I’m building a little app to auto log certain types of information at the moment. It automates a repetitive task I have to carry out, and logs what it does each time. This is really what applications are for, I think.
I’m so much happier putting little, quick, tactical apps together now than I was, even last year. I’m happy with this, but I need to make sure I move onto the next stage of development now. I probably need to find something new to learn.
I’ve been using the 960 Grid system to build a website.
I think I need to learn to use framework more. While it may be limiting in some ways, it’s made the whole process so easy. Within a few minutes, I have an almost complete website that’s compatible across all browsers.
I think I need to still find a framework for mobile devices though.
I’ve known for a while that you need to set up a 301 redirect to solve www/non-www canonical problems.
But I’ve never sat down and actually done it. Today’s the day to solve that problem:
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www.imagedissectors.com$
RewriteRule (.*) http://www.imagedissectors.com/$1 [R=301,L]
I need to go do it on all my websites now.
Another couple of AD things today:
To find people I always use to use:
(&(objectCategory=person)(objectClass=user))
It turns out:
(samAccountType=805306368)
Is faster and more efficient.
This long, ugly looking number returns accounts that are disabled:
(userAccountControl:1.2.840.113556.1.4.803:=2)
Why they had to have such a horrible code for it, I don’t know.
I’m building someone a website at the moment. And I’m seeing someone on Wednesday to build them one too.
I do like building websites, but I suspect I could be doing it more efficiently. I tend to just use notepad2 and a few online tools. I suspect I could be doing it more efficiently.
If I start scaling my website building tools up, then I think I’m going to have to start making some more templates – at least as a starting point – or even using a css framework.
I watched this video by Scott Hanselman yesterday. It makes a few really good points, one of which is:
Never write an eMail more than five sentences long. If you need to, write a blog post/webpage/wiki/etc and send them a link.
It’s such a good idea, and one I’m going to start using at work. I did used to do this, but then got into bad habits. I’m going back to try this again.
I have mixed feelings about surveys. Part of me thinks that surveying people can be lazy and put you on the wrong track. But another part of me thinks that surveying is a bit like doing user testing, and is really important to improving a product or service.
Either way, I’m going to try some of my own. My plan is, next week, to survey some people at work about the services we provide, and find out what else they need or what else we can offer. If there’s one thing that I learnt about the survey a colleague ran it’s that pro actively contacting people often reveals that there are all sorts of problems you didn’t know about.
My aim is to follow up on these surveys to try to improve the services. I suspect half the battle will be picking the questions, but we’ll see.
If you want to get something done you need to get senior people on your side. Go see them first.
I know a fair amount about Active Directory. But it turns out there’s a gap in my knowledge around exchange integration.
There’s a tool called Exchange System Manager that gives you some extra tabs in ADUC, that allows you to edit exchange properties.
The problem is, the software is only available for Vista, and fails to install on Windows 7 with an error, more or less saying, “Hey, you’re not Vista!”
The solution is to unpack the .exe file (using something like WinRAR or 7zip) to get to the msi. When there, you can install it using a switch:
ESMVISTA.MSI /qb
Some people say you only need /q but I need /qb
I was a little confused what this switch does, but it turns out it just switches off the UI, basically, bypassing the bit that says, “Hey, you’re not Vista!” and allowing it to install.
Bit of a hack, but pretty cool really.
I’m running a survey at work at the moment to identify staff IT issues. It turns out that a lot of people are struggling with issues that are solvable or simple. A number of people put in the free text section, “I can’t print from websites” which is a known issue we’ve had for a while, with a solution (it’s to do with the permissions on the temp folder).
Evidently, they’ve never phoned the helpdesk, so the problem has never been solved.
What this has shown me is that same thing again in a different context: get the basics right. So often we start to run ambitious, complex projects (LAN refresh, upgrading 30,000 machines to Windows 7, Pull Printing etc) but we haven’t got the basics working properly. And these are the things that bother staff. No one cares about pull printing if they can’t print what they want to print.
It’s made me re-think about the way we do things, and aim the bar quite low at a first pass. The things that irritate people the most aren’t the big problems but just the little things, that are actually easy to solve. We’re just so fixated on big projects, we overlook them.
lessstupidthanyesterday 