Windows Install CD Customizer

nLite's WinOS Boot CD customizer

Here's another "note from the field", a post about a tool tested and proven in a customer environment. Ok, so here's the technical backgrounder: Customer orders a Lenovo tower PC and of course it comes pre-loaded with Vista, but with XP downgrade rights. We're wanting to use this as a staging server for document images to be burned to Blu-Ray disks (hey, they hold 25GB of data) using CyberLink's InstantBurn application. We've also ordered a SATA Raid controller and (2) 250GB SATA disks so we can RAID-1 mirror the drives where the images will be stored. The bonus problem is that the system didn't ship with an XP boot CD, but a system recovery CD set with Vista (ie we're going to have to download and install a bunch of video/motherboard/ethernet/etc. drivers after the OS install). So, we put in the XP SP2 boot CD we have and as the system boots we hit F6 to install the 3rd party drivers for the SATA Raid controller and viola, the dreaded "Insert disk into Drive A:" message appears. Hmm, ok, so what system ships with a floppy drive anymore? We consider a USB Floppy drive for a minute and then realize that this early in the boot sequence there are no USB drivers loaded yet; what to do?

Enter the solution for this type of dilemma from nLite. It's actually a very ingenious but simple solution, which makes it even more appealing. We downloaded and installed the nLite software on a laptop and then (after a few minutes of reading) launched the app. Note: it does require the .NET Framwork 2.0 in order to run. It prompted us for our XP CD (it works with Windows 2003 as well) and then a target directory, where it proceeded to copy the entire XP CD; that said, you'll need around 1.2GB of available disk space to use this tool. Next we were presented with a menu of choices for modifying the now copied XP OS and we chose "Install Drivers", clicked "next" and were prompted for the location of the SATA Raid drivers we wanted to install. True confession here it took us a couple of tries to get the right driver set for the controller, but hey it was a learning process. The nLite utility then proceeded to copy the drivers and then the tool presented us with an option to Finish. We relaunched the application and then selected the "Create Bootable ISO" option. The nLite utility then used the now modified on-disk copy of XP to create a bootable CD ISO file. At this point you launch your favorite CD burning tool and burn the ISO to CD.

Next comes the true test of the tool - the boot of our newly created XP CD. While we failed on our first try (wrong drivers), the second try resulted in a boot sequence that saw the SATA Raid controller drivers load and then we were able to proceed with the installation of XP. Mission Accomplished.

The nLite utility has the following features which you may find helpful:

* Service Pack Integration - update that old SP1 boot CD to SP2/SP3.
* Component Removal - remove unwanted components prior to install.
* Unattended Setup - scripting of installation(s)
* Driver Integration
* Hotfixes Integration
* Tweaks
* Services Configuration
* Patches
* Bootable ISO creation Sphere: Related Content

Calendar sync

Tungle Calendar Sync

In a perfect world everyone would use the same e-calendaring system, but of course that is not (and never will be) the case. What would be the benefit of everyone having access to each other's calendar? So that when you want to schedule a meeting with one or more people you wouldn't have to endure dozens of emails trying to get everyone to agree on a date and time to meet. Enter Tungle, a web service that crosses over the proprietary calendaring boundaries so that you can easily schedule meeting with people using their own calendar system. Currently Tungle supports Outlook (with or without an Exchange server), Google Calendar, iCAL and Entourage on MAC, and soon Lotus Notes.

The question becomes - how simple is it? Very simple. Not only that, you can get a vanity URL by signing up at their Tungle.me site. When you sync your calendar with Tungle, it publishes your busy and available times, not the details of your calendar entries. This allows others to see your available times. They even have an iPhone app that gives you full functionality for using the scheduling application. Sweet.

The added bonus is that even if you don't use one of the supported calendaring systems, you can still use your Tungle calendar to coordinate and schedule meetings with others. Oh, and yeah, it auto-updates across time zones (duh, of course they thought of that).

So, if you have need of sharing calendars and making meeting appointments with people outside (or even inside) your company who don't share a common calendaring system, you might want to give Tungle a try. Sphere: Related Content

CyberLink's InstantBurn for Optical Media

Use CD-RW and DVD-RW like a removable disk



Cyberlink's InstantBurn-5 software turns your CD-RW, DVD-RW and rewritable BlueRay discs into a removable media drive. You can drag and drop files from folders, send unwanted files to the Recycle Bin for deletion, rename files, and change file property information. The verification function checks whether data has been written properly, ensuring the reliability of the data. InstantBurn supports UDF (Universal Disk Format) versions 1.02, 1.5, 2.0, 2.01 and 2.5. The only unfortunate fact is that it's a MS Windows-only product, supporting Vista, XP, etc., but no Linux or OS-X support at this time.

One suggested use of this product would be to put a DVD-RW or BlueRay-RW drive in a PC with InstantBurn-5 software and then share the re-writable disk across the network as NAS storage, using it for instant archiving of data to an optical disk. The beauty of the solution is that you don't have to master the disk and do write-at-once burns of your data - you can keep writing to it as needed until full and then replace and continue archiving data onto a new re-writable optical platter.

All-in-all another great product from CyberLink. Check out the rest of their media editing and mastering software as well as PowerBackup for PC data archiving. Sphere: Related Content

DimDim web conferencing

For those WebEx and GoToMeeting users out there dreading your monthly bill, you might want to take a look at DimDim, an open source based web conferencing solution. DimDim has three versions, Free, Pro which is priced from $99 to $495 per year and Enterprise starting at $1995 per year. The pricing brackets are based on DimDim hosted software and concurrent users. Compare that to WebEx at a web published price of $69 per host per month, and you begin to see the savings. For 50 host users that would be $3,450 per month vs. DimDim Enterprise at $19 per user per month (hosted) or $950 per month, a savings of $2,500/mo., or $30,000 per year. What is unique about DimDim, besides the fact that it has an open source offering, is that you can host it in-house if you chose instead of subscribing to it as a service. For those companies with security concerns over using a hosted web conferencing solution, this is a definite plus.

Another big "plus" is DimDim's free API for creating integration and mashups. Currently there is DimDim integration into Moodle, the learning management system for schools, Yahoo's Zimbra email system, and SugarCRM just to name a few. There's even a Facebook application that is based on DimDim. So you can see that not only are there potential cost savings to using Dimdim, but also a great technology advantage in having an API to leverage for use in other applications. Since DimDim has a free version it would be very easy to take it for a spin, kick the tires, and see how it "rides" for use as your new web conferencing solution. Sphere: Related Content

NAS adapter is too cool

Addonics NAS Adapter for USB




In my quest to provide some networked storage on my home network I stumbled upon the Addonics USB to NAS adapter. Priced at only $55.00, this adapter provides two much needed features in a very small form factor and inexpensive to boot. In a nutshell, you can take any USB hard disk, attach the Addonics adapter and turn that disk drive into a NAS storage device accessible via SMB or FTP. The real BONUS feature here is that this adapter can also serve as a network print server if you attach a USB printer.

Product Features

* Convert any USB 2.0 / 1.1 mass storage device into a Network Attached Storage device
* Great for creating a custom Network Attached Storage appliance.
* USB port can be used to power most 2.5" USB hard drives or any low powered USB storage device.
* Support Fast Ethernet 10/100Mbps.
* Simple to install
* Small and light weight. Size slightly longer than a C size battery. Can be installed practically anywhere
* Can be set as DHCP server or client.
* Support Samba server for up to 64 concurrent clients.
* Support FTP server for up to 8 concurrent users.
* Can be set as a print server to attach any USB printer to the network
* Built-in Bit Torrent client for direct download to the attached USB storage device
* Can be set as a UPnP AV server to share photo/music files stored on the file server with XBOX 360 video game consoles connected to the LAN
* User management to allow read only or read/write access to folders
* Administrative management access via web browser with password security.
* Compatible with all Windows OS, Mac OS, Linux 2.6.x and above Sphere: Related Content

OpenProj for Project Management

I had the opportunity the other day to test out OpenProj, an open source project management tool. I was sent a MS Project (.MPP) file to review a project plan for a website development effort but did not have MS Project installed on my laptop. Unlike some other MS applications like Powerpoint, Microsoft does not have a viewer app available for MS Project files. Enter Serena's OpenProj software, a free open source alternative to MS Project. After downloading the OpenProj software and installing on my Windows XP laptop, I was able to not only easily open the .MPP file but was also able to modify the project milestones and view all of the project details. While I didn't have a chance to test them, other open source options for project management are DotProject and Open Workbench. For collaborative project management in a hosted environment, I'd also recommend taking a close look at BaseCamp's software-as-a-service solution which starts at only $24/mo. for 15 projects, 3GB of storage and unlimited users. Also worth a close look is Zoho Project, part of the comprehensive suite of SaaS apps from Zoho.com. Sphere: Related Content

eJabberd for Instant Messaging

eJabberd Open Source Instant Messaging Server

Another "victim" in the ongoing saga of free open source software (FOSS) being hijacked by a commercial entity only to be later sent to the deadpool is Jabber, recently acquired by Cisco. A project begun in 1998 by Jeremy Miller (per wikipedia) and first released in 2000 as jabberd, Jabber quickly became the basis for the XMPP protocol standard. Probably the most well known adopter of XMPP is Google with the Google Chat software. Many other commercial software companies have also adopted the proven and well regarded XMPP standard for their own integrated messaging, VoIP and presence awareness applications.

Recently I had a customer discussion that centered around an issue with the lack of phone lines (in-coming and out-going) between their distribution centers. There were complaints coming in from the warehouses of busy signals during the peak times of the day. The initial discussion centered around the possibility of voice over IP (VoIP) being a way to solve the problem via provisioning more voice lines between locations. Ok, so not being one who carries around a hammer looking for nails, I asked a more obvious question - what the heck is everyone trying to call each other for at 4pm? The answer was "instant gratification", the warehouse people and order processing people needed quick answers so orders could be completed and picking tickets issued, so trucks could begin being loaded. Email was "too slow" to wait on those simple questions - so my obvious response was - so what about instant messaging. You'd have thought I asked someone to streak naked through the parking lot... no way, then people would be wasting time IM'ing their friends all day instead of WORKING, was the response. Ok, so I had to clarify, I wasn't talking about using AOL or Yahoo, etc., I was talking about implementing an in-house IM server. Response: "We looked at MS Messenger and IBM Sametime, and that's more than we want to spend on IM." Yes, the same people who wanted to throw a VoIP solution at a POTS line congestion problem that would have cost in the high tens of thousands of dollars were balking at spending $40k on IM. As usual, I had a suggestion: "So what about open source, maybe something like Jabber?" Again, a blank stare. I had to pinch myself to make sure I hadn't time warped back to 1998, but no I was again having the "open source is OK" conversation.

After a lengthy discussion I made the suggestion to download eJabberd and use Pidgin as the client for testing purposes. My reasoning for going with eJabberd is that for a customer like this, it would be best to have an option for a commercial support option for the software. With eJabberd that option is available from Process One among others. I'm not doing an ad here for them so just take that as a mention of an alternative. Anyway, just keep in mind that there are options out there to solve problems that don't have to cost a great deal of money.

Typically, if you can win the technology adoption battle via use of FOSS, then if you need advanced features later as user adoption matures, the money to move to a commercial package seems to magically appear where none was available before. The ISVs figured this out a LONG time ago by offering shareware or feature/function-limited freeware versions of their software. It used to be called the "puppy dog close" in sales school - get the client to own it, name it, care for it, feed it and love it, and you're guaranteed they'll have to buy food for it, get it shots, etc. It just never ceases to amaze me that internal IT departments still haven't figured out that they need to get the technology in the door and working and then proving usefulness to management only takes turning off the unauthorized project server and waiting for users to start hollering.

If you're in need of a good IM server, eJabberd is a great option. You can click on over to XMPP.org and see a list of other server options as well as a list of client options. Sphere: Related Content