Geek Buddy

How To Reset an Aruba Networks AP105 to Factory Defaults?

2011-12-12T10:49:00.004-06:00

Yup, I screwed up. I tried to program an Aruba AP105 without doing my homework first. At the time, I was in a hurry and took the easy way out. I used my spare radio. However, as any good geek knows you should never leave your only available spare in a non working state. So, I set off on a journey to find out how to reset the factory defaults on my access point.

Truthfully, I cheated. I asked a support technician at the end of a call for an unrelated ticket. My pride prevents me from opening a ticket before I do any research and I was to lazy to do the research. If you are actually still reading this than you are substantially more motivated than I was.

I did find a link to a very hand set of generic instructions for Resetting Aruba AP to factory default from Enterprise Network Solutions. I have reposted their content with some minor adjustments to make the instructions specific to the AP105.

If you need to reset your Aruba AP105 to factory default it's really simple.

Connect the serial console breakout adapter cable to the AP Ethernet port and your PC/Laptop
Power on the AP and get into apboot mode. You'll see the option to go into AP boot mode when the AP is booting. You will have to press Enter within a 1 second window so pay attention to console messages during bootup.
From the apboot prompt, enter the following commands
apboot> factory_reset
apboot> purgeenv
apboot> save
apboot> boot

That's it! Your Aruba AP's will now be set back to factory default.

Disclaimer: Geek Buddy (in no way affiliated with Enterprise Networks Solutions) assumes no responsibility, and shall not be liable for, any damages to your computer equipment/software or other property on account of your access to, use of, or browsing of this site.

Implementing Change Through The Proper Application of Technology

2010-02-01T13:22:00.004-06:00

I was recently asked to complete an email based interview for a friend of mine who is studying for her Masters. Her assignment was to interview an Agent of Change. I was honored when she asked but also perplexed. I had never thought of myself in that light before. As it turns out, I was very pleased with the results of this extremely introspective endeavor. I have decided to share it with the world in the hopes that someone will find a way to refine it and use it for the good of all mankind (or more likely... to complete some project at work).

How have/do you effect change?
I have a bit of white knight complex. I have a grand passion for working with struggling departments or companies to find creative solutions through the proper application of technology. It is universally true that individuals and organizations alike severely underutilize and underestimate the technology they already have access to. It is nearly as common that they also misjudge the root of their challenges. My role is to leverage my skills and talents to help people identify the true root of a problem and engineer an apt system based on proven principles.

What are your strategies?
The key to any successful endeavor in my field is to first focus on building solid relationships with the key stakeholders in order to become a trusted advisor. It is common for people to withhold information about how or why they do things a certain way. I must achieve honest trust with everyone involved to gain the insight necessary to understand the root cause of any issue. This relationship with the core influencers is also paramount to deploying a solution that is accepted by the entire organization.

Every member of a team either works with me or against me. There is no such thing as neutral. A neutral stance by a key stakeholder is nearly always perceived as a negative attitude by those in their sphere of influence. It is not necessary to befriend or impress everyone. Instead I must focus on extracting confidence from those who are most influential.

What is the one change(s) you are most proud of?
Rockhurst High School is an institution that has existed for over 90 years.

I worked with Rockhurst High School, first as an employee, then as a consultant over a period of three and a half years. In that time my team was able to affect a fundamental change to their culture of technology. We were able to alter the approach to funding technology from a continuous series of unanticipated capital expenditures to a predicable operating budget. When I arrived at the school technology was perceived as a never ending series of unnecessary and unwanted changes that were rejected by nearly everyone. To this day technology is embraced by every educational discipline within the institution primarily due to the implementation strategy of pilot programs. Finally, it was the new focus on learning to use their tools to a fuller extent that ended the cycle of constant change and dramatically increased the effectiveness of new implementations. I am proud to say, I was reassured as recently as yesterday that these changes have remained the standard within the walls of that great institution.

Do you have a philosophy/framework for how you approach change?

Become a trusted advisor by building honest relationships
In order to solve a problem with technology you must first under the emotional need of those involved
Focus on trying to use existing resources whenever possible
Create champions who drive the change from within their own sphere of influence
- My favorite way to do this is through focused pilot programs or test groups
Set realistic expectations (under promise and over deliver)
Make it fun and exciting to the recipients no matter how dull the project or goal may be
Educate early and often
- Change is an ongoing endeavor that is tolerated most and feared least when it is thoroughly understood
- Not just technical education. Value, reasoning, purpose and vision must be conveyed assiduously.

What resource(s) (news sites, webtool, conferences, etc.) do you find most valuable in keeping up?
Google - I am a habitual researcher so Google Search is indispensable. Google is also my communications platform which provides my email, text messaging, instant messaging, voice mail, call routing, call logging and even my cell phone operating system. Google has provided the core technologies for most of my recent major and minor projects. Their cloud based technologies offer diversity, flexibility, functionality, affordability and rapid deployment.

What step(s) do you recommend to start the "change process"?

Develop a passion. Whether you are driven by a need or by a desire to help others you must be driven.
Identify and define a specific need that can be met then relentlessly pursue a solution.
Help others see the need and seek guidance from as many people as possible but refuse to be detoured.

Identify a focused need
Strengthen relationships
Seek out root causes
Research possible solutions
Engage champions
Plan
Execute
Educate
Evaluate/Test
Repeat (Never Quit)

Google Image Swirl

2010-01-04T13:58:00.001-06:00

Great app that truly makes searching the web for images a simple task. This is a fantastic way to organize a massive amount of visual content. Keep up the great work lab geeks!

in reference to: Google Image Swirl (view on Google Sidewiki)

Creating Email Aliases in 10.5 Server with Magic Triangle

2009-08-08T16:26:00.002-05:00

First let me warn you that this post will be far more technical than any of my previous content. I have been working on some pretty advanced networking issues at my office and have decided to begin publishing some of the solutions that I have discovered. This solution was not to hard to find but it is buried in the middle of a manual and does not specifically discuss the magic triangle or golden triangle configuration that I am using. So for anyone out there that manages a Leopard Mac OS X 10.5 Server Open Directory and Windows 2003/2008 Server Active Directory, this is for you.

With the magic triangle (AD/OD Integration) in place the user records all existing in the active directory and thus can not be altered with Apple's Workgroup Manager (WGM). Therefore we can not simply create an email alias by adding an additional entry in the Short Name field through WGM (this method is known as Mac OS X Server-style alias). Instead we must use the Postfix-style alias which requires use of the command line. The official instructions can be found in the Mail_Service_Admin_v10.5_2nd_ed.pdf on Apple's website.

1) Open a terminal/command line session with the mail server
ssh mail.example.com -l adminuser

2) Open the aliases file for editing
sudo pico /etc/postfix/aliases

3) Add or remove references to mailboxes as needed
Only edit the section of the document titled "# Put your local aliases here."
Enter aliases in the format of "newalias: shortname"
Press Control-O to save the file
Press Control-X to Exit the pico text editor

4) Process the text file into the database for faster access
sudo postalias /etc/postfix/aliases

5) Reload the alias database
sudo newaliases

6) Close the command line for security purposes
exit
(Do this immediately even if you have other cli processes to take care of since the sudo command caches your root password for a short amount of time)

Super Simple Backup for PC & Mac

2009-05-15T11:21:00.001-05:00

Click to Play

Your hard drive will fail! Listen, all hard drives fail eventually; it is just a matter of when. Add to that all of the threats to your data from virus, spyware, etc, and it becomes imperative that you backup your files. Most people have hundreds or thousands of personal photos that are irreplacable.

It's Your Data - It's Your Responsibility

Visit www.mozy.com for free/cheap on-line & off-site backup. Visit www.lacie.com for a simple external hard-drive backup solution. Using both of these solutions together makes for an inexpensive, easy, reliable backup plan.

Lost in the Lone Star State

2009-05-15T11:05:00.001-05:00

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Here a sneak preview of Falling Foward before their big audition.

Intro to New Weekly Tech Tips

2009-03-03T00:22:00.002-06:00

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As your friendly neighborhood geek I have decided to start a new weekly tech tips video blog. I will be discussing simple tips and tricks each week. Many of the ideas will come from issues addressed with co-workers and customers. If you have any ideas for topics please leave me a comment. if you have specific questions you want answered I would will do my best to address them.

This show will be for the average home user (really it is for my family, friends, coworkers and customers). if you are looking for a more indepth show then go listen to my old show The Network Ecosystem Radio Show. It is archived online at http://www.surehosting.com/RadioShow. Say hi to my old friends at SureHosting Internet Solutions while you are there.

Falling Foward's Debut

2009-03-02T20:52:00.002-06:00

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This my daughter and her friends in their video debut. Falling Forward is a new singing sensation presently made up of three talented 12 & 13 year old girls.

Development Projects

2008-06-02T22:47:00.000-05:00

It has been way to long timesince I last updated this site so I thought I would get back to it. I recently purchased a copy of Adobe Creative Suite 3 Web Edition and have been playing with some new tools. I have discovered Photoshop has changed dramatically since I last used it three or four years ago. Luckily I have been using Fireworks, Flash and Dreamweaver for about ten years so the learning curve for Photoshop was fairly low.

Illustrator has been a completely different challenge. I have used it many times in the past to design backgrounds and print layouts. However, since I am not an artist I have never tried to draw much. Well, last night I decided to try and draw a simple cartoon dog face. As you can see, after two and half hours I still have a lot of work ahead of me.

I am using Adobe's Contribute CS3 to create and edit this blog entry. It is extremely simple to use and works great with Google's BlogSpot. If you have a Blogger account all you have to do is enter your username and password. No further setup is required and editing a blog or a even a website is as simple as using a word processor.

I highly recommend Adobe's products to anyone who is into audio/video editing, graphic design, web development, rich application development or just plain jacking around! You can download a free trial of any of these applications at adobe.com.

Mission Stories

2008-04-14T12:26:00.003-05:00

** Video has been removed **

This is a sample video from a church in my area. It is in DIVX format and causing them problems. I am testing blip.tv and blogger as a solution for video hosting. If you can view the video than the solution worked and it will be included in my recommendation.

General Premise

2008-02-28T17:31:00.001-06:00

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This entry will explain the general premise of this blog. "Why on earth would I take on another project?" is probably a better name for this entry but I will stick with "General Premise". Enjoy