IT Pro Tuesday #225

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Welcome back to IT Pro Tuesday!

We’re looking for your favorite tips and tools we can share with the community... those that help you do your job better and more easily. Please reply or leave a comment with your suggestions, and we'll be featuring them in the coming weeks.

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

A Free Tool

Log Parser Studio is a front-end GUI for Log Parser and a convenient ‘Query Library.’ Allows you to easily store, edit and search both libraries and queries in different formats and import/export all your favorite queries and scripts. Kindly suggested by infinit_e.

Another Free Tool

Multicast Hammer is a troubleshooting tool for multicast issues that can simulate multicast traffic and show the raw traffic on your network. SDN_stilldoesnothing explains, "Not open source, but it is 100% free … I have crashed networks with it. Very powerful. You will need at minimum two windows laptops. You install it on both laptops, one as a sender and the second as a receiver. Works better if you can setup several receivers. You can really hammer a network."

A Career Resource

Jobs from Larry is a site that scrapes Twitter for all the jobs posted during the past 48 hours, then filters by location, remote/local and various technical categories. PeteyMcPetey explains, "it's pretty gnarly, and as it seems to be geared more towards the IT crowd, I thought I'd share it as a job resource for anyone looking at a career transition for whatever reason."

A Quote

While we’re on the topic of careers, throw0101b shares a memorable nugget of advice from the novel Shibumi:

"You can gain experience, if you are careful to avoid empty redundancy. Do not fall into the error of the artisan who boasts of twenty years experience in craft while in fact he has had only one year of experience–twenty times. And never resent the advantage of experience your elders have. Recall that they have paid for this experience in the coin of life, and have emptied a purse that cannot be refilled.”

One More Free Tool

PortQryUI is an alternative user interface for the PortQry Command Line Port Scanner that allows you to figure out if a machine can connect to a port or range of ports on a specified server. wazza_the_rockdog appreciates that it "lets you quickly test if a TCP/UDP port is open/closed/firewalled from a windows PC."

P.S. Bonus Free Tools

DPI Calculator/PPI Calculator is a simple screen pixel calculation tool that provides details on all the common display sizes for monitors, PCs, tablets, phones and more. fools_remedy adds, "This is really handy if you're considering a new computer monitor and comparing screen sizes/resolutions."

ScubaGear is an M365 security baseline assessment tool being developed by CISA that checks if your M365 tenant is configured according to a baseline set of security rules. Currently in an 'alpha' active-development state, it likely will already be of interest to many and is certainly worth keeping an eye on in the coming months. Appreciation for this one goes to ttgreenplant.

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