SysAdmin Valley

Do you have multiple computers? Maybe one at work and one at home, or maybe you have two at work. Have you ever said I would love to have a way to keep my documents on multiple computers at the same time and not have to worry about copying the files back and forth. Or maybe you’re just looking for a simple way to backup your files in case of emergencies. Well, you should check out DropBox.

DropBox is a new way to manage your files. First you create an account one their website, then you install a piece of software on all your computers. Then when you add a file into your DropBox on one of your computers, immediately all your other computers download the new file. If you make a change to that document on any of the computers, all the others immediately pickup the change. No more copying your documents to CD/DVD/USB and then over to your other computer. Now all your documents are synchronized immediately.

Here’s another benefit.  If you have multiple computers that have different operating systems, this doesn’t matter.  You can automatically synchronize files between Windows, Mac and Linux too.

Another great feature of DropBox, have you ever accidentally deleted or changed a file and wished that you had a backup copy of it. Well now you do. Now you can recover deleted files or get back previous versions of your documents.

To get started, just go to DropBox and click Download DropBox.

No it’s not Linux related, but it’s something I came across in my job today. I needed to be able to use xp_cmdshell to have SQL Server execute a dos command, but that command is turned off by default (for security reasons).

Open up Query Browser or MS SQL Server Management Studio and log in as SA or another privledged user. Open a new query. Run

sp_configure

Then scroll all the way to the bottom, if xp_cmdshell is there, then skip these 2 steps, otherwise run

sp_configure show_advanced_options, 1
reconfigure with override

Now run the following commands

exec sp_configure xp_cmdshell, 1
reconfigure with override

Now you can use xp_cmdshell in all your scripts