Tag: general

I’ve been consulting and supporting corporate IT infrastructure for several years now. Lately, much of my work has been in remote desktop and network support, from walking remote users through program operation to installing software and devices. Remote support tools are necessary for almost any IT pro.

I’m sure many of you have used Microsoft’s RDP client to connect to systems. RDP is great for management of servers and systems where there is very little direct user access to the desktop. In my experience though, having access to the user’s desktop and sharing what the user sees is instrumental in solving problems. RDP is hindered in this due to the fact that when you RDP into a machine, the user cannot see the session on their monitor. RDP is also limited to professional versions of Windows and Windows specifically. In a lot of cases, I do not have complete control over the provisioning of systems, and supporting home versions of Windows and also OSX is a must.

This is where joinme.com comes in. It creates a connection to the active console session of the user’s computer, be it any flavor of Windows or OSX. Simply type in joinme.com into your browser of choice, and then have your user do the same. The user will need to click the share option on the joinme.com website. Depending on the browser and browser settings, it will prompt to download or run the joinme program. At this point, have your user run and then click allow to any UAC prompts. When it’s done installing, the joinme toolbar will be displayed at the top of the screen. Simply request from the user the 9-digit number displayed in this toolbar. Type this number into the join field on joinme.com on your computer and click join. Your remote user’s desktop will be displayed inside the browser. If you want control of the user’s desktop? You now have the ability to manipulate their system.

One small caveat to note is UAC enabled systems will freeze the joinme connection anytime a UAC prompt is displayed on the remote user’s computer. If you expect to encounter UAC prompts during your remote session, you can do one of two things. Direct the user to respond to the UAC prompt, and the joinme connection will reestablish. You may also disable UAC which will avoid the freezes completely. Joinme is a free to use service for non-commercial purposes. They do have a pay for service option that among other things offers a more robust application to connect to users’ desktops instead of running inside the browser. Hopefully this helps those of you that are looking for an easy solution to remote support.

(Source: Skynet Solutions)

By Dustin Fry

Everybody has heard the phrase ‘Garbage In , Garbage Out’. The developer is the first line of defense against the garbage going in. Although a developer cannot safeguard against items like a misspelled name or inverting two numbers within a telephone number, there are many things he or she can do.

The general rule should always be ‘f you can perform a validation to ensure accuracy and not allow bad data into your application, then do so.’

Dates are much easier now than in the old days when you had to validate that a date was really a date and in the proper format, but there are still date validations you can do. If your application requires a birth date, you should always make certain the date entered is not a future date. There won’t be anybody born in 2062 that needs to be entered into your system today. If you also have an employment start date and end date, you should ensure that the start date is not greater than the end date (if the end date exists), and that the start date entered is not earlier than the employee’s birth date.

Phone numbers can be checked to ensure they are the proper number of digits and all numeric. Email addresses can be validated to ensure they are formatted properly. If it is extremely important to your application, you can make them enter it twice or email them a verification to be completely certain it’s been entered correctly.

If you have a field like state code or country code always use a drop down or validate the keyed entry against your master table.

If it is important to the organization using your application to use titles for their customers like Dr., Mr., Mrs., etc, and you are also capturing the gender, it might be wise to ensure gender for Mr. is always male. This could save you, your company, or your client from sending an invoice to Mr. Tiffany Tidwell.

You should keep in mind that depending on who is keying information into your system they may not even be looking at the screen while typing. If they are typing from a list or stack of forms, their eyes will be on that list or a stack of forms, not the screen. If you write the code to validate your data properly once you can stop erroneous data from entering your system hundreds or thousands of times.

(Source: Skynet Solutions)

By: DJ Burrup

Ever wonder why Windows 7 got rid of the network activity icon on your tool bar? Follow this link on the MSDN website to see what the official word is for removing this function.

No Network Activity Indicator in Windows 7: But Why?

Microsoft got rid of a Techi utility that is really useful for some people. Well here is the answer.

Network Activity Indicator for Windows 7

This little utility (Takes up about 1.1MiB of space) will give you a Windows XP style icon on your task bar to show you network activity.

This little utility was written by a guy named Igor Tolmachev.

(Source: Skynet Solutions)

By Tony Purkey

A friend recently complained to me about all the annoying emails she kept receiving from Facebook (mainly FarmVille). I’m sure we have all heard similar complaints. So here is a quick blog about how to stop the spam from harvesting insanity.

First, let’s stop the emails which is pretty simple to do. First, obviously, log into Facebook. All the way to the right, there is a down arrow you will need to click on, then click Account Settings. On the left menu, click the Notifications button. On this page, you will be able to personalize what notifications that Facebook will email to you. This won’t stop you from being notified on Facebook. You will still get all the normal notifications that you would previously have gotten, however you will not get the emails. Check the boxes you want to receive emails for, and uncheck any boxes you don’t want to receive emails for. Personally, I unchecked every box, and I just visit frequently. While still on this page, you can easily click the Apps button, and then delete any apps you have installed that you don’t use. You can also click on the Mobile button to set up or turn off Mobile Alerts.

Next, let’s block some apps. If you don’t want to know about it every time Polly Peaches harvests her garden, or if you are tired of getting asked to help some mafia clan, this is for you. Start by clicking the Facebook icon at the top left hand corner to get to your newsfeed. Now scroll down just a bit. On the left menu bar, there will be options like Favorites, Groups, and Apps (you may need to click the “more” icon to open the full menu.) Under Apps, there is an Apps and Games option. Simply click this option, and there will be invites from friends. Now hover your mouse over an invite, and an X will appear at the top right of the invite. When you click the X, it will change to show that you have hidden the request, but it will also offer you an option to “Block the Application” or “Block all Requests” from the person that sent you the invite. I usually just block the app not the person, but if you have that one friend that tries every app and always sends you requests, you might think of “Blocking all Requests from Polly Peaches.” Then a “Block App” pop-up will appear. Click okay, and you’re set! You won’t be invited, contacted, or notified about that pesky app anymore. Your friend will not know that you blocked them or their apps.

If you decide later that you want to try out a blocked game, you can find it in this same place. There are options for apps your friends are using, new apps, and “recommended to you” apps. You can also manage blocked applications by going to the same right drop-down and clicking Privacy Settings, and then clicking on “Manage Blocking” next to “Blocked People and Apps.” You can now unblock any apps or people you have blocked requests from.

This whole process can take a little while, but it is definitely worth it.

(Source: Skynet Solutions)

By Ryan Williams