MindTouch Deki

I’ve been playing with this open source collaboration/wiki/mashup software for a couple of weeks now and I have to say that I’m very impressed with it so far.

I set up a wiki website at work almost two years ago using the MediaWiki engine mainly for sharing documentations, which works fine but it could have been much better if certain features came built-in with it.

MindTouch Deki has all these features that I wanted and a lot more.  It’s really designed for enterprise use and that’s why I’m migrating our wiki to this:

• Active Directory/LDAP authentication with SSL/TLS support. There is an LDAP authentication extension for MediaWiki as well which works pretty well but with MindTouch Deki it’s built-in and easier to set up.  It also supports groups.
• Access Control. MindTouch Deki lets you set permissions for each page.  It uses hierarchical pages so if you set a permission on a page, for example, new pages created under it will automatically inherit its permissions.  There’s also a checkbox when setting up the permissions that lets you apply the permissions to all the children pages.  Very easy to do and works with LDAP/Active Directory users and groups.  MediaWiki on the other hand was not designed for this so the access control extensions you’ll find for it will most likely have flaws.
• WYSIWYG editor. There is an FCKEditor extension for MediaWiki but I find it buggy.  The one with MindTouch Deki works really well and you can even copy and paste from Microsoft Word or from another website to it.  I also like how the toolbar follows you when you scroll down while editing a page.
• Easily attach files and images. There’s a button to quickly attach files/images to each page.  Each page also has a separate section for files and images.  You can attach multiple files/images at the same time and MindTouch Deki will automatically detect which are images.  The images section gives you a preview of the images.  You can also add a description for each file/image.
• Search inside file attachments. By default, MindTouch Deki indexes .doc, .docx, .ppt, .pptx, .xls, .pdf, .odt, .opt, html, and text files.
• Lots of extensions, here’s a few of them:
  • MySQL - Retrieve data from an external MySQL database as a value, table, list, record, or recordlist and use it in your page.  The table is also sortable, by the way.  You can also use the retrieved values as inputs to other extensions, like Google maps for example.
  • Flickr
  • Dapper
  • Twitter
  • Windows Live (contacts, map, etc.)
  • Google (search, map, calendar, spreadsheet, etc.) - Requires Google API key.
  • Yahoo!
  • AccuWeather
  • Atom/RSS feeds
  • Media
  • Here’s the entire list: MindTouch Deki Extensions

There are still a lot of things for me to play with, so I’m gonna be pretty busy for a while :).

Here’s the link to download the open source edition: http://wiki.developer.mindtouch.com/MindTouch_Deki/Download

How to capture an image using BDD 2007 and ImageX

I was looking through some old notes and found this, hope this helps:

1. PXE boot on the computer you wish to image.
2. At the first prompt, choose the option “Exit to command Prompt.”
3. Map a network drive to your distribution share and run ImageX.  Example:
   1. net use x: \\bddserver\distribution
   2. cd x:\Tools\x86
   3. imagex /capture c: x:\Captures\ImageName.wim “Computer Image Description”

Source:  http://lukenotley.wordpress.com/2007/05/20/bdd-2007-how-to-capture-a-reference-computer-image/

getVIRTUALnow

Just got back from the Microsoft Virtualization Launch Event in New York.  Overall, it was pretty good.  It was also pretty short, it started at 8:30am and it’s pretty much done by 1:30pm.  There’s also not a lot of people who attended this event compared to their other launch events, there were plenty of seats available.

They pretty much talked mostly about the benefits of virtualization and Microsoft System Center.  They showed live demos on how to use System Center and its interoperability with VMware ESX Server.  They also showed demos for application virtualization and there are hands on labs if you want to try out the products.

For the free stuff, you get a T-Shirt, a voucher for prep course collection #6319 and exam #70-652 ($316 value), and a Microsoft Virtualization Evaluation Kit (will be mailed to you).