Directory Express Screenshots

Posted on December 19, 2005 by CmdrChalupa

Directory Express is almost there. I’ve stopped adding features and am cleaning the code. Here are some more screenshots of the phone itself. These pics were taken of the desktop Cisco ip communicator. It’s basically a 7970 color screen.

Here is the Main Menu showing that in addition to the ordinary directory options you can search by name, initials or Department.

Searching by name lets you specify a first or last name by text.

Searching by initials mean punch in the first initial and last initial by number. if you want to find the number of John Smith you would punch in 57 and submit. This kind of search is wicked fast with the least number of button pushes and in small organizations gets you to the right person quickly.

Searching by department rips through the Active Directory to find all departments listed, so this is a dynamic list of entries in the users AD department field. Choose one to see the list.

Network Neatness

Posted on December 6, 2005 by datapoohbah

I recently received a magazine called ‘BizTech’. No it’s not really a magazine. It’s an Adverzine published by CDW.

There was an interesting article in this months Adverzine titled “Preparing for the Worst”

Now the image doesn’t show up so well here but in the Adverzine it’s a full friggin page.

This guy, who’ll remain nameless here on DataPoohbah, had is picture taken in front of his patch-panel for this article. (We’ve fuzzed him out so that he’ll remain somewhat protected, but damn dude, if they click through and figure out who you are, you should have known better.)

A patch-panel that is a complete and utter rats nest. If the worst struck his organization I don’t know how he’d ever figure out what’s connected to what. If he had a communications issues, they’d spend precious time tracing cables.

He should be embarrassed.

A properly patched network room/data center should look something like this:

Color coordinated, labeled and tagged patch cords. Velcro’d not wire tied so you can get them apart if need be, and in a hurry too.

Everything has it’s place and a place for everything. If the port isn’t live or need to be connected it’s not. If you need to connect it, you can find it. (what a concept).

Handy work provided by one CmdrChalupa!

It makes troubleshooting oh so much easier when you just do things right from the get go.

Dell 1850 and Cable Management Arms

Posted on December 5, 2005 by CmdrChalupa

While we’re on the subject of Dell Bashing, let’s bash a little more. In their great wisdom Dell decided to market a $2000 plus 1u server that no longer has cable management arms. the 1750 had them, but the 1850 does not. What’s up with that? Apparently I’m not alone in my criticism.

If you are one of those sick wierdo net admin types like me who like a clean datacenter, you must go thirdparty for your 1850 rack mount kit. Or you could go HP. Racksolutions.com has come up with a decent solution that has the arms, but is not a simple click in like the rapid rails. I guess one can’t have everything.

Photos of the installed server are here. We have used these for 5 1850′s so far and they work fine. Plus a bit cheaper than the Dell Solution (without arms).

And that’s a whole other rant. The retail price for the rapid rail kit is $159. I’m sorry but $159 for two pieces of shaped metal? That’s obscene. Anyone with a machine shop want to fix this?

WinBinder: PHP into Native Windows App

Posted on November 29, 2005 by datapoohbah

WinBinder This is pretty slick.

What is it?

WinBinder is a new open source extension for PHP, the script programming language. It allows PHP programmers to easily build native Windows applications.

Lots of possibilities here. Need time to explore But looks like a nice quick-n-dirty way to hack together a reasonable utility or application. More fun that VB or firing up Visual Studio perhaps.