After four frustrating days I have finally managed solve the “SBS 2003 SP2 Broadcom Event ID 1053 1054 RPC Error” problem !

OK basically we bought a new Dell server with Broadcom Extreme II NIC’s & SBS 2003 premium. Went through the basic setup & install all pretty straightforward, join the domain OK, DNS all working OK etc etc.

Install ISA all still working OK, the I install SP2 for SBS2003 & now client cannot join the domain & exisiting members are not getting group policy updates applied, in the event log they are getting ID 1053 & 1054 RPC server unavailable, after days of troubleshooting it appears the problem lied with the SP2 update & the broadcom NIC’s.

If you are getting this problem its due to RSS (Receive Side Scaling) on the NIC which you need to disable in the registry:

Use the steps in KB 927695 to disable Receive Side Scaling (RSS) by adding a DWORD registry key value for

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip
\Parameters\EnableRSS

and setting it to 0.

(Like the KB article says, usual caveats about having a backup, etc apply before making any registry changes).

You will also need to edit the advanced properties of your NIC to disable the RSS at driver level.

Once you have done both of these, reboot your server & the “SBS 2003 SP2 Broadcom Event ID 1053 1054 RPC Error” problem will be solved ! (well it was in my case)

@ECHO OFF
@Echo Micross Backup – Please make sure all users are logged out
Pause
SET CMD_PATH=C:\WINDOWS\system32\cmd.exe
%CMD_PATH% /c “xcopy M:\DATA\micross\** f:\”\/c/h/d/i/e/k/r/y
@ECHO Finished backups.
@PAUSE

Website owners have been warned to keep their registration up to date because lapsed domain names are being snapped up within 10 seconds of becoming available.

Re-registration, which has to be done every two years, can cost as little as £5 but you can pay ten times as much to get an address back – and sometimes far more. Names are regularly sold for more than £100,000, and some for as much as £1m.

Registrants are warned by email to renew, but many do inform registrars that their addresses have changed. There is a 60-day grace period after the expiry date, which the name will no longer work but can still be renewed; but then the name is up for grabs.

A report from Nominet, the not-for-profit company that controls .co.uk registration, says there is a growing secondary market in domain names with some organisations hoarding large numbers of them.

Ownership is often split across a number of companies, so figures are hard to come by, but analysis has shown that around 50 individuals or organisations each own more than 3,000 domain names – between them accounting for five per cent of the .co.uk total.

Trading in domain names is one of two ways “domain warehousers” make money. The other, often done in parallel, is to attach the name to a rudimentary site with commercial links that can earn click-through revenues. Such sites get hits either by clever search-engine optimisation of by having names close to those of legitimate sites.

Phil Kingsland, marketing director of Nominet, said most lapsed names stem from people who have either ceased trading or never really used the addresses.

And he points out that warehousers do not have a completely free rein.

“There is a grey area around using names that people or organisations believe they have a right to,” he said.

Nominet has a dispute resolution system for companies who feel their brand is being ‘abused’ in a web address, though cases do sometimes reach the courts.

H.323 uses a single fixed TCP port (1720) to start a call using the H.225 protocol (defined by H.323 spec) for call control. Once that protocol is complete, it then uses a dynamic TCP port for the H.245 protocol (also defined by the H.323 spec) for caps and channel control. Finally, it opens up 2 dynamic UDP ports for each type of media that was negotiated for the call (audio, video, far-end camera control). This first port carries the RTP protocol data (defined by the H.225 spec) and the second one carries the RTCP data (defined by the H.225 spec).

As per TCP/IP standards, ports are divided into 3 sections: 0-1023 (privileged ports), 1024-49151 (registered ports) and 49152-65535 (dynamic ports). H.323 specifies the dynamic ports in the dynamic range are open. Polycom has added a feature to its product line that allows the ports to use a fixed ports (instead of dynamic ports) so that it can more easily traverse a firewall. Only the system behind the firewall need to turn on this feature, since the firewall will prevent the audio/video/FECC from the outside to come in unless this is enabled.

You must forward the traffic to and from the video endpoint through the firewall using the specified port numbers and protocol types for outgoing calls. To receive incoming calls, your must forward traffic using the 1720 TCP port.

The following are details on port forwarding assignments for various products:

Polycom Port Forwarding

For Polycom products, the following ports must be opened in the firewall and assigned to the IP address of videoconferencing endpoints (e.g. a video endpoint could be at 192.168.0.109):
· Port 389 (TCP): For ILS registration
· Port 1503 (TCP): Microsoft NetMeeting T.120 data sharing
· Port 1718 (UDP): Gatekeeper discovery
· Port 1719 (UDP): Gatekeeper RAS (Must be bi-directional)
· Port 1720 (TCP) H.323 Call setup (Must be bi-directional)
· Port 1731 (TCP): Audio call control (Must be bi-directional)
· Ports 3230-3235 (TCP): Signaling and control for audio, call, video and data/FECC
· Ports 3230-3253 (UDP): Signaling and control for audio, call, video and data/FECC
· Port 3603 (TCP): ViaVideo Web interface (ViaVideo users only)

So, a typical H.323 ViewStation call would use 2 TCP fixed ports (3230-3231) and 6 UDP fixed ports (3230-3235).

Polycom GMS Ports:
· 21 (FTP) – Software Updates & Provisioning
· 80 (HTTP) – Pulling ViewStation/VS4000 info
· 3601 (Proprietary) (Data Traffic) – GAB data
· 3603 – TCP – Pulling ViaVideo info (since might be non-web server PC)
· 389 (LDAP and ILS)
· 1002 (ILS)

GMS listens for connections on ports 80 and 3601 (GAB) and in the future will listen on port 3604 (ViaVideo) and other potentials later.

H.323 Ports (IP based video conferencing):
· 80 – Static TCP – HTTP Interface (optional)
· 389 – Static TCP – ILS Registration (LDAP)
· 1503 – Static TCP – T.120
· 1718 – Static UDP – Gatekeeper discovery (Must be bidirectional)
· 1719 – Static UDP – Gatekeeper RAS (Must be bidirectional)
· 1720 – Static TCP – H.323 call setup (Must be bidirectional)
· 1731 – Static TCP – Audio Call Control (Must be bidirectional)
· 8080 – Static TCP – HTTP Server Push (optional)

· 1024-65535 Dynamic TCP H245
· 1024-65535 Dynamic UDP – RTP (Video data)
· 1024-65535 Dynamic UDP – RTP (Audio data)
· 1024-65535 Dynamic UDP RTCP (Control Information)

These ports can be set to “Fixed Ports” on Polycom systems, as opposed to dynamic.

Other Polycom ViewStation Ports:
· 21 (FTP) – Software Updates & GMS Provisioning
· 23 (Telnet) – For Diagnostics & API Control
· 3220 to 3225 – TCP Ports
· 3230 to 3247 – UDP Ports

Other ViaVideo Ports:
· 3604 (GMS Server Discovery) (Used by ViaVideo) (Broadcast)

Accord (Polycom Network Systems) Additional Ports:
· 5001 – Static TCP – MGC Manager (5003 can be chosen instead within MGC)
· 21 – Static TCP – FTP (retrieve MGC config. Files etc.)

RADVision Additional:
· 1820 – Gateway Signaling/Call Setup
· 2720 – MCU Signaling/Call Setup

d-Link DVC-1000 Ports:
The port 1720 (TCP) and the 6 ports 15328-15333 (TCP and UDP) need to be forwarded. d-Link indicates that NetMeeting and the H.323 cannot co-exist behind the same router simultaneously.

Typical ports that need to be opened on the firewall:

80 (TCP)
HTTP
Optional for external administration

389 (TCP)
LDAP
ILS registration

1503 (TCP)
T.120

1720 (TCP)
H.323
H.323 call setup

1731 (TCP)
H.323
H.323 audio call control

1024-65535 (UDP)
H.245, RTP, RTCP
Various audio/video controls

As the above list shows, opening the required ports can leave a number of large “holes” in the firewall. Polycom and Tandberg video conference units do give you the option to set a predetermined range instead of opening up the entire range of 1024-65535 (UDP). However, there is one caveat with this: Whatever port range is chosen, it must be set to exactly the same range on both units that are connecting. This can be a challenge especially when both devices are not managed by the same department or organization. Additionally, some devices will not work with the manual configuration of ports (especially if they are from different manufacturers). That being said, the recommended configuration is to open up the full port range (1-65535) for TCP and UDP.

– A typical consumer who misspells a popular URL has a 1 in-14 chance of landing at a typo-squatter site

– Children’s sites are heavily targeted: More than 60 of the most squatted sites are designed to appeal to the 18-and-under demographic, with squatters targeting domains like webkinz.com, clubpenquin.com and neopets.com

– Some typo-squatters take advantage of typing errors to expose children to pornography. In fact, 2.4 percent, or more than 46,000 of the typo-squatter sites tested, include some adult content, and some of those sites are squatters of children’s properties.

– The five most highly squatted categories are:

— Game sites (14% likelihood of being squatted) such as miniclip.com, runescape.com and minijuegos.com

— Airline sites (11.4% likelihood) such as ryanair.com, united.com, and lufthansa.com

— Mainstream media sites (10.8%) such as vh1.com, globo.com and qvc.com

— Dating sites (10.2%) such as plentyoffish.com, true.com and singlesnet.com

— Technology and Web 2.0-related sites (9.6%)

– Automated ad syndication services enable many typo-squatter sites to make money; in fact one search engine’s ads show up on 19.3% of all suspected typo-squatter sites in this study

– The five non-U.S. countries most likely to have popular sites squatted are: the United Kingdom (7.7%), Portugal (6.5%), Spain (5.9%), France (5.4%), and Italy (4.1%)

– The five non-U.S. countries least likely are: the Netherlands (1.5%), Israel (1.1%), Denmark (1.0%), Brazil (0.9%) and Finland (0.1%)

The study notes that typosquatting is not new. They say that the number of cybersquatting cases filed with the World Intellectual Property Organization’s arbitration system increased 20 percent in 2005 and another 25 percent in 2006.

To check out the entire list of findings of this study go here:
www.mcafee.com/typosquatters

By default, the firewall is disabled on SBS SP1 because the SBS uses the
Basic Firewall in RRAS to protect the LAN and the SBS itself. Also, since
SBS host many services, if you enable the Windows firewall on SBS, it will
result in many problems. When you enable the option, then a Windows
Firewall bounce box will occur which tell that you can not enable the
firewall.

If you are using SBS Premium, ISA server is used to protect the security
of your network.

ASAP Ventures, parent to leading car hire comparator Carrentals.co.uk, has purchased Recycle.co.uk for £150,000 – the highest amount ever paid for a .co.uk internet domain name.
The investment is the latest in a series of purchases for the group, which has also recently bought Fly.co.uk for £87,500, broadening its portfolio in the online market into areas as diverse as travel, shopping promotions, dating and recycling.

Commenting on the Recycle.co.uk acquisition Gareth Robinson, marketing director of ASAP Ventures, said, “The purchase of Recycle.co.uk underlines our commitment to growing the business and expanding into new markets. The success we have had with Carrentals.co.uk has been phenomenal, and we have the skills and technology to reflect this elsewhere.

“The investment in Recycle.co.uk may be the highest yet, but it is well founded. The online market is changing rapidly and domain names are key. In the US the market has already exploded, and while the UK operates under different regulations, the potential is vast.“

The £150,000 investment in Recycle.co.uk is the highest published figure paid for a .co.uk Internet domain name, breaking the last recorded value by £40,000, which was set by J Sainsbury plc when it purchased taste.co.uk for £110,000 in 1997.

ASAP Ventures’ travel operations include Carrentals.co.uk; travel comparison site asap.co.uk; and accommodation listings directory Self-Catering-Breaks.com, while the group launched Carrentals.de in Germany last month and plans to launch elsewhere in Europe and Australia over the next six months.

Expansion into non-travel services has been strengthened with the purchase of Recycle.co.uk, while additional brands include Promos.co.uk, Easyfindadate.com and wannabehere.com. The Group is set to develop its business activities further over the coming 12 months with a strengthened programme of development and acquisition.

Since launching Carrentals.co.uk in 2003, the ASAP Ventures group has grown to a sales revenue of over £8m in the last financial year, with this year on target to hit £12m. 2008/09 is targeted at £20million.

Nora Nanayakkara, UK operations director, Sedo, the company behind the auction of Recycle.co.uk, added: “We are seeing a growing interest in the purchase of co.uk Internet domain names in the secondary market. Over six million co.uk Internet domain names are already registered and there is a shortage of available quality names. This is driving the sale of high value generic names, such as recycle.co.uk.”

Figures from Sedo show that in the past year the total volume of co.uk Internet domain name sales in the secondary market has grown by 30% to over £1.5 million, with Sedo accounting for approximately 84% of co.uk transactions in 2006 (source – DNJournal).

If you have lost the password to unlock the server group on Symantec System Centre Version 7 – 9 (dont know about later versions) you can change it back to the default password by:

1) Go to the primary parent server of the affected group.

2) Search the registry for the value “ConsolePassword” and delete this value.

Now the password should be reset to the default one. Make a backup of the registry hive before doing this just to be safe.

You can work this out using the following basic formula:

Avg Basket Size x Avg Conversion rate = Avg Sales Per Hundred Clicks x Affiliate Commission = Avg Earnings Per Hundred Clicks

ie. Your merchant pays 10% commission & has an avg. basket of £50 & a 10% conversion rate.

This means for every 100 clicks you will earn £50, so if each click were to cost you 20p:

100 clicks x 20p = £20 in PPC charges

£50 comm – £20 PPC costs = £30 profit per 100 clicks.

Using the above formula you can roughly work out if the merchant is paying enough commission in comparison to the cost per click for that markets keywords .

Here is the script I use to backup our Vault 2008 server, I run this as a scheduled task batch file on our SBS 2003 server.

Note the -S switch to run the backup in silent mode so you dont get irritating ‘OK’ pop up windows etc. -VP is where you enter your password. Obviously just change the paths & username / password to match your Vault setup.

REM: Cycling the SQL server

NET STOP MSSQL$AUTODESKVAULT
NET START MSSQL$AUTODESKVAULT

::+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
:: Delete “B” and Cascade “A” backup subdirectories
::+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

RMDIR /Q /S “C:\Vault Backups\B”
MOVE /Y “C:\Vault Backups\A” “C:\Vault Backups\B”

::+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
:: Start the backup process
::+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

MKDIR “C:\Vault Backups\A\”
“C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Data Management Server 2008\ADMS Console\Connectivity.ADMSConsole.exe” -Obackup -B”C:\Vault Backups\A” -VUadministrator -VP -VAL -S

::+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
:: Defragment the Database
::+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

“C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Data Management Server 2008\ADMS Console\Connectivity.ADMSConsole.exe” -Odefragment -NVault -VUadministrator -VP -S

Who was their target audience?
What offer were they pushing?
Where was that offer being offered/pushed/displayed?
When was that offer being presented?
Why was it succesful?

Advertising, who advertises what in commercial breaks in between football matches, kids TV, chat shows etc ?

Are there already people doing this that are wildly successful?

Am I able to replicate their success? If not, why?

Am I spending time on something which I do not know whether it will make me money

Find an offer

Research demand for offer

Research supply for offer

Do keyword research

Write ad and get it up on Yahoo/MSN/Google

Test and track. If profitable, increase keyword list. Else, scrap and move on

Track keywords for profitability, adgroups for higher CTR%, and delete non-performing keywords and reword less CTR%

Repeat