GoDaddy Email Fun

What do you think of when you hear someone mention GoDaddy? If “Danica Patrick” was your response, then this might not be the article for you. Anyway, pretty soon what you, and everyone, are going to think of is spam. Or, more accurately, not spam. Let me explain.

Some time back, GoDaddy implemented a change in the way their spam filter works, so that anyone who has email hosted by GoDaddy will not receive emails that contain a URL that is traced to an IP address listed on the Spamhaus PBL (for Spamhaus own description of what there PBL is click here). What does that mean? It means that if you have a website, like mycompany.com for instance, and it is hosted by somewebhost.com, and the IP address of the server that it is hosted on by somewebhost.com is listed on the Spamhaus PBL, then as an employee of My Company you send an email containing the URL of your own company’s website in your signature, then nobody with email hosted by GoDaddy is going to get your mail. In this scenario, the fact that your email is not being originated from the somewebhost.com IP address is not factored into the logic of the GoDaddy Spam filtering process. Another example is if you are sending an email with a link to espn.com to a friend whose email is hosted by GoDaddy, he may not get the email. You may have that email bounced back with the following bounce message:

Sorry, your message from to could not be delivered. The specific error is:
554 The message was rejected because it contains prohibited virus or spam content
This is a permanent error, and the message will not be retried any further.

What? Are you serious? Another example would be if you wanted send your friend who has email hosted by GoDaddy a link to this article so that they can be informed about all the email that they have no idea they are not receiving because of the “spam” filter. Well, they may not get it. If you have your company’s website listed anywhere in your email, it may not reach anyone whose email is hosted by GoDaddy.

The way this is happening is that when an email is sent to someone who hosts their email on a GoDaddy server, GoDaddy is checking the email for viruses and spam content and a part of that process is that it will scan for any URL contained in the email and then check it against the Spamhaus PBL. This is not a logical way to use the Spamhaus PBL. If GoDaddy was checking the IP address of the server that sent the email that would be one thing. That is a legitimate way to block spam. But just because a URL is in an email does not mean that the email is coming from the IP address associated with that URL. The two are not related at all.

So the question is, why are they doing this? It is analogous to a cell phone provider scanning your text messages, and if you mention another cell phone provider in a text, they drop it so that it’s never received. GoDaddy has the ability to classify it as “spam filtering” but the reality is they are blocking completely legitimate emails from being received. Lots, and lots of them. They are aware of what they are doing, and as fare as we are aware, are not making any attempt to fix the problem.

The solution is obvious. If you are using GoDaddy as your host…stop it. Have someone else host your email. Someone like ProVision IT.

Danica Patrick needs to concentrate on racing anyway.

G1 Exchange/Outlook Integration

My dad bought a TMobile G1 phone (the new Google Android phone). When I arrived at his house for Thanksgiving dinner, he proposed a deal: he would hang the Christmas lights on my house if I would figure out how to integrate (he didn't use that word, of course) his phone with his Outlook contacts, calendar, and email. Thinking I was certainly getting the easier end of this deal, I quickly accepted. Well, before I explain how I did it, let me just say that he finished about 2 hours before I did.

Furthermore, there isn't really a way to sync contacts (yet). Anyway, here is what I did:

First, I had to configure the Exchange server at his office for IMAP (good thing I manage his office's network). Turned IMAP on, opened the port through the firewall, and added the account on the phone. Easy.

Second, I started searching a way to sync the calendar. After much searching and contemplating, I finally decided to create a GMail account for him and use Google's Calendar Sync. No, it won't sync in real-time if his laptop isn't on, but no big deal. Moving on...

Ok, here I searched and tried everything. Maybe Plaxo? No, it's only a one-way snyc to Gmail. Tried SynContact, which looked promissing, but it kept bombing on me and I never could get it work work. Ultimately, I had to manually create a CSV of his contacts from Outlook and import them into Gmail. Fortunately, Google has released their contacts API, so hopfully someone will write something soon. If you come across this article and have any better ideas, I'm all ears.

Josh Phillips
www.provisionit.com

Recover WPA Key from Keychain

Today I had the need to discover what the WPA key was that I had entered into my OSX keychain. Here were the steps:

1. Applications
2. Utilities
3. Keychain Access
4. System (top left; defaults to login)
5. Found the SSID of key that I was trying to recover and double-click
6. Select the Show Password checkbox
7. Enter your admin password.

Enjoy.

Josh Phillips
ProVisionIT™
www.provisionit.com

Installing SBS 2003 SP2

Last week I came across the first instance where I had to install SBS 2003 that had no Service Packs integrated, and had to get up to the latest Service Pack (SP2). All previous installs I've done, either SP1 is integrated in the SBS 2003 media, or SP1 had already been installed and I was just installing to the latest SP2. The question I had was, "Can I go straight to SP2, or do I have to first install SP1 and all the associated SBS specific SPs?"

Well, after some googling, I cam across the the SBS SP1 article here, but this doesn't address jumping from no SP to SP2.

So, since I couldn't find any articles that specifically answered my questions, I decided to give it a try in this order (after installing SBS 2003 and getting all the drivers installed):

1. Server 2003 SP1
2. Exchange SP2
3. Sharepoint Services SP3
4. XP SP2 Client Deployment
5. SBS 2003 SP1
6. Server 2003 SP2

Then, I followed the article here to address known issues with SBS 2003 and SP2, and I was up and running (basically just ran Microsoft Update to install post SP2 updates for SBS 2003).

Josh Phillips
ProVisionIT™
www.provisionit.com

Scheduling Defrag in XP

The Windows XP Disk Defragmenter tool is located in the Microsoft Management Console (MMC), thus making it impossible to schedule a regular defragmenting session using the Windows XP Task Scheduler. However, there is a command line version of this utility (Defrag.exe), that you can schedule. To do so, you must create a batch file that runs Defrag.exe along with the appropriate parameters, and then create a schedule to run this batch file.

To run Defrag from the batch file, use the following command line:

Defrag x: [/parameter]

In this command, x is the drive letter of the hard disk you want to defragment, and parameter is one of three optional settings that you can use to configure Defrag:
# /a: Analyzes the volume and displays a summary of the analysis report.
# /v: Displays the complete analysis and defragmentation reports. Can be used in combination with /a to display only the analysis report.
# /f: Forces defragmentation of the volume regardless of whether it needs to be defragmented.

Here's how to schedule the Disk Defragmenter:

1. Launch Notepad.
2. Type the appropriate Defrag command line.
3. Save the file as Defragger.bat.
4. Go to Start | All Programs | Accessories | System Tools | Scheduled Tasks.
5. Launch the Scheduled Task Wizard by double-clicking Add Scheduled Task.
6. Click Next and select Defragger.bat.
7. In the following three screens, select the Weekly or Monthly option, the time that you want to defragment your hard disk, and then type a username and password with Administrative privileges.
8. Click Finish.

Your computer will regularly run the defrag batch operation to help keep your Windows XP system running smoothly.


Josh Phillips
ProVisionIT™
www.provisionit.com

svchost.exe problem still lingering

By now you may have already heard of this issue. It's been a long standing problem with Windows XP, and has recently been complicated by the new Windows Live Messenger update. If you've noticed that your computer is very slow, and further that the processor seems to be pegged at 100% utilization, you may be a victim.

Scott Dunn at WindowsSecrets.com has a very informative article explains how you can troubleshoot your own system to determine if you have fallen prey to this issue. Click here for the article.


Josh Phillips
ProVisionIT™
www.provisionit.com

Vista not any more secure than XP

Well, CRN has done a test. Here is the bottom line:

-----START SNIP-----
Based on the Test Center's findings, businesses that migrate their Windows PCs from XP to Vista will get a slightly more secure OS. But as the Finjan reports showed, Vista's security remains wafer thin.

In the end, both the Vista and the XP test notebooks were almost equally damaged by viruses, trojans and other malware. And because most of the Web sites in the test were able to exploit Vista's weaknesses, Internet users are just about equally vulnerable with both OSes.
-----END SNIP-----

Click here for the full article.

Josh Phillips
ProVisionIT™
www.provisionit.com