Technically speaking…

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.

Microsoft has supported a combination of the Domain Name Service (DNS) and the Windows Internet Naming Service (WINS) for quite a long time. Beginning in Windows Server 2000, the primary naming service was DNS and the Microsoft WINS efforts were becoming lesser needed.

In Windows Server 2008 the need for WINS has been essentially eliminated, although it remains supported for backward compatibility. In place of WINS, for the latest server version of Windows Microsoft has introduced Link Local Multicast Resolution (LLMR). This tip will discuss LLMR and the benefits this new naming method brings to the table.

The Windows Internet Naming Service was a good method for allowing Windows client and server computers to communicate using NetBIOS names. This technology works well within local networks that use only IPv4 addresses.

LLMR provides peer to peer address resolution, supports both IPv4 and IPv6 addressing, and can function without a WINS or DNS server being present. Because it operates only on a local level LLMR does not replace the functionality of DNS.

Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista support LLMR which is designed to resolve computer names when there is not another service available to do so, such as in the following scenarios:

• Ad Hoc networks
• Small Office or Home networks
• Corporate environments where DNS is not available

It is in these instances where LLMR can really improve name resolution and allow client and server computers to function more efficiently. LLMR is enabled on any systems running Windows Vista or Windows Server 2008 and when used, the name resolution works as follows:

A host computer requests information from its preferred local DNS server, if this request fails it attempts the request against the configured alternate DNS server. If this attempt fails, the request fails over to LLMR.

The host computer sends a multicast request for an IP address for the computer name being looked up over UDP.

Note: The request is only sent to computers on the same subnet.

Computers that support LLMR, those running Vista and Windows Server 2008, receive the LLMR request and compare the computer name to their own host name. If the computer name does not match the host name of a recipient host, the request is discarded. On the other hand, if the host name being looked up matches one of the local computers a unicast response is returned containing the matching computers IP address.

There are no configuration steps needed to use this new technology, since it is enabled by default in Windows Vista and later, however it can be disabled in the registry. The LMMR also supports reverse lookups; it handles these lookups by sending a unicast query to an IP address requesting the host name.

Note: LLMR requires computer names to be unique on the local subnet.

Link Local Multicast Resolution is a much better application for name resolution than WINS because it supports the up and coming IPv6 technology as well as existing IP technologies.

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.

The Domain Controller has been a cornerstone of Windows networking as far back as Windows NT. While the functionality of the Domain Controller has evolved from a primary and backup configuration in NT to the flexible single master of operations model used with Active Directory, the Domain Controller remains the central concept in Windows Server 2008.

In Windows Server 2008 however there have been enhancements made to the Domain Controller concept to allow read only Domain Controllers. These are Domain Controllers that contain a copy of Active Directory information but do not allow the information to be changed by the read only DC.

For example, suppose a company has a large corporate office where the network consists of three Domain Controllers, two member servers, and 100 client PCs and users. The company then decides to open a smaller office about thirty miles away where they will move a few staff members to expand the operation of the company. Because of the small size of the branch office, the company elects to place a read only Domain Controller (RODC) in the branch office to allow most of the AD information to be stored in the branch office without allowing changes made in the branch office to propagate back to the other DCs on the network.

Note: Password information cannot be stored on a RODC, which will increase security. When this information is needed for authentication it is requested from a writeable Domain Controller.

To configure a read only Domain Controller, simply check the read-only Domain Controller box displayed during the Domain Controller installation wizard.

Note: Updates to the directory partition received by an RODC must be pulled from a Domain Controller running Windows Server 2008 in the same domain. The domain and forest must be at least at the Windows Server 2003 functional level.

To configure a read only Domain Controller to also handle DNS for the remote site, you will also need to run the adprep /rodc command once per forest to allow DNS permissions to be updated across all DNS partitions in the forest.

When using DNS on a read only Domain Controller, be aware that this server cannot register name server resource records for any Integrated DNS zones which it hosts. In the event that a resource registration is requested a referral to another DNS server is returned, allowing the client to request this registration through a writeable Domain Controller.

Note: A read only Domain Controller cannot function as a Global Catalog server because the GC requires a writeable Domain Controller.

There are several restrictions that come into play when deploying Read Only Domain Controllers; however they can be deployed with little worry in offices which may not be as physically secure as needed for a completely writeable copy of Active Directory.

Lately I have been asked a few times what RSS is and to provide some examples of how it works. There has been an article posted here previously, but given the length of time between then and now I thought maybe a newer post might be in order.

The original post is here.

RSS or Really Simple Syndication allows publishers large and small to get content to their readers in a much faster fashion. The person reading the blog or website will subscribe to the sites RSS feed using an aggregator, as new items are added to the site, these will be pushed to the subscribers and appear in their feed readers as items are added.

The benefit to the blog or site publishing the feed is that the readers who wish to be kept up on what is going on receive the updates regularly. Also the site’s feed will not require an email subscription (although this is possible) and can avoid being caught in any spam filters that may be configured.

The benefit to the reader is time. Subscribing to a website’s RSS feed will allow the posted updates to be retrieved as they are posted. Reducing the amount of time that the reader spends visiting websites or trying to remember where they read that interesting tip on how to make paste (or something else).

How is an RSS feed created?

An RSS feed can be created in a couple of ways. Many blogging applications create a feed of the posts and/or comments automatically and allow the editor to make these available to readers. This makes feed generation immediate and requires no extra work on the part of the author.

Another way that a feed can be created is through a third party service, some of these will generate a feed based on any content, no matter the platform that actually publishes the information. A great reason to allow your feed to be managed by a third party application is that there is no maintenance and also there is likely to be a much more manageable URL for the feed than http://www.myblog.com/posts/feed.xml.

I understand that a feed will save time and spam, but why use it if another application is required to read RSS feeds?

An RSS feed is simply an aggregate collection of updates made to a website that is published to anyone who subscribes to it. Several software vendors have created applications which can process the XML based feed into something that a subscriber can read.

Since feeds are XML based, the application needs to make these files presentable, this is the reason an aggregator is needed. The aggregator simply formats and sorts the different XML files that are added to it. A feed will be displayed with a title and a summary. Each update is separated into its title and information, making the posts easy to read.

Some popular aggregators are:

NewsGator Online - an online based reader and account for storing and reading subscriptions

FeedDemon - a Windows desktop based reader published by NewsGator that integrates with a NewsGator online account.

Microsoft Outlook 2007 - Microsoft has Integrated Feed aggregation into the latest version of Outlook

Google Reader - An online based reader that allows users to share feeds with others and post notes about items they have read

There are many other options for reading feeds, but these are a few of the most popular and outside of Outlook they are free to use.

Now that I can get to and read feeds what else do they do for my website?

Techhelp uses a third party service provided by Google called FeedBurner. Feedburner creates a feed based on the provided URL. It also allows authors to track stats, like subscribers and views per day. Keeping track of your subscribers helps you keep an eye on the popularity of the feed you are publishing.

Feedburner also allows additional links to be inserted into both the website post and the feed post which will allow the reader to submit the post to other web services such as Digg or Del.ici.ous making it easier for them to share items they are reading with others, resulting in even more traffic for publishers. This type of exposure can generate a great deal more page views and subscribers long term simply by exposing the content to more people.

Tracking the stats of feeds will also allow a site operator to see just how much the readers are growing and even which reader they use to access a feed this can be helpful in determining if the content being published into a feed is effective. As new content is published, if subscriptions increase or decrease dramatically, it may be an indication of the effectiveness of the content being published.

Note: Techhelp does not receive any perks from Google for mentioning Feedburner. This is purely the service that is used with this blog, so it is the one we know the most about.

In addition to all of the great feed information shown to subscribers and made available as part of the feed, the status of a sites feed can be monitored. When the feed is down, a separate feed (available to the publisher) will be updated to allow tracking of a given feed.

Bottom Line: Maintaining a feed for posts on your website makes tracking readership easier for authors/editors and makes keeping up with your updates an automatic thing for your readers.  This is a win/win for all involved.  I have also found that once you get started with feeds, it is very easy and tempting to read alot more blogs than one might think in a day.

Many web applications besides blogs and news sites publish feeds or have an Application Programming Interface (API) that allows a thrid party to create an aggregate feed of content from a given application as well.  Some of the more popular applications either posting a feed or being aggregated into a feed are:

Flickr - Photo sharing site aquired by Yahoo!

FriendFeed - newly popular social aggregation site.  This site pulls in account info from many different social networking sites and pushes them out as a feed.

TwitterFeed - push your blog’s feed to twitter

Remember the Milk - an online task service that publishes a feed of your tasks

There are many other applications on the Internet that will begin making use of RSS or other feed driven technologies and formats.   We here at TechHelp love us some RSS and will post here about it as new things we think you might find useful pop up.

Hopefully this post has got you thinking about RSS and some of the things it can help you accomplish.  In a future post Techhelp will take a look at a couple of the aggregator applications out there for use with RSS feeds and the pros and cons of these.

Windows Server 2008 has introduced another new feature for this iteration of Active Directory, Restart-able Active Directory Domain Services. All DCs running Windows Server 2008 support restartable domain services.

Active Directory Domain Services will appear in the services applet on all Windows Server 2008 Domain Controllers in your Active Directory environment. The modes available for Active Directory Domain Services are:

• Active Directory Started – In this state, the Active Directory services are running and will function similarly to Domain Controllers in Windows 2000 Server and Windows Server 2003. When in the started state, a Windows Server 2008 Domain Controller can provide authentication services for a domain.
• Active Directory Stopped – In this state the Domain Controller cannot provide authentication and logon services for an Active Directory environment. While in a stopped state the Domain Controller behaves similarly to a Member Server or Server started in Directory Services Restore Mode (DSRM). The server will accept logins with cached credentials, smart cards, or biometrics like a member server, while also taking the its directory services database offline, like DSRM.
• Directory Services Restore Mode – In this state the Domain Controller is in restore mode and behaves much like a Windows Server 2003 Domain Controller in Restore Mode. The Directory Services database is offline and maintenance, including an authoritative restore can be performed.

Stopping the Active Directory Services will allow maintenance tasks to be performed that would previously require the server to be restarted. This can save a great deal of time for administrators and other users in your environment. Other domain controllers within an environment will handle logon requests and other resource needs while a server’s Active Directory services are stopped. If your environment has only one Domain Controller, and no other methods of authentication are supported, an administrator could still logon using the Active Directory Restore Mode user account and password.

Other methods of authentication which will work when AD Domain Services are stopped are:

• Cached Credentials
• Smart Cards
• Biometrics

Another thing to note, like any other Windows service, AD DS will stop dependent services when it is stopped. This includes the File Replication, Intersite Messaging, and Kerberos Key Distribution Center services. If these services are still running when Active Directory restarts, they will be restarted.

Note: When starting a Domain Controller, you cannot start Active Directory Domain Services in a stopped state. To stop this service, the Windows Server 2008 system must be started first ad then, using the services applet the AD DS service can be stopped.

Maybe it should; blogging has taken the Internet by storm over the past few years.  So much so that many businesses and consultants have begun blogging to boost PR and get the word out about their products and services immediately.

Providing an immediate voice for many companies, a blog can also take traditional marketing one step further by allowing those on the receiving end of the communication to interact with the organization in near real time by posting comments and thoughts.  This type of conversational approach allows many consumers or other customers of an organization to get a feel for how things are progressing on a project or what products might be coming out next, without waiting for the usual media blitz of one way conversations with little to no feedback being solicited.

In their book, Naked Conversations, two blog advocates, Robert Scoble and Shel Israel, take on the topic of Blogging as a business and cite examples of how blogs can bring business into the new millennium.  The book is available for sale on Amazon.com and at booksellers in your area.

The authors of Naked Conversations are seasoned bloggers and have some great thoughts about blogging for business.  Scoble, now with FastCompany.tv, was the initial host of Microsoft’s Channel 9 and runs his own blog at http://www.scobleizer.com

Israel has helped introduce some of the most innovative products around over the past twenty years, from PowerPoint to the Sun Microsystems workstation.  He posts frequently at http://redcouch.typepad.com/

I am just finishing up the book and have learned quite a bit, it is a worthwhile read for anyone curious about blogging, both for business or for fun.  You might give it a look if you are blogging about your company already, or just thinking about getting started.

I found an interesting piece over at CIO Magazine this morning that walked through some tips for blackberry users. I am not a blackberry user myself, but it seems that these devices are everywhere, and it never hurts to help where you can, as long as someone else helps with the details. The article, put together by a mobile specialist at Aflac, includes tips for keyboarding, battery life, and other things just to make your mobile life a little easier.

For better battery life, these tips are given: 1. Set connectivity options wisely 2. Examine notification profiles 3. Adjust your screen backlight 4. Use power hogging applications wisely 5. Keep battery connections clean

You can read the rest of the article here. Hopefully these tips will make your Blackberry even more productive.

Nowadays it is pretty common for most people to carry some type of cellular phone with them wherever they go.  Many of these devices can access the Internet to retrieve information, but if someone happens to be driving getting online from a cell phone is not always a good idea.

There is a relatively new Internet based question answering service called Cha Cha that can take pretty much any question and return an answer.  The service is twitter enabled as well as available through a website and phone number.

Note: Twitter enabed refers to the fact that the folks at chacha have setup a twitter user account for their service, allowing users of twitter.com to ask questions using twitter.  You can follow @ChaCha to get started asking questions via twitter.

To access Cha Cha from your cell phone simply dial 800-2chacha (800-224-2242)and ask your question.  The team at Cha Cha will send the answer back via a text message.

You can also text Cha Cha from your cell phone to ask questions.

There is a great article in WSJ.com covering Cha Cha in more detail, click here to read more

Active Directory (AD) has been around since Windows 2000 and has changed the way that many administrators think about and actually manage domain environments. Microsoft has upped the ante again for the Windows Server 2008 version of AD. This tip will look at some of the newly reshaped services for Active Directory included with Windows Server 2008.

The 2008 release of AD has allowed Microsoft to configure more server side items to function as a part of the directory service. Active Directory for Windows Server 2008 includes the following services:

• Active Directory Certificate Services (AD CS) – provides functionality within AD to manage the issuing and revocation of certificates for users, client computers, and servers.
• Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) – provides essential services for domain creation and data storage within the directory service. This service is the core of Active Directory and has been retooled for Windows Server 2008.
• Active Directory Federation Services (AD FS) – compliments domain services by allowing web clients to authenticate internally hosted web applications using the credentials authenticated by Active Directory. This will allow web applications to make use of Active Directory logons rather than requiring users to authenticate separately to access web services.
• Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services (AD LDS) – provides a data store for Active Directory enabled applications that do not require installation on a Domain Controller. AD LDS does not run as a service and will operate in both domain and workgroup environments. All applications that run on a server can make use of their own data store if necessary.
• Active Directory Rights Management Services (AD RMS) – allows data to be protected inside and outside of the enterprise. Email messages, internet content, and internal documents can be protected against unauthorized access. AD RMS uses a certificate to verify the user, computer, or service should be able to access the resource. When AD RMS trusts a resource, users can assign rights to information.

The newly integrated services have existed in previous versions of Windows as individual server components, however in Windows Server 2008 the functionalities have been Active Directory Integrated for simplified management and control.