Have you ever tried to package an application only to see it blow up on you? We have all experienced the mysterious errors during software installations. How do we take an EXE and turn it into an MSI file? What switches are where and what exactly do they do? How do we do a complete install instead of a typical install? I have included some links that have helped me "master" the art of application packaging. Enjoy!

http://www.appdeploy.com/

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/227091

http://www.dell.com/downloads/global/power/ps4q05-...

Suppose you have a server that is having some heat issues or perhaps other problems that are related to its onboard sensors. If that server has a BMC (Base Management Controller), you can monitor its sensor values from any machine on its subnet in real time using sensor.exe included with Deployment Solution for Dell Servers.

I will use the example of monitoring the fan speed on a given server. First, I open a command prompt and browse to my Dell Directory (usually C:\Program Files\Altiris\eXpress\Deployment Server\Dell)

I then go into atools\power\ipmiutil

Inside that folder is a utility called sensor.exe. Using the following command I can print out all sensor values:

sensor -U root -P calvin -N 192.168.2.24

I then get a long printout of each sensor. I look...

With the lack of an equivalent in SQL2005 for the SQL Server Service Manager (that comes with SQL2000), the developer decided to write one himself. It's behaviour should be familiar to you if you've used SQL2000.

It can be found here:

http://www.sqldbatips.com/showarticle.asp?id=46

Here's a way to integrate Helpdesk scheduled tasks with workers' Outlook calenders - so that these tasks appear in calenders as events.

1. Download and install the GeniusConnect database integration tool, by Genius@Work B.V. Although shareware, you will prefer the full version, which is not expensive. This software adds a toolbar to Outlook and will enable you to extract (or send) data from (or to) a database, which you can maintain in Outlook.
2. Then create a view in the Altiris_incidents database, along the lines of one created with the following SQL code....
   

   USE [Altiris_Incidents]
   GO
   /****** Object:  View [dbo].[Scheduled_incidents_for_outlook]    Script Date: 07/16/2006 16:59:59 ******/
   SET ANSI_NULLS ON
   GO
   SET QUOTED_IDENTIFIER ON
   GO
   
   Create View [dbo].[Scheduled_incidents_for_outlook]
   
   As
   
   Select 
   
   'Incident Number: ' + cast(workitem_number as varchar)+ ' - '+...