Tim Child

Had to reinstall this the other day due to a problem on the server, so in the end I installed a fresh copy of Windows 2003 server, implemented Terminal Services in the server configuration menu (can also be done from add/remove windows components) and pointed the licensing to the licensing server running on our Active Directory Domain cController. At this point, its good to do the windows update and get on with something else as Microsoft tries to patch itself in to semi-security!

There is a nice little download that will install the remote desktop web connection for Windows 2003, enabling users to browse to the box using Internet Explorer and use an ActiveX component to bring up an almost fully feature terminal services session. It requires IIS (what doesn’t!) to run, but again this is very trival to install. If you are installing IIS at the same time then it is one of the configuration options for IIS6, just install it at that point.

There are somethings that Microsoft do well (SQL server 2000 being another) and this is one of them.

Nice little resource on Windows Scripting for Logons:

http://www.rlmueller.net/LogonScriptFAQ.htm

This is a fantastic little offering from Microsoft:
http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/children/kidtalk.mspx

I have been a long time user ofAdobe Photoshop scripting support. Firstly with using Javascript, and VBScript and then going on to build programs that interact with Microsoft SQL Databases using Visual Basic.

I was starting a new project and I am now using Photoshop CS which has the scripting built in now. A very welcome feature. I haven’t yet tested the backwards compatibility but I will be doing so soon. If you ever need to do more complex operations than the normal Photoshop actions allow, look in your install directory for photoshop and you will see the scripting sub directory and contained within are example scripts and the documentation. I am going to upload into the blog some examples, but until then theres everything needed to get started.

Useful little thing to know if you want to show all the hidden hardware on a Windows machine:
http://episteme.arstechnica.com/eve/ubb.x?a=tpc&s=50009562&f=77909774&m=1400925745
Basically at a cmd prompt:

set devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=1
start devmgmt.msc

Then in device manager “show hidden devices” under the view option.

Edit for 2006: this is also useful for finding hidden devices.

At work this week I got hold of one of the latest HP iPaq’s to come out, the rx3715 model. This was my first iPaq (I have had a Palm a while ago, but it still didn’t have the features I needed), so it was interesting to get involved with some technology that I didn’t have much experience with

The primary reason for getting it is to basically get myself organised, put in task lists, track projects and use a project management system and have wireless access to be able to get in to our systems in case of an emergency from anywhere

The rx3715 has alot more features for a multimedia system that perhaps at first glance I needed, being loaded with a 1.3M pixel camera, and being able to play music and videos, but it does have the advantage of being able to use bluetooth and wireless out of the box

Setting up wireless to the 802.11G capable Linksys Router was fairly painless after we set a static DNS address in the box, and bluetooth was even easier – in Windows XP I bridged the connection from my Lan to the bluetooth so my DHCP server was able to supply an IP to the iPaq. All in all very successful.

Sync’ing with Outlook 2003 was easy, and in seconds I had all my tasks and calender across, and dragging files fine.

So I have started to use Linux as my main desktop at work. Well sort of, I have got MS Remote Desktop setup on my windows box so I can still access the applications that I NEED to run for work, namely – Microsoft Visio, Microsoft SourceSafe, Microsoft Visual Basic Studio, .Net Studio, and a couple of other bits and pieces. But running terminal services in t his way is actually quite good, and for the majority of the time its all I need. I do prefer the TSClient (apt-get install tsclient) to rdesktop at the moment

As for the Linux box, its a fairly standard Debian install from sarge (Debian testing release), then updated to Sid (Debian unstable release) using Apt. I am running the 2.6 Kernel which at the moment has proved very stable, and on top of that I have Gnome installed which is not half bad.

If you are running Gnome, I would say spend a couple of minutes configuring it to your liking, setting up mouse, environment, windowing, display (in particular fonts) and you will be much happier for it.

Standard with Gnome on Debian is Ximian Evolution, and excellent mail package – but not standard was the exchange connector. This is available as an APT package, but I couldn’t get it to install so I reverted to source and installed that, and so far so good.

This is a really easy way of mounting a windows share on a debian box. It takes like 5 minutes to install and perhaps less to setup.

First as root:

Apt-get install samba

Apt-get install smbfs

Then try the following to get the server mounted:

mount �t smbfs �o username=YOURWINDOWSUSER,password=YOURWINDOWSPASSWORD //SERVER/FILESHARE/YOURMOUNTPOINT