Software

Office 2004 For The Mac

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So my initial review of Office 2004 for the Mac is this. It is great. it is just as great as the previous version Office v.x for the Mac. That is the problem. I went out and bought this thing (and I am not regretting upgrading) and it doesn’t have that much new stuff. It is not a quantum leap of enhancements in any way. It is what everyone has been saying about Microsoft office upgrades. It is minor changes, that if you have 2 or 3 versions older product you will appreciate the upgrade. But if you are going from one realize behind to the new release you wont find much difference. That was my problem.

Entourage is nicer than it was in the previous version. Other than that, I don’t see much difference. I still like the product, but for what I do it is very similar to the older version. I will see after a few months if I change my opinion.

DFS On Windows 2000

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I am wondering if anyone out on the internet has had issues with Microsoft’s Distributed File System (DFS) and Windows 2000 Servers as the client for DFS? We have several developers who use Windows 2000 Server as their desktop so they can develop our website. We moved to a new file server last week and when we moved the DFS to Windows 2003, we notice very slow response time browsing the DFS from a Windows 2000 Server. Our Windows XP Pro clients are fine. Only 2000 Servers. The DFS is now hosted on a Windows 2003 box. The old DFS we had was on a 2000 box. I wonder if that is the problem? I have to google the issue. Right now I am away from the internet so I figured I would think about the issue for a while. It is a minor problem, but when I am on the train away from everyone I try to figure out the stupid little issues that I can’t think about at work.

I will leave comments open in case someone has a thought.

Project And Other Servers

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Gus is getting me to start using project server. I got my account today, and I hope to add my quarterly project plan in a few days. it looks cool, but we need to get everyone to use it.

I got the RAID card in for the new machine we will build Subversion on. lets hope that Promise didn’t lie when they said this card supports Suse 9.0. I need to build that with Danny sometime in the next week or so. I then need a new box for Nagios. Danny (who is now our resident Linux expert besides Gus) is saying that Subversion and Nagios may be too CPU intensive to put on the same low end box. We will evaluate the situation and make a decision. We are using a Penguin Computing 1U server we picked up last September. They make decent low end box’s for linux. We are modifying the one of the 2 we have for use with this app.

Missing Sync Is Out

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OK, I am not going to bash Mark / Space or their product the Missing Sync. I actually like the product. I bought it for the Palm and Pocket PC. I am just having issues with limitations the mac has on PIM software. What I mean is that I like outlook. I really do. I use the catigories in the address book, tasks, and calender allot. The problem with that is the Mac equivelant software Address book, and ical does not do cagitories or does not do them in a way they are compatible with what I do in Outlook.

I use outlook at work. I go home to my mac and would like the work to carry over. Instead I get all my categories I do at work getting erased when I go home and sync with my mac. I had to spend 2 hours redoing all the categories on all my address book contacts on Saturday because of this.

For this reason I am on hold with using my mac as a PIM again. I still use the Missing Sync to update Avantogo on my iPaq, but that is it for now. Hopefully Markspace and apple inprove their products to allow me to do this. I don’t think it is a limitation on Mark Space’s side, but on the Apple PIM side. Either way I am not able to do what I want.

To me this is one of the last hurdles for me to get rid of my PC at home for all day to day tasks. The other things I need the PC for are all work related. Come on Apple, make a better PIM, that is compatible with it’s PC cousin’s!!!

User Quota’s

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As I have mentioned in previous posts we are bringing down a file server at work. We need to wipe the OS and do some firmware updates on it and then we will bring it back online. Since we ran out of space on it, we needed a replacement box. We got that machine and have already deployed it. Now what we will do is spread out the corporate data onto two machines as soon as the old one is rebuilt.

Once this is done I have decided to impose disk quota’s to users. We are having issues where everyone is using tons of space, and not caring. If I keep my user and group data on different file servers I can quota the user data server. That way I can force people to consolidate their outlook files. I have over a dozen people who are hitting the 2gig limit on outlook pst files. No one knows how to delete stuff.

Right before we put out the new server we will instruct everyone how to compact their outlook files. That way they can compact them on their own.

This will be a very unpopular policy, but I haven’t found a policy we have that users do like.

Office 2004 For the Mac

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I have actually done it. I went out and bought Office for the Mac. Usually I refuse to buy Office unless it comes with a computer or unless work puts it on a machine. I wanted it for my mac though. That presented a problem since this version of office just came out, and I wanted it. It isn’t a work expense, so I had to shell out the $$$. I await going home to install it. Reviews to follow. It better have been worth the money.

Migration’s And Other Work

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Sunday I spent most of the day working. I focused my time on two things that would never get done if I was in the office. I finished updating and compiling a database of every employee, their email addres, and what email groups they are on. I also decided to join that db with one I was making with every employee’s phone numbers. It went from an email and seperate phone db, to a Employee contact db of sorts. I still have a separate db for the Defined phone systems ports and their corresponding floor ports in NYC. That took most of the day Friday to get information on.

Next on my list of to do’s was to migrate more data to our new file server. We were quickly running out of space on our old one so we got a new disk array on another server. I am moving all the data off the old one, so I can rebuild it and clean it up. Then I can put some data back on the original box, and distribute our files between the two file servers.

Since our DFS(MIcrosoft Distributed File System) share was on the original box that I want to get rid of, I had to create a new DFS share on another box. Then I pointed all our alias’ back to the original server. I then updated the login scripts for everyone to map to the new DFS share.

Once that was done I replicated all package (where we keep our install files to applications we use), and group (team shares that people use to colaberate with) directories to the new server. Once the group shares were mirrored, I went one by one and changed the alias’ in the DFS to point to the new server. I still have one or two shares going to the old box because I had some questions I still needed answered.

Now I have two of the 4 major shares moved off the old server. The next two are the most time intensive to move. Users home directories and the roaming profile shares. Each of those have to be modified in active directory so it takes time to move users. It is easy to copy the data, but hard to move 60 users or so. That project will be next week, maybe.

jayson also moved most applicatons off of another app server. We want to rebuild it so we can put Project 2003 server on it. We have to upgrade that box to Windows 2003 server first. Jay got Norton AV, and Ghost off of it. I moved most of Whatsup, but I need to verify I got everything before we blow the old box away. I hope to get that started early this week. Gus has been asking about project server.

Robocopy Is Nice

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I have to move entire directory tree’s from one server to another. I have to do this with keeping the NT security on the tree’s intact. We are talking about hundreds of gigs of data. I also want to copy it once, and then every day replicate only the changes we made that day out to the new server. I want to do this until I am ready to cut over to the new box completely. How do I do it, robocopy. It is a nifty tool in the Windows 2000, & 2003 resource kit.

i just wrote a batch file and put it as a scheduled task every night. it works exactly as advertised. I cut over 1 of the 6 directory tree’s I needed to last night. I will work on more this weekend if I can.

Mozilla Vs. I.E.

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Over a year ago I saw a few articles about Mozilla.org.. Then I saw Gus using it, and all he could do was rave about it. I gave it a try, and I haven’t looked back since. I now use it on my Mac’s, PC’s and any Linux machine I use. Switching is like switching to a Mac from a PC. You always see everyone else using Internet Explorer and I try to convert them. Being the software and hardware standards maker at my company also allowed me to attempt to push it out to everyone.

When we built out our new Call Center, I put in the computer image a setup for Mozilla. No one really used it, but I wanted it there. A few months ago we had an issue with I.E. for a day and we got some people to try it out. Guess what, they liked it. That fateful day also got me to develop a way to push out favorates to our Rep’s. That was the final technical reason for not using Mozilla.

Kai then began a campaign, some would say religous crusade to get people to addopt Mozilla. He touted the huge memory advantage of using tabbed browsing, and how cool pop up blocker was, etc. People slowly started to see what we were saying for a year, that Mozilla is good.

Now we have well over half of our call center using the software. That number is increasing every week, since we are also encourperating its use in the training sessions for all new hires.

The only down side was I never realized how many people were using the software. Our developers never wrote our internal application to run on Mozilla. For a year I used it and it worked fine, but last week we had a new release go out that caused issues with Mozilla. The problem is all sorted out now, and all our dev guy’s know to write code to work with it.

I am happy that I was able to get such so many people to addopt using Mozilla. Maybe they will start using it at home also? You never know. Thanks to Kai, Brian, Keith, & Gus for their parts in getting the system out their over the past year and change. Thanks to Nelson for being my first Beta Tester (as always).

Gus Back From India

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My boss is back from his trip to india. My vacation is over:) Just kidding. The work doesn’t really change, but stress level does when he returns. At least he looks rested and relaxed from his trip.

We hit the ground running with a bunch of new projects he wants me to look into. One involves a new beefy Linux Server. We will probably use Suse 9.0 for this deployment. Also on the plate is Project 2003 server. Jayson and I have kicked around the idea since he got here, but now we see a real business use for it, so we will push ahead with it.

We are also pondering remote agents again. We think we can use the remote agent’s to get french reps in NYC to connect to Kingston. This may or may not allow us to free up space in NYC. The office is getting crowded again.

All this on top of the 4 new sites we are building out, and the new server deployments in our data center, and the major office move of users thursday and friday. It will be a fun week.