IT, General

Skype

Shandy — Thu, 03 May 2007 10:53:00 GMT

The company I work for, CMI has recently started to roll out Skype as a method of communicating over our network. We have chosen to use US Robotics USR 9600 USB internet phones running with Skype 3.0. Hopefully this can save us a lot of money with phone calls between our UK and overseas factories. From a personal point of view it will save the company money with me being able to use it to contact my wife, Helen, from abroad once I get her a Skype phone. I always phone my wife every day I am away and the phone bill can be quite considerable by the end of my stays abroad!

Trip To Sri Lanka

Shandy — Thu, 03 May 2007 10:34:00 GMT

As posted on my Sri Lanka blog I am due to fly out to Sri Lanka shortly. The main objective is to install a SQL Server 2005 server onto our Sri Lanka network. We have just purchased six PowerEdge 2950 servers; all to be configured to run SQL Server 2005. Four of the servers are to be based in the UK and two in our overseas factories - one in Morocco and one in Sri Lanka.

This is the first part in a major project to upgrade our current systems to .NET. Currently we program mainly in VB.Classic with SQL Server 2000 as our backend database. The first phase of the project will see us migrate our core database to SQL Server 2005 and the second phase will see us upgrade our core applications to VB.NET 2005.

The server for Sri Lanka was shipped out last week and allegedly landed in Sri Lanka last Saturday. Currently our Sri Lanka factories are closed down for the Wesak holiday but should be re-opening tomorrow when I hope to get confirmation that it has cleared customs. One of my colleagues has pre-configured the server so my job will mainly be to plug it into the local network and make any configuration changes to get it up and running on the local domain as well as ensuring we can remotely access it and also to ensure the local IT department are able to support it.

I have a couple of additional tasks to perform at our Sri Lanka factories if I get chance. I have to audit the factory scanning system I developed to ensure it is working as required and also to see if I can get Skype up and running.

Belkin Omni View Pro 8 Port KVM Switch (F1D108-OSD) : Daisy Chain Monitor Problem

Shandy — Mon, 23 Apr 2007 14:43:00 GMT

Last Friday we re-organised the Keyboard/Video/Mouse (KVM) switches at one of our server rooms. Previously we had never bothered to daisy chain our KVM switches and consequently had three KVM switches, each with their own keyboard, mouse and monitor. As we had two identical KVM switches - Belkin Omni View Pro 8 Port KVM Switches (F1D108-OSD) - it seemed logical to place these physically together, daisy chaining them using a Belkin 2' Daisy-Chain Cable (F1D108-CBL) so that they could share a single keyboard, mosue and monitor. However, when we did this the monitor attached to the master unit would only work for devices attached to the master unit; we had to attach a second monitor to the slave unit to handle devices attached to the slave unit. The master unit keyboard and mouse worked successfully for both devices connected to the master and the slave unit. Has anyone else come across this problem and found a solution so that only a single monitor is required?

Using the Single USB Port to Connect a Mouse and Keyboard to a Belkin OmniView™ PRO2 KVM Switch

Shandy — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 16:56:00 GMT

Today we utilised the usb capabilities of our Belkin OmniView™ PRO2 KVM Switch. As I failed to find any references to exactly how this worked prior to actually testing it out I thought I'd post how it worked in case anyone else is wondering.

The switch has a single USB, VGA and two PS2 ports per device connected. We had always connected the mouse and keyboard via the two PS2 ports. As there was only a single USB port to handle both the mouse and the keyboard I wondered how this worked. The answer is simple (at least on a Windows XP PC we tested it on). When the PC was connected to the switch using a USB A-to-B cable it autodetected the switch's USB port as a dual mouse/keyboard port, installed the drivers required (no media required) and allowed the single USB cable to replace the dual PS2 cables.

The exact procedure we followed for a PC currently using 2 PS2 cables for mouse and keyboard was:

Attach a USB A-to-B cable between PC and the switch. The drivers were automatically installed on the server without the need for external media. However, the mouse and keyboard did not work after the drivers had installed.
Remove the USB A-to-B cable. The mouse and keyboard started working again.
Shutdown the PC.
Re-attach the USB A-to-B cable.
Remove the PS2 mouse and keyboard cables.
Re-boot the PC.

Note that you still need a VGA male/female cable (as you do with the PS2 cables).

Second 19" Monitor Added To My Dell D620 System

Shandy — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 16:38:00 GMT

I have added a second 19" monitor to my D620 system at work. The first monitor has an analogue connection to the docking station but the second monitor has a DVI connection.

The two monitor setup is a vast improvement over my previous single monitor setup allowing me to run my development environment in one window and view the application I am developing in another. This is achieved by extending the desktop.

The only glitch I currently have is that I have the analogue monitor on my left and the DVI on the right. The analogue has been registered as the first monitor and the DVI as the second but I have set the DVI as my primary monitor. It all works fine when I set it up but on a reboot the XP swaps the monitors so that it thinks the anaologe is on the right and the DVI on the left. Presumably I have missed a setting that is needed to save which way around the monitors physically are on my desktop.

A New Laptop - Dell Latitude D620

Shandy — Thu, 15 Feb 2007 13:47:00 GMT

At work, after just over 3 years of using an Inspiron 8500 laptop I have replaced it with a Latitude D620. Complete with a bluetooth keyboard, mouse, docking station and 19" flat screen monitor it is a huge improvement.

So far the only fault I can find with the system is that if the laptop screen is raised when connected to the docking station the monitor loses the picture and I haven't found a reliable method of getting the picture back to the monitor without rebooting the PC.

One minor irritation with the laptop setup was that it came with Google Desktop Search and Google Toolbar pre-installed. I really dislike non-essential software being pre-installed. Suffice to say the Google Desktop Search was immediately uninstalled. I did leave the Google Toolbar installed as I do find it useful (if only for the spell checker).

How To Log Onto A Microsoft Domain Network For The First Time Using A Wireless Network Connection With A Dell Latitude 620

Shandy — Thu, 15 Feb 2007 10:23:00 GMT

When I tried to log into our company network as a domain user with my new Latitude Dell 620 pre-loaded with Windows XP Pro I couldn’t as the laptop refused to acknowledge that the domain I was trying to log into existed. It appears that the Intel PROSet Wireless Software that is pre-installed cannot start until the PC is logged in and I can’t login until the Intel wireless manager has started. A classic catch 22.

The solution I found was to enable the native windows wireless manager (which can start before the PC is logged in), login and then change back to the wireless manager. Once you have logged in once your login is cached and so when you login in the future a network connection is not required to login. The cached login can be used for the initial login and then once you are logged in using the cached login the Intel wireless manager has chance to start up and actually establish the connection to the domain network.

I have outlined the process involved in this.

The first issue is to allow the native windows wireless manager to manage the laptop’s wireless connection. To do this login as the local administrator, load the Network Connections form and right click on the wireless network connection.

Select the View Available Wireless Networks option. This will display the Wireless Network Connection form and although the form indicates you should choose a wireless network none are listed but a helpful message is.

As the message suggests you need to start the WZC service. To do this you need to load the Services form. This is located in the control panel. In Administrative Tools when using Classic View and in Performance And Maintenance and then Administrative Tools when using Category View. Locate the Wireless Zero Configuration service and you should find the status column is blank. Right click on the WZC entry and select the Start option.

This will change the status to Started.

Reloading the Wireless Network Connection form will now display a different message.

Activating the Change advanced settings link will display the Wireless Network Connection Properties.

Activate the Wireless Networks tab.

And tick the Use Windows to configure my wireless network settings tick box.

Reloading the Wireless Network Connections form should now list the available network connections.

The next step is to logoff the laptop as the local administrator and then log back on as the network domain user, which should now be possible as the native windows wireless manager can connect to the domain network before you actually login. When you login the login should be cached. You can then clear the Use Windows to configure my wireless network settings tick box.

If you now logoff and then log back in as the domain user you should be able to do so with the Intel wireless manager managing the wireless connection.

I did find that an alternative method is to simply use a wired connection for your first login as a domain user but this can be a bit of a nuisance if you have no wired connection handy.

Note that you have to follow this procedure for the first domain login for EVERY domain user.

If anyone knows how to configure the Intel wireless connection manager to allow a domain user to login without having to use the procedure outlined above or using a wired connection I’d be interested to know.