Here’s another one I just started:

SecondBrain ChadGo

I’ve intergrated Delicious, Digg, Faves, GoogleReader, StumbleUpon and Twitter into this account. I’m new to this one, so I don’t have much of an opinion on it yet, other than the fact that I like all the different sites you can integrate with.

Just signed up for Twitter yesterday. If you’re interested in following or seeing what I’m up to here’s the link:

http://twitter.com/ChadUCM

Announced today at the Google Factory Tour is Google’s new product, Google Health. Search medical issues and store you medical history online. Very interesting service/product, please take a moment to look it over. Finally a service that allows you to bring all your medical information to one location including doctor visit information, lab results and prescriptions.

So you have decided to buy and install your first dedicated server. Many small businesses setup a file and print server, while others setup a web server, or an email server. That’s OK, since setting up any server involves many of the same configuration steps.

Initially, the setup is just like setting up a personal PC: Unpack everything, compare the shipping list to the box contents, connect the keyboard, mouse, and network cable, and plug in the power. But first you must consider the location of the server. Best is a lower traffic location such as a dedicated server room or wiring closet. Don’t forget about physical security- if someone can just pick up your server and walk away then all the OS, network, and application security you setup will mean nothing.

A server environment needs to not only be safe, but should also be controlled for temp and humidity. You will need to make sure the heat from your server can be dispersed. Additionally, if your server is in a location you may not visit often, or there’s any risk from the environment, you should think about using a physical monitoring device. The APC Netbotz 420 or the AVtech Room Alert 11 E both track temp, humidity, motion, flooding, airflow, and more, and can issue alerts when they are needed.

Nowadays many servers have dual power supplies. It is best if you can plug each power supply into a different UPS and plug those UPSs into two separate circuits. This way only one power supply will go offline if you lose a circuit.

If your server’s operating system has been preinstalled this will save you time. If not, insert the DVD or CD into the drive and turn the server on. Here are some configuration guidelines for your new operating system:

Install Only Options You Plan to Use. If this is only a straight print and file server, you do not need to install Web server or email server software. In fact, it is best not to. There are a couple of reasons for this. The first is that the extra software contain extra security vulnerabilities, so if it’s not installed you don’t have to worry about them. The second reason is the extra software takes up drive space and can waste CPU and memory resources.

Use a Strong Root or Administrator Password. Your password contains the keys to your server. A strong password will not contain words from the dictionary, be seven or more characters long, and contain a combination of letters, numbers, and symbols. For help generating a strong password, try a website like www.strongpasswordgenerator.com, which will help you do this for free.

Create Usernames That Are Understandable. Some users want to get cute and use names like SkunkyBuddy, but how is that going to help you manage the server? It is best to decide on standard conventions, such as first name.last initial, for example, and stick to that. This is a business environment, not private email. Make sure to create usernames in advance and assign proper privileges to give users access only to the directories they need. Also make users change their password when they first login and periodically thereafter.

Have a Backup Process in Place. Once the server comes online, everyone is going to start storing files to it, which is what you want right? But the last thing you want to do is put all that data storage into a single point of failure, and then not back it up regularly. It’s best not to wait for a server hard drive to fail, or for data to go missing- get a backup system in place and running. To check out different backup options, see PC Mag or some other resource for more tips.

Put in Place a Network Security Policy That Protects The Server. If this is an internal server that does not have to be used externally, then configure your firewall to block all traffic incoming that does not originate from a server session. The server will need to get out for downloading patches. If this is a single departmental server, then block access from outside the department. This can be done using firewall rules, or by setting up a Virtual LAN which creates a network that uses the same infrastructure as everyone else but a separate network address.

Setup Server Monitoring. Many servers already come with utilities for monitoring. Check on system resources such as memory, CPU, and hard drive use to make sure the server is capable of doing its job. If you do not have monitoring in place, then applications can start to crash as the unit gets used more. If this happens, first try adding more server RAM. Monitoring will also give you a heads up if the server goes down. Most monitoring programs or consoles have the ability to send an alert if the server happens to go down.

Don’t Forget Security Software. You are already running software firewalls, anti-malware, and intrusion-prevention systems on your workstations, so why not on your new server too?

Something that I’ve been having trouble with recently is I’m running out of room on my hard drives. Storage didn’t use to be such a problem. However, my addiction to bit torrents have gotten me into storage trouble.

I find myself saving larger video files and it’s constantly eating up my free space. So I have to make some decisions on what to keep and what to delete. You would think that 750gb would be enough for me. But no… I’m deleting files and cleaning up my drives almost on a weekly basis. And of course, fragmenting those drives at the same time.

Here are some of the things I’m doing to keep/consolidate/delete my data:

1. The Big Purge. I hate to do it. I agonize over what I must through out. But in the end, I’m deleting lots of content.

2. Data Shuffle. Here’s where I have to move those larger files I MUST keep to new drives, partitions or other computers. I hate doing this. Normally I’m very organized. Raid Arrays broken out into partitions that are designated for data types. Space constraints force me to mix my files, and it drives me crazy!

3. Forced Defrag. All this data movement constantly fragments my drives forcing me to defrag on a weekly basis.

I know the solution here. It’s time to migrate all my data to a NAS drive, but I’m just too cheap to do it. I’ll be on the lookout for an inexpensive 1TB solution with a simple setup. Hopefully something will catch my eye soon.