nb development

Entanet Status Checker Vista Gadget version 1.0.0.3

Nick — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 23:51:17 GMT

The new version includes MD5 hashed password, non focusing during update and a nice little speedo with the current interconnect usage level.

Download the update from http://www.nbdev.co.uk/media/p/3834.aspx

Entanet Usage Gadget

Nick — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 21:42:04 GMT

Got asked to make this, so here goes

Enjoy, you can download from

http://www.nbdev.co.uk/media/p/3836.aspx

Entanet Status Vista Gadget

Nick — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 16:06:27 GMT

Ok, I got a bit bored today and made this, my first vista gadget. It’s only really for people on enta net’s ADSL network here in the UK. It utilizes enta net’s RSS feed to get your ADSL information

Here’s mine

Hopefully I can find some more enta net feeds to expand on what it does, but for now, I think that will do as a version 1.0.

You can download it from http://www.nbdev.co.uk/media/p/3834.aspx

Enjoy.

Exchange 2010 Beta

Nick — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 08:01:00 GMT

Last night (Thursday 16th) I finally got round to putting an intel processor with intel's Virtualization technology in it, this meant that I could actually have 64bit guest hosts.

Finally a proper installation of exchange. Before I'd had a 32 bit virtual PC to run the edge transport host. Well no more. I also took this time to uninstall exchange 2007 and put exchange 2010 beta on.

OMG it took nearly 8 hours to do. 3 of those hours were spent trying to get Hyper-V to work properly with the networing. It doesn't work like Virtual PC or VMWare. So I went back to VMServer.

The mail server went down at 5pm yesterday, and didn't come back online until 12.20am Friday. Just over 7 hours of downtime.

Anyhow, here's a video of what I managed to finally get working:

(Please visit the site to view this media)

My New Phone

Nick — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 11:06:58 GMT

View Full Album

Work, work and, yes, more work.

Nick — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 20:07:02 GMT

Hello all, long time no see. I’ve got a full time job as the only IT technician at a school of 750 students and 50+ staff, just up the road. Because of that I’m usually exhausted when I get home. So understand when I say I’m sorry for not posting anything since my MS MVP award.

My job involves using an RM based network (based on win server 2003 r2 and xp) which is quiet easy to manage, and easy to build pc’s, this network is for the kids and teaching staff. We then have a win server 2003 r2 and xp active directory network for the admin side of things. The separation is due to our Local Authority needs remote access to a server to update SIMS (the Information Management System and Finance Software), so keeping the two separate is useful, and a security aspect. Now on Monday (3rd) I put in an exchange server on the RM system (since all staff have RM user/passwords) but not all have admin users, so it works out better. Now because of Powys, getting this setup took 3 days, and about a month before the Christmas break (the only person in Powys who has access/knowledge of the DNS/Gateway/Proxy system was away on holiday. Once I finally got hold of her, and after a few misunderstanding we finally got things working, OWA for staff and a little program called hmailserver with an IMAP client (asp.net/js based) in front of it for the students. All works quite well. Just have to force the staff to use shared calendars on it now :-P Now the nice thing about this new system compared the LA’s previous install, is that usernames and passwords are the same as the credentials used to log on the network. Which means the children have less to remember, considering at the start of term, on average I have to reset about 5 passwords each day.

I’m worked off my feet, mainly my fault, but sometimes others. Working with kids can be stressful sometimes, not that I show it that much.

I have to keep an eye on the kids in the ICT rooms during lunch and break, so even then I don’t get much free time, but it’s interesting, banging on Kiss 101 on the old computer to torture the kids :-P

Speaking of my MVP award, that got me in to the Windows 7 Private Beta, you know the one on connect. Got my copy of windows 7 yesterday, both x64 and x86, and just had to wait for a 8gb USB memory stick to arrive so I could install it on my laptop (laptop doesn’t have DVD drive). Just so you know there are instructions on HOWTO: Install Windows Vista from a high speed USB 2.0 Flash Drive - Windows Live detailing how to install Windows Vista from a USB flash drive. Now since Windows 7’s installer is built on Vista’s, you can use the same processes, and I have to say, it’s quite easy to do, and a bit quicker than using a DVD.

I can’t wait to test my DVB-S2 tuner with Windows Media Center in Win 7. 1080i HD BBCHD and ITVHD. Just can’t wait for C4 HD to join Freesat.

Anyhow, see my Windows 7 Album:

View Full Album

My MVP Award, Pics

Nick — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 12:07:50 GMT

Here’s some pics of my getting my MVP award through DHL

Phoyosynth

I’ve gotten a Microsoft MVP Award for 2009

Nick — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 06:29:06 GMT

OMFG, I’ve just been awarded the microsoft MVP award for my work on CSLive.

So now you all have to bow down and worship me, hehehehe.

On another note, work is going great, though I’m knackered when I get home from work @ 5/6pm in the evening. So please understand why I’m not doing much else at the moment.

1/2 term is coming up soon, but I’m working through that, and I’m saving my paid days off for when my mate alex comes down.

Thanks,

Nick Brown – IT Technician of Crickhowell High School

Start work on Monday

Nick — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 21:57:51 GMT

Right, just incase some of you didn’t know, I’ll be starting full time IT tech work on 1st September 2008 (Monday). My hours are going to be 8am – 4pm (usually), so it’s not going to leave much time for playing with CS.

I’ll attempt to get CSLive 2.0 out the door and do reperion’s site and theme.

So enjoy, because this will likely be the last of me in full time CS dev mode.

I have a training and trail day on Wednesday, so if you need to contact me on Wednesday, DON’T!!

Hehe.

I’ve been a bit bored recently, waiting for CS 2008.5, so here’s what I’ve been working on, a new website for my IT Tech Job:

I had to take a jpg image of the logo and make a PSD out of it, just for this muck around. Anyhow wish me luck.

Nick signing off for now

Employment Looms

Nick — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 01:39:16 GMT

As full time employment looms I’m starting to reject clients, if you have a really simple job that needs doing, like theming a CS install to look like your site, or working off a PSD, then I’ll still take on work for this, as I can even work on this over weekends outside of work.

But as for the big stuff, the last clients for this are LiveSide and Reperion. If any other clients have gotten in touch with with, sorry, but if I start work, I won’t be able to work on side projects.

Cross Post on techie nick, and dev log.

Employment Looms

Nick — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 01:39:06 GMT

Cross Post on techie nick, and dev log.

Presenting Athena 2008 Beta 1

Nick — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 21:19:56 GMT

I’m proud to announce that as of 10pm BST (GMT+1) on 1st August 2008 Athena 2008 Beta 1 is officially available for download.

WARNING: THIS IS A BETA PEICE OF SOFTWARE!

Words of warning:

This release is a beta product and has bugs
The user cannot save the customisation changes that he/she has made
Transparencies do not work
Header background images are all that are allowed now
Form background image (main base background image) is a gradient effect in this release, and is configurable.
No CSLive controls are installed, although you can add CSLive 1.0 Controls after installation

Download either the Web or Windows Installers, and extract them into your community server installation. Once done you should see the athena 2008 theme in your control panel.

Included in this package is 1 header image, released at the same time as Athena 2008 will be Athena 2008 Header Image Pack 1. This package will contain a set of images that need to be uploaded into a gallery in community server. Once this has been done set the relevant settings in the site theme settings under the Athena Tab. Note that you can tag these images for better filtering of a gallery.

To Download Athena 2008 Beta 1:

browse to http://www.nbdev.co.uk/media/g/athena/tags/Athena+2008/default.aspx
Download 1 of the 2 installer files

(Optional) Download the Header Image Pack

Athena 2008 is Coming

Nick — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 09:23:00 GMT

Athena 2008 Beta 1 is almost here. Just a few hours away from it’s public release.

Words of warning:

This release is a beta product and has bugs
The user cannot save the customisation changes that he/she has made
Transparencies do not work
Header background images are all that are allowed now
Form background image (main base background image) is a gradient effect in this release, and is configurable.
No CSLive controls are installed, although you can add CSLive 1.0 Controls after installation

The main point is this a BETA 1 release.

It will appear later tonight on nb development.

If you spot any major bugs outside of the Athena bar, please let me know.

CSLive 2.0: Virtual Earth in your Profile

Nick — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 21:25:37 GMT

Today, apart from applying to a few places for a job, I’ve been working on the Virtual Earth Control for CSLive 2.0.

Now this control, although 1 physical control, it will do mostly anything

These will hopefully include:

Your Location Map (Picks up on the current user’s location and displays a map accordingly). This is the version I’ve been working on today
My Friends Map. In the user’s profile, the user will have a tabbed sidebar box, one with a friends List, and one with a Friends Map.
The friends map will act much like the current User Location Map, but will show all of your friends.
Controls that can be placed anywhere in CS.
These controls will mainly just be a wrapper for the Virtual Earth control. It will eventually have children controls that can be added, these children controls will be <CSLive:MapPushPin /> controls and <CSLive:MapZone /> controls. You will supply coordinates to the VE control, and it will render it.
Post Viewers. Much like the File Viewers, the Map Viewers will be placed inside Posts, and will use the syntax [CSLive:Map Long=”xxx” Lat=”xxx” SearchFor=”xxx” ZoomLevel=”1-19” Collection=”xxx” Width=”xxx” Height=”xxx” Controls=”Full|Tiny|None”]
A limited version of the full mapping control.

So big things from this tiny little control, which we hope to release for RC1.

For more info visit http://communityserverlive.com

My New Laptop

Nick — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 15:02:37 GMT

Got my new laptop on Friday (18/7/08) and OMG this thing is soo cool.

I love tablet PC’s now.

Here’s some pics:

The laptop is really sweet, and runs really well. Because it’s a laptop, my documents folder is stored on my S:\ which is an encrypted drive, and requires my fingerprint, just an added bit of security when I’m away.

Hopefully, I’m gonna be traveling a fair bit over the next few months, Dallas in October, and Netherlands sometime before that. Hopefully I have enuf money for this, lol.

Anyhow, more soon

CS Media Manager now Supports full gallery download

Nick — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 23:41:28 GMT

CS media manager 1.2.0.0 now can get all of the stuff in a gallery, yes all of the posts. Now I’ve had to hack this a little to get it to work, ie stick a for loop in, but the end result is the same

Hehe, that’s 228 images loading, on a tag none the less.

Tags load up 2 images at a time, we as a gallery will load in 20 at a time, or what ever CS has defined as the default post list page size.

I might need to add a stop button on the loading of a big selection, tho I’m not quite sure how to do that, lol. Anyhow, it’s all good, shame CS don’t support the full loading of the gallery.

1.2.0.0 is now available via OneClick or the download page.

Note that for this to work your site needs to be running CS 2008 SP1

Busy Time for Me

Nick — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 20:59:59 GMT

Well it’s all hands to the pumps this month, I’ve started soo many free projects that I’m hopefully gonna get done soon. Then a load of paid theming work, so you’ll have to excuse me for not getting athena done.

Just an FYI.

Themes I’ll be doing:

Reperion
Bink (already done, just waiting on developer to finish converting the html template to a cs theme)
Extended64
Liveside.net

Free projects:

CSLive 2.0 (beta 1 expected end of the week)
Athena 2008
AddThis controls (released today)

Other Projects:

Help mum around the house
be taxi driver for brother
look for a job
maintain home network

so a lot of work on at the moment.

I’m now Nick Brown BSc MBCS

Nick — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 21:08:34 GMT

Just finished my final year of my BSc in Computing, passed with a 2:1, which is good considering I did really badly in my final exams. Anyhow, with this result, I can finally start looking for a job full time.

FYI MBCS = Member of the British Computing Society.

nb development gets updated to CS 2008 SP1

Nick — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 16:53:53 GMT

Just finished updating nb development to CS 2008 SP1. Took me about 2 hours to figure out why the site wasn’t working after the initial upgrade. Lol. Note to self, remember to run the upgrade SQL Script. lol.

Anyhow, you may of noticed in the new look athena theme, complete with header images, which change both randomly, and with your mouse movements. Click on the << paint pot to get the athena bar and then look at the header images.

The script that generates them takes a image and adds the gradient effects to the sides, so you’ll be able to use the new image packs that will be shipping with Athena 2008 for header images.

CSLive 2.0 Control Panel Preview

Nick — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 00:18:00 GMT

A quick preview webcast of the CSLive 2.0 Control Panel and Editor

(Please visit the site to view this media)

CSLive 2.0 – The Control Panel

Nick — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 23:33:01 GMT

Just a little blog about the new control panel, there will be a webcast on this later tonight, so keep an eye out.

Nice and simple, so far.

How to Have Blogs Outside of Blogs

Nick — Sat, 24 May 2008 18:34:00 GMT

In this webcast I explain how to move blogs outside of the blogs directory in community server, and to customize the look and feel using simple code.

(Please visit the site to view this media)

Download: http://www.nbdev.co.uk/media/p/3685.aspx

Source: http://www.nbdev.co.uk/cfs-file.ashx/__key/CommunityServer.Blogs.Components.WeblogFiles/webcasts/blogsoutsideofblogs.zip

How to Add a Custom Homepage but keep the user dashboard in Community Server 2008

Nick — Fri, 23 May 2008 18:24:00 GMT

In the 1st of 2 webcasts from today I show how to add a custom homepage to the site, and keep the original community server 2008 user dashboard.

(Please visit the site to view this media)

Download: http://www.nbdev.co.uk/media/p/3683.aspx

Source: http://www.nbdev.co.uk/cfs-file.ashx/__key/CommunityServer.Blogs.Components.WeblogFiles/webcasts/homepage.zip

CS Media Manager 1.1.0.2

Nick — Mon, 12 May 2008 23:03:43 GMT

Just released on www.nbdev.co.uk/Products/CS-Media-Manager.aspx is version 1.1.0.2.

Screenshots

The change log from version 1.0.0.5 is:

Changes in Media Manager 1.1.0.0:

Added Multiple Site Support
Improved the Shell Interface to use a treeview for gallery selection
Moved to Registry entries
More Threading
Image Icons show while the image is being loaded
Reload and Browse context options added to the site level

Changes in Media Manager 1.1.0.1:

Image Quality now fully works
Added Copy context menu's to Item Property dialog URLs
Coded the change button
- NOTE: the change button uploads a new attachment to the post attachment of the media item, however something isn't quite working in the API and the contents are not being updated. However I would like some confirmation on this, so if someone is brave enuf to set that registry value, I'll be very grateful.
- The button can be creating a REG_DWORD named "enableediting" with "1" as the value in
  HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\nb development\CS Media Manager\
Directory Upload will only resize images that are bigger than the specified sizes

Changes in Media Manager 1.1.0.2:

File Attachment Box actually closes after click "OK" if you've used the image editor (Problem Deleting the temp file)

Fixed in 1.1.0.2

Known bugs:

Change Button doesn't work in some cases
The images can timeout while loading, and require hitting the retry button on the popup message

Features to be added:

Gallery Properties
Group Refresh and Browse context Menu
More Effects
- Grayscaling
- etc...
More options on the Item Context Menu
any recommendations...

If you can think of anything I've missed contact me using www.nbdev.co.uk/learn-more/contact.aspx

CS Media Manager

Nick — Sat, 03 May 2008 17:17:00 GMT

Just a quick post about the new CS Media Manager that I've been developing over the past month.

View it at http://www.nbdev.co.uk/products/cs-media-manager.aspx

and watch the webcast on the 1st version at http://www.nbdev.co.uk/blogs/webcasts/archive/2008/04/12/cs-media-manager.aspx

A updated webcast will be uploaded tomorrow.

In version 1.0.0.6 (as found on the OneClick Page), most of the program is complete, with just a few little outstanding issues, which I'm hoping to mostly resolve next week. Mind some of the problems are REST API related, and can't be fixed.

For more information, visit Re: Anybody developing a Windows application to manage media? on CS.com

Some screenshots: