Install The GIF Support On To Your Windows Machine

More often than not, Windows users can get frustrated when they find that they can’t open up the files that have a GIF extension. GIF stands for Graphic Interchange Format and Windows won’t be able to open these files if the graphic design program associated with these files got uninstalled from or has never been installed on your system. This will leave you in no man’s land for you won’t be able to access these GIF files stored on your computer without the help of that particular graphic design program. Luckily, it’s not difficult to bring back the graphic design program back to your system. Follow these instructions drafted by the Windows support and research crew to have your issues fixed.
Instructions
Microsoft Internet Explorer
o Pick out the GIF file from the folder where it is stored and access the "Properties" tab by right clicking on that file.
o Go to the "General" tab tag along to the "Change" tab.
o Launch the "Microsoft Internet Explorer" by hitting on the IE icon.
o Mark the check box that lies next to "Always use the selected program to open this kind of file" and hit on the "OK" tab to imply the changes brought in.
Microsoft Paint
o As we did before, get to the GIF file and right click on it to bring on the "Properties" tab.
o Pick out the "General" tab move towards the tab portrayed like "Change".
o Launch the "Microsoft Paint" application by navigating to the "C:\Windows\System32" inside the "Browse" Windows and click on the "mspaint" tab twice to bring it in to the spot light.
o Leave a check mark beside the tab "Always uses the selected program to open this kind of file" and hit the "OK" tab to entail the modifications done.
Microsoft Windows Live Photo Gallery
o Go to the location where the GIF files are stored and click on a particular file and right click on it again to bring on the "Properties".
o In the "General" tab opt for the "Change" tab.
o Launch up the "Windows Live Photo Gallery" application on your Windows machine.
o Tag along the check box leaving behind a cross mark right next to "Always uses the selected program to open this kind of file" and tag along "OK" to bring on the changes made,
No more worries, all the GIF files stored in your computer can be now accessed. For more information, get in touch with the Windows tech support team.

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Interact Intranet: Automate the Extraction of Binary Profile Pictures for use in Active Directory

Active Directory can be used as a central repository for the storage of profile pictures.  This source can then feed email, CRM, intranets, messaging and other enterprise software.

Unfortunately, there isn't an out of the box way for users to add these photos directly to Active Directory (as far as I'm aware!) so some trickery needs to happen to get this all to work.

This blog post will explain how we extract user profile pictures from our Interact Intranet environment and then upload them to Active Directory.

Step 1: SQL query to identify users and their pictures

Microsoft recommends square profile pictures with dimensions of 96x96.  Interact conveniently already thumbnails pictures into preset sizes.  After testing, we found that their 4th size, 75px width, has sufficient clarity when used in Active Directory, which allows us to export pictures without the need for programatic image manipulation.  Note: If you do want to investigate image manipulation you might start with a library like ImageMagick.

select PERSON.NTUsername, ASSET_INSTANCE.BinaryData
from PERSON
INNER JOIN ASSET_INSTANCE
on PERSON.AssetID=ASSET_INSTANCE.AssetID
Where PERSON.NTUsername != 'ARCHIVED'
and PERSON.AssetID is not NULL
and AssetSize='4' 

Step 2: Export pictures to a file path

Below is the code that is triggered though a nightly job to extract the binary data from the database and convert it into files at the designed path.
Credit for this code, and pulling this project together, comes from coding ninja extraordinaire Matt Chiste from Integryst who was able to complete the development in less time than it took me to write the requirements!

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Data.SqlClient;
using System.Data;
using System.IO;
namespace PicExporter
{
    class Program
    {
        static string connString = "Data Source=<redacted>;Initial Catalog=<redacted>;Persist Security Info=True;User ID=<redacted>;Password=<redacted>";
        static string cmdString = "select PERSON.NTUsername, ASSET_INSTANCE.BinaryData from PERSON INNER JOIN ASSET_INSTANCE on PERSON.AssetID=ASSET_INSTANCE.AssetID Where PERSON.NTUsername != 'ARCHIVED' and PERSON.AssetID is not NULL and AssetSize='4'";
        static string folder = "pics/";
        static string FILENAME_EXTENSION = ".jpg";
        static int FILENAME_INDEX = 0;
        static int BINARY_INDEX = 1;
        static string PROP_FILE = "picexporter.properties";
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            Console.Out.WriteLine("START: " + DateTime.Now.ToString());
            // vars
            string filename;
            loadVars();
            // set up the connection
            SqlConnection conn = new SqlConnection(connString);
            SqlCommand cmd = new SqlCommand();
            SqlDataReader rdr=null;
            try
            {
                // run the command
                conn.Open();
                cmd.Connection = conn;
                cmd.Parameters.Clear();
                cmd.CommandType = CommandType.Text;
                cmd.CommandText = cmdString;
                rdr = cmd.ExecuteReader();
                // iterate the users
                while (rdr.Read())
                {
                    // write to the log
                    Console.Out.Write("Extracting user: " + rdr[FILENAME_INDEX].ToString());
                    // get the byte array for the image
                    Byte[] b = new Byte[(rdr.GetBytes(BINARY_INDEX, 0, null, 0, int.MaxValue))];
                    rdr.GetBytes(BINARY_INDEX, 0, b, 0, b.Length);
                    // write rest of line to the log
                    Console.Out.Write(" (" + b.Length + "bytes)");
                    // check existing file
                    filename = folder + rdr[FILENAME_INDEX].ToString() + FILENAME_EXTENSION;
                    if (File.Exists(filename))
                        Console.Out.Write(" [UPDATE]" + Environment.NewLine);
                    else
                        Console.Out.Write(" [NEW]" + Environment.NewLine);
                    // user names prefixed with the domain will have a \ in them.  Need to make sure the full folder path is created
                    if (!Directory.Exists(Path.GetDirectoryName(filename)))
                    {
                        Console.WriteLine("Creating Folder: " + Path.GetDirectoryName(filename));
                        Directory.CreateDirectory(Path.GetDirectoryName(filename));
                    }
                    // write the file
                    FileStream fs = new FileStream(filename, FileMode.Create, FileAccess.Write);
                    fs.Write(b, 0, b.Length);
                    fs.Close();
                }
            }
            catch (Exception ex)
            {
                Console.Out.WriteLine("EXCEPTION: " + ex.Message);
                Console.Error.WriteLine("EXCEPTION: " + ex.Message);
            }
            finally {
                // close the connections
                if (rdr != null)
                    rdr.Close();
                if (conn != null)
                    conn.Close();
            }
            Console.Out.WriteLine("FINISH: " + DateTime.Now.ToString());
        }
        static void loadVars()
        {
            string propFile = Directory.GetCurrentDirectory() + "\\" + PROP_FILE;
            string line, name, value;
            StreamReader file = null;
            // Read the file line by line
            try
            {
                file = new System.IO.StreamReader(propFile);
                while ((line = file.ReadLine()) != null)
                {
                    try
                    {
                        name = (line.Substring(0, line.IndexOf('=')));
                        value = (line.Substring(line.IndexOf('=')+1));
                        if (name == "connString")
                            connString = value;
                        else if (name == "cmdString")
                            cmdString = value;
                        else if (name == "folder")
                        {
                            folder = value;
                            if (!Directory.Exists(folder))
                            {
                                Console.WriteLine("Creating Folder: " + folder);
                                Directory.CreateDirectory(folder);
                            }
                        }
//                        else
//                            Console.WriteLine("ignoring property: name: " + name + ", val: " + value);
                    }
                    catch (Exception)
                    {
                        // ignore line without "="
//                        Console.WriteLine("ignoring line: " + line);
                    }
                }
            }
            catch (Exception ex)
            {
                Console.Out.WriteLine("ERROR READING " + propFile + ": " + ex.Message);
                Console.Error.WriteLine("ERROR READING " + propFile + ": " + ex.Message);
            }
            finally
            {
                if (file != null)
                    file.Close();
            }
        }
    }
}

Reference: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/317016

Step 3: Import pictures to Active Directory

The following powershell script runs through a scheduled job.  The job searches the folder we have extracted photos to for newly modified photos and then calls the script, which matches the filename of the photo to the network User Name and then uses native Active Directory APIs to add the image to the user’s profile.

param($Identity,$Path);
# Import a .jpg into Active Directory for use as the Exchange/Outlook GAL Photo
# For best resultsL <10kb files, 96x96 dimensions
Add-PSSnapin Microsoft.Exchange.Management.PowerShell.Admin
if (!$Identity)
{
    throw "Identity Missing";
}
if (!$Path)
{
    throw "Path Missing";
}
if (!(Get-Command Get-User))
{
    throw "Exchange Management Shell not loaded";
}
$User = Get-User $Identity -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
if (!$User)
{
    throw "User $($Identity) not found";
}
if (!(Test-Path -Path $Path))
{
    throw "File $($Path) not found";
}
$FileData = [Byte[]]$(Get-Content -Path $Path -Encoding Byte -ReadCount 0);
if($FileData.Count -gt 10240)
{
    throw "File size must be less than 10K";
}
$adsiUser = [ADSI]"LDAP://$($User.OriginatingServer)/$($User.DistinguishedName)";
$adsiUser.Put("thumbnailPhoto",$FileData);
$adsiUser.SetInfo()

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How to Set Password on Your Windows XP

Windows XP is the most popular operating system in the world. It has got a number of unique features, which make it a favourite to all. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that it is the release of Windows XP that made Microsoft the world’s favourite OS provider. Windows XP support also assists us with a lot of supporting software that make our jobs easier.
Security Features
Another important feature of windows XP is that, it secures the data of its users efficiently from threats like viruses and unauthorised use by others. Windows XP support includes firewall and other options to protect from various malware and the most laudable security feature that makes your computer ultra secure from unauthorised use is the setting up of passwords.
If you are using Microsoft Windows XP Home or Professional versions, you can set password to keep your computer account safe and secure. But if there is only one account in your Windows XP, that doesn’t really demand setting up of password. However, if there are multiple accounts, you will need to set up password for your account. Try the following steps to reset the password of your computer account.
Steps to Follow
• First, you have to reboot your computer and keep pressing the F8 key while rebooting the windows. You will get access to the Windows Advanced Options Menu.
• You can see the Safe Mode option in the Windows Advanced Options Menu. Using your computer keyboard’s arrow keys navigate to Safe Mode and press Enter key.
• Go to Start menu of your computer and click on Run to open another window.
• In the field provided in the new window, type mmc and click OK so as to access the Microsoft Management Console.
• By clicking the small + symbols on the left hand side of the window, you can increase the number of Local Users and Groups.
• In the expanded Local Users and Groups, click on Users.
• Then right click on the Administrator and click on Set Password.
• Set your password there and save it. Now that you have set up your administrator password, your account cannot be accessed anymore without entering the right password.
Hope the steps to set administrator password was helpful. Set one now and secure your PC.

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Hide Content Based Upon Iframe Parent

Some web sites use iframes to display information from other web servers.  This is a practice that is generally frowned upon yet is a necessary evil sometimes.

I work on an employee intranet where we need to display content from another internal server.  The problem is that sometimes our employees access the site from off of our domain where they don't have access to the internal server.  To get around this issue I've created an extremely simple javascript snippet which can be added to the page to hide the content and display a message to the user explaining why they can't see the content.

I'm posting it here as a reference for myself and in case someone out there needs something like this!

<div id="whatever">Your content</div>

<STYLE type=text/css>
   .hidden { display: none; }
</STYLE>

<script type="text/javascript">

   function referrerCheck()
   {
      var mapReferrer = document.referrer;
      var mapDiv = document.getElementById('content');

      if(mapReferrer=="http://this is the URL calling the iframe")
      {
         mapDiv.className='unhidden';
      }else{
         mapDiv.className='hidden';

      }
   }

   referrerCheck();

</script>

How it works:

1. All of this code goes onto the page which calls the iframe.
2. The div at the top is where your iframe goes - what you want to hide if folks are off the domain.
3. The style section sets the stage for what you want to happen if folks are off the domain.  In this case we want to not display the entire div.
4. The javascript runs the referrerCheck() function which grabs the document.referrer which is the page that calls the iframe.
5. The getElementById functions gets the div object so that its class can be manipulated.
6. The If condition then determines whether or not the referrer is on or off domain and sets the class accordingly.

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Interact Intranet: Alerts

Interact Intranet uses a system of alerts to notify users of certain activities.
Some activities additionally trigger emails (covered in my previous post: Interact Intranet: System emails).

The purpose of this post is my own documentation on what I've learned about the alert system on version 5.1.5.

Manage Alerts

From time to time someone might trigger an alert that administrators would like to remove.
We've removed system emails several times and the process is very straight forward.

Within Site Admin: Control Panel: Manage Alerts you can find and delete alerts.

Be aware that alerts in this area are a combination of future and past alerts.  Meaning some have been sent and others are in the queue to send at a later date.  It would be helpful if there were an indicator for this!  I haven't been able to determine the sort order but they don't appear to display chronologically nor alphabetically.

Advanced Alert Management

Alerts (future and past) are stored in the ALERT table of the Interact database.
Key fields in the table include:

• DateAdded - date the alert was created
• DateFor - when the alert is due to be sent
• Date Actioned - when the Alert has been read by a user (aka actioned)
• ActionedBy - which user the alert has been actioned by

Alert SubType IDs

Alert subtype ID's are used to help organize alerts by activity in the database.
After over 10k alerts being sent by our system (1 month of production use) these are the IDs that have triggered alerts for us and their titles:

• 1 New Blog Post
• 2 Keyword Suggestion
• 2 You have received a comment on one of your blog postings
• 3 Is This Up To Date?
• 7 Document Version Approved
• 8 Comment Reported
• 8 Post Notification
• 8 Thread Notification
• 8 Thread/Post Content Reported
• 9 <Title of document pending approval>
• 10 Document Review Reminder
• 12 Document Expiry Warning
• 13 Document Watch
• 14 Document Comment Received
• 17 An update has been scheduled
• 18 Interest Suggestion
• 19 Feed Notification
• 20 <Username> has invite you to join <team name>
• 22 Share Notification
• 23 A comment has been made about your image.
• 200 You have been tagged

A number of alerts have null as their SubTypeID.  Those include:

• {TEAMNAME} Notification.
• Accepted Interest Suggestion
• <Username> has requested to join <team name>.
• Approval Request Deleted
• Comment Request Deleted
• <team Name> Membership (upon being granted access to a team)
• Rejected Interest Suggestion
• Team Creation
• Team Request

Note

AFAIK alerts (and emails) are triggered by actions of others and can't be self-triggered.
This needs more testing on my end to validate this behavior.

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Interact Intranet: Customizing your login page

Modifying your Interact login page is easy to do, although probably not upgrade proof.  If you are going to make any customizations, be smart and make a backup of your customizations (in addition to the originals)!


The source files for the login page are stored at \Interact\WEB\Interact\Login.  From there you can modify the default.aspx and default.aspx.vb files per your design.  The CSS is quite complex so if you aren't strong at manipulating floats properties in DIVs then you might just want to start from scratch (or delete everything between the BODY tags).

With some graphic help from our creative department I was able to whip this up in about an hour.

Good luck!

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Try the New Microsoft Windows 8

Windows 8 is the latest platform in the Windows operating system series from the house of Microsoft. Microsoft announced the development of Windows 8 before its release itself. According to Microsoft’s announcement, Windows 8 was expected to be too different from the previous versions. When they released the pre-release or evaluation version, everyone was shocked because it was far more than everyone expected. There were a lot of changes that even made Windows 8 stand apart from its siblings. Windows 8 didn’t hit the market as expected by Microsoft because the traditional and power PC users are against upgrading from the old Windows platforms to Windows 8. Their reason for not upgrading is that, Windows 8 doesn’t have any traditional Windows 8 qualities and furthermore they didn’t want to cross over such a huge learning curve. There are a lot Windows 8 support and forums filled with the discontent articles from end users.
But Windows 8 is not as bad as most of the users think. It’s true that Windows 8 has totally new User Interface. But that doesn’t mean that the classic Windows User Interface has been dropped by Microsoft. Microsoft included the Traditional User Interface as an option in Windows 8. Above all, the features and utilities, performance and appearance are very good in Windows 8. If you want to try out Windows 8, get your hands on an evaluation copy or trial copy today!

How can I try Windows 8?
If you are using a trial version, you can use it freely for one month. After the trial period you can buy Windows 8 and enter the serial to activate Windows 8. After the trial period, many features are disabled in case the license key is not entered. Evaluation copy doesn’t allow you to license or register. You can use it for 30 days, after which many features get disabled. If you like it, you can purchase a genuine version and install it. In any case, no harms are caused by trying out the evaluation copy or trial copy. But before you do so, please make a backup of your data so that you don’t lose your data if anything goes wrong.
Installation of Windows 8 is very simple. It consists of some easy steps and installation process takes place in graphical Interface. If you want help on installation, check out the Windows 8 support websites that provide help on Windows 8 installation.

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Interact Intranet release version 5.2 with enhanced analytics and more

This morning (US time) Interact Intranet hosted a webinar covering the release of version 5.2 of their intranet software.  The webinar was recorded and is available here.  Below are some comments and screenshots of the features.

Comments Interface

Anyone that has the ability edit a document can now delete comments.
Profile pictures display alongside comments.

Change Author

In bulk - reassign a document to someone else.

Influence Score

Displays profile score and influence score on user profile
Measures how each user causes others to take action on the Intranet

Analytics

Statistics

Warnings

Real Time Benchmarking

If you don't opt in you don't see the scores for other companies.
All benchmarked against entire Interact user population

Email Report

Daily emails.  Content and frequency cannot be customized.

Document Quality

Score out of 10
Based on things like: keywords, title, images, review date, links, summary, content, etc
Updates on creation and edit of a document.

3rd Party Analytics Integration

Using this interface you can apply a 3rd party analytics tool.

How do I get 5.2

You need to request it from support area via the Interact Extranet area.  Raise a new ticket
5.2 is available immediately.

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How to Enable Large Drive Support in Windows XP?

Windows XP was released in a time when there were a lot of limitations in the hardware. Even though there were limitations in hardware, Windows XP platform was designed to perform well, and the features built in it were very higher considering the hardware limitations. The basic version of Windows XP supported hard drives up to 137 GB only. This was a lot more than enough at that time. But hardware advancements are so fast and this necessitates an upgrade for Windows XP limitations in hard drive size.
Microsoft understood the problems with the limitations in Hard disk size and soon uplifted the curtain by releasing the Service Pack 1 update for Windows XP. Windows Online Support reduced the stress on Windows XP users by providing support for the Service Pack 1 update. Microsoft included the higher hard drive support in the security update that came in the Windows XP service pack 1. This was also included in the later updates like Service pack 2 and service pack 3. The predecessors of Windows XP didn’t have any problem like this as Microsoft removed the Hard disk limitations.
If you want to remove the Hard disk limitations the only way is to install Service pack 1 or higher. To remove the hard disk limitation of 137 GB I will help you install Service pack 1 update in your Windows XP. Following are some instruction for installing Service pack 1 in Windows XP.
Instructions
 Power ON your PC. Log into Windows XP using the administrator account and wait for desktop to load.
 After the desktop is loaded, open your Internet Explorer and navigate to Microsoft Webpage. (Internet connection is necessary)
 In the Microsoft website search for Windows Service Pack 1 and download it.
 Now click on Download prompt or double click on the installation package for installing update.
 Now give permissions for the prompts during the installation wizard. Accept EULA (End Users License Agreement) and click on the install button in the window.
 The installation process will complete in some time depending on your system configuration. After the installation is complete you will need to restart your system to complete the update process.
After restarting system check you system properties to check the OS version. You can see that it is Service pack 1. Now you will have no limitations on Hard disk space by Windows XP. If any problem occurs during or due to Service pack 1 update, you can get from Microsoft professionals via Windows online support.

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Interact Intranet: Administrative Queries

We are getting close to our go-live date with Interact Intranet and it is time for us to do final cleanup to ensure our site is as consistent as possible.  To supplement the out of the box metrics I created a post of document queries, and this post of queries is going to focus on content structure and organization.

Absolute vs Relative Links

If you have a tendency to link to content (documents, teams, areas, categories, etc) within your intranet you might find that some of your links are absolute and others are relative.  This becomes an issue if you use different URLs for intranet, extranet or outside users. Use this query to verify that all of your links are relative:

SELECT SECTION.Title, SECTION2.Title as Parent, SMI.URL from SECTION_PROPERTIES_SIDEMENUITEM as SMI
INNER JOIN SECTION
on SECTION.SectionID=SMI.SectionID
INNER JOIN SECTION as SECTION2
on SECTION.ParentID=SECTION2.SectionID
WHERE SMI.URL like 'http://%'

Links Specify Page Format

If you create links within your intranet to other areas you might find that some of your links were created using a URL which specifies formatting.  All links which aim at Section/Main should use the default.aspx as opposed to using a defined .aspx page such as MainTwoColumnsLeft MainOneColumnLeft, etc.  You can verify that your site is clean by using this query:

SELECT SECTION.Title, SECTION2.Title as Parent, SMI.URL  FROM SECTION_PROPERTIES_SIDEMENUITEM as SMI
INNER JOIN SECTION
on SECTION.SectionID=SMI.SectionID
INNER JOIN SECTION as SECTION2
on SECTION.ParentID=SECTION2.SectionID
WHERE SMI.URL like '/Interact/Pages/Section/Main%'
ORDER BY Parent

Inconsistent Links

If you create links on multiple areas pointing to the same piece of content you might find that some of your links aren't consistent.  You can verify that your links are consistent using this query and swapping out Expense and Award for your commonly used link titles:

SELECT SECTION.Title, SECTION2.Title as Parent, SMI.URL from SECTION
INNER JOIN SECTION_PROPERTIES_SIDEMENUITEM as SMI
on SECTION.SectionID=SMI.SectionID
INNER JOIN SECTION as SECTION2
on SECTION.ParentID=SECTION2.SectionID
WHERE SECTION.TypeID='3' and (SECTION.Title like 'Expense%' OR SECTION.Title like 'Award%')
ORDER BY SECTION.Title

Inconsistent Category Options

Within a category there are a series of options which can be set including things like sort order.  If you have a large intranet and you deviate from the defaults you might want to verify that your categories are somewhat consistent.  You can access the consistency of your categories using this query and swapping out the red text with however you've set your default options:

SELECT SECTION2.Title as Parent, SECTION.Title, SMI.ShowAuthor, SMI.DefaultOrdering, SMI.ShowPerPage, SMI.TemplateID FROM SECTION
INNER JOIN SECTION_PROPERTIES_SIDEMENUITEM as SMI
on SECTION.SectionID = SMI.SectionID
INNER JOIN SECTION as SECTION2
on SECTION.ParentID=SECTION2.SectionID
WHERE SECTION.TypeID='3' and SMI.TypeID='1' and (SMI.ShowAuthor!=1 or SMI.DefaultOrdering!=1 or SMI.ShowPerPage!=1 or SMI.TemplateID!=1)

What Categories Are Empty

Curious what categories on your site don't have any documents?
Sections >1790 (on my site) are admin and modules areas which is why I eliminated them.

SELECT SECTION.sectionID, Section2.Title as Parent, SECTION.Title FROM SECTION
INNER JOIN SECTION as section2
on SECTION.ParentID=section2.SectionID
WHERE SECTION.SectionID>'1790' and SECTION.Title not like ('%Home') and SECTION.TypeID='3'
and NOT EXISTS
(SELECT * FROM CONTENT_SECTION WHERE SECTION.SectionID=CONTENT_SECTION.SectionID)
ORDER BY Parent asc

User Last Login

Curious which users haven't logged into your site in the last few days, weeks months? This query will show the last time all users in your system logged in.

SELECT Surname, Firstname, DateLastAccessed from PERSON
ORDER BY DateLastAccessed desc

I'll continue to add to this list as I generate additional queries.  Feel free to lob out any suggestions for queries and I'll see if I can add them to the list.

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Interact Intranet: Noise Words

To improve processing time for search queries it is common for applications and databases to ignore certain words which have low value.  SQL Server has it's own list of noise words which you can edit and change.
Interact also has a list however I've been told they are hard-coded into the system and not customizable.
Here is the list of Interact's noise words:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z not about after all also an and another any are as at be because been before being between both but by came can come could did do each for from get got has had he have her here him himself his how if in into is it like make many me might more most much must my never now of on only or other our out over said same see should since some still such take than that the their them then there these they this those through to too under up very was way we well were what where which while who with would you your & ? use

Curiously if you look at the Interact database you'll notice there is a table called NoiseWords which has a single, unpopulated, column called WRD.

Reference (login required): http://extranet.interact-intranet.com/Interact/Pages/Content/Document.aspx?id=4609

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Configuring MS RoboCopy to schedule ongoing synchronization of files between servers

Robocopy is a utility to copy directories from one server to another.  Commands to use the tool are fairly straightforward and can be added to a batch file to run based on a schedule.

We recently encountered a situation where we needed to sync various files from one server to another on an on-going basis.  To do that we create a folder on the root of our origination server and called it Robocopy.
Within that folder we created a copy.bat file with a very simple argument following the command structure of:

robocopy <Source> <Destination>

Our command specifically says: 

robocopy c:\myFolder \\extranet\c$\myFolder /MIR /LOG+:robo.log

This essentially is saying take everything from the C:\myFolder folder and copy it to the \\extranet server's C:\myFolderfolder.

The /MIR command mirrors a directory tree and the /LOG command tells it to writes the status output to the log file (appends the output to the existing log file).

Schedule the File to Run

In Windows Server 2008 the process of scheduling a batch or job to run is extremely simple.  Just open your Task Scheduler and create a task.  The action in this case is to start a program and then point the path to the .bat file that was created.  That is it!

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Interact Intranet: Expanding your content - literally

Content pages in Interact Intranet are made up of 3 zones.

1. Side navigation
2. Content
3. Options (Author, rating, etc.)

The 3rd zone occupies valuable real estate and displays regardless of whether any Options are enabled.
Occasionally you may find yourself not wanting to use any options and wishing you could extend your content into zone 3.  Luckily that is possible and is extremely easy to do on a content by content basis.
The width of the 2nd zone is fixed using the CSS width property of .DocumentContentsHTML.
Within your web page document you can add some inline CSS styling to override this property and move from a 3 zone layout to a 2 zone layout as shown in the pictures below.

The code to override this element would look like this:

<STYLE type=text/css>
    .DocumentContentsHTML{width:750px;}
</STYLE>

 

Caveat: This was done in 5.1.4 and it is possible that future upgrades might overwrite a modification like this.

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Interact Intranet: Modifying web page templates

When you create a document in Interact Intranet you have the option of building your own web page.  If you choose to build your own web page you are presented with a series of templates, formatted HTML, to make your content more attractive.

The default template displays a large image on the left side of the page.  There is a blank template (no formatting) however a user would need to select it from the dropdown.  As we are undergoing a content migration of thousands of documents we are encouraging our users to transfer content from files to web content.  Despite training we are finding that many of our content managers are neglecting to change the template and are confused by the default templates appearance.

To rectify this problem I look into the Interact database to see how it is handling templates.  Sure enough, there is a CONTENT_TEMPLATE table which includes everything you would need to modify your templates (title, summary, source code, affiliated css file, grouping, active and the ability to modify the order).

Since my goal is to simply adjust the default template and order of the other templates there are only a few fields that concern me:

Within the template dropdown above you can see the impact of the TemplateGroup field where some fall into Standard and other into Smart.  By changing a few 1's to 2's in that field, and modifying the OrderBy field I've been able to modify the Template dropdown to have a new default and appear like this:

The Active field is boolean and my testing showed that setting templates to False (0) hides templates as you'd expect.  I didn't bother attempting to change the source code of the templates which is stored in the source field although it looks straightforward.



Caveat: This was done in 5.1.4 and it is possible that future upgrades might overwrite a modification like this.

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Interact Intranet: Document Types and Content Queries

We are going through a migration effort from our old intranet (Plumtree) to Interact Intranet.  In doing so we'd like to track a few things that aren't available from the out of the box statistics tool.  Fortunately the database shows that quite a lot of data is being tracked so in this post I'll write about the queries that I run to help us track our content.

Document Types

There are 7 documents types in the system:

• 10 - web based document
• 20 - document: link to something?
• 30 - document: link to something?
• 40 - document: upload a document (file)
• 50 - document: link to something on the network
• 100 - discussion forum threads, and for each document that has a comment section it also gets an entry in this table
• 110 - this is the catch all document type which makes it awkward to identify specific content types.  Type 110 includes: discussion forums posts, document comments, and activity wall posts (among others I'm sure!)

Important Queries (for me to remember)

who has submitted the most content

• in the system
  

  SELECT COUNT(CONTENT.AddedBy) as Count, PERSON.Firstname, PERSON.Surname
    FROM CONTENT
    INNER JOIN PERSON
    ON CONTENT.AddedBy=PERSON.PersonID
    WHERE CONTENT.TYPEID in ('40','10')
    GROUP BY CONTENT.AddedBy, PERSON.Surname, PERSON.Firstname
    ORDER BY COUNT(CONTENT.AddedBy) DESC

  
  
  
  
• in each area
  

  SELECT SECTION.Title as Area, COUNT(CONTENT.AddedBy) as Count, PERSON.Firstname, PERSON.Surname
    FROM CONTENT
    INNER JOIN PERSON
    ON CONTENT.AddedBy=PERSON.PersonID
     INNER JOIN SECTION
    ON SECTION.SectionID=CONTENT.SectionID
    WHERE CONTENT.TYPEID in ('40','10')
    GROUP BY CONTENT.AddedBy, PERSON.Surname, PERSON.Firstname, SECTION.title, CONTENT.SectionID
    ORDER BY COUNT(CONTENT.AddedBy) DESC

  
  
  
  

how many documents are file based and how many are web pages

• in the system
  

  SELECT CONTENT.TYPEID, COUNT(*) as Count
    FROM CONTENT
    Where CONTENT.TypeID in ('40', '10')
    Group BY CONTENT.TypeID

  
  
  
  
  If you are curious about the other types of documents you could run a query like this to see the count for each different type:
    SELECT TYPEID, COUNT(*) as Count
        FROM CONTENT
        GROUP BY TypeID
  
  
  
  NOTE: If you look at Interact Site Statistics "Size of Intranet" that seems to reflect the majority of what is shown here.  I have a 10 item discrepancy between the sum at this point, so perhaps 110, 50 and 30 aren't included in that number.

how many documents have been added

• to the system
  

  SELECT COUNT(*) as Count
    FROM CONTENT
    Where CONTENT.TypeID in ('40', '10')

  
• to each area/section
  

  SELECT SECTION.Title, COUNT(*)
    FROM CONTENT
    INNER JOIN SECTION
    ON SECTION.SectionID=CONTENT.SectionID
    WHERE CONTENT.TypeID in ('40','10')
    GROUP BY SECTION.Title
    ORDER BY SECTION.Title

  
  
  

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