Glo Networks Technical Blog (Glo Blog)

SQL 2008 is out now

Microsoft have finally released SQL Server 2008 this week just in time becuase support for SQL 2000 has just expired.

SQL 2008 has a list of new features including -

• Enterprise Reporting Engine - Reports can easily be delivered throughout the organization, both internally and externally, with simplified deployment and configuration.
• Internet Report Deployment - Customers and suppliers can effortlessly be reached by deploying reports over the internet.
• Report Builder Enhancements - Easily build ad-hoc and author reports wih any structure through report designer.
• Microsoft Office Intergration - SQL 2008 provides new Word rendering that enables users to consume reports directly within Microsoft Office Word. In addition, the existing Excel renderer has been greatly enhanced to accommodate the support features, like nested data regions, sub reports, as well as merged cell imporvements.

Posted in Applications, Servers | No Comments »

OS X Keyboard Shortcuts

We have recently put a few iMacs and macBookPros into a few customers and thought a few of the most used keyboard shortcuts for OS X would be well typed up.

All mac users sure try out Quicksilver, I’ve found it to be an invaluble tool that makes using OS X one of the quickest OS experiences you can get. It has many many uses and some of the great uses and functions are nicely demoed here and here.

cmd - this button is the one on either side of the space bar, sometimes known as the apple button.
alt - this is the button next to cmd, know in apple land as option.

When your focus is on Finder
cmd-N > New Finder Window
cmd-K > Connect to Server, great for a effectivly what Windows users would call mapping a network drive (smb://servername/sharename)
cmd-I > Get Info, when on or highlighting a file or folder this shows you the properties of it

General shortcuts for many apps
cmd-Q > Quit, a quick way to completely exist an application. Be careful of this for certain applications as the quit is almost instant, no good for any virutal program like Fusion or Parallels you may be running.
cmd-, > Preferences, loads the preferences for the currently active application
cmd-alt-esc > for closing stuck applications, a bit like task manager for Windows

When in Firefox
cmd-T > Opens a new tab
Holding down the cmd button when clicking a link opens that link in a new tab.

Posted in Desktops and Laptops, Operating Systems | 1 Comment »

iPhone 3G firmware 2.0.1

Although Apple dont seem to have released a list of bug fixes in the iPhone 3G’s latest update 2.0.1 here are a list of things i have found -

Scrolling through contact no longer has any lag at all which is great if you have a lot of contacts, the lag meant you went flying past the contact that you want.

There was also some lag when typing a test message sometimes, it wasnt the same person each time or everytime but it was most annoying when it did happen becuase the keyboard wasnt keeping up with what you were typing but this is now fixed.

A lot of the fixes in the update seem to be performance ones, as the two listed above, they have also fixed some of the little safari crashes and maps would sometimes return you to the home screen for no reason.

More updates as we find more fixes.

Posted in Mobile | No Comments »

iPhone 3G

Back in November last year when the first iPhone was released I paid £269 for the phone and even though it sounds expensive I think it was worth every penny, it was a great phone.

It contained an iPod touch, internet browser, email client and a lot more all rolled in to one but there were a couple of problems with it, one being the lack of 3G and the other is not having Microsoft Exchange support.

Well its July now and the iPhone 3G is here along with the release of the iPhone 2.0 software. First i want to list some of the hardware changes to the iPhone 3G over the original iPhone then I want to list and explain a bit about the changes and new features in the 2.0 software.

First lets take a look at the hardware changes -

Even though they have changed the back to plastic it is still the great build quality you would expect from Apple, it still feels solid and well balanced.

I remember reading a lot of articles and posts around the web when the first iPhone came out. A lot of people didnt like the fact they couldnt plug the normal headphones in the iPhone because the headphone socket was set in and not flush. Well, Apple have sorted this out with the iPhone 3G. The headphone socket now sits flush with the top of the phone, so you can use any headphones you like.

AGPS, the new GPS receiver in the iPhone works great, it finds your exact location very quickly and can be very useful when you are out and about. For example, I was down in plymouth a couple of weeks ago and as we were exploring on foot if we were not sure of our location, I could use the iPhone and find out exactly where we were and 3G meant that the maps loaded very quickly. The GPS is not just for maps and finding your way, it can also be used by other applications, even the camera can use it so you can mark your location when you take a picture.

3G is great! - when using it you cant really tell the difference between 3G and using the iPhone on wifi, it is really quick and completes the whole iPhone experience nicely along with Exchange support.

On to the software -

I want to start with Microsoft Exchange support, because to me and im sure a lot of other iPhone business users this is a great and important new feature.

By having Exchange support the iPhone uses push mail the same as what any windows mobile uses which means your email is on your phone just as quick as it is on your desktop.

If you have ever used mail on the iPhone before you will already know how to navigate it, with an exchange account on the iPhone its just the same but with some added benifits, you can now keep your email organized by being able to move and mass delete email.

The Exchange support does not just sync mail, it also does your calendar, contact and even the global address list.

Calendar requests are handled slightly differently on the iPhone, rather than you getting an email to accept or decline the calendar invite, there is a special button under calendar where you will find all of your appointment requests.

So how fast does the Exchange sync work? I entered a calendar appointment on my iPhone, by the time I could load outlook on my desktop the appointment was there, it is instant.

The App Store, when i first looked at the App store I was impressed with how much was already in there, but after browsing around it I couldnt really see much that I was interested in downloading apart from Apple Remote. Apple remote allows you to control your iTunes on your Mac or if you have one your Apple TV box, when you load Apple Remote it shows you all of your music including album art work you simply select the song you want and your Mac/Apple TV will play it, you can even control the volume. After a few weeks there does seem to be more interesting applications appearing on the App store, such as software to control your PC remotely.

Mobile Me - I dont actually use Mobile Me because I have an exchange server, but for those of you that dont have an exchange server, Mobile Me gives you Push email, contacts and calendar the same way that Exchange feature does. Mobile Me has had teething problems with a lot of members having problems and resulting in Apple giving members 2 months free because of the problems.

The Hardware:

• The back is now plastic instead of aluminium
• The headphones jack is now flush so you can use any headphones
• The buttons are now metal
• It now has what Apple call AGPS (Assisted GPS uses mobile phone towers, WiFi and built-in GPS receiver)
• Improved speaker
• Same 3.5″ multi-touch display
• and of course 3G

The software:

• App Store
• Support for Microsoft Exchange
• Apple’s new Mobile me service

Posted in Mobile | No Comments »

Fixing redirected My Docs permissions, using Powershell

For many of our customers we redirect a user’s My Documents to a directory of the same name, on a Windows share. For example, the user ‘JMcMuffin’ may have their My Docs redirected to “\\FILESERVER\Home\JMcMuffin\My Documents”, which are stored in a local path of D:\Data\Users\JMcMuffin, on FILESERVER. Obviously you can switch \\FILESERVER\Home for a DFS share, etc.

In some instances you might have a significant number and for whatever reason the permissions may have been altered, and the Group Policy defaults don’t quite suit your requirements. Or maybe you’re transfering these files to a new server, in a different domain. I can’t image you want to do the whole thing by hand.

In days of old we’d sort this with a batch script and it would be ok, but might take a while to run. Powershell has changed things though. The script we’ve popped together (below) runs lightning quick in comparison, and we thought someone else might also find it useful.

Just save it in a ps1 file, and invoke it from powershell, providing your directory path that you want to “fix”.

To use our example from above, you’d call the script on FILESERVER, from powershell:

PS C:\Users\Karl> C:\path\to\scripts\fix-perms.ps1 “D:\Data\Users”

The script would then go over each directory and try and add that user to the ACL with Modify rights - i.e. the JcMcMuffin user to the D:\Data\Users\JMcMuffin directory.

In our scenario we required ourselves, another group, SYSTEM and each user to have access only - So we pushed the common permissions from the parent, and then ran the script to add the individual users.

# Fix-Perms
# Iterates over all child directories, and adds the user, with the same name as the directory, to the ACL with modify rights
# Usage:
# Fix-Perms “C:\Path\To\Directory”
# Or, for the current directory
# Fix-Perms “.”

# our parameters, throw a warning if we get none
param (
[string] $dirpath = $(throw “Please specify the full path to the directory!”)
)

# get list of all child directories, in the current directory
$directories = dir $dirpath | where {$_.PsIsContainer}

# iterate over the directories
foreach ($dir in $directories)
{
# echo out what the full directory is that we’re working on now
write-host Working on $dir.fullname using $dir.name

# setup the inheritance and propagation as we want it
$inheritance = [system.security.accesscontrol.InheritanceFlags]“ContainerInherit, ObjectInherit”
$propagation = [system.security.accesscontrol.PropagationFlags]“None”

# get the existing ACLs for the directory
$acl = get-acl $dir.fullname

# add our user (with the same name as the directory) to have modify perms
$aclrule = new-object System.Security.AccessControl.FileSystemAccessRule($dir.name, “Modify”, $inheritance, $propagation, “Allow”)

# check if given user is Valid, this will barf if not
$sid = $aclrule.IdentityReference.Translate([System.Security.Principal.securityidentifier])

# add the ACL to the ACL rules
$acl.AddAccessRule($aclrule)

# set the acls
set-acl -aclobject $acl -path $dir.fullname
}

Posted in Applications, Desktops and Laptops, General, Operating Systems, Servers, Software | 3 Comments »