Amazing Week: AirSoft, Sweden, Pregnant, Valley Apprentice, and Citrix XenApp 6 Farm

Originally written by Joshua Shackelford on Successful Thinkers.

Wow!  What an amazing week.  I played my first AirSoft game, we booked our trip to Sweden, found out we’re pregnant, and I found out I’m one of the finalists for the Valley Apprentice.

AirSoft

Last Saturday I played my first AirSoft game.  I had found out about an AirSoft facility that is just down the street from me called CQB City.  They were hosting a special night game where everyone had to be over 18, had to have comms, and they permitted full auto.  Most of the players were ex-military, and all of the scenarios were extremely tactical.  It was truly an amazing evening.

Booked Trip to Sweden

Early in the week we booked a family vacation to Sweden.  It has been 3 years since we’ve visited our family in Sweden.  We have been trying to get back there for sometime now, but it has been difficult to coordinate work, finances, and the kids in order to be able to visit my grandparents that are growing old, and all of our cousins.  We are excited to have our kids meet their cousins over there, who are all about the same age.  We had book our flight for September, but had to move it, as we just found out on Friday that my wife will not be able to fly in September because we’re…

Expecting Another Child

My wife came down stairs Wednesday night, after spending several hours trying to fall asleep.  She came down with a look of panic on her face, and she said “Josh, I need to talk to you.”  From experience, this has never been a good thing.  I started run the day, then the week, then the month through my head.  I was trying to figure out what I could have gotten in trouble for.  I couldn’t figure it out.

She proceeded to tell me that she thought that she was pregnant.  We had planned on having another child, just not yet.  Our plan was to have 2, wait 4 years, and then have another pair.  No we were going to have 3 kids all within 4 years.  This was exiting and scary, all at the same time.  My wife went to get a blood test on Thursday, and we got the final results on Friday.  It is now official, we are having another baby.

Valley Apprentice

Later, on Friday, I received an email, flag with importance, informing me that I was one of the 40 finalists for the Valley Apprentice.  I had kept this under wraps, as I wasn’t sure I’d even get past the application stage, but I have and am excited for this amazing opportunity to give back to the community, and to possibly become an apprentice to some of the Valley’s strongest business men.  Tuesday is an interview in front of a panel, and then on Friday the competitors will be announced and the teams will be picked.

XenApp6 Citrix Farm

After an amazing week, I still sat down at my computer and proceeded to work on building a new Citrix XenApp 6 Farm for Florsheim Homes.  It has been challenging, as I had to rebuild the servers twice, due to a corrupted installations.  Once I got it all built again, the final challenge was resolved with a few firewall tweaks on the Windows 2008 Server itself.

This has been a phenomenal week.  In addition to these amazing milestones, I also hit the next phases for several of the applications I’m writing, joined the Rotary Club, caught up with some old friends, and started building an electronic flash grenade for AirSoft.

I’m looking forward to this week, and the new adventures to come.  I will need to start thinking more about some community charity events for The Valley Apprentice, but am looking forward to the challenge.

HTML to PDF component: A review of ExpertPDF

Often I am converting HTML documents to PDF, as this seems to be the easiest way to create dynamic PDF’s populated with a variety of data.  ExpertPDF has been my favorite tool and I wanted to share my latest experience.  Their site was not the prettiest site, and the feature list was a little too much to read.  It would have been nice to be able to see a list of features, than a release schedule.  I was initially hesitant in trying out yet another component for converting HTML to PDF.

The install went quick, and I added the component as a reference to an existing project I was working with.  I wanted quickly get to where the rubber meets the road to see what the PDF would look like an a report I was having challenges getting to render properly.  My quick test was to set anonymous access to file, and point the tool to the page.  I was amazed at the speed and clarity of the PDF.  It rendered perfectly out of the gates.

Anonymous access to HTML files is not very common in my world, so I needed to get in to the security and figure out how to lock my report back down, but still be able to get the rendering engine to load my PDF.  The security credentials were easy to load, and the sample code that ExperPDF had put together showed 2 methods, one of which was to use the credentials of the current user, rather than some server side credentials.  This was a nice bonus.

After locking down the HTML report (aspx page), and wanted to try something a little more challenging.  I needed to render a PDF with custom margins, orientation, header, footer, etc… and then secure it before the emailed it off.  Another set of tasks that just came easy with ExpertPDF.  The level of control that the control provides has been outstanding.  Their documentation is easy to follow and the processes make sense.

Spell Check Control–c#, vb.NET and beyond

Before going in to my review of Infragistics Spell Check control, and how it compares to other controls I’ve used, I’m going to discuss the importance of spellcheck.  If you want to skip down to the review, click here.
Original Article written by Joshua Shackelford (IT Expediter, Systems Analyst, IT Liaison)

Communication getting Relaxed

It is amazing at how lax communication has become.  With so many quick methods for communicating, less thought is going in to our communications.  As more methods move mainstream, and become part of everyday life, more people are communicating less professionally.  As a professional you need to take the time to use proper case, punctuation and spell check.  It can be a poor reflection on you and your business if you do not.  Even as I type this, Live Writer is constantly underlining misspelt words, forcing me to correct the words before publishing my post.

Recently I was tasked with adding Spell Check to a thick client application that has been in development for over 5 years.  As soon as it was brought up I thought, “Why didn’t we do this sooner?”.  This particular application focuses on transportation maintenance management, and the maintenance managers commented that they want spell check added to work orders, and comments, so that they can correct their spelling before these reports get passed up to corporate.  Before, nobody ever thought of who might eventually read their work orders, but as the company pushes more on professionalism, the importance of every communication portraying their skill and dedication to the business, as risen to the surface.

When tasked with adding spell check throughout the application, I first went to Google.  I was looking for a free solution spell check component that I could quickly integrate through out the solution.  The first suggestion was using Microsoft Word’s Interop to leverage the spell check capabilities behind Microsoft, but I wasn’t thrilled with the prospect of being tied to a 3rd party application.  We did have a discussion as to whether or not this was a feasible requirement for our end users to have Microsoft Word installed.  Most (if not all) of our users do have Microsoft Word installed, but we were hoping to find a better solution.

Recently I’ve been working on a web based .NET application for an insurance company.  We use Telerik’s suite of tools within that application.  They have an ASP.NET spell check control, that we have integrated with parts of the application.  It was not the greatest thing to integrate, but I was hoping that their WinForms version might be better.  Unfortunately, it turned out that they don’t yet offer a WinForms Spell Check control.

Next I discovered NHunspell.  This looked very promising. I downloaded the libraries, and started working with it.  It looked like it was going to get the job done, but there were a lot of little features that I wanted (red squiggle underline, right click correction options, pop-up replacement, custom dictionary, etc), but would have to build out myself.  I was up to the challenge, but could not get over the fact that spell check has been around for so long, that there should be a faster way to implement all of these features.  Hopefully one day, someone, will write a nice library based on the free spell check component NHunspell.

Review of Infragistics’ Spell Check Control for WinForms

We use the Infragistics suite of tools within this project currently, but I had forgotten that they have a spell check control.  After realizing that we already had a spell check control here at our fingertips, that should already be fully developed, I removed the NHunspell code that I had started, and started down this new path.  It was amazingly simple.  I added the component as a reference, dragged it to the form, and then enabled it for each of the text boxes that we wanted spell check on.  I was shocked at how simple it was.  I ran the application, and all of my mistyped words had red squiggles under them.

Next it was time to add some of the other “bonus” features that we have all come to love.  Right-click context menu with spelling options was added with ease, just following the Infragistics sample code.  To make sure that it worked, I added it to a specific control on the form, but then later was able to move it to a generic function so that I could quickly add this feature to any text box.  It worked out great.  The only thing I wasn’t thrilled with, was that the new context menu replaced the default context menu that had copy and paste options.  Eventually I want to go back and figure out how to get the original context menu back, if there are no misspelt words.

Pop-up spelling correction was just a matter of invoking a method built into the Infragistics spell check control to show the dialog box.  I was disappointed that I could quickly loop through all controls that had spell check enabled, in order to invoke this method.  However, this was remedied rather quickly within the previously created function for adding and initializing other spell check features.

The last feature I really wanted to be part of this release was a shared dictionary.  In order to share the dictionary amongst all users, I wanted the dictionary of words to be stored in the database.  I did not see anything within the library where I could just point it to a table, or database, so back to the drawing board.  I elected to add a few more functions to the now growing spell check helper utility.  I added methods to complete the following, sync local text file dictionary to a new database word dictionary table, sync database to local text file, and then a method to perform 2 way synchronization.  Calls to these methods are triggered when a user adds a word to the user dictionary, or by clicking an option manually within the context menu to synchronize with the dictionary.

I am so glad that Infragistics had included the WinForm spell check component amongst their suite of tools, but even if we hadn’t already owned it, I would at this point gladly have purchased it.  It was a great library to work with, and has added a very professional feature to our application, that no only will make our application a stronger application, but will reflect on the staff that use it as they are portrayed in a better light to their corporate management team.

Tracy and Kate best man wedding speech

I was told I only got two minutes.  And anyone that knows Tracy knows that it takes far more than two minutes to share Tracy’s traits with everyone and to congratulate him on the wonderful wife that he has just taken.  So after much deliberation and review, I was able to cut my speech down to the following.

---------------------------------
I’ve known Tracy since we were 12. There is only a week between us and we have been through many different life changing events. All of you know where Tracy is today, many of you have even been able to share moments of his journey with him, but few have had a chance to see him change the way that I have.

Tracy has dated some very odd girls, even some very dark women. There was a period in Tracy’s life that he lived at night. He pretended to be a vampire and played live action roll playing games. It is quite a site to see grown women and men walking around playing “rock, paper, scissors” and holding fingers up in front of them to show that they are invisible.

He has always worked to earn the approval of the people around him. Playing by their rules, struggling to fit in, while pushing to the top to be a leader. He has been constantly changing, working to adapt to the people around him, moving to where ever he thought life would be better. It has been exciting to see him find himself, and to be himself.

Before he could commit to someone else, he needed to find himself. When Tracy first told me about Katie, I was skeptical. I was curious to find out more about this “Hot Freshman”, that he had met in college, but doubted this deep connection that he said was growing.

Tracy is a brother to me, I’ve always watched his back, and tried to support him in whatever it was he wanted to do, but also tried to protect him from getting hurt. I remember telling him to be careful with this relationship, and not to grow too attached. I feared that she wouldn’t be ready for his strong personality, and that they both hadn’t figured out what they wanted from life.

When I finally did meet her for the first time, I was shocked. I couldn’t believe that he had finally found and caught what seemed to be a normal girl. Typically his girlfriends would be dumb and beautiful, or smart and strange. As the night unfolded, I was constantly looking for a fault. She wasn’t just normal, but extraordinary and when they left, I turned to my wife and said. “Wow, she is really awesome.” Tracy had finally found someone that was the whole package.

Over the next several months, we spoke more often. I was very curious to see how this relationship would unfold. I was worried that she was just another person to help boost his ego. I tried to stay close, in case he lost this woman he was falling in love with, but noticed that he spoke differently about her. I could tell that she was someone special.

[Turn to Tracy]
I’d like to congratulate you on finding such a wonderful woman. As men we are looking to create a legacy, looking for a woman to support us on our journey, but as husbands, we are looking to support our wives and to protect them and the families we build.

[To Katie]
Katie. As you know, you have just married a very stubborn and strong man. I know that he will always be there to protect you and to stand by you through every battle that life brings your way. Even when you’re angry with him, and need some more space. He will be right there. It is out of love that he stands next to your side. Try not to hold this against him.

[To Both of them]
One of the pieces of advice that stands out most to me, that I want to pass on to you both, is that Love and Marriage is a daily decision. Every day you need to wake up and decide that you are committed to your husband or wife. Regardless of the events that are going to unfold that day, you are deciding that you will work through and stand by your spouse through anything.

God created marriage, and it is through this holy matrimony, that you both will be blessed. He has created it as life long, submissive, commitment to each other. Often the world looks at God’s design as a marriage of bondage, and tries to reshape it. It will push you and pull you in various different directions. It will tell you that marriage is in the way of your own personal advancement, and try to persuade you to seek your own treasures. It is through these fires that your marriage will become stronger, and blessings will be forged.

[To All]
I’d like everyone to join me in raising their glass as we thank God that he has brought this couple together, and ask that he continue to bless them. That He may give them strength and knowledge, wisdom in the face of challenges, love, joy and patience with each other, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control, and peace within their home.

To Tracy and Katie.

Best Backup Solution: Moving away from tapes with full disaster recovery II

Part II: Backup and Disaster Recovery
Originally Posted By Joshua Shackelford on Successful Thinkers Meetup

What do you need?
In Part I, we discussed the 3 types of scenarios we are trying to meet.  We are looking to archive our data, recover from the occasional oops, and then of course the ever so important, disaster recovery.  While archival needs vary from holding data for a couple of weeks, a few years, 10 years or even forever, everyone needs to be able to recover from the occasional oops and, the heaven forbid, disaster.  Through out all three of these cases we are looking to maintain business continuity.  Enter Verve’s Backup and Disaster Recovery solution, or BDR.

Archival
Archival dictates how much storage you need. If you are looking to store your data for a few months, or even years, your requirements will be a lot less than someone who needs to hold data for 10 years or in the case of banking, forever.  The solution that I’m going to propose will be able to securely store your data for any length of time.  You don’t have to worry about cycling tapes.

Our solution comprises of:

1. Disk-based BDR device to be deployed onsite at client location.
2. Built-in virtualization software that provides a Standby Server if a server fails.
3. Features that enable recovering a single email, mailbox, file OR database.
4. Redundant datacenters replicate data offsite coupled with services to recover data in case of site failure.
5. 24x7 monitoring and maintenance of NAS device through Network Operations Center (NOC) on select models with various service plans.
6. Comprehensive 3 year warranty standard with each BDR.

Oops! I deleted a file 
With our BDR, you can quickly load up a secure interface that will present you with your files.  Simply select a file and choose a destination to restore the file to, and your done.  You have just recovered a deleted file, without hunting through tapes, hoping that the one that you need is one site, and not at the owners house.

Oh No!  We lost the entire server!
Maybe you had a fire, a flood, or simply lost power to your air-conditioning unit, causing your servers to over heat.  A more common occurrence is the random filed hardware, from mother boards to hard drives.  In this case, our BDR can act as a temporary server, spinning up the last backup of your data from just 15 minutes ago.  And if you the whole building went down, you could spin up your last online backup from our servers, to put you back in business within hours.

The best setup with our BDR is to do regular backups through out the day to the local BDR, and then to push a nightly back up to our servers, offsite.  Giving you quick local backups, and quick data restoration, while still being able to send your data offsite in case of a major disaster.

Our Backup and Disaster Recovery solution is powered by the tried and true, enterprise backup software, ShadowProtect by StorageCraft.

Tape	BDR
Could take up to 48-72 hours to restore a failed server*	Built-in virtualization provides a Standby Server in less than 30 minutes
Often takes hours to days to restore based on where tapes are located	Recover a single file or a single mailbox item in minutes
Offsite storage can be expensive and tapes are often taken to an employee's home as an alternative	Utilize our datacenter or replicate to another BDR at your own site
Recovering data from tape takes many steps and replacement hardware isn’t always available	Next day delivery services are provided with the Standby Server ready to host servers

This solution is available by Verve Networks.

Originally Posted By Joshua Shackelford on Successful Thinkers Meetup

Best Backup Solution: Moving away from tapes with full disaster recovery

Part I: Identifying the need
Originally Posted By Joshua Shackelford on Successful Thinkers Meetup

What do you need?
When looking at backup systems, there are 3 types of scenarios we are trying to meet.  We are looking to archive our data, recover from the occasional oops, and then of course the ever so important, disaster recovery.  While archival needs vary from holding data for a couple of weeks, a few years, 10 years or even forever, everyone needs to be able to recover from the occasional oops and, the heaven forbid, disaster.  Through out all three of these cases we are looking to maintain business continuity.

Archival
I won’t go into much depth here as most people understand what their needs are for archiving data, and tend to just throw a bunch of hard drives at the situation.  Often archival needs are dictated by governing policies, and you are most likely already doing something about this.  After I go into more detail about file recovery, and disaster recovery, you’ll get a better idea of how archival fits into this whole scheme.

 

Oops! I deleted a file
We’ve all accidentally deleted a file and needed to recover it, or had users that have deleted files and needed to get them back.  A solid backup system will enable you to locate and recover a deleted file quickly.  If you’ve ever worked with a tape backup system, then you know that this isn’t quick.  First you have to locate the file in the backup application, then find the correct tape (which hopefully the tape’s physical label matches the system label) so that you can finally reload the original file.  This can be a pain in the butt.  Wouldn’t it be nicer if you could just click on it to restore it?

Oh No!  We lost the entire server!
In a major disaster, your whole business is at risk.  Whether it was a fire, a flood, or something more likely to occur, such as failing hardware, possibly from over heating or just wearing out, you are in a position that you need to recover your entire server.  What most people don’t realize is that even if you have a full back up of every file on your server, and all of the configurations, you will still be down for at least a day.  You see, before you can restore the files, you must first rebuild the server.  Reinstall the operating system, reinstall every single program on the server, and then begin reloading configurations and files.  If all of these backups are on tape, you are looking at 48-72 hours until you are fully running.

Finding a solution
There are many different backup options out there today.  If you are just starting this research process, you will be reading about hardware, software, virtualization, recovery… on… and on… and on…  Trying to sort out which software you need, which hardware it goes with, and then how do you recover if something goes wrong.  Finally you will settle on a solution.  Mostly likely either a tape solution paired with Backup Exex or ArcServe, an online backup like Mozy or Carbonite, or possibly a cloning application such as Acronis or Shadow Protect.  The best backup solution is somewhere in this mix allowing for a full recover in just moments, quick and simple file recovery, and the ability to take your backups offsite.

Please continue to part II, where the best backup solution is described.

Originally Posted By Joshua Shackelford on Successful Thinkers Meetup

Journey To CISSP: A look at how to get the world-wide recognized security certificate

Journey To CISSP: A look at how to get the world-wide recognized security certificate

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A little background
Security has been part of my duties since 2003, when I started working for a mortgage company as an analyst.  At this mortgage company I was responsible for the entire network and development of their pipeline management application.  Within the last couple years I’ve been thinking about taking a class to go in more depth regarding security, but decide on where I wanted to start.

Last week I saw an article about CISSP.  I figured that if I was going to take a class to learn more about security, I may as well take one that would lead to a certificate to show that I had the knowledge.  CISSP is recognized world wide, with classes and test in almost every country.  The requirements are managed by the (ISC)2, focusing on concepts and methods, rather than applications and techniques.

Classes
I first started looking for classes in my area.  Stockton didn’t offer any classes.  I ended up finding a class in San Francisco and Sacramento, and called them to check on pricing and scheduling.  The Sacramento company didn’t offer the class any more, and the San Francisco company was too expensive, with the cost being over $4000.  Within continued investigation I discovered several other class offerings in the $3000-$4000 range.  Since I can’t afford to pay this myself, I decided to get a book.

All in one CISSP Exam Guide
I started out at Barnes and Nobles website, thinking that I would find the best book and run over to the local store to get it immediately.  After settling on a book published in November of 2009, I looked it up on Amazon.com to check on reviews.  Later I found that most people were going with the “All in One CISSP Exam Guide” by Shon Harris.  The latest book was just published in January of 2010 and people seem to be raving about how great of a read it is, and how they were able to pass the exam on their first try.  The Fifth Edition of the All-in-One CISSP Exam Guide seemed like the best book of choice.  Now I just need to wait for it to arrive.

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