5 Things you can do to make your android efficient...

Google android is becoming more and more popular these days.

Me and many of my friends have already started using android. I have seen some android users are experiencing lags while opening applications, menus etc.

Here is what I do to keep my android good and healthy :

1. Try Installing a Third Party Home Replacement application that uses least memory and CPU :

Home replacement application is a application is the thing what you see when you press home button on your android. Every Manufacturer including Samsung, LG, HTC etc. Have their own homes in their phones. You can install a Third Party Home Replacement Application that is lightweight. Most important thing is You have to use it without any customization. Some of home replacement apps are OpenHome, iHome, aHome, ADW Launcher etc. If you feel these applications are heavier than your original manufacturer Home Screen, then revert settings back to Home. GO Launcher, ADW Laucher are lightweight Home Screen Replacements if you configure them properly.

2. Analyze running processes and shut them down if necessary :


There are many processes running in background that consume RAM in your phone and may cause slow performance. You can view and stop running system services in Settings => Applications => Running Services.
I usually stop following services :
PlaybackService (From DI Radio)
File Expert
Yahoo Messenger

3.  Clear RAM with Task Manager :


Most probably you must be now using Android 2.2 Froyo.
Android 2.2 Froyo has a built in Task Manager application which help you in clearing RAM that kills background processes and frees up RAM.
WARNING! Check that you have no important work going on in the background before clearing memory.


4. Disable Live Wallpapers :


Live wallpapers obviously occupy GPU Memory. When your GPU is up, it starts consuming CPU Usage. This will surely slow down your phone. It also needs to keep itself loaded with textures in RAM so that when you switch to your home, it should show up quickly.


5. Use minimum required or no widgets :


Widgets are also battery and data consuming, depends upon which widget you are using. Background Data is good thing to keep your phone updated, depends on how frequently you use widgets. I keep following widgets off my screen, always :
Youtube (CPU Consuming on startup)
Facebook
Weather
Buddies Now(Samsung Phones)

Devoted to duty, sysadmin cartoon

Just saw a cartoon on web how sys admin is devoted to his work...

courtesy-yonitg.com

Be Careful with Group Policies....

Puff... I was in a great problem recently....

We have Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 deployment over here, which stopped working unexpectedly and started to throw, when trying to access it using URL, error which said:

Business Management Error

"You are attempting to create a user with a domain logon that does not exist."

Secondly I noticed, that some of users were having problems of Trust relationship with the domain. We have only one Domain Controller.

The Third thing I found was the error while updating Group Policies.

Whenever I used gpupdate /force to update policies on workstation I would get:

The processing of Group Policy failed because of lack of network connectivity to a domain controller. This may be a transient condition. A success message would be generated once the machine gets connected to the domain controller and Group Policy has succesfully processed. If you do not see a success message for several hours, then contact your administrator.

Another problem I came across was a user had his password expired and he was unable to change it.

All of this happened within one hour and I was on my knees to find the root of problem.

One thing I noticed was everything has something to do with the connectivity with Domain Controller.

So in order to find root cause of these, I temporarily disabled all links of Group Policies that would be applicable to the Domain Controller Server itself, somehow.

Then ran a gpupdate /force on DC itself. Bravo! It all started to work like charm. Then I checked those Group Policies I disabled, and found the problem.

The DC locked himself because the wrongly applied policy was in:

Computer Configuration=>Windows Settings=>Security Options=>User Rights Assignment

"Access this computer from network"

This policy will restrict access to that computer through network for only those users which are defined in it.

So be careful while configuring new Group Policies.

Blocking Google Talk and other sites using Group Policies.

One easy way to block access to users from visiting specific domains is to change the contents of hosts file.
In your AD Environment, you will not surely go to each computer to edit hosts file.
Here's what I did at mine:
1. First, copy your hosts file from C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\ to your Desktop.
2. Open file with notepad and add the domain names you want to block and loop them back to localhost. Following is mine example:


# Copyright (c) 1993-2009 Microsoft Corp.
#
# This is a sample HOSTS file used by Microsoft TCP/IP for Windows.
#
# This file contains the mappings of IP addresses to host names. Each
# entry should be kept on an individual line. The IP address should
# be placed in the first column followed by the corresponding host name.
# The IP address and the host name should be separated by at least one
# space.
#
# Additionally, comments (such as these) may be inserted on individual
# lines or following the machine name denoted by a '#' symbol.
#
# For example:
#
#      102.54.94.97     rhino.acme.com          # source server
#       38.25.63.10     x.acme.com              # x client host
# localhost name resolution is handled within DNS itself.
# 127.0.0.1       localhost
# ::1             localhost
127.0.0.1 talk.google.com
127.0.0.1 talkx.l.google.com
127.0.0.1 chatenabled.mail.google.com
127.0.0.1 talkgadget.google.com


3. Save a copy of the file on a share that is easily accessible ex. //servername/share/hosts, but make sure it is read only file and no one can make changes to this file.


4. Now Open Up Group Policies on Domain Controller or AD computer using gpmc.msc


5. Within an existing Group Policy Object or a new one, add computers on which you want to block it.

6. Then right click on GPO to edit its settings. and then change its settings to one like following.

Then, when your policy gets updated, you have blocked gtalk on your domain. :)