bloggingIT

It’s been a little while since I last posted, so I thought that I’d better throw something up for 3 reasons.

1. I’m sitting at a computer installing over 10 CDs worth of software, and extremely bored
2. Lots is happening in my life, a great deal of which I can’t go into on this blog
3. Some stuff does happen, but I’m always too busy, and so I end up forgetting.

Well, no more! One of the core reasons for less posting is that this blog is fundamentally self-serving. I use it mainly for my own reference, so that if I need to do something IT-related I can load up the blog. Likewise, if I’m talking to someone I sometimes say, “I had that problem - search for it on my blog.” It’s a doddle. The investment in time is always a catch, though, and so I sometimes slip up and not post for a while.

So a rundown on cool things that I’m keeping an eye on or doing is coming right up.

I’ve had a problem lately whereby various roaming profiles have the Computer window appear when users log into Windows Vista.

I messed around with a load of settings to try and work out what it was - I thought that as the problem only manifests itself in Vista with the new profiles, maybe it’s mis-interpreting a group policy setting such as the ‘only show personal folders’ setting.

It took a while, but there was no such settin to make My Computer appear in either the Desktop settings or Start Menu and Taskbar.

The offending article is that nigh-on useless Welcome Center that Vista imposes on users when they log in for the first two times. It seems that if you have redirected folders enabled and have turned off the common options for the Start Menu, then the Welcome Center fails to run. What then compounds the problem is that instead of showing the Welcome Center, it shows the Computer window.

Here’s the kicker, because you cannot see the Welcome Center, you cannot tick the box to tell it never to appear again.

A very simple Group Policy fix is actually found in User Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Windows Explorer. Here you can find an option to disable the Welcome Center when a user logs in.

Once enabled, the annoying Computer popup is no more.

One of the tricky things about managing Favourites for users on a network is that it’s a nightmare to easily deal with the varied requirements of users.

Generally, you would set up favourites on a Windows network to do one of the following:

• Leave them as they are. Users can add and remove their own favourite websites
• Redirect favourites to a shared location with a registry hack – but users lose their personal favourites
• Add favourites through Group Policy – but you need a network admin to do this whenever something needs to be added.

Now, there’s a groovier, sexier way to do it. You can finally have your cake and eat it. The best part (or worst part depending on your point of view) is – the solution has been there all along.

Before We Start

You’ll need:

• A Windows-2000 based network with group policy enabled, and an Organsational Unit with user accounts inside.
• The Group Policy Management Console installed on either the server or a workstation that you will use
• Administrator Rights

You also need to ask yourself who will have the rights to add shared favourites. This is fairly important, so consider it sensibly.

Getting Started

First of all, log on to a server and run the Active Directory Users and Computers console.

Somewhere in the AD structure, create a new security group called ‘FavouriteManagers’. Next add the users who you want to allow to change favourites to this group. If you don’t mind who changes the favourites, you can skip this step.

This is the group who will be allowed to add favourites to the users. Once you’re done here, and you are happy with the users who are set up in this group – we can set up the tool.

Setting Up the Group Policy to Allow Favourites to be Modified

Log onto your server / workstation as an administrator and do the following:

1. Open up the Group Policy Management Console, and find the OU where the user accounts you want to control are.
2. Right-click on the OU and select, Create and Link a GPO here… Call the new policy ManageFavourites.
   
3. Now click on the new policy, and click on the Delegation tab. Click Add… and add the FavouriteManagers group to have edit access
   
4. Click on the Details tab, and select Computer Configuration Settings Disabled from the drop down list. This will ensure that the logon times are kept brief for users.
   
5. Close the Group Policy Management Console.

Create the Change Favourites

1. Open a new Microsoft Management Colsole (Start > Run > type mmc > click OK)
2. Click File > Add/Remove Snap-in
3. Click Add…
4. Click Group Policy Object Editor and click Add
5. Click Browse, then All, double-click on the ManageFavourites policy.
6. Click Finish. Click Close.
7. Click on the Extensions tab and select Group Policy Object Editor from the dropdown list.
8. Untick the Add all extensions checkbox. Then deselect all but the Internet Explorer
   
9. Click OK.
10. Expand the tree to User Configuration > Windows Settings > Internet Explorer Maintenance.
    
11. Right-click on URLs and select New Window from Here
    
12. Close the Console Root window so that only the URL window is visible.
    
13. Click File > Options
14. Give the console a title, I have called mine Favourite-o-matic. Under Console Mode, select User mode – limited access, single window. If you want to, you can change the icon to a more user friendly icon. I like the windows Favourite icon from shell32.
    
15. Click OK to close the options dialog.
16. Click File > Save and save the new console to a share where all of your Favourite Managers can access it. Set up the appropriate links on the start menu / desktop and you’re all done.

Using the Console

All you now need to do is let users know how to add favourites. You can do this by double-clicking on Favourites and Links, and typing links into the tool. You can also organise the favourites into folders to make them easier to manage.

The only caveat is that when you remove a link, it will not take the link from the user’s Favourites folder. This would still have to be deleted manually. Bear this in mind when you go nuts with all of your new favourite links.

I don’t know what Becta think they aim to achieve with the latest anti-Microsoft report, but I don’t think that they are going to reach the computer utopia that their report on Microsoft Vista and Office 2007 seems to desire.

I’ve breezed through the report, and I can’t get into my head

a) Who the report is aimed at
b) What the purpose is

As anybody who knows me knows, I’m not a Microsoft fanboy - and I’m not completely evangelical about Linux either. Both suit a purpose in their own way.

What irks me about this report is that it makes a great deal of assumptions, that invites the reader to go along with the ride and interpret that as the de-facto way of thinking.

My biggest annoyance of the report is the whinging about Office 2007. It complains that the DOCX format is not widely supported (true enough), and because Microsoft’s implementation of the “industry standard” open document formats is poor, everyone should use the Office binary format and OpenOffice.

Yes, that is right. Instead of being the driving force that Becta is supposedly meant to be, it’s making what I can only describe as a half-baked approach to document interoperability by saying, “Yeah - you should use OpenOffice. You should use ODF. But save in the office binary format.” I cannot fathom what they intend to accomplish with this attitude. If Becta truly are to inspire educational establishments to embrace open source and open standards - they are playing this totally wrong. I’ll rant a bit more about this later on. What beguiles me is that there is no acknowledgement of Office Compatibility mode. Also, Becta seem convinced that having an open document format means that it should render EXACTLY the same in any program that opens it. That’s just not the case. The point of open documents is to enable an application to access all of the information within, and render it approximately close to the original intent. Indeed, the DOCX file is a glorified ZIP file and no more. The XML is what’s in question with the open standards that ODF and DOCX are embroiled in.

Their year-long investigation into Windows Vista is a joke. Their summary is not to use mixed XP / Vista environments. If you’re considering upgrading your network, then take a look at Vista. So, the reader (if an IT person) is being told something that they should know: Any implementation of a new O/S environment takes planning, preparation, and testing. Oh, and mixed environments with XP and Vista are not the end of the world - I run them side by side quite happily.

I think it’s fair that the value added of using Vista Business compared to XP Professional is still in question. Not just for education, but for the industry as a whole. Microsoft have done a great job promoting Vista. But ultimately it is a very greedy operating system. Requirements are higher than what should be reasonable for an O/S, and most of the improvements are aimed at corporate customers where staff have their own computers - not the environment of schools or colleges.

A couple of niggles in Vista that cause complications on a roaming network:

• The ‘lock computer’ button on the start panel can not be configured or changed. Totally useless in a roaming environment as a user may think that they have logged off when they press it. The consequence is that the new Start Panel has to be disabled on Vista machines.
• No roaming gadgets - therefore the first thing that has to be turned off
• Loss of active desktop. Now the intranet has to be opened by the user, instead of it being there by default. I know, gadgets are meant to replace that - which would be fine if it wasn’t for my last point

Also, the blanket statement of exercising your downgrade rights is a joke. Drivers for systems - especially laptops - are getting very difficult to track down all of a sudden for systems pre-Vista. The problem is compounded by the issue of a lack of drivers for Vista for some hardware peripherals. We’re in a transitional O/S point where we can’t seem to win either way. Becta miss this point entirely.

Finally, there’s Becta’s supposed pro-Open Source approach. They rejoice with Open Office, and say that there should be more choice. The problem is that when schools receive documents from other schools, or the education authority, of the government guess what? It’s Office binary format! And schools have Windows rammed down their throats because the EAs insist on them using Windows applications to deliver the curriculum. In fact, over the last couple of years, I’ve seem a number of free and discounted applications sent to schools where they are Windows applications. Then they deliver training on these programs.

If you want schools to be open source, you need:

• to support the schools in doing so and not blame the industry for trying to sell something instead
• to put pressure higher up the chain to being implementing policies to migrate to open document formats. Only then would it be possible for educational establishments to embrace this format
• to start to educate people in education that there is an alternative

Finally, Becta needs to stop leeching off open-source like a parasite. I’m annoyed by it’s “get everything for free - don’t pay Microsoft” attitude. That’s not quite what open-source is about. With thousands of schools around the country, to ask schools to contribute in whatever way they can to projects that they benefit from would make open source more viable, because the UK education system could begin to change and direct the movement of open source. If a school is using an open-source alternative that would have cost them £250 for a site license of something else, why not contribute £50 to a project? If the project could do with documentation or translations, surely a secondary school or college could commit some resources to these kinds of things?

The education sector has by far the most potential to steer and promote the direction of open-source than anything else in the UK. It’s a completely missed and wasted opportunity.

I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect some practical guidance on these matters from the leader of “the national drive to inspire and lead the effective and innovative use of technology throughout learning.” I really would like to see more of that.

With Vista and Office 2007 out in the wild for over a year now, Becta should have been making these points 12 months ago. Instead they let it slide and the complain when things don’t pan out as they expect, while missing the point entirely.

It’s such a shame.

Well, it seems that I have to give Plus.net a big thumbs-up on what could have easily been a crisis.

At 2008-01-18 08:57:02 this was posted on their support site:

We have recently become aware of a number of PlusNet customers who are experiencing problems receiving email following the migration of their accounts to the new Postini anti-spam platform.

Email sent to customers accounts may be returned to the sender as undeliverable with the following server response:

554 No relaying allowed

Our engineers are investigating and further details will be provided as they become available.

Please accept our apologies for the inconvenience.

Kind Regards,

Bob Pullen
Customer Support.

I was one of the lucky bods who was affected. So my website was down for a day… It only has nonsense anyway. This blog was still up so I wasn’t worried. What the great part was is that they restored all of the sites from backup, so by the time I woke up the next day, everything was working exactly as the day before.

Once again, the Plus.net people don’t let me down. It’s nice to see them back on form.

A hip program that I found useful recently is an app called Delineate.

As it works with Java, it is completely cross-platform and runs using client executables of autotrace or potrace.

The great thing about it is that you can play with the settings of either program and then generate a preview. Two images are shown so that you can easily compare effects side-by-side.

Once done, you have a nice SVG ready to throw into Inkscape to play with.

Check it out.