John R. Pattison
Custom software developer. IT consultant. Geek.
Migrating my blog from Graffiti CMS to WordPress
Jun 2nd
A couple of years ago, I moved this blog onto the Graffiti CMS platform. I was mainly drawn to Graffiti because it was based on ASP.NET, and written by the same folks who make Community Server. Unfortunately, the platform never really took off as I had hoped, and a while back it was announced that Graffiti CMS was moving to be an open source project.
For several years, I have supported various friends and clients who had blogs hosted on the WordPress platform, so I decided that it was finally time to take the plunge myself.
Fortunately, I was able to find some More >
CubeGuard – The perfect addition to the home office
Jun 11th
I recently ran across the CubeGuard on one of my gadget sites, and just couldn’t resist buying one for myself. These are essentially customized versions of the cloth tape that movie theaters use to delineate queues. You can choose from a number of stock messages, or choose a custom message. I was a bit scared that the product would be tacky, but was pleasantly surprised by the build quality when it arrived. The mounting plates are very high quality, able to be attached using the provided double-sided taped + velcro strips (good for flat surfaces or fabric cubicle walls), the built-in More >
Book Review: "Small Business Server 2008 – Installation, Migration, and Configuration" by David Overton
May 30th
If you’ve been following my blog for a while, you know that I’m a big fan of Small Business Server, and that I have written quite a few blog posts (mainly around the RTM period) about Windows Small Business Server 2008. I was recently contacted by Packt Publishing to see if I’d be interested in reviewing a book they just recently published about SBS2008 — “Small Business Server 2008 – Installation, Migration, and Configuration” by David Overton. The book itself is an enjoyable size — 387 pages including miscellanea — perfect for zipping through in a few evenings. It is More >
Keeping IT Simple – Infrastructure Choices for the Small Business
Apr 25th
With the economic climate becoming increasingly hostile to small businesses, I’ve been giving a lot of thought (and research) into how small businesses can keep their IT costs low and maintain a smoothly-running IT infrastructure. Of course, the best way to discuss these topics is to dive into a specific example.
THE SCENARIO…
The scenario for this discussion is an accounting firm with 5-10 employees (I’m being particularly ambiguous, as this scenario involves a real client). Currently, they run Windows Small Business Server 2003. I’ll summarize their IT needs as (1) Exchange Server, (2) file serving, and (3) database software More >
Creating a Modern Line of Business Application using eXpressApp Framework
Apr 18th
About a year ago, I began work on a large project to replace a FoxPro-based line-of-business application with a new modern system that would provide the customer with better visibility and management of their data, as well as improving our ability to rapidly implement new software capabilities to improve their business operations.
Before I get into the details of the new system, I’ll elaborate a bit on the old system. The customer’s Microsoft Visual FoxPro solution had been ported from the pre-Microsoft non-Visual version of FoxPro, so it was entirely text-based. In its previous life, the system resided on an IBM More >
A Guide to Being an Independent Consultant – Team Collaboration
Mar 5th
I’m a strong believer in every independent consultant needing a “hit by a bus” backup. Of course, your backup / teammate also becomes your “go on a cruise” backup, “having a baby” backup, etc. Of course, in a small team you and your teammates are probably going to be working on different projects at different times, and it’s not very feasible to have meetings on a daily or weekly basis to expect to bring your teammates up to date on everything you’re working on. The solution is to put in place a really top-notch collaboration system that will allow you More >
A Guide to Being an Independent Consultant – Useful Resources
Feb 3rd
Having been any independent consultant since I first started working at the age of 16 (some 12 years ago), I’ve looked into a wide variety of services and products that help make an independent consultant more productive, professional, and profitable. So recently I decided that I should write up a short guide to the key services that I use.
Communications
As an independent consultant, a good communications infrastructure is key. This falls into two categories – phone and email.
For phone, I use a service called RingCentral (http://www.ringcentral.com), which provides an automated attendant service that is excellent for the independent consultant. In my More >
Battle of the sweatshirts – Apple vs. Microsoft
Jan 19th
A few weeks ago, I went to my friend Josh’s house to help him hang some drywall. There was an interesting and entirely unplanned/coincidental dichotomy in the sweatshirts we chose to wear that day (I’m on/in the right, needless to say). Let me say that an electrical/computer engineer and an information systems consultant make a mean drywalling team. We were also aided by a physicist who, due to recent surgery, could not raise his arms above his head or lift more than five pounds. Pretty funny stuff…
VS2008 Web Server Here Shell Extension
Jan 15th
I ran across a great article on Phil Haack’s blog regarding a registry tweak you can make so you can right-click on any folder and launch the Visual Studio Web Server (aka Cassini) against the directory. This is very handy if you are working on a website locally and want to spin it up without completely opening Visual Studio. Here’s the code you need:
32 bit (x86)Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\Directory\shell\VS2008 WebServer] @="ASP.NET Web Server Here" [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\Directory\shell\VS2008 WebServer\command] @="C:\\Program Files\\Common Files\\microsoft shared\\DevServer \\9.0\\Webdev.WebServer.exe /port:8080 /path:\"%1\""64 bit (x64)Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\Directory\shell\VS2008 WebServer] @="ASP.NET Web Server Here" [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\Directory\shell\VS2008 WebServer\command] More >
Windows 7 Beta: Adding and removing programs
Jan 9th
I was playing with the Windows 7 beta today and made an interesting observation… Microsoft has made it easier to find where you remove programs!
First, a bit of background… In Windows XP and before, we used to have “Add/Remove Programs.” Now that frustrated people, because they said “Who ever uses that to add a program?” Of course, the IT Pros out there said “Hey, that’s where we can publish programs using Group Policy,” which was followed by a collective “Huh?” from everyone else. … So in Windows Vista, they renamed that to “Programs and Features.” Now that made a lot More >