Technically speaking…

In my role as a system administrator, I provide support for many applications.  One of these applications is SalesLogix.

We use Saleslogix to store non-financial customer information and other things you would find in a CRM application.  Sometimes, the simplest things get the best of us.  Since I had an interesting incident while working with a Saleslogix user, I thought I would share.

SalesLogix can integrate with Microsoft Outlook, allowing users to push email messages relavant to customer accounts/contacts into SalesLogix.  This is a good thing for two primary reasons:

1. It keeps all information about a contact and account in one place
2. It allows the user who received the message to keep their mailboxes cleaned up without losing information.

I am sure there are a load of other reasons to like the integration between Outlook and Saleslogix, but those are the two that stick out for me right now.

When sending an email to Saleslogix, Outlook looks for a record with a matching email address.  If found, the dialog box to allow the message to be inserted appears.  If the address is not found, Outlook gives up.

The issue I saw today was as follows, the email came in from user@company.com.  When put into Saleslogix, nothing happened.  The contact where it should have ended up, was not changed, but did exist.

The email address for the record in Saleslogix was entered as something different from the actual email address, u.ser@company.com.  This causes Outlook to do nothing, because the record in Saleslogix has a different email address than the record in Outlook.  Since these do not match, nothing is done with the message.

The best way to fix this (other than dragging and dropping the message from Outlook to SalesLogix) is to copy the existing value of the contact’s email field into email 2 and then enter the email address used by outlook into the Email field for the contact in Saleslogix.

To retrieve the email address from an Outlook mail message, open the message and right click the name of the sender on the From line.  Then choose Outlook Properties (or properties) and record the email address listed there.  If the sender is within your organization you may need to select the E-mail Addresses tab in Outlook Properties.

Once this is done, you should be able to click the Record history to Saleslogix button (shown on the toolbar in the main application window of Outlook) and have the message recorded to the history for the contact with that email address.

It is likely that most Saleslogix users and administrators are aware of this issue, and that it doesnt happen too often, but I thought it a good idea to share just incase there are some who have not yet seen this.

In a previous post I discussed Nlite at a very high level and walked through the setup of the application.  The idea behind the software is to easily integrate service packs, drivers, or other needed applications that will speed up the installation of an operating system and create media with all of the needed components added or removed.

Here I will walk through the use of the Nlite application to create new media containing a service pack.

Note: In the examples for this post I used Windows Server 2003, but the process will work for other versions of Windows as well.

Open the Nlite console from the Startt -> All Programs menu.  When the application starts up it will present a wizard to walk you through the process of creating new media.

The wizard opens with the screen shown below in figure A.

Figure A

Select the language for this slip stream

Select the language to use in creating the slipstreamed media and click next to continue.  Language selection does not change the language used by the software you are using as the source on the next screen.  The selection there only pertains to the language for the wizard while creating the new media.

On the next screen in the nLite wizard, you will be asked to specify a Windows installation source.  Usually the best way to  achieve an accurate installation source is to make use of the original media.

For example, if you have the media for an original installation of Windows XP, you could use that as the source and download the service packs to incorporate.

Figure B shows the wizard screen for selecting a source, click the browse button to location the installation source nLite should use.  This source will be read and the details displayed on below the browse option.  Once you have confirmed nLite can see your source media, click Next.

Figure B

Choose an installation source

When you click next after specifying the source the wizard will pop up a dialog asking you to choose where you would like to save these files for modification.  The window shown looks like the Figure B above.  Click OK on the dialog box and then select a location (or create a new folder) to hold the files for modification.  Choosing a folder is shown in figure C.

Figure C

Choose a destination folder

Once you have found the folder where the items can be kept for the wizard to use, click OK.  nLite will copy the files from the source media to the folder specified in the previous step.  When the copy process completes, verify the details of the source and click next to continue.

Figure D

Source files are copied to destination

On the screen shown in figure E, you can import settings from previous trips through nLite. For the purposes of this post, I will not be covering the import process.  The screen is shown below for completeness and can save you time the more you use the product.

Figure E

Import previous customizations

To bypass the presets screen simply click next.

The remainder of the nLite wizard focuses on the items you want to add or remove from the new media you are creating.  It not only supports adding drivers, service packs, and other necessary files, but also removing unwanted components.  In a future post, I will look at the components that can be taken away using the nLite application as well as presets for speedier configurations.

On the task selection screen, shown in figure F, you will see there are four sections.

1. Integrate - this section allows you to choose the type of item you wish to add to the source installation.
2. Remove - this option will allow you to remove existing functionality
3. Setup - helps in the creation of unattended media, changing options during setup and applying tweaks to existing options.
4. Create -  the create option is where the new image or media is created.

Figure F

Select the items to customize

In this post I will walk through integrating a service pack with original media.  To perform this task click the Service Pack option and then click the Bootable ISO choice under create, shown selected below in figure G.

Figure G

Select output to create

Once the options to modify the media have been chosen, click next to proceed.  In our example to slipstream a service pack you will be prompted to select the update.exe file for the service pack to integrate.  The wizard option to select this is shown in figure H.

Figure H

Select files to slipstream

Notice the links on the bottom of the select screen.  These are links to the latest service packs for each supported operating system.  When clicked they will take you to the Internet to download the files needed.

If you did not choose an option to create an image or other media on the tasks page of the wizard, the nLite application will end when you click next.  This will create a preset configuration for use in the future, but will not create any ISO images or CDs.

If you did select an item to create on the tasks page, the wizard will advance to another page to assist in creating an ISO (or if selected direct burn to CD/DVD).  The create screen is shown below in figure I.

Figure I

Create Output

On the bootable ISO screen, select the mode for creation you wish to use.  The available modes are as follows:

• Direct Burn - write the modified files to CD/DVD
• Burn Image - write a previously created ISO image to CD/DVD
• Create Image - produce an ISO image of the modified files
• Erase RW - erase re-writable media

Most of the time, the best output to select here would be create image.  This way you can create ISO files and save them to a location on your pC or network and store them for later use.  Once the ISO is created, start nLite again, choosing only the Create option on the tasks screen and choose burn image as the mode.

To create an image, you will need to select the ISO engine to use.  Here I have found that the default works quite well.  Then click the Make ISO button to create the image.

When the burn image mode is chosen, you will be promped to browse for the ISO file you created previously then the button next to Click here to start -> will be labeled to facilitate burning an image to disc.

Once the progress bar for your selected task has completed ckick next and then finish to close the nLite wizard.

As you can see the free download makes the creation of slipstreamed media very painless and quite easy to handle.  Hopefully nLite is a tool that will find its way into your computing toolbox.

Slip streaming is a process for adding additional service packs or hotfixes to a CD-Rom or install point.  This allows the install media (usually a CD Rom) to contain the latest service pack or other information when it is used to set up a computer.

The benefits here are huge.  If the latest service pack for Windows XP is slipstremed into an image file and burned to a DVD, using this new DVD to install Windows XP will move the new install directly to Service Pack 3 and avoid the large download for each system, either from a network share or from the Internet.

Microsoft has notes about slip streaming a service pack into an operating system, and this method works just fine, however there is a faster method.

A utility developed by Dino Nuhagic called Nlite to the rescue.  Nlite is a free utility that allows you to modify and create your own installation media from the original removing the items that are un-necessary and adding new items, like service packs, that are needed.

As of this writing, the utility does not handle the slip streaming of items into or out of Windows Vista media.  A new tool, called Vlite is in the works to handle Windows VIsta.

Getting Nlite

To get started, visit Nliteos.com to download the latest version (v 1.4.9.1) of Nlite to your computer.  Once the file is downloaded double click the setup file and complete the steps shown below.

Figure A

Select the language for the installation

When the installer launches, it will produce the dialog shown above in figure A.  Select the language for the installation and click OK to proceed.

Once a language has been chosen, the Installer wizard will begin.  Click next to move past the welcome screen.  In figure B below, accept the license agreement for the application and click next.

Figure B

Accept the license agreement

The installer continues by allowing the user to select the installation type and directory.  The default installation directory is usually best and is provided as C:\Program Files\Nlite.  Selecting the Full Installation will provide you with the most choices for creating a slipstream and for output once the image is created.  These items are shown in figures C and D below.

Figure C

Choose the installation directory

Figure D

Select the type of installation to perform

Like with other applications, selecting custom installation will require the user to select the components desired whereas the full installation includes all files available and compact installation includes only the necessary files to operate the Nlite application.

Note: for the purposes of this post, Full installation was selected as it provides the most functionality.  Select the installation that will best meet your needs when configuring your Nlite installation.

When you have selected the installation type and click next you will be asked if the installer should create a desktop shortcut for Nlite.  Select this option according to your needs and click next.  The Nlite installer will begin copying the needed files to the chosen installation location on your computer.  This process is fairly quick and once complete, the successful installation screen is displayed.  Click finish to complete the installation of Nlite.

The Nlite installer does not include the option to launch the application upon completion of the wizard.  You will notice that the Start Menu alerts you to the presence of a new application following the completion of setup.  You can select Nlite from the start menu or its desktop shortcut if you chose to create one.

In a future post I will look at creating a slip stream using Nlite and the options available within this handy application.

Since the late 1990’s it has been quite the advancement in computer technology to allow users to store data on CD Rom media or even make identical copies of existing CD Rom discs.

When the technology to create CDs was first introduced, the computer needed to have CD writing software from Nero or Adaptec or some other vendor coupled with a CD Rom drive that was capable of writing data to CD media.

With the popularity of CD burning PC manufacturers have been including CD Rom drives that can write CDs in the majority of computers sold and Microsoft licensed CD burning technology from Adaptec to include in Windows.

The remainder of this post is going to walk through the process of creating a CD Rom directly with Windows XP using no other applications.

To create a CD Rom using Windows, complete the following steps:

1. Create a new folder on your desktop called Write to CD

Note: I am using a new folder here to create an easy location to place the files you will write to a CD. However, any folder location will work.

2. Copy the files you wish to write to CD into the new folder

3. Open the CD Rom folder for the CD Writeable drive in your computer (usually drive D or E) by clicking on Start and then My Computer and then double clicking the letter of the CD writeable drive.

4. Drag the contents of the Write to CD folder into the open Window for the writeable CD drive.

5. In the left portion of the CD rom window you should see a section for CD Writing Tasks, if there are no options showing, click the double down arrow to expand it.

6. Click the link labeled Write these files to CD

7. The CD writing wizard will appear, click Next past the welcome screen

8. Enter a label for the CD Rom, this will default to the current date.

Note: You can only enter 11 characters into the label field

9. Click Next to begin writing the CD

10. After the first disc has completed, the final window of the wizard will appear displaying a check box to create another copy of the same CD, if you wish to do this check the box and click Finish, if you are done creating CD Roms, click Finish to close the Wizard.

There you have it… the simple, but useful process of creating CD Roms.

One final note, if your computer has Nero installed on it, you may have difficulty using the Windows XP CD writing utility and should use Nero instead.

For those of you who are fans of the Mozilla Firefox web browser, the next release will be made available on Tuesday June 17th 2008.

Version 3 has many enhancements in speed and ease of use over the current version and will integrate the functionality of many popular plug-ins directly into the browser.

Some of the features include:

• One click bookmarking
• Improved Security
• Lightning fast performance
• Built in Spell Check
• Zoom
• Phishing and Malware protection
• 5,000 Add ons and counting

That is not all however, Mozilla is aiming to set a Guinness World Record for most downloads in a 24 hour period.  On the 17th of June, you can participate in Download Day by simply downloading the latest full release (no upgrades will be counted).  To see more about the world record attempt click here.

As we have seen in previous posts Remember the Milk has reinvented task management. In previous posts I have gone through an overview of the service and taken an in depth look at a few of the features available. In this post I want to visit the topic of task notes used with RTM.

When a task is added to Remember the Milk, the user is able to specify a location, a due date, repetition, and tags associated with the task. Sometimes a task may need some more information. This is where notes come into play.

Each task entered into Remember the Milk can have its own notes. The number of notes is unlimited, however I recommend keeping this to a manageable level, three notes is the most I have found useful. An example of a task where notes could be very useful is a task such as get groceries. If a task is added for get groceries, a note (or multiple notes) can be added to provide a list of the items that are needed… milk, cereal, and other things.

Rather than adding a single task for each item that is needed at the store a note showing these items might work a little better and keep the task list clear for the items that fit best there.

Let’s get started on going through the notes process with Remember the Milk.  To add notes to a task in RTM, you must first create a (or select an existing) task to which you can add notes. Task Creation is covered in this post. To select an existing task, simply check the box next to that task in the list of avaialble tasks in RTM.

Once you have your noteworthy tasks checked and are all ready to go, look up the page at the top right of the screen, where the task details are listed.

Figure 2

With the task selected, click the Notes tab also shown above. You can add as many notes as you need to a particular task. Simply click the add notes link on the notes tab to add a new note.

Once you click the Add note link, another box will appear for you to enter the text of your note and click OK to save the note you entered. The note count is then incremented to keep track of all of the notes you have added.

To edit a note that you have entered already, click the edit link listed next to the note title on the notes tab. The Note add and Note edit dialogs look similar, below is the edit view for an existing note.

The image above shows the note text box and the edit link. The note editing text box will be the same for adding and editing notes.

Once you have finished entering the information for a particular note, click save to append the note to a task.

That is all there is to the creation of task notes in Remember the Milk. The process is very simple and could help creates fewer, more useful tasks.

Remember the Milk allows users to share tasks with other users. To get this working, you will need to add contacts within RTM. If these individuals are not Remember the Milk users, you can invite them to sign up when adding them as a contact by entering their email address.

To get started with contacts, click the contacts link at the top of the page.

On the contacts page, you will see a list of the contacts you have added to your RTM account.  If there aren’t any yet, don’t worry you can add them by following the steps below:

1. Click the Add Contact link at the top right of the page
2. Enter the RTM user name of the person you wish to add or their e-mail address if they aren’t an RTM user yet.
3. Tab off of the entry field

This will add the individual if they are already a Remember the Milk user.  If not, you will be asked if you would like to add them at the top of the page.  The message looks similar to the one shown below:

Clicking the lined would you like to invite then? will display the invite tab (which can also be clicked from the Contacts page).

To invite a new user/contact to Remember the Milk simply complete the form displayed on the Invite tab and click send.  This will email the person you entered and provide them an easy way to join Remember the Milk.  Once they do, they will be added as a contact and you can begin sharing tasks with them.

You probably noticed that the above image displays a groups tab as well.  This is for organizing your contacts, making it easier to share a task with multiple contacts.

To create a group select the groups tab from the contacts page and click the add group link and enter a name for your group.

Now that you have created a group, you will need to add contacts to the group to make it useful.  Select the Contacts tab to see the list of available contacts.  Once you have selected all of the contacts you wish to add to a group click the More Actions drop down and select Add to “Group Name” group.

Removing contacts from a group uses a similar method, selecting the contacts to be removed and choosing Remove from “Group name” Group.

To share a task with a contact or group, complete the following:

1. select the tasks link at the top of the page to return to your task list.

2. Select the list containing the task you wish to share

3. Select the task to share by checking the box to the left of the task (you can select multiple tasks)

4. Click the More Actions drop down box

5. Select Share with…

Once you select Share with, you will be taken to your contacts list.  At the top of the page a message will be displayed asking you to confirm sharing of the task.

The share button on the message will appear dim until you check one or more contacts or groups to select them.  Once this is done, the button will become clickable and turn blue.  Click the share button to share the task with the selected contacts or groups.

Contacts provide an easy way to share tasks with single users or groups of users.  Sharing tasks can ensure that all parties involved can see the same information about the task.  This also saves time when entering a task because it only needs to be entered once.

After a task is shared, the options tab for the task will display the users or groups that the selected task is shared with.

Hopefully you will invite friends and co-workers to give Remember the Milk a try.

Next up a quick look back at task notes.

Last time I posted about Remember the Milk and some of the features the online task machine has to offer. Today I want to look a little further into some of the other things that RTM can do, properties of a task and maybe some of the services that Remember the Milk can interact with.

Location Location Location

Sometimes a task needs to happen at a specific location, other times the location might be used to denote tasks in your home town but not at home. You can create locations for tasks in Remember the Milk using Google Maps functionality that is built into the application.

Note: Locations must be created before they can be assigned to tasks

To create a location Click the locations link at the top of the page (shown below)

Once the locations view is displayed a Google Map is displayed. If locations have been added, the map will be centered around those locations. To add a new location complete the following steps:

Simply enter the address into the text field above the map and click Go

This will place the desired location on the map and center it in the view.

Click on the flag displayed on the map. This will pop up a save location box. In the box enter the name of the location and click Save. You will then be able to assign this location to the tasks you create.

To assign the location to a task select the check box next to the task you wish to edit. This will pull up the properties for the task on the right of the page:

In the selected tasks properties pane, click the globe next to the heading Location. Then you can begin typing the name of the location you want to assign to this task. Locations you have stored in RTM will be available for assignment. Also, when a task with a location is selected, the user can click on the link for the location to pull up a map showing the selected location.

Next up - Contacts.

How many of you out there have forgotten something… recently forgetting where you parked at the mall, forgetting to grab the keys on your way out the door, and things like that, we all have forgotten some things, probably both large and small, in our lives.

Well there is a web service, launched in 2005, that aims to help users remember pretty much anything.  The service is called Remember the Milk and aims to provide an easy to use, fully customized task service complete with an email address and reminders via email and SMS.

Once you have created a user account and logged into the software the applications dashboard is displayed, listing an overview of the things you have set to be done today, tomorrow and the tasks that are overdue.

The overview is a snapshot of what is immediately upcoming and can be skipped for subsequent logins by clicking the always skip this page link on the right of the overview screen.

If you prefer to see the dashboard simply click the blue button labeled Continue to Tasks also in the right column.  This will take you to your task lists, which by default are Inbox and Sent.  These two lists cannot be deleted, but an unlimited number of lists and smart lists can be added and maintained.

One way to add a task to Remember the Milk, is to login to the web site and use the add task link which places the task on your Inbox list.  Your Remember the Milk account also has an email address which you can use to email tasks to yourself, but for now, I am going to focus on the web application.

Clicking Add Task will display a single line text box at the top of the list you are currently viewing, click in this text box and enter the name of your task  Tabbing out of the text box will add the entered item to your list and select the item.

As you can see from the image below, I have added a test task and it is selected, the available properties for the task are shown on the right.  These options are customizable on a per task basis.

To specify a due date for the selected task, I would simply click next to the word Due: and type in the date.  You can also press the D key on the keyboard with a task selected to be taken to the Due entry box.

Options for tasks

The options listed for each task when it is selected provide a great deal of the power behind remember the milk.

The available options for tasks are:

• List - this simply shows the list that the task lives on
• Due - allows you to set and view the Due date for the selected task
• Repeat - indicates if the selected task repeats
• Time estimate - the amount of time you think the task will require
• Tags - any tags you assign to the task
• Location - a location you have created for tasks
• URL - the web site link for the task
• Postponed - the number of times the task has been postponed
• Shared with - other Remember the Milk users who this task is shared with
• Notes - the number of notes attached to the task

Most of the options for a task can be updated by clicking on the area within the task menu.  The only ones that cannot are:

List - which is edited using the More Actions drop down box

Notes - which is edited using the notes tab at the top of the task options list

Postponed - this count is incremented each time the postpone button is clicked for a task

Shared with - this is edited to show other Remember the Milk users with  whom you have shared this task

The menu on the right of the screen shows the task options tab and the notes tab (shown below).  These tabs store information about each task and will change as you select new tasks.  To help with readability a line has been added from the selected task to the task options area helping inform a user which task they are seeing options for.

The items shown below the notes half of the above image are shown below either tab (tasks or notes).  They provide general information about the number of tasks selected, and a key to help further define options for making productive use of Remember the Milk.

So what about all these lists?

When using Remember the Milk, you can create as many lists as you need.  There are two types of list, standard and smart.  A standard list is similar to your Inbox and Sent default lists and will contain only items that you directly assign to the list.  A smart list is something altogether different.  When you use options for your tasks you can create a list that will display any tasks that meet the criteria you have defined.

For example, suppose you wanted to view all of your tasks that involved making calls separately from other tasks.  You could tag each of these tasks Calls as they are added to one of your lists.

Note: You can also select multiple tasks and then press m on the keyboard to enter multi edit mode, allowing you to assign the same tag (or other options) to all the selected tasks at the same time.

Once you have a task or tasks selected, click next to the Tags option and enter Calls then tab or click off of the field (or task).  You will see the Calls tag appear next to the task or tasks which you assigned Calls as a tag.

To create a list of all tasks with the Calls tag, you have two options:

1. Create a hard list called Calls and move all of your tasks with the calls tag to that list

or

2. Create a smart list based on the Calls tag

To create a smart list click in the search dialog (shown below) and enter the keyword you are searching against and press enter to see a temporary tab containing search results.

After reviewing the temporary tab of search results, you can close the tab if it is not needed any more or click the save tab which will appear on the right hand side of the page when a search is performed.  There you can enter a name for the list, like Calls and click save.  This will create a smart list that meets the criteria you searched for.

This should get you on your way and get you started with Remember the Milk.  In a future article I will go through other menus and more features offered.

Many on the Internet want to keep track of what friends and acquaintances are doing, but for a increasing number of Internet users, the instant gratification of the web is bleeding into the "keep in touch" arena.

Micro blog site Twitter has been around for a while now.  The free service allows users to post what they are doing simply by asking the question "what are you doing?".  The user enters what their doing or a note to friends and clicks the update button.  The world (or vastly huge twitter community) then knows what you are doing.

The service integrates with tons of other online applications, from jott.com to the ever-popular Facebook as well as other things.

Twitter users can send SMS messages to the service from their mobile device to update as well.  (Standard text rates will apply).

You can also follow your friends on twitter, via the web interface or by adding notifications which send SMS tweets to your mobile phone when the status of someone you follow changes.

The twitter web interface is shown below:

Below the form on the twitter page, you will see a list of the latest updates posted by yourself and those you are following.

Because twitter is a free service and can be integrated with so many other online applications it has grown in popularity since its launch in March of 2006.

In addition to the web interface, you could use an SMS message to Short code 40404.  The short code is an abbreviated phone number for use in text messaging.

Can I get in on all this action?

Yep. Twitter also supports developers who wish to create their own tools to post messages to the service.  The developers at twitter have created an Application Programming Interface (API) which allows other applications to integrate with twitter and post to (or retrieve from) the micro blogging site.

Twitter has been around for a while and has been covered in some fashion by just about every tech blog, so I thought I might mention it here.  Give it a try, you might be surprised how easy it is to tell the world what you are doing.