New Product - GorrilaPod

if you need a tripod for your lightweight digital camera? You will want to try Gorillapod

Gorrillapod firmly secures your camera to just about anything — anywhere and everywhere! Unlike traditional tripods, the Gorillapod has flexible, gripping legs which can wrap around almost any surface. It is now available in three sizes!

Available from $21.95US

ANN: Thin Clients with Altiris admin capabilities

Announcement:

Computer Lab International (CLI), announces support for the world-renowned third party management software, Symantec Altiris® Deployment Solution™.

Placentia , CA (PRWEB) January 7, 2008 -- Computer Lab International (CLI), one of the leading thin client manufacturers, announces support for the world-renowned third party management software, Symantec Altiris® Deployment Solution™. Altiris® management solutions enjoy broad customer acceptance and broad support for managing PCs and thin clients alike.

Altiris® Deployment Solution™ software allows customers to distribute a preconfigured image to MT3500 series XP Embedded Thin Clients within their network. This imaging capability is in addition to the robust imaging support of the CLI Thin Client Management Console - SNMPAdm. Altiris® brings best of breed, enterprise class device management while SNMPAdm allows ease of installation and use with essential management capabilities.

Altiris® support on CLI thin clients proactively meets customer demands for those already leveraging the Altiris® for deployments solutions in their networks. Preconfigured images can be deployed to one or thousands of CLI thin clients using Altiris® Deployment Solution™, which can be load balanced to meet the requirements in Enterprise class deployments.

Altiris® Deployment Solution™ software by Symantec®, reduces the cost for the management of Thin Clients, desktops, notebooks and servers. Using the Altiris® solution, IT managers are able to automate the installation of software components, operation system images, the migration of user data and profiles, as well as patch distribution.

A preconfigured, "Altiris®-ready" image is now available for download upon request from Computer Lab International. This image is preconfigured with the latest Altiris® agent and expedites initial image configuration with complete support from both CLI and Altiris® technical services groups.

ITB is a CLI value added reseller. for more information or a demo unit contact us today.

Handling .NET Toolstrip merge and unmerge in C#

The Tool strip control that ships with VS2005 allows you to create a Windows™ style tool bar for your MDI Applications. This control works well with one exception: automatic unmerging.

The win forms tool strip control has no provision for automatic unmerging of child form tool strip controls from the MDI Parent form tool strip; If anybody knows why the folks in Redmond did this please let me know. Anyway, to work around this you need to use the ToolStripManagers RevertMerge method. Sounds simple, right?

Well... yes and no.

The answer lies in using OnMdiChildActivate method this fires the MdiChildActivate Event. If you try using MdiChildActivate by itself nothing happens by the way. so you need this method to fire it.

First you will need a MDI parent form with a tool strip and a MDI Child form with a tool strip. Name the tool strips tsParent and tsChild. Set the tsChilds visible property to false. Add controls to the tool strips as needed.

Next add an Interface to you solution and call it IChildForm. For our purposes this interface will have only one property called ChildToolStrip


namespace foo
{

interface IChildForm
{
ToolStrip ChildToolStrip { get;set;}
}
}

Next you need to implement this interface in the Child Form(s).

public ToolStrip ChildToolStrip
{
get
{
return tsChild;
}
set
{
tsChild = value;
}
}


Next...You will need to override OnMdiChildAcivate in the parent form. Also don't forget to call the base implementation
of OnMdiChidActivate().

protected override void OnMdiChildActivate(EventArgs e)
{

base.OnMdiChildActivate(e); //REQUIRED
HandleChildMerge(); //Handle merging

}

Next you will need to call the base implementation of OnMdiChildActivate. Next add the following code for the HandleChildMerge method.

private void HandleChildMerge()
{
ToolStripManager.RevertMerge(tsParent);
IChildForm ChildForm = ActiveMdiChild as IChildForm;
if (ChildForm != null)
{
ToolStripManager.Merge(ChildForm.ChildToolStrip, tsParent);
}
}

Now your toolstrips should unmerge automatically...

10 minute E-Mail

Ever wanted to have a temporary, throwaway e-mail address? One you could use when you are filling out a web form and they require you to provide an e-mail address. 10 Minute mail is a free service that allows you to create a free e-mail address that lasts for 10 minutes.

Sender Policy Framewoks, Helps Fight Spam

Have you ever received an e-mail that supposedly came from you but was not sent by you or your company? For example; you have an e-mail account called Sales@MyCompany.com and one day you receive an e-mail from Sales@MyCompany.com. You didn't send this e-mail, it's spam, it could be an ad for herbal medicine or a get-rich quick scheme.

No big deal, just delete it right?

Well not really, actually it is a big deal. Think about it, that spammer is sending his electronic trash, (with your companies name on it) to potentially thousands of other e-mail addresses!

This can damage your companies reputation.

Fortunately, there is a solution.

SPF = Sender Policy Framework

"SPF fights return-path address forgery and makes it easier to identify spoofs.
Domain owners identify sending mail servers in DNS. SMTP receivers verify the envelope sender address against this information, and can distinguish authentic messages from forgeries before any message data is transmitted."

Setting up SPF is free. If you don't have one set up one today Read More

Beware the top online holiday scams

Tis' the season, for scammers and other crooks. To make sure you don't get scammed, check out this list of the top online scams. Oh yes...Merry Christmas.

Upgrading to Visual Studio 2008, Use Caution

If you plan to upgrade to VS 2008 take care. Installation can be tricky if you are using the BIDS
features of SQL Server 2005. Read More