Before September 1995, Microsoft Windows was an MS-DOS program. DOS was an easy to use command line operating system that provided you with complete ability to control and troubleshoot your computer. Microsoft's goal was to eliminate DOS, possibly to prevent you from having complete control of your own computer.
The last stand-alone version of MS-DOS was version 6. Unfortunately, that version is not Y2K compliant. Windows 95 and later came with MS-DOS version 7. Unfortunately, that version is too integrated with the operating system. It will not work without access to your hard disk.
FreeDOS is a PC compatible Y2K compliant DOS that you can download from www.freedos.org. FreeDOS fits on a single floppy disk and can be used to boot your computer. Download and unzip the file odin7bin.zip (756KB). Unziping will create the files diskcopy.exe and fdodin07.144. Put a blank formatted floppy disk in the drive. In the Start | Run dialog box, or at a command prompt type "diskcopy fdodin07.144 a:" to create a bootable FreeDOS floppy disk.
Why would you want to boot your computer with DOS? Maybe you want to use Windows XP without product activation.
First make sure that the BIOS boot sequence on your computer is configured with the floppy drive as the first boot device (or at least before the C: drive). To get to the BIOS configuration screen, press the "Delete" or "F2" key (depending upon your BIOS) while your computer is starting.
Insert the FreeDOS floppy disk in the floppy drive and start the computer. At the A:>_ prompt type DATE. FreeDOS will return your computer's current date, along with a prompt to enter a new date. Enter the date that you installed Windows XP (or at least a date before the 30 day expiration date). Remove the FreeDOS floppy disk and restart your computer.
Note: This will only work if Windows XP has never been started after the 30 day expiration date. The first time Windows XP is started after the 30 day expiration date will be the last time it starts.
Every time you start your computer, start it first with FreeDOS and reset the computer's date to the date that you installed Windows XP. Windows XP will think time has come to a standstill.
Note: Of course, Your file creation and last modified dates will not be correct, so this is not really a way for a serious user to bypass Windows XP product activation. However for certain purposes, like learning the Windows XP operating system, this can be a way to use Windows XP without product activation.
Microsoft should have made the expiration period much longer than 30 days. Maybe they want you to activate Windows XP before it crashes.
|W|P|114273986678820036|W|P|FreeDOS|W|P|venkat@sgdnetworks.comThe Internet is reshaping every form of communications medium, and faxing is no exception. The latest twist: Internet faxing services that let you send messages to any fax machine from any Web browser or email, and others that give you a "personal fax phone number," then forward any documents sent there to your e-mail inbox.
The Fax Machine - Workhorse in the '80s and '90s.
It enabled you to send a document to anyone, anywhere, at any time, and know that it was received instantly. It was a godsend in the 1980s and everyone had to have one. But it has become an expensive bit of machinery that will cost you money every time you use it. Smart organizations are now reducing or eliminating the fax machines they use in favor of electronic services. The fax machine costs you in paper, toner, phone bills and repairs. It is like a taxi-meter in that regard, and the bill keeps growing and growing. Currently most of the documents that you fax are created on a computer. If you fax them through a fax machine, you must print out the documents, manually create a cover page, and you must go to the fax machine to send the documents. Every time you receive a fax, you must retrieve it from the community fax machine, rather than having it delivered directly to your PC workstation like any other document. Many people still use fax machines today. The alternative is to use fax services from companies that provide Internet fax services.
Fax Machine Costs
The fax machine is considered a simple tool by many, which is probably why they haven't replaced it yet. Anybody can stick a document into the auto feeder, dial a phone number, and send the document at 14.4 or 33.6 Kbs. But it costs to send a fax.
Among the actions employees must take to fax a document, labor is the greatest hidden operating cost. Labor is a key factor because your staff is more expensive than phone calls, and it makes the biggest difference in fax costs. Most businesses neglect to factor in the costs of actions such as employees walking to the machine, waiting to use it, the faxing process and the employee's return trip to their desk. All of this takes time. And in the world of hidden fax operating costs-you guessed it-time is money. Also, keep in mind that it isn't unusual to find executives with six-figure salaries performing some of the same fax-related tasks as clerical workers. When that happens, those labor costs can be as astronomical as some of those six-figure salaries. Costs also incurred are lease and maintenance charges for fax machines as well as sending charges for making fax phone calls. These depend on the rates you pay and the speed at which your fax machine and the machines you send to can distribute faxes.
How Internet Faxing Works
Ever heard of eFax? You sign up for a fax number. When people send you faxes, they're auto-forwarded to your e-mail Inbox, where you can read them, trash them if they're junk, or print them out only if necessary. Not only do you save paper and ink, but you don't need a fax machine or a second phone line-and you get your faxes wherever you happen to be in the country.
Together, in principle, these Internet fax services offer all the advantages of fax -- a universal system for quick and convenient distribution of anything you can put on paper -- without making you spend your money on a fax machine, fax supplies or fax phone fees.
In the business world, any time that you can save money, your customers will ultimately save money too. That is why Internet faxing is a good idea. Internet faxing is the practice of using your email (or a website) to send and receive faxes. The speed and efficiency of email, coupled with the lower costs of sending broadcast faxes via email is more desirable than making lots of phone calls.
Sending and Receiving faxes over the Internet with your regular fax machines sounds cool, but so far, today's standard fax machines do not yet know how to speak Internet - you can't use them over the Internet. Some of the newer models will have this capability, but it will take time to gain worldwide acceptance. In the meantime, there are a number of services that bridge the gap between traditional faxes and the new world of Internet-based communications.
A number of companies, such as eFax, Faxaway, Internet Fax Provider and MaxEmail, allow you to send or receive faxes over the Internet. These services are either free or charge a monthly fee.
However, many of these services are limited in what they can do:
Still, Internet faxing provides many advantages. Convenience and better resolution are the two main pluses. They allow you to send and receive your faxes entirely with your email service - the best thing to happen to the business world in the last 10 years. You can send and receive faxes anywhere you can access your existing email account: from your home, office, client's office, hotel, airport or cottage. Or even better, a web-based interface that keeps track of everything you've done with your faxing business and allow you to do cheap and efficient broadcast faxing.
Some of the advantages of Internet faxing:
|W|P|114273982216109720|W|P|Internet Faxing Service Review|W|P|venkat@sgdnetworks.com
Whether you have used Microsoft Word for years, have just switched from WordPerfect or are new to word processing, try these easy steps to save time and simplify your work in Word:
Turn off Personalized Menus and Toolbars
Although it is a default, Personalized Menus and Toolbars is a terrible "feature" which limits your initial view to select toolbar buttons and menu commands. Do you only have one row of toolbars at the top of the screen? When you click on a menu, does it expand only after a few seconds? If so, you will save yourself a lot of frustration by turning off this personalized display:
1. Choose Tools > Customize, and click on the Options tab.
2. For the section, Personalized Menus and Toolbars, check/select the options "Show Formatting and Standard toolbars on two rows" and "Always show full menus." Note: in Microsoft Word 2000, you will need to UNcheck each of these options (the descriptions are a bit different too).
3. Pick Close to see a full display of your main toolbars and your menus.
Stop Automatic Text Changes
Does it seem like Word randomly changes the capitalization or spelling of text in a document? AutoCorrect is to blame. As the name indicates, AutoCorrect automatically corrects the spelling of common misspelled words but also makes other changes including capitalizing the first letter in a sentence, table cell, or line of text. To review your choices, pick Tools > AutoCorrect Options, choose the AutoCorrect tab and uncheck any option that gets in the way of typing your text.
Stop Automatic Numbered Lists (and More)
Have you ever tried to create your own numbered list or outline and watched the numbering or formatting change once you press [Enter] for the next line? This is a huge annoyance for anyone that wants to build their own custom layout for an outline rather than working with the choices in Word. Do you type your e-mail address or website into a document and then watch as it suddenly changes to blue underlined text (a hyperlink)? Do you ever enter fractions or quotes that automatically re-format? You are a victim of AutoFormat As You Type. To customize Word so that it works for you and not against you:
1. Choose Tools > AutoCorrect Options
2. Select the AutoFormat As You Type tab. I recommend that you uncheck all of the options in the last 2 sections including Automatic numbered lists. Turn off choices in the 1st section as desired.
3. Pick OK to finish.
Each of the formatting options that you turn off can still be added when you want them. For instance, automatic numbered lists can be created via a toolbar button or under the Format menu.
Modifying Your Default Font
Are you frequently changing the font in your documents? Take a few minutes to change the default font used for new documents:
1. Create a new, blank document.
2. Choose Format > Font. Change the font from the standard Times New Roman 12 point to the style and size you want such as Arial 12 point.
3. Next, don’t pick OK which only changes the current document. Instead, choose Default.
4. You will see a prompt asking if you want to change the default font. This change will modify the normal template also known as the normal.dot file which stores many of the Microsoft Word settings. Select Yes to confirm the changes.
Customizing Page Layout and Margins
Ever since the days of Word 1.0, the default margins for a document have been 1” for the top and bottom and 1.25” for the left and right margins even though most people prefer 1” margins for each side. It’s also easy to change the settings for margins regardless of what you like to work with:
1. Continue with a new, blank document.
2. File > Page Setup, and pick the Margins tab.
3. Change the margins to 1” all around or your most frequently used choices.
4. Make other changes in these dialog tabs. For instance, you might want to set a custom footer or make changes to the Paper source.
5. To set your custom defaults for all new, blank documents, pick the Default button.
6. As before, you will be prompted to confirm the change to the normal template. Choose Yes to continue.
|W|P|114273972158341850|W|P|5 Time-Saving Tips in Microsoft Word|W|P|venkat@sgdnetworks.comIBM Lotus Domino or Microsoft Exchange?
The severe competition continues for many years between two main leaders in collaboration solutions - IBM and Microsoft. Whether the choice of a platform influences the ordinary user? The both of software giants put efforts to improve working conveniences for end Internet users. Taking into account that the products value is approximately the same worldwide, new ideas of the platforms integration have appeared. Interesting projects have being realized in the both companies.
Free add-on for Outlook: Notes Connector
Microsoft supports free add-on for Microsoft Outlook client, which allows connection to message/collaboration server Lotus Domino. Office Outlook Connector for IBM Lotus Domino enables using Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 or Microsoft Outlook 2002 to access e-mail messages, calendar, address book, and To Do (task) items on an IBM Lotus Domino Release 5.x or Release 6.x server.
Domino Access for Microsoft Outlook 6.5.1
The new IBM Lotus Domino Access for Microsoft Outlook 6.5.1 provides the solution for businesses looking to migrate away from Microsoft Exchange, but don't want to retrain their users. Now company employees can continue using their existing Outlook client for messaging, calendar and scheduling, and personal information management (PIM) services, with replacing Microsoft Exchange server infrastructure to Lotus Domino servers, running on the hardware and operation system of their choice, including Linux.
Platforms support
For Lotus Domino 6.5: Microsoft Windows family (95 SE, 98, NT SP6a, 2000 SP3, XP, 2003); Sun Solaris; Linux, United Linux.
For Lotus Notes 6.5: Microsoft Windows family; Macintosh OS X (10.1 and 10.2).
For Lotus Domino Web Access 6.5: Microsoft Windows family; Red Hat Linux, v. 7.2 or 8.0, SuSE Linux, v. 8.0, United Linux, v. 1.0. It supports the following browsers: Microsoft Internet Explorer v. 5.5 and 6.0; Mozilla, v. 1.3.1 Linux-client.
|W|P|114273966857744937|W|P|IBM Lotus Domino or Microsoft Exchange?|W|P|venkat@sgdnetworks.comHaving from five to ten and more favorite screensavers is cool. But how do you enjoy them all in a straightforward and convenient way? Draw the power you need from the little yet useful tools discussed in this article!
As you remember, earlier in my article What to Do if You Fall in Love With More Than One Screensaver we discussed the standard way of switching between multiple screensavers. Having that possibility is a pleasure indeed. Just imagine that your operating system doesn't let you easily vary screensavers to suit your mood. You'd be forced to uninstall the installed screensaver, and then install a new one. Avoiding this effort would lead you to a fabulous triumph of utter boredom! Thankfully, it's not the case. Furthermore, as you will see, there are tools that make switching between your favorite screensavers a breeze.
As strange as it may sound, computers were created to make our lives easier. Really, they are very good at automating repeating and boring tasks. And now is the very moment to remind them of that.
Imagine your innermost dream. You just sit doing nothing and your computer, your dutiful servant, takes care of your problem without your slightest intervention. All what is left to you is to enjoy the fruits of its labor. Nice, huh? Ta-da! Enter Random Screensaver!
If you have never heard about Random Screensaver, fear not! "Random" here has nothing to do with a random and unpredictable mess on your screen. It's the first little tool that will help you drive away the boredom of manually switching between your favorite screensavers.
The idea behind the tool is simple yet very useful. Random Screensaver is not a screensaver in the first place. It wears this disguise to take control each time the operating system says it's a perfect moment to start the screensaver. Once in control, the tool looks at the list of available screensavers and asks a random performer from the list to start its show.
That's it! If you install Random Screensaver, you will never have to switch your savers manually. Each time a different screensaver will start. All your favorites will get a regular outing!
There you will find two different versions: "Quick download" and "Full installation." The first one is a bare screensaver file and is very small. The second is a self-extracting installation package that will do all the installation work for you, but it's much bigger. If you don't want to waste your time downloading the bigger package, it's time to recall my previous article What You Should Know About Installing Screensavers. There you can get the knowledge needed to install the bare screensaver file.Now that we have solved our primary problem, I can hear some of my readers start grumbling. If you are one of them, I know what's bothering you. Remember in the beginning of this article I said how bad it would be if you could not match your mood with running screensavers? But Random Screensaver knows nothing about your feelings. It simply runs a random screensaver. Well, there still is a cure for those of you who can't stand this disease.
The second tool I would like to tell you about is AllSaver! Although not free, it's a perfect cure for the second problem. It works much like Random Screensaver, but in addition to running a random show, it lets you tell exactly which screensavers you would like to see. So, if you feel today is a good day for just five of your favorite savers, and other twenty of them should rest, you can have it this way! Simply add those five to the list, and it's done!
But wait, there's even more to please you! AllSaver! has one unique feature. It makes it possible to run two or four of your favorites at the same time! You select how many screensavers to run, and AllSaver! splits the screen as needed, providing the space for all running screensavers.
|W|P|114273962225066704|W|P|Falling in Love With More Than One Screensaver: The Fun Part|W|P|venkat@sgdnetworks.comNo matter how much you enjoy your favorite screensavers, sometimes they can be rather annoying. Don't like them interrupting your presentations? Hate them disturbing you watching movies? Look no further. This article will show you how to gain full control over your screensavers in no time.
There's no doubt screensavers bring a pleasant variety to your desktop. Not to mention they prevent your monitor from burn-ins. Still there are times they had better sit quiet and hadn't interfered with your work.
Demonstrating a slideshow, watching a movie, reading an article - all these activities and many others may leave your computer with no keyboard and mouse input for a few minutes. Depending on your preferred settings, two or three minutes of inactivity may be enough for a screensaver to start and interrupt your work when it shouldn't.
The obvious solution to the problem is disabling screensavers right before any of those activities. However, it's very likely you'll forget to do it. Furthermore, it's even more likely you'll forget to turn screensavers back on later, thus leaving yourself without their benefits for indefinite time.
Thankfully, we are not the first people who encountered this problem. Quite many different tools already exist to help you. They range from simple support for screensavers in some applications to universal and powerful tools to control them.
If screensavers interrupt you often when you watch movies, but otherwise don't bother you, you may find it sufficient to use a media player that has a built-in support for screensavers. For example, Winamp and The Playa have an option to prevent screensavers from starting while they play a movie. Consider using one of them or another media player having that option unless you are looking for a more versatile tool.
For those of you who'd like to have full control no matter what you do, there are many universal applications. This time we will talk about two of them.
If you want a program that is easy to use and that would allow you to disable screensavers quickly and then easily enable them, Hot Corners is right for you. It's a small tool letting you control screensavers in three ways:
You can set one screen corner for disabling screensavers and another for starting them. This way moving the mouse into the first corner will prevent any screensaver from starting. Moving the mouse into the second corner will start your default screensaver. Holding the mouse in any other place of your desktop will make screensavers behave in the usual manner. For you convenience, Hot Corners allow you to vary the size of the corners. This way you won't waste too much time positioning the mouse precisely.
Alternatively, you can set a pair of keyboard shortcuts to quickly disable or activate a screensaver. You may prefer this method if you extensively use the keyboard while working.
Another useful feature of Hot Corners is Power Management control. Not only it can prevent screensavers from starting, but it also won't let your monitor to go in power saving and power-off modes.
Another interesting tool is Galt Screen Control by Galt Technology. It definitely lacks the variety of screensaver control methods available in Hot Corners. Nevertheless, it has many other features you may find useful.There is only one way to disable screensavers using Galt Screen Control. You will have to right click the application icon in the system tray and select the corresponding option.
But there's more in it than simply disabling screensavers. You can select an option that will disable them for 1/2, 1, 2, or 4 hours, giving you even finer control. This way you will never forget to enable screensavers back later. Galt Screen Control provides an easy and convenient way to launch or configure any installed screensaver. It requires you just two menu clicks. Furthermore, the tool can select a random screensaver when you ask it. Alternatively, it can do it on each program startup or on an hourly basis.
|W|P|114273956025961560|W|P|Putting Screensavers Under Control|W|P|venkat@sgdnetworks.comFinally, you have some time to personalize your desktop with an interesting screensaver. But wait... What's that? Why in the world the system prevents you from doing that? The screensaver controls are grayed out or, even worse, the whole Screensaver tab is missing from Display Properties. Don't panic! This article will help you change things for the better.
I've found that people who use Windows 2000/XP often can't enjoy screensavers because their system is configured in a way that prevents them from doing that.
Unless you are very experienced in administrating Windows, you may stuck with the problem. If you ever found yourself or your friend in a situation like this, add this article to your arsenal of screensaver tips.
Most of the time people encounter the problem with office computers. I should warn you, though, that some companies have a strict screensaver policy. Usually they allow only certain or no screensavers at all to be used on office computers.
If you are not sure how your company treats screensavers, I recommend you to consult your system administrator before applying any of the changes described below to your system.
So why can screensavers be inaccessible on your system?
As you know, Windows 2000 and Windows XP had many improvements over Windows 95/98 and Windows Me that made lives of many users easier and more comfortable.
But that's not all that made these operating systems so popular. Their developers also haven't forgotten about people who are responsible for administrative tasks when it comes to computers shared by different users and large computer networks.
Windows 2000 and Windows XP introduced a lot of new features needed specifically for their administration. Controlling/disabling screensavers was among them.
No matter whether it was their intention or an accident, your system administrator or the person who configured your PC could use this feature to your disadvantage. Now you'll have to use it once again and regain control over screensavers.
Here's what you should do:
Now you can open Display Properties and see whether screensavers are back. If they aren't, step back and check if you carefully followed all the steps described above.
Note that you can see a window saying you don't have permission to access Group Policy window when doing the step 2. That will happen if you are working under a restricted user account. You will have to log under an account with Administrator's rights or contact your system administrator.
With a little creativity, you can use the information in this article to prevent your kids and other unauthorized users from messing with your screensavers. The procedure is basically the same. The only difference is that you should specify meaningful values for screensaver related items instead of Not Configured.
|W|P|114273949034082230|W|P|What to Do if All Screensavers Fun is Grayed Out?|W|P|venkat@sgdnetworks.comIntroduction To ISDN, Part III: Configuring PPP PAP Authentication
Now we know how the ISDN link comes up (interesting traffic), and some scenarios that might cause the link to stay up, we need to look at ISDN authentication schemes. The two methods Cisco certification candidates must be familiar with are PAP and CHAP.
Password Authentication Protocol (PAP) sends the username and password over the ISDN link in clear-text. Sending any passwords over any WAN link in clear-text is generally a bad idea, but it’s important to know you have this option.
Regarding both PAP and CHAP, it’s a common misunderstanding that each side must authenticate the other. PAP and CHAP both support bidirectional and unidirectional authentication; that is, R1 can authenticate R2 without R2 necessarily authenticating R1. It’s more common to use unidirectional authentication in a lab environment than a production network, but keep in mind that bidirectional authentication is an option, not a requirement.
The configurations of PAP and CHAP do have their similarities. For both, you’ll configure a username/password combination in global configuration mode. Newcomers to ISDN sometimes put the local router name in for the username; remember that the remote router name is the username.
The only real advantage of PAP over CHAP comes in the password configuration. Since PAP actually sends the password as a whole over the link, the two routers can send different passwords during authentication. The operation of CHAP requires that both routers use the same password, and we’ll see why in tomorrow’s article.
Under the BRI interface, you’ll enter encapsulation ppp and ppp authentication pap. So far, your authentication scheme looks like this:
username R2 password CCNA
Int bri0
encapsulation ppp
ppp authentication pap
PAP requires an extra command at this point. The ppp pap sent-username command is required under the interface, indicating the username and password this router will be sending to the remote router.
Int bri0
encapsulation ppp
ppp authentication pap
ppp pap sent-username R1 password CISCO
I always encourage CCNA and CCNP candidates to use as many debugs as possible when working in their lab, since these commands show us how things work. For any PPP authentication, always run debug ppp negotiation before sending interesting traffic to trigger the call. Watching exactly how PAP and CHAP work give you a much better understanding of what’s going on “behind the command”, and makes you a stronger candidate and a stronger networking engineer.
|W|P|114273940518850180|W|P|Introduction To ISDN, Part III: PAP|W|P|venkat@sgdnetworks.comLotus Domino/Notes – Microsoft Great Plains tandem as ERP with Documents Workflow – overview for IT Specialist
Microsoft Business Solutions has the whole spectrum of business applications, the good combination seems to be Microsoft Great Plains and Microsoft CRM. However we need to admit that Microsoft is relatively new in the CRM market and also for large corporation it could not be a good idea “to put all the eggs into one basket”. If you have investment into other platform from CRM side – such as Lotus Domino/Notes – we offer you integration with Microsoft Great Plains
Why does the company need document workflow system if it has an Accounting/ERP?
The benefits of having financial, sales, services, communication, negotiation and other information be tightly linked and exposed to simple reporting and data mining are obvious. Now we are observing the second and I would dare to say successful phase of CRM systems implementation, which is probably final successful marriage in the long history of datawarehousing, document workflow, contact management systems.
Some business situations where you see the benefits
Reports creation without special knowledge
Special skills are required in order to work with complex ERP system. Usually financial specialist has such skills, but top-level managers, who do really need the information, may not be prepared. Also, ERP based reports should be delivered on regular basis. If Lotus Domino/Notes is used as a corporate communication platform, then to resolve the issue, specially designed routines may be used to pull the information from financial systems (Great Plains, Solomon, Navision, Axapta, SAP, SCALA, Accpac, MAS90 to name a few) to Lotus databases on the schedule. In this case users, including top-level managers will work with this information via custom interface.
Documents routing
One of the competitive advantages of CRM is a workflow. Financial documents are usually subject for approval before posting. Typical accounting/ERP systems do not have (or have very limited) workflow design. Such the workflows could be created on Lotus Domino/Notes platform. Then, through the connection to Microsoft Great Plains or other ERP system you will have document approval workflow.
The typical simple workflow would be like this - send notifications to AR to take off the hold from the customer upon the payment receipt.
So the approach to integrate accounting system and documents oriented Lotus Domino/Notes seems very interesting for corporate information architecture.
|W|P|114273933975042492|W|P|Lotus Domino/Notes - Microsoft Great Plains Tandem as ERP with Documents Workflow - Overview for IT|W|P|venkat@sgdnetworks.comMicrosoft Great Plains - Microsoft Business Solutions accounting and ERP system, originally targeted to mid-size - now, with advancements and increasing reliability of its database - Microsoft SQL Server, Great Plains is attractive solution for large corporation. Big companies usually have purchasing and order processing automation via so-called Electronic Document Interchange or EDI. EDI was introduced long time ago for UNIX systems and in most of the cases appears in the form of Header, Lines and Trailer of predefined fixed position fields.
We would like to give you - programmer, software developer, database administrator the primary clues on producing EDI formatted text from Microsoft Great Plains database. Please, note however that Great Plains here is taken as the example, similar approach will work for other SQL based systems: Navision (SQL Database or C/SIDE database), Microsoft RMS, Solomon as well as Oracle and other non-Microsoft products. In the case of non-SQL system, such as old Great Plains Dynamics, ACCPAC on Pervasive SQL - IDE interface will involve ADO/ODBC or Microsoft Access programming.
1. Sample Query – The query below uses CAST construction to make the result fixed length and meet the positioning. Plus the unionizing allows to produce Header and Detail in one select statement. Here we are dealing with work Sales Documents
select
case
when b.LNITMSEQ=c.LNITMSEQ+1 and b.CMPNTSEQ=c.CMPNTSEQ+1 then CAST('Header' as char(10))
else CAST('Detail' as char(10))
end
as FIELD0,
case
when b.LNITMSEQ=c.LNITMSEQ+1 and b.CMPNTSEQ=c.CMPNTSEQ+1 then cast(a.CUSTNAME as char(65))
else cast(cast(b.QTYDMGED as decimal(19,5)) as char(65))
end
as FIELD01,
case
when b.LNITMSEQ=c.LNITMSEQ+1 and b.CMPNTSEQ=c.CMPNTSEQ+1 then CONVERT(char(51), a.DOCDATE, 101)
else cast(b.ITEMDESC as char(51))
end
as FIELD03
--Additional fields go here
from SOP10100 a join SOP10200 b on a.SOPTYPE=b.SOPTYPE and a.SOPNUMBE=b.SOPNUMBE join
RM00101 d on a.CUSTNMBR=d.CUSTNMBR
join
(select SOPTYPE as SOPTYPE, SOPNUMBE as SOPNUMBE,
LNITMSEQ
as LNITMSEQ,
CMPNTSEQ
as CMPNTSEQ from SOP10200
union
select SOPTYPE as SOPTYPE, SOPNUMBE as SOPNUMBE, MIN(LNITMSEQ)-1 as LNITMSEQ, MIN(CMPNTSEQ)-1 as CMPNTSEQ from SOP10200
group by SOPTYPE, SOPNUMBE
) c on a.SOPTYPE=c.SOPTYPE and a.SOPNUMBE=c.SOPNUMBE
and ((b.LNITMSEQ=c.LNITMSEQ and b.CMPNTSEQ=c.CMPNTSEQ) or (b.LNITMSEQ=c.LNITMSEQ+1 and b.CMPNTSEQ=c.CMPNTSEQ+1))
left join SOP10106 udf on a.SOPTYPE=udf.SOPTYPE and a.SOPNUMBE=udf.SOPNUMBE
where a.ADDRESS3'Exported' and
a.SOPTYPE=3 and upper(d.USERDEF2)='YES'
order by a.SOPTYPE, a.SOPNUMBE, b.LNITMSEQ asc
2. Mark processed documents - for this reason we use SOP10100.ADDRESS3 field - which was not used in Great Plains Dynamics/eEnterprise version 6.0:
update SOP10100 set ADDRESS3='Exported' where SOPTYPE=3
3. Communication with UNIX EDI Client or Server – each case requires individual approach. You may have to assign the file directory, exposed to the UNIX system or use old DOS command to move the file, or you can have automatic email. Good idea is to write communication application in your favorite programming language
4. Scheduled DTS Package - you should probably create DTS package to do all the steps: call SQL Query and save it as a file, then call DOS command or simple EXE application - which does communicate with UNIX
|W|P|114273929339116402|W|P|EDI: Electronic Document Interchange for Microsoft Great Plains - Overview for Software Developer/Pr|W|P|venkat@sgdnetworks.comFirst we had the original Google search that evolved into the leader in its class. In fact, it became so popular that the word "google" worked its way into our everyday language as a verb, as in "to google" something. Google later introduced a toolbar that was plug-in for some browsers like Internet Explorer. The Google toolbar features a direct Google search box with quick access to image and group searches, a pop-up blocker, and for Internet marketers mostly, a PageRank (PR) indicator.
With competition like Yahoo and MSN threatening to start nipping at Google's heels, Google has introduced several new services to try to stay ahead of the pack. Recently they introduced Gmail, their web-based free email service (currently offered by invitation only). And still in the Google lab is the Google Deskbar (for Windows users only).
The Google deskbar is a plug-in that resides in the Windows taskbar, the little control panel that contains your start button, perhaps some quick launch icons, the clock, and the system tray. Search engines and marketers have realized that to maintain and increase their competitive status, they will need to find ways to get surfers and customers to invite them to their desktops.
The deskbar features quick access to Google's results, no matter which application you're currently using. Researching a class report? Check facts and sources quickly. Working in Excel? Look up the formula to calculate the volume of a tube easily. Following breaking news? Check it from the deskbar without leaving Photoshop! You'll be able to preview your search results with the small "floater" window that will close automatically.
From students to senior executives, from casual surfers to serious Internet marketers, the Google Deskbar may add to your productivity and fun online. It's worth a look.
|W|P|114273921770658824|W|P|Destination: Desktop for Google|W|P|venkat@sgdnetworks.comMicrosoft CRM was designed to be easily customizable. Microsoft CRM Software Development Kit (MS CRM SDK) which you can download from Microsoft website contains descriptions of the objects or classes, exposed for customization. It has sample code in C# and partially in VB.Net. In Visual Studio.Net you can analyze all the classes, used by Microsoft developers to create MS CRM - you will discover that most of them are not documented in MS CRM SDK. Microsoft will not support your customization if you use undocumented class or do direct SQL access to CRM database.
Let us describe you - programmer, software developer typical cases of MS CRM Customizations.
1. Integration with SQL Server application. If you have legacy system on MS SQL Server - let's say you are transportation company and have in-house developed cargo tracking database. Now in MS CRM you want lookup the shipments for the customer (or account in CRM). This is SDK programming and calling SQL stored proc to retrieve cargo info. Instead of SQL Server you can have other database (ORACLE, MS Access, PervasiveSQL to name a few) - you can access multiple Database platforms via ADO.Net connection from your .Net application, which is easily integrated into MS CRM Account screen.
2. Email capturing in MS CRM. You have customer with email Bill@customer.com. Now you want all the emails that you receive from customer.com domain to be attached to Bill who is account in CRM. This is more difficult customization - you have to create MS CRM SDK web service, that one will be creating email activity and call it from COM+ application - Microsoft Exchange event handler (ONSYNCSAVE database event sink). This example maybe complicated with the following requirement. Imagine that Bill, instead of answering to your email (sent from CRM and processed by CRM-Exchange connector) sends you new message from MS Outlook. Then this email will not follow into MS CRM (because it doesn't have GUID in the header and so is ignored by CRM Exchange connector). If you want to capture these emails - you have to do it in Microsoft Exchange event sink. There maybe scenario when you want to capture and analyze in the sink all the outgoing emails - this is even more complex - y!
ou have to place the sink on transport event.
3. ASP Application integration. You have legacy ASP application, where you capture orders from your customers and you want these orders be transferred to the CRM as activity. Here you understand that ASP doesn't deploy Active Directory security - and the best way is to create HTTP handler and call it from your ASP page. This HTTP handler in turn will call MS CRM SDK web service with predefined (web.config) Active Directory credentials.
Some cautions. Never create your custom SQL objects (like stored procedure, SQL view, table) in MS CRM database. Instead, create your own database and place your objects there. When you see the first caution - you will never try to alter existing CRM objects, like adding new field to the table.
|W|P|114273917829340858|W|P|Microsoft CRM - Typical Customizations|W|P|venkat@sgdnetworks.comMany Webmasters have never bothered to view their website's server log. Ignoring your server log is like flying with a blind pilot. You may still be cruising along, but you have no idea where you are or where you're headed. If your website is on a free host, you probably don't have access to the server log. However, if you pay for your web host, or if you own the server, you almost always have some access to the server log.
In this article, you'll learn what kind of information a typical server log provides, how to analyze that information, and how to use that information to steer your website in a direction for growth and success.
The actual data in the server log is just that, data. Data is of little use without an application to compile, categorize, analyze, and turn it into useful information. The power of server log analysis software varies depending upon the web host, and it's not related to how much you pay for hosting service. I have seen some very low budget web hosts with powerful server log analysis software, and some expensive web hosts that provide only a limited utility.
The importance of the server log analysis software is second only to up-time reliabilty when it comes to web hosts. A web server log can tell you who is visiting your web site, where they're coming from, what operating system and web browser they're using, what pages of your website they are viewing, and much more. A smart webmaster performs a regular monthly analysis of the valuable information contained in the server log.
Hits
Some webmasters brag about the number of "hits" their website receives, but hits themselves are not important. For example, when a search engine spiders your website, it generates a hit for every page it visits. There are ways to generate millions of hits on a website without anyone ever actually viewing a single page.
The important statistics are "page view hits" and "unique visitors". Server log analysis software should tell you how many times each page was viewed. Anaylyzing the popularity of individual pages tells you where to place your most important advertisements, and what kind of new content you should add to your website.
The king of all statistics is the number of unique visitors your web site receives. When it comes to selling advertising or joining the most exclusive affiliate programs, a high number of unique visitors each month is the statistic that gets respect.
Good analysis software will tell you how many pages each visitor viewed and how long they stayed on your website. The goal is to develop content that gets your visitors to stay longer, a quality sometimes referred to as "stickiness".
A statistic related to hits is "bandwidth". This is a complicated statistic because you want more visitors and that causes bandwidth to go up. On the other hand, high bandwidth consumption makes your website repond slower (and most web hosts charge extra for bandwidth beyond a certain limit). What you want is to design your web pages so they use bandwidth efficiently, and you want to be on the lookout for people who are stealing your bandwidth (usually by linking to images on your web site).
Referrers
Good server log analysis software will provide you with the URLs of the webpages that people clicked on to get to your website. This is extremely valuable information. If you are receiving a high volume of traffic from another website, you can almost consider that website to be your business partner. It would be to your advantage to find ways to make your website more useful to the referring website. For example, learn what the topic of the referring website is and place more related content on your website.
One common method of aiding referrers is to place a reciprocal link on your website. However, don't bother placing the reciprocal link on a "links" page with hundreds of other links (a link farm). If you can't provide an honest reciprocal link, it's better to do nothing. An honest reciprocal link might be a page containing a review of the referrer's website, and that page should contain only a few other links.
Search Strings
Good server log analysis software will provide you with the keywords and search strings people entered at a search site to find your website. One way to get more traffic to your website is to provide more content related to the top keywords. If getting more traffic is your single goal, there are websites that will provide you with a list of the current most popular keywords entered into search engines. Then you can provide more content related to those keywords. This gets involved with the subject of "Search Engine Optimization" (SEO).
SEO is a science in itself, covered in other articles, but I will reveal a secret trick as an example of SEO tactics. Starting with a top keyword, generate every possible misspelling of that keyword and place those at the top of your webpage with the text color the same as the webpage background. (Note: I don't use that trick or any other SEO tricks myself because if you get caught the search engines will penalize your website.)
Platform and User Agent Good server log analysis software will tell you which operating systems and which browser brands and versions people are using to access your website. At the time of this writing, the most common operating system is Windows XP and the most common browser is Internet Explorer version 6. However, you will find a wide range of operating systems and browsers accessing you website. Unfortunately, they are not all compatible.
The fact is, you can't design your website to be 100 percent compatible with every operating system and web browser in use today. That would require either using only plain html (version 3) or using browser detection code and creating a dozen variations of each webpage. Use your server log's platform and user agent data to decide which browser your web pages should to be designed to be compatible with. Your statistics will probably show that 90 percent of your website's visitors are using the latest or the previous version of Internet Explorer.
Country Information
Good server log analysis software will tell you which countries your website visitors are located in. Analysis of the bucarotechelp.com server logs shows that visitors are located in every country, village, and hamlet on the planet. This leads to the question, should you create multiple variations of each webpage to accomodate visitors from other nations? It depends upon your business and your resources. The fact is that the language of business and commerce across the planet is English, and I receive frequent email, in English, from all over the planet.
Important Ways to Use Server Log Information
Website Design
Remember when the typical website had a gray background and a single image in the middle of the page? Today, that would be below the standard for a kids website on AOL. Does your server log "platform" and "user agent" statistics tell you that most of the visitors to your website are using Windows XP with Internet Explorer Version 6, while your website is designed for Windows 95 and Internet Explorer Version 4? Can you afford to be presenting a website that looks outdated?
I think it's a mistake to design a website that requires your visitors to have the latest bleeding-edge technology. On the other hand, if the rest of the web is using ASP (Active Server Pages) to generate custom webpages on-the-fly that use CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) to create webpages that resemble slick magazine pages and DHTML (Dynamic HTML) to provide interactivity, it might be time for you to investigate those technologies.
If your website is a business site or E-commerce site, the visual style and technical level of your website reflects the quality of your business or service. To determine the proper visual style and technology level of your website requires you to monitor three things.
1. Your competitors. You want to look as in-style as they do, but avoid following them down the road to bloated plugins (Macromedia Flash). 2. The portion of your audience using broad band Internet Access. Less than half of U.S. Make sure your webpages load within 20 seconds over a 56kbps modem connection. 2. Your server log platform and user agent statistics. Your web pages need to be designed to be compatible with the current most popular operating system and web browser version.
Webhost Performance
Web hosts provide two basic kinds of service, shared hosting and dedicated hosting. If your website is on a shared host, there may be hundreds of other websites sharing the same computer as your website. This limits the performance of your website. Many web host providers use "bandwidth throttling" to prevent one website from hogging all the available bandwidth.
As your website grows and attracts increasing traffic, it will need more of the host computers processor time and more bandwidth. Monitor your server log hits, and bandwidth statistics. At some point, your website may hit a performance wall and you may need to move to a higher grade of hosting, or a different web host company to continue growth.
When moving to a different web host company, don't trust the specifications they provide. Check several different web host directories that let visitors rate web hosts. If several different web host directories have many users that give a web host company a high rating, that's the company you want to trust with your website.
Website Topic
As you analyze certain website server statistics (for example, "page view hits", and "top search engine keywords") and make adjustments, you may find the content of your website drifting away from your original intent. At some point, you may have to decide, Am I going to chase traffic and change the topic of my website, or am I more interested in focusing on the topic of my choice?
If the original objective of your website was to make money above all else, then let your visitors steer your website's content. There's nothing wrong with that. Everybody's got to make a living. But, if the original objective of your website was to be a resource on a subject that you are passionate about, then you may need to reassess the content of your website.
I would reccommend having the best of both worlds. Stick to content related to the subject of your website, but delineate a wide enough scope of the topic so that when your server statistics point out an opportunity to increase traffic, you have rules to guide you.
In this article you learned some of the types of information you can mine from your web server log and some powerful ways to use that information to steer your website in a direction for growth and success. If you are one of those webmasters who has never bothered to view their website's server log, you now know that you have been overlooking some gold nuggets.
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|W|P|114273792657754053|W|P|There's Gold in Your Website's Servr Log|W|P|venkat@sgdnetworks.comMicrosoft bought Navision, Denmark based software development company, along with Great Plains Software. Now Microsoft Business Solutions offers following ERP applications: Navision (former Navision Attain), Microsoft Great Plains (former Great Plains Dynamics/eEnterprise), Solomon, Axapta. Formerly Navision had strong positions in Europe. Now it is promoted in USA and Europe. Navision has pretty advanced manufacturing module.
We would like to give you: programmer, software developer, database administrator the orientation in Navision customization tools
• C/SIDE (Client/Server Integrated Development Environment) - The core of Navision is the C/SIDE. C/SIDE is the foundation for all the business management functionality of Navision. It is made up of five building blocks, called object types, which are used to create the application. These five object types are shared throughout Navision to create every application area, and give it a unified, consistent interface. This powerful language allows for the internal construction of new business logic and sophisticated reporting. Because of the internal nature of modifications it’s highly recommended that you develop all your code in “processing only” report objects and called from the native code base. By grouping all your code in logical units, upgrades and additional modifications are easier to manage.
• C/ODBC and C/FRONT - Both C/ODBC and C/FRONT enable you to easily use information from Navision in familiar programs such as Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel. The Open Database Connectivity driver for Navision (C/ODBC) is an application program interface (API) that provides a way for other applications, such as the entire Microsoft Office Suite, to send and retrieve data to and from the Navision database through the ODBC interface.
• External Tool: Navision Developer’s Toolkit - The Navision Developer’s Toolkit enables your Microsoft Certified Business Solutions Partner to upgrade your Navision solution to the latest version. It is used to analyze and upgrade customer and vertical solutions
Reporting Options - Aside from the powerful internal reporting tool which requires an in-depth knowledge of C/SIDE to make it useful the other options are:
• Jet Reports- Jet Reports is a complete reporting package utilizing Microsoft Excel. Using Excel you can create reports on any table of data from within any granule in Navision.
• C/ODBC - Using the ODBC driver, the entire Microsoft office suite and programs such as Crystal Reports can access the database. I would recommend using this tool for occasional reporting requests only. If you need to pull data out of the Navision database on a regular basis one of the other options is a better choice
• Business Analytics (SQL Server Required) - Using Online Analytical Processing (OLAP) from Microsoft SQL Server™ 2000, Business Analytics organizes all of your business data into information units called cubes. Using a familiar Microsoft Outlook®-style interface, Business Analytics presents this information to your desk top where easy to use analytical tools allow you to carry out targeted analysis that is tailored by you, for you
• XBRL - Extensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) for Navision enables simple and dependable distribution of all a company’s financial information and ensures smooth and accurate data transfer. XBRL is an XML-based specification that uses accepted financial reporting standards and practices to export financial reports across all software and technologies, including the Internet
|W|P|114273770505587749|W|P|Navision Customization: C/SIDE, C/ODBC, C/FRONT, XBRL - Development Options|W|P|venkat@sgdnetworks.comIn order to implement VLANs in a network environment, you'll need a Layer 2 switch that supports them. Almost all switches sold today that are described as "managed" switches provide the ability to make ports members of different VLANs. However, switches that don't provide any configuration function (such as many basic, lower-end switches) don't provide the ability to configure VLANs. Almost any Cisco Catalyst switch that you'll come across today provides the ability to make ports part of different VLANs.
Before getting into the details of how a VLAN functions, it's worth exploring some of the advantages that a VLAN provides. First and foremost, VLANs provide the ability to define broadcast domains without the constraint of physical location. For example, instead of making all of the users on the third floor part of the same broadcast domain, you might use VLANs to make all of the users in the HR department part of the same broadcast domain. The benefits of doing this are many. Firstly, these users might be spread throughout different floors on a building, so a VLAN would allow you to make all of these users part of the same broadcast domain. To that end, this can also be viewed as a security feature - since all HR users are part of the same broadcast domain, you could later use policies such as access lists to control which areas of the network these users have access to, or which users have access to the HR broadcast domain. Furthermore, if the HR department's server were placed on the same VLAN, HR users would be able to access their server without the need for traffic to cross routers and potentially impact other parts of the network.
VLANs are defined on a switch on a port-by-port basis. That is, you might choose to make ports 1-6 part of VLAN 1, and ports 7-12 part of VLAN 2. There's no need for ports in the same VLAN to be contiguous at all - you could make ports 1, 3 and 5 on a switch part of VLAN 1, for example. On almost all switches today, all ports are part of VLAN 1 by default. If you want to implement additional VLANs, these must first be defined in the switch's software (such as the IOS on a Cisco switch), and then ports must be made members of that VLAN. A VLAN isn't limited to a single switch, either. If trunk links are used to interconnect switches, a VLAN might have 3 ports on one switch, and 7 ports on another, as shown below. The logical nature of a VLAN makes it a very effective tool, especially in larger networking environments.
Inter-VLAN Communication
I mentioned a few times already that a VLAN is simply a special type of broadcast domain, in that it is defined on a switch port basis rather than on traditional physical boundaries. Recall from the earlier articles in this series that when a host in one broadcast domain wishes to communicate with another, a router must be involved. This same holds true for VLANs. For example, imagine that port 1 on a switch is part of VLAN 1, and port 2 part of VLAN 99. If all of the switch's ports were part of VLAN 1, the hosts connected to these ports could communicate without issue. However, once the ports are made part of different VLANs, this is no longer true. In order for a host connected to port 1 to communicate with another connected to port 2, a router must be involved.
You may already be familiar with the concept of a Layer 3 switch. A Layer 3 switch is generally a Layer 2 switching device that also includes the ability to act as a router, usually through the use of additional hardware and software features. If a switch includes Layer 3 capabilities, it can be configured to route traffic between VLANs defined in the switch, without the need for packets to ever leave the switch. However, if a switch only includes Layer 2 functionaility, an external router must be configured to route traffic between the VLANs. In some cases, it's entirely possible that a packet will leave switch port 1, be forwarded to an external router, and then be routed right back to port 2 on the originating switch. For this reason, many companies have decided to implement Layer 3 switches strategically throughout their network. Regardless of the method chosen, it's most important for you to recognize that when a host on one VLAN wants to communicate with a host on another, a router must somehow be involved.
Extending VLANs Between Switches
In order to extend VLANs across different switches, a trunk link must interconnect the switches. Think of a trunk link as being similar to an uplink between hubs - usually a trunk link is implemented between fast switch ports on two different switches using a crossover cable. For example, you might interconnect two Gigabit Ethernet ports on different switches using fiber optics, or two 100 Mbps switch ports using a traditional Cat5 crossover cable. In most cases it is generally recommended that you use the fastest port available for trunk connections, since this link will often carry a great deal of traffic, possibly for multiple VLANs.
To begin, let's assume that you have connected a link between the 100 Mbps ports of two switches, as shown below. Notice that each of these ports are members of VLAN 1 on each switch. By default, without any additional configuration, these ports will act as a trunk link, but will only pass traffic for the VLAN associated with their port connections - VLAN 1. This type of link, where only traffic for a single VLAN is passed, is referred to as an "Access Link". While an access link does the job for a single VLAN environment, multiple access links would be required if you wanted traffic from multiple VLANs to be passed between switches. Having multiple access links between the same pair of switches would be a big waste of switch ports. Obviously another solution is required when traffic for multiple VLANs needs to be transferred across a single trunk link. The solution for this comes through the use of VLAN tagging.
VLAN Tagging
When you want traffic from multiple VLANs to be able to traverse a link that interconnects two switches, you need to configure a VLAN tagging method on the ports that supply the link. Although there are a number of tagging methods in use for different technologies, the two that you need to be aware of for the purpose of the CCNA exam are known as InterSwitch Link (ISL) and 802.1q. ISL is a Cisco proprietary VLAN tagging methods, while 802.1q is a open standard. When interconnecting two Cisco switches, ISL is usually the best choice, but if you need to interconnect switches of different types (a Cisco switch and an Avaya switch, for example), then you'll need to use IETF.
For the CCNA exam, the only thing that you really need to know about 802.1q is that it is the open standard for VLAN tagging, and should be used in mixed environments. The exam expects you to have a somewhat deeper understanding of ISL, including how it works, when it can be used, and ultimately, its purpose.
First and foremost, you need to be aware that ISL will only function on ports with a speed of 100 Mbps or greater. That is, you cannot use ISL in conjunction with a 10 Mbps port. That shouldn't be an issue, since most Cisco Catalyst switches provide at least one or two Fast Ethernet ports, even on lower-end models like the 1912. Secondly, the ports on either end of the link need to support and be configured for ISL.
ISL is referred to as a VLAN tagging method. Essentially, what ISL does is tag a frame as it leaves a switch with information about the VLAN that the frame belongs to. For example, if a frame from VLAN 99 is leaving a switch, the ISL port will add information to the frame header, designating that the frame is part of VLAN 99. When this ISL frame reaches the port at the other end of the switch, it will look at the ISL header, determine that the frame is meant for VLAN 99, will strip off the ISL information, and will forward it into VLAN 99. One of the issues with VLAN tagging is that by adding information to an Ethernet frame, the size of the frame can move beyond the Ethernet maximum of 1518 bytes, to 1522 bytes. Because of this, all non-ISL ports will see frames larger than 1518 bytes as giants, and as such, invalid. This is the reason why a port needs to be configured for ISL in order for it to understand this different frame format.
One VLAN tagging is configured on the ports associated with the link connecting switches, the link is known as a "Trunk Link". A trunk link is capable of transferring frames from many different VLANs through the use of technologies like ISL or 802.1q.
A better strategy here would be to configure ISL tagging on one of the router's Fast Ethernet interfaces, and then configure ISL on the connected switch port. This configuration, also known as a "router on a stick", would allow the router to process the traffic of multiple VLANs, and route traffic between them. We'll get into the details of routing within the next few articles.
Beyond its intended purpose of configuring trunk links between switches, ISL is often used in other ways. For example, it is possible to purchase network interface cards that support ISL. If a server were configured with an ISL-capable network card, it could be connected to an ISL port on a switch.
This would allow a server to be made part of multiple VLANs simultaneously, the benefit being that hosts from different broadcast domains could then access the server without the need for their packets to be routed. While this may seem like a perfect solution, you need to remember than the server would now see all traffic from these VLANs, which could negatively impact performance.
|W|P|114273766525875822|W|P|Vlans|W|P|venkat@sgdnetworks.comViruses and spyware usually show up on your computer one of two ways.
Either they invade your system with a frontal assault like the Huns attacking the Romans, or they sneak in a back door like a cat burglar.
Either way, once a virus or piece of spyware gets on your system, getting it off can rate harder than curing a severe case of trench foot!
Viruses, malicious programs designed to disrupt normal computing, and spyware, programs intended to literally "spy" on your activities, can enter your computer a number of ways.
Most commonly they enter your system through an email attachment, by sharing files with an infected computer by disk, as a "ride along" with a 3rd party program you install, or through a "back door" port in your computer.
Regardless of how they get on your system, once in place, they cause no end of headaches and frustration.
The following represent typical signs you may suffer from infection by a virus or piece of spyware.
Your computer starts acting oddly by doing things it never did previously.
Your modem starts trying to dial out to the Internet without you initiating a surfing session.
You notice that files start disappearing, the system stalls, runs slowly, or even crashes frequently.
Your computer takes progressively longer to boot up every time you start it or you notice that your available hard drive space has disappeared. Strange popup windows appear, even when you're not surfing the web, or you delete a program and it "magically" reappears next time you boot the system.
If you suspect you a virus or a piece of spyware has invaded your computer, follow these steps to first identify and then delete the offending code:
Step 1 - Back up your important files, but remember to scan these files for viruses before reinstalling to avoid accidentally re-infecting your system.
Step 2 - Update your anti-virus definitions and perform a scan of your hard drive.
If you don't carry virus protection, or you suspect your anti-virus software got corrupted somehow, then log on to www.pandasoftware.com and use the free Panda Active Scan service to check your hard drive for viruses.
Follow the instructions for quarantining and removing the offending files.
Step 3 - Scan your hard drive with an adware, scumware, or spyware detection and removal tool like Adaware www.lavasoft.de/support/download/ or Spybot http://spybot.safer-networking.de/.
Step 4 - In many cases, when the virus or spyware program gets installed with a free utility or game you download from the Web, you must usually uninstall the utility or game to finally get rid of the problem once and for all.
Step 5 - Avoid re-infection by keeping your anti-virus and firewall up-to-date at all times.
As a last resort, if you run into a program you simply can't get rid of, but can figure out the offending file's name, do a search for the file name on Google.com. Often you will find you're not the first victim and may get valuable advice for cleaning up your system.
However, be very careful of the information you find and think twice before modifying any system files.
Spyware is software or hardware installed on a computer without the user's knowledge which gathers information about that user for later retrieval by whomever controls the spyware.
Spyware can be broken down into two different categories, surveillance spyware and advertising spyware.
Surveillance software includes key loggers, screen capture devices, and trojans. These would be used by corporations, private detectives, law enforcement, intelligence agencies, suspicious spouses, etc.
Advertising spyware is software that is installed alongside other software or via activex controls on the internet, often without the user's knowledge, or without full disclosure that it will be used for gathering personal information and/or showing the user ads. Advertising spyware logs information about the user, possibly including passwords, email addresses, web browsing history, online buying habits, the computer's hardware and software configuration, the name, age, sex, etc of the user.
As with spam, advertising spyware uses the CPU, RAM, and resources of the user's computer, making the user pay for the costs associated with operating it. It then makes use of the user's bandwidth to connect to the internet and upload whatever personal information it has gathered, and to download advertisements which it will present to the user, either by way of pop up windows, or with the ad banners of ad-supported software. All of this can be considered theft in the cases of advertising spyware that installs without disclosure.
And while anti-virus software like Symantec's Norton Anti- Virus or McAfee's ViruScan can offer some protection, one of the best ways to combat spyware is with anti-spy software. Two of the best are Lavasoft's Ad-aware and Spybot's Search & Destroy, which are available as free downloads.
http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html
The free version of Ad-aware does not proactively protect against spyware infestation. You have to start the Ad-aware application and initiate a scan to detect spyware. But the paid version, Ad-aware Plus does remain alert in the background, like Spybot, to deflect any attempts at infestation. In recent tests, Ad-aware Plus and Spybot both protected systems extremely well.
If you haven't already done so, I highly recommend installing Microsoft's Service Pack 2. SP2 tightens your PC's security with a new Windows Firewall, an improved Automatic Updates feature, and a pop-up ad blocker for Internet Explorer. Plus, the newly minted Security Center gives you one easy-to-use interface for keeping tabs on your PC's security apps.
There are also other steps you can take to protect against spyware. One simple step is to switch from Microsoft's browsers, which have security holes for spyware programs to exploit. A good alternative is Mozilla Firefox. Another not- so-simple step is switching to the Mac or Linux operating systems, which don't have spyware problems.
|W|P|114273741665398411|W|P|Spyware: What It Is and How to Combat It|W|P|venkat@sgdnetworks.comMost people understand that the "hardware" part of their computer is the real physical parts, like the keyboard, mouse, modem, hard drive and so on. They understand that the "software" is computer bits stored on the hard drive, CD-ROM, or other storage media. But most people are a little hazy about exactly what a "driver" is.
In this article, I'm going to reveal in plain English what a driver is, why we need drivers, and exactly where the drivers are hiding. To give you a basic understanding, I'm going to go back, way back, to the early days of computers.
The Early Days
The year is 1981 and the world is in the midst of a severe resession. IBM's main frame business has slowed and the company is losing money. Up until now they had been laughing at the array of microcomputers on the market: Atari, Commodore, sinclair. Toys really, mostly used to play computer games.
The problem was, these "toys" were selling like hot cakes. IBM had to get into that market and get into it fast. They didn't have time to design and build a computer complete enough to compete in the market, so they built an "open system". They used commonly available electronic components and they published every design detail (including the code), and they even provided plug in slots so that others could build components for their computer.
And people did provide components for the IBM PC. They provided video cards, memory expansion cards, input-output port cards, game port cards, hard disk interface cards, and much more. How were all these various devices able to interface with the PC's operating system? That's where a "driver" comes in.
A hardware device is constructed with various electronic components using various control signals, but the software interface to the operating system is standardized. A device's interface to the operating system must follow the interface specification. A driver is a piece of software that translates the hardware's control signals to signals that the operating system expects, and translates signals from the operating system to the hardware's control signals.
When the computer is started up, it would look in the "system" directory for files with the extension ".drv" and load them into memory. Specific files like autoexec.bat, config.sys, and win.ini were used to inform the operating system about drivers. Hardware would be configured through these files, or through jumpers located on the device itself.
The driver specification evolved along with the PC. Today when a PC starts, it executes the program ntdetect.com which queries the hardware components and builds the registery key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINEHARDWARESYSTEMCurrentControlSet. This key exists only in memory and is created each time the computer boots. If all the drivers are loaded successfully, a copy of the key is saved as ControlSet00X.
Under the registery key CurrentControlSet, the subkey "Enum" contains a subkey for each harware device on the computer. Each device key contains fields for Hardware ID, Driver ID, Device Parameters, and other configuration data. The 32-bit drivers are files with the extension ".sys" and can be found in the folder C:/winnt/system32.
Driver Signing
Microsoft has been the brunt of much criticism because of the poor reliability of the Windows Operating System. I feel that much of this criticism is justified. On the other hand, as I described in part 1 of this article, the PC was designed by IBM as an "open" system. Anyone can sell a hardware device (or software) for the PC. Should Microsoft be held responsible for the quality from a third-party?
As I described in Part 1 of this article, the operating system doesn't interface directly to a hardware device. There is a piece of software called a "driver" that translates the hardware's control signals to signals that the operating system expects, and translates signals from operating system to the hardware's control signals. Obviously, the hardware manufacturer provides the driver.
Because the driver works between the operating system and the hardware, a bug in the driver can cause a serious problem. Many of the problems with Windows have come from bugs in third-party drivers that Microsoft had nothing to do with. For this reason, Microsoft created a Hardware Quality Lab to test drivers. A hardware manufacturer can submit their driver for testing, and if it is passes rigorous compatibility testing, it receives Microsoft's digital signature.
You may have received a message during the installation of a hardware device warning that the driver was not signed. Why would a hardware manufacturer fail to have their driver certified by Microsoft? The computer hardware market is very competitive and the manufacturer might want to bring a new product to market before thorough testing can be completed. Or maybe they don't want to or can't afford to pay Microsoft for certification. The question is, should you click on the "Continue" button to install the unsigned driver?
In my experience, I have never been able to trace a problem to an unsigned driver. If it's your home computer and you performed a back-up recently, go ahead and install the unsigned driver. If it's a computer on a corporate network, you may want to back-out of the installation and see if you can locate a signed driver first. Many times a manufacturer will release a product with an unsigned driver, then later provide a signed driver as a free download from their website.
If you decide to go ahead and install an unsigned driver, you can always update the driver later. If your computer works with the unsigned driver, I would not update the driver. When it comes to updating drivers (or the computers BIOS) I go by the old saying, "if it ain't broke don't fix it".
To update a driver, select Start | Settings | Control Panel and double-click on the "System Properties" Utility. In the "System Properties" Utility, select the "Hardware" tab and click on the "Device Manager" button. In the "Device Manager" window, right-click on the device in the list and select "Properties" in the popup menu. In the "Properties" dialog box, select the driver tab and click on the "Update Driver..." button.
In the "Properties" dialog box driver tab, you may have noticed the "Roll Back Driver" button. If your computer has problems with the new drive, you can click on the "Roll Back Driver" button to roll back to the previous the driver. Driver roll back saves only one previous driver, so if you update a driver, then update it again, the original driver is gone. If the computer has problems with the new driver, always roll back to the original driver before trying a different one. That way you'll always have the original driver to roll back to.
|W|P|114273737480253804|W|P|Device Driver Basics|W|P|venkat@sgdnetworks.comWe would like to give you several situations, when you may need custom development and programming to improve Microsoft CRM functionality. This overview is for programmer, software developer, IT specialist, database administrator.
Microsoft CRM, the CRM application from Microsoft Business Solutions utilizes almost all the recent Microsoft technologies: .Net (it is actually written in C#.Net with HTML and Javascript at the web client side plus has Microsoft CRM SDK with C# and partially VB.Net samples), Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft Exchange 2003/2000 and others. Now to give you brief review from the workflow and messages - you can send email directly from Account, Contact or Lead and it will be processed by Microsoft CRM-Exchange connector. This email will have GUID in the message header. When addressee answers the email - it will be processed by the connector - it will recognize the GUID and will find the original activity and will attach this email as closed activity to the original object: contact, account or lead. This is very nice feature, but in the real world you may have these situations:
1. CRM user will not use CRM interface and will send email from his/her Outlook. Addressee will receive and respond and these emails will not be handled by Microsoft CRM-Exchange connector. They will not have GUID and connector has no idea on what to do with them.
2. Imagine, that you have Account Best Corporation, with contact person John john@bestcorporation.com. Now new person in Best Corporation, Susan sends you message from susan@bestcorporation.com - and her email will not be connected to your Best Corporation account, because this email doesn't have GUID and it also doesn't have matching email in the contact person. So - it is probably nice to catch emails by domain name as well, say - all the emails, coming from www.bestcorporation.com should be attached to Best Corporation account.
3. Now - your sales rep initiated the first email to the client from Microsoft CRM and got response, transferred back into CRM account. Then he occasionally replied on the reply from outlook - this reply, having GUID will be replied back and not transferred into MS CRM, because MS Exchange connector "thinks" that this message was already replied by the first reply.
4. To decrease the possibility that users will use outlook to send new messages and answer the messages from there - you would probably like the idea to delete them from MS Exchange database when they are transferred to the CRM. In this case they will not be seen in MS Outlook (We are not talking about Microsoft CRM Outlook client, where you actually see CRM data and objects)
If you are programmer or software developer - you can actually program these advancements and we'll give you the direction.
This technique is COM+ applications, registered as Microsoft Exchange sinks or handlers. You can use VisualStudio.Net, but you will not have debugging available, because these applications will work as event handlers. Microsoft Exchange allows you to alter it's logic in the events, exposed for custom handling. Incoming emails should be handled, when ONSYNCSAVE Microsoft Exchange Database event is fired before the commitment. You use Microsoft CRM SDK to create the email activity. You should use direct SQL update to flag the activity as closed (however not recommended by Microsoft - but Microsoft CRM SDK doesn't have the method to close the activity - so you really don't have an option from SDK side). Outgoing emails should be handled with so-called transport events firing, which is more complex and less documented part of Microsoft Exchange SDK.
|W|P|114273732264856156|W|P|Microsoft CRM Customization - Processing In/Out-Going Email Messages|W|P|venkat@sgdnetworks.comWhen Great Plains Software was designing and developing Great Plains Dynamics/Dynamics CS+/eEnterprise - it placed several fundamental principles into the system
1. Computer platform independence. If you consider the situation in the computer software industry those days (earlier 1990-th) - nobody knew which office computer platform will be the winner: IBM PC clones with Microsoft Windows, Apple Macintosh with Mac OS or something like Sun SPARC. This is why graphical multiplatform idea was popular among software developers. Also there was a myth about C/C++ languages, working similar on all computers.
2. Database platform independence - there was the need for future surviving. Competition on the database market was also very tough: Oracle, Ingress, Sybase, DB2, Ctree/Faircom, Btrieve (Pervasive SQL 2000 later on)
In order to realize these two principles Great Plains Software created its own development environment and programming language - Great Plains Dexterity (DYNAMICS.DIC, REPORTS.DIC, FORMS.DIC are Dexterity dictionaries).
At this point customization standards were clarified:
1. If you need seamless integration with Great Plains Dynamics, working in the realm of Dynamics security and database independent data access/modification - you do it in Great Plains Dexterity.
2. If your customization should be light then you appeal to the customization tools coming with your computer platform. Very soon Microsoft Windows took the market, so VBA was the way to go.
3. As soon as Microsoft Windows kicked Mac OS from the office computers market, standard third party Microsoft-friendly tools were recommended - good example is Crystal Reports
4. When Microsoft SQL Server won the database market - Great Plains Software began migration campaign from Ctree/Faircom, Btrieve/Pervasive SQL to MS SQL Server 7.0 and later 2000
Finally, when Microsoft bought Great Plains Software, Microsoft Business Solutions turned to be more concerned about its ERP products migration and transformation into so-called suites: Microsoft Financial, Microsoft Logistics, Microsoft Manufacturing, Microsoft Human Resources and pretty much abandoned the promotion of traditional tools: Great Plains Dexterity, VBA, ReportWriter, Continuum, Integration Manager. As a temporary patch to enable .Net programming it released such tools as eConnect.
Right now (2004-2005) we are in the transformation phase when old tools, such as Dexterity are still playing important role, but if you are thinking about customization, you probably better consider SQL Server scripts/views/stored procs, if you have customization budget - make a research on eConnect. Try to make as much web publishing in Visual Studio.Net as possible. Use Crystal Reports design and our recommendation is to base Crystal Report on SQL View or Stored Procedure.
|W|P|114273726078796627|W|P|Microsoft Great Plains Customization and Development - Overview for Programmer|W|P|venkat@sgdnetworks.comIn this short FAQ style article we would like to introduce you - software developer, programmer, database administrator into Microsoft Great Plains Integration tools and options
Microsoft Great Plains is main Microsoft Business Solutions product for US mid-market. Historically Great Plains Software designed Great Plains Dynamics and Dynamics C/S+ as multiplatform application and the integration was possible via Great Plains Dexterity or Dexterity-based end user tools, such as Import Utility and later on via Integration Manager. When Microsoft Windows platform won the OS market (the last battle was in 1997 with PowerMac) Great Plains recommended OLE Server approach: Continuum for VB and Delphi and new Microsoft light programming technology - VBA (Visual Basic for Applications), which was integrated into Dexterity application - Great Plains Modifier (requires customization site enabler license). Since then Great Plains Dynamics/eEnterprise integration techniques use Microsoft technologies.
1. Microsoft SQL Server approach. This integration technique uses SQL stored procedures and views to pull data from your legacy or third party application and push it into Great Plains. The nice thing about MS SQL Server - it has linked server technology - you can establish the link to virtually all ODBC ir OLEDB compliant databases: Oracle, DB2/Unidata, Sybase, Ingress, Lotus/Domino, Pervasive SQL/Btrieve, Ctree/Faircom, Microsoft Access, Foxpro to name a few. You can schedule your integration as maintenance job or DTS package. However keep in mind that Great Plains tables structure is rather complex (it has master records, summaries, historical, work, open tables) and you should probably verify your stored procedures business logic with Great Plains source code (DYNAMICS.DIC with Dexterity procedures and functions scripts - in regular DYNAMICS.DIC these are stripped out - not every MBS partner has source code subscription - so do your selection work)
2. Great Plains Dexterity integration with Great Plains process server. This is more advanced and recommended approach, however it requires advanced Dexterity programming skills and access to the source code. The idea behind is simple - you populate so-called triggering custom table and then check it from Dexterity custom application every 5 seconds or so. If the record is there - then you process it. Processing is usually Dexterity source code stored procedure call. Great Plains uses similar logic when you post the batch and see the status in Process Monitor window. If you don't have source code - you can try to do the best guess with Microsoft Great Plains Software Development Kit (SDK)
3. Great Plains Integration Manager. This is end user tool and is easy to use. However - it uses Great Plains as OLE Server and calls Great Plains forms behind the scenes. As the result - it is very slow - we recommend using integration manager when you have up to one thousand transactions per day.
4. eConnect – it is type of Software Development Kit with samples in VB.Net. Obviously the development environment should be Visual Studio.Net. eConnect will allow you to integrate master records - such as new customers, vendors, employees, etc, plus you can bring transactions into so called Great Plains work tables (eConnect doesn't allow you to bring open or historical records - you need to post work records in Great Plains, the same limitation applies to Integration Manager above) eConnect is rather for ongoing integration. It was initially created for eCommerce application integration to Great Plains.
|W|P|114273721167414386|W|P|Microsoft Great Plains Integrations - Tips for Developer|W|P|venkat@sgdnetworks.comMicrosoft Great Plains and Microsoft Retail Management System (Microsoft RMS) are originally developed by different software vendors, who had no idea that in the remote future (now) these two applications will be owned by Microsoft and will need to be tightly integrated. Current integration between the two is not an easy thing. At this time MBS has RMS integration on the General Ledger and Purchase Order level into Great Plains out of the box. This integration has some advancements in comparison to old product: QuickSell, but it is still GL and PO only. We do understand the need for midsize and large retail companies, structured as clubs and selling on account to their members to have more adequate integration when you can synchronize your Sales information and have robust Great Plains reporting.
There is the product on the market, which is integration on the Receivables Management and Purchase Order Processing level from RMS to Great Plains, written by Daniel Sionov and Andrew Karasev and maintained by the alliance between LightEdge Solutions (www.lightedge.com) and Alba Spectrum Technologies (www.albaspectrum.com). In Alba Spectrum Technologies we actually do coding and product tuning for specific client needs. This product allows you to map multiple RMS stores to one or multiple Great Plains companies. We usually have to tune it for specific needs of the customer, but in general words - it is based on SQL insert into statement and so can handle hundred thousands transactions per day - maximum of what RMS can handle. Integration is usually setup on RMS Headquarters database. However we can set it for Store Operations database.
Overview of out-of-the-box Microsoft RMS integration. This integration is currently available for Great Plains version 7.5 and Microsoft RMS 1.2. MBS is in process of subcontracting Nodus Technologies to write new integration for version 8.0. The weak points of the out-of-the-box 7.5 integration are:
1. It is for integration into one Great Plains company only. If you have multiple stores as multiple companies in Great Plains - then you have to remember which batch should be posted into which Great Plains company.
2. It is on GL and Purchasing level only. So, if you have to reconcile checkbooks / Bank Reconciliation module in Great Plains - you can not do it with standard integration
If you are developer you can end up with your own custom solution, we would like to give you directions.
1. Great Plains Integration Manager - if the sales volume is very low, say 100 transactions per day - then you can do data export from RMS and import it into Great Plains via Integration Manager. This is rather end-user tool - it is very intuitive, it validates 100% of business logic, brings in/updates master records (accounts, employees, customers, vendors. etc.) brings in transactions into work tables. The limitation of Integration Manager - it does use GP windows behind the scenes without showing them - so it is relatively slow - you can bring 100 records - but when you are talking about thousands - it is not a good option. By the way you can program Integration Manager with VBA.
2. eConnect – You can create VB.Net application which will be pulling info from RMS and then uses eConnect to move it to Great Plains. eConnect is kind of Software Development Kit with samples in VB.Net. Obviously the development environment should be Visual Studio.Net. eConnect will allow you to integrate master records - such as new customers, vendors, employees, etc., plus you can bring transactions into so called Great Plains work tables (eConnect doesn't allow you to bring open or historical records - you need to post work records in Great Plains, the same limitation applies to Integration Manager above) eConnect is rather for ongoing integration. It was initially created for eCommerce application integration to Great Plains.
3. SQL Stored Procedures. The product we've mentioned above is collection of stored procs. Obviously you have unlimited control and possibilities with SQL queries. You need to know Retail Management System Headquarters and Great Plains tables structure and data flow. Launch Great Plains and go to Tools->Resource Description->Tables. Find the table in the proper series. If you are looking for the customers – it should be RM00101 – customer master file. If you need historical Sales Order Processing documents – they are in SOP30200 – Sales History Header file, etc. Do not change existing tables - do not create new fields, etc. Also you need to realize that each GP table has DEX_ROW_ID - identity column. Sometimes it is good idea to use inbound/outbound XML in the parameters - then you can deploy web service as a middle party between two systems. RMS tables structure is self explanatory.
4. Data Transformation Services (DTS) – Good tool for importing your third party data into staging tables in GP - then you can pull them in using either stored procs of Integration Manager. You can also deploy this tool for EDI export/import.
5. Great Plains Dexterity Custom Screens. You can create the window, which will have integration settings in it - RMS store ID matching GP Company database, etc. Sometimes users prefer to have seamlessly integrated into GP interface custom screens - for parameters settings and initiating integration. Dexterity is a good option, however remember - it is always better to create new custom screen versus customizing existing one - due to the future upgrade issues. Also - Dexterity is in phasing our by Microsoft Business Solutions.
6. Modifier/VBA custom buttons on the existing screens - alternative to Dexterity is you are comfortable with VBA and ADO.
|W|P|114273716642473931|W|P|Microsoft Great Plains - Microsoft RMS Integration - overview|W|P|venkat@sgdnetworks.comMicrosoft Great Plains is main mid-market application from Microsoft Business Solutions. This is short article, written in question/answer/FAQ style to give IT Director/Controller balanced top level information on Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains implementation. If you have decided on Microsoft Great Plains as main accounting and ERP system you need to know some technical details on Great Plains installation and implementation and what is going on behind the scenes. As of right now the current version is Microsoft Great Plains 8.0
What is installation in the language of technology? Installation has server and client sides.
What is following implementation? Implementation requires combination of technological and accounting skills
Do I need consultant? We strongly recommend you to use consultant in the following cases