IT Pro Tuesday #127

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Hello IT Pro,

Welcome back to IT Pro Tuesday!

To start off, check out our new, downloadable Infopaper where you'll find analysis of current online threats and tips how to best protect your business from cybercrime during the coming holiday season. 

This week, we’re looking for your favorite tech blogs to share with the community. Please let us know those that help you do things more easily so you get better at your job!

As always, we’re updating the full, searchable list on our website here. Enjoy.

But on with this week's tools...! Here are the most-interesting items that have come across our desks, laptops and phones this week. Hornetsecurity has no known affiliation with any of these unless we explicitly state otherwise.

A Free Tool

tcping.exe is a console application like 'ping' that is instead directed toward a tcp port. jedgar01 adds, "I've used this thing more than my email client. It allows you to "ping" a port continuously and has a ton of features."

A Tip

A helpful hint, compliments of The-Dark-Jedi:

A little known feature of OneNote is OCR. Copy and paste any image with text into OneNote, right click and select "Copy text from image."

A Tutorial

Syslog: The Complete System Administrator Guide is a great tutorial for learning about Syslog and Linux logging in general. While Syslog is involved in most everything on a Linux system, it can also be used on Windows instances and other operating systems that implement the protocol. Appreciation for this one goes to digitaltransmutation.

Another Free Tool

Posterbooking is a fast, easy platform that can turn any screen into smart digital signage. This cloud-based solution allows you to upload images & video to screens in one or more locations within minutes. Content can be scheduled, screens can be synced and you can get reports on what's being displayed. Works with your favorite media player, and the first 10 screens are free. switchitoffbros tells us, "it’s way easier [than Xibo]."

A Website

Slashdot shares the latest news on science, technology and politics. Stories are submitted and evaluated by site users and editors and every story includes a comments section where users can add their thoughts. nikonel recommends it as, "Another helpful news website."

P.S. Bonus Free Tools

YOURLS (Your Own URL Shortener) allows you to run your own URL-shortening service. This set of PHP scripts can create both private (yours only) and public (works on internet) links, so you can add your own branding and don't have to depend on third-party services. Our thanks go to Teknit for the recommendation.

VDesk is an open-source solution for launching programs on new virtual desktops in Windows 10. The program is command line but ships with an option to integrate in File Explorer. Kindly suggested by JustAnotherITUser.

Have a fantastic week and as usual, let us know any comments.