Just published out version 1.2 of uManage.  It now includes a little more automated setup process as well as the new Admin Portal which as of right now only allows the system administrator to view and change some system settings.  The next release (~ 1.5) will really have a lot of the new functionality that will start to make the product really usable in an organization for managing users.  I got a request from one of the previous releases for some screenshots.  I added more to CodePlex and will include them here as well.  If you have an Active Directory test environment the app takes less than 10 minutes to have up and running, so just give it a shot, worst comes to worse and you remove it.

Check it out now: http://umanage.codeplex.com

Check back here for more in the future!

-Brent

Well, it has been a busy week but I managed to find a few hours to update uManage to include a setup wizard as well as fix the first issue.  For those who just want to download it visit Codeplex.

The setup wizard was always in the master plan to make it easy to setup the application as well as in the future allow IT Pro’s who may not know much about ASP.NET to simply download the application as part of Microsoft’s Web Platform Installer.  So essentially, once downloaded IIS and the File System would already be configured and simply need someone to run through the wizard to configure everything else.  Pretty simple I think.

In addition the first issue fix was included.  Of course I was the one that logged it but nonetheless it was important.  In Version 1.0 the membership section was not encrypted which meant that the username and password could potentially be read by anyone who has access to the file system and possibly not to the domain.  They could be employees or potential hackers who want to cause problems.  Either way when the setup wizard is run it encrypts the membership provider section which makes it pretty hard to get to the username and password for the application.

Of course anyone who uses this application really should create a new user account that has delegated rights to mitigate any major security problems.  I will have a new post soon on how to set all of that up as I have a feeling the developers out there might not know what that is all about.  Security is still important people!

Well off to pack for a trip, but check back soon for updates.

-Brent

Well, over the past week or so I have been working on a new ASP.NET web application.  It really served two or three purposes for me.  One was to brush up on Active Directory programming which is really not that much fun, but is still required in most enterprise programming scenarios simply because it is usually readily available for SSO type services for applications.  The second which was way more fun was to get more familiar with Visual Studio 2010 and in particular the .NET 4.0 framework.  A lot of the new ASP.NET features are well needed and deserved in my opinion but that is a whole other post on its own.  The last reason to do this was really the fact that I could not find a self-service style portal available on the internet for free or that was a regular website and not some SharePoint implementation.  So I wrote my own!

The initial plan was simply to create a website that allows users to access the site and update their personal information like telephone numbers to take the burden off of IT and HR to have to add the information.  Of course not to pawn off any more work from IT to HR but the next logical step is to create an HR dashboard in the system that allows help desk techs and HR to create new employees in the system or even to disable and delete employees from the system.  After all HR already enters employees into Payroll, benefits, and god knows what else.  At least now the information can be stored in AD and potentially be usable by other applications.  The current implementation does not implement a lot of the hidden attributes like Assistant, Employee ID, Badge Number, etc. but depending on feedback they can easily be added.

The best part about all of this is that Administrators still have full control over how users are created, which OU’s they should be added to, etc.  In the future I want to integrate Exchange support as well so that it really is a seamless process for creating users.  Worst case scenario the System Administrator’s job is a little easier.

The project is hosted on CodePlex and is available under the Ms-PL license which is an OSI compliant license so its really a benefit to all.  Did I mention it’s free?

That’s all for now!

-Brent

I have always had issues with IDEs when creating web sites or applications, specifically for clients who will end up using or needing “salesy” type text and content.  Because I typically do not have a dedicated copyrighting team with ASPX background I end up inserting or writing the content myself.  However, writing the content in Word and then transferring it to Visual Studio where the ASPX pages lie sometimes can be a hassle.  I did a quick Google search the other day for VS2008 Spell Check and found a really cool link to the Visual Studio Web Development team blog, where low and behold… a Spell Check Add-In for Visual Studio.

The spell checker is available for 2005 and 2008 flavors, however the express editions are not supported because they do not support extensibility.  I have been using the spell check tool and it works great.  It identifies typos in comments, HTML/XHTML and even code behind.  It uses the Word 2003 or 2007 dictionaries which are pretty reliable for spelling purposes.  Grammar of course is still up to me to polish up, but I don’t use the Word 2007 grammar check that often anyways.  The same text underlines that appear in Word also appear in Visual Studio when a misspelled word is recognized.

Check it out here

-Brent

If you're not aware IE 8 Beta 1 has been released for download at the Microsoft site (http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/ie/ie8/default.mspx).  I highly recommend any UI or Application developer to download this browser and test it.  I will explain why this will be crucial for you to do.

If you are NOT aware the IE team made the decision after receiving feedback from the community that IE needs to be standards compliant.  Guess what... they finally listened!  IE 8 Beta 1 passes the Acid2 test for CSS compliance.  You can check yours here (http://www.webstandards.org/files/acid2/test.html).

What is important to know is that the new IE engine is VERY different from IE7 and prior releases.  They have created an IE7 emulation mode in IE8 similar to FireFox's IE emulation mode, the difference here is that IE8's engine is the default.  The problem many of us will face is that all of those CSS hacks or "shortcuts" we all take will stand out in IE8.  It no longer tolerates certain things and you will pay dearly.  I also noticed that on some of my ASPX sites some of our 3rd Party Controls from Infragistics did not render properly and even through JavaScript errors.  So I recommend you check all of your active projects and current projects to make sure they still work under IE8 as this is the future web browser and since it is standards compliant it will be pushed hard.

So for the good news: IE8 has a bunch of improvements over the previous browsers.  The first the JavaScript Error window is new and better where you get a full list of all of the errors and you can FINALLY copy and paste from it!  If anyone had the IE Developer Toolbar you can uninstall it as IE8 does not support it... the reason you ask?  It is now built-in to IE8 and appears on the toolbar.  It also features some new tools to help with CSS and HTML problems on the page.  There are lots of other changes you can check out.  The one I like the best is that IE8 now grays out parts of the URL so that only the Top Level Domain name is in black.  Of course when you roll-over it all goes to black.  This is helpful when visiting websites and checking to make sure they do not actually reside in Russia before entering your financial institution's username and password.

Either way it looks to be a promising browser release that will really compliment the other software releases this year.  Microsoft as a whole really seems to be changing the way they do business and listening to what their customers need.  This is a change for the better and will help to keep them competitive.  Now lets just see if they load the Server 2008 Kernel into Vista!