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 recently was tasked with a simple project to export the contents of an SVN repository on a off-site server so we could backup a repository in the event the SVN Server died.  The off-site server runs Windows and I figured I could easily do this using the svn export command that you can research in the SVN Book.  The problem was finding a svn command line tool that could be run as a scheduled task.  Finding this tool was not an easy feat.  You can utilize the SVN components and executables that come with TortoiseSVN however this is not very clean for just a command line tool.  I eventually found a free download from SlikSvn that has both 32 and 64 bit components.  That fit the bill it offered a good command line interface as well as helpful help docs as well.  It offers not just the typical svn commands but can handle the more administrative commands even svnsync between two different SVN servers.  Either way a good find for anyone who needs command line access only for Windows machines.  Link is below:

SlikSvn Downloads

Enjoy!

-Brent

This “How To” is based on my research and simple testing and is meant to assist in the process of changing the URL of a MOSS 07 installation.  I don’t have a complex setup so it may not work for all of you but it should help:

My Scenario:

1. We have a single Front-End Web Server and a single Back-End Database Server, each is a separate physical box
2. We have two Web Applications, one for the SharePoint Central Admin Site, the other for our SharePoint Installation
3. Our Shared Services Provider resides inside our primary SharePoint installation (A small installation didn’t require separate applications)

The Dilemma:

1. We used an internal DNS (Host Header) value to setup the Web Application
2. We now want to expose the web application to the internet and utilize SSL

The Fix (Adapted from Faraz Khan’s Post):

1. Open the Central Administration Site
2. Click on the “Operations” tab
3. Under “Global Configuration” click “Alternate Access Mappings”
4. Select “Edit Public URLs”
5. Make sure to select the correct web application from the “Alternate Access Mapping Collection” drop down
6. Change the “Default” URL to point to the new domain name
7. Click Save
8. SharePoint will now do some work to update links and everything else to point to the new location, however it does not seem to update the IIS Host Headers.
9. Open the IIS Manager
10. Edit the Bindings for the Web Application to use the new Host Header
11. If it makes you feel better restart IIS

I found that this solution will correct the primary web application but has no effect on the shared services provider, when you access a My Site in MOSS it will still use the old URL.  Once I have completed testing on that portion of the change I will post an update here.

-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

I came across this list a professor with the University of Phoenix posted.  Pretty cool little test for any software firm.

Recently I have become a fan of Joel Spolsky, who worked at Microsoft for several years and has created a large collection of articles and thoughts about Best Software Practices, as well as the process of programming and design.  In one of his articles, he mentions the Joel Test: 12 Steps to Better Code:

1. Do you use source control?
2. Can you make a build in one step?
3. Do you make daily builds?
4. Do you have a bug database?
5. Do you fix bugs before writing new code?
6. Do you have an up-to-date schedule?
7. Do you have a spec?
8. Do programmers have quite working conditions?
9. Do you use the best tools money can buy?
10. Do you have testers?
11. Do new candidates write code during their interview?
12. Do you do hallway usability testing?

For each correct answer you get one point, most software companies, and development groups score between 2-4. His claim was that Microsoft's score was in the 10-12 range, and that it was one of the reasons MS is successful.

-Brent