Here are some things you may need to consider (outside of the obvious like DHCP scopes, DNS server settings, Firewall settings & rules, etc) when changing the IP range your Windows network operates on:

• TCP/IP Printer ports on print server
• Printer/Copier IP/DNS/SMTP settings
• Exchange allowed relay ranges
• Any copy/print accounting devices attached to copiers
• Monitoring host settings. Eg. Big Brother/Hobbit - Both client and server side, if not configured to use DNS in config files
• Server iLO IP addresses

Some steps for changing domain controller IP addresses. Do these first before any other important servers:

1. Change IP
2. ipconfig /flushdns
3. ipconfig /registerdns
4. Either restart the Netlogon service, or run ‘nltest /dsregdns’
5. Reboot

Disclaimer: This is by no means a complete list. Use these directions at your own risk.

What does this mean?, you say. It means you’ve got one neat console where you can manage all your remote connections in one place. mRemote currently supports these protocols:

• RDP (Remote Desktop)
• VNC (Virtual Network Computing)
• ICA (Independent Computing Architecture)
• SSH (Secure Shell)
• Telnet (TELecommunication NETwork)
• HTTP/S (Hypertext Transfer Protocol)
• Rlogin (Rlogin)
• RAW

I haven’t set it up fully yet, but it will be really handy to have all my web-based admin areas and SSH to Linux boxes in there too.

A side note, it uses the same rendering engine as Firefox, so some web-based admin pages may not display properly. This, however is no fault of mRemote or Firefox’s.

It can be done by simply creating a transform (MST) file using Orca. This is advantageous over importing the MSI into Advanced installer for the following reasons:

1. You’ll be using MYOB’s original MSI file
2. You don’t need to make any changes to the MSI file itself. All changes are specified in the transform file.

This will install Premier to the root of C drive, which is MYOB’s default location. For example, Premier 11 will be installed to C:\premier11.

You’ll need Orca installed. Instructions for Premier 12 are below. For Premier 11, follow the same instructions - but take note of point 4.2.2

1. Copy the default MSI and CAB files from the CD to your deployment share.
2. Right-click the MSI and choose “Edit with Orca”
3. Go to the Transform menu, and select “New Transform”. Any changes you now make to the MSI will be effected in a separate “MST” file.
4. Make the following changes:
1. In the CustomAction table:
   1. Select “ISVerifyScriptingRuntime” and press delete (or right click on it and choose “Drop Row”
   2. Do the same for ISSetupFilesExtract
   3. Do the same for ISSetupFilesCleanup
2. In the Directory table:
1. Change directory “KEY_NAME_SC” DefaultDir to “MYOB|MYOB” (without the quotes)
2. If deploying Premier 11:
1. Change directory  “ISYourCompanyDir” to MYOB|MYOB
2. Change directory “ISYourProductDir” to PREMIE~1|Premier11
5. Go to the Transform menu, and select “Generate Transform”. Save the transform file into the same network share/folder as your MSI and CAB file
6. You’re now ready to deploy Premier. Ensure you take note of the key points below:
   1. Make sure you choose the ‘Advanced’ Deployment Method, when you start adding the package to the policy.
   2. Assign the software package to the computer, in the “Computer Configuration” section of the policy.
   3. In the “Modifications” tab, make sure you specify the transform file that we created above.
   4. In the “Deployment” tab, be sure to check the “Uninstall this application when it falls out of the scope of management” checkbox.

If you’re not experienced in deploying software via MSI, the following links may be useful:

• How to use Group Policy to remotely install software in Windows Server 2003: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/816102
• How to assign software to a specific group by using Group Policy: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/302430/

foreach ($this->data[$this->name] as $key => $value) {
    if (!set::classicExtract($this->data,$this->name . '.' . $key)) {
        $this->data = set::remove($this->data,$this->name . '.' . $key);
    }
}

I use it where the DB may be expecting values for certain fields that are optional in the UI, and therefore may be returned empty by the controller.

For audio, I downloaded the driver directly from the Realtek website. All the drivers you need, however, are linked from this page: NotebookReview.com - Asus Vista 32/64 Drivers

Surprisingly, the ATK driver, OSD and hotkey utilities work nicely. They’re certainly fancier than the old XP version that came with the Z71 from the factory.

When I bought this notebook I specced it up to the max, so it’s not surprising that it runs Vista reasonably well. Keeping in mind that this is a fresh rebuild, I’m now logged on and looking at the desktop (and able to click the Start menu) only 1 minute after powering up.

I’m a little suspicious that something fishy is going on with my CPU clock  speed. I’ve set Power4Gear (and Vista’s power management before that) to use maximum CPU speed, and it sits at 1600MHz, even though it’s a 2100MHz CPU. I’ve tried my registered version of Notebook Hardware Control, but that had some bugs.

This gives me a Vista performance score of 3.4, with the limiting factor being the CPU. It’s still a decent score, but I believe it should be higher.

After many attempts over the years to get MYOB Premier deployed via AD GPO, I stumbled across a method this morning using only free tools.

These two tools are an essential part of my MSI toolkit, keeping in mind that i’m not some sort of MSI guru like the guys at appdeploy.com
1. Orca
2. WinInstall LE 2003 (WinInstall LE 2003 used to be distributed for free, but now you have to trawl around the net to find it)

The steps are as follows. I used this method for Premier 11, so that’s what i’ll use below.

1. Import Premier’s MSI into WinInstall, making sure you tick the option to copy the source files
2. In WinInstall, turn off components you don’t need installed. I did this over creating a transform file, as that’s overly complicated for my needs
3. Close WinInstall and open Orca
4. Delete CustomAction->ISVerifyScriptingRuntime
5. Change Directory->ISYourProductDir to “PREMIE~1|Premier 11″
6. Change Directory->ISYourCompanyDir to “MYOB|MYOB”
7. Change Directory->KEY_NAME_SC to “MYOB|MYOB Premier 11″
8. Save the MSI file and close Orca

This worked for me, so good luck.

1. In a plain text file, specify your safe senders and/or domains.

For example:

@example.com
bob@email.com

2. Place the above file in a location such as \\yourdomain\netlogon. This will ensure that it’s available to all domain users, plus - if you link to it later via the domain UNC path, you won’t be tied to a specific domain controller name.

3.1 Copy the following text, and save it into a file with the extension .adm

CLASS USER

CATEGORY "Microsoft Office Outlook 2003"
    CATEGORY "Tools | Options..."
        CATEGORY "Preferences"
            CATEGORY "E-mail options"
                CATEGORY "Junk E-mail"
                KEYNAME Software\Policies\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Outlook\Options\Mail
                    POLICY "Specify path to Blocked Senders list"
                        PART "Specify full path and filename to Blocked Senders list" EDITTEXT
                            VALUENAME JunkMailBlockedSendersFile
                        END PART
                    END POLICY
                END CATEGORY
            END CATEGORY
        END CATEGORY
    END CATEGORY
END CATEGORY

3.2 Download the official Microsoft Outlook 2003 ADM files. These will allow you to specify the location of the import lists (Safe Sender, Safe Recipient, Blocked Sender)

4. Import the administrative templates into your policy by right-clicking on ‘Administrative Templates’ underneath ‘Computer Configuration’ or ‘User Configuration’, and selecting ‘Add/Remove Templates’

5. Once you’ve imported the template, go to User Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 -> Tools|Options -> Preferences -> E-Mail options -> Junk E-Mail.

5.1 Go to ‘Junk Mail Import List’, select ‘Enabled’, and check the box.

5.2 Specify the location to your safe senders list

You’ll need to do a ‘gpupdate’ (Start, Run, ‘gpupdate’) in order for the policy to take effect. In addition to this, you’ll need to close and re-open Outlook in order to see the changes when you go to Tools -> Options -> Junk-Email -> Safe Senders.

Links:

Office 2003 Service Pack 3 Administrative Template (ADM), OPAs, and Explain Text Update

Office 2003 Resource Kit Downloads

Step-by-Step Guide to Using the Group Policy Management Console

It’s easier to give your customers a graphical representation of the shipping options. I couldn’t find any good ones on the net, so I created these.

Not sure if Auspost mind me putting these up. I’ll take them down if I’m not supposed to have them up.

Download the SVG file here. Use Inkscape to open the file.