New Cool Windows Messenger Feature

So this week I updated to the most recent versions of Windows Live Writer and Windows Messenger…  One cool feature that I was completely unaware of until I left the house and forgot to disconnect my laptop from Windows Live messenger and expected to get the error “you are logged on to another computer” when i connected on my desktop but didn’t.   I saw something new on the top of the application window reading “available in 2 places”.

You can now be logged into Messenger in two places at once.  This can be a mobile device or a laptop and desktop. The features are noted here

This removes the need to have two Live Messenger logins for multiple places…You can be online both places at once and even continue conversations from the other device or location…. Start in the office, continue the conversation on the Windows Mobile device and finish the conversation on the laptop at home. From the Live Messenger Site: “If you receive a message while you’re signed in on multiple devices, the message will appear on each device that you’re signed in on. Also, if you perform an action on one device, such as open or close a conversation window, the action will occur on all devices.”

Really Cool!

ACS Desktop on a 2008 Terminal Server

Microsoft’s Terminal Server 2008 has a lot of new features which includes RemoteApp publishing.  This allows you to place icons on a user’s desktop and start menu and run with the same look and feel as the application being installed locally… but really running from the terminal server.

Set-up of ACS as a remoteapp was quite easy and has worked fairly well in our sandbox environment.

In our situation, we have datacenter licensing for Microsoft so adding multiple virtual servers isn’t an issue, so we have elected to Install the ACS database on one server and have the terminal server function strictly as an application server.  This changes some settings for the terminal server that I will note below.

The steps to deploy ACS as a remoteapp are as follows (assuming that you have already completed the Terminal Server 2008 installation):

1. Use the Install Application on Terminal Server option in Control Panel to install the program.

2. Install ACS Workstation by running the installer found in the Database servers ACSNet folder.

3. Browse to the WINACS directory on the Terminal server and give all domain users full read write permissions to the entire contents of that directory.

4. Next Add ACS People Suite and ACS Financial’s Suite to the RemoteApps by going to Server Manager > Roles > Terminal Services > TS Remoteapp Management

5. Add A remoteapp and select ACS People Suite and ACS Financial’s Suite in the list.

6. After you have added the application you need to create the Installer file to add the shortcuts to the workstations that will be using the RemoteApp

7. Next Choose a location to save your.msi installer.  This can be a UNC path to a network storage location.

8. Update the Start menu folder and select to add the desktop icons.  Note there are no files to associate with this remote application, so that box stays unchecked.

After you run the .msi installer you created with the wizard, the workstation will have the icons for ACS People and ACS Financial.  On first run it the terminal server will prompt for network credentials to access the Terminal Server.  Save these credentials for future use and the application will start up with no user interaction next time they launch the ACS application.

Once the user is logged into the terminal server the ACS login screen will display on the desktop as if it was a local application.

Now there were a couple "got-yas":

1. The permissions have to be configured for full read/write for all users on the Database ACSNET and WINACS as well as the Terminal Server’s WINACS directory.

2. When you use ACS via a remoteapp on a dual monitor system the login and application splash screens land in between both monitors.  This is due to the application’s programming to center on the screen when they start up and Terminal server sees the desktop as one spanned desktop.  You can use the configuration "span monitor:i:0" to disable monitor spanning but this limits the users from running the application on the monitor that isn’t the local systems primary monitor. I have contacted ACS and this is a item that is being addressed by the programming team.

3. As part of #2, you can move the running application to another location on one of the monitors if you allow spanning (enabled by default) and it will remember the location where you closed the application… it just won’t remember the location of where you had moved the login or splash screens.

4. When ACS is closed, the session on the terminal server is not logged off, rather the users session is left in a disconnected state.  We are looking at options of lowering the default logoff settings in the Terminal server to be sure that all users are logged off during backups on the Database server.

5. First login to the Terminal server when launching the RemoteApp the local profile has to be created and the login time is quite a bit longer than subsequent login times for the RemoteApp.

As always your mileage may differ, If you have tried this installation and have had other experiences let me know I would be interested in hear your experience.

CheckPoint Training

Less than a month away we will go live with the new Children’s Check-in system and the preparations are in full swing.  This weekend we hosted another training for Discoveryland volunteers (children’s ministry volunteers).

Our Project timeline is:
Pre-Registration Weekend Feb 28 – March 1

Go Live March 21-22

Electronic Check-in Required April 4-5

The pre-registration is required to capture the finger scans so once the system is online parents will be recognized by the system. Most families were very surprised how easy the scanning process was and it took at most 45 seconds to a minute for each person’s scans to be captured.

We are using ACS CheckPoint as well as M2Sys BioSnapOn to facilitate the finger scanning and family lookup.  The biometric lookup is almost instantaneous and the families don’t have to remember to bring a bar code card or key fob since its impossible to forget your finger prints.

Here are some photos of the IT team in action during the Training and Pre-Registration.

Jeremie, Linda and our IT volunteer Mark did a great job assisting parents to capture their finger scans.

Capturing a finger scan and testing self-service check-in

Linda showing what the Child ID badge and Parent Security badges look like.

A Field Trip with the Ret. Lt. Col.

As some may know our operations director, Jerry Croegaert, is recently Retired Lt. Col. Jerry Croegaert (ANG), Commander of the 169th Air Support Operations Squadron.  Well today we took a field trip to see the old stomping grounds of our new leader.  The 169th shares a base with the 182nd Airlift Wing (a C130 Unit). Jeremie, Linda, Melanie and I went along with Jerry to the Air National Guard base in Bartonville, IL.
The primary reason for our visit was information sharing with the Coms personnel on base.  This was a great opportunity to see how they are doing all things IT as well as share our successes at Northwoods and the ANG as well as our struggles.  It was interesting to learn that their operations are very similar to ours (well except people don’t die if we mess things up) and they struggle with many of the same issues as those in the CITRT community… Limited Budget, Expectations to provide cutting edge technology and support and train our users to utilize that technology.
One take away from our trip was the accountability from the top down of the organization of Technology Continuing Education. MSgt George Garcia will be sending over some samples of their online Education tools that I hope to digest and reuse in our environment.
I would share some photos from the DataCenter but we had to turn our cameras/phones in during that part of the tour.

Here are some photos from the rest of the base where we were allowed to take photos (Jeremie and I asked several times if it was ok to take photos in specific areas we didn’t want to see anyone get tackled like in the Terry Tate commercials.)

A C130 Taking off

A C130 in the Hanger

Our Team inside the belly of a C130

It says it all

Living in a state that has been heralded as one of the most corrupt state governments (giving New Jersey) a run for its money, I have become annoyed by our politicians antics… well as you know our "Beloved" Rod Blago is now our former governor since he was removed from office by our state senate last week. 

A Chicago based retailer expressed their frustration in a recent ad and thought it was worth sharing.

New stuff From ACS Technologies

ACS Workstation Install with UNC Path

One of the frustrations with ACS desktop software on local machines was always having to map a drive back to the server for the desktop application to work… well not any more.  With the 10.0 update ACS did away with needing a mapped drive to connect to the database.

When you install the application, install it from the UNC Path to your ACSNET directory on the database server.  This path is "remembered" by ACS desktop and utilized by the application and there is no longer any need to map network drives.  Yea!

Note: If you are using the Old scheduling applications Ministry Scheduler this product is destined for End of Life and will not be updated to utlized the UNC rather than a mapped drive.

ACS Broadcast

I have talked about ACS Broadcast in the past and just got word last last night that the Beta is now publicly available. Broadcast will pull data directly from Facility Scheduler and display the days’ events on a monitor. 

There are a couple views (summary and tabular) and custom video and still backgrounds can be added.  Here are a couple previews from ACS:

Summary View

Tabular View

More info to come as we dive into the beta.

Check out the ACS Product development bog for more information

Efficiency or Laziness, either way job done.

How often have you needed to remote into a system that is on the other side of the campus to fix an issue and found that Remote Desktop isn’t enabled and the remote management application’s service bombed.  Resulting in (Heaven Forbid!) getting up from your desk and walking to the machine and working on it locally…. (gasp! you might have to interact with people!)

Well no more friends do you need to leave the comfort of your chair, your beverage and your snack…and risk human interaction, here are the lazy steps (blatantly copied from  mydigitallife.info).

I have to admit I spent about 5 minutes, quite possibly more time than walking to the machine I needed to fix, searching steps to remotely enable Remote Desktop on a workstation…. But it is ok since it was during a work night and the building was closed and I wasn’t avoiding anyone by my working remotely!

To remotely enable Remote Desktop on another computer, follow these steps:

• Login to the workstation with administrator credentials.
• Run Registry Editor (regedit).
• Click on File menu.
• Select the Connect Network Registry in the pull down menu.

• A “Select Computer” dialog search box is opened. Type the host name of the remote computer in the text box, or browse Active Directory to locate the remote server, or click on “Advanced” button to search for the remote computer.

• Click OK after the remote computer is selected. A node for the remote computer network registry will be displayed in the Registry Editor with HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE (HKLM) and HKEY_USERS (HKU) hives.

• Navigate to the following registry key for the remote computer:

  HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Terminal Server

• In the right pane, locate a REG_DWORD value named fDenyTSConnection. Double-click on fDenyTSConnection and change the value data from 1 (Remote Desktop disabled) to 0 (Remote Desktop enabled).

  

• Reboot the remote machine by issuing the following command in Command Prompt:

  shutdown -m \\hostname -r

  Replace hostname with the actual computer name of the remote host.

• Remote Desktop for the remote computer has been enabled, and listening on default Remote Desktop port for any incoming Remote Desktop Connection.

Another option that works is via this handy application Enable Remote Desktop-Remotely by Intelliadmin.com

Outages are Annoying

So today I was quickly reminded why we schedule planned outages for maintenance and how annoying unplanned outages are for end users.  Typically we are so busy scrambling to fix the problem we don’t think about how it feels to the end users when systems are down.

This year I am trying TurboTax.com to help navigate our Tax filings… I started using the tool online on Saturday morning and have gotten thru most of our filing… The “wizard” like tool even navigates charitable giving and a housing allowance…

The price for the Online tool is cheaper than downloading the software and since I don’t need to e-file more than once the online version worked.   Until today.  I had the  morning off and thought I would finish up our taxes until I was presented with this lovely little greeting….

At least they have a nice pretty graphic to put up when things go down… Hopefully it won’t die too many more times before April 15.