As the title of this site states, it is a real battle to keep up with the technology and an even bigger challenge to have a life along with that effort.  On a fairly regular basis now I realize this when a standard feature of a widely available tool or technology is virtually unknown and therefore unused.  I am pretty sure that queries in Active Directory falls into this catagory.

In Active Directory Users and Computers you can create custom queries through the MMC that can help you track down security problems that are very work intensive to do manually.  In the Common Quesries dialog you can even check a box to search for Non expiring passwords and disabled accounts.  Disabled accounts aren't very interesting since the UI gives you that list in a browsable AD, but accounts set to bypass the password expiration rules are a perfect way for an outgoing administrator to create and preserve a backdoor.

Check it out, who knows what else you might find in there!

Carl Franklin has done it again by teaming up with Scott Hanselman to bring us the podcast called HanselMinutes.  HanselMinutes is a deep technology podcast that I find very compelling as well as informative.  The combination of personalities (both of whom I am very happy to know well) is just easy to listen to.  I learned more than I expected in just the first show.

I often listen to Carl's other shows including .Net Rocks, but I will be adding this to my Outlook schedule as new editions come out.

Mark Russinovich has posted another excellent article on Spyware, this time pointing out the anti-spyware program as spyware strategem.

If you hoped that Spyware would just go out of fashion sometime this year, you are deluded.  The advent of better Rootkits, bogus anti-spyware programs (like the ones Mark points to) and the underlying profit makes this the cocaine of the Internet.  The problem is that all the victims are truly innocent in this case.

I want to thank my buddy Dan Krhla (DanK) for pointing it out for me.  He is a very good source of what is good on the Internet.

I was asked by Sys-Con to make my predictions for 2006 and while I am loath to do this kind of thing, I did venture some.  We will see whether they turn out correct or not in about 12 months.

My old friend and mentor, Bruce Backa is finally blogging and this is a MUST SEE!  If you want to learn lessons of business and technology the hard way then by all means ignore this, otherwise put this on your RSS reader and don't miss a post.  I work with Bruce and I still plan to read his posts religiously.