Joe Davis

I wrote this post using Word 2010. So far the 2010 Office products are very nice. So far my favorite is Outlook. MS finally improved the IMAP client so no more Windows Live Mail!!!!

Well, it's late so I better go to bed.

I have moved my site from BlogEngine.Net to mojoPortal because it has more features. BlogEngine.Net served it's purpose but I wanted to be able to have more functionality on my site, mojoPortal allows me to have not only a blog but image galleries, forums, calendars, surveys, polls, and a whole lot more.

This marks the 4th platform for my site:

1. Serendipity (it was okay)
2. WordPress (hated it)
3. BlogEngine.Net (loved it)
4. mojoPortal (lots 'o features)

Go mojo!

I moved most of the posts from my old blog to here but some of them I moved to my company blog at http://i7media.net. If you're looking for a post about web hosting or mojoPortal, it is probably there.

A very close friend of mine told me about a great free Bible study tool that he and his wife use called E-SWORD. I have used a lot of different Electronic Bibles but I haven't found any of them to be something I could use on a regular basis. Usually just because of poor UI design, other times because they only had one or two translations.

I installed E-SWORD and was very happy to see that it has a nice user interface and a lot of available translations. Some of the translations, simply called Bibles by E-SWORD, are not free because they are not Public Domain. The prices for these translations range from $9.99 to $29.99, most being the former. The $29.99 Bible is the NIV Family Bundle which includes the NIV (New International Version), TNIV (Today's New International Version), and the NIrV (New International Readers Version). The NIrV is designed for young readers.

E-SWORD also comes with a ton of downloadable commentaries, dictionaries, maps, charts, and devotions. On top of all of that, there is a "live" version of the software available at http://live.e-sword.net so you can keep up with your studies from any Internet connected computer. There is also a PocketPC version of E-SWORD; unfortunately, I do not have a PocketPC anymore.

I have found my new favorite electronic Bible.

I passed the required exams to upgrade my MCSE 2003 to an MCITP: EA. I had to take the 70-647, 70-649 and 70-620 exams and in the process of completing those exams, I obtained these certs in addition to the MCITP:EA.

MCTS: Microsoft Windows Vista: Configuration
MCTS: Windows Server 2008 Active Directory: Configuration
MCTS: Windows Server 2008 Applications Infrastructure: Configuration
MCTS: Windows Server 2008 Network Infrastructure: Configuration

I will not have any other place to put these logos so I figured I would put them here. :-)

I created this list of queries years ago and it used to be on my blog but apparently the post was lost in one of the many moves I have done with this blog. Anyway, attached to this post is nice little zip with a number of good ADUC queries that may save you some time in your daily AD Admin life.

• All Computers
• All Contacts
• All Groups
• All Printers
• All users
• All Windows 2000 Computers
• All Windows XP Computers
• Disabled Objects
• Exchange Recipients
• Locked Out Users
• Never Logged In
• Password Never Expires
• Public Folders
• Users without Home Directories

As you can see, I created this group of queries long before Vista or 2008 came out. You can look at the syntax with the XP and 2000 queries to figure out how to create a query for the new OSes.

ADUC_Queries.zip (9.08 kb)

I spent an entire day trying to find this silly thing last week on the web and I had absolutely no luck. Today, while cleaning out my email, I found a message I sent to a collegue with a link to this product! I should search my email before wasting time searching the internet. :-)

Anyway, I'll post a link to it here so that others (hopefully) will not waste time searching. Collutions needs to do some SEO on their site. I didn't use the phrase Multiple Templatesat all when searching the web. I used phrases like multiple content types and New Item Menu Flyout.

Multiple Templates WebPart (2007) http://www.collutions.com/Lists/Solutions/DispForm.aspx?ID=17

Allowing for central management of document templates, the Multiple Templates Web Part simplifies the process of creating new template-based documents in a SharePoint (MOSS or WSS 3.0)Document Library.
 
All templates are stored in a categorized template repository and made available on the New button of a Document Library view.

Well, my MDA has about had it. I doesn't like to work very well anymore so I called T-Mobile and asked them to replace it which they agreed to and then said no and yes and no and sorry but no and yes again (I hope that is the last time they change their collective minds). Anyway, I settled on the G1 because of it's nice web browsing capabilities. It will not sync with Exchange but that's fine because I don't like being that attached to work anyway (if work wants me to sync with Exchange, they can buy me a different phone). The phone will do IMAP and that is all I need for personal email.

After confirming with T-Mobile that I would take the G1 as replacement for my MDA I realized that KeePass, my favorite password manager which is available on most modern platforms, doesn't have a version for Android (the OS that is on the G1). I kinda panicked here because KeePassPPC has saved my butt on many occasions. I did some searching on the net and finally found KeePassDroid! I don't have my G1 yet so I don't know how well it will work but I decided I should post something on the net about it because it took some digging to find the app myself. That being said, I hope I have enough keywords loaded into this post that the next person looking for KeePass to run on their HTC Dream or G1 will find KeePassDroid faster than I did.

I recently purchased a Dell PowerEdge 2970 with a SATA DVD drive. I installed 2008 Server Core x64 without a problem but after the install I noticed that the DVD drive wasn't present. After a lot of searching online and finding nothing about this, I decided to contact Dell Support. They gave me a driver for the SATA controller the DVD was using but no way to install it on Server Core.

After a lot of searching on the net I found a few ways to install the driver. All but one of them was wrong (drvload and drvinst don't seem to work). The correct answer (pnputil) was found on Scotty McLeod's blog, more specifically, this post: http://winserverteam.org.uk/blogs/scotty/archive/2007/08/12/server-core-and-drivers.aspx.

So, I went back to the server and tried loading the driver that Dell told me to load using pnputil but I was presented with this error:

Processing inf : bchtsw32.inf
Failed to install the driver on any of the devices on the system : No more data is available.
Adding at least one driver package failed!

Take a look at the filename in the "processing inf:" line. Do you see that 32? That's right, Dell gave me a 32bit version of the driver for my 64bit machine! Oh well, I went back to the dell website and downloaded the x64 driver and then used the pnputil command all was good. The exact URL's and usage instructions are below:

1. Download Broadcom BCM5785 (HT1000) SATA Controller Driver (Dell package number R181056): http://support.us.dell.com/support/downloads/download.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=gen&releaseid=R181056&formatcnt=1&libid=0&fileid=246834
2. Extract the above driver to a location of your choosing. I used c:\InstallFiles\dell\drivers\R181056.
3. Run the following: pnputil -i -a c:\installfiles\dell\drivers\r181056\bchtsw64.inf. If this command finishes properly you will receive a notice stating: Successfully installed the driver on a device on the system.
4. Run diskpart and from the diskpart> prompt run list volume. You should see the drive letter for your DVD drive.

Hope this helps!

I recently had a problem with Data Protection Manager and the "Consolidation of recovery points." The problem was actually with the VSS service on the computer being backed up but the recommended action in DPM was to allocate more disk space for shadow copy. When I attempted to do this I was confronted with this error:

The operation failed because of a protection agent failure.Retry the operation.ID: 998Details: Unknown error (0x80042318) (0x80042318)

I couldn't find much on the Internet concerning this error so I logged into the client machine (the one being backed up) and checked the VSS service. Sure enough, it was in a Stopping state. I couldn't kill the service with tskill so I grabbed an old kill.exe program in my toolkit and blew it away (as a side note, I don't know who created the kill.exe app that I use but it is very handy. If you would like a copy, send me an email and I will send get it to you).

After killing the service, I ran Synchronization job with consistency check using DPM and all was good.

Remember to do the following on your 2008 and Vista machines when deploying ForeFront Client Security.

1. Create a firewall rule with these settings:
       Name: MOM 2005 MsMgmtAuxiliary
       Program: %systemdrive%\A286B00A-C3DE-414F-A96A-2BD238948D88\MsMgmtAuxiliary.exe
       Profile: Domain
       Scope: Remote IP: IP address of FCS Server.
2. Enable and set the Remote Registry service to Automatic.
3. If installing the client on a DC:
   1. Add the Action Account to the Admnistrators and Performance Montiors Users groups.
   2. Grant the Action Account the Log on Locally and Manage Auditing and Security Log rights in the Default Domain Controller Security Policy.