Winter 2006

Authentication

OWC 2003 working with WSSv3

Although Microsoft no longer supports OWC 2003 for WSS v3 , they still work. Normal installation seems not to work anymore.

Use the following command:


stsadm.exe -o addwppack -filename "c:\program files\common files\microsoft shared\web server extensions\60\wppacks\microsoft.office.dataparts.cab" -globalinstall

Live mail desktop client beta

Get yourself a Microsoft Live email account and try also the Live mail desktop client (now in beta)

Dell recycling

Dell uses Community Server for their community site Direct2Dell. Interesting posting about their recycling services, which are now globally offered.

Sharepoint Beta template Helpdesk

This solution accelerator provides guidance and tools to enable IT Professionals to successfully upgrade their Windows SharePoint Services 2.0 custom sites and templates. The result: A set of custom sites and temFplates that will operate in a Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 environment. This toolkit also includes a set of upgraded Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 application templates.

Download

I was especially interested in the new HelpDesk template

This was the command I used to install the beta template

stsadm.exe -o addtemplate -filename HelpDeskBasic_beta.stp

Followed by

iisreset

Then created a site based on this template

Community solution requirements

Security

• Application, database, and security best practices
• Microsoft recommended best practices for password management
• Highly granular permissions allow for control over all user aspects
• No write permission required in web site directory
• Ability to create secure private communities
• Support for anonymous user profiles
• Delegated permissions system
• Auto-login
• Evict online active users to force re-login
• Configurable HTML filters to prevent Cross Site Script Injection (XSS) attacks

Licensing

• No artificial limits or governors
• Server based perpetual licensing
• Free Community License (with restrictions)
• Flexible commercial licenses

Installation and Setup

• Web based Installation Wizard
• Web based administration and management
• Full source (available as separate download)
• 100% Microsoft .NET code (No COM, Java, or other formats)
• Designed for multiple language support

Performance and Scalability

• Designed from the ground-up for multi-server configurations (web farms)
• Proven performance and scalability
• Implements ASP.NET Caching best practices
• Abstract, extendable data layer
• Designed for growth
• Innovative background processing system
• Integrated error reporting
• No dependencies on ASP.NET Session state

Integration

• Full source code (available through separate download)
• Event driven programmable "pipeline"
• Add-on modules for extending capabilities
• Pluggable authentication/authorization stack

Customization

• Theme driven customization
• Use of style sheets (CSS) to drive look-and-feel
• Over 90 ASP.NET Server controls for declarative programming
  

Content Publishing

• Syndication support using RSS 2.0
• Receive all messages through email
• Email subscriptions to a topic
• Email other members privately
• Message other members via "Private Messages"
• Global administration email notifications

Banning and Moderation

• Easily ban users by email, date range, or IP address
• Optionally enable per-user moderation levels
• Email moderators for moderation actions
• Audit history for all moderator/workflow actions
• Users can edit or delete posts for a period of time or indefinitely
• Moderation privileges are assignable
• Comment moderation

Usability

• Rich WYSIWYG editor (no special codes or HTML knowledge required)
• Extensible base class model for easily supporting any database
• Registration process emails user new password
• Topic rating and sorting
• Sort by date, author, last viewed, date range ...
• Track posts read and unread
• Printer friendly versions of messages
• Specify an icon when posting with a message
• View member actions and where they are online
• Quote messages in posts
• Type emoticons in the rich editor
• Users can login with credentials stored in encrypted cookie
• Users can easily report offensive or objectionable posts to moderators

Personalization

• Online status of members
• Users can upload avatars (automatically resized based on settings)
• Share email address and IM addresses via user profile
• Display most active posts or unanswered posts
• Personalized user signatures
• Users can select custom themes and can override with custom options (in some cases)
• Rate posts

Statistics

• User statistics show online users and frequent posters
• User ranking shows activity of users in the community

System Management

• Single shared user base
• Merge related topics together
• Easily split topics into separate discussions
• Move topics
• Lock topics to prevent further discussions
• Easily pin or un-pin a particular topic
• Edits are tracked and logged
• Full auditing of all actions performed by users, moderators, and administrators
• Customizable ranking options
• Groups and group avatars
• Email forgotten password
• Deleted threads go into a recycle bin and are not immediately removed
• Easily unmoderate user or require moderation on users
• IP, User, and Email address banning
• Moderators receive alerts for posts requiring moderation
• Specify forum auto-delete options
• Edit members
• Rich web based systems configuration

Search

• Highly customized search system for fast searches
• Tunable searching and weighting algorithm
• Search results filter based on user permissions
• Search word highlighting

.NET Developer

• Over 100,000 lines of C# source code
• 90+ compiled ASP.NET server controls
• Foward compatible with ASP.NET 2.0
• Runs on ASP.NET 2.0 unmodified

Upgrade Sharepoint Services 3.0

Upgraded my research PC to WSS3.

Configuration

- Windows 2003 Server SP1
- Virtual PC 2004


Additional requirements

- .Net Framework 2.0
- .Net Framework 2.0 SP1
- .Net Framework 3.0 (necessary for WWF 3.0.4202.2)

Installed also


- Sharepoint.exe
- SharepointLanguagePack


Performed an in-place install.

- Sharepoint Products and Technologies Configuation Wizard

http://blogs.msdn.com/harsh/archive/2006/06/07/620989.aspx


C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727>aspnet_regiis -i
Start installing ASP.NET (2.0.50727)
...............................
Finished installing ASP.NET (2.0.50727).



[Local drive]:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\60\BIN

stsadm -o upgrade -forceupgrade -url http://URLOftheVirtualServer

Upgrade problem in the logfile:

Access denied to c:\inetpub\wwwroot\_pvt_,,,,\service.cnf


Decided not to upgrade but to go for the fresh install.

Configuration successful!

New Google service : Google Romance

Where will it end. Google introduced Google Romance, a dating service , of course with some typical Google stuff.

Goodbye Wilma, good luck in the USA

Playlist

Winter In America
René Froger

Hazy Shade Of Winter
Simon & Garfunkel

Back In The USA
Linda Ronstadt

American Woman
The Guess Who

America
Razorlight

My nephew from Denmark on Imdb

My nephew Mikael worked on a Danish adventure film De fortabte sjæles ø/ Island of Lost Souls as a visual artist.

Last monday he left voor the UK to work on the new Harry Potter.

Apple iPod

49 and not to old for an Apple iPod Nano

I got an Ipod Nano for my birthday. As a long time iTunes user this is the perfect companion.

Synchronizing photo's music, agenda , Notes, Contacts and all this in just a couple of Gb.

SharePoint web parts versus Visual Studio

Article about the differences between the old type web parts and the new .Net type.

Also the differences between VS 2003 and VS 2005 are explained.

Also differences between WSS1, WSS2 en WSS3+MOSS are described.

http://www.microsoft.com/belux/msdn/nl/community/columns/jtielens/webpartplatforms.mspx

Example of a web part with VS 2005 for ASP.Net v2.

Example for deployment in SharePoint.

(attention to page 2 for the deployment).

http://www.15seconds.com/issue/060914.htm

Oracle

Download New Office Accounting Software for Free

Download New Office Accounting Software for Free.
Save time, get organized, and build your small or home-based business with Microsoft Office Accounting Express 2007. Download your free version today.


Update : new 2009 version available here

Sharepoint webparts

Google Acquires JotSpot, the Wiki Company

Google tries to add more value to their Google Office. This is one of the reasons why they bought JotSpot, a startup focused on creating and sharing documents, spreadsheets, calendars, photos, videos and other files.

Google

Portal 2.0

For nearly a decade, web portals have been so successful that there's been very little innovation. That's about to change. Portals 2.0 are on the horizon, and everyone's starting to pay attention: media companies, portals, consumer electronics makers, ISPs, wireless carriers, and more.

No-one wants to be left behind their competitors and Digital Lifestyle Aggregators are the solution.

One of those new developments is PeopleAggregator. Create your own social network!

Customer Interaction Center info

Oracle Previews New Release of Oracle® E-Business Suite

Designed to support businesses in today's global economy, Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12 enables customers to think globally to make better decisions, work globally to be more competitive and manage globally to lower costs and increase performance.

Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12 includes a web services repository that catalogues hundreds of services in the Oracle E-Business Suite.


Read more ...

My toolbelt

Wine info

CMDB sources

CMDB schema

SQL Server schema for a CMDB

Multi-Tenancy, metadata driven everything and you are my #1 customer

Microsoft Provisioning System SDK <http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=5650938>ISVs and Hosters can use the Microsoft Provisioning System SDK to develop applications that are enabled for multi-tenancy capability.

This triggered me to investigate the concept of a multi-tenancy architecture.
This concept is explained here and here

Windows Update broke my machine

I got some strange Generic svchost errors.

I found the solution here.


Update 29-10-2006

Seems more people were having problems.

Microsoft Project Portfolio Server 2007

This Microsoft tool supports the concept of Application Portfolio Management.Complete whitepaper can be downloaded here

Microformats

It seems that the developments around microformats are picking up. About 2 years ago I stumbled upon this development and thought it had a huge potential.

What are microformats? And what can you do with them? See the about page (http://microformats.org/about/) for an overview, and the introduction page for more info. Recent press, presentations, podcasts, and screencasts are also a good place for some background reading/listening. Frequently asked questions are answered in the faq. Want something or want to contribute? Help with things to-do. Want to learn more in person? Check out microformats events.

One popular definition from our mailing list (http://microformats.org/discuss/) (see also: mailing-lists) is "simple conventions for embedding semantics in HTML to enable decentralized development." More precisely, microformats can be defined as:
simple conventions for embedding semantic markup for a specific problem domain in human-readable (X)HTML/XML documents, Atom/RSS feeds, and "plain" XML that normalize existing content usage patterns using brief, descriptive class names often based on existing interoperable standards to enable decentralized development of resources, tools, and services


See also:

http://pingerati.net
http://suda.co.uk/projects/microformats

Sweex external harddisk enclosure ST011

I bought a Sweex ST011 external harddisk enclosure in order to connect and reuse some old harddisk. My brother in law bought a similar device during the holiday and installed it in a breeze.

I'm just in the middle of getting this thing working. Status so far is that the device is recognised by Windows XP Pro but the disk is not visible.

It seems more people are having the same problem

http://www.hebig.com/archives/001911.shtml

One of the solutions mentioned is:

How to get XP Computer Management to let you partition the USB extertnal Drive Pictures and text from following link:http://www.ramelectronics.net/html/usb_hard-drive.html

Words only:Installing the Hard Drive in Windows XP

Unfortunately you can't just put a drive in the case, plug it in and it will work. You will need to initialize and format the drive before it will show up in "My Computer" or Windows explorer.
Go into -> control panel-> Administrative tools-> Computer Management-> Disk Management.
Select the new hard drive which should appear like the drive pictured below
click the left pane of the hard drive, not the space section (see below)
left pane right pane (space)
right click and select "initialize disk"click "OK"
right click the right part of the display - the partition display part, and select "New Partition". This starts the New Partition Wizard. Select Primary Partition. Leave partition size alone unless you want several partitions let windows choose the drive letter or change it to what you want. If you want use NTFS or change to the file system you need. Use the default allocation unit if that fits your needs or use another if that will better fit your storage needs. If you are storing large files, larger allocation units will give better performance. Finish the wizard.
Formatting will take quite awhile for larger disks. Have coffee or any other favored beverage, or two. When finished, the drive will appear as below, "Healthy".
The drive will now show up in "My Computer" and Windows explorer, etc.
Ready for use!


I will post if this works for me.

iTunes not just for iPods

iTunes is a great music player and organizer. Unfortunately iTunes is made to only synchronize with iPods. Not everyone own an iPod, though Apple certainly would have loved that. How great would it not be if you could synchronize your non-iPod MP3 player, your Playstation Portable and your Walkman phone with your iTunes Library? Enter: iTunes Agent!

Sharepoint Roadmap

Download the original from Microsoft

Application Portfolio Management (APM) Scenario

Application Portfolio Management (APM) Scenario: Sidney Higa, CIO of Wide World Importers, desperately needed to get more visibility into her application portfolio. More than 70 percent of the annual IT budget went to supporting existing applications across the organization, and Sidney needed a better understanding of how this expense contributed to the business. Sidney wanted to rationalize her portfolio, but she did not have a solid grasp of the number of applications deployed at Wide World Importers, and what business value they provided. She did know that different applications were used in silos across lines of business and geographies, and wanted to understand if there were redundant applications that could be consolidated or retired altogether.
As a first step, Sidney instructed her team to create an inventory of all the applications at Wide World Importers in the Portfolio Builder module of Office Project Portfolio Server 2007. The team agreed on which key metrics and standard descriptive attributes to capture in order to effectively evaluate the applications, including metrics for annual cost, architectural fit, process contribution, risk, and operational performance. The team then began to create the inventory.
One important metric, the process contribution assessment, included mapping each application to the standard library of organizational business processes. That information populated Office Project Portfolio Server 2007 report templates, enabling Sidney’s team to identify functional overlap between applications that support the same business processes, and to highlight opportunities for better application integration. After running the report, Sidney noticed some key processes were supported by multiple enterprise resource planning (ERP) applications, suggesting a functional overlap and a potential opportunity to rationalize these ERP applications.
Upon completing the application repository, Sidney now had reliable visibility into the status of her application portfolio, with the core data and a foundation to effectively rationalize the portfolio and make application life cycle decisions.

Retrieving RSS feeds through proxy

An excellent simple solution for retrieving RSS feeds in Sharepoint is the webpart created by George Tsiokos

For proxy servers & faster performance, I recommend downloading Wget to automatically retrieve RSS feeds from outside the company to a locally run web server. Wget can retrieve remote RSS feeds through proxies that require authentication. You can create a batch file that runs Wget against all external RSS feeds, and configure it to run as a scheduled task. Then, point msxsl to the local web server's cached copy to generate the DWP file. In this configuration, WSS-RSS will retrieve the RSS feed from your local web server for display in SharePoint. You should also lower SharePoint's cache time of WSS-RSS because it is retrieving the feed locally. Because the latency and bandwidth favor your local network, performance will be greatly improved.

Some uses for RSS on Sharepoint

A Sharepoint user reported:

"I've got SharePoint running to administer a development effort, and having an RSS feed of 'cases closed in the last 7 days' coming from our bug tracker appearing on the SharePoint front page is EXCELLENT. "

Bugs or changes or whatever.

Wireless Distribution System (WDS) / Repeater / Bridge

I'm using the Linksys WRT54G wireless router for a couple of years now. I'm still using a wired connection to my attic where a number of old PC's are located. Investing in those machines is not worthwhile so I was wondering if I could place a second WRT54G in the attic and connect the old PC's and hub to it. As I found out I need a concept WDS for bridging/repeating the connection.

Standard my WRT54G v2 has no configuration settings for this.

An option is to flash an Open Source firmware from OpenWRT.

This is an ASCII art for what WDS can be useful.

                / - - - Wireless Clients
               |
INTERNET-----WRT54G_1- - - - - -WRT54G_2 - - - - - Wireless Clients
             | | | |            | | | |
            4 clients          4 clients

----- Cable link
- - - Wlan link

With WDS you can connect wireless clients to all APs

Active Directory integration with CIC

I wanted to know more about this so I sent a mail to the vendor:

-----Original Message-----
From: Peter Florijn
Subject: Integration between your product CIC and AD

Hello,
In your product whitepaper you are stating that your product integrates with MS Active Directory. Can you give me some more info on that subject. A tight integration is an essential requirement for my company. I need to know in more detail how this integration is performed.
Peter

I received the following answer:

Thank you in showing interest in our product. Please find the following information regarding Directory Integration:
The Interaction Center platform runs in a Windows 2000 or 2003 domainenvironment. The Interaction Center Platform requires a great deal of configuration information regarding users, workgroups, queues, and other items. Instead of creating its own proprietary store of such configurationinformation, the Interaction Center Platform leverages the considerable power of enterprise directories that support the LDAP standard.

LDAP stands for lightweight directory access protocol and is employed by virtually every major enterprise directory including Microsoft ActiveDirectory, Novell NDS/e-Directory, and iPlanet Directory Server. Instead of maintaining its own list of users with their phone numbers,access rights, etc., the Interaction Center Platform makes use of information already stored in a given enterprise directory. It even extends the chosen directory by adding specific attributes (e.g., phone extension, skills, etc.) that it requires. Similarly, the Interaction Center Platform uses the chosen directory as the repository for information about workgroups (e.g., members, access rights), queues, phone lines, reports, and other concepts. This use of an enterprise directory for the storage of information has a number of important advantages, including:
* Location independence - The same configuration information isavailable from any server running components of the Interaction CenterPlatform. For example, an employee based in New York can travel to the Los Angeles office, log into the corporate communications system, and have exactly the same rights and capabilities.
* Scalability - Enterprise directories such as those from Microsoft,Novell, and Sun can easily scale to handle hundreds of thousands or evenmillions of users and other objects.
* Replication - Popular directory products such as those mentioned above have builtin replication capabilities that allow them to copy critical information to different machines to increase reliability and performance. If one server is temporarily unavailable, the Interaction Center Platform can access directory information stored in another server.Reliance on an enterprise directory is increasingly viewed as a requirement for welldesigned software. If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact me.

Institute of backup trauma

Very funny movie by John Cleese. Viral marketing campaign by LiveVault for their Disk to Disk based backup solution.

XML Standards for "global" Customer Information Management

Fitting over 200 countries into a unified format is no easy task. Countries have
very different address formats. Some use street names for addressing, others don't.
Some use island names, others don't. The format must allow for all these different types of addresses while at the same time provide a consistent and easy to use format.

There are different ways to model data, including hierarchical, relational and object-oriented. Address data is hierarchical in nature (a country has cities, a city has streets and a street has premises) so a hierarchical model is the most natural fit.

The international standard XML (eXtensible Markup Language) is well suited to represent hierarchical data and has therefore been adopted for the actual implementation of the data model.

This specification is designed to describe the address elements, not be specific about the formatting and presentation of the address. However, formatting at the higher -composite- levels is preserved since these are either a single string value or an ordered list of multiple strings. This is only considered a side effect at this time; there is no detailed specification of how to handle and preserve white space in these strings. In the Netherlands for example, it is customary to use double spacing between postal code and town on a single line, but naturally this only works with fixed-width fonts. New lines are made explicit by only defining composite elements at line-level."

Oracle 10g Database Vault

Oracle Database Vault provides a solution to help customers address the most difficult security problems remaining today, protecting against the insider threat and meeting regulatory compliance requirements. Oracle Database Vault keeps the DBA from viewing application data, a top concern for customers who must protect sensitive business information or privacy data related to partners, employees and customers. Oracle Database Vault keeps the powerful application DBAs from accessing other applications and from performing tasks outside their authorized responsibilities. Oracle Database Vault can protect existing applications quickly and easily without interfering with the application functionality.

More info

Personal Helpdesk Support

A colleague of mine asked me for assistance with some personal PC problems.
While downloading PDF files he experienced some problems with opening them in Acrobat Reader. Sometimes he wants to dowload the file instead of opening it in the browser.


One ot the solutions is using the Firefox browser and installing the PDF Download Extension. (Use menu opotions Extra->Extensions->More Extensions. Search for PDF Download.



Download

Official release of Bugzilla 2.22

The Bugzilla Project is proud to announce the official release of
Bugzilla 2.22. Bugzilla 2.22 is a major new feature release for Bugzilla, containing a large number of bug fixes and enhancements, including complete PostgreSQL support, UTF-8 support, user-impersonation capabilities, and more.

You can see a description of all the new features in Bugzilla 2.22 at:

http://www.bugzilla.org/releases/2.22/new-features.html

ISA Server 2004. Microsoft Security Services.

ISA Server 2004. Microsoft Security Services.


ISA Server 2004 is the core component for protecting Microsoft Networks

Microsoft® Internet Security and Acceleration (ISA) Server 2004 has extended its capabilities from a simple web caching server and is now becoming one of the key components for protecting Microsoft Networks, as a secondary firewall used to protect the organisation's assets. These are the key areas where we believe it adds security control to the organisational network.

* Departmental or Back-End Firewall
Note: While ISA can be used as an Internet Edge Firewall, Peapod believe there are more suitable solutions to provide this functionality such as NetScreen and Check Point.
* Combined with SurfControl for Web filtering
* Application Firewall for MS Outlook Web Access and MS SharePoint
* Reverse Proxy for MS Internet Information Server

Sharepoint and firewall

Some special considerations dictate the use of a particular firewall. For example, no other product integrates with and protects Exchange servers and Outlook Web Access (OWA) users as well as ISA Server, because both products are made by Microsoft to work seamlessly together. ISA Server is also designed from the ground up to work with SharePoint Portal Servers (SPS). If protecting your Exchange and SPS servers is a high priority, ISA is your logical first choice.

del.icio.us/tooh

Bluetooth WIDDCCOM installation

Q:

I updated Windows XP with SP2 (Service Pack 2) and Bluetooth does not work anymore.
A:
my bluetooth will not work on Windows XP with SP2 (Service Pack 2) because on SP2 Windows has added its own free Bluetooth utility which is not compatible and will conflict with my bluetooth utility.

WORKAROUND

To work around this issue and to successfully install the Bluetooth driver/utility that come with the adapter, Try this:
If you already have the Utility installed form the CD, you need to remove it now from the Windows Add and Remove Program
Unplug the bluetooth device from the computer.
Create new folder name Bluetooth on your desktop.
Click Start,
click Run, type %windir%\inf in the Open box, and then click OK.
Move all files which has a name: Bth -- to the Bluetooth folder you created on the desktop.
Right click on My Computer and bring up Manage.
Click on the plus sign next to Services and Applications.
Click on Services.
On the right hand pane, right click on Bluetooth Support Service and click Stop
Run the installation CD.
When the "No Bluetooth device detected..." error message
windows pop up, plug the bluetooth device into the working USB port.
(keep re-plugging on different ports if necessary) untill the "Found New Hardware
Wizard" will pop up, and then keep click "Next" to finish up the installation.
click "OK" on the "No Bluetooth device detected..." error message windows.
The "WIDCOM Bluetooth software - Installation Shield Wizard" will continue to complete the installation.
If the Windows' Bluetooth-utility is not running, there should be only one Bluetooth icon you see in the task bar;
right click on it and select "Start using Bluetooth Device".
The "B" sign inside the Bluetooth icon should turn to white color.
Now if you look at the services there should two Bluetooth services:
1. Bluetooth Service
2. Bluetooth Support Service
Double click the "Bluetooth Support Service"(2) and change the "Startup type" to "Manual" and click "Apply".


Goodluck

The Oracle E-Business integration repository

The Integration Repository is an integral part of Oracle E-Business Suite. It provides a complete catalog of Oracle E-Business Suite's Business Service interfaces. The tool lets users easily discover and deploy the appropriate business service interface from the catalog for integration with any system, application, or business partner.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 Mobile

Microsoft CRM Mobile provides salespeople with up-to-date information about their accounts and contacts, and helps them manage sales opportunities and track sales-related activities. Salespeople select the data to take with them on the road. While disconnected, they can enter data related to their sales activities. Salespeople can synchronize data with the Microsoft CRM server when the network is available, either when the user is on the office network, or when wireless access is available through GPRS. The data entry forms and views can be customized for your business.

download

Migrating Lotus Domino applications to Sharepoint

The Microsoft Application Analyzer 2006 for Lotus Domino is a tool that helps organizations to analyze their Lotus Notes/Domino application environment. It generates reports based on a number of application properties such as last accessed/modified dates, template types and the presence of workflow. Based upon the reports generated by this tool, customers can quickly identify applications that should not be migrated (such as administration applications or unused applications), applications that can easily be migrated to Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) templates and applications that require additional analysis.


Download

Surfcontrol test tooh.blogspot.com

Test of http://tooh.blogspot.com on the database of Surfcontrol

Bugzilla whine.pl patch

After upgrading to v2.22rc1 it seems that whine.pl is broken.

Found this patch

Surfcontrol test

Intranet 2.0

In the development of an Intranet there are several stages. Supplier Macaw has developed a model called the Portal Dimension model.

Stage 1: Intranet is used for basic information distributed top down, often by the IT- or communications department.

Stage 2: more interaction on the intranet, employees publish there own infomation, basic forms of collaboration, sharing of documents.

Stage 3: all business applications are integrated in the Intranet. Employees use the Intranet in their daily activities, the portalsite is the central starting point.

Stage 4: the final stage where intranet is an fully integrated part of the IT infrastructuur and therefore a business critical application of invaluable importance.

My assumption is that in my company we are now in the middle of Stage 3. Migrating all our applications to a Server based deployment model (Terminal Server/Citrix, Web based) and creating a Sharepoint portal will enable us to complete Stage 3 and enter Stage 4.

MSF for Agile Software Development

For more then 20 years my world of software development was centered around Oracle. You could say that I suffered from a tunnel vision. OK, Microsoft for the desktop was a fact, but if we were talking about serious transaction driven applications Oracle was the way to go. As a result all the developers in our shop were Oracle (Forms, Reports, PL/SQL) trained. More or less we were used to a CDM like development method and vocabulary.

A couple of years ago we decided to go the "browser only" way. Web based applications developed with :Lotus Domino/Notes. (Using Lotus Notes as the collaboration platform didn't get a lot of supporters so we decided to keep Exchange as our mail/agenda platform.)

Recently we proclaimed the "Microsoft all the way" approach. There are a lot of good reasons for this. Perhaps something I can write about in another post.

As a result of this all Microsoft info is viewed from a different perspective. Even methodologies as MSF come into the picture. As a first step I'm getting into this area in order to find out if this MSF thing can be usefull for our shop.

MSF for Agile Software Development is a scenario-driven, context-based, agile software development process that utilizes many of the ideas embodied in Team System. This process incorporates proven practices developed at Microsoft around requirements, design, security, performance, and testing. This new release introduces the new Team Model, Mindsets, and Principles.


Download

SQL Server Migration Assistant for Oracle V1.0

SQL Server Migration Assistant (SSMA) is a complete suite of
tools that automates all phases of the migration process from Oracle to
Microsoft SQL Server, enabling customers to migrate their databases
quickly, easily and accurately. Many organizations continue to run
their applications on other databases because the cost and complexity
of migrating are so daunting. SSMA addresses these concerns by
automating almost every aspect of database migration, including
assessment, schema and data migration, business logic conversion,
validation, integration and performance analysis. As a result, the
time, cost, and risks associated with migrating to SQL Server are
greatly reduced. This enables customers to take advantage of SQL
Server’s superior developer productivity, scalability, security, and
the industry’s lowest total cost of ownership (TCO).

Download

How about Microsoft CRM 3.0

Microsoft all the way

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0

Gartner Predicts 2006

Gartner Predicts 2006

notes: Web X.X

notes: Web X.X

Some people are already ahead of me.

Think Web 4.0!

Think Web 4.0!

After the much hyped Web 2.0 we should already think about the next wave. I propose to speak about Web X.x

What to expect from Web 3.0

What to expect from Web 3.0

Google World domination ?

During my trip to the USA in October 2005 I visited the Google campus. As expected we had to sign a non disclosure agreement. Walking on the campus I noticed in one of the rooms a whyteboard complety filled with what looked like a Mindmap.

To my surprise I found a picture of this whyteboard on www.theregister.co.uk

Reset Admin Password

PLS EXPLAIN THIS ..and i might say it works ...why windows sucks like this ?

1.Place your Windows XP CD in your cd-rom and start your computer (it’s
assumed here that your XP CD is bootable – as it should be - and that
you have your bios set to boot from CD)


2. Keep your eye on the screen messages for booting to your cd Typically, it will be “Press any key to boot from cd”


3. Once you get in, the first screen will indicate that Setup is inspecting your system and loading files.


4. When you get to the Welcome to Setup screen, press ENTER to Setup Windows now


5. The Licensing Agreement comes next - Press F8 to accept it.


6. The next screen is the Setup screen which gives you the option to do a Repair.


It should read something like “If one of the following Windows XP installations is damaged, Setup can try to repair it”


Use the up and down arrow keys to select your XP installation (if you
only have one, it should already be selected) and press R to begin the
Repair process.


7. Let the Repair run. Setup will now check your disks and then start copying files which can take several minutes.


8. Shortly after the Copying Files stage, you will be required to
reboot. (this will happen automatically – you will see a progress bar
stating “Your computer will reboot in 15 seconds”


9. During the reboot, do not make the mistake of “pressing any key” to
boot from the CD again! Setup will resume automatically with the
standard billboard screens and you will notice Installing Windows is
highlighted.


10. Keep your eye on the lower left hand side of the screen and when
you see the Installing Devices progress bar, press SHIFT + F10. This is
the security hole! A command console will now open up giving you the
potential for wide access to your system.


11. At the prompt, type NUSRMGR.CPL and press Enter. Voila! You have
just gained graphical access to your User Accounts in the Control Panel.


12. Now simply pick the account you need to change and remove or change
your password as you prefer. If you want to log on without having to
enter your new password, you can type control userpasswords2 at the
prompt and choose to log on without being asked for password. After
you’ve made your changes close the windows, exit the command box and
continue on with the Repair (have your Product key handy).


13. Once the Repair is done, you will be able to log on with your new
password (or without a password if you chose not to use one or if you
chose not to be asked for a password). Your programs and personalized
settings should remain intact.

NTKRNLMP.EXE "The error code is 7"

You said you had dual processors? NTKRNLMP.EXE is a special version of the Windows NT kernel that allows you to use more than one processor if your version of Windows permits -- and currently all versions of Windows except Windows XP Home Edition permit it.

Chances are, the copy of the multiprocessor kernel on the floppy disk got corrupted. That's what a 7 error usually means. So how to bypass this? At the beginning of the setup process, it asks you if you need to use any special SCSI drivers (scuzzy of them, I know ) by hitting F6. Two almost-entirely undocumented other features can be activated at that point. If you hit F7, then Windows Setup doesn't do any special detecting at all: it assumes your computer is single processor with no power saving features (you can change this later on from Device Manager) and no "wierd" SCSI drivers, just "normal" ones, and uses the appropriate kernel and drivers. If you hit F5, then you can select a specific Hardware Abstraction Layer and Kernel to use for the install.

When you start Setup and it asks you for SCSI drivers, hit F7. NTOSKRNL.EXE will get loaded instead of NTKRNLMP.EXE, and only a single processor will be used. Once Windows Setup is successful, and assuming you've got a Windows 2000 CD, you then open Device Manager, select the Computer object, select the item under it, and update the drivers to "ACPI-compliant Multiprocessor Computer." You will now regain your previous dual processor goodness.

Changing the Oracle password in Oracle Forms v4.5

Example

Oracle Identity management

Simple password reset

MSMQ concept

Introduction

MSMQ was originally code named as Falcon. MSMQ enables applications to reliably communicate with each other even in unreliable distributed environments in an efficient yet reliable way where intermediate servers need not be essentially available at all times.

Purpose

Message Queuing (MSMQ) technology enables applications running at different times to communicate across heterogeneous networks and systems that may be temporarily offline. Applications send messages to queues and read messages from queues. The following illustration shows how a queue can hold the messages used by both sending and receiving applications.

MSMQ also provides Journaling for requests that occur, that can enable greatly in creating in data recovery and system audits.

MSMQ deploys the Store and Forward Mechanism in which messages are not exchanged directly between applications but rather through a message store known as a message queue. This allows applications at each end to be not necessarily available at the same time. MSMQ is not a technology that is brand new, but it is a sincere attempt to standardize and make available the same for Microsoft Platform.

Pilot Podcast

Published some pilot podcast mp3's. MP3's have been recorded by a professional voice talent.

pilot podcast site

BizTalk 2006 Officially Launched!

BizTalk Server 2006 has now been officially launched! So, what does this mean to you? It means a new build is available. It is the Community Technical Preview (CTP) build. I have been working with it almost non-stop for the past week now. Other then a few problems with the installation, it seems to be awesome! It is now available on Beta Place. The Beta 2 should be available in the next few weeks with updated documentation.

The best part of the CTP build is it includes four new BizTalk 2006 Adapters (Oracle DB, Oracle Apps, PeopleSoft, and Siebel). In case you missed the news last week, these adapters will be included in the cost of the Biztalk 2006 licenses!

More info

Project Raptor

Project Raptor is a new, free graphical tool that enhances productivity and simplifies database development tasks. With Project Raptor, you can browse database objects, run SQL statements and SQL scripts, and edit and debug PL/SQL statements. You can also run any number of provided reports, as well as create and save your own.


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