Yes, I’m still at work. Updates and patches go so much easier when no one is here.

Active Directory is coming right along, 1 server reinstalled, 2 to go.

(This is to get this knowledge into the Google cache more than anything else.)

If you are seeing Office applications (Word, Powerpoint, Publisher) hang when trying to insert WMF clipart from Web Collections AND your network is protected by a TippingPoint IPS device, check with your network people about signature 4054. If your IPS is running with the recommended ruleset, all WMFs that cross the device are being blocked and the Clipart manager doesn’t handle that well. The error that is returned is something like ” 0x800c000c “.

I’m guessing they rushed the signature out the door to be the first to post a press release about protecting their customers. Hopefully they will fix the signature in the future.

Still using Outlook Web Access (OWA) with an Exchange 5.5 server? Want to make it work on something besides the default web site? Did you find the KB article that says it isn’t possible and give up? You shouldn’t have, the KB has the answer.

The last 2 days we’ve been upgrading our Banner shadow system to not quite the most recent version available. The accounting department has a support contract with RSM McGladrey, so we’ve had an onsite consultant and a technical consultant via a remote access.
Initially, the onsite consultant seemed to be nothing more than the guy with the phone number to the tech. The tech was excellent, though some of his MS SQL knowledge was limited to just what he needed to do the job, mostly GUI, little scripting. He was excellent and well prepared.
The onsite guy came into his own once we got the clients upgraded. He has real world experience using the software and the accounting techs were listening closely for tips.
Overall, excellent experience.

Here’s a useful site from Berkeley if you are running ISC DHCPd on *nix and want to try RIS.
And, RISMenuEditor looks promising.
Update (11/30/2005): Jim suggests RISMe from Argon.

We’ve been looking for a database driven web interface to maintain our dhcp configuration and I think we’ve found an excellent solution in Maintain from Oregon State Network Engineering. It was designed as an all-encompassing solution for DNS, DHCPd and other network related services management. But, all we need is the DHCPd config management, since CITES runs our DNS zone.
So far, I’ve hacked in some basic support for bluestem authentication (using mod_bluestem) mostly based on the builtin MySQL based authentication, added some code to email notifications on hostname changes, and adjusted parts of the various shell scripts to fit our environment. Next up is to actually get the config file loading on our dhcp server.

A few suggestions if you are in the business of pitching software to Higher Ed:

• If someone asks for a rough estimate of system capacity, don’t say “you tell us that”. This is not an answer, make up some hand waving total B.S. underestimate if you have to, but don’t just leave the question unanswered.
• If you claim the best strength of your system is the designed in from day one ultra high power encryption, don’t leave your wireless access point set to factory defaults or the password on the Administrator account on your laptop blank.
• A “whitepaper” that your lawyers made you lock up in a safe and not release to the world is not a whitepaper. Sorry, it just isn’t.
• If there are multiple salespeople from your company at the presentation, all of them should remain in the front of the room or off to the side. They should not be pacing in the back of the room taking head counts, getting impressions, doing hand signals or anything else to make the attendees feel nervous.
• If you are going to do a demo of any kind, it needs to be repeatable and highly scripted. You should know the clicks, check boxes and any associated props needed like the back of your hand. Half assed, mickey mouse demos that only half work do not instill confidence.
• Don’t promise the kitchen sink. You’re application is not going to be able to wash my dishes, make my wife happy or change the baby and we all know that, so don’t promise any of them.
• If I hear “No one has asked us that before that I know of” one more time…
• Reading verbatim from a document we already have does not answer questions. We wouldn’t be asking for clarification if what was in the response was clear to begin with.

Why is it that all sales people feel the need to wear expensive suits, pricey watches and other jewelry? A clean suit is all I need to see, the rest just reinforces the perception that we are going to pay too much for whatever we choose.

A day and a half of vendor presentations makes you think, I guess.