August 2008 issue of TechNet Magazine available online

The August 2008 issue of TechNet Magazine is now available online.

FEATURE ARTICLES
Far too often, people who are not trained database administrators end up responsible for managing one or more databases. In the latest issue of TechNet Magazine, Paul Randal offers a crash course for all those involuntary DBAs, covering Top Tips for Effective Database Maintenance.  

Then Steven Choy looks at how you can use PerfMon to diagnose server-related problems. He provides an overview of the key indicators you should use to diagnose a variety of common bottlenecks that can slow your servers down.

Marco Shaw gives an overview of how you can use Windows PowerShell in System Center Operations Manager to perform routine maintenance, manage agents, automate common administrative tasks, and so on.

And Richard Campbell rounds out the feature well with an in-depth look at the key to scaling an ASP.NET application. Find out what factors are necessary to scale an application, and see how ongoing collaboration between your developers and network administrators is essential to ensuring your application will run as intended. 

COLUMNS
In the Toolbox column, Greg Steen looks at monitoring your servers with PA Server Monitor Pro, cleaning up duplicate files with dupeGuru, keeping tabs on your environment with pt360 Tool Suite PRO, and managing disk usage with TreeSize Professional. 

In this month's SQL Q&A, Paul Randall discusses performing consistency checks and other maintenance tasks on very large databases, how to deal with an accidental upgrade, and more.

In our Utility Spotlight, Lance Whitney explores the free Windows Installer CleanUp Utility, which can help you solve problems updating or removing applications by allowing you to remove an application’s Windows Installer information and then reinstall the app.

The Inside SharePoint column provides guidance on how to troubleshoot issues that may arise when you integrate SharePoint into a secure messaging environment.

Windows PowerShell 2.0 is in the works, and Don Jones offers a sneak peak in the Windows PowerShell column, where he demonstrates the new remote management features in CTP2 of the next version. Don also did a screencast demonstration, which you can watch online.

With Windows Vista, the UserAccounts.CommonDialog ActiveX control for opening a file open dialog box no longer exists. In this month's installment of Hey, Scripting Guy! , the Scripting Guys show you how you can use Visual Basic Express Edition to solve that problem.

Wes Miller gives a Windows Deployment Services 101 lesson in The Desktop Files. He explores the different versions of Windows Deployment Services, shows how you can capture a custom OS image, and details what you need for performing more automated installations. 

In Security Watch, Jesper Johansson continues his three-part series on how software vendors, security suites, and marketing efforts hinder true security efforts. And he warns us about how these practices can lead to the collapse of the technology security ecosystem.

The August issue includes a special print installment of the usually-online-only Sustainable Computing column. Here, Dave Ohara discusses "greenwashing" and how you can perform your own power monitoring to better understand the true power consumption of devices throughout your infrastructure.

In Field Notes, R’ykandar Korra’ti explains how you can access all your mail from one place using IMAP4.

And finally, in this month's Windows Confidential column, Raymond Chen explains how the one-time powerful Alpha AXP system came out of retirement to help develop a new generation of 64-bit systems.

 ON THE WEB
Streaming Video: Don Jones demonstrates the new remote management capabilities in Windows PowerShell 2.0 CTP2.

Streaming Video: Paul Randal demonstrates how shrink and auto-shrink can cause serious fragmentation problems for your databases.