Getting spam from Gmail

Today I received a phishing email from an account in Google.

What is sad is that Google wants to protect its clients so badly that there is no trace of the client's IP on the email headers. All you see is the Google's IP.

This, imho, is not right. I want to see the sender, if the sender is so concerned about his/her IP being exposed, he/she sure will know enough to hide it. This is not Google's job...

You certainly don't want to receive unsigned letters...
Yes, my anti-spam filter caught the message, but I want to see who sent it.

Here's Google's disclaimer:

User IP addresses

Protecting our users' privacy is something we take very seriously. Personal information, including someone's exact location, can be gathered from someone's IP address, so Gmail doesn't reveal this information in outgoing mail headers. This prevents recipients from being able to track our users, or uncover what may be potentially sensitive personal information.

Don't worry -- we aren't enabling spammers to abuse the system by not revealing IP addresses. Gmail uses many innovative spam filtering mechanisms to ensure that spammers have a difficult time sending bulk emails that arrive in users inboxes.

What happens when their innovative system fails?

Yes, I filled out the form to report the spam, but I got the Hollywood answer, don't call us, we'll call you...

Sure...

On which AD group are you?

On Windows based enterprise with Active Directory it is very usual to use AD groups to reinforce access lists/authentication within enterprise applications/services/databases and mashups.

If you're lost at why you cannot access some application to take a look at, and that application uses integrated security, you're better off knowing which AD group your username is associated with...

On the OS command prompt type in this handy command:

NET USER "username" /DOMAIN


where "username" should be replaced with your windows login.

Handy links if you like to compare

VB.NET and C# Comparison

Java (J2SE 5.0) and C# Comparison

C# vs Ruby Smackdown!

log4net vs EL 1.0

SQL Server 2000 vs Oracle 9i

A Comparison of PL/SQL and Transact SQL

and last but not least:

Comparison of SOA Suites

Note there is an ESB implementation from P&P for BizTalk 2006 R2 that sort of leverage the missing functionality in the product: ESB Guidance for BizTalk Server 2006 R2

Ok, there's nothing new here, just a personal cheat sheet :-p

Tips and tricks for applying SQL Server 2005 hotfixes

Tips and tricks:

• You can install any hotfix in silent mode passing the parameter /quiet to the executable in the command prompt or in a batch file. This is extremely helpful if you want to push the hotfix installation with a third party tool and without the wizard interface
  
• The /? parameter will give you the rest of the options for installing the hotfix. A very useful option is /allinstances
• You might wonder why would you like to run any hotfix unsupervised, it might not make sense on a stand alone server but it makes sense when you have a few dozen of remote subscribers and/or you deploy SQLE as part of a SmartClient application. Your batch script can provide you with the installation log afterwards.
• You cannot rollback a hotfix or a SQL Server Service Pack. The only option is to reinstall the SQL Server instance. Plan your testing very carefully...
• If you have a virtual drive on the box where you're applying the hotfix beware that it will try to unzip its files in it. If that virtual drive is read only or used for another purposes you might have troubles. To determine if there is a virtual drive on your box run the command subst. You can always delete the virtual drive apply the hotfix (it will unzip on c: or the drive where the windows installation is, as expected) and put back the virtual drive after the hotfix is applied.

Hope this helps and happy patching!