Rhepworths on Black Marble

Rik Hepworth is no longer with Black Marble

Rik Hepworth — Sat, 26 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Rik Hepworth is no longer with Black Marble. Their personal blog can now be found at https://rikhepworth.com

Configuring diagnostic settings for Azure services using bicep

Rik Hepworth — Fri, 17 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000

If you’re hosting your application infrastructure in Azure and consolidate the diagnostic and audit information from your services into Log Analytics or elsewhere, it’s pretty easy to do using Bicep. It’s not very well documented, however, which is the reason for this post.

For the original version of this post see Rik Hepworth's personal blog at Configuring diagnostic settings for Azure services using bicep

Deploying an Azure Container App Environment within a virtual network using bicep

Rik Hepworth — Fri, 17 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000

When working on a project recently I needed to deploy a Container App Environment within a virtual network in Azure. Thanks to the joys of internet search, I started off reading the wrong bits of the official documention and got incredibly confused, and much of the community content about this uses out of date schemas and code. This article is so I don’t need to go through that again, and hopefully it will help others, too.

Using bicep to define Service Bus scaling rules for Azure Container Apps

Rik Hepworth — Fri, 17 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000

I recently needed to set KEDA scaling rules on an Azure Container app that used the number of messages in a Service Bus queue. There’s plenty of info out there on the internet about scaling rules, but not when it comes to Service Bus, so I’m writing up what I learned here.

For the original version of this post see Rik Hepworth's personal blog at Using bicep to define Service Bus scaling rules for Azure Container Apps

About Rik

Rik Hepworth — Sat, 17 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000

About Rik Hepworth As CEO and co-founder of Zure in the UK, Rik helps organisations large and small use Cloud better. Whether that is a new adoption where governance and management are key, or an application modernisation project where technology choice and team knowledge are important factors in success. Through his public speaking and community involvement, Rik is a recipient of the Microsoft MVP Programme award for his work with Azure.

Accessing a local Hyper-V environment from the Android emulator

Rik Hepworth — Sat, 17 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Not every project can host services in the cloud. If you have a local environment running on virtual machines, connecting to that from the Android emulator running on the same host can be tricky. This post details the solution I use and the tools needed to enable it.

For the original version of this post see Rik Hepworth's personal blog at Accessing a local Hyper-V environment from the Android emulator

Importing bicep lint output as test results in Azure DevOps pipelines

Rik Hepworth — Mon, 05 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Bicep is a great improvement over ARM Templates but doesn’t remove the need to validate our code at build time. I could continue to use the ARM-TTK and validate the generated template, but bicep has it’s own built in rules. Getting build errors in a way that can provide meaningful information in my CI/CD tooling is an interesting challenge.

For the original version of this post see Rik Hepworth's personal blog at Importing bicep lint output as test results in Azure DevOps pipelines

Calling Application Insights API using Powershell

Rik Hepworth — Mon, 22 Aug 2022 14:00:00 +0000

If you have an application, instrumenting it with something like Application Insights to emit useful data is something I cannot espouse the benefits of enough. As a service, however, Application Insights can offer other benefits, such as Availability Tests to tell you if the application is accessible to your users.

The default approach to availability tests is to create cloud-based probes that regularly call your application from different regions of the globe to make sure it responds and assess how long those responses take. But what if your application is on premises, and is not accessible from the outside world (or is in the cloud, but secured from general access)?

Configuring BizTalk 2020 Application Insights telemetry behind a firewall

Rik Hepworth — Mon, 22 Aug 2022 14:00:00 +0000

BizTalk 2020 allows you to connect it to an Application Insights instance, where it will send tracking data as customEvents so you see what's going on. However, getting it working in an environment where security is important and the network team want to open the fewest paths through the firewall as possible is an exercise in patience. This blog post is as much aide memoire for me as an information post for you.

Deploying the ASDK for effective development use

Rik Hepworth — Sat, 22 Sep 2018 14:41:45 +0000

Microsoft Azure Stack is a truly unique beast in terms of the capabilities it can bring to an organisation, and the efficiencies it can bring to a project that spans Public Cloud and on-premises infrastructure through it’s consistency with public Azure.

We’ve been using Stack in anger for a customer project for a year now and have learned several things about development and testing, and how to configure the ASDK to be an effective tool to support the project. This post will summarise those learnings and how I deploy the ASDK so you may mirror our approach for your own projects.

Configure Server 2016 ADFS and WAP with custom ports using Powershell

Rik Hepworth — Fri, 24 Aug 2018 10:59:11 +0000

A pull request for Chris Gardner's WebApplicationProxyDSC is now inbound after a frustrating week of trying to automate the configuration of ADFS and WAP on a Server 2016 lab. With Server 2016, the PowerShell commands to configure the ADFS and WAP servers include switches to specify a non-default port. I need to do this because the servers are behind a NetNat on a server hosting several labs, so port 443 is not available to me and I must use a different port. This should be simple: Specify the SSLPort switch on the Install-ADFSFarm command and the HttpsPort on the Install-WebApplicationProxy command. However, when I do that, the WAP configuration fails with an error that it cannot read the FederationMetadata from the proxy. I tried all manner of things to diagnose why this was failing and in the end, the fix is a crazy hack that should not work! The proxy installation, despite accepting the custom port parameter, does not build the URLs correctly for the ADFS service, so is still trying to call port 443. You can set these URLs on a configured WAP service using the Set-WebApplicationProxyConfiguration command. However, when you run this command with no configured proxy, it fails. Or so you think... On the ADFS Server:

Setting Enroll Permissions on ADCS Certificate Template using DSC

Rik Hepworth — Thu, 02 Mar 2017 19:08:38 +0000

As part of the work I have been doing around generating and managing lab environments using Lability and DSC, one of the things I needed to do was change the permissions on a certificate template within a DSC configuration. Previously, when deploying to Azure, I used the PSPKI PowerShell modules within code executed by the Custom Script extension. I was very focused on sticking with DSC this time, which ruled out PSPKI. Whilst there is a DSC module available to configure Certificate Services itself, this does not extend to managing Certificate Templates. Nobody seemed to have done exactly this before. I used the following links as references in creating the code: Get Effective template permissions with PowerShell by Vadims Podans Duplicate AD Object Without Active Directory PS Tools Add Object Specific ACEs using Active Directory PowerShell Using Scripts to Manage Active Directory Security The script finds the WebServer template and grants the Enroll extended permission to the Domain Computers AD group. This allows me to use xCertificate in the DSC configuration of domain member servers to request new certificates using the WebServer template. Here is the code I include in my DSC configuration. $DomainCreds is a PSCredential object for the domain admin ( I create the AD domain in an earlier step using xActiveDirectory).

Define Once, Deploy Everywhere (Sort of...)

Rik Hepworth — Thu, 02 Mar 2017 18:49:00 +0000

Using Lability, DSC and ARM to define and deploy multi-VM environments

Configuration as code crops up a lot in conversation these days. We are searching for that DevOps Nirvana of a single definition of our environment that we can deploy anywhere.

The solution adopted at Black Marble by myself and my colleagues is not quite that, but it comes close enough to satisfy our needs. This document details the technologies and techniques we adopted to achieve our goal, which sounds simple, right?

Creating Website Slots and SQL Elastic Pools using Azure Resource Templates

Rik Hepworth — Wed, 18 Jan 2017 15:03:14 +0000

Recently I have been helping a number of organisations automate the deployment of their applications to Azure and came across a couple of scenarios that were not documented: Deploying an App Services web site with slots and SQL connection string settings, and the creation of a SQL Elastic Pool. Of those, the SQL Elastic Pool I found to be written up already by Vincent-Philipe Lauzon and all credit to him - my template draws on his excellent article.

Notes from the field: Using Hyper-V Nat Switch in Windows 10

Rik Hepworth — Fri, 08 Apr 2016 08:31:28 +0000

The new NAT virtual switch that can be created on Windows 10 for Hyper-V virtual machines is a wonderful thing if you're an on-the-go evangelist like myself. For more information on how to create one, see Thomas Maurer's post on the subject.

This post is not about creating a new NAT switch. It is, however, about _re_creating one and the pitfalls that occur, and how I now run my virtual environment with some hack PowerShell and a useful DHCP server utility.

Unblocking a stuck Lab Manager Environment (the hard way)

Rik Hepworth — Thu, 17 Mar 2016 09:17:18 +0000

This is a post so I don’t forget how I fixed access to one of our environments yesterday, and hopefully it will be useful to some of you.

We have a good many pretty complex environments deployed to our lab hyper-V servers, controlled by Lab manager. Operations such as starting, stopping or repairing those environments can take a long, long time, but this time we had one that was quite definitely stuck. The lab view showed the many servers in the lab with green progress bars about halfway across but after many hours we saw no progress. The trouble is, at this point you can’t issue any other commands to the environment from within the Lab Manager console – it’s impossible to cancel the operation and regain access to the environment.

Net Writer: A great UWP blog editor

Rik Hepworth — Sun, 13 Mar 2016 13:37:06 +0000

I came across Net Writer some months ago, when it's creator, Ed Anderson blogged about how he'd taken the newly-released Open Live Writer code and used it in his just-started Universal Windows Platform (UWP) app for Windows 10. In January it only supported blogger accounts, which meant that I was unable to use it. However, I checked again this weekend and discovered that it now supports a wide range of blog software including BlogEngine.net that powers blogs.blackmarble.co.uk.

My Resource Templates from demos are now on GitHub

Rik Hepworth — Fri, 26 Feb 2016 16:02:32 +0000

I’ve had a number of people ask me if I can share the templates I use in my Resource Template sessions at conferences. It’s taken me a while to find the time, but I have created a repo on GitHub and there is a new Visual Studio solution and deployment project with my code.

One very nice feature that this has enabled me to provide is the same ‘Deploy to Azure’ button as you’ll find in the Azure Quickstart Templates. This meant a few changes to the templates – it turns out that Github is case sensitive for file requests, for example, whilst Azure Storage isn’t. The end result is that you can try out my templates in your own subscription directly from Github!

Installing Windows 10 RSAT Tools on EN-GB Media-Installed Systems

Rik Hepworth — Fri, 13 Nov 2015 09:13:43 +0000

This post is an aide memoir so I don’t have to suffer the same annoyance and frustration at what should be an easy task.

I’ve now switched to my Surface Pro 3 as my only system, thanks to the lovely new Pro 4 Type Cover and Surface Dock. That meant that I needed the Remote Server Administration Tools installing. Doing that turned out to be much more of an odyssey that it should have been and I’m writing this in the hope that it will allow others to quickly find the information I struggled to.

Optimising IaaS deployments in Azure Resource Templates

Rik Hepworth — Sun, 01 Nov 2015 22:03:24 +0000

Unlike most of my recent posts this one won’t have code in it. Instead I want to talk about concepts and how you should look long and hard at your templates to optimise deployment.

In my previous articles I’ve talked about how nested deployments can help apply sensible structure to your deployments. I’ve also talked about things I’ve learned around what will successfully deploy and what will give errors. Nested deployments are still key, but the continuous cycle of improvements in Azure means I can change my information somewhat around what works well and what is likely to fail. Importantly, that change allows us to drastically improve our deployment time if we have lots of virtual machines.

Convert new VM’s dynamic IP address to static with Azure Resource Templates

Rik Hepworth — Sun, 01 Nov 2015 22:02:53 +0000

Over the past few posts on this blog I’ve been documenting the templates I have been working on for Black Marble. In a previous sequence I showed how you can use nested deployments to keep your templates simple and still push out complex environments. The problem with those examples is that they are very fixed in what they do. The templates create a number of virtual machines on a virtual network, with static IP addresses for each machine.

Using References and Outputs in Azure Resource Templates

Rik Hepworth — Sun, 01 Nov 2015 22:02:26 +0000

As you work more with Azure Resource Templates you will find that you need to pass information from one resource you have created into another. This is fine if you had the information to begin with within your variables and parameters, but what if it’s something you cannot know before deploy, such as the dynamic IP address of your new VM, or the FQDN of your new public IP address for your service?

Using Objects in Azure Resource Templates

Rik Hepworth — Sun, 01 Nov 2015 22:02:07 +0000

Over the past few weeks I’ve been refactoring and improving the templates that I have been creating for Black Marble to deploy environments in Azure. This is the first post of a few talking about some of the more advanced stuff I’m now doing.

You will remember from my previous posts that within an Azure Resource Template you can define parameters and variables, then use those for the configuration values within your resources. I was finding after a while that the sheer number of parameters and variables I had made the templates hard to read and understand. This was particularly true when my colleagues started to work with thee templates.

Useful links from The ART of Modern Azure Deployments

Rik Hepworth — Sun, 01 Nov 2015 22:01:18 +0000

Within a few days of each other I spoke about Azure Resource Templates at both DDDNorth 2015 and Integration Mondays run by the Integration User Group. I’d like to thank all of you who attended both and have been very kind in your feedback afterwards.

As promised, this post contains the useful links from my final slide.

I’ve already written posts on much of the content covered in my talk. However, since I’m currently sat on a transatlantic flight you can expect a series of posts to follow this on topics such as objects in templates, outputs and references.

Complex Azure Odyssey Part Four: WAP Server

Rik Hepworth — Sun, 30 Aug 2015 15:40:56 +0000

Part One of this series covered the project itself and the overall template structure. Part Two went through how I deploy the Domain Controller in depth. Part Three talks about deploying my ADFS server and in this final part I will show you how to configure the WAP server that faces the outside world.

The Template

The WAP server is the only one in my environment that faces the internet. Because of this the deployment is more complex. I’ve also added further complexity because I want to be able to have more than one WAP server in future, so there’s a load balancer deployed too. You can see the resource outline in the screenshot below: The internet-facing stuff means we need more things in our template. First up is our PublicIPAddress:{ "name": "\[variables('vmWAPpublicipName')\]", "type": "Microsoft.Network/publicIPAddresses", "location": "\[parameters('resourceLocation')\]", "apiVersion": "2015-05-01-preview", "dependsOn": \[ \], "tags": { "displayName": "vmWAPpublicip" }, "properties": { "publicIPAllocationMethod": "Dynamic", "dnsSettings": { "domainNameLabel": "\[variables('vmWAPpublicipDnsName')\]" } } },This is pretty straightforward stuff. The nature of my environment means that I am perfectly happy with a dynamic IP that changes if I stop and then start the environment. Access will be via the hostname assigned to that IP and I use that hostname in my ADFS service configuration and certificates. Azure builds the hostname based on a pattern and I can use that pattern in my templates, which is how I’ve created the certs when I deploy the DC and configure the ADFS service all before I’ve deployed the WAP server. That public IP address is then bound to our load balancer which provides the internet-endpoint for our services:{ "apiVersion": "2015-05-01-preview", "name": "\[variables('vmWAPlbName')\]", "type": "Microsoft.Network/loadBalancers", "location": "\[parameters('resourceLocation')\]", "dependsOn": \[ "\[resourceId('Microsoft.Network/publicIPAddresses',variables('vmWAPpublicipName'))\]" \], "properties": { "frontendIPConfigurations": \[ { "name": "\[variables('LBFE')\]", "properties": { "publicIPAddress": { "id": "\[resourceId('Microsoft.Network/publicIPAddresses',variables('vmWAPpublicipName'))\]" } } } \], "backendAddressPools": \[ { "name": "\[variables('LBBE')\]" } \], "inboundNatRules": \[ { "name": "\[variables('RDPNAT')\]", "properties": { "frontendIPConfiguration": { "id": "\[variables('vmWAPLbfeConfigID')\]" }, "protocol": "tcp", "frontendPort": "\[variables('rdpPort')\]", "backendPort": 3389, "enableFloatingIP": false } }, { "name": "\[variables('httpsNAT')\]", "properties": { "frontendIPConfiguration": { "id": "\[variables('vmWAPLbfeConfigID')\]" }, "protocol": "tcp", "frontendPort": "\[variables('httpsPort')\]", "backendPort": 443, "enableFloatingIP": false } } \] } }There’s a lot going on in here so let’s work through it. First of all we connect our public IP address to the load balancer. We then create a back end configuration which we will later connect our VM to. Finally we create a set of NAT rules. I need to be able to RDP into the WAP server, which is the first block. The variables define the names of my resources. You can see that I specify the ports – external through a variable that I can change, and internal directlym because I need that to be the same each time because that’s what my VMs listen on. You can see that each NAT rule is associated with the frontendIPConfiguration – opening the port to the outside world. The next step is to create a NIC that will hook our VM up to the existing virtual network and the load balancer:{ "name": "\[variables('vmWAPNicName')\]", "type": "Microsoft.Network/networkInterfaces", "location": "\[parameters('resourceLocation')\]", "apiVersion": "2015-05-01-preview", "dependsOn": \[ "\[concat('Microsoft.Network/publicIPAddresses/', variables('vmWAPpublicipName'))\]", "\[concat('Microsoft.Network/loadBalancers/',variables('vmWAPlbName'))\]" \], "tags": { "displayName": "vmWAPNic" }, "properties": { "ipConfigurations": \[ { "name": "ipconfig1", "properties": { "privateIPAllocationMethod": "Static", "privateIPAddress": "\[variables('vmWAPIPAddress')\]", "subnet": { "id": "\[variables('vmWAPSubnetRef')\]" }, "loadBalancerBackendAddressPools": \[ { "id": "\[variables('vmWAPBEAddressPoolID')\]" } \], "loadBalancerInboundNatRules": \[ { "id": "\[variables('vmWAPRDPNATRuleID')\]" }, { "id": "\[variables('vmWAPhttpsNATRuleID')\]" } \] } } \] } }Here you can see that the NIC is connected to a subnet on our virtual network with a static IP that I specify in a variable. It is then added to the load balancer back end address pool and finally I need to specify which of the NAT rules I created in the load balancer are hooked up to my VM. If I don’t include the binding here, traffic won’t be passed to my VM (as I discovered when developing this lot – I forgot to wire up https and as a result couldn’t access the website published by WAP!). The VM itself is basically the same as my ADFS server. I use the same Windows Sever 2012 R2 image, have a single disk and I’ve nested the extensions within the VM because that seems to work better than not doing:``` { "name": "[variables('vmWAPName')]", "type": "Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines", "location": "[parameters('resourceLocation')]", "apiVersion": "2015-05-01-preview", "dependsOn": [ "[concat('Microsoft.Network/networkInterfaces/', variables('vmWAPNicName'))]", ], "tags": { "displayName": "vmWAP" }, "properties": { "hardwareProfile": { "vmSize": "[variables('vmWAPVmSize')]" }, "osProfile": { "computername": "[variables('vmWAPName')]", "adminUsername": "[parameters('adminUsername')]", "adminPassword": "[parameters('adminPassword')]" }, "storageProfile": { "imageReference": { "publisher": "[variables('windowsImagePublisher')]", "offer": "[variables('windowsImageOffer')]", "sku": "[variables('windowsImageSKU')]", "version": "latest" }, "osDisk": { "name": "[concat(variables('vmWAPName'), '-os-disk')]", "vhd": { "uri": "[concat('http://', variables('storageAccountName'), '.blob.core.windows.net/', variables('vmStorageAccountContainerName'), '/', variables('vmWAPName'), 'os.vhd')]" }, "caching": "ReadWrite", "createOption": "FromImage" } }, "networkProfile": { "networkInterfaces": [ { "id": "[resourceId('Microsoft.Network/networkInterfaces', variables('vmWAPNicName'))]" } ] } }, "resources": [ { "type": "extensions", "name": "IaaSDiagnostics", "apiVersion": "2015-06-15", "location": "[parameters('resourceLocation')]", "dependsOn": [ "[concat('Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines/', variables('vmWAPName'))]" ], "tags": { "displayName": "[concat(variables('vmWAPName'),'/vmDiagnostics')]" }, "properties": { "publisher": "Microsoft.Azure.Diagnostics", "type": "IaaSDiagnostics", "typeHandlerVersion": "1.4", "autoUpgradeMinorVersion": "true", "settings": { "xmlCfg": "[base64(variables('wadcfgx'))]", "StorageAccount": "[variables('storageAccountName')]" }, "protectedSettings": { "storageAccountName": "[variables('storageAccountName')]", "storageAccountKey": "[listKeys(variables('storageAccountid'),'2015-05-01-preview').key1]", "storageAccountEndPoint": "https://core.windows.net/" } } }, { "type": "Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines/extensions", "name": "[concat(variables('vmWAPName'),'/WAPserver')]", "apiVersion": "2015-05-01-preview", "location": "[parameters('resourceLocation')]", "dependsOn": [ "[resourceId('Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines', variables('vmWAPName'))]", "[concat('Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines/', variables('vmWAPName'),'/extensions/IaaSDiagnostics')]" ], "properties": { "publisher": "Microsoft.Powershell", "type": "DSC", "typeHandlerVersion": "1.7", "settings": { "modulesURL": "[concat(variables('vmDSCmoduleUrl'), parameters('_artifactsLocationSasToken'))]", "configurationFunction": "[variables('vmWAPConfigurationFunction')]", "properties": { "domainName": "[variables('domainName')]", "adminCreds": { "userName": "[parameters('adminUsername')]", "password": "PrivateSettingsRef:adminPassword" } } }, "protectedSettings": { "items": { "adminPassword": "[parameters('adminPassword')]" } } } }, { "type": "Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines/extensions", "name": "[concat(variables('vmWAPName'),'/wapScript')]", "apiVersion": "2015-05-01-preview", "location": "[parameters('resourceLocation')]", "dependsOn": [ "[concat('Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines/', variables('vmWAPName'))]", "[concat('Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines/', variables('vmWAPName'),'/extensions/WAPserver')]" ], "properties": { "publisher": "Microsoft.Compute", "type": "CustomScriptExtension", "typeHandlerVersion": "1.4", "settings": { "fileUris": [ "[concat(parameters('_artifactsLocation'),'/WapServer.ps1', parameters('_artifactsLocationSasToken'))]", "[concat(parameters('_artifactsLocation'),'/PSPKI.zip', parameters('_artifactsLocationSasToken'))]", "[concat(parameters('_artifactsLocation'),'/tuServDeployFunctions.ps1', parameters('_artifactsLocationSasToken'))]" ], "commandToExecute": "[concat('powershell.exe -file WAPServer.ps1',' -vmAdminUsername ',parameters('adminUsername'),' -vmAdminPassword ',parameters('adminPassword'),' -fsServiceName ',variables('vmWAPpublicipDnsName'),' -adfsServerName ',variables('vmADFSName'),' -vmDCname ',variables('vmDCName'), ' -resourceLocation "', parameters('resourceLocation'),'"')]" } } } ] }

Complex Azure Template Odyssey Part Three: ADFS Server

Rik Hepworth — Sun, 30 Aug 2015 14:59:27 +0000

Part One of this series covered the project itself and the overall template structure. Part Two went through how I deploy the Domain Controller in depth. This post will focus on the next server in the chain: The ADFS server that is required to enable authentication in the application which will eventually be installed on this environment.

The Template

The nested deployment template for the ADFS server differs little from my DC template. If anything, it’s even simpler because we don’t have to reconfigure the virtual network after deploying the VM. The screenshot below shots the JSON outline for the template.

Complex Azure Template Odyssey Part Two: Domain Controller

Rik Hepworth — Sun, 30 Aug 2015 14:11:30 +0000

In part one of this series of posts I talked about the project driving my creation of these Azure Resource Templates, the structure of the template and what resource I was deploying. This post will go through the deployment and configuration of the first VM which will become my domain controller and certificate server. In order to achieve my goals I need to deploy the VM, the DSC extension and finally the custom script extension to perform actions that current DSC modules can’t. I’ll show you the template code, the DSC code and the final scripts and talk about the gotchas I encountered on the way. Further posts will detail the ADFS and WAP server deployments.

Speaking at CloudBurst in September

Rik Hepworth — Sun, 23 Aug 2015 16:29:48 +0000

I’ve never been to Sweden, so I’m really looking forward to September, when I’ll be speaking at CloudBurst. Organised by the Swedish Azure User Group (SWAG – love it!), this conference is also streamed and recorded and the sessions will be available on Channel 9. The list of speakers and topics promise some high-quality and interesting sessions and I urge you to attend if you can, and tune in to the live stream if you can’t.

Complex Azure Template Odyssey Part One: The Environment

Rik Hepworth — Sun, 23 Aug 2015 16:21:00 +0000

Part Two | Part Three | Part Four Over the past month or two I’ve been creating an Azure Resource Template to deploy and environment which, previously, we’d created old-style PowerShell scripts to deploy. In theory, the Resource Template approach would make the deployment quicker, easier to trigger from tooling like Release Manager and make the code easier to read. The aim is to deploy a number of servers that will host an application we are developing. This will allow us to easily provision test or demo environments into Azure making as much use of automation as possible. The application itself has a set of system requirements that means I have a good number of tasks to work through:

An Introduction To Azure Resource Templates

Rik Hepworth — Sun, 23 Aug 2015 14:55:47 +0000

I have spent a good deal of time over the last month or two building an Azure Resource Template to deploy a relatively complicated IaaS environment. In doing so I’ve hit a variety of problems along the way and I though that a number of blog posts were in order to share what I’ve learned. I will write a detailed post on certain specific servers within the environment shortly. This post will describe Azure Resource Template basics, problems I hit and some decisions I made to overcome issues. Further posts will detail my environment and specific solutions to creating my configuration.

Using the customScriptExtension in Azure Resource Templates

Rik Hepworth — Sun, 23 Aug 2015 13:10:16 +0000

Documentation for using the customScriptExtension for Virtual Machines in Azure through Resource Templates is pretty much non-existent at time of writing, and the articles on using it through PowerShell are just plain wrong when it comes to templates. This post is accurate at time of writing and will show you how to deploy PowerShell scripts and resources to an Azure Virtual Machine through a Resource Template.

The code snippet below shows a customScriptExtension pulled from one of my templates.

My Future Decoded session is now online

Rik Hepworth — Tue, 27 Jan 2015 16:55:36 +0000

Susan Smith has posted an interesting DevOps article on the TechNet UK blog. Hidden away in a footnote is a link to recordings and slide decks for the DevOps track at Future Decoded, including my own session. Both the video and my deck are available for you to view online or download.

Speaking at Techorama 2015

Rik Hepworth — Tue, 27 Jan 2015 16:41:20 +0000

I’m excited to be speaking at the Techorama conference in Belgium this May. Richard spoke last year (and is doing so again) and came back raving about the great time he had, so I’m really looking forward to it. Go on, take a look at the site (the agenda is steadily filling out) and register!

Want to know what’s going on? Come to the Black Marble Tech Update

Rik Hepworth — Tue, 20 Jan 2015 15:41:08 +0000

It’s January, which can only mean one thing. It’s time for the annual Black Marble Tech Update. If you’re an IT or development manager, come along to hear the stuff you need to know about Microsoft’s releases and updates last year and what we know so far about what is coming this year.

Tech Updates are hard work to prepare for, but they’re quite exhilarating to present. In the morning, myself, Andy and Andrew will run through the key moves and changes in the Microsoft ecosystem to help IT managers with their strategic planning: What’s coming out of support, what’s got a new release due; in short, what do you need to pay attention to for your organisation’s IT.

Why you should attend a Microsoft IT Camp

Rik Hepworth — Tue, 20 Jan 2015 14:55:14 +0000

I’ve posted before about helping out at the IT Camps run by the Microsoft DX team. I’m a fervent supporter of them – they are hands-on days of technical content run by great people who know their stuff and, importantly, they are run around the country.

Next week will see me in Manchester with Ed Baker for the latest instalment. The current series of campus are two days with the first being around Mobile Device Management and the second around extending your datacentre into Azure. I’ll be there for day two to be Ed’s wingman as we take attendees through hands-on labs around virtual machines and talk about virtual networks, Azure Active directory and pretty much anything else Azure-related we get asked about.

Speaking at SQLBits 2015

Rik Hepworth — Tue, 20 Jan 2015 14:31:20 +0000

We’re only half way through January and this year is already busy. I am really excited to be speaking at SQLBits this year!

SQLBits is a conference that various members of the Black Marble team attend regularly and rave about. It’s the event if you want to gain knowledge and insight into all aspects of databases and data management, reporting, BI and more. Microsoft are a platinum sponsor of the event this year and a whole heap of big names are flying in to present.

Get informed with TechDays Online 2015

Rik Hepworth — Tue, 20 Jan 2015 12:33:39 +0000

Block out your diary from February 3rd until February 5th. The great guys at Microsoft DX are running another TechDays Online event and it’s absolutely worth your time. I had the absolute pleasure to be involved last year and will again this year, both in front of and behind the camera.

For those who don’t know about the event, TechDays Online is three days (and one evening, this year) of technical content delivered by MVPs and Microsoft evangelists across a broad range of topics. Whilst you watch the sessions, streaming live through the power of the internet, you can ask questions in the chat channel. Some of those questions may find their way to the speaker during the session, but all will be picked up by a team of experts backstage, fuelled by caffeine and sugar.

Speaking on DevOps at Future Decoded

Rik Hepworth — Thu, 06 Nov 2014 16:34:26 +0000

I am now going to speaking on the DevOps track at Future Decoded. I’ll be channelling Richard to talk about how our dev-release pipeline is constructed at Black Marble and how the various Microsoft tools that we use could be swapped out for alternatives in a heterogeneous environment.

Whilst this isn’t an area that I usually speak around, it’s something that I am very involved in as Richard and I constantly look to improve our internal practices around development, test and deployment. Big thanks to Susan Smith for inviting me to participate.

A week with the Surface Pro 3

Rik Hepworth — Sat, 26 Jul 2014 15:02:00 +0000

Robert unexpectedly (gotta love him!) gave me a surprise present in the form of a Microsoft Surface Pro 3. I’ve now been using it for a week and I thought it was time to put my thoughts into words.

You’ll pry it out of my cold, dead hands

Overall, this is a fantastic bit of kit and it’s the device I have used most at home, for meetings and even sometimes at my desk. The only reason it hasn’t replaced my stalwart ThinkPad X220T is that it has neither the memory nor the storage to run the virtual machines I still need. It’s light, comfortable to hold, has great battery life and the screen is gorgeous.

SharePoint 2013: Creating Managed Metadata Columns that allow Fill-In Choices

Rik Hepworth — Thu, 17 Jul 2014 15:57:45 +0000

This is a relatively quick post. There’s a fair bunch of stuff written about creating columns in SharePoint 2013 that use Managed Metadata termsets. However, some of it is a pain to find and then some. I have had to deal with two frustrating issues lately, both of which boil down to poor sharepoint documentation.

Wictor Wilén wrote the post I point people at for most stuff on managed metadata columns, but this time the internet couldn’t help.

Automating TFS Build Server deployment with SCVMM and PowerShell

Rik Hepworth — Thu, 17 Jul 2014 11:49:08 +0000

Richard and I have been busy this week. It started with a conversation about automating the installation of new build servers. Richard was looking at writing PowerShell to install and configure the TFS build agent, along with all the various SDKs that we use across all out projects. Our current array of build servers have all been built by hand and each has a different set of SDKs to build specific project types. Richard’s aim is to make a single, homogenous build server configuration so we can then scale out for capacity much more quickly than before.

Safely modify SharePoint 2013 Web.Config files using PowerShell

Rik Hepworth — Tue, 01 Jul 2014 13:22:01 +0000

One of the things we learn early in our SharePoint careers was not to manually edit the web.config files of a web application. SharePoint involves multiple servers and has its own mechanisms for managing web.config updates.

Previously, I’ve created xml files with web.config modifications and copied those to each WFE. Those changes are merged into the initial web.config by SharePoint.

I’ve always been vaguely aware of there being a better way, but never needed to track it down from an IT point of view. Last week, however we wanted to change a setting to enable blobcache on the servers hosting a particular web application so decided to use the opportunity to figure out a ‘best way’ to do this.

Microsoft People-centric IT Roadshow

Rik Hepworth — Sun, 08 Jun 2014 19:07:48 +0000

Microsoft UK have been running technical events around the UK for a couple of years now, and it’s a great thing. Too many events are focused in the south of England and there are lots of IT pros north of the M25!

Starting on Monday, the latest series of events kicks off. The People-Centric IT roadshow content is being delivered by MVPs from across the UK and Ireland. Covering hot-topics like Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) and information security, the sessions will talk about using the appropriate tooling from across the Microsoft stack to address these real-world problems.

Adding USB 3 to my Lenovo X220 Tablet

Rik Hepworth — Sun, 08 Jun 2014 12:50:55 +0000

My X220 is a stalwart machine. It’s built like a tank and can be upgraded in a numb of ways. Mine now has 16Gb of RAM and two SSDs which allow me to run multi-VM environments for development and demo. Unfortunately, however, there is no USB 3 on the laptop. That’s a pain if I need to copy stuff on and off via USB, or run VMs from a USB 3 pod.

Our TFS Lab Management Infrastructure

Rik Hepworth — Sun, 08 Jun 2014 12:38:02 +0000

Richard and I spend a good deal of time talking about Lab Manager and our environments. I’ve written here before about our migration to the latest versions of the various components of Lab and both Richard and I have delivered sessions at user groups and conferences.

Richard was in Belgium last week for Techorama, after which he was asked about the specifics of our setup. Between us, we came up with a diagram of our Lab Environment and Richard recently posted that to his blog. Hopefully some of you will find it useful.

Enabling Data Deduplication on my Windows 8.1 Laptop

Rik Hepworth — Sun, 08 Jun 2014 12:33:58 +0000

Lets get the disclaimer out of the way first: What I’ve done is absolutely unsupported by Microsoft. Just because it works for me does not guarantee it will work for you and I am not in any way recommending that you follow my lead!

I use a great many virtual machines for both customer work, internal projects and just tinkering. My ThinkPad X220T is tricked out with extra RAM and two SSDs. Space is still an issue, though, and I can’t squeeze any more storage into my little workhorse.

Getting ready for Global Windows Azure Bootcamp 2

Rik Hepworth — Wed, 26 Mar 2014 09:22:09 +0000

It’s a busy week. I’m speaking at the [Black Marble-hosted GWAB2 event](http://www.blackmarble.co.uk/events.aspx?event= Global Windows Azure Bootcamp 2) this Saturday, along with Steve Spencer and Andy Westgarth. Richard and Robert will also be on hand which means between us we should be able to cover questions on much of the newly re-monikered Microsoft Azure.

I’ll be running through IaaS, Azure AD and looking at hybrid cloud solutions from an IT perspective while Steve and Andy talk through the other platform services from a developer point of view.

Migrating to SCVMM 2012 R2 in a TFS Lab Scenario

Rik Hepworth — Thu, 20 Mar 2014 13:25:31 +0000

Last week I moved our SCVMM from 2012 with service pack 1 to 2012 R2. Whilst the actual process was much simpler than I expected, we had a pretty big constraint imposed upon us by Lab Manager that largely dictated our approach.

Our SCVMM 2012 deployment was running on an aging Dell server. It had a pair of large hard drives that were software mirrored by the OS an we were using NIC teaming in Server 2012 to improve network throughput. It wasn’t performing that well, however. Transfers from the VMM library hosted on the server to our VM hosts were limited by the speed of the ageing SATA connectors and incoming transfers were further slowed by the software mirroring. We also had issues where Lab manager would timeout jobs whilst SCVMM was still diligently working on them.

Creating Azure Virtual Networks using Powershell and XML Part 4: Local networks and site-site connectivity

Rik Hepworth — Sun, 09 Mar 2014 18:21:00 +0000

This is part 4 of a series of posts building powershell functions to create and modify Azure Virtual Networks. Previous posts have covered functions to create virtual networks and then delete them. In this part, I’m going to show you functions that will define local networks and configure site-site VPN connectivity between a local and virtual network.

Next on my list is to create functions to delete the local networks and remove the site-site connections. Then I really must look at functions to edit the configuration.

Gary Lapointe to the rescue: Using his Office 365 powershell tools to recover from a corrupted masterpage

Rik Hepworth — Fri, 07 Mar 2014 18:29:00 +0000

I also need to give credit to the Office 365 support team over this. They were very quick in their response to my support incident, but I was quicker!

Whilst working on an Office 365 site for a customer today I had a moment of blind panic. The site is using custom branding and I was uploading a new version of the master page to the site when things went badly wrong. The upload appeared to finish OK but the dialog that was shown post upload was not the usual content type/fill in the fields form, but a plain white box. I left it for a few minutes but nothing changed. Unperturbed, I returned to the mater page gallery… Except I couldn’t. All I got was a white page. No errors, nothing. No pages worked at all – no settings pages, no content pages, nothing at all.

Creating Azure Virtual Networks using Powershell and XML Part 3: Powershell functions for deletion

Rik Hepworth — Tue, 04 Mar 2014 17:30:00 +0000

This is part three of a series of posts about using powershell to script the creation, deletion and (hopefully) modification of Azure Virtual Networks. In part 1 I went through the key steps with some rough code. Part 2 showed the much tidier functions I’ve now written to create virtual network elements. This is part 3, and I will present functions to remove elements. Hopefully I will manage to get the modification functions to work which be a fourth installment!

Creating Azure Virtual Networks using Powershell and XML Part 2: Powershell functions

Rik Hepworth — Tue, 04 Mar 2014 16:11:00 +0000

In my previous post I talked about what was involved in creating an Azure network configuration using Powershell. In this post I’ll cover where I’ve got so so far, which is a series of functions that do the following:

Contact Azure and get the current network configuration. Convert that to sensible XML and if it’s empty, create the basic structure.
Create a new virtual network, checking to see if one with the same name already exists.
Add a subnet to a virtual network, checking to see one with the same address prefix or name doesn’t already exist.
Add a DNS reference to a virtual network, making sure the DNS is defined first.
Create a DNS.
Put the configuration back into Azure to be applied.

Still on my to-do list are removing networks and other elements, and modifying existing networks.

Creating Azure Virtual Networks using Powershell and XML

Rik Hepworth — Mon, 03 Mar 2014 17:56:00 +0000

I’ll be honest, I expected this task to be easier than it is. What I’m working on is some powershell that we might use as part of automated build processes that will create a new Virtual Network in an Azure subscription. What I’m after is to add a new network to the existing configuration.

There aren’t many powershell commands for Azure virtual networks. The two we need to use are get-azureVnetConfig and set-azureVnetConfig.

Declaratively create Composed Looks in SharePoint 2013 with elements.xml

Rik Hepworth — Fri, 28 Feb 2014 10:00:23 +0000

This is really a follow-up to my earlier post about tips with SharePoint publishing customisations. Composed looks have been a part of a couple of projects recently. In the first, a solution for on-premise, we used code in a feature receiver to add a number of items to the Composed Looks list. In the second, for Office 365, a bit of research offered an alternative approach with no code.

What are Composed Looks

A composed look is a collection of master page, colour scheme file, font scheme file and background image. There is a site list called Composed Looks that holds them, and they are shown in the Change the Look page as the thumbnail options you can choose to apply branding in one hit.

Speaking at NEBytes on February 19th

Rik Hepworth — Sat, 08 Feb 2014 14:52:39 +0000

I’m pleased to have been asked to speak at NEBytes again – a great user group that meets in Newcastle. I’ll be speaking about customising SharePoint 2013 using master pages, themes and search templates, along the same lines as my recent blog post.

It will be an unusual one for me, as I will spend most of the session inside Visual Studio showing how to create and deploy the customisations that can deliver really powerful solutions without needing to resort to writing code (other than for deployment).

Using the Dell Venue 8 Pro Stylus

Rik Hepworth — Wed, 05 Feb 2014 15:24:01 +0000

You will recall from my earlier post how much I like my Dell Venue 8 Pro and how disappointed I was that the stylus was on back-order until March.

Imagine my surprise, then, when a package arrived at the beginning of this week with a shiny new stylus in it!

As you can see from the picture, it works just great with OneNote (and it’s desktop big brother).

Six tips when deploying SharePoint 2013 masterpages, page layouts and display templates

Rik Hepworth — Mon, 03 Feb 2014 17:27:40 +0000

I’ve been hat-swapping again since just before christmas (which explains the lack of Azure IaaS posts I’m afraid). I’ve been working on a large SharePoint 2013 project, most lately on customising a number of elements around publishing. Getting those custom elements into SharePoint from my solution raised a number of little snags, most of which were solved by the great internet hive mind. It took me a long time to find some of those fixes, however, so I thought I’d collect them here and reference the original posts where appropriate.

BlogEngine.Net automatically tweeting on new posts

Rik Hepworth — Mon, 27 Jan 2014 11:17:00 +0000

I sadly miss Twitter Notify, the plugin for Windows Live Writer that would tweet when I published a new post. Fortunately, there are a couple of plugins for BlogEngine.Net that purport to do the same thing. I’ve just deployed SocialPublish to our server. Configuration is a bit fiddly, and I’m not sure yet how well it will work with our multi-tennant structure. This is my first post after activation so I’m keen to see if it tweets when I publish!

Living with the Dell Venue 8 Pro

Rik Hepworth — Sun, 26 Jan 2014 16:32:11 +0000

Some time ago I wrote about how disappointed I was with the Acer W3 tablet. I really wanted that small form factor device, but the Acer fell short in pretty much every regard. Late last year Dell launched the Venue 8 Pro – the first of the new generation of 8” Windows tablets out of the gate. I sat on the fence for a while, looking at community comments on the the device, then finally ordered one after speaking to Simon May about his impressions of it.

Dealing with AD sync issues in an Azure hybrid deployment

Rik Hepworth — Tue, 05 Nov 2013 22:21:38 +0000

I’ve been building demo environments for Tech.Days Online for the past few days. I had been blogging as I built, but then I hit problems and time pressure meant I had to pause my series on building the hybrid network. I will pick up the remainder of those posts in the near future but in the meantime, I want to give you all the heads up on one of my problems.

Building an Azure IaaS and on-premise hybrid environment Part 2: DC and servers in the cloud

Rik Hepworth — Mon, 04 Nov 2013 20:26:44 +0000

This is part 2 of a series of posts bout building a hybrid network connecting Windows Azure and on-premise. For more background on what the goals are, and for information on how to create the Azure Network and connect the VPN tunnel between on-premise and cloud see part 1.

Creating a DC on our Azure Network

I’m going to create a new VM on Azure using the VM gallery. One important point when doing this is that you should add a second drive to the VM for domain controllers. This is down to how read/write caching works on the primary drive (it’s enabled) which means there is a risk that a write operation may make it to the cache but not to the drive in the event of a failure. This would cause problems with AD synchronisation and for that reason we add a seond drive and disable caching on it so we can use it to host the AD database.

Building an Azure IaaS and on-premise hybrid environment Part 1: The plan and Azure Network Connection

Rik Hepworth — Sun, 03 Nov 2013 15:51:09 +0000

I’ve been meaning to build a test lab to kick the tyres of Windows Azure Networks for a while. Two things combined together to make me get it done, however: First was the need to build exactly that for a customer as part of proof-of-concepts; the second was an invitation to present at Tech.Days Online on the subject.

I’ve built and rebuilt said lab a few times now. I am about to build it again in order to have a demo environment for Tech.Days and I though it would be a good opportunity to blog the steps involved.

Connecting Azure Network Site-Site VPN to a SonicWall Appliance

Rik Hepworth — Mon, 28 Oct 2013 20:30:36 +0000

I am with a customer this week, building a test Azure Network+IaaS/Azure AD/Office 365 environment. We struggled to get the site-site VPN connection up for a while and there wasn’t a great deal on the greater internet to help, save for a couple of posts in a discussion forum by the marvellous Marcus Robinson. We finally got it working when we found a tech note from SonicWall, published just a few days ago on the 7th October.

Speaking at UK Tech.Days Online 2013

Rik Hepworth — Sat, 26 Oct 2013 15:48:40 +0000

I’ve been supporting the great team of evangelists at Microsoft with their UK Tech.Days events for some time now. I am chuffed to bits that they have asked me to contribute to the fantastic UK Tech.Days Online event. If you haven’t heard about it, go look at the agenda right now! Three days of great content on the latest technologies covering client, server, cloud and dev. The whole thing will be streamed live thanks to the wonder of the internet and includes a live interview with Steve Ballmer.

Generation 2 Virtual Machines on Windows 8.1 and Server 2012 R2 plus other nice new features

Rik Hepworth — Tue, 15 Oct 2013 13:43:50 +0000

DDD North 2013 was a fantastic community conference but sadly I didn’t get chance to deliver my grok talk on Generation 2 virtual machines. A few people came up to me beforehand to say they were interested in the topic, and a few more spoke to me afterwards to ask if I would blog. I had planned to write a post anyway, but when you know it’s something people want to read you get a bit more of a push.

Unexpectedly now doing a session at DDD North 2013

Rik Hepworth — Thu, 10 Oct 2013 09:41:44 +0000

I had a surprise exchange of text messages last night with Andy Westgarth. Sadly, one of the people who was to speak in one of the first session slots has had to pull out. Andy did the thing all the best conference organisers do – he called his friends! As a result, Richard and myself will be presenting a session about our experience with Lab Manager on Saturday morning.

Lab Manager is an interesting part of the development puzzle, allowing automated provisioning of environments that can then have software deployed to them and automated tests run against them. However, building a good Lab Manager environment (or machines to then be composed into an environment) is a very different task than the bare-metal scripting guerrilla devops approach that is very en-vogue right now. Richard and I will speak about how we run our Lab from both the perspective of the development/ALM specialist (that would be him!) and the IT guy (that would be me!).

Miracast with Surface Pro, Windows 8.1 release and Netgear Push2TV

Rik Hepworth — Tue, 08 Oct 2013 09:31:31 +0000

One of the most useful features of Windows 8.1 for me is the native support for Miracast (which is compatible with Intel Widi) for connecting to a wireless projector or display. Being able to wander around with my tablet whilst speaking is really handy.

Sadly, whilst this worked for a little while during the preview, everything stopped with no reason. Searching the internet hive mind suggested that a Windows Defender update during the preview release had borked it, but nobody could confirm.

Grok talking at DDDNorth 2013

Rik Hepworth — Tue, 08 Oct 2013 09:01:00 +0000

DDD North 2013 is almost upon us and I hope you’re all converging on Sunderland for what should be a great for devs. I’ll be helping out during the day, and I will also be doing a short Grok Talk on how Generation 2 Virtual Machines in Windows 8.1 and Server 2012 are new, different and cool. Come along and heckle, why don’t you?

Take care installing firmware updates on your Surface Pro if it’s bitlocker encrypted

Rik Hepworth — Sun, 06 Oct 2013 21:11:03 +0000

A quick tip, this one. I downloaded the latest firmware update to my Surface Pro this evening. It rebooted and promptly requested my bitlocker unlock code. I don’t keep those to hand – they’re stored in our Active Directory. Fortunately I had another laptop with DirectAccess so I could find the key. Be ready with your recovery key if you too have enabled bitlocker and perform firmware updates.

Being allowed out in public: Forthcoming events

Rik Hepworth — Sun, 29 Sep 2013 15:21:34 +0000

It’s autumn again, and that means event season is upon us once more. In the next few months I’m getting around a bit, so this post is a plug for the events I’m either attending or speaking at.

October 1st is VMUG Leeds. I’m registered to attend, but chances are I’ll be spending much of the day helping the Microsoft guys run their hand-on lab. The agenda has some great-sounding sessions and I believe there are still spaces so why not register and come along.
October 12th is DDDNorth in Sunderland. Perhaps unsurprisingly my Lab Manager session wasn’t voted in, but I’m sure that’s because the range of speakers and topics available to choose from during voting meant hard choice had to be made . As with last year, I’m helping out on the day but I’m also hoping to attend (heckle) some of the sessions. Black Marble should be there in force, as Richard, Steve and Gary are all speaking. Former BM staffer Iain Angus’ session looks interesting too!
December 4th is the Black Marble [Architecture Forum in the North](http://www.blackmarble.co.uk/events.aspx?event=Architecture Forum in the North - 6). With so many great speakers lined up already I’m not sure if Linda will squeeze me in, but I’ll certainly be there to join in the discussion (and make sure the AV works!).
January 29th is the Black Marble Annual Tech Update. I’ll be speaking in the [morning, IT-focused session](http://www.blackmarble.co.uk/events.aspx?event=Annual TechUpdate for Microsoft Technologies for the IT Pro). It’s hard work to prep for but great fun to deliver and the feedback we get is always really great so come along if you want to be informed about the Microsoft roadmap to help your planning process. The [afternoon session covers the development technologies](http://www.blackmarble.co.uk/events.aspx?event=Annual TechUpdate for Microsoft Technologies for Developers) too!
Microsoft also have a new season of Tech.Days about to kick off, so keep an eye on their web site for details.

Building environments for Lab Manager: Why bare metal scripting fails

Rik Hepworth — Sun, 29 Sep 2013 14:58:15 +0000

In the world of DevOps it’s all about the scripts: I’ve seen some great work done by some clever people to create complex environments with multiple VMs all from scratch using PowerShell. That’s great, but unfortunately in the world of Lab Manager it just doesn’t work well at all.

We’ve begun the pretty mammoth task of generating a new suite of VMs for our Lab Manager deployment to allow the developers and testers to create multi-machine environments. I had hoped to follow the scripting path and create these things much more on the fly, but it wasn’t to be.

Links from presentation on Server 2012 R2

Rik Hepworth — Wed, 25 Sep 2013 19:16:19 +0000

Thanks to all who attended the ReBuild and TechEd revisited event today. I promised that I would post the links from the final slide to this blog so you can all start evaluating Server 2012 R2 and System Center 2012 R2.

Download and evaluate the Preview software

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/server-cloud/evaluate/trial-software.aspx

Refer to additional Windows Server 2012 R2 resources

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/server-cloud/windows-server/windows-server-2012-r2.aspx

Windows Server 2012 R2 on TechNet

http ://www.Microsoft.com/technet

Refer to additional System Center 2012 R2 resources

Life with a Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 13

Rik Hepworth — Sat, 31 Aug 2013 16:33:49 +0000

My wife’s desktop computer is eight years old. In fairness, it was good kit at the time, and the dual core, 64-bit AMD CPU and it’s four gigabytes of RAM are still more than enough to run her apps today. But the disks are slow and, frankly, it’s just getting tired. Time to get a new one…

I had no real preference whether we replaced the old computer with a new traditional-style desktop and screen, or an all-in one, or a convertible or even a tablet. The only thing I was firm about was that we should get a computer with touch, whatever the form factor. It’s not that my wife loves touch (in truth, I’m not sure she does…) but that’s the way we’re all headed and I wanted to make sure we got something that would last.

I wouldn’t be where I am today… How encouraging kids in computing is important

Rik Hepworth — Sat, 31 Aug 2013 15:49:00 +0000

I’ve been mulling this blog post for a while. Those of you who know Black Marble will have seen that we all believe very strongly in encouraging young people to take up computing and put time into sharing our knowledge and expertise. I thought it was worth sharing how I got to where I am today, which would not have been possible without the help and encouragement of three key people who worked with technology. There’s a message in the story though, about how we need to help the next generation of computing professionals in the same way.

Installing .Net 3.5 onto Windows 8 and 8.1 using DISM

Rik Hepworth — Sat, 31 Aug 2013 14:24:32 +0000

This is one of those posts to save me searching the web every time I need to install .Net 3.5 on a Windows 8 (and now 8.1) system. If the automated installation via add/remove features fails then you need the correct DISM command.

For those who have not yet encountered it, DISM allows you to perform actions on Windows image files in a process called Offline Servicing. However, it also allows you to perform the same functions online – on your current windows system.

Editing Windows Server 2012 Group Policies for Direct Access with Windows 8.1 Enterprise Preview

Rik Hepworth — Tue, 13 Aug 2013 18:20:00 +0000

I finally got time to upgrade my Surface Pro to Windows 8.1 Enterprise. One of the things I most want to test is DirectAccess, as I live and die by this on my main laptop. However, despite the computer object for my machine being in the group that the DA group policies are applied to, no DA settings appeared.

TIP: On Windows 8.1, use Get-DAClientExperienceConfiguration in a PowerShell window to check your settings.

Installing Windows 8.1 Enterprise on Surface Pro

Rik Hepworth — Tue, 13 Aug 2013 18:17:57 +0000

Windows 8.1 Enterprise preview was released a week or two ago. Being on holiday prevented me trying it out until I returned to the office. Everyone has different methods for installing Windows 8/8.1 on a Surface Pro. It’s actually pretty simple. Windows 8 can be done in the same way as I list here. However, you will need to download the Surface Pro Driver pack from Microsoft – Windows 8 doesn’t automatically find all the hardware; Windows 8.1 does.

The Acer Iconia W3: An object lesson in how NOT to design a tablet

Rik Hepworth — Mon, 08 Jul 2013 15:52:00 +0000

As you may have seen from my recent tweets, I was fortunate enough to attend //Build again this year in lovely San Francisco. In what appears to be an emerging tradition, conference attendees received not one, but two Windows 8 tablets: A 128Gb Microsoft Surface Pro with Type Cover, and an Acer Iconia W3 with keyboard dock.

Many column inches have been dedicated to the Microsoft device, which I won’t bother repeating. The Acer, however, is a different story.

Tech Update for Public Sector

Rik Hepworth — Tue, 14 May 2013 15:19:32 +0000

Right now I am putting the finishing touches to my deck for an event Black Marble are running at Cardinal Place next week. As many of you will know, for the past ten years we have run the annual Tech Update covering moves and changes across the entire Microsoft spectrum of products. Until now that has only taken place in Leeds but for the first time we are taking that show on the road.

Speaking at NEBytes about TFS 2012 Lab and SCVMM 2012

Rik Hepworth — Wed, 08 May 2013 10:45:30 +0000

On Wednesday 15th May 2013, Black Marble travels north, as Steve Spencer and I will both present sessions for the great guys at NEBytes.

Whilst Steve covers fun hardware and software dev using Gadgeteer, I will be talking about our experiences with TFS 2012 Lab and SCVMM 2012.

If you have seen some of my earlier posts, our migration to the latest and greatest was interesting, to say the least. I learned a great deal about how SCVMM and Lab talk to each other and I will be running through how we built our environment and the things we learned that could save you pain as you follow in our footsteps.

Fixing a dodgy proximity sensor on my Nokia Lumia 920

Rik Hepworth — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 18:08:44 +0000

I’ve just had a really infuriating half an hour trying to figure out why I couldn’t get the keypad to appear during a call on my Lumia 920. When I took my phone away form my ear the screen stayed black. Pushing the power button made the display switch on and then immediately switch off. Power cycling and even resetting made no difference.

A close examination showed that the small round circle next to the speaker slot at the top of the phone display was full of dust. Exactly how this happened I am not sure – you’d expect that bit to be sealed, wouldn’t you.

Fixing Lab Manager environments with brute force

Rik Hepworth — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 14:37:07 +0000

As you’ve probably seen, our Lab Manager/SCVMM 2008 R2 upgrade to SCVMM 2012 SP1 was not the smoothest in the world. The end result was a clean lab manager and SCVMM install, but a raft of virtual machines that had previously been part of environments.

In tidying up, Richard and I learned a few things about picking apart VMs that were once part of an environment such that a new environment could be built form the wreckage.

Things to remember when building virtual machines for a lab manager environment

Rik Hepworth — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 12:18:03 +0000

As you will have read on both mine and Richard’s blogs, we have recently upgraded our Lab environment and it wasn’t the smoothest of processes.

However, as always it has been a learning experience and this post is all about building VM environments that can be sucked into Lab and turned into a Lab environment that can be pushed out multiple times.

Note: This article is all about virtual machines running on Windows Server 2012 that may have been built on Windows 8 and are managed by SCVMM 2012 SP1 and Lab Manager/TFS 2012 CU1. Whilst the things I have found in terms of prepping VMs for Lab Manager are likely to be common to older versions, your mileage may vary.

Notes from the field on our SCVMM/Lab Manager environment upgrade

Rik Hepworth — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 20:33:00 +0000

Richard has posted a group effort article on his blog about our System Center 2008 R2/Lab Manager upgrade to System Center 2012 SP1/Lab Manager. All did not go swimmingly…

I have more helpful notes that I am writing up myself and will post over the next few days around the steps to fix virtual machines that are part of an environment and tips on building complex multi-machine rigs for lab manager.

Notes from the North East: Imagine Cup Hackathon 2012

Rik Hepworth — Tue, 05 Feb 2013 12:10:02 +0000

We had a great time at the Imagine Cup North East Hackathon this weekend. Black Marble turned out in force with myself, Steve, Richard, Robert, Linda, Josh and Riccardo all helping out. Andy Westgarth and the guys at Sunderland Software City had done a solid job on the organisation and we were well looked after.

There were nine teams there in total, from a wide range of Universities and Colleges in the Newcastle/Sunderland area. I was impressed by their ideas and their tenacity in defending those ideas against a barrage of questions from myself and others. I was also taken by the range of ages we had. Some of the teams were A-level and college students, whilst others were in various years of their university degree courses. Even if they don’t make it through to the national finals this year, the younger teams will gain great experience and can enter again next year and beyond.

Looking forward to the Imagine Cup Hackathon

Rik Hepworth — Sun, 27 Jan 2013 14:18:00 +0000

It’s a busy week this week and I’m really looking forward to being involved with the Imagine Cup Hackathon for the North East Region this Friday and Saturday (1st and 2nd February).

Black Marble have a long history of supporting the UK Imagine Cup teams and it’s great to be able to continue that support. We’ll be in The Life Science Centre, Newcastle upon Tyne in force this week. Steve Spencer, Richard Fennell, Robert Hogg and myself will be accompanied by Riccardo Viglianisi and Josh Whittle from Black Marble.

More UK TechDays on System Center 2012 and Windows 8

Rik Hepworth — Sun, 27 Jan 2013 13:41:00 +0000

Our good friends in the UK TechDays team have announced another raft of events in their fantastic IT Camps series. I’m hoping to be there for at least on of them and if you’re at all interested in Windows 8 or System Center 2012 I cant recommend them highly enough.

No slides, no marketing – just technical content, demo driven with as much audience participation as they can manage. Everyone I’ve spoken to at previous camps has enjoyed them and learned a great deal.

User profile service failures caused by Distributed Cache on SharePoint 2013

Rik Hepworth — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 15:39:31 +0000

This is a relatively quick post, largely because I was not able to record the details of the error messages we saw in the farm before we fixed them.

On a recent engagement we were investigating problems with a SharePoint 2013 farm that had been installed for our customer by a third party. There were a number of issues that we worked through but I wanted to record this one for the community.

Upcoming presentations

Rik Hepworth — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 15:31:44 +0000

It’s the start of a new year and my engagement diary is filling rapidly. Once again I am covering a wide range of topics for an equally broad audience which is something I really enjoy.

January 15th will find me in Manchester at a Microsoft event for Fire Services. I’m giving an overview of Windows Azure PaaS and IaaS services and how they might be used to complement as well as replace existing IT systems.
January 30th is the annual Black Marble Tech Update. For our tenth year we have changed the format slightly. The morning will be focused on IT and the afternoon on Development. IT Managers attending the morning session will hear myself, Andy Dawson and Andy Davidson run through the recent releases and upcoming changes to Microsoft product and service offerings in order to help with strategic planning for the coming year. The afternoon session will be similar, but for Development Managers.
Find out more on the Black Marble web site.
March 5th is the next UK Techdays IT Camp that I will be helping out at. This one is in York and will cover Windows Server 2012 and Hyper-V.
Find out more on the UK Techdays events page.
March 6th takes me to London where Robert Hogg and I will deliver a Tech Update for the Public Sector at Cardinal Place.

Also this year Black Marble are pleased to be involved with the Microsoft Imagine Cup once more. Teaming up with Andy Westgarth and our friends in Sunderland, we are running an Imagine Cup Hackathon on Friday 1st and Saturday 2nd February, where a number of us will be on hand to give teams from the region help and advice on development and technical matters, but also presentation techniques, business plan and other areas important to success.
Find out more on the Imagine Cup site.

Many upcoming speaking engagements

Rik Hepworth — Mon, 22 Oct 2012 14:02:00 +0000

I seem to have been doing a lot of presenting lately, and the next few weeks are similarly busy. As a one-stop shop to plug them all, here is a list of upcoming events I will be presenting, co-presenting or supporting:

VMUG Leeds, 25th October 2012
I am co-presenting with the marvellous Andy Fryer on a range of content around Windows Server 2012 and Hyper-V. It’s the first time I’ve attended a VMUG so I’m looking forward to it!
Windows 8 IT Pro Camp Leeds, 13th November 2012
The rolling thunder of IT Camps is back in Leeds for a day with Windows 8. Andy Fryer and Simon May should be there, with myself and Andrew Davidson chipping in and helping things to run smoothly. The last Leeds camp on Server 2012 was fully booked and really well received by attendees and presenters alike, so make sure you book for what should be a great day.
[What’s New in SharePoint 2013](http://www.blackmarble.com/events.aspx?event=Whats New in SharePoint 2013), 21st November 2012
When Andy gets back from the SharePoint conference we will make sure that we give you the latest information at the first of this year’s Black Marble events.
[Architecture Forum in the North](http://www.blackmarble.com/events.aspx?event=Architecture Forum in the North 5), 5th Dec 2012
Black Marble are once again running the well received Architecture Forum and I will be speaking, once more with Andy Fryer, about how Windows Server 2012 can facilitate pragmatic cloud architectures with a mix of on-premise, hosted private cloud and public cloud hosting.
[The Tenth Annual Tech Update](http://www.blackmarble.com/events.aspx?event=The Tenth Annual Technical Update - AM), 30th January 2013
See in the new year with our famous Tech Update. This year we’ve split the day into two, focused on IT Managers and Business Decision Makers in [the morning](http://www.blackmarble.com/events.aspx?event=The Tenth Annual Technical Update - AM) and Developers and Technical Decision Makers in [the afternoon](http://www.blackmarble.com/events.aspx?event=The Tenth Annual Technical Update - PM).

I also have a raft of invite-only events I’ll be speaking at over the next few months. As always, please come and say hi and feel free to ask questions!

Speaking at Designing Beautiful Windows Apps in Dublin

Rik Hepworth — Sat, 22 Sep 2012 18:38:14 +0000

I’m really excited to be presenting at a one day event on Windows 8 application design in Dublin on Wednesday 26th September. I’m excited because Bill Buxton is delivering the keynote at the event and I’m a big fan.

I’m delivering a session snappily titled ‘From 8 to 88 inches: designing for everyone’ and I’ll be talking about the challenges posed by the incredible variety of devices Windows 8 will be used with.

Adding DHCP Option 119 (Domain Search List) to Windows Server 2008 R2

Rik Hepworth — Mon, 18 Jun 2012 12:27:20 +0000

If you’ve seen my recent blog post on making Android work in Hyper-V you will have seen my problems around DNS resolution when in the office. That turned out to be down to the DHCP options being handed back by our Server 2008 R2 box. Or rather, it was what wasn’t being handed back to the client that was the problem.

Linux (and Apple OSX, as it turns out) both want a response to option 119, which defines the domain suffix search order. Windows does not request this option and the windows DHCP server does not offer the option at all.

A Virtual Ice Cream Sandwich: Android 4 x86 in a Hyper-V VM

Rik Hepworth — Mon, 18 Jun 2012 09:10:31 +0000

More and more of our projects include a stipulation from the client that any web sites must work on the tablet devices of senior management. Up until recently that was exclusively iPads, but we are now seeing more Android devices out there. I wanted to find a straightforward way for us to test on such devices, preferably without needing to build up a collection of expensive physical kit.

I read with interest Ben Armstrong’s post about running Android 2.2 (Froyo) in a VM using a build from the Android x86 project. I started my journey by replicating his steps, so I won’t document any of that here, other than to note that the generic x86 build you need is now a deprecated one, so I had to hunt a little to find what I needed.

Tweaking my Lenovo x220 Tablet and running Windows 8

Rik Hepworth — Tue, 12 Jun 2012 09:01:37 +0000

A short while ago I replaced my trusted by heavy Acer laptop with a Lenovo x220 tablet. After a couple of months running windows 8 I’m ready to put my thoughts into words.

If you’ve landed on this post looking for notes on Windows 8 drivers for the x220, skip to the end. UPDATE 12/06/2012 – added some points to the Windows 8 section.

A painful purchase

Nothing could have prepared me for the deeply unpleasant experience of actually purchasing my new tablet. The Lenovo UK site is shockingly bad at providing the information and options you need. Examples include (some of which bit me!):

My Boss has brought his iPad! Consumer devices in corporate networks

Rik Hepworth — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 14:22:03 +0000

There’s a new term in town – Consumerisation of IT. All of us who work in IT should care about this because it’s going to have a deep impact on the approach many of us have taken when deploying services to our organisations.

I don’t profess to be a thought leader on this topic, although I find it interesting that I have been dealing with the ‘problem’ here at Black Marble ever since we started up many moons ago. I may well post more about what we deliver in terms of services and solutions within the organisation later, but this article is intended to drive your attention to two important places.

IT Camp Leeds Roundup

Rik Hepworth — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 14:08:46 +0000

Yesterday was great fun and I was really pleased to see so many Black Marble event regulars at the IT Camp. It was great to hear so many requests for more events like it in Leeds. We’re all keen to run more, but we need people to attend and give us feedback in order to be able to do that.

I hope those of you who were there took away useful knowledge from the event. Andy and Simon were very keen that it should not be a day of PowerPoint and canned demos and we certainly delivered that. Did we have technical issues that meant we had to change plans on the fly? Sure! Certainly nobody we spoke to seemed to mind. All of us from Black Marble thought the concept for the day – one of interaction, audience participation and trying to build systems on the fly – should be fun and we thought it was.

Hands-on Microsoft IT Camps–we’ll be there and you should too!

Rik Hepworth — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 17:14:37 +0000

Andy and I are really pleased to be able to help our friends at Microsoft with their latest idea for engaging with IT Professionals. Next week (Tuesday 28th February) sees the first in a series of new IT Camps taking place in Leeds. The idea is to run a full day event that is very light on PowerPoint and heavy on the hands-on, roll up your sleeves and install things as a group.

Living with the Nokia Lumia 800

Rik Hepworth — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 20:07:35 +0000

If you call in at Black Marble you’ll see Nokia’s everywhere. They’re talking over the place. It takes me back… I remember when almost everybody I knew had some kind of Nokia or another. I started with the 5.1 on Orange, followed by a sequence of progressively smaller phones. Then came Series 60 and I walked away – I never liked the interface. I swapped to Sony Ericsson and the P800, P900 and P910. I moved to Windows Mobile for time, until I could stand it no more and swapped to an iPhone (much to the grumbling of folk round here!).

Fujitsu Stylistic Q550: A Tablet for the Enterprise

Rik Hepworth — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 09:54:41 +0000

Every now and again, whilst I’m away from the office, the gadget pixies visit my desk and leave something interesting for me to play with. It’s a bit like Bagpuss, except stuff works when it arrives and I can never get the guys to wake up when I need them too.

The last time this happened there was a tablet sitting on my desk. I like it enough to write about it.

SharePoint

SharePoint 2007

SharePoint 2010

Access

Web Design

User Experience

Process

Streaming video to XBOX 360 from Windows Home Server 2011

Rik Hepworth — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 20:16:22 +0000

This one threw me for a while and I could find nothing specific on the web. I wanted to use my Xbox 360 to watch video streamed from my Windows Home Server. Streaming is switched on by default, I hear you say. Why, yes it is, but each time I tried to connect the Xbox I received an error.

The solution? Enable the Guest account on the server. Do this with care – revoke it’s access to everything except the folders you want to stream unless you want to allow read access to everything on the server.

Fundaments of planning your beautiful SharePoint web site

Rik Hepworth — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 16:03:23 +0000

This article is all about preparation. It’s about the thinking and planning you need to do if you’re going to successfully build your wonderful, unique and striking website on the SharePoint platform.

I’ve been helping customers implement SharePoint solutions for quite a while. Life gets interesting when those customers want to use SharePoint to host their public website or an intranet of published content. SharePoint is a great platform with a host of powerful features that make it a solid choice for large or complex websites, sites that have to deal with large volumes of traffic or simply sites that need real business processes wrapped around the publishing model. Much of my time in these scenarios is spent helping the customer prepare and plan, and I’d like to share some of my experience.

Displaying a SharePoint 2010 library on a page in a different site within the same site collection

Rik Hepworth — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 12:51:30 +0000

One of our customers contacted us the other day with a problem. They wanted to put a view of a document library that was located in the top level site of a site collection onto the landing pages of all the second level sites in that collection. The customer had consulted the internet hive mind and found a blog post with instructions which had been diligently followed and yet whenever a user clicked ‘New’ on the ribbon bar an error occurred.

Making SharePoint 2010 search pages work with a proper master page

Rik Hepworth — Thu, 12 May 2011 18:05:00 +0000

If you talk to those who know me about my pet hates in SharePoint, the search pages will come up every time. It’s not that I hate search itself – that’s great, but the minimal.master is just plain annoying. It makes the search centre a black hole into which you can fall but not navigate out of – there’s no navigation and the portal site connection doesn’t work.

I’ve been meaning to get search working with a real master page (step forwards, v4.master) for a while and never got around to it. However, I needed to fix it for a demo and having done so I thought I’d document the steps involved for the world.

Content Types programmatically added to SharePoint libraries not appearing on New menu

Rik Hepworth — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 13:57:17 +0000

This one caused some consternation, I can tell you. As usual, the solution could be found on the great wide web, but it took some digging, so as usual I am repeating it here.

As part of a SharePoint migration we did recently, we replaced a SharePoint 2007 feature that the client was using (which added content types to libraries from a central list) with a mix of content type replication and PowerShell to add the content types to the libraries.

Content type replication not working on imported or migrated site collections

Rik Hepworth — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 13:31:38 +0000

A while ago I posted about a hidden feature that was needed if you want to use Managed Metadata columns in your SharePoint 2010 sites. We were doing some 2007-2010 migration work for a client recently that also involved exporting and importing sites and site collections to rework the content structure. Once we’d got the new structure sorted we discovered that content type replication was not occurring on the site collections we had imported. Some comparison of working and non-working SPSite properties with PowerShell later, we discovered that the culprit was the same hidden TaxonomyFieldAdded (ID 73ef14b1-13a9-416b-a9b5-ececa2b0604c) feature as I noted earlier. See my earlier post for instructions on enabling the feature.

Avviso Page Templates and Editing Video

Rik Hepworth — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 16:53:00 +0000

We’ve just put a video of the page templates and editing process up on the AvvisoSharePoint YouTube channel. Our plan is to add more videos over time to show the different things Avviso can do. Enjoy!

Update: It seems our Community Server install blocks the embedded youtube object so you’ll need to follow the link to the video. Sorry.

Demonstrating Avviso at NEBytes on 23rd February 2011

Rik Hepworth — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 10:14:34 +0000

I am really chuffed to have been invited back to NEBytes for a follow-up to my last session on content publishing with SharePoint 2010. This time I’ll be demonstrating Avviso and talking about the thought processes that lead to its development, the problems we are trying to solve and where we’d like to go next.

If you’d like more information about Avviso, take a look at my recent post. To see more about NEBytes and their events, check out their web site.

Errors with TMG + Exchange Edge Connector + FPE resulting in rejected emails

Rik Hepworth — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 12:08:04 +0000

Frustrating errors with little or no explanation…

Once again I find myself wiring a blog post in order to save people the time we spent figuring out what was going on and getting help with our fault.

We have Microsoft Threat Management Gateway installed at our perimeter. The Exchange 2010 Edge Connector is also installed as our mail gateway, and finally Forefront Protection for Exchange (FPE) deals with mail scanning. There are some gotchas that can trip you up when installing that lot, which I suppose I should put in another post, but the overall result is that you can manage the email filters (spam, malware etc) from within TMG’s console. It’s a nice, unified management interface and a good solution. When it works…

Avviso: A Content Publishing Framework for SharePoint 2010

Rik Hepworth — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 14:15:31 +0000

Last week was really exciting for me and my colleagues here at Black Marble as the work we’ve been doing with a partner came to fruition. Words and Pictures are a communications agency based not far from us, and we’ve been working together on a great product that builds upon SharePoint 2010 to greatly improve content publishing.

I’ll come to the product in a little while, but I’d like to talk about how we created it first, as it’s a great example of how working together within the Microsoft space can help companies build upon their strengths and overcome their weaknesses.

Server Core, Hyper-V and VLANs: An Odyssey

Rik Hepworth — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 10:57:20 +0000

A sensible plan

This is a torrid tale of frustration and annoyance, tempered by the fun of digging through system commands and registry entries to try and get things working.

We’ve been restructuring our network at Black Marble. The old single subnet was creaking and we were short of addresses so we decided to subnet with network subnets for physical, virtual internal and virtual development servers, desktops, wifi etc. We don’t have a huge amount of network equipment, and we needed to put virtual servers hosted on hyper-v on separate networks so we decided to use VLANs.

Powershell to find missing features in SharePoint 2010

Rik Hepworth — Fri, 19 Nov 2010 17:06:59 +0000

When migrating from SharePoint 2007 to 2010, no matter how hard you try there’s always the chance the the content database upgrade process will throw out errors about features being referenced that are not present in the farm. We have used Stefan Goßner’s WssAnalyzeFeatures and WSSRemoveFeatureFromSite (see his original article) to track down the references and exterminate them. It’s not the fastest thing on two legs though, and I have a fondness for having my SharePoint 2010 tooling in PowerShell because of the flexibility it gives me.

Enabling the TaxonomyFieldAdded feature to fix ManagedMetadata Column errors

Rik Hepworth — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 16:53:00 +0000

We’re working on a solution at the moment that uses a custom site definition. For various reasons we stated with the Blank Site definition and worked from there. Our customisations include content types using custom columns that link to managed metadata term sets. We create all those through features – great! The tricky bit came when after deployment our managed metadata columns were greyed out. Examining the column we say an error telling us that the feature supporting the functionality was not activated.

Speaking at NeBytes in November on SharePoint for Content Publishing

Rik Hepworth — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 08:30:53 +0000

On the 17th of November I’ll be keeping Richard company on the drive up to Newcastle to speak at the NEBytes user group. My session will be a shortened version of the Using SharePoint for Content publishing I will deliver at the Black Marble event on November 3rd. I will be showing what can be done with SharePoint 2010 when the brief is for a content publishing site, be it internet- or intranet-facing and I will talk about the things we have learned along the way whilst delivering such projects – things to avoid as well as things that work well.

Living with the Acer Aspire 1420P

Rik Hepworth — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 14:00:06 +0000

This blog has been a very quiet place for a long time now, reflecting somewhat how busy I have been elsewhere. During this period of heavy work I have found a new friend in my Aspire 1420Tp In some ways it’s sad – my trusty and reliable Dell Mini 9 has been neglected in favour of a younger, sexier model.

The 1420P is the production model Acer convertible tablet, a variant of which was given to all Microsoft PDC conference attendees last year. We have quite a few in the office; sadly I am the only person to have paid for theirs. However, I benefit greatly from the fact that mine has a UK keyboard with all the right keys in their correct and proper places.

Powershell script to rename files for use as SharePoint 2010 User Profile thumbnails

Rik Hepworth — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 09:55:32 +0000

User profile photos have changed in SharePoint 2010 in that they are now stored in a single image library in the MySite Host root site collection. They have also changed in that when you change the profile photo, SharePoint takes the file and creates three new images at specific sizes, then discards the file you gave it. These files have specific names to link them to the user account and come in small, medium and large flavours.

Thoughts on the BCS EGM

Rik Hepworth — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 09:16:01 +0000

Stepping along the path ploughed by Richard and Robert, I thought I’d try to order my thoughts on the BCS EGM through a blog post. Like Richard, I am (as I begin writing) uncertain as to my final leaning on this, although I have clear views on some of the issues.

Democracy In Action

One of the most important, in my view, is one which might be missed by many. Should the membership vote in favour of the Board of Trustees they are also strongly encouraged to change the bye-laws of the Royal Charter to stop this happening again.

It works! 8Gb RAM in my Acer TravelMate 6593

Rik Hepworth — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 08:14:45 +0000

I thought I’d post this because so many like me might benefit from my experiment. We have a number of Acer TravelMate 6593 laptops here at Black Marble. They’re great machines – plenty of grunt, a lovely screen and most of the toys you could need in a laptop that’s used for a mix of IT admin, dev and technical sales (including demos). The only downside is that they only ship with up to 4Gb of memory, and Acer say it won’t take more.

Solving a mystery: Windows 7 games won’t work on HP TouchSmart TX2

Rik Hepworth — Sat, 01 May 2010 20:41:46 +0000

This one has been nagging at me for a long time. My grandmother has an HP TouchSmart TX2 tablet. It was bought with Windows Vista, but as with her main computer, I upgraded it to Windows 7.

It was a good plan – Windows 7 should make it perform better, and the touch capabilities of 7 are better than Vista. There was, however, a small matter of the N-Trig digitiser drivers not being great at point of release – something which would lead me down the wrong path over the problems I encountered.

Unable to remote control Hyper-V VM after installing SharePoint 2010 on Windows 7

Rik Hepworth — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 14:36:20 +0000

True to form, you only discover something isn’t working when you’re in a desperate hurry. We use lots of Hyper-V VMs here at Black Marble and they are mostly running on our four node cluster. I use Failover Cluster Manager and this morning I couldn’t connect remotely to any of the Hyper-V VMs. I kept getting an error:

Virtual Machine Connection:
A connection will not be made because credentials may not be sent to the remote computer. For assistance, contact your system administrator.
Would you like to try connecting again?

Fixing SharePoint 2007 IIS WAMREG DCOM 10016 activation errors on Server 2008 R2

Rik Hepworth — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 09:36:24 +0000

Anybody who works will SharePoint will grumble if you mention DCOM activation permissions. No matter how hard we try, how many patches we install (or how hard we try to ignore it), granting activation and launch permissions to the SharePoint service accounts is like plugging a dike with water-soluble filler.

On Server 2008 R2 our job is made that much harder by the fact that, by default, even administrators can’t edit the security settings for the IIS WAMREG service (GUID {61738644-F196-11D0-9953-00C04FD919C1}, for when you see it in your application event log).

Social Networking: The double-edged sword of maintaining an online presence

Rik Hepworth — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 23:04:07 +0000

Exploring the new frontier

I’m writing this post whilst watching my Windows Home Server slowly copy data onto an external drive. I mention that not because of its pertinence, but to indicate why I found myself having time to join Facebook.

The other reason was the excellent session given by Eileen Brown at our most recent event. After Eileen had finished admonishing me for not taking my online presence (and therefore reputation) seriously enough I took the step of installing the Twitter Notify plugin for Live Writer so I could connect two of my online personas together.

New and coming Microsoft technologies you need to look at

Rik Hepworth — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 11:35:29 +0000

Yesterday was the annual Black Marble Tech Update event, where we try to cover every product in the Microsoft arsenal in half a day, telling local businesses what’s coming and what deserves attention.

Writing up the content of the presentations would be almost as exhausting as the research required for create them, but following a few conversations during breaks yesterday I decided that a short blog post on some of the technologies that deserve a closer look was merited.

Remote working solutions (or how I learned to stop worrying and love the snow)

Rik Hepworth — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 20:37:41 +0000

We lost remarkably few days of productivity to the bad weather at Black Marble. That wasn’t because we were all intrepid, hardy types and all made it into the office. Far from it – some of us live in areas where they don’t grit very often and can’t make it to the main roads.

As you guessed from the title, the reason we came through the bad weather so well was because of our ability to work remotely. I thought I’d write a post about what we do – not because we have any wonderfully clever solution, but because lost time is lost money, and many people discard remote access out of hand.

Twitter clients: Twinbox and Tweetz

Rik Hepworth — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 18:29:31 +0000

Anybody who follows me on twitter will know that @rikhepworth is by no means a prolific tweeter. However, I do follow a number of people around the planet, and in addition to the ubiquitous Tweetie2 on my iPhone, I have found two clients to be useful and reliable.

The first is Tweetz, from Blue Onion Software. This is a great gadget for the Windows 7 desktop (or Vista Sidebar). The UI is simple and extremely usable (I love the way I can scroll the history for older tweets) and it makes posting a breeze.

Solve ‘pending reboot’ setup show stopper for CRM 4 Client (with Update Rollup 7)

Rik Hepworth — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 18:11:02 +0000

I’ve been extremely busy over the past week creating demo systems and updating our own internal Black Marble systems. Part of that long list of tasks was to get around to testing the CRM 4 Outlook client with Outlook 2010.

For those who don’t know, you need the Update Rollup7 client if you want to use Outlook 2010 (and x86 Office only need apply). You can download a slipstreamed client installer from Microsoft.

Reassigning the correct SSL certificate to SharePoint 2010 Web Services IIS Site

Rik Hepworth — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 19:48:21 +0000

Prologue

This post is about assigning an SSL certificate to an IIS 7.5-hosted website which is not located in the Personal Certificate store. The steps shown are not SharePoint-specific, however. Hopefully this post will save you the large amount of time I spent hunting down the information on how to do this.

The usual background

I’ve been installing and configuring a SharePoint 2010 system that we can use here at Black Marble for our demo sessions. I hit a nasty wall just after lunch which turned out to be caused by the SSL certificate being used by the ISS web site hosting the SharePoint web services.

Berlin: Legoland Experience

Rik Hepworth — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 07:56:27 +0000

I’d love to say that I enjoyed the Legoland Experience in Berlin, located beneath the Sony Centre in Potzdamer Platz. I’d love to, but I can’t – I’ve been to a conference you know; none of this sightseeing malarky for me.

Having said that, whilst visiting the Mauerfall celebrations I stumbled upon the entrance, and I don’t often get the chance to post gratuitous pictures of Lego…

Places to eat in Berlin: Grenander

Rik Hepworth — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 07:55:29 +0000

Lets get this straight right of the bat: Grenander is not a restaurant. Sure, it’s open in the evening and it does light meals (think: soup and a roll). However, it’s really a cafe (‘cafehaus and icecream’, says my receipt).

Coffee and cake is a deep-seated German tradition. You really must indulge, but beware that this is no piffling, tiny piece of sponge cake we’re talking about – oh no. Coffee and cakes demands a huge, sumptuous piece of one of a range of marvellous gateaux. Picture a huge Black Forest Gateau (Schwarzwalder Kirschtorte) and you’re in the right place.

Places to eat in Berlin: Mola

Rik Hepworth — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 07:55:14 +0000

Mola is opposite the Wittenbergplatz U-bahn station, just along the Ku’damme from KaDeWe. It’s not the most sophisticated restaurant you’ll find, but it’s a wonderfully authentic Italian restaurant.

The first thing you’ll notice is the marvellously jovial owner (at least I think he was the owner) who welcomes you in Italian. The next thing that you’ll notice is the large traditional pizza oven, with the pizza chef making fresh pizza by hand right in front of you.

Places to eat in Berlin: La Sepia

Rik Hepworth — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 07:54:15 +0000

Anybody who knows me well will tell you that I am prone to waxing lyrical about Portugal. Whilst I haven’t been there for a good few years now, it was a regular destination for my family when I was younger and I have strong, fond memories of the place and its food.

Imagine my surprise then, when we found a Portuguese/Spanish restaurant just a few minutes away from our hotel. La Sepia is on Marburger Strasse, just off Ku’damme.

Places to eat in Berlin: Coa

Rik Hepworth — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 07:53:52 +0000

It’s becoming a tradition that every time I attend a conference or travel anywhere interesting I post at least a couple of places to eat. Perhaps ironically, none of the places I am about to post about serve cuisine that you could reasonable call German.

It’s true – we’ve done coffee and cake – that well known German tradition. In an evening, however, besides our hotel we have been to a Chinese, an oriental fusion place and a Portuguese and Spanish restaurant.

Berlin: Four storeys of Windows 7 goodness

Rik Hepworth — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 07:53:20 +0000

As you walk out of the U-bahn at Potzdamer Platz right now, you are faced with the most enormous advertisement you have ever seen. Well done HP and Windows 7 – subtle it most certainly is not!

TechEd 2009: Finding technical content

Rik Hepworth — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 16:44:50 +0000

Whilst TechEd this year has been rich with interesting content, most notably on SharePoint 2010, I’ve found it sadly thin on the ground when it comes to deep technical sessions. What exceptions to this rule there have been, however, were excellent and worthy of mention.

Mark Minasi delivered an explanation of Kerberos and its usage in Windows which was both extremely informative and wildly funny. His engaging delivery and use of cartoons, animations and humour made what could have been a dry subject all the more informative and memorable. If you can get hold of the recording, I would strongly urge you to watch.

20 Jahre Mauerfall

Rik Hepworth — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 08:16:03 +0000

Monday night saw the official celebration of the twentieth anniversary of the historic events which saw the fall of the Berlin Wall and paved the way for German reunification.

Sadly, the night was cold and wet – the rain was falling in torrents as we made our way to Potsdamer Platz and walked towards the Brandenburg Gate. We managed to stand right next to one of the large screens on which proceedings were to be shown – next to the gate and near the dominoes which were to topple during the night.

TechEd Europe has real Coke

Rik Hepworth — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 12:05:04 +0000

For those of you who are confused by the title, Robert, our MD complained bitterly that the SharePoint Conference 2009 in Las Vegas only had Pepsi. I don’t know any geeks who like Pepsi, and a quick poll on twitter seemed to suggest that Robert and I aren’t alone. I just want to report that Berlin has restored my faith and has large fridges full of bottles of Coke. No Cherry Coke, however, so they don’t quite make a gold star.

Ich bin ein Berliner

Rik Hepworth — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 11:47:24 +0000

As you may know, TechE d 2009 EMEA is in Berlin this year. You may also know that this year is the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. I’m here in Berlin, which means that I’ll try to blog what’s going on at TechEd. However, this post is all about the really cool idea Berlin has for the celebrations!

We arrived on Saturday and went out to Potsdamer Platz, not far from the Brandenburg Gate and German Parliament. We hadn’t heard about the 1000 dominoes, so we were really surprised and impressed.

SharePoint Search Gatherer Error 10032

Rik Hepworth — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 13:59:12 +0000

We encountered a problem recently with a two server farm. One server was configured as index and query server. Both servers were delivering pages to users. If a user executed a search on the server which did not run the search services, the Search page returned an error, and we saw the following in the application log and SharePoint logs:

Event Type: Error Event Source: Office Server Search Event Category: Gatherer Event ID: 10032 Description: Could not create a database session. Context: Application '2bee214b-e0b9-413b-8d85-c71002287e99' Details: The database connection string is not available. (0xc0041228)

Kerberos for SharePoint on Server 2008 with IIS 7

Rik Hepworth — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 10:16:19 +0000

UPDATE: Spence posted a great comment pointing out some issues with this post. Richard then restored our Community Server DB to a point in time before the post, so it’s been wiped. Post again, Spence, please, as I didn’t get chance to copy the text of the comment, I’m afraid.

I’ve not been doing so well with blog posts lately. I have more than one currently in process but unposted, and I just can’t seem to get the time to finish them – so apologies, CSW, for not getting the article I promised up yet, but I am working on it.

Places to eat on the South Bank in London

Rik Hepworth — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 19:28:17 +0000

A set of conference posts wouldn’t be complete without a run down of the local culinary delights. We haven’t strayed far from the South Bank Centre for the past few days, but we’ve had a great variety of meals.

Wednesday night and Thursday lunchtime was Wagamamas. I love Wagamamas. There’s one in Leeds as well, and whilst Fuji Hero is perhaps more authentic, I just love the deserts at Wagamamas. I also have at least one of their recipe books, so I can try it at home! Busy though – we arrived just shy of seven in the evening of our arrival and the queue to get in didn’t really die down until after nine. The new teppanyaki soba is to be recommended.

@media Day 2 - Afternoon

Rik Hepworth — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 16:29:07 +0000

I hadn’t really thought about it before, but Andy Budd has a very similar presentation style to my own. He’s incredibly enthusiastic and passionate about what he’s speaking about, and he wanders around waving his arms in an extremely animated way. Snap!

The topic of usability testing is an important one. I always try to impress upon our clients the need to see how the systems we build for them are used and tweak and fix accordingly. Andy’s approach to low-budget, formative testing to identify and solve usability issues during development as part of an agile approach struck a chord with me. I think that it’s important to have a dialog with ‘average’ users (i.e. not involved directly with development and therefore too close to a project to notice the problems) and to feed back into the development process what you find and the pain points you identify. Far better to find and fix during development than to force your product to fail testing or, even worse, to hit issues during rollout that hinder adoption.

@media Day 2 - Morning

Rik Hepworth — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 16:28:51 +0000

It’s a muggy day today. With thunderstorms expected, the morning air was thick as we walked over to the South Bank Centre.

I found Douglas Crockford’s opening session thoughtful. It wasn’t what I was expecting – I had anticipated a focus more on methodologies and approaches to improving quality. instead, it was an interesting and sometimes humorous examination as to why quality in software is such a difficult area, with an informative walk through the history of software thrown in.

Joining in the background noise: I am now on Twitter

Rik Hepworth — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 07:42:39 +0000

One of the reasons I enjoy conferences like @media is that I can be persuaded to change my mind on things. After a persuasive argument from Nick I’ve decided to alter my stance on twitter and give it a go for a while.

A few others recently have suggested that I should sign up to the microblogging system even if I didn’t plan to use it, just to make sure I got the nickname I wanted and nobody else could use it. I’ve never really bought into that kind of approach, and sometimes I wonder if that is as key an indicator as to the lack of importance I have personally come to place in social networking tools. I’m old enough that my first instinct if I want to socialise is to pick up the phone and arrange a pint with a mate.

@media 2009 Day 1 - Afternoon

Rik Hepworth — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 16:29:38 +0000

Not providing lunch at the conference was perhaps a bit of a double edged sword. On the one hand, Wagamamas is just so close (mmm… chicken katsu curry); on the other hand, lots of people were nodding off in the warmth of the first session.

Which is a great shame, because Dan Rubin is a really good speaker (and singer, as it happens). His session was all about reflecting the real world in our user interfaces in order to make them much more usable. It was also about taking real items and using them in designs (such as real textures from scanned objects) because of the much better emotive affect that has with our users. It was pretty inspiring, even though at the end of the day everything he talked about should be common sense.

@media 2009 Day 1 - Morning

Rik Hepworth — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 12:45:06 +0000

It’s good to see familiar faces once again here at @media. This year’s conference is around the same size as the first one in 2005 and it has a strangely familial feeling. Nick’s here as a volunteer ‘@mediator’ so he was manning the desk as we registered.

A note at this point about the conference swag: aside from the very nice T-shirt, which strangely matches my normal style (Andy often refers to me as ‘Mister Taupe’), the conference bag is excellent! Made from coconut fibre, it hits all the marks for eco-friendliness, but it’s a very practical, messenger-style durable bag, and perfect for my Dell Mini, upon the keyboard of which I currently type. A bag I shall no doubt use a great deal in the future – no doubt the original aim. The whole look and feel of the conference this year is really good – sophisticated and earthy.

See you at @media09? Tickets are still available

Rik Hepworth — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 08:28:51 +0000

Lauren and I set off for London later to today. It’s @media time again and I’ve been looking forward to this for a while. As usual Patrick Griffiths has lined up a fantastic group of really inspirational speakers and, whilst smaller in the light of the current climate, I have no doubts that it will be useful.

I’ve been to every @media since it started and I’ve always had a great time. If you have the time, I’d urge you to make this year the sell-out it’s been in the past!

Speaking at VBUG Newcastle in July

Rik Hepworth — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 14:53:40 +0000

Andy Westgarth and the guys at VBUG Newcastle very kindly invited me to speak about and demo some of what I consider to be key features in Windows 7 and Server 2008. If you read the blog and would like to see what I really look like, are interested in the topic of the talk or interested in VBUG in general, come along!

The venue is Newcastle University (a campus I’ve never visited before so I’m quite looking forward to that). For more information Andy has details on the VBUG site. In order to make sure the event doesn’t wither through lack of interest, please register yours on the VBUG site. To copy some of it here, however:

Things to do in Seattle: Gameworks

Rik Hepworth — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 08:08:27 +0000

As you probably guess, Richard and myself were in Seattle for a short conference last week. The evening entertainment on one night was a trip to Gameworks. If you like playing video games with your mates, going head-to-head at things like Sega Rally, then you’ll have a good time in Gameworks.

I’m not the worlds greatest gamer, and I tend to struggle when it’s games that don’t use keyboard and mouse. Richard and I seemed to do best at the stand-up shooting games, the first of which was (to a non-hunting Brit) a hilarious hunting game where you had to blast moose with a pump action shotgun and avoid shooting cows.

Places to eat in Seattle: Etta’s Seafood

Rik Hepworth — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 16:21:32 +0000

On our arrival in Seattle, Richard and I had a great meal in Etta’s Seafood, which is not far along the road from Pike’s Market, heading out with the bay on your left. The food was excellent – fantastic chowder and a burger cooked just to your taste. A warning though – if you’re a wee slip of a lad like I am you may find the portions daunting. It was a friendly, charming place and great welcome to the city.

Places to eat in Seattle: Marcella’s Cookery

Rik Hepworth — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 16:21:10 +0000

Tonight we ate in a place we’d seen recommended by Sara Ford in her blog: Marcella’s Cookery. A fantastic little New Orleans-style eatery run by the eponymous (and very friendly) Marcella and her husband, Anthony. The food was fabulous, well cooked and happily discussed by the chef himself. Between us we tried a number of dishes and all were excellent. Anthony (the chef) told us that he moved to Seattle after Hurricane Katrina and I think it’s Seattle’s gain – we had a great time and I can wholeheartedly recommend the place.

Things to do in Seattle: Baseball

Rik Hepworth — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 06:41:39 +0000

We had a great night tonight. Our visit to Seattle coincided with three home games for the Mariners, and I went to my first baseball game tonight. Not only was it a fantastic match, going right down to the last pitch, but one of the batters obviously realised I was a baseball newbie and kindly hit me a ball as keepsake!

Places to eat in Seattle: Lowell’s

Rik Hepworth — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 13:55:04 +0000

Richard’s an old hand in Seattle, so he suggested we ate breakfast at Lowell’s down at the Pike Place Market. I’m really glad he did – the eggs benedict were fantastic. We ate great food with a fantastic view of the bay. If you’re ever in Seattle I can wholeheartedly recommend that you try Lowell’s while you’re here.

UK Hotels take note – this how to do coffee in my room!

Rik Hepworth — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 13:29:53 +0000

I’m in Seattle this week (just as a big heatwave has rolled in). As I type this I’m looking out from my room at the Westin over a great view of the bay. In the corner I hear my coffee brewing. None of your little kettles and sachets of instant coffee here. Look what I got:

Configuring IIS Bindings to include host headers with https on Windows Server 2008 (for SharePoint)

Rik Hepworth — Wed, 27 May 2009 14:34:00 +0000

NOTE: We use a wildcard SSL certificate which makes our life much easier when dealing with multiple hostnames. I have not tested this approach with multiple SSL certificates for specific sites.

We’ve been reconfiguring our SharePoint 2007 farm over the past couple of days and it’s now hosted on Windows Server 2008 and using NLB (network load balancing). The load balancer has been configured with a single public IP address and all our previous DNS CNAME registrations have been replaced with hostname A registrations pointing at the address. With our previous configuration we had multiple IP addresses on the server, one for each web application. Each IIS web site was then configured with a host header and ip address to allow for secure traffic over HTTPS.

Incoming Email with SharePoint on Windows Server 2008

Rik Hepworth — Wed, 27 May 2009 13:42:08 +0000

I’ve been meaning to write this up for a while, simply because it’s not quite as straightforward as with Server 2005.

To configure incoming email on SharePoint when running on Server 2008 you’ll need to run through the following steps:

Install the SMTP feature
Open Server Manager. Click on Features in the left hand column then click add features in the right hand pane. Tick the SMTP Server check box and click install.
Configure the SMTP Service in IIS Manager (version 7)
Start Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager from Administration tools in the Start Menu. Once open, click the name of the web server to bring up the options in the centre panel. In the centre panel, right-click SMTP E-mail and select Open Feature from the menu.
Click the option to ‘store e-mail in pickup directory’ and set the path to be c:inetpubmailrootDrop (that’s the default).
Configure the SMTP Service in ISS Manager (version 7)
Start Internet Information Services (IIS) 6.0 Manager from Administration tools in the Start Menu. Expand the server to show the SMTP service. In the ‘domains’ section, add any email domain aliases you need in there. Configure the other SMTP service settings just like you did with Server 2005.

SharePoint Service Pack 2 Pains

Rik Hepworth — Wed, 27 May 2009 07:22:20 +0000

I finally bit the bullet and decided to upgrade our SharePoint farm yesterday. I’d been holding off for a while because of time constraints and because of a known issue with Project Server, also part of our farm.

I took careful steps to increment the farm from the SP1+Infrastructure update all the way through each CU up until the service pack. That all worked fine. It was when I tried SP2 I hit problems.

Creating a new Virtual PC using the Virtual Windows XP Base Disk

Rik Hepworth — Tue, 26 May 2009 11:40:57 +0000

One of the most useful elements of the Virtual Windows XP feature in Windows 7 is that the VPC is easily replicated and you can have multiple virtual machines all publishing applications which run in their own sandboxes.

Create a new Virtual Machine
Create a Differencing Hard Disk from the Virtual Windows XP Base
Start the VM and run through the setup wizard:
Accept the Licence Agreement

NewSID fails on Windows Server 2008 R2

Rik Hepworth — Fri, 08 May 2009 13:50:36 +0000

The title says it all. I’m currently building a virtual lab to test DirectAccess and every time I run newsid on windows server 2008 R2 the system bluescreens irrevocably on reboot. I’ve now switched to using sysprep to change the SID. Here’s hoping the sysinternals guys update what is undoubtedly one of the most useful tools around!

Install System Center Capacity Planner 2007 on Windows 7

Rik Hepworth — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 16:42:09 +0000

I’ve been using Windows 7 for a while now, but I’ve never needed to install the System Center Capacity Planner (Andy usually handles that side of our SharePoint engagements). He now has taken the plunge with Microsoft’s shiny OS and hit a problem: SCCP refused to install with an error message saying it was only supported on Windows XP (!)

We tried all sorts, and in the end I resorted to our old friend, Orca – the MSI editor shipped with the Windows SDK. Looking through the tables I found an entry in LaunchCondition specifying ‘VersionNT >=500 AND VersionNT <=600’

Windows 7 on the 8Gb SSD Mini 9: Redux

Rik Hepworth — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 14:30:00 +0000

You may remember that I ended my previous post with about 1.6Gb free on the 8Gb SSD of the Mini 9 after installing Windows 7.

I still needed to install Office 2007, or at the very least Word and Excel for the ‘book to be useful. I therefore rummaged out another 16Gb SD card and revisited my earlier vista post about installing apps to an SD card. This time I simply let the card allocate a drive letter and installed Office to d:Program Files instead.

Windows 7 on the Dell Mini 9 with only the 8Gb SSD

Rik Hepworth — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 15:16:05 +0000

In my previous post about getting Windows 7 onto the fantastic Dell Mini 9 I talked about solving things like the driver issues and antivirus. This time I’m going to cover how I installed Windows 7 onto the 8Gb SSD version of the Mini 9.

Interestingly, Windows 7 will actually install in about 8Gb. However, when I tried to run through my previously documented steps, it told me that it did not recommend installing to a disk of less that 8303Mb. The Dell had about 7.5Gb free for the install as I wanted to leave the Dell system partition alone. When I tried to install the process reset partway through and I could not stop it doing it.

Achieving HDMI audio output with ATI hardware on Windows 7 (and Vista)

Rik Hepworth — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 16:06:57 +0000

The steps in this article were figured out with Windows 7. However, they should work just fine with Vista for anybody having the same issues. Note that whilst this is written for ATI hardware, it may be the case that NVidia gear suffers from the same problem and this solution should help.

Background first. I spent a while sorting our AV gear so I could use HDMI as the universal connection standard. At the heart of this is an AV receiver with a number of HDMI inputs and HDMI output to the TV.

Windows 7: Attempting to install to VHD – an odyssey

Rik Hepworth — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 14:38:25 +0000

One of the things I am most impressed about with Windows 7 is the latest Media Center. As a result, I wanted to install the build 7000 beta release onto our media PC at home. However, I already have that working nicely with Windows Vista and, frankly, I didn’t want to have to repeatedly reinstall if the beta caused problems.

The solution seemed simple: install Windows 7 to a VHD file sitting on the Vista disk. Whilst at TechEd, Mark Russinovich had mentioned that he was running Windows 7 in exactly this way, so I was pretty confident it would work.

SharePoint 2007: Following Adobe Instructions Can Cause Problems

Rik Hepworth — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 18:18:54 +0000

Having just spent a long time examining the state of a new farm we’ve been working on for demonstrations, I would like to issue a warning…

The Problem: None of the ‘New…’ menu items in our document libraries would work – we were seeing the error message:

'Edit Document' requires a Windows SharePoint Services-compatible application and Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 or greater.

The Solution: Correcting an error in the docicon.xml file which lives in c:program filescommon filesmicrosoft sharedweb server extensions12TEMPLATEXML

Managing Remote Hyper-V Servers From Windows 7

Rik Hepworth — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 16:34:09 +0000

I'm using the Mini9 quite a lot lately, at least in part to fiddle with Windows 7. I decided it would be nice to be able to access our Hyper-V servers so I went looking for the management tools...

It turns out that Windows 7 ships with the Hyper-V management snap-ins. No real surprise there as my understanding is that it also includes Hyper-V (although I've not managed to run it up on an x64 machine yet so I can't verify that - it certainly isn't available in x86). To get at them, you need to install the relevant bits of Windows through the 'Turn Windows Features on or off' UI:

Windows 7 on the Dell Mini 9

Rik Hepworth — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 18:03:43 +0000

What better way to try Windows 7 then installing it on the Mini 9? Having read all the commentary about the smaller footprint of the new OS I couldn't resist.

If you want to try this yourself, the procedure is exactly as if you were installing Vista. You will need the drivers folder from the Dell, along with the contents of the Program FilesWireless Select Switch folder from the XP install and the R192569.exe file from the ZIPFILES folder which is on the support CD I believe.

Tech Ed EMEA IT: Day 4 - Guru Central

Rik Hepworth — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 11:57:34 +0000

So, we're on the penultimate day of TechEd EMEA and I have to say that exhaustion is starting to creep in. However, the day had a great start with sessions by Steve Riley and then Mark Russinovich.

Steve was talking about security implications of virtulisation and his views were stimulating. He was talking in depth about what to consider when virtualising machines and why Microsoft took the architectural approach that they did for the Hyper-V stack when security was considered. I could post more, but I would urge you to go and find the video of the session when it's available as Steve himself gave a much better delivery of the material than I ever could.

Tech Ed EMEA IT: Day 3 - Steve Riley

Rik Hepworth — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 06:00:54 +0000

The last session of the day was just incredible. A surfer-dude with boundless energy wandering around the audience in shorts, cracking jokes and telling stories and every single one related in some way to his point. Steve Riley is a fantastic presenter, and his session - Do these ten things now or else get 0wned was a great session on security. Sadly, I don't think it's repeated or I would urge you all to attend the next viewing. If you have the chance to see Steve speak, grab it with both hands - especially if you are involved in any way with security or IT management.

Tech Ed EMEA IT: Day 3 - Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualisation (MED-V)

Rik Hepworth — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 12:11:33 +0000

OK, MED-V is cool! Sadly, cool though it is, it's not something we'll use3 at BM, but in my previous lives doing large organisation IT, MED-V would have been a killer.

In a nutshell, it is this: create a Virtual PC image with your legacy OS and legacy App. Deploy that VPC to your users desktop so they can run your legacy app but let them run the app without needing to start the VPC and use two desktops.

Tech Ed EMEA IT: Day 3 - Server 2008 R2

Rik Hepworth — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 09:38:04 +0000

We were in early today, looking forward to a session on SharePoint with Bill Engolish. Sadly, that was cancelled so Andy and I sat in on the Server 2008 R2 overview session presented by Iain McDonald. That was very interesing, and we learned a bit more about BranchCache. It doesn't look like it will replace WAN accelerators like Riverbved, because it doesn't appear to function at their low level. However, it does a similar thing at the file level. The client requests a file from the remote server, which instead replies with hashes. The client PC the requests those hashes from the local cache, improving performance. The cache itself is built on request so does not need to be pre-populated (which is good). I think WAN accelerators have nothing to fear from this, but for smaller organisations or ones which aren't able to put the accelerators in (perhaps their servers are hosted, for example) BranchCache looks like a very promising technology.

TechEd EMEA IT: Day 2 - Threat Management Gateway

Rik Hepworth — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 12:06:59 +0000

Andy and I are now in a TMG preview demo. This looks really interesting - we spoke to the guys at ATE last night and saw a few items that I hope to see now in more detail. TMG is ISA Server vnext - codenamed 'Nitrogen' and part of the 'Stirling' next wave of Forefront.

Stirling family members exchange information to allow 'dynamic response' - trigger actions from different forefront elements (client sec etc) based on alerts from other elements (eg mail scanner). That looks really powerful.

TechEd EMEA IT: Day 2 - Windows 7 Feature Preview

Rik Hepworth — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 12:04:02 +0000

So, the first session of the day was an extremely well-attended overview of Windows 7 features. When they talk about evolution rather than revolution with regard to Windows 7, I think that's accurate. It was very much about developing and extending the foundations of Vista.

A few things stuck out, however. An almost throwaway comment about DirectConnect requiring IPSEC and IPv6 means that I must dig deeper, and that the technology, whilst cool, is almost totally useless to me, stuck behind two layers of NAT in a managed building. BranchCache was again mentioned with, again, no indication of how it works - more digging required.

Tech Ed EMEA IT 2008: Day 1 - Keynote

Rik Hepworth — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 18:08:06 +0000

So, the keynote was interesting. Much of the content I had seen before, but there were some demos that were interesting and a few snippets that made me take note.

For example, I had not understood that the acquisition of Kidaro will enable interaction between applications running within a virtual machine and the host desktop in ways that are not currently achievable. That the technology will ship as part of a new Desktop Optimisation Pack was news. I believe the technology is name MEDV - Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualisation.

Tech ED EMEA IT: Day 1 - Waiting for the Keynote

Rik Hepworth — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 13:44:16 +0000

It's an exercise in surreality. I've just walked through tunnels reminiscent of THX1138, to emerge in a wonderful blue-bathed auditorium, and they're playing the Akira soundtrack (specifically the bit from just after the first nuclear explosion). Weird.

Andy and I travelled all the way from Bradford, and the first guy we strike up conversation with... is from Salford! What are the odds?

Anyway, here's a pic of the view from our seats. More after the keynote...

TechEd EMEA IT: Day 1

Rik Hepworth — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 06:32:10 +0000

It's 7:25 AM. Andy and I are hoping to make a whistle-stop trip to the Cathedral before making it to the conference early enough to get good seats for the keynote.

I thought I'd take a picture of the conference pack, especially since I've heard grumblings about the PDC bag. The TechEd pack looks pretty much identical to the pack the devs brought home last year, to me.

TechEd EMEA IT: Day 0 - Greetings from Barcelona

Rik Hepworth — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 20:23:57 +0000

Ola! Andy and I are now in sunny Espana. Only it's not sunny. Oh well... However, true to form we started our trip, having registered at the conference centre, by eating hot dogs in a german fast food joint in a Spanish shopping centre! If you're passing, Kurz & Gut does pretty good food.

I'm also extremely impressed with the Metro system here in Barcelona. It's my first time in the city, and the transport is pretty efficient, with a wonderful simple trip-based charging mechanism.

Barcelona-bound

Rik Hepworth — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 17:24:23 +0000

Andy and I are travelling to Barcelona this weekend for TechEd EMEA IT. I’m really looking forward to some of the sessions on Hyper-V, SharePoint and Forefront.If you’re going to be there, feel free to drop us a line and say hi.

Mix Remixed

Rik Hepworth — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 23:49:13 +0000

I don’t visit the Mix community site often – historically, the content has been of little interest and infrequently updated. Imagine my surprise, then, to find a relaunched Mix Online with a new Microformats project – Oomph.

In short, it’s cool – a microformats extension for IE plus other goodies to help implement them, including a live writer plugin for creating hcards. Go check it out, and I’ll try to post more later…

Vista on Dell Mini 9: Using junctions to move files off the SSD

Rik Hepworth — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 19:46:39 +0000

Flush with my success earlier in getting apps installed on the SD card now mounted as 'c:SD Program Files' I installed a few things. I then hit a snag.

When you install apps using an MSI, the installation files get cached by Windows Installer. Steadily, c:windowsinstaller gets bigger and bigger, so whilst my apps were no longer taking up space, the install files were (and some of those are quite large).

Vista on the Dell Mini 9: Installing applications on an SD card

Rik Hepworth — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 09:05:08 +0000

I’m still trying new things with the Mini 9. I now have an image file that I can restore to the Mini which has my base install after running sysprep. The problem I have is storage space – the SSD isn’t _quite_ big enough.

So, Richard wandered in this morning and handed me a 4Gb SD card to experiment with. The question: Can we use the SD card and install app onto it?

Vista on the Dell Mini 9: Redux

Rik Hepworth — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 21:43:46 +0000

I've been chipping away at this for a while now today, and I've learned a few things on the way:

When Vista says it suggests installing the battery drivers for the system, don't. The zip file it suggested I install broke power management.
Patch the system fully as an admin user before logging in as a restricted user. It will save you hours of time.
Sysinternals Diskmon doesn't work with Vista - you need to run it as admin, and that certainly isn't an option for my restricted users.
Vista when hibernating just shows a black screen. That's not very helpful the first time you try it, on a silent machine with no disk activity lights at all.
think Vista takes longer to hibernate and come back from hibernation than XP, although coming back from sleep is much quicker than it's older sibling.

Overall, I'm still happy. I have Vista, Office 2007 and Live Writer and 3.5Gb of disk space free. With no serious hacking the Dell runs at around 50% memory usage witrh a browser and live writer running. I can live with that. Battery life appears OK. It's 10:30 and I've been using the Dell since 8pm, thrashing the disk (as much as there is one) and the wi-fi, and I'm at 38% battery. That puts me on track for about four hours or so and I can live with that.

Getting Vista on the Dell Mini 9

Rik Hepworth — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 16:27:40 +0000

Our second Mini 9 arrived in the office today. This one is for Andy and myself to use whilst out of the office. Richard has successfully upgraded his to XP Professional, so we had to try to push the bar out a little further – we’re running Vista Business.

I have not spent any time tweaking or prodding yet. I used install media with SP1 included and obliterated the partition on the SSD, then installed the drivers from Dell where necessary, and a driver for the battery hardware that Vista itself suggested rather than the Dell solution.

First thoughts on the Acer Aspire One

Rik Hepworth — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 08:48:00 +0000

You can’t say that things never change. I nipped out to Tesco last night for a few bits of shopping – you know, some beer, spices for cooking, etc – and came back with an Acer Aspire One. As you do…

To be fair, I have been looking at them closely, and Tesco are by far the cheapest place to get one. I picked up the 1Gb RAM, 120Gb HDD Linux model for about two hundred and fifty nicker, which I thought was pretty reasonable.

Dell Mini 9: A Day In The Life

Rik Hepworth — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 20:40:00 +0000

Colour me impressed. I managed well over four hours’ battery life today and found the Mini 9 a joy to use. I have encountered a snag, however, and it wasn’t one that I expected.

You see, I’m now sitting on the 21:30 train from London Kings Cross to Wakefield after having been in the big smoke for a day of meetings. I got onto an empty train and picked a seat with a table – I want to get some work done on the documents required after my meeting and I thought the space would be nice.

First thoughts on the Dell Mini 9

Rik Hepworth — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 18:34:00 +0000

I’m down in London tomorrow, and rather than lug my laptop on the train I’ve borrowed Richard’s shiny new Mini 9.

Overall, I’m quite impressed with it. I’m still not sure about the keyboard, even after a couple of hours typing away – the keys are small and some of them are smaller still, which makes typing an interesting experience. However, I’m sure I would get used to it with time. The thing is, a netbook is not aimed at being your everyday machine, so does a quirky keyboard become a barrier to use if that use is intermittent?

Browsers are like buses

Rik Hepworth — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 19:31:48 +0000

You wait around for ages and then two come along, all at once! No sooner have I downloaded IE8 beta 2 than Google announce Chrome!

I've been using IE8 for a few days and I'm quite impressed. I've just downloaded Chrome and I have to say, it's a darn good browser. The feature I most wanted from any tab-based browser and one I've mentioned before in the context of IE is present in Chrome - tabs you can drag between windows.

Workflow and SQL Error: Part 3

Rik Hepworth — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 20:52:11 +0000

As you may remember from my earlier post and subsequent follow-up, we have been seeing an issue related to workflows and the Workflow History list in SharePoint 2007. As I've already mentioned, the case is with Microsoft and I also said that I would post updates as new information arrived. Today, more detail has emerged and, as promised, I am sharing.

Whilst replicating the fault today we were having trouble - one of us had a SharePoint install that failed every time and the other had one which would not fail at all. Whilst looking at possible differences we realised that the failing site was a publishing site and the non-failing site was a team site.

Netware 6.5 on Hyper-V

Rik Hepworth — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 16:01:59 +0000

As part of a customer project I needed to create a Netware environment for testing. It's been a little while since I did any netware management and I quite enjoyed it. I did, however, encounter a couple of gotchas which I thought I'd write up for the greater good.

Netware OS

Installing the Netware OS was actually pretty straightforward. There are no integration services offered for Netware so from the outset I knew that I would need to use legacy hardware options in the virtual machine.

Unable to access My Tasks in Project Web Access

Rik Hepworth — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 12:51:35 +0000

Sometime ago we noticed an issue with My Tasks in Project Server. Certain users were unable to access My Tasks at all - they simply got a SharePoint error page.

A little jiggery-pokery with callstack and custom errors later, we saw that the error referenced a GUID for a task. I then searched the Project Server Publishing DB for the task GUID and subsequently located the project to which it belonged. If I edited the project in MS Project and updated the server, removing the task assignment from the user, they could access my tasks.

Configuring ActiveSync on Windows Mobile for Exchange Push

Rik Hepworth — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 12:30:40 +0000

I'm not certain how many of you will find this useful, but I had a question about configuring the Touch Diamond to talk to Exchange which I regrettably failed to notice.

It's an interesting point of debate, now I come to think of it. When I got my Diamond the first thing I did was confgigure ActiveSync directly on the device. Whilst I do connect to my laptop from time to time, I don't actually have any real sync going on between the two, other than possible for OneNote and Notes. How many people out there still use Outlook to sync their phone information if Exchange Push is available?

SharePoint Website Schematic

Rik Hepworth — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 12:14:39 +0000

I find myself drawing the same diagram over and over again in meetings to explain how SharePoint sites relate to IIS web sites, how managed paths and alternate access mappings fit and why you need to extend the SharePoint web application if you want more than one authentication provider.

After some of my colleagues pestered me to draw it again, I decided to create an electronic version, and since everybody seems to find it so useful I thought I'd post it here as well.

Site Policies and FBA in SharePoint: Update

Rik Hepworth — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 09:01:16 +0000

My apologies to Craig, who posted a comment to my earlier post about our FBA problems and I didn't notice until today.

To update you all on the situation, the fault is still with Microsoft and I have not yet received a hotfix.

However, for anybody considering FBA in their deployment, I would not let this issue stop you. There are two reasons I say that:

Normally with FBA you would extend the web application in question, having both FBA and Windows authentication available on the same content via different URLs. This makes your life easier with things like indexing and management.
The workaround I detailed is a good temporary solution to the problem with only minimal impact on the user experience (in that certain options are offered which may not work too well in Office when using FBA).

Hopefully this answer's Craig's question and assuages any doubts about the wisdom of deploying FBA in your SharePoint solution.

Life with a Diamond: nearly two weeks on

Rik Hepworth — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 14:30:20 +0000

I said I'd post again once I'd had the Diamond a little while. It's now been two weeks and I can honestly say I'm completely happy with it. Battery life for me is fine - I charge it about every three days and it chugs along with exchange push pretty much constantly. I am quite comfortable with the soft keyboard and I can honestly say I haven't noticed any issues with the speed of the device either.

Workflow and SQL Error: Update

Rik Hepworth — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 07:52:30 +0000

I posted last week about a couple of issues we were experiencing with SharePoint. I made some traction on the Workflow History issue at the end of last week and the revelation was pretty far-reaching, so I'm posting again.

It turns out that the stuff I said about systemupdate was wrong... up to a point.

There is a bug with systemupdate and triggering events, but it's not the one we thought it was! It turns out that the behaviour we are seeing is correct - systemupdate is supposed to trigger events, just not update things like the modified by and last updated columns. It's actually the behaviour within a workflow which is at fault, in that events aren't being triggered when they should be.

Touch Diamond Battery Life

Rik Hepworth — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 07:40:03 +0000

In my last post about the Diamond I said I would let you know what the battery life is. I therefore carefully refrained from giving it any charge over the weekend, even when connected to my PC.

That means that it received no power from 5.30pm on Friday until it died (which it did, eventually).

After that time, exchange push carried on notifying me of email immediately on arrival until 8pm, after which it downshifted to checking every hour and continued like that for the rest of the weekend.

blogging on the move: redux

Rik Hepworth — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 16:54:18 +0000

Richard's little mobile blogging app is nice, but he isn't that responsive to user requests (ie, mine!) so I thought I would see if anything else was out there.
Sadly, the answer appears to be 'not really'
However, I did come across Diarist, from Kevin Daly. Perhaps not surprisingly I am using it now. I must say that two thumb typing on the diamond keyboard is not bad, although nowhere near as fast as the real keyboard on the tytn.
So is diarist better than blogwriter? Well, it's easier to add links and images... Still no real formatting support though, which is a shame.
Try it for yourself.

My Orange Diamond is... err... black

Rik Hepworth — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 10:11:00 +0000

That might sound like a strange thing to say, but when my shiny new Touch Diamond, which I picked up from Orange this week, has no Orange branding or customisation of the UI. I hadn't really noticed that until I went into the manual, where the screenshots are totally different from my phone. I was beginning to wonder if something had gone wrong with the setup process, when I saw this thread at XDA-Developers.

HTC Touch Diamond on Orange

Rik Hepworth — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 10:26:27 +0000

Thanks to the advanced notice from Tracy and Matt's blog, I picked up my HTC Touch Diamond yesterday from the Orange Store and it's great!

'But wait!' I hear you cry, 'didn't he go on about the experia x1 and how he wanted one?'

Well, yes, I did. I admit it - I am fickle in my affections.Since I wrote that post, I have spent time considering what I want in a phone and size has become a significant factor. The Diamond is tiny, it really is. It's not far from the size of my old Nokia 8910 and it's lighter than that old warhorse.

Useful .Net Search and Replace tool

Rik Hepworth — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 10:27:00 +0000

I need to update something like 300 web.config files today, with the same change in each. I turned to my old friend Google for his recommendations and up popped a magnificent free tool from Nodesoft.

Why magnificent? It's advanced mode allows you to specify start and end tags and update everything in between. That's fantastic for dealing with big chunks of web.config files! Better yet, give it a file mask and a path and it will run through the entire folder tree if you like. Update whole servers in seconds.

Congratulations Richard!

Rik Hepworth — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 13:01:47 +0000

Well done Richard, who has been given the accolade of Microsoft Most Valuable Professional for Visual Studio Team System.

Workflow History and SQL Error

Rik Hepworth — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 12:59:32 +0000

When trying to view an item in a list which has workflows run against it, you get an error:

Some part of your SQL statement is nested too deeply. Rewrite the query or break it up into smaller queries

Problem Background

Trying to explain the exact nature of our configuration in this case would break many people's heads. This, therefore, is a bit of a simplification.

We have a custom webpart which allows users to log an enquiry. We create an item in a list with the enquiry details, and send an email to the account responsible for dealing with those enquiries. A copy of the list item is created in another list (we'll leave out the why and wherefore of that for now). The two copies must be kept in sync. More details on that later.

Comment Spam and Contacting Me

Rik Hepworth — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 12:01:55 +0000

You may have noticed that I have disabled comments on my old posts. You may also have noticed that I have now disabled the Contact Me function on my blog.

Why? Comment spam, and more recently, a huge influx of spam via the contact form.

I will try to find a solution via some kind of community server plugin. In the meantime, posting comments will be open for 14 days after I make a post and will then automatically switch off.

CITP

Rik Hepworth — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 11:53:17 +0000

Received in an email today from the BCS:

I am delighted to inform you that your application for Chartered IT Professional (CITP) status has been successful.

Problems with Site Policies and FBA in SharePoint 2007

Rik Hepworth — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 11:46:14 +0000

If you are using Forms Based Authentication and try to access Site Policies you may well find that you get an Access Denied response. If you do, this post will help you!

I've been meaning to post this for a while because I'm sure it may help somebody. As usual, it's been pushed back and back until now I finally have some time. I also have another, workflow-related post on another problem which will follow shortly.

Catching Up

Rik Hepworth — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 12:30:00 +0000

I've been far too busy lately and whilst there have been lots of things I wanted to post about, time has not been on my side. Before I start to forget some of the points I thought a quick post was in order.

@media 2008 was great. Slides and audio are just filtering onto the blog now. A highlight for me was Indi Young's talk on Mental Models. I now have her book on my desk (waiting for having the time to read it) and I'm excited about how the technique might interface nicely with the User Stories we use for feeding requirements into our Scrum development process.
Also at @media, I managed to catch up with Nick, who was as insightful as ever. He's on the lookout for a Cold Fusion developer, if anyone is interested.
On the food front, if you're down on the South Bank try Giraffe. Also not bad was the food at Auberge, not far from the IMAX.
One interesting point is that there was a lot of talk about 'agile methods' from the presenters, but I wasn't getting the impression that there was actually a great deal of understanding as to what they really entail. We use Scrum at Black Marble, albeit with some pragmatism as there are some things you just can't do when you're not working on time and materials. I find that the increased level of dialogue between team members that Scrum gives improves the execution of the project no end. If you want to know more about Scrum, Ken Schwaber's books are a good, quick read.
On the smartphone front, the iPhone 3G looks nice, but given my company infrastructure, the Touch Diamond looks more so. Also, the Diamond is nice and small which is something I've been searching for in a smartphone for a while. Big nod of respect to Opera - I have a beta of 9.5 on my TYTN right now and it's a very nice mobile browser. I'm looking forward to seeing what the polished product is like on the Diamond.
I have yet to get chance to install it, but the beta Power Pack for Windows Home Server is available which addresses the data corruption bug. I have a single disk in mine right now and to be honest it's not doing much other than backups, but I'd recommend one just for that - simple and straightforward image-based backups of all the PCs in the house. Great!

Blogging On The Move

Rik Hepworth — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 16:07:00 +0000

We try to dogfood here at Black Marble so I'm writing this on my HTC TYTN. How? With Richard's new app

Community Launch Events

Rik Hepworth — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 09:04:00 +0000

A big thanks to everybody who came to the Server 2008 launch event last week. Andy and myself had a great time presenting to such an enthusiastic crowd. In the end we ran long because of the amount of dialogue around the new features of Server 2008 and I hope everyone went away having got something useful.

Now I need to reduce the two hours of material down to a perky 45 minutes for delivery at the VBug-hosted launch event on April 30th. Richard is there too, and Iain is also speaking, making up the triumvirate. It's my first non-Black Marble community event and I'm quite looking forward to it.

Hats off, lads

Rik Hepworth — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 22:48:00 +0000

Just seen the sad news of the passing of Arthur C. Clarke. The world was better for his having been in it, and will not be the same without him.

Insightful

Rik Hepworth — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 13:20:00 +0000

Joel Spolsky has a biting and articulate article on the IE8 standards debate.

A great article on handy SharePoint controls

Rik Hepworth — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 19:52:00 +0000

I don't know about you, but I always mean to gather various bits of knowledge into one place, but just like tidying my filing at home, I never quite get around to it. Fortunately for me, Chris O'Brien is a bit more organised and in my ever expanding blogroll today I saw a great article about really useful SharePoint controls to use in custom pages for that handy bit of functionality.

Taking time to enjoy the scenery

Rik Hepworth — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 19:42:00 +0000

You know, the thing about RSS is that it's a bit like the advent of the motor car - you miss things. Just as driving around means you don't get to pass the time of day with folk, or discover that tiny little deli you'd never notice from the road, RSS dehumanises the web.

For example, I subscribe to the blog of my good friend Nick Smith. Since he hasn't posted about his new redesign, I didn't know about it. Which is a shame, because I like it - it puts me in mind of Tim Burton's animations with it's tendril-like curves.

Searching SharePoint through an IE8 Activity

Rik Hepworth — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 14:19:00 +0000

IE8 Activities look cool. They're almost like favlets from where I stand, but they offer a very simple way for users to access online services and pass simple parameters.

I decided I wanted to play, and we use SharePoint heavily here at Black Marble. The obvious thing to do was to create an activity which would allow the user to search for the selected text using SharePoint search.

Activities are defined through XML. Essentially, you give it a name, an icon and define the actions that can be performed. There are execute and preview actions, but the small preview window doesn't really lend itself to SharePoint search (I tried!).

IE8 Rapid Fire Site Test

Rik Hepworth — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 19:57:00 +0000

I can't spend much longer playing with IE8 or my wife will skin me. However, from my cursory browsing experience I'm worried. Either the devs have a good deal of work to do or I'm going to be very busy with CSS rules for a while.

Here's the University of Bradford site in IE8:

And to try to compare apples with oranges, here it is in Firefox 3 beta 3:

Internet Explorer 8...

Rik Hepworth — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 19:28:00 +0000

Well, as expected, the public beta of IE8 appeared on the web pretty much straight after the Mix08 keynote mentioned it. I managed to grab it within mere moments and I now have it installed on my trusty laptop.

As announced only a day or two ago, it defaults to the new rendering mode, with a big toolbar button to toggle back to IE7 mode. I haven't had time to test the browser with any sites yet, but I'll try to do that in the next few days and maybe post again.

The XPERIA X1 - A Windows Mobile device that I could really get excited over

Rik Hepworth — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 19:05:00 +0000

Before I joined Black Marble I had a succession of Sony Ericsson smartphones - the P800, P900 and finally a P910i. They were great - the size was good, the UI was good, the handwriting recognition was excellent (with a grafitti-style interface that meant I could really get a good turn of speed) and I could work most functions one handed with the fabulous Jog Dial. Please note that the jog dial was sadly emasculated with phones after the P910i when Sony Ericsson foolishly reduced it's degrees of freedom to simply rolling back and forth and clicking.

Spring cleaning

Rik Hepworth — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 16:21:00 +0000

You know, one of these days I'll find the time to properly redesign this blog. In the meantime, the excellent Kid Congo theme from the latest version of Community Server will suffice, albeit with the alteration of colours to match our corporate blue.

@media 2008

Rik Hepworth — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 16:01:00 +0000

After sadly missing last year due to workload, I am excited to be able to attend @media 2008 in London along with Tom and Lauren from Black Marble. If you know me and you want to meet up please get in touch!

Balancing customer needs against forward motion: IE8

Rik Hepworth — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 15:37:00 +0000

I've watched the debate with interest but not posted anything until now. The news of Internet Explorer 8 keeping it's new rendering engine to itself unless you tell it otherwise caused a strong outpouring of opinion around the web.

I must admit, my initial reaction mirrored that of many others - that it's just plain wrong (although my good friend Nick's posting took some concentration to ascertain his thoughts!). Why hold back on improved support for CSS; why hide the fact that the engine now passes ACID2?

EMEA Project Conference: Keynote Thoughts

Rik Hepworth — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 08:55:00 +0000

Well, the keynote just ended and I needed to check email so I thought I'd do a quick post. A good chunk of the keynote had already been covered by yesterday's partner-only sessions. However, Mike Angiulo publicly announced that the Office 2007 family Service Pack 1 will be available on December 11th, 2007. I guess that means we can tell the world! I'm surprised, actually, that I haven't noticed this on any of the SharePoint blogs I frequent.

Project Partner Day

Rik Hepworth — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 22:51:00 +0000

Well, it's the end of day zero, the partner-only day here at the Madrid Project Conference. It's been an interesting day. I'm not sure what I am allowed to say, but service pack 1 for Office 2007, which covers the desktop products, sharepoint, project server et al is very close to being available now. That was an interesting announcement, as we are looking at installing Project Server in Black Marble. I'd like to wait for SP1 - it makes sense - but because SharePoint will be patched at the same time I need to do some testing of our customisations first.

EMEA Project Conference - Madrid

Rik Hepworth — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 08:56:00 +0000

Finally, after all the excitement that Richard and Robert had in Seattle and Barcelona, I find myself in the Auditorium Hotel, Madrid for the EMEA Project Conference.

According to the multilingual sales blurb in my room, the hotel is the largest in Europe, and I must say it's very nice. We flew in yesterday and today is an MS Partner-only day before the conference itself kicks off tomorrow.

Project Server is something we're very interested in using ourselves, and it's integration with SharePoint (MOSS/WSS) makes it an attractive solution to anybody who has already deployed MOSS for their corporate intranet, as we have.

Mix:UK 07 Round-up

Rik Hepworth — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 08:43:00 +0000

We're back up north after Mix:UK 07 and I thought I'd follow up my earlier post with a few thoughts on the event and it's content.

Before I do that, however, I need to give a cheer for our guys: Jonny performed incredibly in the Guiter Hero competition to be triumphant in front of his screaming supporters, and Sam, Mat, Tom and Jonny cleaned up the the goody-bagging stakes of the Swaggily Fortunes quiz!

In the Mix

Rik Hepworth — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 14:21:00 +0000

Well, it's just after 3pm on day one of Mix:UK 07. I'm taking a break with a coffee so I thought I'd post.

It's mixed bag down here (sorry - no pun intended). The technology is fantastic - the stuff that can be achieved with WPF and Silverlight is excellent. I'm still a little uncertain that usability has been sacrificed on the sacrificial alter of bling, however. To be fair, that's more telling about the rapid-development nature of conference demos, where the wow-factor is more important, but I think it's a very, very significant issue which should not be allowed to get lost in the excitement.

Web site development: University of Bradford Part 1

Rik Hepworth — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 18:21:00 +0000

One of the last projects I was involved in before I left the University of Bradford to join Black Marble was a new design for the external web site of the institution. I'd pretty much finished the construction of the page layouts and styles before I left, but it's only now that the site is about to go live. I've threatened a few people with a series of posts on how the site is constructed and although I'm not there any more it seems topical.

Web development helpers: Redux

Rik Hepworth — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 07:59:00 +0000

After posting yesterday about useful tools for development I stumbled across another little gem of a utility. IE7Pro is much more of a usability-enhancing tool but it has a wonderfully handy tool nestling within - Save Current Tab As Image. If you need to do grabs of pages for documentation or presentations and the page is more than a single screen in length this will transform your life - no more cropping and stitching!

Web development little helpers

Rik Hepworth — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 09:31:00 +0000

As web development gets more and more complex having the right tools to help you figure out what's going on is essential. I thought I'd do a quick post on the ones I find most useful. In no particular order, then, here they are.

Virtual PC
This one is a godsend, because as we all know, running multiple versions of Internet Explorer is hard. VPC, now available as a free download from Microsoft, allows me to run the numerous variants of IE our clients require me to test against.
If you just want IE6, Microsoft have a handy downloadable pre-built VPC:
Download Virtual PC
Download the Internet Explorer Compatibility VPC Image
Firebug for Firefox
Now imitated for other browsers, Firebug is fantastic. A clear and straightforward way to identify the bugs in your pages or styles, it allows you to easily identify which stylesheet rules are being applied and in what order, and to hack 'em on the fly as you test your fixes. Add to that the ability to mangle the page and debug javascript and we have a winner.
Download Firebug
Chris Pederick's Developer Toolbar for Firefox
Even though Firebug is great, I still use Chris Pederick's trusty developer toolbar for enabling and disabling styles, accessing the W3C validator and other stuff. Couldn't live without it, in fact.
Get Developer Toolbar
Nikhil Kothari's Web Development Helper for IE
Broadly offering the same level of information as Firebug, but without the ability to hack on the fly, this is a handy way of seeing what IE is doing with your page under the hood.
Get Web Development Helper
Inspector for Safari (for Windows)
I have a trusty Mac Mini that I use for checking Safari as well, but the advent of Safari for Windows has made my life easier, I must admit. How excited was I, then, to find that you get Inspector working with the Windows version. Again, loads of info about the page, although hacking on the fly. Instructions courtesty of David Barkol's blog. A note - as I write this the latest nightly crashes horribly - I am using the nightly from the 21st June and it works well. At some point I will try later builds but right now a stable platform that I can enable easily and consistently is more important.
Enable Web Inspector for Safari on Windows

I'd love to hear from anybody who uses other cool tools that I may not have come across. I'm particularly interested in these kind of things for Opera.

SharePoint problems with access rights

Rik Hepworth — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 09:18:00 +0000

I spent a while knocking my head against a problem with a SharePoint server farm that's worth posting about. It's also worth a big hats-off to our Technical Support Coordinator at Microsoft Partner Support who dredged up the article that finally pointed us in the right direction.

The problem

I'll post later about our approach to SharePoint installations, but I'll summarise thus: We create multiple user accounts to the SharePoint services - a db access account, an installation account etc etc. In this instance we were building a three server setup - db server, web server, index server. The accounts were created first, logged in as a domain admin. I also installed SharePoint as the domain admin, but didn't run the config wizard.

Updating firmware on SPV M3100 (HTC TyTN)

Rik Hepworth — Mon, 14 May 2007 09:21:00 +0000

Still no Windows Mobile 6 update for my Orange SPV M3100, but they did release an update to WM5 recently.

Installing said update turned out to be slightly trickier than I expected. I don't know if anybody else has experienced the same problem, but a word to the wise - don't try the update on Windows Vista!

The first part works OK - it connects to the device and interrogates it, but when it actually tries to connect and download the new firmware it fails.

What happened to the idealists?

Rik Hepworth — Sun, 15 Apr 2007 13:20:00 +0000

Douglas Coupland's Jpod has been doing the rounds in the office of late. I enjoyed MicroSerfs, so approached Jpod with excitement.

Frankly, I'm disappointed.

It's not the writing - I 've enjoyed pretty much all of his books. It's not that the books are similar in approach and style (they are) but rather the contrast in the lives of the characters.

Overall, MicroSerfs was optimistic. The characters in the book were using their talent to make the world a better place. The technology in Jpod is cynically created to make the most money. I finished MicroSerfs feeling good about what I do for a living; I'm stuggling through Jpod as it slowly destroys that feeling.

Analysing Active Directory

Rik Hepworth — Sun, 15 Apr 2007 12:56:00 +0000

I think I've mentioned before how I've been updating our IT infrastructure. Company growth has meant a need for expanded services. Add to that new versions of SharePoint and Exchange, mix in a need to run virtual servers for development and you have a need for more tin.

Over the past six months I've expanded our domain to keep pace with our growing needs. The number of physical servers we have has increased, with a few more virtual servers for specific roles that I prefer to keep separate but which don't really merit their own box.

X2100 IPMI Redux - success!

Rik Hepworth — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 14:38:00 +0000

In hindsight I should have thought of it, but even if I had, others got there first.

You may remember my problems with IPMI on our X2100 servers from an earlier posting. Today I had cause to revisit the matter, as we're having terrible issues with the Nvidia RAID on one of our servers.

The lack of a Windows version of IPMItool is still a pain, but I am leagues closer to a usable solution now, thanks to Cygwin. The solution, it turns out, whilst somewhat laborious, is fairly straightforward. Simply build IPMItool under cygwin. Result!

Windows Home Server - something for my father

Rik Hepworth — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 10:06:00 +0000

On Saturday I got the email telling me that I'd been accepted onto the Home Server Beta 2. I'm excited about this product in a way that I haven't been about new software solutions for a while.

I've taken part in beta programmes before. I've been around a while, and as an IT pro you get desensitised after a while. Vista has some innovative features, but it's evolutionm, not revolution.

Vista Upgrade - attempts 4, success 0

Rik Hepworth — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 09:49:00 +0000

I have yet to succeed in upgrading from Windows XP to Windows Vista. Each time it runs through to the completing upgrade phase, gets about halfway through that bit whereupon I get stuck in a reboot cycle.

I have tried this now on three separate machines and two different installed partitions on one of them.

Two of the machines were Shuttle SN25G2 SFF boxes with Nforce 2 motherboards and the onboard nforce 2 (basically a geforce 2) video.

SharePoint 2007 on x64 - don't try to run 32-bit web apps!

Rik Hepworth — Mon, 05 Feb 2007 13:15:00 +0000

We're slowly migrating services onto our new servers here at Black Marble. This morning we had one of those moments where significant amounts of wall kicking and teeth gnashing ensue.

Basically, we forgot that if you enable 32-bit .net support on IIS 6 it disables 64-bit support - you can't run 32 bit and 64 bit apps concurrently.

We spent a long time the other week getting our release version of SharePoint 2007 installed on one of our shiny Sun X2100 x64 servers. We expect the site to be quite large, so it made sense to run the x64 version of SharePoint.