Gwen Demulder

So you decided to invest in a fancy macbook. All is well, until you connect your old display using the DVI connection. Every few seconds you notice that your mouse pointer will seem to lag.

At first I thought there was a hardware conflict between the macbook and my display. Afteral I did not have the issue if I connected my work to another display. The display however wasn’t having issues with a older mac or system.

Usually when I had the screen connected I was listening to music using itunes. When I stopped itunes the lag would also disappear, thus making me leave the hardware compatibility issue track. This had to be a software issue.

I went on a google quest to solve my issue and solve it I did. It turns out that the system tries to push something called HDCP handshaking. My screen does not support HDPC.

The solution was to rename a kext in the /system/library/extensions folder named AppleUpstreamUserClient.kext.

“sudo mv AppleUpstreamUserClient.kext AppleUpstreamUserClient.old”

After renaming the kext you will need to reboot your system. After the reboot everything is working as it should.

Renaming the kext will disable the ability to watch drm protected itunes purchases, this wasn’t an issue for me because I am not a user of the itunes store. If you want to do this you’l simply need to buy a display that supports your system (or use your current display using the VGA connection…). Frankly, I don’t like that…

If you are having print preview issues with Outlook 2007 you might want to remove update 2509470. Microsoft has already retracted this update but it would seem that harm has already been done on some systems.

When you have this update installed you will get an error when you print(preview) a mail in Outlook 2007. The error will recommend you to reintstall your printers. Doing this will not resolve this issue. The only solution is to uninstall KB2509470.

More info on this issue can be found here.

Today’s blog post is a biggy!

One of the main features in Small Business Server 2011 is Sharepoint Foundation. Sharepoint allows you to manage documents and follow up on them. These files are kept in document libraries, while tasks for users are kept in lists. You can control the flow of these files and tasks with something called workflows. These workflows can be created using Sharepoint Designer 2010.

I decided to have a little fun with the designer. My goal was to create a simple helpdesk site.

The first thing you have to do in SBS 2011 is make sure that sharepoint is able to receive mail. This feature has not standard been configured by default. To enable it you can follow this blog post from the Official SBS Blog. Upon completing this task I created 2 mail-enabled security groups, HelpdeskOwners and HelpdeskTechnicians. In the HelpdeskOwners group I added the manager of the group, the HelpdeskTechnicians group I added the technicians.

In Sharepoint I created a new blank site. On this site I created two groups based upon the ones I created in the SBS Console. The HelpdeskOwners group has full control over the site, whilst the HelpdeskTechnicians only have Contribute rights on the site.

On the new site I created a new document library called Support Requests. This library is mail enabled and has the address ‘support@companyweb’. Be sure to keep a copy of the orignal mail. I also created an issue tracking list called ‘Support list’, it is set to send a mail when ownership has been changed.

Now we need to get mail from outside the network to the sharepoint document library. To do this I created a new user in the SBS console with an email address ‘support@domain.com’. In the Exchange Management Console I created a new contact called support with a default e-mail address ‘support@companyweb’. The mail flow settings of ‘support@domain.com’ were change to delived the mail directly to the contact.

What we’re going to do next is create a workflow for the mail enabled document library. There is however one issue. For security reasons workflows don’t start automatically when a mail is added to a document list. We can enable this with the following command in sharepoint powershell (run as administrator).

stsadm -o setproperty -pn declarativeworkflowautostartonemailenabled -pv true

Next I open up the sharepoint designer and connect to the new helpdesk site. The workflow is set to start when a new item is added to the library.

Next you may edit the workflow. I’ve added a screenshot of the layout in my workflow.

What the workflow basically does is this:

• Create a support ticket title which is saved in the Title field
• Create a new list item in the support list (this list has extra columns containing the mail address and a link to the original mail in the document library)
• Send an email to the Helpdesk Manager notifying him of the new ticket
• Send an email to the customer (you have to add a column to the document library for this. Make it a calculated column, by doing this we can filter the actual e-mail address from the ‘E-mail From’ field. Use the following formula to do this: =LEFT(RIGHT([E-Mail From],((LEN([E-Mail From])-FIND(“<”,[E-Mail From])))),LEN([E-Mail From])-FIND(“<”,[E-Mail From])-1)   I found the formula to do this on this blog. This is basically an excel formula. I copy the value of this field to a field in the new list item created in the second task.

We also need to create a workflow on the tracking list. This workflow will notify the customer of a change to his support ticket.

Set this workflow to run when an item is changed.

This flow basically sends a mail to the customer whenever a value is changed (Ticket assigned to, ticket status, …).

Both lists look like this:

So there you have it. An afternoons work to create a simple helpdesk site (without previous knowledge of sharepoint designer), this without writing a single line of code. I believe this does demonstrate the power of sharepoint, even if it is just the basic foundation version.

Things get even better. You can lay-out workflows in visio and import them into the Sharepoint 2010 Designer. You can get a general insight on it by reading these two blog posts:

• Sharepoint workflow Authoring in Visio Part 1
• Sharepoint workflow Authoring in Visio Part 2

Usually when you want to connect two branches of a firm, one would use a vpn-tunnel set up with dedicated firewall appliances.

It is possible to create a link between two branches using Routing and Remote Access. After installing the RRAS role you can create a new demand dial interface. You will need to do this on both sides.

Give the name for the connection

Select the connection method

Insert the WAN-IP of the other server

Type the destination network and mask

Type the user name of a user on the other server who has dial-in access.

After completion you’l have an extra interface in the list.

There is also a static route added in the RRAS.

You need to go through the above steps on the other server as well. On both servers you’l need a user who has dial-in access.

When you try to ping an ip on the other side the connection will be established.

When the connection is established the other server won’t start a new connection if an ip needs to be reached since there is already a connection between both servers.

Client machines will also be able to reach the other branch office if you use the RRAS server as the gateway for that range.

I’ve always wanted to try this but it is not something I would advise to anyone. A Windows Server is already in charge  a lot of tasks, offloading a task to a dedicated device is advisable. On a server you need to frequently install security updates. Updates require reboots, reboots mean downtime of the network. Managing a server that hosts a lot of roles does make things complicated. I also find that the tunnels established by devices are often more stable than those built with the RRAS.