Time to Give Props

With the ever-expanding volume and breadth of information on the Internet today, it's easy to focus on my own thoughts, experiences, ideas, etc.  But I need to give credit to some very worthy people, who's blogs I read daily (RSS feeds are awesome!).  While I'm nowhere near as widely followed as these folks are, I can still shine a light for those that haven't yet discovered their work.  Please check them out as often as you can...

Jimmy Bergmark - JTB World

Jimmy's site covers a lot of topics surrounding the world of Autodesk technologies, as well as FlexLM and FlexNet management.  Tips, tricks, articles, and detailed discussions of a wide range of topics.

Rod Trent - MyITForum

Rod's site is a community actually.  It benefits from a large collective of brilliant people that cover a wide range of Microsoft-oriented infrastructure management.  From System Center products, to Windows Server, to scripting and more.

Johan Arwidmark - Deployment Research

Johan, and his colleague Mikael Nystrom, are two of the most renown people in the world of Windows operating system provisioning.  They focus most on MDT (Microsoft Deployment Toolkit), Configuration Manager OSD, but also on WAIK and advanced tools and topics like DISM, IMAGEX, and much more.  If you work with imaging and desktop/server deployments, you ABSOLUTELY need to check out these guys.

Ralph Grabowski - UpFront E-Zine / WorldCAD Access

For years, Ralph has done an amazing job of delving into the technical and business sides of the engineering and design software world.  He balances both with incredible skill, and without leaving either side in the cold.  One of the most beneficial aspects of his work is that he doesn't favor one vendor or one business model, but strives to remain objective and provide an unbiased view, even when tossing in his own thoughts at the very end.  If you work with CAD/CAM/CAE products or services, you need to read his stuff.

Joe Wilcox - BetaNews

Joe has been around the technology journalism world for a long time.  He has been at BetaNews for a few years and already made his mark with hard-edged articles on current topics that inspire a lot of discussion and debate.  Whether you like the products or vendors he writes about, or not, you will be entertained and enlightened by his writing I'm sure.

Scott Hanselman - Blog

While some might dismiss Scott's work due to being a Microsoft employee, you'd be sadly mistaken and cheating yourself out of some fantastic articles and incredible ideas surrounding software development trends.  Indeed, most of his topics reach far beyond Microsoft or Windows platform issues.  If you like programming in any capacity, check out his blog and see for yourself.

Daniel Petri - Blog

Daniel's site has been around for years, and has grown and amassed an incredible library of articles on almost everything related to Microsoft products, Cisco, Citrix, and VMware, among others.  More recently, he has enlisted more guest writers to help fill out the content and the results are amazing.  If you haven't visited the site, you should.

AppDeploy

If you do ANY work with automating the installation of software, like I do every day, this is a MUST web site to bookmark.  In particular, check out the Package KB library.  Even though it was acquired by Kace, and then by Dell, it's maintained it's original purpose and quality.  I highly recommend it.

I may follow-up with more links in case I forgot any (I'm sure I did).

What's Wrong with Google+?

I've told this story before, so if you've heard it already, just skip to the next paragraph:  I joined Facebook in October of 2006.  At that time, everyone I know was on MySpace.  The only people on Facebook were college kids (I didn't know at all), and geeks/nerds/dorks drawn by curiosity (whom I also didn't know).  Every friend, colleague, relative and neighbor I asked to join said one of two things:

"I use MySpace.  Why would I switch to Facebook?"

or

"What's Facebook?"

I stuck with it until late 2007 when I grew tired of visiting a social vacuum, closing my account around Christmas of that year.  Then, sometime in 2008, Facebook rolled out a bunch of changes to incorporate new friend features, update streams and, most importantly: games.  Facebook's games seemed to have become the porch light to the mosquitoes of human culture.  All of a sudden, everyone I knew was joining up and the urgency was propelled by an exponential factor.  All I heard in the Fall of 2008 (from those same people) was "You HAVE to join Facebook!  It's the coolest thing!!!"  Talk about drinking the Kool Aid.

So, I joined back up and played along for a few years.  I then watched as it devolved from an open discussion medium, into a circus festival of game invites, quote repostings, news repeats, religious and political article repostings, stupid animated GIFs postings and more game invites.  The portion of actual discussion fell from somewhere in the 90 percentile of content to less than 10 percent.  Sad.  The tool that was supposed to embolden our "social" interaction became a farce of social distraction.  Sound bitter?  Maybe.  More sad than bitter. 

The momentum seemed to peak in 2010 but I saw a curious erosion of openness following a barrage of political disagreements during and following election time.  The economic aspects that drove a wedge into the heart of our once congenial social climate, played out in emotional arguments over visceral views of "conservative" versus "liberal" and so on.  A lot of people clammed up.  As a safe refuge: rather than cutting each other off abruptly, they hid behind more game scores, game invites, cute video clips of kittens doing stupid tricks, and more reposts of quotes and religious phrases.  Direct communication took a major hit, in general, as compared to only a year or two prior.

So along comes Google+ and again, the cycle repeats:  Nerds are the first to jump on and explore what the hype is all about.  Google tried to make it "hep" by making it invitation-only.  That was cool for about two weeks.  Then the promise of a new model for organizing your social interaction groups with logical channels of thought.  The monolithic model Facebook had relied on for years was now looking outdated.  Then Google shot from the hip at things like privacy settings, export options, and promises for much more cool stuff coming "soon".

"Soon" didn't happen soon enough.  In fact, most of what Google+ users have been waiting for now seems to have been forgotten.  The numbers tell a bleak story: 41% drop in unique posts in the last month alone.  There have been numerous articles and blog posts already on what's wrong with the project and what it should be doing to make things right:

• Open it up to the public (no more invitations required)
• Relax the anonymity naming rules
• Add vanity names for businesses and organizations
• Integrate other Google services into the fold
• Improve the mobile app features
• Add threading to feedback comments
• Add "Send To" option for Google+ on Google Reader
• Offer some incentives for Facebook users to spend more time on Google+

The list goes on and on.  But none of these things seem to be happening.  The last six announced feature improvements were trivial adjustments to existing features, rather than radically new capabilities.  Bad move. It feels like a track race where the gun went off, the runner led past the first two hurdles and then, for unknown reasons, decided to walk.

Unless they have some incredibly fantastic amazing mindblowing new feature or incentive coming out soon, I can't see Google reclaiming the excitement and urgency they had during those first two weeks it was brought to life.  The window of opportunity is closing fast.  What a shame too.  I really felt it had something interesting and unique to offer, but this is looking more and more like Google Wave 2.0 now (I mean that in every possible way).  I'll stick with it to the end.  The sad, quiet, dying end... keeping hope alive.

What I'm Using

Every now and then I get asked what I'm using at work and at home.  I can't elaborate on which is which, because I'm a consultant and "work" can vary.  But to aggregate all of it into a single list, this is what I typically login to and use:

• Windows 7 64-bit, SP1
• Windows Server 2008 R2
• Office 2010 SP1
• IE9
• Google Chrome 15 (dev channel)*
• TextPad 5
• VMware Workstation 7
• WinImage 8
• Wise Package Studio 8 **
• Paint.NET 3.5.x
• Microsoft Security Essentials
• Windows Live Essentials 2011
• FileZilla
• 7-Zip
• SQL Server 2008 R2
• System Center Configuration Manager 2007 R3
• WSUS 3.0 SP2
• TweetDeck
• Google Earth

Web:

• Google+ (and Docs, Reader, Calendar, Gmail, Blogger, Picasa, YouTube)
• GrooveShark
• Twitter
• VeeHD
• Vimeo
• StackOverflow
• MyITForum
• Amazon
• Newegg

* primary browser

** soon to be replaced with AdminStudio

Google+ Thoughts

Some features I am still a bit surprised were not in the initial release of Google Plus. I’m guessing they will be added in the near future (not soon enough, in my opinion.  speed is of the essence):

• Post to Twitter so that shortened URL ties back to Google+ post (traffic vortex, duh)
• Post messages and photos to G+ without the need for a dedicated app (like Blogger can do already)
• More integration with Google Calendar, Reader and Gmail (as a bare minimum - I’d like to see all of the Google assets merged or linked more cohesively)

Don’t get me wrong, I love G+ (so far).  I was on Facebook when it first went public (a week before that you had to have a .edu email address to join).  At that time, only people 25 and older had any interest in it.  The younger crowd all loudly proclaimed MySpace was cooler at that time and Facebook was dull and boring.  In 2008, Facebook added schlock garbage (redundant terms, I know) like Games, Ads, Events and Surveys, and the crowds went wild (and stupid).

Between 2006 and 2007 there was nowhere near the amount of comparison review done between MySpace and Facebook in the press as compared to what I’m seeing now between Facebook and G+.  And G+ is still pre-release.  Maybe Google likes this process.  It is very similar to how they handled the acquisition of Garfield (later renamed to GMail), which kept the “beta” moniker for years.  I hope not.  Google used to be known for being fast and crazy.  Then they hired a lot of people, grew their campus, added data centers and now they’re suffering from the same bloat that punched the faces of Microsoft, Dell and IBM over the years.

I could go on and list my current gripes and annoyances, but why bother? Others have already begun that effort and I don’t feel like reinventing any wheels.  I have to assume that Google will address those in due time.  The microscope is already on them to see how they fare against Facebook and anyone else that decides to crash the party (Microsoft?).  We shall see.

Setting up Windows Web Admin on IIS7

I should have posted this much sooner, but here goes.  This is a quick how-to procedure for installing and configuring the IIS side of things.  I'm using Windows Server 2008 R2 and IIS7, but this is pretty similar for Windows Server 2008 as well.

IIS Configuration Procedure

1. Download the wwa.zip file and extract it to a folder on your IIS host server

2. Open IIS Manager

3. Expand the Server object

4. Right-click Application Pools, select Add Application Pool…

5. Enter a Name for the new pool (leave other defaults alone), click OK

6. Right-click on the new Application Pool, click Advanced Settings

7. Select the ellipses (…) next to the Identity setting…

8. Select "Custom account", and click the "Set" button

9. Enter an account (with sufficient account management rights), and the password…

10. Click OK, click OK again and again to return to IIS Manager.

11. Expand Sites, right-click "Default Web Site" and select "Add Application"

12. Enter the Alias, and select the Physical Path, and click OK

13. Double-click Authentication

14. Disable "Anonymous Authentication" and enable "Windows Authentication"

15. Right-click on the web application object (e.g. "wwa") in the left-hand panel, and select "Manage Application" / "Advanced Settings…"

16. Change the Application Pool setting to "WindowsWebAdmin" and click OK

17. Click OK and close IIS Manager

You should be good to go.  To test, open your browser and navigate to the appropriate URL.  Once opened, click the "About" link at the bottom of the home page.  Under the "Web Server" section, verify that Authentication Mode is "CONTROLLED" and that your domain account is shown for the REMOTE_USER value.

My Eyes are Permanently Damaged

Have you ever been privvy to a horrific accident?  I'm talking about the kind where you see something happen to another human that shouldn't' happen to a human being.  Limbs lost.  Gaping wounds.  Internal organs becoming externalized, and that sort of thing.  Go ahead and gasp in horror, but when I see such things I usually follow them up with "anyone up for a plate of spaghetti?"… "…with extra meat sauce? … anyone?"  I'm probably a candidate for desensitization studies.

Well, I invited a challenge that I couldn't refuse, but it may have cost me my eye site.

Photos of the results of a suicide bomb attack on an open market?  Nope.  Video of cats being inserted into wood chippers?  Nope.  Video of Dave England puking into a frying pan, scrambling the puke on high heat and eating it again?  Not even close.

WARNING: This link may cause permanent brain damage and loss of eye sight…

It was this: http://sheltonsgrill.com/site/home.html

Yes.  I'm afraid there are people getting paid to damage the eyes and minds of Internet users with some of the most God-aweful trash to ever grace a web browser.  I don't even know where to begin.  The color scheme?  The over-sized imagery for the visually impaired?  The Stevie Wonder layout?

The hamburger phone is a nice touch though.

More?

Here's some runner-ups to enjoy (wear your welding goggles to prevent eye damage):

Doumar's (as close to a Braille site as you'll get without being blind)

Animal Care Clinic of Holland Road (FrontPage never dies)

MBH (anyone up for gumbo?)

ECPI (hello? 1990's calling… wants their web site back)

Norfolk Wire & Electronics (stare into the shotgun and hold still for a moment)

Oceana Sensor (hoooo boy! Them panels are a bitchin!)

ComSec LLC (when Xbox and toilets are merged to make a web site)

Boulevard Screen & Sign (in two words: dark salmon)

Shitty Web Sites of The Week

After having tripped over some real crappy "local" web sites, I thought I'd do a segment focusing on them.  This is limited to web sites representing businesses and organizations within this little speck of land affectionately known as "Hampton Roads".  I've already described what the unofficial name "Hampton Roads" refers to, so if you need to see the list of municipalities that make up the collective monicker just Google it.

Sports Venues

Today's crappy/shitty/poorly-designed site is the Virginia Beach Field House.  I should have said "Sports Venue" since this is about the only one, well, aside from the sleepy Virginia Beach Sportsplex site.

On the surface, it will seem like a decent web site.  But the more you dig, you find things difficult to dig up.  Things that should take a single click, instead, require multiple clicks.  Much of the event information for which they've booked are jumps to other sites (bad for search engine marketing).  The "mobile" site is horrendously bad.  Trying to find even information is painful.  The layout is clunky and inefficient for a mobile device.  The link to view the "non-mobile" site renders like a bad 1960's action movie, replete with black text on dark blue background. 

Rating/Desktop Version (scale: A,B,C,D,F):

• Accuracy of information:  B+
• Navigation: D
• Color Scheme: F
• Visual Appeal: D
• Layout: D
• HTML Code Structure: C
• SEO optimization of code: D

Rating/Mobile Version (same scale):

• Accuracy of information: C
• Navigation: F
• Color Scheme: D
• Visual Appeal: F
• Layout: F
• HTML Code Structure: B
• SEO optimization of code: who cares

News Stations

WVEC, ABC affiliate, Channel 13 (local)

The color scheme and layout look like a 1980's purple passion bathtub pukefest.  Not the color scheme itself.  I'm referring to the infusion of stupid-looking ads whose themes do not match the site at all.  Yep, it's a purple passion puke performance.  I'm talking about AFTER the drinking has commenced and the party dude/chick staggers back to the bathtub to refill their cup, only to realize that leaning forward invokes the regurgitation stimulus and the previous consumption has returned to the pool from which it came.  THEN, the next party-er walks in, fills their cup with the previously consumed beverage substances and begins chugging.  THEN when they realize it's already been consumed and puked back into the tub, they too add their puke offering into the same tub.  This is what the WVEC web site looks like.  Major grade reduction goes to the shitty heading ads that cheapen the respectability of their brand image.

If you get bored, try counting all the ads on their home page and then count the "news" stories.  Now, tell me which has the greater count?

WTKR, CBS affiliate, Channel 3

Red. White. Blue. Red. White. Blue. Red. White. Blue. Red. White. Blue. Red. White. Blue. Red. White. Blue.  Ok, we get it: you're f***ing patriotic.  So much so that you devote a significant amount of time reporting on the failings of our local government (to be fair, all of the local news outlets despise all forms of local government and love to report as such).  After all, nothing says "I'm a proud American" like repeatedly waving a red-white-and-blue flag while you bad mouth the government.  Awesome.  Oh, and by the way, you're only missing a Bail Bonds ad on your home page.  The rest of the ads look like a 1970's New York subway prop from The Warriors.

WAVY, NBC affiliate, Channel 10

Of all the local station web sites, this has the cleanest and simplest layout and navigational structure.  However, it gets a lower grade on performance due to slow page rendering.  While this site has roughly as many gawdy advertisements as the others, they had the sense to avoid putting them in the heading like WVEC.

FOX43, Fox affiliate, Channel 43

This site is a clone of NBC affiliate WAVY-10 so the same rating applies.  Points off for that.  At least show that you have SOME level of imagination.

Next Time: The Verizon Wireless Virginia Beach Amphitheater… Oh wait, never mind.  They don't really have their own web site.  They freeload on the LiveNation ticket sales web site, which is technically not from Hampton Roads but still qualifies as one of the ugliest pieces of crap sites to click on.

Bugs/Annoyances: TurboTax Online

See if you can spot the contradictory information between these two screen shots?  The first one is what I saw when logging into TurboTax using Google Chrome 9.  The second is what I got when logging into the same site with Microsoft IE 9.  Forget the "Google Chrome 4" mess.  This is kind of funny to me anyway.

Top 10 Blog Readings of 2010 and What's Ahead

Taking a que from Ed Bott's recent blog post, I decided to analyize my Google Analytics to see what the top-ten most read blog articles were for 2010.  My blog has picked up in 2010 for sure.  I abandoned it twice before, due to falling readership and lack of time to spend on it.  I still don't have much time, but with the traffic increases this year, I have tried my best to keep it going and keep it interesting.  I hope it is interesting for you.

And now I will open the envelope…

1. Windows 7, MSG.EXE and Group Policy Preferences
2. Packaging DWG TrueView 2011
3. Windows 7 GPEDIT Changes *
4. Don't Forget to Mop Up *
5. Packaging & Deployment Autodesk 2011 Products with System Center Configuration Manager 2007
6. Enabling Windows 7 Remote Management via Group Policy *
7. Using PowerShell with an MS-Access Database
8. What does the AutoCAD "PURGE" Command Do?
9. Packaging DirectX 9.0c as an MSI
10. Uninstalling AutoCAD LT 2011 with SCCM 2007 **
11. (Honorable Mention) Deploy Autodesk Design Review 2011 with SCCM 2007
12. (Honorable Mention) Scripting with Glue and Tape *

* Article was actually posted in 2009 but ranked in the top-10 most-read for 2010

** Autodesk posted a script to perform the same action but with more meticulous attention to detail, so I have to recommend readers to use that instead of what was posted on article marked

What's Ahead

I finished up two e-books and set them out on the waters of Amazon just in the past month.  So far they've done pretty well.  Now I have to figure out what to do next.  I'm sure I will publish updated editions to both of them sometime in 2011, but I'd also like to produce something new.  I'm open for suggestions on either of these endeavors (so drop me a line at ds0934 at gmail dot com)

I know I recently posted a list of current projects, but I left a few out:

• Working with managing MED-V clients with SCCM and Scripting
• Aggregating information from SCCM, SQL and Active Directory for a web application
• Spinning up on Sharepoint Foundation 2010 and Search Server Express for a client project
• Testing a Google Chrome Notebook
• Reading a crap-load of books on my Kindle (I love that little gadget!)
• Trying not to ignore my wife, kids and dog (I try)
• Improving my diet and getting back to exercising (walking, bike riding, etc.)
• House and car repairs (plenty of that waiting for me already)
• Doing a better job at everything I do (continuous improvement)
• Helping others wherever I can

For now, I'm going to take a few days off to spend with my family.  So I'd like to say to you…

Merry Christmas!  Happy Holidays!

Best wishes to you, your families and loved ones!

 

The Book has a Web Site!

I finally got around to setting up a web site dedicated to the AutoCAD Network Administrator's Bible e-book.  The new site is at the following URL…

https://sites.google.com/site/acadnab

Amazon vs Barnes & Noble

No, I'm not talking about two 800 lb guys in a ring with broken noses and mouth guards in, getting psyched up to beat the crap out of each other. I'm just comparing their respective self-publishing services and the results I'm seeing as an author of a very narrow niche subject-matter book.

Application Maturity

I expected Amazon's DTP web application to be the bomb-diggity.  I mean, after all, they have the reputation for being technologically adept with things like S3, ECC, and their various API's.  But I have to score this round in favor of Barnes & Noble's Pubit! web site.  It's just way better in terms of UI/UX design, navigation, layout, and the process of uploading and publishing a new e-book.  However, the Pubit! login system is lame.  Amazon's is also handicapped by being buried in their site.  Once you find either one of these, you really have to bookmark them or you'll suffer a million clicks trying to find your way back in from their home pages.

Revenue Model

I score this round for both of them as being equal.  They both offer about the same terms of royalties, fees, and sales management.  Although, I haven't sold a single copy of my book on BN yet, so I can't really compare the sales reports, which brings me to the next round.

Sales Results / Effectiveness

I published my e-book first on Amazon and sold two copies the first day.  I've now sold just about a dozen copies in less than a week of being published.  I published on Barnes & Noble only a few days after I posted it on Amazon, and I've yet to see a single sale rung up there.  If this continues to be the pattern, I will only publish on Amazon.  Time will tell.

Today's Thawt: Programmers vs Designers

If you take a holistic, aggregate view of ASP.NET or ASP.NET MVC web sites you will find that 99.999999999 percent of them looks like something crapped out of a robot's ass.  I think that quote was from Confucius, or maybe it was Ptolemy.  Who cares.  The point is that asking a programmer to make a web site (or as they prefer to call it "a web application") is asking for a mechanic to build you a sculpture.  It will likely function very well, but it won't likely be pretty.

Conversely, asking a "web designer" to build a complicated web-based application (say, something like your average HR manager would use every minute of their day at work to process terminations, and promote people with no reason to be promoted) then you will get a pretty site, with Web 2.0 AJAX JQuery buttons that morph and slide and fade in and out, but the workflow will be strange, the reports will contain flawed calculation results and the HR manager will fire them next.

I've been building web sites and web applications for quite a few years.  I'm not an expert, but I play one on my imaginary TV station, so I can speak from minimal experience on this.  I've spent a LOT of time on both sides of the conference table.  As both the "user"/"customer" and the "developer", and for a good while I functioned as a "technical liaison" to translate the MBA to BWD and vice versa.  BWD is Bong-Water Drinker, the dialect spoken by the indigenous tribes of Skittledom near the mountains of RedBullia, where they raise programmers on vines and pluck them at just the right peak of ripeness to deliver to industry.  Reminds me of those old spaghetti sauce commercials with the grainy film of the Mario-looking guy picking tomatos for the kids to crush into little hand-made cans of Ragu.  Tears.  I need a tissue.

Where was I?  Oh yeah, coders and suits. Suits and coders.

If you get the right mix of them in one room, amazing things happen.  Magical things.  Things that blow people's minds.  But the wrong mix and you end up with crap like this.

Here's the general rule for building web apps and web sites:

1. Function First!  It must work properly and be easy to navigate.  The information has to be correct.  The results and reports need to be accurate.  Handle errors properly!
2. Get the Customer to approve everything.
3. Pretty it up

I'm not saying "looks aren't important".  They are.  But function has to come first.  It doesn't matter if your beautiful sports car is nice to look at IF it can't turn a corner or the brakes don't work.

Detect Windows 7 Users from Web Site

I had to tinker with this for two separate projects, so hopefully it’s of use to someone else.  Not really rocket science, but then again: web pages are never rocket science are they?

PHP code

function isWin7() {
	if (strpos($_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'], 'Windows NT 6.1') == true) {
		return true;
	}
	return false;
}

ASP code

Function isWin7() {
	If InStr(Request.ServerVariables("HTTP_USER_AGENT"),"Windows NT 6.1") > 0 Then
		isWin7 = True
	End If
End Function

Bounce Rates and Eye Blinks

I decided to spend more time digging into my Google Analytics stats to see if I really have anything to cheer about.  Well, yes and no.  The good: I’m averaging between 40-60 visitors per day on this blog and 20-25 per day on Scriptzilla.   The VLDB site is also pulling decent numbers.  And now for the bad: average time on site per visit is 10 seconds.  Either I have some of the fastest readers in the Universe (or multiverse, depending upon your platform spin as it were, hee hee), or I draw a lot of people in for none other purpose than to waste their time and make their heads shake like a Parksinson’s patient on Red Bull at a Rap concert.  Ok, the stats clearly show it’s the latter.  Then again, GA is not very adept at analyzing stats from RSS feeds as far as I can tell.

But here’s some interesting tidbits…

• The largest portion of mobile viewers are using an iPad.  I never expected this.  The second largest portion is iPhone, then Blackberry at third.
• In the past 30 days, this blog had 1207 new visitors and 337 returning visitors
• The largest referral traffic source is myITForum.com followed by Google
• 640 visitors were from the US.  106 from the UK.  83 from Germany
• My blog is well below the benchmark numbers for most blog sites being tracked by Google Analytics.  Well below.  As in: well…. below.
• Most people hit the home page and leave.  After that, the rest of you fan out into mostly technology-related posts.  The spread of visits among the rest is pretty equal.
• Most of my posts are completely stupid and meaningless
• Most of you haven’t read this far so it doesn’t matter what I say here

My Favorite Web Sites

I'm a Google Reader JUNKIE.  I may need therapy.  I currently have about 250 feeds arranged into 8 categories of which I scan daily for useful tidbits.  However, I'm becoming less of a fan of RSS skimming and getting back more towards reading the source web sites.  The reason is that RSS feeds generally strip off a lot of the visual appeal of the site itself.  While the textual content is usually intact, the graphics often get skewed, blocked or just don't come through at all.  But more important than graphics and visual layout is the aggregation of information.  Great examples of this are FastCompany and SmashingMagazine.  If you inspect their home pages it should be obvious what you miss by only reading their RSS feeds.  I obviously don't visit nearly as many web sites as I have RSS feeds, but these I try to hit at least every other day if I can.

Note: My criteria for "favorite" is not based on visual appeal or site design.  It's based on useful information and ease of extraction.

FastCompany

Smashing Magazine

NetTuts

LifeHacker

QuickSprout (Neil Patel's blog)

Cool Material

Neatorama

So You Want to Hire a Web Developer?

I've been doing web development work for quite a few years and have compiled a list of the top things customers should do BEFORE they go looking for a web developer.  I mean BEFORE. As in BEFORE you even talk to one of them.  BEFORE you email or IM or strike up conversation at a party with one of them.  This is PART 1 of more to come.

Things to Do:

1. Do Your Homework
2. Decide What Exactly you Want Your Web Site to Do
3. Determine How Much You Are Willing to Spend
4. Determine How Much Time You Can and WILL Devote to Running the Site
5. What is the Business Plan?

Things to Avoid Until Later in the Planning:

1. Search Engine Bullshit
2. Ads and Advertisement Sales
3. Selling Stuff and Shopping Carts

Do Your Homework

What other web sites will you be competing with?  Don't you DARE say "None!  I have a unique idea!"  Bullshit!  There are no more unique ideas on the Internet.  Innovation is dead.  You have to find a niche and exploit it.  Even if it's very close to someone else's niche, figure out (exactly) how and what you can do different and (more importantly) BETTER.

Decide What Exactly you Want Your Web Site to Do

If you can't describe what your site will do in one short sentence, you have no direction or idea what you're doing.  Narrow it down.  Focus.  "I'm going to sell stuff" is a start.  Sell what?  To whom?  Where?  How?  Do you have the means to handle packing, shipping, order tracking, returns and customer support?  "I'm going to start a ___ community."  For whom?  Why?  Why would they drop the other sites to use yours?  You have to ask the hard questions up front to avoid dumping an enormous amount of money and time into a bad idea.

Determine How Much You Are Willing to Spend

If you can't invest more than a few hundred bucks in this idea, it's probably going to have to take the low road for phase 1.  Maybe rely on a canned, do-it-yourself path like WordPress, KickApps, Ning or whatever.  Whatever you do, do not just run out and buy a domain and hosting plan before you know what you're getting into.  It may end up bleeding you dry and you won't have enough left over to hire someone to help you dig your way out (and up).

Determine How Much Time You Can and WILL Devote to Running the Site

Almost everyone I sit down with to discuss helping them bring their ideas to life overlooks this key aspect.  I really don't understand why this is.  Standing up a web site is the START of the dream, not the end of it.  To me, this is like practicing for years to get drafted into the major leagues, only to get up for the first at-bat and then say "you mean I have to actually hit a ball now?!" (yes.  you do.)

Ask any person that owns their own business how much time they devote to it, especially during the first year.  They will almost always tell you 24x7.  Making a web site work is no different.  You can't casually throw it out there and expect it to draw in tons of followers.  If you have brand recognition already, then maybe you can.  But if you're starting from square one, you will need to make this project (your dream web site) priority #1 for at least a few months.  If after six months of serious effort and labor invested into this you don't see results, re-evaluate and adjust.

So, Now What? : Step 2 / Compiling Your Ideas

If you've already done all this homework and have your idea honed and you're still pumped and excited, there's still more planning and preparation to do.  This will save you a BIG ASS amount of wasted time and money hashing things out with a developer.

Sketch Out Your Ideas – Get a pad of graph paper (yes, you remember that stuff from Geometry class, don't you?).  Use a pencil and sketch out the rough layout of your imaginary web site home page.  Figure out where the navigation links will go.  Horizontal?  Vertical?  Static or dynamic?  Top or Bottom? Left or Right?  Somewhere unusual or diagonal?  Flash or HTML5 animation?  Keep in mind your budget limits.  The more fancy your animation and graphic, the more time and cost.  It will grow fast.

Suggestion: Keep it simple for the first phase.  Don't get mired down in animation crap.  Focus on making the idea work.  If the idea is selling a product or a service, and you waste all your time and money on dynamic whiz-bang menu graphics, you will almost certainly fuck up the main goal of your site because you're getting distracted.  Build the function first.  Then make it pretty.

Do users have to sign up?  Do you need to protect privacy?  Have you checked on the legal issues?  Will there be any minors using your site?  Just adults?  Will you need to support multiple languages?  Will you need to sell something in multiple currencies?  If there's a discussion forum, who will moderate the comments and keep the kids playing nice in the chat groups?  If there's a blog, who will be posting to it and how often?  A blog that gets updated once a year gets ignored.

After you scratch together all these ideas and concerns, stop and ask the questions again:  Why is this different?  What makes it different?  Why will this work better than other sites?  Who are my biggest competitors?  What are they doing?

Step 3 / Finding The Right Tools

So, all that's done and you have a pile of sketches and clips and prints, and you have notes and you know what you're aiming for.  The next step is finding a web developer.

Stop.

Do you really need one?  Did you really look at WordPress?  Did you check out SquareSpace, KickApps and Ning?  If not, do it now.  And you better take at least a full day (if not several) to really dig into them and use their free trial services to feel them out.

If WordPress is what you like, now you can focus your search on a web developer that has experience with customizing WordPress sites and plug-ins.  Same goes for KickApps, SquareSpace, Ning or whatever.  The main point here is that you may not need to build a web site completely from scratch.  If you have zero experience building one that way, it might be best to consider one of these other options instead.

But if you decide you really need to build your site from scratch, or maybe you have someone that knows how to build sites from scratch, you still need to keep your ideas focused and guided.  Nail everything down as much as you can early on.  The more you change things during the building phase, the more delays you will cause, which equates to more cost and frustration.  You may think it's great to change the shapes from squares to ovals, or the colors from purples to blues, or change the text fonts and sizes, but the developer is going to run out of patience eventually.  Remember that this is YOUR dream.  For the developer it's a project.  A job.

Summary

I have no intention of shooting down your dreams of building a wonderful web site.  But so many people come to me without having thought through their ideas.  If you can't hone and optimize your ideas, how can anyone else?  Especially a complete stranger.  You need to do some homework and piece your idea together.  You will amass a pile of crumpled paper and break some pencils.  You will fill folders with scratched ideas drawn up in Microsoft PowerPoint, Paint, PhotoShop, Visio, and just about any application you doodle with.  You will give up and start over.  Again and again.  But if you have a good idea and it survives your own research and planning, chances are it's worth pursuing.  But don't sit down with a web developer until you know what you want.  It will save you a lot of frustration and keep your costs and expectations reasonable.

Neat-O Windows Admin Tricks: Automating a Help Desk Web Form

Scenario:

Within your Microsoft Windows Active Directory network environment, you have an intranet web site.  That web site serves up a Help Desk web page for users/customers/losers/idiots/crackheads/ to use for requesting things.  It has a form to fill-out, and when they submit the form, it generates an e-mail or stores the info in a database table (and sends an e-mail), etc. whatever.  But the form has a text box for the user to manually type in the name of their computer and their user name and other general contact info.  You'd really like to have that general contact info, and the computer name info, automatically filled in, so that users/losers don't enter stupid or incorrect information.

What to Do:

This scenario involves two (2) general issues that need to be addressed.  Each of these issues can be addressed in a variety of ways.  I'm only covering one (1) way to address each.

Part 1 - Automating the User Contact information

User information is typically stored in Active Directory.  If you (or whomever) did their job properly, each user account object should have all the pertinent information entered, such as e-mail address, phone number, department, first and last name, location info, etc.  AD information is stored and shared via LDAP and ADSI.  You can leverage built-in LDAP and ADSI features within ASP (or pretty much any COM or .NET scripting platform) to access that information.  An ASP web application can use the following code to query Active Directory for user account information.

The catch?  You have to make sure you enable "Integrated" authentication for your intranet web site in order to capture the user account name in the background.  This is silent and automatic if the visitor's use Internet Explorer.  Otherwise, they will be prompted to provide their domain credentials before accessing the web page (username and password).  I will explain the code shown below just below that.

<% Function UserName() Dim tmp, domain : domain = "mydomain" If Session("username") <> "" Then UserName = Session("username") Else tmp = Trim(Request.ServerVariables("REMOTE_USER")) If tmp <> "" Then Session("username") = Ucase(Mid(tmp, Len(domain)+2)) UserName = Session("username") Else UserName = "" End If End If End Function %>

Part 2 - Automating the Computer Name information

This is only a tiny bit more complicated, but still pretty easy.  Because capturing the visitor's computer name is not nearly as straightforward, you have to try alternate methods.  One method is to capture the remote IP address, and perform some sort of background lookup to find the computer name.  Messy.  Ugly.  Painful.  Another method is a bit more circuitous, but it works very well: create a desktop (or start menu) shortcut which contains the computer name in the URL parameters.  Consider the following URL which would be requested from a shortcut on the desktop of a user working on computer named "Computer123":

URL: http:// intranet/helpdesk/helpform.asp?cn=Computer123

The small catch here is that you will need to make sure your web form can read the "cn=" parameter and transfer the assigned value (e.g. "Computer123") into the form edit box.  If your web form is ASP or ASP.NET, this is very simple to enable.  The example below shows how to capture this value with an ASP web page:

helpform.asp

<% cn = Trim(Request.QueryString("cn"))%> <html> <head> <title>Help Desk Request Form</title> </head> <body> <h1>Help Desk Request Form</h1> <form id="user" method="post" name="form1" action="request.asp"> Your Name: <input type="text" name="user" size="20" value="<%=UserName()%>"/> <br/> Computer: <input type="text" name="comp" size="30" value="<%=cn%>"/> <br/> Details:<br/> <textarea name="details" cols="55" rows="8"></textarea> <br/> <input value="Submit" type="submit" name="btnSubmit"/> <input value="Reset" type="reset" name="btnReset"/> </form> </body> </html>

There are many "easy" ways to create shortcuts, but they usually come down to using the Wscript.Shell object.  If you want/need to deploy a shortcut to a large number of desktops, you may want to consider scripting it.  You can "blast" out the change by running a script from your desktop or from a server, etc.  Or you can make it part of your login script, or deploy it as a package via Group Policy or SMS, SCCM, Altiris, etc.  Whichever way you deploy it doesn't really matter.  You should be able to automate the capturing of the computer name and use that to concatenate a URL text string to use for creating the shortcut target value.  The examples below show how you can do this within a login script (both VBScript and KiXtart flavors are shown).

Which way (script language, utility, etc.) you choose to go doesn't matter as long as it works.  Once you fetch the computer name, you can take that and concatenate the URL string and make the shortcut for the user to click on to access the Help Desk web form.  The script code below will create a shortcut on the user's desktop using the URL example above.

login.vbs

Function ComputerName() Dim objShell Set objShell = Wscript.CreateObject("Wscript.Shell") ComputerName = objShell.ExpandEnvironmentStrings("%computername%") End Function url = "http:// intranet/helpdesk/helpform.asp?cn=" & _ ComputerName() cap = "Help Desk Request Form" Set wshShell = CreateObject("Wscript.Shell") Set objFSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject") strPath = wshShell.SpecialFolders("Desktop") scPath = strPath & "\" & cap & ".url" If objFSO.FileExists(scPath) = False Then Set objShortcutURL = wshShell.CreateShortcut(scPath) objShortcutURL.TargetPath = url objShortcutURL.Save Set objShortcutURL = Nothing End If

 

login.kix

$url = "http:// intranet/helpdesk/helpform?cn="+@wksta $cap = "Help Desk Request Form" $wshShell = CreateObject("Wscript.Shell") $strPath = $wshShell.SpecialFolders("Desktop") $scPath = $strpath+"\"+$cap+".url" if exist($scPath) = 0 $objShortcutURL = $wshShell.CreateShortcut($scPath) $objShortcutURL.TargetPath = $url $objShortcutURL.Save() $objShortcutURL = 0 endif

Putting it All Together

Duct tape, Elmer's Glue, staples, chewing gum, rubber bands… ok, you should now have a "helpform.asp" file sitting on your web server and shared from an IIS site on the server which has integrated authentication configured (do not enable any other authentication options).  Then you would have either a "login.vbs" or "login.kix" login script file.  Target that using Group Policy or simply send a link to the script to one of your test users (aka minion guinea pigs) to test out.  The script should be executed under the user context, not the system context, so it can grab the user information and computer information as well.

Now, when a user logs on, it will create a shortcut on their desktop to "Help Desk Request Form" which contains the URL shown in RED above (except with their actual computer name filled in, instead of "Computer123").

When the user launches the shortcut, it requests the URL along with the computer name.  The ASP form reads the "cn=" parameter to fetch the computer name.  The ASP form also uses the ServerVariables collection to fetch the user account name.  You can modify the **** out of this to suit your needs/whims, etc.  Read the following disclaimer however. – Cheers!

IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER:

Test this in an isolated NON-PRODUCTION environment before attempting to use it in a real production environment.  There is no warranty or guarantee of ANY KIND WHATSOEVER provided for this information, either explicitly or implicitly.  I assume no responsibility or liabilities for any stupid shit dumbass crap, loss of data, downtime, anger, resentment, hostility, depression, angst, mood swings, etc., that may occur as a result of what happens if you don't test it thoroughly before letting it lose on your network.

A Comment Regarding BlogcastRepository.com

I have continued to receive e-mail from readers asking about what has happened with BlogcastRepository.com and the video tutorials, etc. Rather than continue to respond to each one, I wanted to post something for all so that it clarifies things a bit.

I was approached by Brian S. Tucker back in late 2007 via email to join his collective venture to provide tutorial videos and blog posts about various Windows Server platform products and technologies.  My role was to record and post 15-18 videos on WSUS 3 and Windows Server 2008, which at the time were either still in public "beta" or only recently RTM/RTP.  My videos were posted and registrations began ramping up.  Brian enlisted a few more authors to cover other products like SQL Server, App-V/SoftGrid, and he continued handling SCCM and SCOM.  Things were good.

Brian S. Tucker (there are other Brian Tuckers out there so I still use the "S." initial to avoid confusion) passed away in August of 2009, while working on a project at a client site in Northern Virginia.  The obituary is posted below.  I'm afraid I do not know a lot of details about how he passed away, nor about his remaining family, nor the status of the web site.  I have e-mailed every contact address I had to try to find out what is/was going on with the web site, existing accounts and pending registrations.  I have not been successful in getting a single response to any of my e-mails.  I do not know if anyone is currently minding the shop, or if anyone is planning to assume the management of it in the future.  I just don't know what's going on at all.

If you have more information about this, please share with the rest of us if you can?

Thank you!  And may he rest in peace.

[original obituary…]

Copied from http://www.veteranstoday.com/modules.php?name=News&file=comments&op=Reply&pid=25962&sid=8661&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0

Fairfax, Va. - Brian Straehley Tucker, age 38, of Glen Carbon, died on Wednesday, Aug. 12, 2009, in Fairfax, Va., of circumstances related to a heart condition. He was born in New York, N.Y., on Oct. 21, 1970, the son of Joyce Hudson of Kiawah Island, S.C. and William S. Tucker, Jr. of Charleston, S.C. and step-son of Martha Tucker of Charleston, S.C. and W. Thomas Hudson, Jr. of Kiawah Island, SC.

Brian graduated from Summit High School, in Summit, N.J., and attended Southern Illinois University, in Edwardsville.

Brian served in the U.S. Navy from 1990 - 1994 and in the U.S. Naval Reserve from 1994-1998 and was the recipient of the National Defense Service Medal for his service during the Gulf War and Operation Desert Storm.

Brian was employed as a Computer Systems Engineer for Intrinsic Technologies, LLC of Lisle, Illinois since 2005.

Brian was an avid motorcycle enthusiast and enjoyed traveling with family and friends.

Brian was a loving and devoted father and is survived by his daughter, Chelsea C. Tucker of Edwardsville; parents and step parents; sister, Lynsey Tucker of New York, N.Y.; grandparents William S. Tucker and Vivian O. Tucker of Blytheville, Ark., and Eleanor K. Casato of Lakehurst, N.J., step-sisters, Lynn Matthews of Charlotte, N.C., and Lisa Grasing of Kansas City, Kan.; step-brothers, Judson Matthews of
Charleston, S.C.; Will Hudson of Portland; and Matt Hudson of London, England; loved ones, Julie A. Tucker; Joshua P. Lager; Brian L. Lager and Chad N. Lager of Edwardsville; and many devoted friends and colleagues. A family memorial service will be conducted in Chelsea, Vt.

Changing Gears a Bit

I have worked with ASP and PHP web development for quite some time.  It helped me support my family during the brief layoff I experienced in 2008, and has continued to help.  I categorize web development into two general types: Intranet (internal facing), and Internet (external or public facing).  I have always considered myself better equipped to work with Intranet projects than Internet projects, but I’ve always had more Internet projects on my plate for some reason.  But some recent events have pushed me to reevaluate my stance on accepting new projects.  I’m not going to delve into the events or the reasons, but in basic terms: I’m not taking on any more Internet projects except in an advisory role.  There’s just not enough benefits left these days to outweigh the drawbacks.  I don’t have inclination to spend time on digressing into the reasons, and I really am not obligated to either.  So, that’s just what it is.  Intranet projects are fine.  Internet projects: no more.

PowerPoint 2010 for Web Graphics and The Missing “Fun”

I’ve been building web sites for quite a few years and have bounced around different graphics tools as well.  I’m never happy with one product.  Photoshop, The Gimp, PhotoEdit, Microsoft Image Editor (defunct), Paint.NET, PaintShop, CorelDraw, Illustrator, ArtRage, etc. etc.  But one tool I seem to come back to a lot is Microsoft PowerPoint.  I don’t have a prepared answer for that, but I suspect that it may be due to the simplicity of it.  It’s just easier to do some things with it than with more complicated tools like Photoshop or The Gimp.

The image below shows some simple graphic buttons I created in PowerPoint 2010.  The entire set of objects took literally 5 minutes to create and arrange.  No custom plug-ins or scripts or configuration settings required.  I simply dropped the shapes, picked a theme style, adjusted the gradients and transparency, reflection and edited the text.  Done.

By the way: Where’d the “Fun” Go?

I’m just saying that it seems in the rush to flood the other tools with so many incredible features, something gets lost in the shuffle.  The simplicity and intuitiveness seem to suffer as more tools are stuffed into their ever-growing menu and toolbar collections.  They also seem to take longer and longer to launch with each new version.  Another thing that seems to be missing in those is “fun”.  Sure, there’s geeky fun, but intuitive, reptilian brain, instinctive fun, is just fading away.  Some of the products that seem to understand how “fun” should be part of the equation are Kagi’s ArtRage Studio and Disney Magic Artist, which are great for burning hours and hours of playing for no reason other than playing (if you get that luxury).

I’m not saying Microsoft PowerPoint brings the “fun” to your graphics work.  No, it really doesn’t.  But it does bring ease, simplicity and a feeling of least-effort for really basic shape creation and editing.  Another product that brings simplicity is Paint.Net, but it’s showing signs of slipping into the same fast lane as the more complicated (and pricey) products when it comes to features vs simplicity.  The latest version (3.5 as of this writing) restores some of the clarity of the UI that the prior release was gradually slipping away from, which is very nice.  I’m really looking forward to version 4 when it’s released.  I’m focusing on Windows graphic products exclusively of course, which is what I’m most familiar with, so forgive me for not mentioning others which are only available for OSX or Linux.  In the meantime, I will continue to bounce around to find a chain of tools to meet my needs.

Just my two cents