John Croson's Blog Home

This Excel spreadsheet takes text from Refund List reports in Misys PM (AIX Version) and generates a nicely formatted check register. You can't see it, because it's hidden behind the "form". After the import of the data, it is revealed. This simply doesn't do one sheet, and "that's all you get". It will allow you to save your results, and come back to a report later and import it, adding to the bottom of this spreadsheet. It "knows" what cell was last used, and jumps to the next available row. One of my co-workers needed this to track Refunds and compare our numbers to the actual bank account balances....this helped keep him sane. I'd show you the source text, except it's full of PHI (Protected Health Information), protected by HIPPA. Well, I've modified a sample of the text that gets pulled in to this spreadsheet so PHI is not revealed. Suffice to say, it's messy, no common delimiters, and unusable unless you intend on...

I had a client when I worked for techWorks that is an industrial bakery. Mmmmm, the smell of butter spindles still makes my mouth water....wait, I digress. Again. They had purchased a disposal system that would weigh and dump their bad batches of goods, or poor mixes, etc. While it conformed to EPA standards, they also needed and wanted a method of determining what production line the waste came from, when it was dumped, what shift generated it, etc. I found a good example of PLC data extraction through DDE and Excel riding on RSLinxs' back for communication, so hacked up what Chris Elston originally wrote. This version keeps backups of itself on a daily basis, grabs PLC data upon each dump and updates the spreadsheet automagically. Here is my hacked up version of a very good example provided by Chris Elston. Feel free to download it and view the VBA. Read this doc on Scribd: ENDRES LOG ACTIVE TYPE READ DATA ROOM LINE RESULT OF WEIGHT DATE/TIME

Back in 2004, we were looking for a cheap way of providing remote desktop support to our customers. This would serve a few purposes: Reducing or eliminating trip charges to the customers. Providing instant support to our customers. Reducing the cost to my employer who was paying us mileage. Using a ShuttleBox as a server, I set about installing FreeBSD and configuring vncserver to run in a sort of Terminal Services mode. I used FVWM as the windows manager, since it is lightweight and simple to modify. Many projects use this for kiosks and the like because of it's ease of configuration. I set up a fvwm2rc file that would be placed in /etc/skel/.fvwm2rc so that when each user account was set up, it would already be setup for use. # this is a bare bones sample .fvwm2rc/system.fvwm2rc file for fvwm. # It should be customized before install. See other sample .fvwm2rc files # for hints, as well as pointers from the various links on the official # fvwm web page (see the FAQ). EdgeR...

Late 2005 I was working for a consulting company in the Milwaukee area. In an attempt to continue to move from a break-fix environment to a more proactive, managed IT approach, I was asked to develop a security audit methodology, which we would use in conjunction with our "taste-test" approach to new customers. A taste-test was really nothing more than an engineer and a salesman showing a potential client how smart we were, how messed up their environment was, and how we could help them. We decided to use the Security Audit as another layer to enhance what we had to offer. Here is an outline of the methodology I used, which was borrowed in large part from the SANS institute, along with a sample statement of work that was presented to my now employer. Read this doc on Scribd: Security Audit Methodology Security Audits A security audit will use best practice methods to discover, assess, test, and finally, suggest modifications to existing security infrastruc...

I just spent the last few days troubleshooting a Symantec Endpoint Protection migration from Symantec Antivirus Corporate Edition v10.x. What an effort. Much like the last time I upgraded a client from 9 to 10. They conviently forgot to include "May bring your older, underpowered workstations to their KNEES." in the product description. That client had about 25 workstations that were old HP workstations, runnning Windows 2000 on 256kb RAM and 500mHz CPU's. Once they started up, the "Startup Scan" would bring the machine to a crawl, and only perform well when it completed, which for those old things was quite a while. Nice of them to release a registry hack to disable that...then they release a config option in the next patch...NICE. Also forced the client to bump all the workstations RAM to 512. Nice for my billable hours, but not for their non-profit wallet. This time the environment is much different, and I "own" it. That is to say, I'm back to...

I've been working quite hard at my new job at Integrated Healthcare Business Solutions . Just a small list of what I've been doing in that time: Migrate Windows 2000 Domain to 2k3, which required: New Server and SAN setup. Migrate Aquarius Document Imaging IIS application and SQL databases to new server. Migrate Data to new server. Heavily modify GPO's for new environment. Deploy WSUS for new environment. Set up Terminal Services on old server (complete wipe of 2k and new build of 2k3) This box also does AV (SEPM), Backups (SBE) and supplies us with FlexWiki Lots more I'm sure I've forgotten by now... Deploy 2k DC as backup auth server which also serves as: GFI FaxMaker 12 Fax Server IAS Server (for our ASA 5510) FireFTP Server Deploy a Linux server based on the Debian disto: Hyperic - server, application and network monitoring/metric tool Local Postfix SMTP server (Utility mail for GFI, etc.) Ntop services Intranet web Custom compliance reporting (read:whistleblowe...

This past semester I had to write a paper for my Technical Reporting class that dealt with communicating technical topics to non-technical persons. This was my attempt. Read this doc on Scribd: Final Guide The Smoke and Mirrors of Server Upgrades Prepared by John Croson Contents Introduction ...........................................................................2 Environment Evaluation .......................................................2 Hardware ...................................................................2 Software ....................................................................3 Server Services ..........................................................3 Operating System and Hardware Selection ..........................4 Server Editions ..........................................................4 Server Licensing .......................................................4 Hardware Considerations ..........................................5 Server Sele...