It's still here...

So...after years of neglecting this blog and not posting, I thought it might be time to come back to this with some SharePoint tips. I have been working with SharePoint intensively for the last 3 and a half years.
For the people still running MOSS, I cannot stress enough the power of KB 934838. This wonderful KB has fixed so many issues for me. This is mostly more for issues with shared services than anything else. Especially issues getting into search settings, or search administration pages. Most of the time, you may see an error that states that the search service is offline and to check the timer and administration services, but they are both enabled.
You also might notice that the search service is started and you cannot seem to find the problem that it is complaining about. You might also notice that when you go into your user profiles you get an error message complaining about SQL Server connection.
While this is not the case every time, most of the time, these error messages do not actually mean what they imply.
There is no issue with the connection to SQL Server. There is no issue with the services not running.
What it actually stems from is an issue with the credential key.
The credential key is a registry value that holds a hashed credential key. It does this on all SharePoint servers. This key is supposed to be updated every so often by a timer job.
Every now and again that timer job fails to do its job and this key may fail to be updated on one or more servers in the farm. I also want to point out that this can occur even on single server farms.
When this key fails to update on ServerA and it tries to communicate with other servers in the farm to get information regarding Shared Services, the other servers might not reply with that information because that key is not up to date.
Many times, this can lead to issues with user profiles or search, which depend on servers being able to share information.
Sometimes all that is needed to to sync all the passwords in the farm. This will update the credential key as well as sync all other passwords in the farm. Many times, that is enough to fix the problem.
I would recommend going through the KB in its entirety, as I have seen times where only going through the steps to update the credential key is not enough to allow communication on the farm.

Until next time...

Windows 7

Well, have been using Windows 7 on and off for some time now and it's finally available in most places. I thought I would post a short summary of my experience with the product. Overall an amazing leap over Vista in every category. Installation is improved, boot time is faster and for the most compatibility in the beta was on par with Vista SP2. I have noticed a couple of issues though. One, I have a Creative X-Fi and a Logitech 5.1 surround sound system. After installing Win7 and the beta drivers, internet audio appeared not to work. I found this was only the case when I had the Matrix Surround option for the speakers turned on. It might be conflicting with the drivers, but I found it rather odd. The other problem I had was in terms of using my really old crappy MP3 player with the standard explorer view drag drop system that had worked so well. It simply fails to recognize the device properly. It's not a huge deal as I no longer use that as my main MP3, but I always like to keep it as a backup. Those are really it. It's fast it looks nice and most importantly, it games nice. I have not had the luxury of testing it's multi-touch capabilities, but I hope to do so in the future.

Bioshock and Vista

I know it's been a while. I bought a copy of Windows Vista Ultimate quite some time ago. Up until recently though, I had not installed it. It was mainly because I had a perfectly good install of XP and I really had no reason to use Vista. I knew that it would simply eat more resources and that even though I am a fan of Aero, there would be changes to adapt to. I decided that I would put off installing until I had a reason to. Then it happened. I made the jump from DirectX 9 hardware to DirectX 10. I purchased a Geforce 8800 GTS 640. Not top of the line I know, but I am still running a fairly old single core processor. I have NO idea when I will get around to upgrading...ok well it will probably happen early next year. I just figured why spend all that extra money on power I won't even be able to use for quite some time. So after getting the card and benchmarking games in XP and being pretty much blown away by the performance of this little card. I thought, ok now is the time. I installed Vista mostly for benchmarking. I have to say that I am noticing that certain games run quite a bit slower in Vista and others I am not so sure about. I also recently bought Bioshock. I have to say, it's a hell of a game. However, ever since I installed it. I have noticed some odd things with Vista. First off I will say that I typically leave a CD in the tray until I finish a game, since typically I only play one game at a time. So first thing I notice is the second time I try to start the game. I wait and wait...and wait. Nothing. I check the processes and Bioshock is listed there, but the application itself does not start. I think maybe I just need to restart. So I tell my computer to do that. It just sits there and stares at me. Ok fine, I say I will just press the reset button. Vista comes back up and all is well. The game starts without a problem. The next time I try to start the game the same thing happens. This is an odd trend, but a reset always fixes the problem. After I am done playing Bioshock my computer runs fine. That is until I try to do something that requires Administrative rights. I notice that my computer becomes unresponsive and takes FOREVER to pop up the UAC control for me to allow the program. I tell myself this is not right. It's not using THAT much memory. So I check the EventViewer logs. In the last hour I had 140 errors for my CDROM0. Hmmm, I say, that's the drive that Bioshock is in. I notice that when I tried opening up Device Manager that the DVDROM light is blinking. So I take out Bioshock DVD . Little do you know everything works. It must be a part of that wickedly nasty DRM everyone has been raving about. Just thought I would post in case anyone runs across similar problems.

Kris

DX10

Well I finally did it. I purchased my first DX10 card, and no it is not an AMD card. I give those guys a lot of praise, but lately, I feel that in both areas, graphics and processors they are not able to beat the competition. I have chosen to purchase a Geforce 8800GTS. Yes I realize it's not top of the line, but it's good enough for what I need it for, considering my processor would do nothing but limit the GTX all the time. Actually, it still limits my GTS sometimes. All in all though, performance is there. I think it will actually allow me to play Unreal 3 engine games with most settings cranked...well after I put together my new computer with Core 2 Duo processor that is. Anyways, just thought I would say that it's a pretty good buy, especially if you don't have a massive processor, although people pinching pennies might go for the 320 as the RAM is cut in half and I would have went for that one except that in this day and age textures are huge and they will only get bigger. The 320 has enough power for now, in fact, in most current generation games, there is little difference between that and the 640. However I have seen instances that point to 30%+ differences in performance for future applications, so I said I wanted something a bit more future proof. I figure that this card should at least get me to summer of next year and probably all of 2008 before I feel I must upgrade. All in all, I am happy with my purchase.

Kris

The Orange Box

If you are like most gamers, you remember the first time you just walking along minding your own business and suddenly you are hoisted off the ground. Panicked you look around with wild terror realizing that a barnacle has you. You swing your crowbar wildly and it connects with a sickeningly squishy thud. there were many similarly satisfying moments in Half-Life. As good as Half-Life was, I didn't expect the sequel to be as good. Suffice to say I was amazed at how much better it was. There were so many moments when my jaw hit the floor in utter amazement, and it still stands to be one of the top 3 gaming experiences on my PC. Episode 1 was a very well made and welcomed extension to the Half-Life storyline, and I can't complain about the cheap price. Once I saw how much gameplay I got from the measly 17 dollars I had to pay, I started to come around to the idea of episodic content. When I saw some of the footage for Episode 2, I was like an 8 year old boy staring at that thing that they desperately want for Christmas even though it's only March. You can imagine my amazement when I found out that Team Fortress 2 and Portal would be included in this package. Wait are you telling me that I not only get a slightly longer game than Episode 1, but also a wonderful multiplayer experience as well as an intriguing puzzle game as well all for 20 dollars? I was just waiting for the sign-up sheet. Valve announced that it would have two packages the black box that included just the 3 new games and the orange box, more for the people who had yet to play Half-Life 2 or Episode 1. I thought wow that is an awful lot of content for 50 dollars, but seeing as how I have both Half-Life 2 and Episode 1, I was still sticking to the black box. Then it happened. No, flying green monkeys did not take over the planet. Valve announced that it was dropping the black box. Wait...so the millions of gamers that already have Half-Life 2 and Episode 1 and have played through both half a dozen times have to rebuy them again to play episode 2? I thought that's insane. So since I am the sucker I am it looks like I will be paying valve for the two games I already own twice. However, while I think that it's a great value, I would have much rather had to pay just for the episodic content I didn't already have. And one more point, isn't that the whole point behind episodic content you get a little for a little. It's supposed to help developers get content out the door at reasonable timeframes as well as put a lid on gripes of 50 dollars is too much to pay for a game, ok so you get 1/3 of a game for 20 dollars, most people can live with 20 dollars at a time. However now it's throw the whole package together and charge normal game price. I will be shelling out 50 bucks when the orange box comes out, but I am not too happy about it. I hope that this is not indicative of future trends as I don't know what I am going to do with two copies of two games let alone three copies of two games and two copies of three games. I hope that in the future Valve sticks to the episodic content model originally specified for the the original reasons.

Kris

Ubuntu

Well after spending a decent amount of time with a pre-release version of Vista and trying out some of the things I would normally do on a computer I was fairly impressed. Although, much was left to be desired from the Aero interface, it was a clean and well-designed more like XP Theme+ than a new interface. After Vista had released I kept getting annoying messages urging me to upgrade to Vista Ultimate every time I logged into Vista. It was quite annoying. I drew the line when I tried to apply an update to some part of Windows and it said I couldn't do that because I was using a pre-release copy of Vista. As anyone who has a bit of technical knowledge goes, using any version of Windows not fully (or at least close to fully) patched is asking for trouble, so I decided to cease using Vista. I decided to give Ubuntu a go. It seemed like a fairly straightforward release of Linux, focused more on easing the woes of first-time Linux adopters. So I installed newest release Feisty Fawn. Let me tell you, it's very nice. The first time I fired up the media player and tried to play an mp3, it gave me the standard "You don't have the right codec" message, but it asked if I wanted to download them. I said yes and within a minute I was listening to my mp3. GAIM which is a kind of like an all-in-one messenger application, was really easy to set up, it doesn't have all the features of MSN Messenger, but it includes things that are not in messenger such as a message to auto-reply if you are away. I also spent a decent amount of time trying to get Beryl working. I finally did, and let me tell you it's a very nice piece of software. It is everything I wish Vista's Aero interface would have been and more. http://www.beryl-project.org/features.php Here are some screens and descriptions of features in Beryl. The only things I need now are an audio mixer and a audio loop program. I will probably just use Alsa as my mixer because it seems to be easy to install and include the basic functionality I am looking for. I also think I will give LMMS a try as it looks somewhat similar to Fruity Loops. I just hope that the samples I have are compatible with it. In any case I have had a wonderful experience thusfar. I will not lie. Linux is definitely not for everyone. If you are happy with Windows and paying for software that is fairly stable, then stick with it. For those of you who want more functionality for free and are willing to put a bit more time into it as well as helping others when you can on forums (this is what the open source community is all about) then I urge you to test it out. Sadly, I must admit that I have not completely forsaken Windows or Microsoft. I have two reasons for this. First, my job is working with Windows and Windows apps so I need to have them on there in order to be efficient at my job. Secondly, there is no solution yet for the PC Gamers out there. Cedega works, but not nearly as well as I hoped. Anyways, gotta get going,

Signing off,

Turellius

It's been a long time...

Well, it's been a long time since I have posted to this blog. I figured with Vista's release coming soon and seeing as how I have been testing it and using for the past couple months I would touch upon that and Office 2007. Ok, so despite my best intentions to hate Vista, I don't. I like it, and I think it's definitely a worthwhile and much needed replacement operating system. Will I embrace it with open arms when it releases at the end of January? Short answer is no, but I figure I don't use it on a daily basis and I have a working copy until June (RC1) so I am going to wait until then to purchase Vista. Besides Crysis isn't coming out until the end of 2007, and it could be delayed.
Do I think that everyone should go out and buy Vista right away, no I don't. I think that it would serve most people well to wait. Wait for at least 6 months or a year if you can. I do like Vista and there is definitely some really neat and some awesome features. The new security is a definitely plus, the updates to group policy are nice and WIM or Windows Image Manager is one of the best features. It allows a person to make an image of a Vista install and use that image to deploy it multiple computers. I think it will be very useful for organizations that need to deploy many Vista machines. And how could I forget DX10 I have tested Vista as a gaming platform and I have to say it felt just like I was gaming on XP, which is a good thing seeing as I was using a pre-release build. Another nice thing is the inclusion of parental controls.
As with all things there are downsides. UAC, which is supposed to protect people from either unintentionally doing something that could harm the computer to protecting them from things happening in the background such as silent software installs or scripts. Right now those of you that haven't used Vista are thinking yeah that sounds great, and I tell you it is great, except that for everything Windows dectects it needs to confer with the user as to whether or not the user initiated this action. While the user is making their choice Windows brings the OS to a halt, which is fine, in fact very secure. It just seems that there are a lot of things that need my ok. I will be honest, it doesn't bother me personally that much. However, I think those that like things to just "work" will find themselves getting a little annoyed with the extra mouse clicks. It should also be noted that you can turn this feature off, but Microsoft does not recommend such action and neither do I.
Another peg against the OS is more from a vendor point of view, but if a person buys the 64-bit Vista they cannot install any unsigned drivers. So for those of you that like Omega video card drivers or any other homebrew drivers stick to the 32-bit Vista. Some anti-virus companies have claimed anti-trust against Microsoft for not allowing them to patch the kernel and therefore rendering their anti-virus useless on 64-bit systems. So for those of you who need a 64-bit OS, just keep in mind that your anti-virus choices will be limited. I have to dock points from Microsoft for the inclusion of the "PatchGuard" technology in the 64-bit OS. I mean it's only a matter of time before the bad guys figure out a way around it and I am sure that the bad guys will figure this out before the good guys, so in a way the only thing Microsoft did was disallow customization with alterative flavor drivers and potentially open 64-bit Vista users to security risks while severely limiting their protection options. I understand why Microsoft included the feature, but they really should give malware and virus writers a bit more credit.
I do need to include a little blip about parental controls. In my opinion and in many parents' eyes this feature is long overdue. I applaud Microsoft for allowing parents such controls over how the OS and IE works, however, it could be a bit clearer. I was able to set up controls with relative ease, however I think doing the same for any normal parent with limited technical knowledge will be much more difficult and confusing. I think they would have been better off using a wizard with simplified definitions by default with the control panel applet as an option. It should also be mentioned that parental controls are only available in Vista Ultimate version. So I am sure parents will buy it and the less technically knowledgeable will eventually give up trying to configure it. Hopefully, Microsoft puts out some documentation on how to configure it.
Another small tidbit is program incompatibility. Anyone who has been reading knows that there have been a lot of program incompatibility issues. This is a big part of why I said I would wait. Chances are after release the program incompatibilities will lessen. Not only that but by waiting a lot of security issues and other problems that crop up after a release will be fixed.
My last point is Aeroglass. This is the new look of Windows. Does it look good? Yes, it does and it adds some effects like transparency, flip and flip 3d. Do I like it? Well, this is a complicated question. I think it's highly overrated, it looks good, but none of the effects warrant needing a DX9 video card. For all the build-up and talk when I saw it, I thought 'hmm...that's it huh'. It didn't blow me away. I do like that the entire desktop is rendered so that windows will not stay on the desktop due to the processor being busy. That always annoyed me about XP. Sometimes when a program became unresponsive the window would stay up until the program was closed, preventing access to the desktop. Well, no longer now you can always access your desktop regardless of what is unresponsive. I will probably use it just to get familiar with it and then ditch it in favor of the classic interface. I didn't like the XP interface either so I currently use classic.
Well, I do realize that I spent a lot more time on the negative than the positive, but I will be honest most of the changes that I like have to do with kernel level changes, not so much changes to the look and feel. I typically do not like changes to the look and feel of something that is already functional. Vista is not perfect, however I can say that it has a lot more going for it coming out of the gate than XP did. All in all, it will be a great OS not right away but 6 months from now, it will definitely warrant purchase.

Signing off,

Kris