IT Managed Services Provider Resource Recommendation Update on 2023-02-22

Script

Convert archives to 7z.bat recursively converts all .rar and .zip files to the .7z format with highest compression. Allows you to specify which formats to convert and removes the original archive once the new version has been created. Explains, “I surprisingly couldn’t find a script for this anywhere, so I wrote one myself.”

Cheatsheet

Comprehensive Python Cheatsheet is exactly what the name would lead you to expect. This terrific resource is hot off the press from Jure Šorn and conveniently offered in a browser version (with dark theme option) and downloadable text file as well as a forkable option on GitHub.

Free Tool

WeKan is an open-source, self-hostable kanban board collaboration tool. Designed to keep projects and tasks organized—offering a visual overview of what’s what, to-do list, and planner.

Ralph is a powerful Asset Management, DCIM and CMDB system for data center and back office. Features include: tracking asset purchases and lifecycle, a flexible flow system for asset lifecycle, data center and back office support and built-in dc visualization. Appreciates that it “also includes things like rack management.”

HWiNFO is a complete hardware analysis and monitoring solution for Microsoft OSes (DOS, Windows 95 – Windows 11, WinPE) that supports a wide variety of platforms (i8086 – Xeon Platinum).

SikuliX can automate anything that appears on the screen of your desktop computer. Uses image recognition to identify GUI components so you can interact with them automatically, which can be useful for repetitive tasks where you can’t easily get your hands on the code.

LeafDNS provides a fast yet comprehensive DNS test. Simply plug in your domain and you’ll have your results with a single click. An option “to validate DNS or see responding nameservers, MX, etc.”

Host.io is nice solution for easily uncovering new domains and the relationships between them. Get DNS details, scraped website content, outbound links, backlinks and other hosting details for any domain, all in one place. Free plan allows up to 1000 requests per month.

Dark Reader is a browser extension that enables Dark Mode on all of your favorite websites. Reduce eye strain and increase readability with a darker color scheme, and enjoy adjustable brightness, contrast and sepia. Can be enabled for all websites or only on particular domains, for maximum flexibility.

Scrutiny is a hard drive health dashboard and monitoring solution that merges manufacturer-provided SMART metrics with real-world failure rates to provide you with an accurate view of hard drive health. Its web UI dashboard focuses on critical metrics, and it automatically detects all connected hard drives and tracks metrics (including temperature) for historical trends—with customized thresholds using real-world failure rates.

Tutorial

Tech Field Day YouTube Channel features tons of informative presentations offered by IT innovators, experts, and vendors at these industry events.

Privacy: Disable cloud-based spell checker in Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge explains how to shut off the on-by-default advanced spell checker that automatically sends every user text in web applications to the cloud.

Image Manipulation, Image Resize, Image Combine and more with PowerShell offers a cool, new option for working with images in PowerShell. Allows you to create QR codes, BAR codes, charts and to edit images. Explains, “This PowerShell module tries to solve people’s most common needs when dealing with PowerShell images (aka pictures).”

Tip

Shares some advice for a job interview: “You want to get them talking, the more they talk about themselves or the job, the greater the rapport you build and more rose-tinted the interview will feel for them. The goal is for you to pick up on things they don’t want to outright state, like recently replacing a number of engineers (means employee churn is high), lots of troubleshooting (lots of late nights and poorly maintained/implemented infra), etc.”

A handy shortcut::

“Setting this registry key…

• HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced
• Type:Dword
• Name: LastActiveClick
• Value:1

… lets you rotate between open windows of the same program by just clicking on its taskbar icon, instead of having to hover and then select the instance you want to switch to.”

Podcast

Today in Tech features hosts, Juliet Beauchamp and Ken Mingus, interviewing assorted guest experts on leading-edge technology developments and current news. As a means of keeping up with the latest trends in network engineering.

Training Resource

Subnet Saturday is the place where Cisco-certified expert Keith Barker shares a wealth of networking knowledge in his 11-video series explaining OSPF, VLANs, trunking, routing, switching and other topics relevant to a CCNA 200-301 certification.

Website

The Register is a popular global enterprise technology news resource that covers the worlds of enterprise technology, business software and more. This online publication features the latest news and insights on hardware, software, AI and cloud services, as well as fascinating articles on other interesting tech.

SDxCentral is a resource for all the latest news, research, resources and insight on next-gen IT infrastructure. Coverage includes equal parts cloud, mobile and enterprise to help provide education and training as well as facilitating informed purchase decisions and business strategy.