All posts by Ruslan Sudentas

About Ruslan Sudentas

Web Project manager. Read more on About page. Contact through Contact page.

How to forward/redirect email in Google Apps

Random Thoughts

It is very convenient to open Google Apps account and use Google as your mail server. However the simple email forwarding becomes a challenge when for example you want two people send and receive emails using lets say support@yourdomain.com account. This post will explain how to setup email redirects in Google Apps. This assumes you are an administrator and know how to get to your domain management dashboard (from gmail’s wrench menu select “Manage this domain”)

Note that Google does not offer Google Apps for free any more:
“Prior to December 6, 2012, Google offered a free edition of Google Apps—also known as the Standard edition—that had a reduced set of business features. As of December 6, 2012, Google stopped offering Free edition to new customers.”

Email forwarding with forwarders in user’s account (simple)

  1. Create a new regular user (like support@yourdomain.com)
  2. Login as this user to Gmail
  3. Go to Settings > Forwarders and set up your own email (like john@yourdomain.com) as a recipient “Forward a copy of incoming mail to” –  this will take care of receiving emails sent to the new account
    • Note that this won’t work if you need to forward to multiple emails. In this case you are better off using filters to forward all (*) email
  4. Now login to Gmail as yourself (john@yourdomain.com) , go to Settings / Account and add the new email to  “Send mail as” section – this will allow you to send email from the new account

Email forwarding with Groups

Note: this does not work as of 2014

Create a group – all of it’s members will receive a copy of the email to this group. Sending from this group is also possible, but recipients (in Gmail) will see “john.smith@example.com via gmail.com”. Some claim it is unprofessional. We think it is minor. This method also saves you from creating new users – in free version you are limited to only 10.

  1. Click Groups > “Create a new group”
  2. Name the group and check “Also allow anyone on the Internet to post messages”
  3. Add members (recepients)

How to use employee monitoring software and remain a great company

Employee Monitoring

EyeInMonitorEmployee monitoring software has become commonplace. Many apps take monitor screenshots, capture keystrokes and mouse movements, monitor active applications and visited sites and, in extreme cases, can even take pictures using webcam. It seems to be fair to track what your employees do when they are being paid for their time. After all, if they exchange their time for money, it seems fair for the employer to know what they are paying for. So, why does it still feel morally inappropriate in some cases? The question is far from being just theoretical. If a wrong decision is made, a company may suffer from lawsuits, experience a backlash and overall productivity drop (opposite from what was intended) from their employees or suffer damage to the company’s image. Let’s review in more detail what employee monitoring practices can be considered valid and what should be avoided.

Continue reading How to use employee monitoring software and remain a great company →

SQL backup to SkyDrive

SQL

SkyDrive from Microsoft gives you 25GB of cloud space for free. Seems like a great place to keep you SQL Server database backups.

Here’s how to backup SQL Server databases to SkyDrive using SQLBackupAndFTP:

  • When you install SkyDrive, it creates a special folder. Everything that you put into this folder will be synced to the SkyDrive servers in the cloud.
  • Open SQLBackupAndFTP, select databases to backup, check “Store backups in a local/network folder” and set the folder to be that SkyDrive folder.

Note that there’s a big drawback – SkyDrive will sync only when you are logged in.

Currently Microsoft has given only Windows Phone and Windows 8 platform developers access to the full SkyDrive API – see this blog for details. Until MS opens up their API, we will not be able to add SkyDrive as a backup destination to our products, sorry.

SQL backup to Dropbox

SQL

Dropbox allows you to store 2GB for free – this should be enough space to store SQL Server backups for the majority of small clients. Free version of SQLBackupAndFTP now allows you  to backup SQL Server databases to Dropbox directly.

Here’s how it works:

  • Select the databases you want to backup
  • Click “Add backup Destination” and select Dropbox
  • Click Authorize button to allow SQLBackupAndFTP to save to your Dropbox account
  • Click Test or Run Now to verify that backups work correctly
  • The backups will be stored in Apps\mySQLBackupAndFTP folder in your Dropbox account
  • Now schedule your SQL backups and sleep well

Remote Desktop to Console/Admin Session on Windows Server 2003

Random Thoughts

When you Remote Desktop to a Windows XP Professional computer, you always connect to the console (main/default) session.  This is the default for Remote Desktop to Windows XP Professional.  When you remote desktop to a Windows Server 2003 computer, the default is to start a new session.

This is how you can connect to the default/console/admin session:
Create a .bat file like this:

%SystemRoot%\system32\mstsc.exe “You RDP file” /admin

For options just run
%SystemRoot%\system32\mstsc.exe /?

This post is a good reference