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File Type: .rar (containing video file)
Software: Dziobas RAR Player
License: Free

I thought that I would start the new file association section with playing compressed RAR files that contain video files. I recently downloaded a video file from a source that had compressed and split the video file into a number of RAR part files. I wanted to make sure that the file was in fact the video that I was after without having to download all the RAR parts to be able to do so. I came across Dziobas RAR Player that allowed me to do just that and the following is how this is achieved:

1. Download and install Dziobas RAR Player
2. Open Dziobas RAR Player and from the File menu, select Streaming from unrar… (no rewind)
   
3. Select the RAR file containing the video file and click Open
   Note: You can select any number part file (ie: video.part3.rar) as long as you have the parts proceeding this file in the same folder. You must also make sure that you have part1 before you will be able to play any of the file.

4. The software will now ask you for the RAR files password. If the file is not password protected simply click OK. if the file is password protected, enter the password then press OK.
   
5. A command prompt window will now be displayed letting you know what the player is doing. Do not close this window as the process of attempting to decompress and play the video file will stop if you are to do so. If successful, the video should start playing in a new window.
   Note: If you are using Windows Vista and 7 your colour scheme will be changed to basic whilst the video is playing. Once the video has completed or is closed, your colour scheme settings will return to normal.
   

I have found that some video files allow you to fast forward using the mouse scroll wheel or keyboard arrow keys. From my limited use of the software, I have achieved this with RAR files containing MPG files but majority of AVI files do not allow for fast forwarding.

I have decided that I might have a crack at a new section in regards to file associations and what programs I use to open and/or edit different file types. This section will take some time to grow so stick with me and please feel free to offer suggestions or ask questions. I intend to try keep the list to open source or free software but may mention commercial alternatives if an open source or free application is not available or adequate.

I am primarily a Windows user but support both OS X and Linux workstations and servers. This being the case, majority of my posts will be Windows related but from time to time I will attempt to throw in the odd OS X or Linux application.

I ran into an issue the other day after upgrading some hardware components of our Exchange 2007 server. I was running through the usual connectivity tests after restarting the server and found that Outlook was prompting for authentication before syncing my mail with the server.

Searching through the logs pointed me in the direction of the Exchange services and sure enough one of the services had not started automatically as it should have. The service in question was the Microsoft Exchange System Attendant. Starting this service resolved the issue straight away. I have since restarted the server and the service continues to not start automatically. One to watch…

• Start -> Administrative Tools -> Services
• Right-Click Microsoft Exchange System Attendant service
• Select Start from displayed context menu

I was working on a project that required the use of a mapped drive to a SAMBA share. This all went off without a hitch on my test PC running Windows 7 and I was about to tick the job off my list. But… when I attempted to replicate this on the staff members PC running Windows XP I ran into an issues with authenticating to the SAMBA share. I have read numerous pages and forums that provided many different ways around the issue. Below is what worked for me and allowed me to have the mapped drive reconnect at login without continuing to prompt the user for authentication:

1. Edit the requiresignorseal registry setting:
   • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Netlogon\Parameters
   • requiresignorseal - Change hex value from 1 to 0
   • RESTART PC
2. Map a drive to the SAMBA share and select “Reconnect at login“. Usually at this stage you would use the “Connect using a different user name” option. However, do not use this option as it will not allow you to save your credentials.
   
3. Click Finish and you will be prompted for your credentials. Input your user name and password (SAMBA sever credentials) and select “Remember my details“.

As I mentioned there are numerous solutions out there to resolve this issue. This is just what worked for me…

There are a number excellent computer control iPhone/iPod Touch apps out there that come in various forms and have a multitude of amazing features. But… these apps all come at a price. For the user who simply wants to control their mouse and keyboard from there iPhone/iPod Touch for FREE, there is TouchMouse.

TouchMouse from Logitech allows you to control your computers mouse and keyboard in three easy steps:

1. Download and install the Logitech TouchMouse Server computer application (www.logitech.com/touchmouse)
- The server app is available for Windows XP/Vista/7 and OS X

2. Download the TouchMouse iPhone/iPod Touch app from the App Store.

3. Open TouchMouse on your iPhone or iPod Touch. The app will find any available computers on the same network that have the TouchMouse Server application installed.

Connect and enjoy!

The app has many options including; two finger scrolling, tracking and scrolling speeds and a nice settings for prohibiting your device to go into sleep mode.

At the school that I work for we have been using the Group Policy enabled version of Mozilla Forefox from FrontMotion for some time now. We have discussed the idea on several occasions whether or not to allow staff to install extensions. I have decided to set an allowed location (locally hosted) in group policy where staff can find approved extensions to install.

However, we still required the ability to control some of the settings within these extensions. I was able to achieve this by creating Group Policy ADM templates for these extensions. The ADM templates are written to control the about:config settings of the extension which can be found by browsing to about:config in Firefox and filtering for the desired extension. The preferences are set at as a MACHINE CLASS (Computer Policy) and are locked preferences. Below is an example and explanation of a couple of settings of an ADM template for the IEView extension (comments in red): [Complete ADM example attached at the end of this post]

- Define the CLASS type
CLASS MACHINE

- Set the main category name (folder under Administrative Templates in Group Policy)
CATEGORY “Mozilla Advanced Options for Extensions”

- Set the preferences to be locked preferences
KEYNAME “Software\Policies\Mozilla\lockPref”

- Set the category/extension name (level under main category)
CATEGORY “IEView”

Boolean type preference for the Close Page on Reload setting (On or OFF)

- POLICY = Setting name
POLICY “Close Page on Reload”
- EXPLAIN = Explanation of what the setting does
EXPLAIN “Enables or disables the close page after reload option”
- VALUENAME = about:config Preference Name for the setting
VALUENAME “ieview.closeReloadPage”
- VALUEON = The value for the setting when enabled in Group Policy
VALUEON 1
- VALUEOFF = The value for the setting when disabled in Group Policy
VALUEOFF 0
- END POLICY = Ends the options for the current setting
END POLICY

String type preference for the Filter List setting (string of values)

- POLICY = Setting name
POLICY “Filter List”
- EXPLAIN = Explaination of what the setting does
EXPLAIN “Sets list of sites to always open in IE. Sites are separated by spaces. Use * for wildcard.”
- PART = “list” EDITTEXT, sets the values for the “list” part of the setting and edits the current vales
PART “List” EDITTEXT
- DEFAULT = When the setting is enabled in Group Policy, the DEFAULT string values will automatically be filled in
DEFAULT “file:///* http://*update.microsoft.com/ http://www.windowsupdate.com/”
- VALUENAME = about:config Preference Name for the setting
VALUENAME “ieview.forceielist”
- END PART = Ends the options for the current PART of the setting
END PART
- END POLICY = Ends the options for the current setting
END POLICY

- END CATEGORY = Ends the extension name category
END CATEGORY

- END CATEGORY = Ends the main category
END CATEGORY

I hope that made at least a little bit of sense.

Find a complete example here.
Download the RAR file here.

Considering that this is a WordPress blog, I thought that I would do my first iPhone app review on the WordPress app (recently released WordPress 2). I am writing this post from the application on my iPhone and I intend to keep them short as the title suggests. (Inline images added through WordPress Admin)

The app is quite simple and well set out for ease of navigation. The setup is as simple as inputting your blogs web address, username and password. The app contains three sections; Comments, Posts and Pages.

The comments section allows you to approve, unapprove or edit user comments. The posts and pages sections allow you to review, add or delete posts or pages and their content.

Overall the app works well and is extremely easy to use. I can see this app being quite handy for posting on the run or when you just don’t want to sit in front of your computer. A couple of things that I can think of to improve the app would be; the ability to add a hyperlink to a post or page and the ability to add inline images into posts or pages.

The app did crash on me once while I was adding a category but reopening the app recovered my unsaved post as per the pic below…

I have a Windows Server 2008 Virtual Machine setup on my VMware Server install for testing purposes. I had just about finished installing and configuring the OS when I attempted to install VMware Tools and receieved the follwing error:

VMware Tools is not supported on this guest OS.
Check the virtual machine’s configuration to make sure the settings match the installed operating system. Consult the documentation for more details about supported guest operating systems.

The Fix:

1. Create a new VMware Datastore pointing to the VMware Server install directory %HOMEDRIVE%\Program Files\VMware\VMware Server
2. Select the unsupported OS Virtual Machine and Edit the CD/DVD drive settings found under Hardware
3. Select ISO Image and browse for the appropriate Operating Systems VMware Tools ISO file (in this case windows.iso)
4. Click OK and restart the Virtual Machine
   The ISO will now be mounted as the CD/DVD drive for the Virtual Machine
5. Browse the contents of the guest OS CD/DVD drive and run the VMware Tools setup (in this case setup.exe)

You will now have a fully functional install of VMware Tools on your unsupported OS.

I recently installed Windows 7 on my desktop PC at work. I use VMware server quite heavily to assist in testing various aspects of both client and server Operating Systems. So I downloaded and installed the latest version of VMware Server only to be confronted with the following error when attempting to access the VMware Servers web interface:

The VMware Infrastructure Web Service at “http://localhost:8222/sdk” is not responding (Connection Refused)

So I head towards the first port of call and make sure the required services are all started. Sure enough, the VMware Host Agent service has not started and can also not be started manually.

The Fix:

1. Make sure that you are logged onto the PC as an administrator
2. Browse to %HOMEDRIVE%\ProgramData\VMware\VMware Server\hostd
3. Delete the datastores.xml file from this directory
4. Restart the VMware Host Agent service

The datastores.xml file will now be regenerated automatically and the VMware Host Agent service will start. You will now be able to log into the VMware Server web interface as normal.

As promised the configuration of the Moodle-Google Integration plugin:

1. Download Google-Moodle Integration plugin
2. Unzip the files and upload them to your Moodle installation
3. Login to your Moodle site and click Notifications to update the newly installed blocks
4. From the Users menu, select Authentication then Google Authentication
5. Enter your Google domain name
6. On your Moodle server create the private and public keys:

   Private Key (stored in Moodle only)
   Command: openssl genrsa -out rsaprivkey.pem 1024

   (Visit Google Documentation for Key Generation Help)

   Public Key (stored in Moodle and Google)
   Command: openssl req -new -x509 -key rsaprivkey.pem -out rsacert.pem

   (Visit Google Documentation for Key Generation Help)

7. Upload the created RSA Key File (rsaprivkey.pem) to Moodle (Users -> Authentication -> Google Authentication)
   Upload the created SSL Signing Certificate (rsacert.pem) to Moodle (Users -> Authentication -> Google Authentication)
8. Login to your Google Apps Admin Control Panel (http://google.com/a/yourdomain) in a new window
9. Browse to Advanced Tools – > Authentication -> Setup Single Sign-on (SSO)
10. Check the Enable Single Sign-on box
11. Copy and paste the Sign-in, Sign-out and Change Password page URL’s from the Setup Instructions box located on the Google Authentication setup page in Moodle
12. Upload the Verification Certificate (rsacert.pem created in step 6) and Save the changes in Google Apps
13. In your Google Apps Control Panel, browse to Users and Groups -> Settings and check the Enable Provisioning API box
    Save the Changes
    (This allows users to be updated)
14. Browse to Advanced Tools -> Manage OAuth Domain Key
15. Upload the created certificate (rpacert.pem from step 6)
16. Copy the OAuth Consumer Secret
17. In Moodle, enable all Google Blocks and add them to the Front Page of your Moodle
    (I had issues with a couple of the blocks and therefore only enabled the GMail Block. See how you go but if you have issues disabling the other plugins would be the first port of call)
18. Browse to Modules -> Blocks -> GMail Blocks and paste the Google OAuth Consumer Secret into the supplied field
    Save the Changes
19. Select the Google User Sync block from Modules -> Blocks and fill in your Google Admin info.
    Save the Changes
20. Test the config…

Our current configuration allows our staff and students to login to Moodle using their Active Directory credentials (via the Moodle LDAP authentication plugin) and link straight to their GMail account. This has allowed us to continue to provide a complete Single Sign-on (SSO) environment for our users.