Whooo…. See the post describing the process here.

The download should be available for MSDN Universal / Express / Dev subscribers now, and for external beta groups by Wednesday (I’m told you can get your CD to you by Friday for those who are official beta groups). Some groups are reporting issues with build numbers, versioning, processors, etc. I suspect these are most likely due to MSDN’s upload / download system, which often has these issues due to minor human error. They’ll be fixed in the next few hours (if they aren’t already).

Okay, NOW I’m going to bed so I can actually get some work done tomorrow.

The whole web has been raving about the new beta from Google (see my rant here).

So, in keeping with being a fun and sharing community I figured I’d post the JavaScript that powers this beast behind the scenes. I’ve spaced it out (since Google removed everything extraneous, and I do mean everything, in favour of reducing the bandwidth requirements).

Anyways, I haven’t dissected the code yet, but here it is. Enjoy!

So, the book I mentioned yesterday is being done by yours truly.

Seems that someone else has realised this is a great idea as well.

There’s some history to this whole blogging books business (or business blogging books).

2 years ago more than 30 authors pitched books on blogging. Publishers didn’t want them. 6 months later they wanted to them and so they signed all the authors. So there was a raft of books on blogging.

But most of them were all hype, philosophical, “this’ll change the world”, “you need to get into this” types of things.

No practical. No real world. No lasting value for C-level folks, nevermind the people who’d actually have to do the work.

So, Robert Scoble and Shel Israel are looking to do a blogging book too. Same subject matter, same types of ideas. But they are looking to sell the book rights on eBay. I love Scoble. That’s awesome and is a great way to kind of refuel the wave that was started a week or so ago. Well done mate, luvin’ it!

Should I be concerned about two books? Hell no. In fact, if I do this book I’ll be promoting Robert’s just as much as mine. I’d love to be a chapter reviewer on Robert’s actually. Not so I can steal ideas but so I can tell him what a good job he’s doing.

The more the merrier on something like this, and if we can both come out with a fantastic book which benefits people in different ways… Well that’ll only raise the profile of blogging all the more. Plus, having two fantastic books out on a subject (same release date guys, you game for that?) it will also lend even more validity to the idea.

Really, really great stuff happening here.

I was going to take this weekend off to rest from the last week of craziness, but I’m too excited to do that now. I think I’ll probably throw a few hours into some brainstorming on the book. A blog and a wiki is a must. Community participation is key. If Shel and Robert are interested I’d love to bounce things off them as we go through this.

Community. Participation. Openness. Sharing. Transparency. Those are key tenets of some of the things that will really help companies. And what better way to make do a book on blogging (sorry, two books) than to do the same amongst the teams?

Obviously neither of us has signed a deal yet, but that’s never stopped me (or Shel and Robert I’m sure) from pushing ahead.

Robert, feel free to hop on MSN or to Skype me (jeremy_wright) so we can have a quick 5-10 minute chat. Obviously I’m blogging this because its more likely to get read than something in your email. But, feel free to email me if you want to set up a time (oh, and feel free to invite Shel too).

Am I excited? Damn skippy. And that’s saying something considering it’s -12F here right now.

Just a heads up. Just found out about C# Source, which is keeping a listing of hundreds of open source C# and .NET apps. Thanks to Jonathan for the tip.

This’ll probably come as a shock to folks that aren’t aware that Open Source isn’t just for non-MS technologies, but all you have to do is look at SourceForge and the GotDotNet Workspaces to see what’s happening. Cool technology will always mean cool Open Source. Which is cool.

Wow.

That’s all I have to say. I have never seen a case study of a bug be this detailed, insightful or useful.

Sub’d to blog feed!!!

During the last few weeks I have received several requests around RSS. One was for a tutorial that could be pointed to so that others could set-up fully-featured RSS feeds on their site. And the second was to provide a comment-less version of my feed (so you’d only see my feed as new if I’d posted new messages).

This piece will cover both of these, just because I’m so damned nice.

Note: This piece is in draft format. I have most of it done, except for the end RSS templates. If you want to contribute to this to help this process along, please do. Otherwise, it’ll take me a few weeks to get this list of 20+ templates completed. Thanks for your patience.

But, first some of the basics. If you want to skip the basics and get right into the feeds, or how to build yours, here are some shortcuts to jump there:

What Does this Primer Cover?
What is RSS?
What problem does RSS Solve?
How Does RSS Work in MovableType?
A Simple RSS File
RSS Feed List
RSS Versions
Example Full Feed
The Templates
Resources

What Does this Primer Cover?

This primer is targetted, mainly, at MovableType users, only because that’s all I have available to me. The RSS feeds I post will cover any blogging system which supports RSS, you’ll just need to put your own system’s variables in. If someone emails me updated templates for other systems, I will post them.

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What is RSS?

At the risk of being overly brief, RSS is an XML standard which allows blogs to publish posts in such a way that news readers and aggregators can present them in a friendly way to users.

One important thing to remember with RSS is that the versions (0.91, 1.0, 2.0) do not indicate the newest and best. It’s confusing, but you’re generally fine if you pick one and stick with it (1.0 or 2.0 being the most popular).

A full history and great article can be found here, written by Mark Pilgrim.

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What problem does RSS Solve?

If you have ever tried to keep up with what’s happening on more than 5 blogs on a regular basis, or if you’ve ever tried to keep up with the news, you know that the thing you do more than anything else is scan for new stories. RSS, combined with a solid news reader solves this problem. Instead of looking for it, you are told when there are new stories.

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How Does RSS Work in MovableType?

Whenever new entries are published, a series of “index” files are updated in MovableType. One of these is your RSS feed. If you log into MovableType and select your blog you have a menu on the left. Click Templates. Your RSS templates will be in the upper list. I currently have 4 (though I’ll have more by the time this article is done):

RSD			rsd.xml 	Yes
RSS 0.91 Index 	index.xml 	Yes
RSS 1.0 Index 	index.rdf 	Yes
RSS 2.0 Feed 	index.xml 	Yes 	

As you can see, I have 4 feeds, all of which are updated whenever the Indexes are updated.

I will give you the code for our final feeds later on, and I’ll also clean up the feeds on my end of things to make it simpler for my users.

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A Simple RSS File

Here is an example of a simple RSS template, from within MovableType. We’ll dissect this as a basis for understanding how the format works, and how to build our own customized feeds:

click here to see the code

This might be a bit complex, but I’ve tried to format it so that it’s easier to read.

There are 3 distinct parts to an RSS document, and I’ve tried to put each of them in bold for you. The first is the XML Declarations. You can basically ignore these completely, though they are unique for each RSS format (so make sure you have the right format for the right template). This just gives applications the info they need about your file and feed.

The second is the Channel information. This is the generic information specific to your blog. What’s the title, who wrote it, what language is it in, that kind of thing. If you’re using MovableType you’ll be able to basically keep this the same (with the exception of the Webmaster Email Address).

The third is the actual post entries. In this example I am only including some very basic information:

• Title

• Description
• Actual Entry (in this case, a full entry)
• Link
• Subject
• Creator
• Date

So, this is a basic RSS file. We’ll get into more on how to have shorter file versions, how to include comments, full HTML, etc.

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RSS Feed List

As far as I can tell, there are several types of RSS feeds you may want, at a bare minimum:

- titles
- titles with comments
- exerpts
- exerpts with comments
- full entry
- full entry with comments

You may want to get fancy with categorical RSS feeds and so on, but for now, these should fulfill most people’s needs.

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RSS Versions

There are more version of RSS than you can shake a stick at. The single most important thing to remember about RSS versions:

The version numbers mean nothing

For most applications, 0.91 is more advanced than 0.5, and 2.0 is more advanced than 0.8… In RSS this isn’t the case, generally speaking each ‘version’ is like a whole other specification. Not better. Not worse. Just different. Therefore, you’ll often have to make a choice about what version you want to publish (there is generally no need to publish more than one version, as all major readers can read all the major RSS versions).

For more information on RSS versions, there is a fantastic page by Microsoft which is well worth the read, specifically “Which RSS version is the most current?” and “What do RSS 1.0 and 2.0 look like?“.

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Example Full Feed

Here is the code currently in use at Ensight for a fully featured feed, with comments:

click here to see the code

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The Templates

[ I will be inserting roughly 10-20 templates here in the coming weeks. please be patient, or visit the Resources section for existing templates from other authors ]

Resources
Microsoft XML Primer
Jon’s Templates ( more )
Build & Learn RSS
History of RSS

Security wiseman Anil John summarizes, links to and then adds to a great article on protecting against SQL Injection attacks.

You prevent SQL Injection using the following tactics:

* Constrain the input by validating it for type, length, format and range. Remember, ALL INPUT IS EVIL, until proved otherwise!

* Use type safe SQL parameters. The parameter collection in SQL provides type checking and length validation. So if you use the Parameters collection, input is treated as a literal value and SQL does not treat it as executable code. Another point is that the Parameters collection can be used to enforce type and length checks so that values outside of the range trigger exceptions. You can use the Parameters collection with both sprocs as well as dynamic SQL.

* Use filter routines that sanitize the code by adding escape characters to characters that have special meaning to SQL. An example would be adding an escape character to the single apostrophe character. Keep in mind that these type of filter routines can be bypassed by an attacker that uses ASCII hex characters. So they should be used as just another part of your defense in depth strategy.

This will be an ongoing post over the next few weeks, with the goal of becoming a fairly comprehensive guide for how to tackle this very important issue.

For now, I’m going to keep it simple. For those who know how to read, here is the Software Update Services Deployment Whitepaper. That should be enough to get you going if you’re familiar with Patch Management, networks, etc.

For those who aren’t, give me a few weeks and this’ll be your ticket.

Okay, if you’ve followed the above document, you should be able to get your own SUS Server up without too much of a problem. After that, you need to get all your up-level (NT4, 2000 and XP) machines to point to the SUS Server, and update on a regular basis.

A great tool to verify this is the AUBehave.vbs file. Simply run it, type in the name of the machine, and it’ll tell you the current Automatic Update Settings for the machine. Great for while you’re doing these kinds of deployments.

If you were in an Active Directory environment, this would be really easy. You’d just apply a new Group Policy and be done. But, if you aren’t, you need to hack the registry pretty much ‘manually’.

Since I’m in a company with several thousand desktops, there’s no way I’m doing that. So, I turned to a friend I’ve come to know and love over the last few months: KiXtart.

I stole / cajoled / wrote the following script which handles everything you’ll need it to do. All you have to do is put in your SUS Server’s URL, and specify your SUS settings in the “*MODIFY THESE*” areas.

Before I show the script, I should note that it does require 4 other KiXtart scripts which you can view (or download by right clicking and choosing save as) here:

comnetview.kix
ping.kix
osid.kix
netview2.kix

Here’s the script that actually does the work: susupgrade.kix

Enjoy, and I’ll repost this when the “comprehensive guide” is complete.

Update: A complete version of this has been packaged for distribution. Many thanks to Rich Barbera for his help in this. You can find the SUS PC Update Kit here

It’s been awhile since I’ve posted any actual code. Most of the coding I’ve been doing this month has been in KiXtart. Most people will undoubtedly have not heard of “KiX” (the short form).

KiX is essentially DOS, on speed, for network admins of Microsoft networks. It has some pretty impressive functions. Normally it’s used as a login-script replacement. Some of what I’ve done has been in that space, other things I’ve done have been remote-execution scripts.

This script is for upgrading from ZENWorks 3.2 client to ZENWorks 4.0. It will also install the client if you don’t have one, and fulfills any pre-requisites that you might be missing.

Here’s the script:

; ZEN upgrade script - April 27, 2004
; Written by Jeremy C. Wright for the Health Sciences Centre

;**************************************************************
;
; EXECUTION CODE
;
;**************************************************************

GOSUB "setVals"
GOSUB "greetUser"

IF checkZenInstall ()=1
	tellUser ("nochange")
	EXIT
ENDIF

IF checkIEInstall ()=0
	GOSUB "doIEInstall"
ELSE
	GOSUB "doZenInstall"
ENDIF

tellUser ("nochange")
EXIT

;**************************************************************
;
; SUBROUTINES
;
;**************************************************************

:setVals
	; set the program and environment variables before initializing
	; BREAK OFF
	SetConsole ("SHOW")
	SetConsole ("MAXIMIZE")
	SetConsole ("FOREGROUND")
	SetConsole ("ALWAYSONTOP")
	CLS
RETURN

:greetUser
	; Initial comments to thank user for being patient
	? "This script will ensure you have ZENWorks properly installed."
	?
	? "Please be patient while this runs."
	?
	?
RETURN

:doIEInstall
	; Perform Installation of IE
	RUN "\\hscxntdb0012\ZenAgent\ie6install.bat"
	tellUser ("doingie")
	EXIT
RETURN

:doZenInstall
	; Perform Installation of ZENWorks
	RUN "\\hscxntdb0012\ZenAgent\zeninstall.bat"
	tellUser ("doingzen")
	EXIT
RETURN

;**************************************************************
;
; FUNCTIONS
;
;**************************************************************

FUNCTION checkZenInstall ()
	; Ensures ZENWorks is properly installed
	IF Exist ("C:\Program Files\Novell\Zenworks\zennw32.dll")
		$checkZenInstall=1
		RETURN
	ELSE
		$checkZenInstall=0
		RETURN
	END IF
	$checkZenInstall=0
ENDIF

ENDFUNCTION

FUNCTION checkIEInstall ()
	; Checks for the location of iexplore.exe on C and D, and checks version info
	IF Exist ("C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe")
		IF GetFileVersion ("C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe") < 6
			$checkIEInstall=0
			RETURN
		ENDIF
	ENDIF

	IF Exist ("D:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe")
		IF GetFileVersion ("D:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe") < 6
			$checkIEInstall=0
			RETURN
		ENDIF
	ENDIF
	$checkIEInstall=1
ENDFUNCTION

FUNCTION tellUser ($msgIn)
	IF $msgIn="nochange"
		?
		?
		? "Your system is up to date, have a nice day."
		?
		?
		RETURN
	ENDIF

	IF $msgIn="doingzen"
		?
		?
		? "We are now installing ZENWorks. Your computer WILL reboot."
		?
		?
		MESSAGEBOX ("Please wait... Your machine WILL reboot.","Installing...",48)
		RETURN
	ENDIF

	IF $msgIn="doingie"
		?
		?
		? "We are now installing Internet Explorer 6. Your computer WILL reboot."
		?
		?
		MESSAGEBOX ("Please wait... Your machine WILL reboot.","Installing...",48)
		RETURN
	ENDIF
ENDFUNCTION

To provide context, it's called in this manner:

IF INGROUP ("DESKTOP")
	IF @INWIN = 1
;		? "Windows NT Version is " + @DOS
	? "Updated Script, shouldn't run on 9x boxes"
		SLEEP 5
		CALL "ZENUPGRADE.KIX"
	ENDIF
ENDIF

The reason for the "INGROUP ("DESKTOP")" is that the "DESKTOP" group is our Global Group which assigns local admin rights. We can temporarily add users to this group, in which case the next time they login it'll run. Then we can remove them at a later date.

So far we've been adding 2-3 letters worth of users per day (about 500 users on average); and then removing 2-3 of the oldest letters.

Over the next week I'll also release scripts to convert clients from one print server to another, and to point clients at a local Software Update Services server.

Have a great weekend!

Vinnie’s got a great one again with Back to Basics #4.