MC+A

Earlier this week, a client asked me to investigate a spamming issue that they were concerned about the origination of the emails.  Upon first glance it appeared that the emails were coming from their email address.  After examining the message header, it was clear that it was not.  I foolishly sent an email out to demonstrate what was happening.  Unknowingly, I added myself to the list and inadvertingly sent a message to thousands of people.

This post is to help spread information about the cause for people affected by it.  Also, people facing other issues can uses the same techniques.

The Problem.

• Spam emails were being generated from and to info@worldswidedomains.com
• Replying to this address caused your name to be added to the list server and an email went out to everyone’s name who had previously been added to the list.
• Most people on the list were added manually without their knowing.

Resolution

FIRST

Find out who the the domain is registered to by going to: http://whois.domaintools.com/worldswidedomainname.com (you can replace the worldswidedomainname.com for other domains).  This produced the following information.

Registrant:
Alex Shafts
504 LEONARD AV
Las Vegas, NV 89106
US

Domain name: WORLDSWIDEDOMAINNAME.COM

Administrative Contact:
Shafts, Alex  
504 LEONARD AV
Las Vegas, NV 89106
US
702.5431469
Technical Contact:
Shafts, Alex  
504 LEONARD AV
Las Vegas, NV 89106
US
702.5431469

Registration Service Provider:
Ecommerce, Inc., 
800-861-9394
http://ecommerce.com
UNLIMITED Storage Space, 3 TERRABYTES of Monthly Transfer & up-to 16
domains, starting at $3.95!

LIFETIME FREE DOMAIN REGISTRATION + FREE FEATURES INCLUDED. ONLY AT
ECOMMERCE.COM

Registrar of Record: TUCOWS, INC.
Record last updated on 24-Oct-2008.
Record expires on 25-Oct-2009.
Record created on 25-Oct-2008.

Registrar Domain Name Help Center:
http://domainhelp.tucows.com

Domain servers in listed order:
NS16.IXWEBHOSTING.COM
NS15.IXWEBHOSTING.COM

Domain status: clientHold
clientTransferProhibited

clientUpdateProhibited

SECOND

Next I looked up the MX record.  The MX record is a type of domain record that tells people looking to send you an email where to send it.  On most computers there is a command called nslookup.  Open a command prompt and type nslookup.  Next type the ’set type=MX’ so that you’ll lookup the MX record.  then type in the domain you are looking for.

Based on this and the emails I received.  I contacted ixwebhosting.com.  They have assured me that the domain was suspended.

The question remains…who is “Shafts, Alex” and is this the mail address we should send to:

504 LEONARD AV

Las Vegas, NV 89106

US

702.5431469

View Larger Map

Last year we assisted our customer Legal Services of Northern California with our JumpStart service. It has been nearly a year and I am happy to see how much they’ve come along. They’ve recently launched a website showcasing their project.

Their Findability Project is the public face of a special technology search project undertaken by Legal Services of Northern California (LSNC), a legal services program assisting low-income clients in 23 counties in the upper third of California. Made possible by a grant from the LSC Technology Initiative Grant Program, the goal of the project is to implement a Google Enterprise Search Appliance as the principal building block of a modest but secure, well structured, fully web accessible knowledge-content system. If you have some time please read up on their initiative. If you are interested in how we can help you please contact us.

Many of our customers find it difficult to figure out which LDAP query to run in their Google Search Appliance (GSA) or Google Mini (Mini) LDAP setup wizard.  When configuring LDAP on the GSA, a common issue that the user may run into is finding the correct information for the “Distinguished Name” (DN) field.

Our solution to this problem is a handy command that can be executed on your server providing Active Directory.

In order to quickly find the DN, open a command prompt and enter the command “adsiedit.msc”.

After you execute this command navigate to the account in which you are seeking the distinguished name (This is typically your account).

Right-click on that account and select “properties”.

Then find the “Distinguished Name” category, double-click, and you will have the answer you seek.

Earlier this week, Google annouced their new browser Chrome.  Our clients have been asking us what impact this has on their enterprise and the reasons behind the new browser.

Scott McCloud drew up a explaination and its probably the best place to start investigating.  We’ll update more as we test out the tool (this blog entry is being written with Chrome).

We just found out that there is a new release for the Google Search Appliance.  It includes many of the rumored features that we’ve been hearing were in the works.  The short list is listed below.  I have yet to actually take a look on it, but we’ll be reach out to our customers to tell them the details as we are updated.

<copied from Google>

End User Features

Personalized Search Experience Allow administrators to adjust search results for different user groups, based on department or function.

Alerts Employees can subscribe to email alerts for topics and documents of interest, choosing an hourly, daily, or weekly schedule.

Spellchecker in Six New Languages French, Italian, German, Spanish, Portuguese, and Dutch.

Enterprise Content

Languages Restrict search results to any of 27 auto-detected languages including administrative functions in five new languages (Czech, English-UK, Portuguese-Portugal, Turkish, Vietnamese); contextual spell checking for all end users in Portuguese, French, Italian, German, Spanish, and Dutch; and query expansion for all end users in Dutch.

Security and Access Control

Kerberos Support Provide native support for Kerberos, enabling a silent authentication experience for end-users.

Metadata Biasing Administrators can bias results based on metadata (in addition to biasing based on source, URL or date).

Advanced Reporting View and export daily and hourly result sets, top queries, special feature usage, and more. Report for every query, including reports on which queries receive no clicks by a user and how often users are clicking on sponsored links in comparison to organic search results or OneBox modules.

Administration and Customization

Localized Administration Administer your Google Search Appliance around the globe in 27 different languages. Full administration is now supported in Basque, Catalan, Chinese (simplified), Chinese (traditional), Czech, Danish, Dutch, English (US), English (UK), Finnish, French, Galician, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese (Brazilian), Portuguese (Portugal), Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish, and Vietnamese.

In a recent Tech Target interview, MC+A’s president, Michael Cizmar, outlined his opinions on the growing popularity of cloud computing and how it will affect both IT solutions companies and enterprise end-users. 

 While a strong advocate for innovation, Michael believes that even in a “cloudy” world, there will still be a great need for solution companies who can add value by efficiently implementing new technologies across the enterprise.

According to Michael, those who prove their expertise by developing applications that make the cloud more efficient and productive, will continue to play a vital role in the technology world.  In addition, enterprise users win as talented developers are incented to showcase their abilities to an otherwise difficult to reach audience.   

As Michael notes, “If you have an application, and put it on the Google marketplace, you’re immediately exposed to 500,000 customers.”  With this type of opportunity for developers, and the resulting benefits to enterprise users, cloud computing - and innovative companies like MC+A - may be in the process of creating the perfect storm. 

Read the full interview here: 

http://channelmarker.blogs.techtarget.com/2008/06/12/the-impending-cloud/

Google Enterprise has released the long awaited 5.0.4 release.  Most notably in this release is support Microsoft Office 2007 documents and the connector manager auth prompt bug fix.

Existing customers can goto:

https://support.google.com/enterprise/doc/gsa/00/update_index_page.html

to download the new system and software versions.  I’ll updated this thread with any discoveries that we find in our upgrades.  Please write your findings as well.

Update:

We’ve attempted to update two GSAs.  The first last week went fine.  The one we attempted today twice had a checksum error….

Downloading URL http://support.google.com/enterprise/updates/XXXXXXX

Percent completed: 100%
MD5 Checksum = 74f78e89c09d4be143c3b1d5ca1a4fb7

** Unpacking downloaded file **

ERROR: Downloaded file is not properly signed or corrupted. Please try again one more time.

For Immediate Release

Today, MC+A announces that Michael Cizmar, president of MC+A, will be serving on the advisory board of Dieselpoint’s OpenPipeline.

Currently, search, text analytics and connector vendors find themselves constantly reengineering their software to integrate with closed, proprietary systems. OpenPipeline works out-of-the-box with Dieselpoint Search, but can be used with any search engine.

“Since 2002, we have been working with our clients to implement search technologies. We see a tremendous potential for our clients because OpenPipeline simplifies many of the complexities of the UIMA. We are very excited to be working with another great Chicago technology company like Dieselpoint”, said Michael Cizmar, President of MC+A.

Both broader and simpler than IBM’s UIMA (Unstructured Information Management Architecture), OpenPipeline provides a common architecture for connectors to data sources, file filters, text analyzers and modules to distribute documents across a network. It is fully functional out of the box and includes an installer, a job scheduler, file scanner and crawlers, doc filters, and point and click interface with drag and drop module installation.

Document processing can be centralized or parallelized as needed. The transport mechanism is simple, web-services XML over HTTP. Atom feeds are also possible.

The development philosophy behind OpenPipeline stresses simple, elegant design, and massive scalability. Minimal external dependencies and straightforward plug-in implementation ensure that the learning curve is low.

OpenPipeline Beta is available for free download via the Apache License 2.0. Current Advisory Board members include individuals from enterprise search, text analytics and connector firms and consultancies. More information can be found at http://www.openpipeline.org/.

MC+A is dedicated to solving business challenges by enabling organizations to derive maximum value from their business intelligence assets. With expertise in areas of portal development, management and architecture, and supporting technologies – MC+A builds applications, defines processes and leads implementations which help our clients leverage processes and information as a strategic business asset. More information can be found at: http://www.mcplusa.com/

Contact:
Jeff Gilleland
MC+A
773-239-7019 x333
Jeff.gilleland@mcplusa.com

Several weeks ago, we published a youtube video showing how you can use a Google Search Appliance along with your relational map based data to create a wonderful mash up.

How often users come to a web site and begin a search by click click clicking several drop downlists. Often I see these lists scroll past the bounds of the page. This combination allows you to decoup you database and your data architect from the user interface.

I am a user. I simply want to type in some information and get back highly relevant results. When you are displaying geolocations to the user, its very compelling to show them where these points are.

Recent we worked with our client on this exact technology. Its finally up and I think using the application on its own will speak volumns to what can be achieved.

Check out provider finder.

If you missed our recent webcasts, check them out on YouTube.

MC+A Webinar: Using GSA and Google Maps

MC+A Webinar : Using OneBox To Access Enterprise Data