Access administrative shares on Server 2008/Vista

Posted on August 19, 2008 by Alexandre Gauthier

Quick windows tip again, if you find yourself unable to access the administrative shares (\\machine\c$, tasks, etc) on a Windows Server 2008 or Vista computer with UAC enabled, using the credentials of a local administrator — don’t panic. This is actually intended.

Turns out local administrators cannot elevate their privileges over the network, with UAC enabled.

Note that this doesn’t affect users in the Domain Admins group!

Now, you could do the dumb “neowin poweruser” thing and turn UAC off, or you could change this particular behavior in the registry. Navigate to:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System

And add a new DWORD named LocalAccountTokenFilterPolicy with a value of 1, and then reboot. It all should work.

Again, users with Domain Admin privileges are unaffected.

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How to tether your iPhone, the unix way

Posted on August 4, 2008 by Alexandre Gauthier

So, there’s a lot noise on the internet in general about an iPhone application called NetShare, that allows you to sort-of use tethering with the iPhone — that is, use its sexy 3G connection from say, your laptop. Unfortunately, Apple seems to be pulling this application out of the App Store, then putting it back only to take it out again, probably while arguing over with AT&T about wheter or not this violates their TOS or the like.

I used to use tethering with my previous Motorola phones via bluetooth, my Treo, and the many blackberries I have owned, and found it was fairly practical to be almost guaranteed internet access from my laptop no matter where I actually am. This enabled me to support clients no matter when, even while in transit between two cities, on a bus.

So, all that NetShare software did was set-up an HTTP proxy on the iPhone. This immediately sprung a lightbulb over my head, as there’s another way to accomplish just that, without the application, provided your iPhone is jailbroken.

The idea is to use SSH, and just tunnel stuff through it. Simple and effective.

Continue reading →

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32 bits ISAPI filters on 64 bits IIS 7

Posted on July 30, 2008 by Alexandre Gauthier

Just a quick tip, in order to successfully run an ISAPI filter that is compiled for x86 32 bits windows on an x64 version of Windows Server 2008 or Vista, on IIS 7.0, some extra steps must be taken for it to work. I am no longer using the ISAPI filter that required this in production, having decided to can it and find an alternative, but I decided to document this here in case it is helpful to anyone.

So, for this to happen, after correctly adding your ISAPI Filter to your IIS site, enabling it, creating the virtual directory it requires if necessary, etc, you must create an Application Pool for it, or modify the default. You can do this by expanding your server in IIS Manager, and selecting Application Pools.

image

Once there, select the pool you want to modify, right click on it, and select “Advanced Settings“, and set “Enable 32-Bit Applications” to True. You might also want to select No Managed Code if that Pool is to be used exclusively by your ISAPI binary.

image

Also note that you can change a bunch of lovely settings there, such as processor affinity.

So, once this is done, your pool will be allowed to spawn a WOW64 environnement for the filter, and it will most likely run fine after that.

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New Watch

Posted on July 30, 2008 by Alexandre Gauthier

I got this bitching new watch a few days ago.

watch1 watch2 watch3

The pictures above don’t do justice to its beauty. It’s just gorgeous.
What I like, save the awesome steampunk or neo-victorian look, is that the watch is entirely mechanical, which only adds to its charm. And now, I can be hit with an EMP blast, and still tell the time! Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll just go back to pretending I’m a neo-victorian, and that this watch just came out of the matter compiler.

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This is my junk food

Posted on July 23, 2008 by Alexandre Gauthier

So, I came home late today, much like the rest of the week. Working on a rather intensive new website deployment, with tons of deadlines. I’m getting better with Glassfish/Sun Application Server, though.

So, you know, there are times where you’re just tired as fuck, worn out, and you don’t feel like cooking. At all. When these times come around, you eat junk. Or at least, toast.

Well, this is my junk food:

My Junk Food

Crisp iceberg lettuce with shredded shrimp and mayonnaise, avocado, palmtree hearts with a dash of balsamic vinegar, vegetable crispers with strong crackerbarrel cheese and pepper paté.

The sad thing is, I had plenty of junk available in the pantry, I just decided that this would be a quickly-done-meal.

I must be getting older.

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I’m weak

Posted on July 23, 2008 by Alexandre Gauthier

I really am. I got an iPhone 3G.

Mitigating factors are that the camera is really awesome, and also that I got root on it, voiding my warranty a mere fifteen minutes after unboxing it.

My hat, laptop and sad office space desk

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I don’t have my glasses

Posted on April 22, 2008 by Alexandre Gauthier

So, on the list of shit I find pretty aggravating in this world, not being able to showcase some technology I’m excited about to its full potential is fairly high up the list. You know what I’m talking about — you get a new video card, for instance. Now you can blaze through the new Half-Life 2 episode, pointing out to yourself how framerate has vastly improved, and how the game no longer stutters, how textures are crisper because you can now up the filter quality quite a bit.

You’re basically engaging into a form of post-purchase masturbation, where you sit in almost religious contemplation, envelopped in a smug sentiment of confidence in your purchase, and how much joy it has brought you.

You then obviously want to repeat the experience with a friend, who will confirm how right you were in your purchase, and perhaps be inspired to get one too, so you can fill countless hypothetical conversations with how much it rocks, over dinners or perhaps even funerals.

But there’s always this sceptical friend of yours who makes a weird face when you showcase the object of your affection to him, who brings his face closer to your giant cinema display as to physically show that he’s making an honest effort to understand what the fuck you’re on about. Continue reading →

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