are not in line with the desired standard. Some organizations try to solve the problem by circulating template signatures periodically to remind users that they should have a signature that follows a certain standard. This will not stop users taking artistic license with their signatures, but it might help.
Because users cannot really be depended upon to maintain their autosignatures to a corporate standard, the need for a different approach usually becomes quickly apparent, especially in larger organizations.
Two options are available to manage autosignatures centrally. The first is the PowerShell Set-MailboxMessageConfiguration cmdlet, which can be used to create an autosignature for a target mailbox. This example creates a simple HTML-format autosignature using a specific font and size. The same signature is used for OWA and Outlook and is only applied to new messages.
[PS] C:\> Set-MailboxMessageConfiguration -Identity "Rob Young" -AutoAddSignature $True -SignatureHTML "<h3>Rob Young is fantastic! </h>" –DefaultFormat HTML –DefaultFontName "Verdana" –DefaultFontSize 4 -AutoAddSignatureOnReply $False
It’s perfectly possible to write a script that will loop through all user mailboxes, compose a suitable autosignature for each mailbox based on information held in Active Directory, and then apply the autosignature to each mailbox complete with the necessary corporate logo and disclaimer text.
The problem with this approach is its manual nature. New mailboxes won’t have autosignatures applied when they are created and users will be able to overwrite autosignatures if they want.
The second way to manage signatures centrally is to use an Exchange Transport Rule (ETR) to apply autosignatures to messages as they go through the transport pipeline. The advantage of this method is that you can be sure that an autosignature is applied because all messages are processed by transport, even when sent to a local mailbox. ETRs are applied to messages sent by any client, so they provide a good way to ensure that every message is processed in the same way.
You’re not limited to a single ETR as different ETRs can be used to process messages from different groups. For instance, you could have an ETR for each country so that the autosignatures include some country-specific information.
The downside is that ETRs can’t process encrypted (protected) or signed messages because applying an autosignature would compromise the integrity of these messages. In addition, users are free to apply their own autosignature, so you can end up with some messy combinations at the end of messages (Figure 2). Nevertheless, ETRs can be a good solution to the autosignature problem, providing that you construct suitable rules.
Figure 2: Signature upon signature (image credit: Tony Redmond)
As a practical example, here’s the PowerShell code to create an ETR to apply disclaimers to outbound messages (a modified version of the example in my Exchange 2010 Inside Out book). The trick here is to avoid autosignatures being inserted into replies where the original message already contains the autosignature. To do this, the rule includes an exception covering that case. The rule is the same that is used to apply the autosignature shown in Figure 2.
[PS] C:\> New-TransportRule -Name 'Company disclaimer' -Comments 'This transport rule applies the approved company disclaimer to every outgoing message' –Priority ‘0’ -Enabled $true -SentToScope 'NotInOrganization' -ApplyHtmlDisclaimerLocation 'Append' -ApplyHtmlDisclaimerText '<h4 style="font-family:verdana">Redmond and Associates</h4><p><p style="font-family:verdana; font-size:70%;color:green">This message is the property of <b>Redmond and Associates</b> If you receive this message in error, please delete it <u>immediately</u> and inform us at +353 1 2xxxxxx about its delivery.<p><p style="font-family:Arial; font-size:80%; color:blue"><i>%%FirstName%% %%LastName%%</i><p style="font-family:Arial; font-size:70%; color:red">Phone: %%PhoneNumber%%<p style="font-family:Arial; font-size:70%; color:red">Email: %%Email%%' -ApplyHtmlDisclaimerFallbackAction 'Wrap' -ExceptIfSubjectOrBodyContainsWords 'This message is the property of Redmond and Associates'
Maintaining HTML formatting in ETRs can be a challenge at times because neither PowerShell nor the Exchange Administration Center is designed for this purpose. However, some trial and error usually gets the job done.
If you don’t want to create-your-own solution or tire of debugging HTML text in ETRs, you can pay for and deploy a commercial solution. A number of well-known products exist in this area, including:
Different capabilities are available for Office 365 and Exchange on-premises, so it is important that you take this into account.
Commercial products offer the major advantage of being tried and trusted and based on the experience of many years of dealing with various customer demands for different types of autosignatures. All come with administration facilities to make it easier to build and deploy autosignatures. Given that autosignatures have been around for years, it would be surprising if a new and unmet requirement appeared now.
Cost is the downside of using a commercial product, But the cost of using an off-the-shelf product is often much less than the cost of creating and maintaining your own solution.
Before making a choice, it’s best to test these products in your own environment to ensure that the software satisfies your needs. A search of user forums like Reddit often provides useful insight into how people use these products.
Autosignatures are a problem that has been around for a long time. In fact, it’s surprising that Microsoft doesn’t include some basic functionality to manage autosignatures for organizations. I guess the feature is low on their priorities – or perhaps this is one field that Microsoft is willing to leave to ISVs.
Follow Tony on Twitter @12Knocksinna.
Want to know more about how to manage Office 365? Find what you need to know in “Office 365 for IT Pros,” the most comprehensive eBook covering all aspects of Office 365. Available in PDF and EPUB formats (suitable for iBooks) or for Amazon Kindle
The post Managing Email Signatures appeared first on Petri.
The content below is taken from the original (How to Build Your Own Google AIY without the Kit), to continue reading please visit the site. Remember to respect the Author & Copyright.
Google’s voice assistant has been around for a while now and when Amazon released its Alexa API and ported the PaaS Cloud code to the Raspberry Pi 2 it was just a matter of time before everyone else jumped on the fast train to maker kingdom. Google just did it in style.
Few know that the Google Assistant API for the Raspberry Pi 3 has been out there for some time now but when they decided to give away a free kit with the May 2017 issues of MagPi magazine, they made an impression on everyone. Unfortunately the world has more makers and hackers and the number of copies of the magazine are limited.
In this writeup, I layout the DIY version of the AIY kit for everyone else who wants to talk to a cardboard box. I take a closer look at the free kit, take it apart, put it together and replace it with DIY magic. To make things more convenient, I also designed an enclosure that you can 3D print to complete the kit. Lets get started.
A shout out to my friend [Shabaz] in the UK for sending me a copy of the MagPi. The “Google AIY Projects Voice Kit”(henceforth known as the kit) contains two PCBs and a bunch of other stuff. The Voice HAT which looks like a Sound-Card-On-A-Diet has very limited number of components. I will detail each section and draw the KiCAD schematic for the same one by one
Starting from the left side, there are 6 sets of 3-pin headers that are labelled ‘Servos’. The intended servo control is made possible using the Raspberry Pi 3’s on-board PWM module. Each set has a GPIO pin, 5V and GND connection. The GPIO pin does not connect directly to the Raspberry Pi 3’s header but rather through 220Ohm current limiting resistors (labelled R1-R6).
Just south of these are devices labeled Q5 and Q6 which I am assuming are part of a power supply selection circuit. Correct me if I am wrong but here is my estimate. The working is simple where Q5 only turns ON when the input voltage is greater than the 5V from the USB port. A simple comparator should do so I am using the LM393 for reference.
North of the ‘Servo’ headers is J15 labelled I2C that directly connect to the Raspberry Pi 3 header. That means these should not be connected to anything with 5V pull-ups. They are not being used on the board but we will discuss more on this later. Right next to it is the SPI and 2-pin UART headers. Again these connect directly to the main header and serve only as a breakout.
A little lower and we arrive at the boxed circuit with a 16-Pin QFN marked ‘AKK BDQ’. This is the Maxim MAX98357A(PDF) which is an I2S DAC with a class D amplifier. It drives the speaker directly however since there is only one output, it can only be mono or combined stereo. It’s still pretty rocking for the budget.
The interesting thing is the presence of JP6 which seems to have all the I2S connections from the Maxim MAX98357A and a few other select lines. Combined with the two vias that connect to the second speaker output, you could possibly fit another Maxim MAX98357A breakout board on top to get stereo sound. I am going to do the schematic and make it downloadable and if you want to give it a shot let me know the results. Consider it optional homework.
Next to the DAC is an 8-pin SSOP which is a 24C32 (PDF) I2C EEPROM. It’s not connected to the I2C header I talked about earlier but rather to pins 27 and 28 of the Raspberry Pi 3 header. According to the Raspberry Pi Foundation’s blog.
“The EEPROM holds the board manufacturer information, GPIO setup and a thing called a ‘device tree‘ fragment – basically a description of the attached hardware that allows Linux to automatically load the required drivers.”
So its got some extra sauce that makes things tick and I could use a BusPirate to Dump the data but I am not sure if Google considers it Intellectual Property so I won’t. I have an alternative for it as well so read on.
Moving towards the right, we find 4 headers marked ‘Drivers’. These are MOSFET circuits for controlling loads such as relays. [Shabaz] did a great job tracing out the components on this one and the 3 pins are GPIO, 5V and Driver.
The MOSFETs can drive loads of up to 500mA each thanks to a polyswitch however the GPIOs are available for use directly as well. Loads to be driven should be connected between the pins marked ‘+’ and ‘-‘. The header pin on the left is a direct access to GPIOs header pins from the Raspberry Pi 3 and the schematic reflects the same.
Use these to connect LEDs or similar devices to indicate the operation of the relays or loads.
More interesting stuff is happening on the right side’s upper right with a push button and two JST connectors. The 4 pin connector is meant for the push button that sits on top of the assembled enclosure. The small PCB mounted push button is wired in parallel with the external switch and can be used in its place while setting up and testing. The 5 pin JST is for the microphone connector and has all the I2S pins.
Lastly, the microphone board is marked 432 QDF21G, and has Knowles SPH0645LM4H MEMs digital microphones that talk I2S directly.
That about wraps up the teardown and all the information required to make your own AIY Kit. The KiCAD schematic files are available for download from GitHub however I leave you with the fun part which is the layout and routing.
Here is some food for thought. Some parts can be omitted and the size of the hat can be shrunk down to the Pi Zero pHat.
For simplicity reasons, I am using the preconfigured OS image from the Google AIY page. It is a tad short of 900MB and can be downloaded directly from Goolge (huge file).
You probably noticed the small golden button next to the big green button in the image above and that is the first part of the exercise. It is a shutdown button and is added because I don’t want to SSH to the box every time I want to turn it off safely.
Get the button you want to use and add two wires with female headers. This bit works even without the Voice Hat so feel free to try it out. Next if you have a voice hat, add male headers to the I2C part. You may choose any other pins and it will still work. Connect the button to the SDA or GPIO 2 and boot the Pi 3 up.
Open up your favourite text editor and copy-paste the following code into it.
#!/bin/python
# Simple script for shutting down the raspberry Pi at the press of a button.
# by Inderpreet Singh
import RPi.GPIO as GPIO
import time
import os
# Use the Broadcom SOC Pin numbers
# Setup the Pin with Internal pullups enabled and PIN in reading mode.
GPIO.setmode(GPIO.BCM)
GPIO.setup(02, GPIO.IN, pull_up_down = GPIO.PUD_UP)
# Our function on what to do when the button is pressed
def Shutdown(channel):
os.system("sudo shutdown -h now")
# Add our function to execute when the button pressed event happens
GPIO.add_event_detect(02, GPIO.FALLING, callback = Shutdown, bouncetime = 2000)
# Now wait!
while 1:
time.sleep(1)
Save the files in your /home/pi folder as shutdown.py
In a terminal type the following commands
chmod +x shutdown.py python shutdown.py &
This should make the script run in the background. If you press the button, the Pi should shutdown immediately. You may choose to add a delay by uncommenting the sleep call in the example code. Alternatively, you may also change the GPIO by replacing the appropriate number in the python script.
Cool! Now we can shutdown by pressing a button.
The obvious alternative to the Google AIY Voice Hat is to use any USB Sound Cards that are available from a number of sources. The simplest way is to just plug one in and configure the software to use that instead of the Hat but when there two drivers installed, the python scripts need to be reconfigured to make everything seamless.
Once you plug in the soundcard, the first thing to do is check if it was recognized or not. In the terminal window, type in:
aplay - l
‘aplay’ is used by the scripts to speak out the replies so you should be able to see two sound devices. Note that the onboard sound has been disabled from within the config.txt (see device tree reference) and can be enabled if you plan to use a USB microphone instead of the sound card. The windows output should look like the image below.
I would like to set the USB sound card as the default audio, and for that we need to modify the /etc/asound.conf .
sudo nano /etc/asound.conf
Delete the existing content and replace it with text as shown below. Though this sets the default input and output device to the USB device, there is one more step to make things work. (To exit nano, use Ctrl+x, y, return)
Next we edit to audio.py file that handles all the audio playing and recording functionality. For that, open up the file in your favourite text editor; mine is nano:
sudo nano /home/pi/voice-recognizer-raspi/src/audio.py
Scroll down to the part that says ‘arecord’ which is in the __init__ function. Apparently there is a dedicated process that keeps the recorder running as I will show in the video. For now, we want to edit the arguments so that it uses the USB Card to capture audio instead of the original Voice Hat. A simple modification to use ‘-D’, ‘sysdefault:CARD=1’ should suffice as shown in the image below.
A similar change is require for the aplay function a little further in the code.
With that, the hack is complete! Double click the ‘test_audio.py’ to check if audio works. We are missing just one part of the puzzle though — the ‘listen’ button! So simply wire a push button between GPIO23 and the adjacent ground pin and then run ‘src/main.py’ to start playing with a DIY Google AIY.
A small video demo of the proposed hack with a USB sound card, external speaker and a cheap microphone.
The 3D printed enclosure is designed in Fusion360 and the STL files are part of the GitHub repository. You can use the same enclosure for a number of projects since there are standoffs for the Raspberry Pi and the ports are brought out for convenience. There is a lot of space inside to add hats and additional circuits.
I made the enclosure split from the middle so that it becomes easy to access the GPIOs. The whole thing will press fit including the top cap which has holes for three buttons. I though it would make sense to have smaller buttons since the result is expected to be tougher than cardboard. There is ample space for the speaker should you choose to include one that is slightly different.
I have not had a chance to print one out and will update this page once there is any progress in the topic. Here is the render of the design.
Google has already had their APIs open to the public, but the preconfigured Raspbian image will help a lot of people to get started. I have tried to layout the basics of the sound card as well as give out the plans for an equivalent card if you want to make one. For others the option to use an external sound card is explained and demonstrated and I hope it inspires people to really get into such projects. The world needs more AIY and here is your chance to get started, so what are you waiting for? Get hacking.
Filed under: Featured, google hacks, Raspberry Pi, Skills
The content below is taken from the original (NVIDIA ‘Max-Q’ gaming laptops are ultrabooks with GTX1080 power), to continue reading please visit the site. Remember to respect the Author & Copyright.
Based on NVIDIA’s 2017 Computex announcements, PC gamers won’t have to choose between bulky gaming laptops and desktop-level processing power for much longer. A new design called "Max-Q" is arriving in new laptops that it claims are both 3x thinner and 3x more powerful than their predecessors — think 18mm thick, 5 pounds and with the power of NVIDIA’s GTX1080 inside. Plus, there’s "WhisperMode," which can pace the game’s framerate to keep the laptop cool and quiet during a plugged-in gaming session.
Whenever the new laptops arrive, they should well outpace current options like Razer’s GTX1060-powered 4K Blade. There aren’t specific benchmarks listed, but a graph on the official website claims an average 1.8x performance increase over GTX1060 when running "AAA" titles at 4K. We’ll probably find out more about how the tech works soon, but NVIDIA says that they’re not only engineered to be thin and light across the "chip, drivers, thermal and electrical components," but that its software optimizes settings and the workload across CPU/GPU to regulate power and heat.
Source: NVIDIA Blog
The content below is taken from the original (Report: One-Quarter of Firms Won’t Meet GDPR Deadline), to continue reading please visit the site. Remember to respect the Author & Copyright.
The content below is taken from the original (Raspberry Pi is merging with a coding foundation), to continue reading please visit the site. Remember to respect the Author & Copyright.
Raspberry Pi’s credit card-sized computers have helped kickstart a coding revolution. Thanks to their low cost, major companies like Google and VMWare have distributed thousands of the DIY boards to children all over the world in the hope that it’ll inspire the next generation of computer scientists.
The Raspberry Pi Foundation routinely works with educational partners to get its computers in the right hands, and its latest announcement is set to boost that outreach even more. Today, the foundation confirmed that it is to merge with CoderDojo to form what it believes will be the biggest code-promoting organization on the planet.
CoderDojo, if you’re not aware, is a Dublin-based organization that focuses on getting young people coding. It facilitates the creation of volunteer-run programming clubs for youngsters aged between 7 to 17. The organization says that there are more than 1,250 CoderDojos in 69 countries, which serve more than 35,000 children and teenagers.
While the Raspberry Pi Foundation is best known for its cheap computing boards, it also has a vocal and passionate community. It offers resources to help support educators who want to teach coding and also runs its Code Club network of programming clubs for children aged between 9 and 13 (which are attended by over 150,000 kids a week). Code Club wasn’t its own creation, though — the Foundation merged with the eponymous organization back in 2015.
Looking at numbers alone, it’s easy to see why Raspberry Pi and CoderDojo are a good fit. Plus, it’s something the hardware maker has done successfully in the past. While their programming clubs may slightly differ, both organizations agree there is "a need and room for both."
Raspberry Pi Foundation CEO Eben Upton recently said that the organization would move away from major product launches and focus more on software, as well as "doubling down" on its charitable work. Today’s announcement suggests that dream is becoming a reality.
"Raspberry Pi will work closely with CoderDojo to advance our shared goals, pooling our resources and expertise to get more adult volunteers and young people involved in the movement," said the Raspberry Pi Foundation a statement. "Our combined scale will allow us to invest more in the infrastructure and systems that underpin our work, and to offer a wider range of products and services to our communities."
The content below is taken from the original (Cray puts its supercomputer in the cloud), to continue reading please visit the site. Remember to respect the Author & Copyright.
Cray Research is now offering its Urika-GX supercomputer as a cloud computing service, targeted at life-sciences customers looking for compute cycles to solve some heavy problems. This offering, done with cloud infrastructure provider Markley, makes Cray one of the last high-performance computing providers to give cloud computing a try.
But few companies actually need it.
[ A developer’s guide: Get started with serverless computing. | Microsoft Azure Functions locks in on serverless computing. | Build ’em now! 5 uses for serverless frameworks. ]
Most enterprise-based R&D shops just need high-performance computing services from time to time, and they rarely need a specific platform such as the Urika-GX. And they can get the more generic high-performance computing services from Amazon Web Services or other modern cloud providers.
There surely are customers for the Urika-GX-as-a-service, but I suspect it’s a small, specialty market.
Supercomputers have always been out of reach for most businesses. That’s why they were made available through time-sharing in the pre-PC era, and why more recently companies would purchase a supercomputer jointly they would then share.
But most companies made do with general-purpose computing, such as mainframes in the 1980s and 1990s, client/server-style datacenters, in the 1990s through today, and increasingly the cloud in the last decade. The need for a specific Cray, IBM, Sunway, or Fujitsu supercomputer is thus very narrow.
High-performance computing (HPC) as a service is an umbrella term that includes supercomputing but is not restricted to such specialty computers. The distinction matters, because HPC is about the result, not the technology.
HPC in the cloud is a more practical approach for most companies, because you can mix and match the HPC service with traditional IaaS services, such as AWS’s S3 storage, EC2 compute, and hundreds of other services.
The cloud approach also makes high-performance computing available for both ongoing and occasional use, broadening the pool of companies that can benefit. Making the Urika-GX available in the same as-a-service approach will help life-sciences organizations that couldn’t afford to own a share of a supercomputer get that same benefit for their specialized needs. It’s good to see Cray join in that cloud approach for those who can benefit.
By the way, this is not the first time you could rent Cray time. Back in the day, I worked for Boeing Computer Service, a time-sharing and professional services company, and it provided a Cray XMP as a service though its time-sharing network. It even donated Cray time to the university I was attending. Although not a cloud service as defined today, it was close to the same concept as Cray’s new Urika-GX-as-a-service.
The content below is taken from the original (Windows Server 2016 Performance Tuning Tips), to continue reading please visit the site. Remember to respect the Author & Copyright.
Microsoft has released the official Windows Server 2016 Performance Tuning Guide. This is a comprehensive guide that provides a collection of technical articles with directions for IT professionals responsible for deploying, operating and tuning Windows Server 2016 across the most common server workloads.
The Windows Server Performance Tuning Guide is a critical piece of documentation produced by Microsoft to ensure that the engineers in the field (PFEs, CSS, and others) have the canonical information required to tune and optimize the OS.
It is important that the tuning changes are made by considering the hardware, the power budgets, the workload, and the performance goals of the server. The guide explains each setting and its potential effect to help engineers make an informed decision about its relevance to the system, workload, performance, and energy usage goals.
Microsoft has defined the Windows Server 2016 performance and tuning tips across three different tuning categories:
Let’s understand the importance of considering these tips
Selecting proper hardware is necessary to meet your expected performance and power goals. Hardware blockages often limit the effectiveness of software tuning. This section provides tips for hardware to ensure a good foundation for the role that a server will play.
The guide is very helpful for those who deploy roles like
The complete documentation on Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2016 can be found on docs.microsoft.com platform. For off-line usage, a PDF-version of the same is readily available for download here.