FileMaker Pro V. 11: Desktop Database Redux

Although I periodicallly lament the death of the desktop database program, I now find that I may have exaggerated. Consider FileMaker Pro, one of the earliest database systems available for the Mac, originally sold by an Apple subsidiary, Claris.  Now in version 11, FM Pro comes in several different flavors which work on multiple platforms.

• Mac 
• Windows
• iPad
• iPhone
• iPod Touch 

The product for the iOS systems, called FileMaker Go is especially interesting.  It is essentially a runtime version that allows applications developed on either the Mac or Windows computers to run on an iOS mobile platform. What's more, is that it eliminates the whole issue of learning to write native iOS apps; you develop on the desktop and can deploy directly to the iPad/iPhone.

FileMaker Go is purchased individually for each device from the app store. (I tried asking about volume discounts of 100 devices, but so far haven't gotten any discount).  Still, considering the cost of developing a native iOS application, the price is pretty reasonable…. $40.00 for the iPad and $20.00 for the iPhone, or iPod Touch.

FileMaker has a server version which allows sharing of data between desktops and mobile devices. I am still finding my way around the desktop and mobile versions, but it looks quite promising.

One early project is to convert an existing health-care screening application, written in Access, to FileMaker, to deploy on Windows desktops and iPads. Since the systems analysis has already been done for the Access application, the effort is a straight screen for screen port to FileMaker. While there are a few quirks (radio buttons and checkboxes are especially weird), so far, things are going smoothly.

With almost any development system, I always eventually end up with some kind of show stopper which requires substantial workarounds or research to get past. So far with FileMaker, I've been pleasantly surprised. At least on the development side, things that would take hours in Access take minutes in FileMaker, and of course things that would take days using the native Apple iOS development tools are a snap.

Football and Land-Grant Universities

Ripe stuff over at James Howard Kunstler's blog :

First is the pretense that college football is a character-building endeavor. Rather it's an odious money-grubbing racket that chews up and spits out quasi-professional players who, with rare exceptions, only pretend to be students. It corrupts everyone connected with it. College football is little more than a giant conduit for vacuuming money out of alumni, hawking brand merchandise, and generating TV revenues. At Penn State, the racket sucked in about $70 million a year net profit. All over America, the old land-grant diploma mills pay their coaches million-dollar salaries, while academic adjunct professors can't even get health insurance. At SUNY-Albany, the flagship campus of New York's system, they got rid of the department of foreign languages, but the football team plays on. Meanwhile ordinary students rack up tens of thousands of dollars in unpayable college debt via a related racket in which free-flowing government-backed Sallie Mae loan money prompts colleges to boost tuition rates way beyond inflation rates.

Tech SoupReview of Office 2010

Nice summary from TechSoup of Microsoft Office 2010, and enhancements from the 2007 edition. The one line that really caught my eye.

There are six versions of Office 2010: Starter, Home and Student, Home and Business, Standard, Professional, and Professional Plus.

I haven't got the time to do the math, but consider the variables...
6 versions of Office 2010
2 versions of Office Web Apps (personal and enterprise)
2 or more versions of SharePoint
2 versions of Word files... doc. and .docX
Employees working with previous versions of Word and Office 2007, and Office 2003
Updates for all the different versions.

equals =

Support nightmare.

It really shouldn't have to be this difficult or complex.

Filemaker Pro 11: Create boolean checkboxes

How to create a checkbox field in FileMaker Pro. 

For some odd reason, FileMaker Pro does not have a "native" boolean checkbox field. Instead of simply dropping a simple checkbox on to a form (called a layout…in FM Pro),  you have to strictly follow a roundabout procedure to what is a dodle in virtually all other development systems.   

However, in the English version of FM Pro 11,  one of the sample databases; "People Management" contains checkboxes in the "issues" section for two fields: 

These are labeled: 

Is Legal Involved? 

Is HR Involved?  

And the field names in the data table are: 

Flag Legal

Flag HR 

So, for example,  to create a checkbox in the employee record to determine if the person preferred "Smoking",  (for what....hotel rooms perhaps?)  You can do the following: 

1. In the Value list Editor create a value list named "1" 

Source = Custom Values

Values = "1" 

FileMaker Pro 11 Value Lists 

2. Go to Manage Databases. In your data table,  define the field name for the checkbox field. 

Give it a field type = Number 

The sample shows two fields,  Flag HR and Flag Legal (these field names have spaces in them, which is something I would never do.) 

Database fields for "Issues" table

I created a new field "Smoking" in the Employee table.  Set the type to  "Number" 

OK….so now the table fields have been defined, and lookup value has been defined. Now, what remains is displaying the field in your layout.    

3. On the layout Add  the new field and choose the new Smoking field within the Employee table 

This starts out as a text field… looking like this: 

4. In the Inspector,  edit the properties of the field to change the field type to 

"Checkbox Set"  and change the value list to "1".   This will make the field look like this: 

5.  Adjust the size of the field to cover up the "1" which makes the field look normal. 

6. Now when you switch to browse you get: 

  

This appears to give a value of "1" when checked,  and I'm a assuming, a 'null' or 0 when unchecked.   Anyway, in a query for people who smoke, you'd have to look for smoking =1 

I think.  Not intuitive.   

I'd appreciate comments and corrections from the FM experts.   

Annotated checklist for workstation setup

Notes for deploying Dell Optiplex 270 workstations with Windows XP. The machines are recycled, to be put into a student lab for light web surfing, and word processing. 

Install Windows XP OS

 Partition Hard Drive 

 Install Windows XP SP2 from Dell CD 

The machines originally came with a Dell "reinstall" disk CD, which contained an OEM version of Windows XP SP2. Each machine also has a sticker on the side of the machine, with a hologram that displays a "genuine Microsoft" installation key. 

 First User = "Network Manager" 

 Administrator password =   

 Drivers: Install Intel Chip Set Drivers

 Drivers: Install video drivers --  video will change from 640x480 to something more reasonable

 Drivers: Install network drivers.  

These drivers are available on the Dell support website. You an search based on the Dell service tag. The drivers are downloaded as zipped file, these need to be unzipped, and then the installation folders are copied to the hard drive. From there, you can execute the setup program for each driver.  There will be several reboots required.   

 Install Windows Updates, SP3 and subsequent updates

This is an iterative process, which involves  download, install, reboot. 

Using Internet Explorer, you can choose "Tools" ->"Windows Update" to get to the update web site. You'll be prompted for installing the latest version of the update plug-in for IE.  Once that is installed, you can return to the same link and start looking for actual Windows updates. 

If the Dell installation disk does not include Windows Service Pack 3,  then this has to be installed and downloaded before installing subsequent updates. 

  Assign the machine name: YBWSx  -- Workgroup = Workgroup. 

Do this using the Control Panel - System applet. Change the machine name to something matching your naming conventions. The machine name also shows up within LogMeIn, so make it identifiable if possible. 

Install Security Software  

 Install Microsoft Security Essentials

My current favorite for virus protection.

Create accounts and the network connections.  

 Create user accounts:   labmgr/labpassword with Admin rights, and student/student with normal rights 

 Install FreeNas batch file in C:\FreeNas 

 Create shortcut for Freenas batch file on desktop

This asks the user for a name and password to reach their personal folder on the network. 

 Install  Microsoft Office 2007 Office 2007 

 Install LogMeIn 

Log in under the Student Account: 

Remove icons for OE, Windows Media, etc. on start menu 

Create shortcut for Freenas batch file on desktop

 Pin Word, Excel, icons to start menu

 Change search engine in IE to Google, and home page to Google. 

Finish up

 Create iD stickers and instructional stickers and put on machine.   

Install on site

  Login with admin account

  Install printer(s) 

  Login with student account

  Test MAP H: connection to server

Optional:   

 Create Auto Login for student account

Press WindowsKey+R

In the box type control userpasswords2

select the student account 

check box, allow login without password. 

Windows XP Workstation Setup -- Summary

Recycled Dell Optiplex 270 setup  with Windows XP  

Install Windows XP OS

 Partition Hard Drive 

 Install Windows XP SP2 from Dell CD 

 First User = "Network Manager" 

 Administrator password =  

 Drivers: Install Intel Chip Set Drivers

 Drivers: Install video drivers --  video will change from 640x480 to something more reasonable

 Drivers: Install network drivers.  

 Install Windows Updates, SP3 and subsequent updates

  Assign the machine name: YBWSx  -- Workgroup = Workgroup 

Install Security Software  

 Install Microsoft Security Essentials

 Create user accounts:   labmgr/labpassword with Admin rights, and student/student with normal rights 

 Install FreeNas batch file in C:\FreeNas 

 Create shortcut for Freenas batch file on desktop

 Install  Microsoft Office 2007 Office 2007

 Install Microsoft Security Essentials 

 Install LogMeIn 

Log in under the Student Account: 

Remove icons for OE, Windows Media, etc. on start menu 

Create shortcut for Freenas batch file on desktop

 Pin Word, Excel, icons to start menu

 Change search engine in IE to Google, and home page to Google. 

Finish up

 Create stickers and put on machine.   

Install on site

  Login with admin account

    Install printer(s) 

    Login with student account

  Test MAP H: connection to server

Optional:   

 Create Auto Login for student account

Press WindowsKey+R

In the box type control userpasswords2

select the student account 

check box, allow login without password. 

Embedding Video within PowerPoint 2007

At work we've been puzzling over the use of embedded videos in PowerPoint and after reading through the PowerPoint help files, I found out the following:

There are two ways to play videos within PowerPoint.

1. You can “link” to a movie located somewhere on the web, YouTube for example.
2. “Embedded”, These aren’t really embedded at all, you end up linking to a movie file that is located on the local computer. This means that when you move or eMail a presentation, you have to include the movie file along with the presentation, and place it in the same folder that the presentation is in.

The latter #2 is much more elegant if you can get it to work because, it plays the video locally, (doesn’t require a connection to the internet), probably will play more smoothly, and can easily be set up to play full screen without any extra mouse clicking.

Example. We're introducing a new program that has the acronym "SASH".

I create a new presentation called SASHAlive!.pptx which contains the video sashintro.MP4 in the MP4 video format. I save both of these in the folder on our network S drive in a folder called sashvids.

S:\sashvides\SASHAlive!.pptx
S:\sashvids\sashintro.MP4

Now, let’s say this needs to go to the Executive Director's laptop as a presentation to be given at a conference.
We create a new folder on her laptop on the C: drive. C:\WashingtonConf And we copy our two Sash files, the pptx file, and the mp4 file into that same folder.

C:\WashingtonConf\SASHAlive!.pptx
C:\WashingtonConf\sashintro.MP4

Now when she runs the PowerPoint slides, and the appropriate slide comes up with the video, it will search in the same folder for the video, and play it.

Caveat: The machine used to play the video has to have the proper software. Videos comes in several different formats, among them .MP4, .QTW, .SWF and .ASF. Always, always, test on the machine that is to be used to project the PowerPoint.

Final Caveat: Never expect things to work the first time; they must be tested, especially PowerPoint stuff. It is a cliché that even after millions of PowerPoint presentations, there always seem to be problems on the podium. Speaking from my own experience, nothing undermines a speaker’s confidence more than anxiety about whether or not the bloody PowerPoint is going to work correctly, and adding audio and video just compounds the anxiety. The anxiety can be alleviated by preparation, practice, and rehearsal.

Adding Multiple Users to FreeNAS Part 2 of 2

FreeNas is an elegant free Network Attached Server software that can be installed on an older PC to provide extra storage for media, tunes, files, you-name-it. I've been using it for storing student data from our student labs for almost a year. It has worked flawlessly. I"m in the process of setting up another server for another lab, and realized I hadn't documented my current process for adding users, which I hope I'll be able to automate further.

This is part 2 of 2. We've already eon the following:

1. Figured out the account names and passwords
2. Created the home folders for each account. The folder name matches the account name.

Now we're going to create the actual student accounts within the web interface.

1. Create a group called students

2. Add the first user.

3. Once all the users are added, there is a final thing to complete. You need to go back into the terminal session and run the fixperms.sh script. What this script does is give ownership of the user's folder to the user, and deny permission of other users to the folder.

If you get error messages when running the batch files, be sure that you have been painfully consistent regarding upper and lower case in the user names and the folder names. For these to work they must match, and FreeNas is case sensitive, unlike Windows / DOS. To save pain make everything lower case. (Note the screen shots have a mixed case... which I subsequently changed to all lower case).

Adding Multiple Users to FreeNAS Part 1

1. Figure out what the account names and passwords are going to be. For this example, I'm just going to create a bunch of student accounts, with lame passwords, based on colors, viz...

Student01 - Blue
Student02 - Orange
Student03 - Green
Student04 - Brown
Student05 - Gray
Student06 - Red
Student07 - Black

Etc.

2. Using a terminal program, Log into the FreeNas server using the SSH service. (Make sure SSH has been started on the FreeNas server, via the Services tab.) Using the Mac's terminal program, you can login with the following command:

ssh 192.168.xx.xx -l root

In Windows, use the free PUTTY program, which has provisions for using SSH to log in.

3. Once you are in, change the directory to your shared student volume.

cd /mnt/StudentData

4. Now you need to use a text editor to create a couple of files. The first file is a list of the user accounts.

nano userlist.txt

Add the account names, one per line.

Student01
Student02
Student03
....

Save this file.

5. Now create a shell batch file which creates all of the student folders.

nano makestfolder.sh

#! /bin/sh

while read username
do
echo $username
mkdir $username
done

Save this file as makestfolder.sh

6. Flag the batch file as executable
chmod 755 makestfolder.sh

7. Now you can run this shell script, using the file of user names for input.

./makestfolder.sh
This will output a list of names of each user. As long as you don't see anything weird, the folders will also have been created. You can check by simply doing a directory listing.

ls

This should show all of the folders.

8 Finally, you'll need to create one more shell script, which we'll use after we've added the user accounts to FreeNas.

nano fixperms.sh

#! /bin/sh
while read username
do
echo $username
chmod 711 /mnt/StudentData/$username
chown $username /mnt/StudentData/$username
done

Save this, and again, change the file permissions on it to allow it to be executable.

chmod 755 fixperms.sh

Obviously, creating these two shell scripts is a one-time thing... we'll reuse them any time we add new folders.

Now, having created your student folders, you can go back into the FreeNas web interface, and actually create the user accounts. When doing this, you assign the "home directory" for the account to the folder that you've just created. (See Part 2)

Display Percent on Microsoft Access 2010 forms

Problem with displaying percentages in a Microsoft Access 2010 form. You'd think this would be an easy, and intuitive thing, but different versions of Access handle it different ways.

I have a field for FTE (full-time equivalency) which should be a percentage. So, for example, if a part time worker works three days a week, they are 60% FTE. I want to store this in my Access 2010 contacts table. This turned out to be much more difficult than I anticipated, but one solution which seems to work is the following:

1. In the table design, define the field as Data Type = Number.

Set the field properties as:

Field Size = Double.
Format = Percent
Decimal Places = 0

2. Test this by entering data in table view, and it should display correctly, and also allow you to enter whole numbers. So for 100%, you'll just enter "100" and for 60% you'll just enter "60". It will look like this:

3. Add the FTE field to the form, by dragging it from the "Add Existing Fields" List.

Microsoft Small Business Server 2011 -- Install Quirks

Well, maybe not quirks exactly, but, there do seem to be a few points of interest.

To review, Microsoft Small Business Server 2011 is a bundled combination of the following:

Windows Server 2008
Microsoft Exchange 2010
Microsoft SharePoint 2010
Microsoft SQL Server 2008

In its usual confusing way, Microsoft can't offer a single version of this but rather, they have three editions. There is Windows Small Business Server Standard (with the software described above), Windows Small Business Server Essentials (which substitutes cloud versions of SharePoint and Exchange for the bundled server versions that come with Standard). There is also an supplementary Small Business Server Premium Add-On which adds another SQL-Server box for running back-end database applications or web sites. I've been working with Standard. This can serve a maximum of 75 users, which I'm sort of assuming means 75 currently connected users, and that you could configure more than that number.

On installation, the SBS server wants to be a DNS server as well as a DHCP server. It is helpful to have the server connected on the LAN, with a working internet connection. If, as in my case, you run a separate DHCP server (the box which doles out IP addresses for workstations as they come online), then you need to disable it temporarily while setting up the SBS machine. Otherwise, SBS will complain and fail to configure its connections to the internet.

Another quirk is that when you first install the operating system everything is installed on drive C: including users shares, Sharepoint folders and Exchange mailboxes. Presumably you'll want these to reside on a separate set of disks, or partition from the O/S partition, and there is a series of "wizards" that allow you to accomplish this without pain. Once the folders are moved to the data drive or partition, the default new user folders are created in the correct location.

The SBS server must be the top level domain controller in a Windows network. Other Windows servers can be secondary domain controllers but not primary. There is an elaborate multi-page migration methodology which is supposed to allow you to migrate users for SBS 2003 to SBS 2011, however much of the discussion on the technical boards suggests that the migration is a nightmare. So, in the two instances that I've been upgrading, I'm starting from scratch. I don't went to be caught in the middle where the old installation isn't working and the new one isn't ready for some unknown or odd reason.

I'm still on the fence as to whether SBS is a good idea. If you've already got a POP eMail server going, which has Spam filtering and all the standard features provided by an ISP, managing Exchange on a local server just seems to me to provide an opportunity for additional work and maintenance. It also places all critical applications on a single piece of hardware. On the other hand, Exchange has evolved as a pretty nice calendaring and eMail server, and SharePoint, for those who can use it, works well as an internal knowledge base. SBS includes other tricks, like VPN capability, OutLook web access for accessing your OutLook mailbox from the web, and lots of management wizards which tend to ease some of the burden of maintaining things.

As a practical matter, servers are pretty reliable these days... and you have to go out of your way to practice and rehearse a disaster-recovery scenarios because they just don't happen that often.

OSX Lion from Apple - Where's The Beef?

Apple released OSX Lion, the latest version of their computer operating system today, and I was able to download and install it without incident to my aging MacBook, (circa mid 2007). So, what is all the fuss about? Actually, I suspect that it is mostly under the hood. The user interface changes in OSX Lion, notably the addition of the Launchpad, an iPhone-like full screen which shows all applications, and Mission Control, which combines aspects of the previous OS's Dashboard, Expose and Spaces, seem relatively minor, and you can pretty much avoid them.

Mind-Manager 9 for the Mac
Doesn't display the "full screen" arrows in the upper-right hand corner, but otherwise seems to work fine at first glance. There have been complaints on the MM user forums about Lion compatibility. Required the installation of a new Java Virtual Machine.

Scrivner
I'm still working with the trial version of this. An update included the full-screen icon.

EverNote
Required an update. No icon for the full screen.

Parallels
The current version is Build 12094. I upgraded to this. (Version 6.0.12094). Parallels is pretty worthless on my laptop these days, as I only have 2 megabytes of RAM, which turns out to be pretty tight when attempting to run Windows 7. On the laptop, I find myself using BootCamp.

OSX Lion Server
There were rumors that the Mac OSX server software would simply be included with the Lion update. This used to cost $499. However, it is now available as a $49.00 set of applications as an add-on. I was particularly interested in the PodCast Producer application, which I think is available only through buying OSX server. This is now available in a free download of "server tools", which, presumably, can be downloaded and installed on a workstation to manage servers on a network. Just for grins, I downloaded these, and installed, but the PodCast Producer (now actually called Podcast Composer) crashed several times when I attempted to run it.

Mac Mail
There are minor changes to Mac Mail, in how it displays by default. The default configuration displays three columns, with the left column showing mailboxes and folders as before, then a column which displays the list of eMails. A third column displays the contents of each eMail. Since I don't like to display contents by default, and I think it is major safety hazard as it opens each eMail, I reconfigured the pgoram to turn off the third pane. So, Mail now looks about the same as before.

Calendar
There are several changes to the Calendar program, but most obviously it has a kind of faux leather "blotter" frame around the calendar days. I spent almost a half-hour searching on Google trying to figure out how to get rid of the damn thing, it looks really tacky, and worse, it doesn't appear to be changeable.

Address Book
This now looks like a "paper" address book, with a sleazy leather "binding" which matches the calendar.

OmmWriter
No change. OmmWriter works in full screen mode anyway. Seems to work fine in Lion.

More Updates
But wait....there's more! Running the Mac update application will fetch updates for iWeb, iTunes, iWork, and some third-party things like printer drivers.

More than you want to know
At Cult of Mac, they've sketched out many of the changes. They might be a little breathlessly enthusiastic. Anyway, I'm glad I upgraded, and I'll be interested to see how it goes on my iMac.

U.S. Broadband - Not Much Progress

Oh dear. As I was poking around in my own blog looking for wisdom about Microsoft Access, what should I find but this post, entitled U.S. Loosing Edge in Broadband.

The post was from June of 2005. Yikes. Clearly, "we" haven't made the case in the U.S. for extensive broadband. However, a recent video from PBS does a really nice job describing what is going on in other parts of the world.

Video Link at: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/need-to-know/culture/video-high-fiber/9263/

Plus the original link to the article in Foreign Affairs works fine.

The interviews, in fluent idiomatic English, by non-native speakers, were sobering.

While we in the U.S. are fighting three unnecessary wars, agonizing about how to pay for health care, fighting culture wars over things like the president's birth certificate, and expressing outrage that we are paying one-third what Europe is paying for gasoline, other first-and second-world nations are eating our lunch in terms of preparing for the economic future in which our children and grandchildren will be living.

P.S. There is a lively discussion in the comments section on the PBS link. And they cited a Harvard study:
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/sites/cyber.law.harvard.edu/files/Berkman_Center_Broadband_Final_Report_15Feb2010.pdf

Spicy Server Pix

Shocking! Server Interior Revealed!

Click on the images to see them full size.

Here's a picture of my new Dell T110 server, with the cover off.

Here's a little more detail. You can see the two drives mounted on the left hand side, with two conveniently vacant drive bays for a couple additional SATA drives. Upper middle are the four memory slots, each filled with a 2 megabyte chip for a total of eight megabytes. All the black stuff on the right is the shroud covering the heat sink. The unit is absolutely silent.

Finally, here it is in the final configuration. I've got an older Maxell external USB 250 megabyte drive as a backup device. The Small Business Server 2011 backup is much improved over Windows backup software that came with earlier Windows server software...almost as good as the Mac Time Machine.

This is the first purpose-bought server that I've bought in more than ten years for my business. I had a couple in the nineties. Then for two or three iterations, I'd buy Dell Precision workstations to use as my personal workstation, and then I'd bump them down to be a server. All of these machines have been very reliable. I even used one of the Optiplex GX270 desktops as a production server for more than six months.

Tech Friday: More on Windows Small Business Server 2011

So, after fiddling for a week, I decided to commit, and make the SBS 2011 my real office server, at least for awhile. Amazing how much tweaking is required. Out of the box it doesn't work out of the box, and despite the presence of numerous wizards and checklists, I find that it requires a fair amount of network knowledge to get things up and running. Ideas:

1. Under the covers, SBS 2011 uses Windows Server 2008, and Microsoft Exchange 2010.

2. In its default state, SBS assumes it will control everything, even unto DHCP. DHCP is usually enabled by default on most routers. It is the function that assigns an internal IP address to each workstation as it comes on the network. I prefer that the function stay with the router, so if the server is off for some reason, workstations can still get a legal IP address to be able to go out on to the internet. For the moment, I've acquiesced and given that function to SBS.

3. Since I'm planning to run Exchange, I needed to have a domain assigned to my SBS server. I have a fixed outward facing IP address from Comcast, my internet service provider. I assigned a "third level domain name" to my SBS server. This is often done for individual machines within a domain. So, for example of your company's domain is kettleprises.com, you mail server might be mail.kettleprises.com, and your sbs server might be sbs.kettleprises.com. Third level domain names do not usually cost extra. I then configured a DNS server on the SBS box using the assigned third-level domain. So far, I haven't been able to find my domain mapping using nslookup, so I'm a little worried that something is awry.

4. The above is not to be confused with the "windows domain", which is a single name for the local area network's SBS machine. I named mine ghq. SBS then translates this to ghq.local which is assigned to the server's internal ip address.

5. The next issue, is to get the network workstations connected to the server. Before doing that, the help file suggests creating the user accounts on the server. Once you do that, you can go to the individual workstations, and run the web browser, and try to find http://connect. If this is successful, then you'll see the following screen:

This is only a link to download a "launcher.exe" file which is a script which connects the computer to the network. If there are local user profiles available, it allows you to choose one to migrate to a domain account. (Again, showing essentially that the SBS developers assume that this is the first server of a one-server network, and you would only be migrating local workstation accounts to domain accounts anyway.)

If you can't bring up the web page, then something is misconfigured, somewhere. It took me several tries to make sure everything was working as expected. I thought the last loose end was the fact that my third level domain name hadn't propagated yet, but between the time I started writing and the time I've finished, it now appears under NSLOOKUP.

Laplink PC Mover migrates Windows Users to new machines

Moving users to new Windows machines is a pain. PC Mover helps automate the process, and it even assists when you are migrating users between Windows versions, such as upgrades from Windows XP to Windows 7.

Despite being lead to believe otherwise, PC Mover does not fully migrate OutLook accounts. Rather it will migrate the account server connection but it does not migrate the OutLook messages. I confirmed this with their technical support people.

You can migrate messages by copying the OutLook.PST file from the old machine to the new machine. I found I had to do this each time I migrated a user from Windows XP to Windows 7 on a new machine. Everything else, however, migrates smoothly. To do this:

1. Make sure the new machine is connected to the network.
2. If you can (or need to) register the computer with the Microsoft Domain Controller (under Control Panel, go to System ->Computer Name, and see that the computer is a member of the domain.
3. Log in to the new computer with the target user's domain account. This will create a new user profile on the new computer.
4. Log off, and log in again as the Domain Administrator. This will give you rights to perform the migration on the new computer.
5. Install and run PC Mover on the new computer.
6. Log in as an administrator on the old computer.
7. Install PC Mover on the old computer. (I use a thumb drive for this).
8. Run PC Mover on the old computer. It will find the new computer on the network .
9. Choose the user's domain account on the old computer for migration to the new computer. (This is the reason for step 3 above. Before doing this, I received an error message from PC Mover on the old computer saying that it can't migrate the domain account. I'm presuming that is because the account didn't exist on the new computer.)
10. In general, you don't want to migrate old versions of applications that won't be used on the new machine. So, these being Dells, I didn't migrate things like Roxio CD Creator from the old machine to the new one. Also, if you already have applications installed (Office 2007?) on the new machine, you don't need to migrate the whole application again.

One thing that is helpful is there is a rollback function, so if the migration doesn't work as expected, you can roll back and try again with different settings.

Tech Friday: Installing Windows Small Business Server 2011

I've received  a Dell T110 server, to install here at Microdesign GHQ.  I originally got it with two 250 gigabyte disks, I've been fooling around with various images and DVD disks trying several ways of installing it.  Some ideas:

1. SBS 2008 or 2011 requires a minimum of 8 megabytes of RAM, with twelve megabytes recommended for a production server. One reason I broke down and bought new hardware is that I had no recent Windows workstation that I could repurpose that could use more than 4 megabytes of RAM. I tested several candidates using the Crucial on-line tester. Then in desperation I went the Dell web site, and tried there as well. My latest workstation hardware, circa 2005, was too old. 

2. Being a cheapskate, I configured the server with two 250 gigabyte drives, thinking I'd mirror the drives. But it looks like Dell wants 9 megs or so for a utility partition, and that  the Windows installer won't mirror anything before installation, so the operating system itself will go on a single drive. I'll configure the second drive for data for starters, and then buy another one to mirror, so that I have mirrored data disks. This is what we ended up doing with the FreeNAS server that we're using for student data; the O/S is on its own drive. Presumably, if that drive fails, then you could reinstall on a fresh drive, and the data remains intact on its own array. 

The only way around this predicament is to get a RAID controller that does all of the mirroring or RAID in hardware. The controller then "presents" the array as a single drive to the operating system.  

3. The higher RAM requirement also precluded playing with the O/S in a virtual machine... at least with Parallels.  This may be a mixed blessing. Even on dedicated hardware the installation is taking over an hour from DVD. So, in a VM the whole thing would be really slow.

4. Using the technique described last fall  for Windows embedded booting, I'm preparing a USB drive as an alternate boot media, just to see if that works, and if it does if it is any faster. This involves formatting the USB drive, and copying the bootloader files from the Windows setup DVD.

5. The downloaded .iso DVD image for Windows SBS 2011 is larger than the typical 4.7 gigabyte  single-sided DVD. I had to go to Staples and buy double-sided DVDs which hold 8.5 gigs. I never knew they existed, but I'm happy to see that both my Mac Superdrive, and the server DVD reader can read them.

Guidestar's Guide to Non-Profit Status Revocations by the IRS

Guidestar has published a summary of information regarding the revocation of non-profit status for organizations that have failed to file their informational returns for the past several years.

Five Non-Profit Technology Trends for Spring 2011

Technology Trends Affecting Non-Profits: Spring 2011

1. Routine hardware costs are approaching zero. This sounds like a gross exageration, but, I just ordered a network file server for under a thousand dollars, whose equivalent cost over fourteen thousand dollars fifteen years ago. Desktop workstation computers that cost $2400  five years ago, are now under a thousand dollars, and well-equipped laptops that cost $1300 a few years ago, can be had for half that amount.  I walked through a college administration building recently. Almost all of the desks had laptop computers on them, plugged into docking stations and there  were almost no desktop computers to be seen. The latest hardware refresh for our student computers has been replacing desktop computer labs with collections of laptops. It is the beginning of end of purpose-built computer labs for that organization and a return to a more library like "learning center", with round tables, fast wireless, and laptops.  

2. The movement toward cloud-based services, using shared hardware and software located remotely, is accelerating.  Of course, we've had these for many years (Hotmail), but now applications, storage, processing, and whole remote servers are available sometimes free (DropBox) or for a few bucks per month.  

3. Broadband internet is ubiquitous. Clearly, an "always-on" internet connection is required to access the cloud.

4. Social networking applications;  Twitter, Facebook, etc. are seen as viable marketing tools. The question to ask yourself here is whether your clients, constituents or customers are using these platforms. (Actually, you need to ask *them* if they are using social media)  If they are... then you should too. But if they aren't, then you can place your priorities elsewhere.

5. Mobile applications on smartphones and tablets are booming. Some believe that the easy money has been made by the early adopters of mobile computing. What is clear, however is that later adopters are developing a strategy for deploy their applications and information to mobile devices.

As an agency head or technology manager, you might want to consider your view of these examples.  Where are you and your organization on the adoption curve?  Bleeding edge, early adapter, currently in production, not interested?  

Word 2007 -- The Lost Spell Checker

Problem: Microsoft Word 2007 appears to have lost its spelling and grammar checker.  

This worked for me.  

Control Panel

Add/change Programs

Microsoft Office

Office Shared Features, 

Proofing Tools

See if the English tools are grayed out.   (see attached screen shot).   Change the Spelling and Grammar Checkers to "run from this computer" .     

The State of Custom Databases on the Windows Platform

I don't think it is my imagination. I am thinking that the state of custom database development has deteriorated. With a few exceptions, most "casual" Windows database development has been relegated to Microsoft Access, with a little FileMaker thrown in for good measure.

Microsoft abandoned their middle-tier desktop database, Visual FoxPro, back in 2004. There is still an apocryphal claim that there are more lines of xBase code (the underlying programing language for FoxPro) used in currently running applications than there are for all others except Cobol.

Microsoft still has two families of database products; Access, which comes as part of Microsoft Office Professional, and SQL-Server, which is available in a number of flavors running on individual desktop machines to providing back-end support for massive on-line databases.

Why the lamentation? I'm currently working with two NGOs, with different backgrounds and experience, have the same issues regarding their organizational data.

1. They want their data to be all one one place. Organization A. has donors, volunteers and clients, and any single person could be one or all of these things to the organization. They want to look up a person's name and tell, on a single screen, the full "transaction" history of their relationship with the person, as well as different demographic data related to each person's "role". Organization B. has a similar situation, but with even more possible roles, singly or combined as well as several unique roles, including membership in one or more of over 30 committees.

2. They don't want to learn something new. Organization A. is on its third iteration of a relationship management database. The first was custom programmed over the course of eight years in tiny increments. It was shaping up to be a pretty good information management system, before their state overlords decreed that they would have to use a web-based system imposed from the top which provided the state with outcomes data, but which left out much of the "management information" needed for the organization. They used Telosa's donor system for awhile, and then switched to DonorPerfect with some custom modifications to accommodate tracking of volunteers. The outcomes data stays with the state's web-based system. It goes without saying that the two systems don't talk to each other.

Organization B. has all of its data in Outlook 2007 running on Exchange 2008. They use Outlook to generate as many mailing lists and lists for management as possible. They use a third-party eMail list service, and still keep large chunks of custom data in Excel spreadsheets. But a lot of data is in more than one place.

3. They don't want to spend "a lot". No, let me rephrase that. They've not yet been able to convince themselves that the cost of an online system is going to yield the kind of leverage and value that they believe should be is possible (and which they had already experienced in the case of Organization A). Yet, if they could be convinced that a cloud-based online system, billed per month was going to serve them adequately they might go for it. But they are also concerned about the ongoing reliability of cloud-based system, and, deep down, I think we all are still resisting the notion of paying hundreds of dollars per month to "use our own data....", as well as being understandably sceptical of being at the mercy of the constraints of an online system. (Exhibit A. QuickBooks Online. The price isn't unreasonable for a single user at something like $35.00 per month... but it is sloooowwww, compared with QB for Windows. Then again, QB for Windows, the desktop version, requires a $300 per year "update" for the payroll function which, as far as I can tell, basically allows you to download the payroll tables, and support drops off after the third or forth year, requiring an update of the program. Hello QuickBooks 2011.

The expenditure may in fact be similar between the desktop and cloud versions. But the sense of control is different. It is like prepaid cell phone service versus a monthly plan.

4. They tried Access. Took a bunch of classes. Trained the staff. Tried to make it all work. Forms, Queries, Datasets, Reports. Their application is really too complex for Access. (Don't tell that to the generic pharmaceutical manufacturer a couple towns over that was at one point running their entire manufacturing line on Access.)

So, now, the situation is they want to use what they have and modify it to contain all of the data that is scattered around in spreadsheets and other systems. Our problem is to accurately assess how malleable each application is, in terms of opportunities for customization, and then, hopefully, adjust our expectations accordingly, and figure out viable options.

One thing is that I think there are ways to improve the situation, even if they are hidden from the desktop user, and incorporated into the existing applications under the covers. Like all Microsoft-based products there are a dozen different approaches, languages, and back-ends to approach the problem. The solution may even include... Access.

Ommwriter. Now available for Windows, and a bit on Flow

OmmWriter has been released for Windows. It appears to be identical to the Mac version, with an addtion of an "Export to PDF" option. OmmWriter is a text editor, nothing more, nothing less. It does not even have an option for printing. There are four font possiibilities for viewing text on the screen; a sans-serif, serif, a monospaced typewriter font and an almost unreadable script font.

There are a couple of unusual enhancements that are intended to promote concentration while writing. the first is a set of sound files which play ambient background music. One selection includes a bell and gamalan-like series of ringing sounds that you might expect to hear in a Buddist monestary.

The other innovation is visual. OmmWriter takes over the full screen of your Mac or PC, and blots out all other icons and sounds... forcing you to concentrate on writing without distraction. You can choose from a number of screen backgrounds which consist of soft grays, white or pastel blue.  Once you begin writing, within a resizable frame on the screen, the frame borders and attendent icons fade away, leaving only your text and a small horizontal cursor. If you move the mouse, then the frame reappears with a word-count at the bottom.  This makes OmmWriter an excellent medium for creative writing of any kind, including diaries, morning pages, or input for 750 words.

The best thing is that it is free to try out. The free and paid versions are identical, with the addition in the paid version of additional screen backgrounds, extra ambient sound backgrounds, and the ability to select from a variety of typing sounds. The publisher allows you to pay what ever you like, but suggests that it should end in 11, an amount which supposedly has cosmic significance.

After using the program on the Mac for several months, I have to say, I think this is one of the more pleasurable instances where my work has been improved by software (of all things!). Not only have I written a great deal more, I enjoy and I look forward to the process of writing. Without the distraction of dozens of icons, controls, wizards, options and ribbons, I find that I can concentrate better and achieve that elusive state of Flow.

What would an equivalent spreadsheet program might look like?  How much can you take away and still have a functional and useful spreadsheet program? You could remove more than you might think. You need columns and rows, of course, and the ability to put in formulas and totals. Everything after this is probably extra functionality. Indeed there is anecdotal evidence that people use about 20% of the functionality of most software.

Poking around to find more about Flow,  the WikiPedia entry lists ten attributes of Flow:

1. Clear goals (expectations and rules are discernible and goals are attainable and align appropriately with one's skill set and abilities). Moreover, the challenge level and skill level should both be high.
2. Concentrating, a high degree of concentration on a limited field of attention (a person engaged in the activity will have the opportunity to focus and to delve deeply into it).
3. A loss of the feeling of self-consciousness, the merging of action and awareness.
4. Distorted sense of time, one's subjective experience of time is altered.
5. Direct and immediate feedback (successes and failures in the course of the activity are apparent, so that behavior can be adjusted as needed).
6. Balance between ability level and challenge (the activity is neither too easy nor too difficult).
7. A sense of personal control over the situation or activity.
8. The activity is intrinsically rewarding, so there is an effortlessness of action.
9. A lack of awareness of bodily needs (to the extent that one can reach a point of great hunger or fatigue without realizing it)
10. Absorption into the activity, narrowing of the focus of awareness down to the activity itself, action awareness merging.

Not all are needed for flow to be experienced.

If you believe in the concept of Flow, and have experienced it,  it is sobering to look at the ten items and ask, how often within our current educational system and our workplaces is it possible to experience some of the Flow attributes?

Chron This Week: Save $176,000 by revamping IT

This week, The Chronicle of Philanthropy has a technology supplement section that has some very interesting articles this time.

The most provocative article is entitled "How a Small Nonprofit Made Simple Tech Tweaks and Saved $176,000."

Well, one thing they did was reduce their staff from 10 to 4, so I can imagine that made a considerable difference in what they might have been spending, even before they made changes in their IT infrastructure. The staff reduction included the IT staff which they estimated cost them $10,000 a month.

But there are some intriguing technical ideas:

• They dumped their existing file server for a virtual server hosted by Egnyte for $50.00 per month.
• They changed their applications to Google Apps, which they estimate will cost them $400.00 per year. They estimated that their file server, backup capability and tech support contract for these items previously cost $3500 per month. (Wow!)
• They estimate that they save $250 per month in electricity for the file server.
• They estimate that they reduced their internet and telephone calls from $365 per month, via Comcast, to $55 for Comcast Internet service, and then $45 per month for internet phone service by TokTuMi for 4 users.
• They changed from dedicated 4-user QuickBooks, to an online version of Quickbooks at $35.00 per month.
• They said their web server was costing them $1030 per month, for a dedicated server at a hosted data center. This was changed to $500 per year for a hosted content-mangement system.

There are other changes in the article, including a conversion of their donor management system to Salesforce, and their credit card processor to Paypal.

Some of the arithmetic seems odd. Does a single file server really cost $250 a month in electricity? Assuming an average of 200 watts of power consumption  (My new Dell PowerEdge 110 with 4 hard drives is currently humming along at 93 watts as shown on the Watts-Up meter) ...

30 days, times 24 hours is 720 hours.
720 hours times 200 watts is 144000 watt hours, or 144KWh
A kilowatt costs about 12 cents in our neck of the woods.
144 times .12 = $17.28

The change for the hosted web server certainly makes sense. I also agree that the expense, maintenance and aggravation of hosting eMail on your own server seems to be high, instead of having this dealt with by a remote eMail provider. On-line Quickbooks? I'm not sure; my one experience with the online QB was less than satisfying, and most bookkeepers that I know seem to prefer the standard Windows version hosted locally.

What is significant in the article is that it is an excellent example of how people re-think their business practices. Hopefully the changes will promote increased productivity and convenience, in addition to showing significant cost savings.

Check out the article.  What changes could you make in your IT infrastructure?

Mid-winter in Vermont means any number of things, including spring skiing, the threshold of mud season, maple sugaring and initiatives in the state legislature. Our legislators have few support staff, and they depend on their constituants to help shape legislation and the state budget. One way for non-profits to help their own members help their legislators is to issue eMail "action alerts", which provide all of the information needed for the member to take a position on a particular issue. I had a good one today from Local Motion, a transportation advocacy organization that supports walking and bicycling.

Dear Local Motion Members:

Your help is needed to pass H.198, the Complete Streets bill, which would change Vermont transportation policy to ensure that the needs of all users – pedestrians, bicyclists, transit riders, and older drivers - are considered and accommodated in state and locally managed transportation projects. Complete streets provide safe, accessible ways to get around, help young and old be physically active, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and save on gas bills.Legislators are home this week for Town Meeting Day, and now is an important time to contact them about Complete Streets. We need your help to make sure Complete Streets is a priority for action in the House Transportation Committee.  Please contact members of this committee by mail, email or phone and ask them to support the bill.  If your legislator is not on the Transportation Committee, they need to hear from you too!

Click here for fact sheets and talking points (link)

Click here for a list of Transportation Committee members (link)

More information is at: http://www.localmotion.org.  Thank you for all your support for active transportation and recreation!

Signed (name of the executive director) Local Motion, Executive Director

organization address
web site
email address

Local Motion is a non-profit organization promoting active transportation and recreation for healthy and sustainable Vermont communities.

Get out and get active this winter -- at the Intervale Ski Trail or Great Ice in Grand Isle!

The beauty of this eMail is that Local Motion has now given me all of the tools that I need to contact my own representatives in the House and Senate with a position.
1. A short paragraph describing the bill, with a bill number.
2. A call to action.  "Do XYZ".
3. Links to a fact sheet
4. Links to talking points
5. Links to a list of legislators.
6. Contact  information for the organization
7. A tag line suggesting a relative activity sponsored by the organization.

This gives me everything I need to spend fifteen to thirty minutes or so to create an eMail message to send to my legislators. What's not to like about that?

Our legislators tell us  that for every one person who contacts them via eMail or phone message, they estimate a minimum of ten other constituants feel the same way. Such contacts are effective. If a legislator receives 100 messages about Bill X, and 10 about Bill Y, then they begin to get a sense of where they might focus their priorities for this particular legislative session.

This kind of personal constituant contact is much more effective than "email blasts" from advocacy groups or contact with lobbyists.  State politics are a contact sport. It can be fun and individuals really can influence the outcome of a legislative session.

4-H Robotics with Lego Mindstorms After School

The CasterBot

This week we'll be completing the second of two after-school programs using the 4-H robotics kits and curriculum. I've been working with a group of eight middle-school students, grades six and seven. The kids are divided into teams of two. Each team has a Lego Mindstorms 2.0 Robotics kit. The kits were provided by the 4-H as part of their extensive technical curricula. This has been a great learning experience, and not just for the kids.  

1. Most kids like building the robots. Those with Lego experience will have a leg up on those who haven't built with Lego. As with any building set, there is a plethora of a tiny pieces; over 600 are included in the stock Mindstorms set.  Managing these can be a challenge. The "retail" Mindstorms set doesn't come with any kind of box to separate everything.  I went to our local crafts store to get boxes with divided compartments to store the smallest pieces.

2. Most middle-school kids have never programmed before, so that will be a new experience. The NXT-G programming environment is a graphic environment that allows the programmer to connect "blocks" of functionality.  It is a derivation of LabView from National Instruments.  The software is surprisingly slow and buggy on Windows, and in my experience, useless on the Macintosh.  It works much better on a desktop computer rather than a laptop, let alone a netbook as a large screen is helpful.

3.  Mindstorms comes in a several different flavors. The retail version for Mindstorms 2.0 was released in 2008.  There is an educational version which requires purchase of the software separately for another $79.00. This includes (maddeningly) a few different parts from the retail version, as well as a couple of enhancements, including a lithium battery pack to replace the six AA batteries, and (hooray!) a set of trays for all of the parts. If I had my choice, I'd go with the educational version.

4. There is a fair amount of information, curricula, lesson plans and so on available in print and on the web. Much of this is directed toward a specific version, so if you want to build a project designed for the education version, and you have the retail version, you will need to modify the project, or buy extra Lego pieces. The original 4-H curriculum was based on an older version of Mindstorms, so I ended up assembling my own curriculum from bits and pieces that I found on the web.

5. We delivered our after-school program as six ninety-minute sessions.  We started with a discussion of the previous week's work, and an introduction to the current week's work. The kids worked in teams of two for about 55 minutes, and we left 5-10 minutes at the end of the session for cleaning up and organizing the kits.

6. Participants will have gaps in age and experience, and some kids will be slower than other kids, of course. My way around this was to have extra "bonus" challenges ready for the fast kids, so if they finished the weekly challenge, they would have something to work on. This is an issue in the first two weeks, however as they have gotten the hang of programming, they are happy working on their programs, so they don't need the bonus challenges.

7. There is considerable preparation involved. Even though I had lots of lesson plans to choose from, I ended up making my own. For the after-school program I estimate that I've spent at least a hundred hours in preparation and delivery. The 90 minute delivery blocks are a relatively small proportion of the total.  I think this may be one reason why there are not more similar programs in the schools; it takes an awful lot of time to prepare. Many parents and educators might expect this type of hands-on work to be delivered during the course of the normal school day as part of a math or science class.  I think such programs may remain rare as they would require a substantial revamping of the school curriculum to accommodate longer class sessions, longer prep and set-up times, and a special emphasis on STEM (Science, Engineering, Math, and Technology) in our public schools. Still, even as an after-school program, it may help spark some kid's interest in going further with math and science.

8. Typical start-up costs for a similar program might be around $4,800.  This would include $1200 for the Mindstorms kits, $2,800 for laptops (if computers are otherwise not available), and $800 for miscellaneous Lego pieces to augment and replace parts in the kits, as well as provide for paper, printing, travel, name tags, etc.  Assuming volunteer faculty are available running the program after the startup costs would only be a few hundred dollars, at most.  In my nefarious long term scheme, I'd like to get Rotary Clubs or other service organizations to adopt a local school and fund the start-up costs, and perhaps even deliver the program.