Is Your Network Flawless? Test or Check Your Cables at Layer 1 Now

 These are one of the few topics that I constantly cover, review, bring up and explain. I've been doing this for over 30 years and still encounter layer-one issues. 

Its a real shame since this is easy to prevent. 

NetAlly LinkRunner G2

You can do one or all of the following: 

• buy a cable tester or network tool that can test a cable
• if you have manageable switches, look at the current port status
• if you have unmanageable switches, look at the port LED's since many of them will display the port speed, and possibly duplex. 
• lastly check the host connected to the switch, like your laptop, access point, etc, and see what speed or duplex it reports. 

Here is the link to Netally, if you are interested in their products since we don't sell their products

I LOVE Network Testing, Ep 2 - Cut Downtime, Boost Team Efficiency: The Value of Remote Troubleshooting

 

About this talk

As networks become more complex and IT teams are increasingly distributed, efficient remote troubleshooting and collaboration have never been more critical. Join our webinar where we’ll explore best practices for seamless network issue resolution—no matter where your team or tools are located

Click on the image to register

Five lesser known Task Manager features in Windows 11

 

Windows 11 is far from perfect, but it does make Task Manager significantly better.

It's modern, has a search bar, and easy-to-understand graphs.

But what are some of the lesser-known features of the Task Manager? In this article, we're going to take a closer look at some of our favourite Task Manager features.

Generate live kernel dump using Task Manager

One of the lesser-known features in Task Manager is the ability to generate kernel or full crash dump. https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/microsoft/five-lesser-known-task-manager-features-in-windows-11/

How to Reset a YeaLink Admin Password back to factory - Carlo Zakarian

 Some days I get calls for IT consulting services on a last-minutes notice, those entail things like “Internet is down”, other times its issues with devices that “worked” fine all last week, but suddenly today it’s not.

On this particular day I received a frantic call from a new client at an accounting firm that had 50 Yealink VoIP phones dropping calls randomly.  As I tried to enter the Yealink “Advanced Menu” to collect traffic and logs, we were presented with “Incorrect Password.”  We tried every password the office knew of and nothing seemed to work.

 

After spending several hours trying to sort out the password issue, it occurred to me that I just try the good old “Factory Default Password Reset.”   After Performing that task, I went into the “Advanced Menu” and entered the default password of “admin” but yet again I was presented with “Incorrect Password.”   I tried a few more times using uppercase and lowercase variations, and even tried well-known passwords like six zeros and the famous “password.”

 

After multiple searches and several failed attempts, I decided on a different approach to re-cement the “Factory Default Password” by using a locally hosted server and a configuration file.

 

Follow along with me and watch how I reset a YeaLink VoIP phone to factory default password.  In this video installment series, I will first reset the Yealink VoIP password, in a follow-up video I will go through the steps to hunt down those dropped calls and how I solved them.

Spend a bit of Time with Tony and Mike

 I thought i would try something new.

Tony Fortunato (www.thetechfirm.com) and Mike Pennachi (www.nps-llc.com) have a sit down and chat about various topics. 

Let us know if you would like us to spend more time on anything specific and we'll see what we can do.

I'm not a big fan of videos longer than 10 minutes and ideally try to keep mine around 5 minutes or less. 

In this case, I made a compromise and added time codes in the YouTube video description so you can jump around, or just hit play and have us on in the background while you have your morning tea or coffee and get set up for the day.