JiggedyJoo

I’m trying to put together a list of resources that will be helpful as I am studying for my MCSE.

They can vary from the so called ‘braindumps’ through to podcasts / video tutorials. There are a number of commercial video lessons out there, a good example would be VTC. I can’t link to any torrents for obvious reasons, but 5 minutes on btjunkie.org should sort you out. ForumW (well worth the registration) also supply many tutorials in a variety of formats from ISO to .pdf although the legality of it is disputed.

I found a brilliant resource run by a couple of British IT professionals over at www.itidiots.com. The show aims to have a bit of comedy, whilst remaining focused on technical content. They cover a wide variety of topics, from the basic differences between Workgroups and domains, ,through to setting up their own network, going through the installation of a DC, Exchange, ISA, WSUS. Fantastic series, and they also have special episodes dedicated to hot topics.

For the slightly more ‘hardcore’ geeks, www.learn-networking.com contains fantastic, professionally written articles from Kerberos authentication, through to Subnetting.  They are a relatively new site however, so there are only a few pieces there, but they are well written, with quality illustrations.

If you have come across any interesting or useful web sites or companies, please leave me a link and some feedback in the comments.

Ever since MetaBB petered off from being really active, to being entirely dead (more on this coming soon). I’ve been searching for another project to get involved in.

Whilst working for MetaBB, we were searching for a helpdesk solution that was attractive, easy to install and use, and had a helpful userbase. Ideally, it should be freeware or open source. Many helpdesk systems were aimed at large corporations, or came with tonnes of extra features that would be utterly redundant in most scenarios. They try to do everything but end up doing most things poorly.
Alot of the larger helpdesk applications are just plain ugly and bloated. Just look at the UI of Remedy, or Unicenter. What we were after was a system that was web-based, allowed for different user levels, and had the kind of support you could expect from a open source project. It had to be attractive, and most importantly it had to be intuitive for the customer to bother using it.

Trellis Desk is all of these. It looks beautiful, it doesn’t try to be a jack of all trades, it deals with tickets and a knowledge base. And it does both brilliantly.

For more information on Trellis Desk, check out the IFTomatoes forums, take a look at the documentation, or check out the demo.

In relation to my recent posts about getting involved in the open source world, I’ve been looking around for some software to make planning and writing tutorials easy. Having spent ages looking around, I’ve come up short.

Flash would seem to be the best method to display the tutorial, with its huge userbase and cross platform compatibility. One thing that put me off was the learning curve, I didn’t have time to learn complicated software, indeed, I didn’t want to have to shell out for software.

After some looking, I came across Wink, an freeware tutorial authoring software that can ‘capture screenshots, add explanations boxes, buttons, titles etc and generate a highly effective tutorial for your users.’

I downloaded and installed the Windows version (there is also a Linux one, no Mac version as of yet) and had a quick look through. Its really easy to get started, you tell it to start capturing, then perform your task, then stop capturing. Wink then renders a Flash movie of your actions. You are limited only by file size. From there you can then edit frames out, add text and much more.

I really cannot recommend it highly enough. We are going to use Wink for creating the MetaBB and ShockV2 network tutorials. Stay tuned for more MetaBB news and help.

Transferring the address book is relatively easy. In fact, while this won’t help you since you’re switching computers too, many email programs will actually import address information from other programs or older versions on their first run. All you really need is some sort of media (floppy or USB drive) to copy the information over. You could probably even email it to yourself if you know how to use attachments.

Outlook Express

In Outlook Express, select File –> Export and select Address book. I recommend that you use a comma-separated values (CSV) format as it’s more portable and can be recovered if something happens since it’s just a basic text file. Copy that onto the new computer, choose File –> Import, and select the CSV file. That should do it!

Backing up email is more difficult, however.

Here’s the basic process in Outlook Express: Under Tools –> Options, click the “maintenance” tab. This will tell you where your email is stored. Now copy all of those files onto your new computer (if you make a CDROM you’ll have a nice permanent backup too) and then put them in the exact same folder on the new system (while you aren’t running Outlook Express). Restart the app and you should have all your mailboxes intact.

Outlook does have an appropriate archive/restore function too, if you want to try that instead. Under File, select Import/Export. Select “export to a file,” then select the mailbox that you want to back up. If your mailboxes are like mine, this will produce a fairly large file, depending on the size of your mailbox. Copy these exported files onto the new computer, then use File –> Import/Export –> Import from a file and you should have the mailboxes on your new system.

Outlook

You’ll have to export the Address Book from the desktop then import it into Outlook on the laptop.

1) On your desktop click File –> Export –> Address Book
2) Select the Comma Seperated Values (Windows) as your output format
3) Select the folder you want to export - in this case Contacts
4) Type a name for your file - example: addresses
5) Be sure there is a checkmark next to Export then click Finish

This is the important part: You’ll need to copy or save the file to a flash drive or floppy. Alternatively, you can email the file to yourself or burn on CD if you don’t have a floppy or flash drive available. Either way the file needs to be transfered to your new laptop.

1) On your laptop open Outlook and click File –> Import –> Import from another file or program (this varies depending on your version of Outlook)
2) Select Comma Seperated Values (Windows) - the same option you selected when you exported
3) Click Browse to retrieve the file you exported
4) Choose either replace, not to duplicate or duplicate under the options menu
5) Select destination folder - since this is your address book you would click Contacts
6) Be sure there is a checkmark next to Import then click Finish

Thunderbird / Netscape

In Thunderbird/Netscape, open the address book under the tools menu (on the old computer). Under tools in the address book, there is an export function. Save it as a recognizable filename in a recognizable place. Note at the bottom that there is a selection for “save as type” on a pulldown menu. LDIF is a format from the Netscape/Mozilla family. A CSV file is notable because it can be imported into almost any email program, including webmail programs like Yahoo, Gmail, or Hotmail.

Backing up your mailboxes in the most recent versions of Netscape and Thunderbird, however, involve going into your system files, finding the compiled email file that is used by these programs, backing it up (mine was 600MB+ when I needed to do it recently), and putting it in exactly the right place on your computer.

Thanks to AskDaveTaylor.

I’ve been wanting to get into the Open Source world for a while now, but without having any experience and with my programming skills being limited to rudimentary Java, I’ve struggled to find anywhere I can help out.

I was browsing through the Help Wanted section at SourceForge, when I came across MetaBB, who where after people to help write documentation for their project. I flicked through the pages and emailed the project admin, Josh Firelighter offering my support.

MetaBB is phpBB jammed pack full of new and upcoming MODs that improve on the default install. It adds arcades, RPG functionality and much more. And of course, its fully open source with fantastic community support on the forum.

It all went from there, since then I’ve got MetaBB installed on this site, located at www.jiggedyjoo.com/metabb/portal.php and registered on the support forums, I’m just waiting for Josh to finish setting up the support site for users and then I’ll be producing guides on everything from the installation, right through to more advanced functions including the management and upgrade of modifications.

Over on The Mu Life, they posted an article on Me.dium, a social browser centred around friends. You had to post a decent comment to get an invite to the private beta, so I asked about the bandwidth used and whether it will be open-source or not. If anyone knows whether an extension can be completely closed source and released commercially, let me know in the comments!

I downloaded and installed the extension and began browsing. The actual extension included a chat function, but I haven’t been able to get this to work, despite some tinkering. The actual sidebar itself, where you can see where other users are browsing, seems to take up a tonne of space, a factor that put me off. Adding friends is a nice feature, you can instantly see what they are looking at, similar to other social sites.
The way your friends (I only have one on me.dium at the moment) are displayed on the small map, designed to map the Internet, is innovative, they move around smoothly as they swap from subject to subject, and the inclusion of a favicon allows you to recognize what they are browsing.

The privacy implications of this are there, but I saw my friend editing his Wordpress blog (the URL in his icon included the wp-admin) and I tried to get in through that, denied as expected. One possible problem is secure sites, things with logins pop up as the site believes that you are accessing the site when me.dium tries to get the favicon and URL. Annoying when you are reading a news article and you suddenly get a login prompt for hotsexmovies.com!

I suppose once the kinks are ironed out (a quick check through the me.dium forums point to many teething problems in relation to bandwidth and crashes) and more users sign up, the usefulness of the application could be increased. As a general impression, it is just del.icio.us with an animation, it looks really nice, extremely well polished, but the features need tidying up. And are you willing to donate 20% of white space just to view what URL’s people are looking at.

A great piece of eye candy, with little substance and with it being private beta, there aren’t many users to see how it scales. If I can get some information on how the data is passed around and any mining problems, I’ll post that too.

Whilst trekking around the Internet, I often have something to add to the information given, or an alternative point of view to offer. Sometimes my comments get buried, or I see others comment without adding anything, or taking the discussion away from the topic. Follow these tips for hassle-free commenting, which will ensure your opinions are listened to.

• Keep on the same wavelength

Don’t go rambling off on a tangent, the comments thread is there to focus on the topic, so stay on it! Random questions that aren’t related to the discussion add nothing, and just give yourself a bad name in the ‘blogosphere’. Not what you want if you want people to look at your site; would you bother going to a troll’s website, or someone who composes thoughtful, knowledgeble and meaningful posts?

• Make sure you add something new

Posting ‘YAY FURST’ adds nothing to the discussion, will get you IP banned and just annoys readers. It will also get you a reputation as a spammer, and cast your site in a poor light.

• Be civil

No one likes a comment full of 4 letter insults, just because their view differs from yours. Accept that not everyone sees eye to eye and that is one thing that makes debate fun. Also, don’t feed the trolls.

• Wind your neck in

Nobody likes a know-it-all or someone who takes glee in smashing other peoples views to smithereens. If you find an arguement full of holes, take the time to construct a thoughtful response highlighting discrepancies. Don’t fire off a one line ‘you are wrong’ comment with no justification. It ruines the experience for everyone.

Follow these tips and you will improve your own and everyone else’s experience of the web. It’s a beautiful thing, dont spoil it.

Quite a few people know about the about:config page of Firefox, but there are more options than that under the hood of everyone’s favourite browser.

To peruse the contents of the cache, you can enter about:cache into the address bar, hit and look through. This has the advantages of being able to look at content stored locally, great if the connection breaks, or if the material on the site gets taken down / removed.

The best way to use this feature is using CTRL+F, then enter what you are looking for, to search pictures, use .jpg or .gif. The list is endless.

The other useful about: prompts include about:about to tell you what version of Firefox you have, about:plugins to show all extensions currently installed, and about:license. This list here gives you them all.

The ability to customise Firefox is perhaps one of its most attractive features, maybe the Mozilla team could publicise these features more, perhaps put a menu feature in to look at the cached content, similar to Internet Explorer. This would enable more people to hack Firefox to exactly how they want; making their web browsing faster, more enjoyable and more productive.

By making some settings more accessible (the options in about:config only appear if they are commonly changed or have been openly changed by yourself or an extension) they could improve the experience for users. Although if there where too many options, something that has been levelled at FireFox 2.0, then the ‘pickup-and-play’ of FireFox would disappear. The introduction of a simple and advanced settings panel could help avoid this.

Got something to say? Anything to add to the discussion? Leave a comment. If you enjoyed this post, or found it useful, use the social bookmarking buttons to the right to let others know. 

Google Reader revolutionised my news-reading life, Bloglines was OK, but I found it sluggish and hard to get to grips with. I set up two accounts on Bloglines and on Reader at the same time, and did some digging (see what I did there :P) to find out which was the best; offering a combination between functionality, and ease-of-use.

The early versions of Reader were terrible, with few features and clunky ways of moving round. But as the product matured, Google have added tonnes of new features and made it much more intuitive.

The keyboard shortcuts in Google Reader are great, allowing you to perform loads of common tasks easily.

ga:go to all items

m:mark as read/unread

s:toggle star

The full list of Google Reader shortcuts can be found here.

One thing that is a let down is the inability to search within news items, this is a Google product! It’s still in beta though, so maybe the guys are working on it. Some people gripe about Reader loading up a introduction page instead of taking you directly to the feeds, it gives you some ‘highlights’. To go directly to the ‘All Items’ section of Reader, use this link here.

Instead of marking interesting items as unread, ’star’ them instead. This means that you can get through all your feeds and then go back to peruse the starred items again, they are all in one easy to find place for you.

A fairly unknown feature in gReader is the Labels function; allowing you to quickly tag feeds and items that you find interesting, you can then share these tags with your friends in a similar way to Calendar. Check out the screenshot.

You can then use the keyboard to navigate around the tags and select them, you can then share and search the tags in the future.

Google Reader is wiping the floor with all other free RSS readers, if you know of any more tricks or disagree, let me know in the comments.

A quick tip on how to find out who is selling your email and contact details to spammers.

When you set up the account on the site, use your normal gmail address but put a + sign and then a word after your username. For example, if I was signing up to BBC News, I would use +BBC@gmail.com.

Now, Gmail will deliver the email as normal, but when you start getting some spam, look at the full address details, it will say +@gmail.com. If you use a different word after each + sign, you can work out who is selling your email address, and boycott them.