Dwarfsoft [GPA]

I have updated my GTD-PHP Email Import Addon so that it now integrates with the current Subversion revision of the code. There is one bug left in it, in that it will not check that there is a mail server set before it tries to connect. I find that this error occurs the first time the session is established with the server, and from then on it works fine. By performing an error check against $server = “” I should be able to remove that bug as well.

The updated EmailImport Addon is now available for download from the GTD-PHP Trac wiki.

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I was recently working on an issue to do with managing .ini files in VBScript. I know what you are all going to say now: Why would you use an INI file when the registry is available for use?! Well, there is one instance that you may wish to use another form of configuration or information passing. In this instance we have an initiation of the Ghost Store method for the System Volume. To achieve a store on the system volume we require the PC to be rebooted and it then boots up into a BartPE environment to run the Ghost Store, and perform a few custom tasks. Therefore, the System Volumes Registry is not present (or requires mounting then reading, which has proven somewhat unreliable for me in the past).

So, the reason it came to developing the Ini file handler class is due to the need to provide some more controlled smarts into the store/restore system. Clusters, such as the one I work within, can be more proactive in their maintenance, and therefore require more advanced features than the corporate stock-standard release is likely to contain. As such the area in which I work is constantly involved in working towards a very automated maintenance process. My skills, lying within scripting, programming, and automation in particular, come in handy in this regard. I regularly disassemble the corporate releases to ensure that they will not break when released out into the wild of our corporate machines.

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Interesting moves happening at work. Today I moved into a Networks role. Originally it was intended that I be doing 80% Servers and 20% Networks due to the solid input I have provided within the Server team to date. This has now been changed to 80% Networks and 20% Servers. The guy who I am filling in for didn’t like the idea of his role being technically abandonned, and I agree with him. There will definitely be some Server Action from my end anyway, because I have a keen interest in running with a few ideas.

Trav and I have approached the Server team with an idea on distributing apps more effectively, relying mainly on network addresses of the PCs to correctly locate an application server. This brings up a few logistical hurdles. (continue reading…)