Tim Long

The Silverlight Train is Coming

I'm convinced that Silverlight 2.0 (currently in beta) is going to be the biggest thing to come out of Microsoft this year. Amid all the hype of the 2008 launch wave, Silverlight is almost getting overlooked, but to me, Silverlight is going to be big. Surely it is the next salvo in the API Wars, aimed squarely at technologies like Flash and JavaScript. Version 1 of Silverlight was basically a way to get streaming media onto a web site, but 2.0 will be much more. It'll enable a whole new generation of Rich Interface Applications (RIA) delivered through a web browser. Silverlight is cross-platform and cross-browser, working today on Mac and Windows, IE, Firefox and Safari, with planned support for Linux ("Moonlight") being developed by Novell.

Another technology dear to me is SharePoint, because of its promise for delivering on the Software + Services paradigm. When I attended the recent MSDN Roadshow in Cardiff, I asked about combining Silverlight and SharePoint technology and while the answer was positive, it wasn't authoritative. Luckily, the UK SharePoint User Group recently covered this very subject and I've found a fantastic resource for SharePoint developers with blueprints for adding Silverlight. There is plenty of example code and walk-throughs.

Check out the Silverlight portal for some demo Silverlight applications. The Hardrock Memorabilia site is a good one to have a look at. See if you can find the miniatures of the four Beetles - hint: postage stamps are not always what they seem.

Wait - They're all at it!

OK, I just blasted Microsoft for forcing me to use beta quality software at Virtual Earth. I resolved to check out the competition and - guess what?

Oh my goodness, beta quality software. Plus, check out the license terms and conditions:

So that means, unless I am mistaken, that by using Google's software, I have to essentially agree to insure Google against any claims against it that arise out of my use of the software. Gadzooks! No thanks, Google.

Since When Have Betas Been Mandatory?

I didn't want to run beta quality software so I clicked Cancel. (to give the full story, I already installed the beta on another computer and didn't like the changes).

Well this is just too much. Not only does Microsoft attempt to install this beta without my permission (luckily being defeated only by their own UAC logic), they don't give a way to opt out of the beta. Normally, you'd think that cancelling the beta installation might allow you to continue running the current, production quality code. But no. The choice here is run the beta, or lose the ability to display 3D altogether.

Make your mind up Microsoft. Quit forcing people to run beta quality code. Either release the code to production, or set up a separate beta site.

Maybe the cancel button should read "Continue running production quality code at Google Earth"?

Poor Man's URL Filtering for SBS

I just did a hack for one of my customers to stop one problem employee surfing on Facebook all day. While I'm no fan of blanket barring of web access, in this instance we needed some simple, short-term measures that didn't warrant any real expenditure on full-blown web filtering tools.

The technique I used essentially hijacks the site's domain name and returns fake results to the client's browser. It's ugly but effective - here's what I did.

1. Create a new DNS zone on the small business server, a primary zone stored in Active Directory, as follows (click the thumbnails to see a screen shot):
   

	Create a primary zone, stored in Active Directory.
	Accept the default replication scope of "all DNS servers in the Active Directory Domain".
	In the domain name box, enter the domain to be blocked - in our case "facebook.com".
	Select "Do not allow dynamic updates".

2. Add a wildcard alias that resolves to your Small Business Server internal address, as follows:
   

Click on your new primary domain (facebook.com) to highlight it, then in the right hand details pane, right click and select New Alias (CNAME). In the Alias Name box, type an asterisk (*) so that the fully qualified domain name reads *.facebook.com. In the FQDN for Target Host box, type your server's domain name (usually <servername>.<companyname>.local.). The simplest way to do this is to click the Browse button, navigate to your server's A (host) record and select it from the list. Click OK and you're done.

3. Test the target URL from a client workstation. Instead of going to the target URL, you should see the default web site on the Small Business Server.
   

Simple but effective and doesn't cost a penny. In theory, you could repeat this process for each URL that you need to block, though it would quickly get unmanageable. It's not a bad technique for quickly and simply blocking a few problem URLs.

Clearly, though, this is not a foolproof technique. It is a quick and dirty hack and should be regarded as such. Someone who knows about TCP/IP networking could defeat this simple mechanism - but it will baffle the vast majority of office workers.

CRM 4.0 Outlook Client Crashing

I've recently experienced a problem in the CRM 4.0 client for Outlook (both the desktop/online and laptop/offline versions) where Outlook would inexplicably crash every 15 minutes (the default CRM synchronisation interval is 15 minutes).

We had narrowed down the problem to a few contacts and had worked around it by marking the problem contacts Inactive, which prevented them from synchronising with Outlook. By luck I stumbled across a web page describing this issue and it turns out that the problem occurs if the contact has a date of birth prior to 1/1/1970. I'm guessing here, but I seem to remember that some dates are stored as the number of seconds since 1/1/1970, so that would give birthdays prior to that date a negative value internally - I expect they were using an unsigned integer to store a signed value.

A supported hotfix is available here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/948045

While you're waiting for the hotfix, you can work around this problem by modifying your local data groups to exclude contacts with birthdays. Add a new criterion that checks the Birthday field, condition "Does not contain data".

A Reminder of Scale

Someone on my astronomy group sent me this image today. It shows the relative scale of all the stuff we can see out there in space. Some of those little pinpricks of light are a lot bigger than you might think.