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Adding or removing accounts from the Service Accounts group after performing a domain move on TFS 2005

Ozzie Rules Blogging — 2008-02-19T00:00:00

Customer question came in today:

I am unable to add or remove accounts from the Service Accounts group after performing a domain move on TFS 2005 per the documentation. One symptom is that the TFSSERVICE account from their old domain is still present in the Service Accounts group and we are unable to remove it or add in the new account.

When trying any commands against TFS using TfsSecurity we get the following error;

“Error: TF50605: There was an error looking up the SID for Service Accounts”

We have brought the old DCs for their old domain back online and we have confirmed that we can resolve the old accounts on the app tier by creating a new folder and trying to add the old TFSService account to ensure it would resolve properly and it did so.

Sam Heald points out the The most fail-safe way to change TFS service accounts is through the TfsAdminUtil utility (ChangeAccount). The utility has a restriction that the new service account must not be known to the system (the settings from the old account transfer to the new account, they do not merge).

If you need to edit “Service Accounts” or any other TFS group through TfsSecurity.exe, it’s important that you scope the name appropriately, i.e. use “domain\user”, do not use “user”. If an account name is specified without scope, TFS will contact Active Directory first, then it’s own database second. In your example, when you specify “Service Accounts”, all domains in the forest will be contacted to determine if this name is known to them. If any domain controller is having problems processing that search criteria, the lookup will error before the TFS database is examined. This problem can be easily avoided by specifying the domain scope, in this case “[SERVER]\Service Accounts”.

From the TfsSecurity help:

Identity Specifiers:

…

n:<[domain\\]name> - the identity with the specified name.

For Windows identities 'name' is the logon name. If 'domain' is

omitted and GC is available the lookup operation will be performed

by GC. If 'domain' is omitted and GC is not available the default

domain context is assumed.

Example: n:ACME\\johndoe

or: n:janedoe

For application groups 'name' is the group display name and

'domain' is the containing project's URI or name. If 'domain'

is omitted and the 'name' cannot be resolved as a Windows

identity, the global scope is used. If the name can be

resolved as a Windows identity, you must specify a 'domain'

of '[SERVER]' to resolve the naming conflict.

Example: n:"Full-time Employees"

or: n:"[SERVER]\Full-time Employees"

or: n:"[Team Project]\Vendors"

or: n:"[vstfs:///Classification/TeamProject/00a10d23-7d45-4439-981b-d3b3e0b0b1ee]\Vendors"

Taking Browser Tabs Seriously

Software As Shes Developed — 2008-01-31T00:00:00

Ajax, AjaxPatterns, Favicon, Javascript, Web, Web 2.0

I’ve just updated my favicon library, which I first wrote about here. I’ll explain more about the update in a separate post. For now, I want to talk about browser tabs.

Browser tabs were introduced by Opera. Then Firefox adopted them a few years later, as did Safari. Then Microsoft stepped into the ’90s with their own IE tabs. Meanwhile, tabs became teh coolness and Kevin and Alex joked on Diggnation about how you could get brownie points by saying it’s a tabbed interface. And so you get tabbed terminals among other things, and fortunately there is some consistency on keyboard shortcuts (typically ctrl-t to make a new tab and ctrl-w to close it, or option-t/w on mac).

We’ve outgrown the rudimentary functionality that is available for managing tabs.

The browser is the new operating system, the tab is the new system process, the tab bar is the new taskbar.

Power users struggle to keep up with 20+ browser tabs and grasp what’s inside them. The Firefox Tab Mix extension is a superb addition and should be part of the core. But there is a lot more that could be done, for instance:

Notifications. The whole issue of attention and notifications needs re-thinking in light of the new world of rich web apps. Quintessential example is web chat - how do you inform the user someone has sent a message, in another window? The favicon library helps here, and the update in my next post, helps a bit more. Playing a sound is also possible. Still, I would like to see API support for ambient dialogs, like Growl/Snarl and the Windows “sunrise” notfier that emerges from the taskbar (what’s it called officially?). And sound. It’s 2008, why can’t browsers issue a single beep like a good 1970s PC, without requiring flash or unreliable hacks!!! Speaking of sound …
Where’s that sound coming from? There’s a sound in my browser, but I don’t know where! Tabs should provide a visual indication if a sound is emerging from them.
Default/Custom Favicons. If a site doesn’t have a favicon, browsers show nothing. Bzzzt!!! They should provide more sensible defaults, e.g. at least show the site’s background colour or a thumbnail of the first image. Something to make them all different from each other.
Provide a Summary List. Like clicking on Ctrl-Alt-Delete in Windows to get a task list or “ps” in Unix. You’d be able to see how long each tab has been open, memory usage, other excitement.
COLOUR AND STUFF!!! Browser tabs are pretty dull - just an icon and some text. Using cues such as colour and font styles, the browser could say a lot more about what’s happening in the other tabs. Perhaps it could be set by the programmer or perhaps it could be set by the user (e.g. create a heatmap highlighting the least used tabs).
Open Forms. What about when I start writing something in a form, then switch tabs, and forget which tab has the form, or forget that it’s there at all. The browser should indicate when there’s a form open that you’ve been writing to. (Though in some cases auto-backup features may mean that’s not necessary.)
Search. No-brainer. Browser search should work across all tabs, not just the one currently open. This would not only help you find some text, but also pinpoint one of the fifty tabs you have open.
Virtual Desktop. Maybe it sounds mad, but I’d like something similar to virtual desktop (”Spaces” for Mac-heads). ie Switch from “work” tabset to “social” tabset, etc.
Auto-remove. Instead of forcing me to close all windows, or some random subset, or restart the browser altogether, provide some support for removing the tabs that matter least. e.g. the tabs that I haven’t used for the longest and which I appear not to have interacted with (ie started editing a form), and/or the tabs that are taking up the most resources.

I’m sure there’s a lot more. The main point is to take inspiration from the way operating systems let users deal with open applications, and then some. The dynamic favicon library is a small part of the solution, but there’s only so much libraries and even browser add-ons can do…it needs to become a core feature of the browsers. Just as Opera and then Firefox owe a big chunk of their initial popularity to their the cult of the tab, so too do the manufacturers today have a similar opportunity to take it to the next level.

Hide and Secure a Folder (For Real) in Windows [Featured Windows Download]

Lifehacker — 2008-01-30T00:00:00

Windows only: My Lockbox isn't a full-featured encryption solution like TrueCrypt, but it is an easy and free way to hide a folder from all but the most technically savvy (and extremely prying) eyes. Install the program, choose a folder you want to hide (or let it create a "My Lockbox" in your My Documents folder) and then run the program to unlock and add files to it. Shutting down the program or even booting into safe mode won't reveal your folder, unlike many other "hiding" utilities, and even looking at folder sizes won't reveal your data. Somebody with a recovery disk and knowledge that you're hiding something might breach your data, but for most people's needs, My Lockbox gets the (secret) job done. My Lockbox is a free download for Windows 2000 and later.

How many ways can a developer say 'File Not Found?' (aka Making your localizer's life easier, Part 1)

Sorting It All Out — 2007-12-23T00:00:00

The first in what might be a large series of blogs in this Blog....

Conventional wisdom from those enlightened in the ways of writing localizable applications suggests that developers should do their best to avoid reusing strings in different contexts where a localizer might need to provide two different translations for the string due to their different contexts.

A great example of this is one I mentioned before in Microsoft Access, where the names for various properties in forms and reports is essentially duplicated in two different contexts (strings to be used in code versus the property sheet). The reason for the architected duplication is that in Japanese the full-width strings are required for the former (functional) case but is considered pretty ugly in the property sheets, where the half-width form is preferred.

Now despite the basic truth of this, there are times that duplication is plain and simple duplication.

And in some of those cases (and even in the above example) while duplication is okay, non-identical duplication is not.

For example all of the following strings were found in one of the projects for Windows (I do not recall which version offhand):

File not found.
The file could not be found.
File cannot be found.
Can't find file.
Could not find the file.
Unable to find file
Could not find file.
Cannot find the file.
Can't locate file.
File could not be located.
File was not found.

Now in fairness here some of them if tracked down might be for error codes in completely different technologies. But the simple fact that the actual strings vary so widely mean that not only does the base English product have to carry around the 11 ways to say the same thing but that localizers have the opportunity to carry the same inconsistency over without having the opportunity to use translation memories or even in some cases translation glossaries (if the strings are different enough).

Now note that this localizability tip is also a good usability tip around building a consistent user interface in your project that is either not yet localized or is never localized -- even if the strings were hard-coded in the source saying the same thing eleven different ways is not a great way to build the mose usable experience!

It is just in a software project's best interests to try to be smart enough about reuse that strings that are the same (whether or not they are expected to be used in the same contexts) use consistent, identical strings....

All of the characters in Unicode have taken off for Grand Cayman for the Christmas holiday weekend
(they are staying at the Marriott Grand Cayman Beach Hotel in case you are there and are curious at all the characters hanging out by the pool!)

Samsung Katalyst Slider Hits T-Mobile Hotspot@Home [Cellphones]

Gizmodo — 2007-12-10T00:00:00

T-Mobile just introduced another phone for its Hotspot@Home Wi-Fi calling service, the Samsung Katalyst. The slider phone basics include a 1.3 megapixel camera, MP3 player, microSD slot (cards up to...

scanrand - Download Stateless TCP Scanner with Syn Cookies

Darknet - The Darkside — 2007-12-10T00:00:00

Scanrand is extremely quick and effective port scanner. It works by forking two distinct processes: One to send the initial queries One to receive responses and reconcile them from the above This makes it extremely fast. If you haven’t heard of the suite, Scanrand is one of the five tools in Paketto Keiretsu by Dan “Effugas”...

Read the full post at darknet.org.uk

TomTom Teams Up With Google Maps for One-Click Navigation [GPS]

Gizmodo — 2007-12-06T00:00:00

Google and TomTom have joined forces to make their products compatible. Thanks to the "Send to GPS" button that Google has added to Google Maps, you can send routes from Google Maps direct to your...

Create Custom, Crowd-Sourced Searches with Swicki [Social Search]

Lifehacker — 2007-12-05T00:00:00

Custom search site Swicki, just out of beta, combines cherry-picking site searches with social moderation features to make a theoretically smarter personalized search box. Like Yahoo's search builder or personal search granddaddy Rollyo, Swicki lets you pick topics and sites you want to look through, but has a few more tricks up its sleeve.

The main difference is that a Swicki uses the clicks, keywords and searches from other Swickis with similar interests to rank and sort results, rather than any Google-like system. It also relies on users' voting results up and down and removing them to train the widget on what to look for. Lastly, Swickis can display RSS, video, and multimedia content, and be embedded in blogs or web sites. Building a Swicki is free, but requires clicking through a few pages to complete the process. For you longtime search tweakers out there, do Swicki's results seem worth the overall effort? Share your experience with the site (and others like it) in the comments.

Decrypt Your DVD's Copy Protection with DVD43 [Featured Windows Download]

Lifehacker — 2007-11-29T00:00:00

Windows only: Freeware application DVD43 decrypts DVDs and CDs, removing most copy protections schemes so you can interact with the media using whatever ripping or copying application you please (similar to the shareware alternative AnyDVD). DVD43 runs in your system tray, detects when you've inserted a new DVD, and automatically removes the encryption (the smiley face turns green when it succeeds). I've always had a lot of luck using DVD Shrink to rip and copy DVDs, but if you've ever run into problems working with encrypted DVDs on your PC, DVD43 is worth a try. DVD43 is freeware, Windows only.

Sony Using CMOS Camera For Cars, CMOS! [Video]

Gizmodo — 2007-11-28T00:00:00

We're gonna go a little ubergeek on you for a moment and celebrate that Sony is using CMOS video cameras for Nissan's upcoming "around view monitor," a camera system giving you an overhead view of...

Change the Product Key in Visual Studio Installer

Keyvan Nayyeri — 2007-11-27T00:00:00

Following to Scott Guthrie's post with some answers to common questions about Visual Studio 2008, I just want to point out how to change the default product key in Visual Studio installer.

You know that by default, Visual Studio installer doesn't allow the change in the product key and you just can view it.

While you can upgrade your trial editions easily (as Scott has outlined), you may be interested to have a single installer with your product key to use everywhere when you want. This may be helpful for those who weren't able to download the Visual Studio 2008 at first days and downloaded the 90 days trial edition.

Changing the product key in Visual Studio installer is very simple. First you need to copy your installer files to your hard drive or any device that lets you apply changes because when you're working on these files from DVD drive or virtual drives, they don't let modifications by nature.

After doing this, go to Setup folder and open the setup.sdb file in a text editor like Notepad. The text content has [Product Key] section where you can replace the previous product key with your own and save your changes.

After this, if you run the setup, it uses your new product key for installation!

System link networking in XNA Game Studio 2.0

Shawn Hargreaves Blog — 2007-11-21T00:00:00

So, the 2.0 beta is out...

If you are wanting to try out our shiny new network API, you may be waiting to be emailed the code which unlocks access to Games for Windows - LIVE. But did you know:

If you just want to develop and test a network game, you can use a system link session with a local profile. No subscriptions or codes required. The code is only necessary when you want to play your finished game with someone else over the Internet.
This email-to-get-code process will not be necessary in the final version. You will still need a Creators Club subscription in order to use LIVE networking, but this will be checked automatically without any special codes.

Local profiles are easy and free to create. After you add the GamerServicesComponent to your game, just press the Home key to bring up the Guide, then create a new profile. When it asks if you want to join LIVE, cancel that screen. Tada! You now have a local profile, and you can make many of these on as many computers as you like.

Local profiles cannot create or join LIVE PlayerMatch sessions, but they work just fine for system link. I normally test my games using system link between my Xbox and PC, but if you have more than one computer you can use PC to PC system link as well.

If you have previously done LIVE programming using the native API, you are probably thinking "hmm, but system link and LIVE are pretty different. How is testing using one going to make sure my game works with the other?". The answer is that we did a lot of work in the XNA Framework to make sure system link and LIVE sessions will behave exactly the same. For instance we added some code in our system link session discovery layer which exactly emulates the behavior of the LIVE matchmaking servers.

In fact, you should only see three differences between system link and LIVE sessions:

System link works with local profiles, while LIVE requires a Gold account and Creators Club subscription.
System link only works over a local subnet, while LIVE works over the Internet.
Because they are only exchanging packets over a local network, system link sessions will see very low latency and packet loss compared to playing over the Internet.

Difference #3 is the main thing that affects testing of your game, so we built in a solution for this, too:

    NetworkSession.SimulatedLatency = TimeSpan.FromMilliseconds(200); 
    NetworkSession.SimulatedPacketLoss = 0.1f;

This will simulate the worst network conditions you are likely to encounter out in the wilds of the Internet. Just make sure you remember to turn the simulation off when you finish testing!

How-To: Where to find parts for your projects

Hack a Day — 2007-11-16T00:00:00

Filed under: how-to

Hunting down the right parts usually takes more time than soldering everything together. I can't count the number of projects that I tried to build and couldn't find some key component that's no longer made. You can help put together a list of suppliers at the end, but the idea is to have a quick reference to get your projects rolling (saving your money for important things, like espresso). Even if you're familiar with the usual electronics parts shops, chime in to help me create a list of the best suppliers to fuel those hardware hacking projects.
If you want to keep your money, I'd avoid RadioShack as much as possible. When you're stuck because you can't find a freaking 10kohm resistor, it's fine, but the markup on their low quality parts is insane-their clearance prices aren't too bad. As much as people bag on RadioShack, just remember that nobody else bothers to sell electronic parts in the middle of nowhere.

Shipping can eat your project budget quicker than anything else. It's the reason that I'm sometimes willing to pay $1 for $.05 in resistors at RadioShack. When I'm buying parts, I try to buy from a single supplier if possible to maximize my parts budget.

Stocking up on parts in bulk can help make projects extra affordable later on. Buying a quantity of resistors, capacitors, PNP and NPN transistors and a decent supply of linear voltage regulators will save you a fair amount of money later on. I love it when I can build a $30 project for the cost of a proto-board and an odd capacitor.

Just about every electronics component manufacturer will provide free samples on request. That's right - free. It's usually just a matter of creating an account on the manufacturers web site and selecting the components you need. As a rule, I don't mention when I've sampled parts for a project. Seriously, they'll get a little suspicious if 100 people suddenly sample the exact same parts. Samples aren't limited to semiconductor companies. [ladyada] has a nice list of sample providers, including enclosures and connectors.

Digi-Key carries just about every part you can think of. These guys prefer to sell large quantities, but they're happy to take small orders. Orders are shipped out fast, but they'll tack on an extra $5 fee if your order is under $25. Even if you're not ordering, they usually have data sheets linked for every part they carry online. If you're wiling to jump through the hoops, you can even create a parts order that's linkable from your website - it can make it much easier to share a project with others, but I usually find that a few part numbers get deprecated as time goes by. Oh, and they'll send you a massive parts catalog that's handy for parts hunting and brain storming.

Mouser Electronics is one of my favorite suppliers these days. They have reasonable shipping options and are fast with UPS ground orders showing up at my house within two days. Their inventory isn't always the best, but substitution parts are usually easy to find because the online catalog links to web enabled PDF pages from their print catalog. It makes cross-referencing very easy. Like Digi-Key, they'll send you a massive parts catalog to shove under your monitor.

Futurlec is a great place to get incredibly cheap parts, but you won't be seeing your order for about a month (ok, so my last order showed up after three weeks). I suggest stocking up on connector headers and resistors. I haven't had to make a late night resistor run in a couple of years thanks to these guys.

Sparkfun electronics is like a candy shop for Hack-A-Day readers. They carry higher end parts like GPS units, GMRS modules and micro controller programmers. Pricing varies a bit, but I can always find something interesting there. If you prefer professionally made PC Boards, they even put together an inexpensive PC Board service.

ebay is one of my favorite places to shop for parts. It's a great place to buy brand new $150 stepper motors for $20 or hunt down funky, hackable hardware. People certainly try to sell single components, but it's usually not worth the effort.

Salvaging parts is the absolute cheapest method for parts shopping. Thanks to custom ICs and SMD parts, newer electronics don't normally have much in the way of salvage value. On the other hand, older hardware is a great source for parts. My current favorite salvage source is the dot matrix printer. They're easy to take apart, have nice power supplies, and they're loaded with quality heat sinks, wiring, connectors, hardened steel rods, and stepper motors. The bigger the dot matrix printer, the bigger the stepper motor. If you can score a few of the same model, you'll end up with a few matched sets. People hate throwing them away, so they're easy to get for free.

Lack of availability can be a problem, but obsolete parts are another way to keep costs down. Originally, the UCN5804B stepper driver I used for the cutting board CNC machine cost about $16 each. Now that they're deprecated, they can be had for about $5 each.

Grab bags are another good way to save money. They're usually full of loose parts that'll have to be identified, but they're cheap. The guys over at uchobby put together a nice how-to on sorting them.

Thanks to the movement from mail order to internet suppliers, the parts company scene is huge. There are loads of production part and surplus companies around. Here's a quick list of shops that'll probably be useful if you're looking for parts.

Digi-Key electronics
Mouser electronics
Futurlec
Sparkfun electronics
eBay
All Electronics
BG Micro
American Science & Surplus
Goldmine Electronics
MPJA Online
MCM Electronics
Parts Express

Got a favorite shop? Drop the link in the comments and I'll add it to the list.

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Don't just delete registry keys!

Sorting It All Out — 2007-09-19T00:00:00

The other day, someone from product support was working with a customer whose Add button on the Text Services and Input Languages dialog was grayed out.

You know, the Add button in this dialog:

It turns out this can only happen in some pretty catastrophic circumstances, like the registry key being missing.

I found myself intrigued about what the behavior might be like, so I decided to test things out here. So that you won't have to! :-)

First, let me point out the usual warning that the Microsoft Knowledge Base does:

WARNING: If you use Registry Editor incorrectly, you may cause serious problems that may require you to reinstall your operating system. Microsoft cannot guarantee that you can solve problems that result from using Registry Editor incorrectly. Use Registry Editor at your own risk.

Let me add one thing to that, if you wanted to do this yourself, back up the registry subkey, as the menu option below does:

PLEASE follow this advice -- if you don't then you are kind of semi-screwed without independently fixing the key back up....

Ok, now I will delete the "HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Keyboard Layouts" subkey.

So what happens when you try to launch the dialog?

Well, something very sad:

The Add... button is definitely disabled. It seems that since the dialog needs that data to populate the dialog, lack of any into pretty much makes it empty.

That IME is a Text Services Framework TIP, which is mostly stored elsewhere....

Of course that begs the question of what would have happened if I only had regular keyboards and no TSF IMEs, more like this situation:

If I deleted the key then, what would happen?

You don't want to know, trust me. :-)

Well, if you are going to twist my arm:

Yikes!

Incompatible keyboard driver detected. This dialog has been disabled.

In case someone as confused about the blank dialog. :-)

Of course you know what's next, right?

I have to try all of this on Vista.

Backing up the registry key first, of course!!!

Here is what the deleted keyboards registry key does:

The Add... button is not disabled!

Maybe it will work somehow?

Though the fact that it lists none of my keyboards makes me nervous, if you know what I mean....

Here goes:

Doesn't inspire much confidence, huh? :-)

Okay, enough excitement for one day, let's add those backup up registry keys back.

Hold our breath, launch the dialog again, and

Whew! Everything is back.

And the Add... button?

Good, everything is back.

Let's not delete sections of the registry any more. Some of those dialogs are plain disturbing!

This post brought to you by ? (U+1e35, a.k.a. LATIN SMALL LETTER K WITH LINE BELOW)

Backup Utilities: Copy and Paste your Entire Hard Drive with Two Clicks with GParted

Lifehacker — 2007-09-06T00:00:00

Using the GParted live CD you can copy and paste an entire hard drive with just two button clicks. We've been around the block a few times with partition tools (including partitioning with GParted) and backup utilities. However, I think you'd be hard-pressed to find a process much simpler than a manual bi-weekly total hard drive backup using the method demonstrated in this tutorial from the GParted homepage. Do you prefer automatic "snapshot" backups or manual "bulk" backups? Share in the comments.