I find it absolutely incomprehensible how hard it is to purchase a Microsoft Product and actually gain access to it.

Over the years, things have always been hard, but appear to have got a lot worse.

My Experience with MSDN Subscription.

In December I receive notice that our existing MSDN subscription is due to expire, so I set about renewing it. Now with any other company, you would just enter a credit card number into a website some place and you would be done. But Not Microsoft.

Microsoft force you to purchase through a reseller (and I get that) so we set about that path.

Our previous reseller was Ingram Micro, who totally destroyed their own business by interdicting SAP some time ago, and have got nothing right since then! So we followed the Legendry Microsoft License Expert “Shane Piercy” to Dicker Data and purchased our license there. (Thanks Shane, that was the easy part).

After some weeks, Microsoft approve our license and send an email with some details.

We then login to Live.com and revalidate an email address that we have used, validated and sign in daily with for the past 10 years. This take 3 days.

We then go to the Volume License website and find the new license needs to be added. We do this, and are advised that we again need to validate our email address. This takes 48 hours (actual time was 4 days). – Remember it is computers doing all this tricky validating of email addresses by sending us an email with a link to click.

We then check back for days in the Volume License website and are advised in the FAQ that validating the license and email can take several days. Go figure!

Finally after 5 days the license appears, and we find that we need to then assign it to a user. We start doing this and fail several times before ringing their Asian America support line and chat to a helpful person who suggest a lot of things before mentioning the catch phrase “What version of IE are you using?”  – I almost blurt out… “Why would I use such a F#&!ed browser!” before explaining that I was using Chrome. Heaven forbid I was on a Mac and did not have access to IE at all.

We finally worked out that IE is required for “This Website” even though there is no detection on the website warning you of this.

So I fired up IE, and set about assigning a user to this license before I get this error.

Lucky I am on the phone to the Philippines at the time and ask.. “What Next?”

MS support take all my details again, and advise they will assign the license. This will take only 1 hour to complete. (Believe that when I see it).

I ask for an email address for my support dude. No, he does not have an email address, only a team address that I can use his name in and someone may forward it to him. Remember here I am communicating via a POT (Plain Old Telephone) to the number 2 (I like saying that) IT company in the world. Why can’t I email the dude, or skype, or MSN, or live chat, or SMS, or whatever.. No the only way to get him is call a POT and wait in queue like I did in the last century.

So now I wait. 30 days down, and still no access to something I have paid for. Can you frigging believe it!

The story is not over yet, but I just know I will not have access in 1 hour from now. That would be way to easy.

Microsoft – if you want to know why you are failing. It is because everything you do is 10 x harder than it needs to be. Compare this experience to Apple App store on the Mac!

You have a lot of catching up to do MS!

The steps assume that you have installed the DNN website module by InteractiveWebs called the Outlook Social Connector.

1. Close Outlook

2. Start the MSI installer “Setup_DNNSocialConnector”

3. Select Next

4. Use the default path, or select one, then select – Next

5. Select Next when ready to proceed

6. Wait a bit

7. Select Close

8. Open Outlook and in the Mail view, find an email message and expand the view for the Social Connector.

9. Select the + symbol under the contact image, and select “on another social network” from the available list.

10. Select “iWebs – DNN Social Connector” from the available social connector plugins.

11. Fill in the connection settings for your DotNetNuke Website that has the iWebs – DNN Social Connector module installed. And admin or host account is needed. Click Connect

When you browse an email message from a user who is registered on your website, you will see the activity that they have taken on your site. This includes activity on security roles, DNN Forums Module, and if you have updated to our modified Documents Module, activity on that module too.

Today we have added this feature to the DotNetNuke Advanced Login Module.

User Name Omission

Normally DotNetNuke requires a user name to be entered at registration. The Advanced Login Module will automatically create a DNN user name at registration time, even if the token for User Name is not included in the registration form. This way you can allow users to register with an email address and no user name, while in the background the Advanced Login Module handles the user name for you.

How It Works

If omitted from the registration form, the user name will be taken from the email address.

david@domain.com for example will generate a user name using all data from before the @ symbol.

david@domain.com = david as the user name.

If david is already taken as a user name, then david-01 or david-02 etc. will be used automatically.

This keeps the username familiar to users should it ever be provided to them, yet keeps the registration process as simple as possible.

The module is available as a Free DNN Module trial on our site.

I have been trying to work out for some time, a really easy way for AutoDiscovery services in outlook to be directed to the correct address allowing for easy user configuration of services.

Without going into all the details, I have tried all the methods described in (yet another) Microsoft Whitepaper.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb332063(EXCHG.80).aspx

Had some level of success but while working through this stuff I discovered by mistake a little discussed method.

A new feature is available that enables Outlook 2007 and later to use DNS Service Location (SRV) records to locate the Exchange Autodiscover service.

Discussed here: http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=940881

To Hell with the the WhitePaper, this works fantastically well. It is everything that I need it to be.

Captivate SCORM Problems

We have been playing in depth lately with some some of the Captivate SCORM outputs in an effort to better understand the SCORM Compliance and where Captivate falls down in this area. What we have found is very interesting and needs to be explained in detail to understand.

The Problem

Until recently, anyone who wanted to author SCORM-compliant content had few choices. Not many authoring programs existed and the technical knowledge to create compliant content was and, in fact, still is beyond the reach of most training developers. Now there are many affordable, easy to use content authoring programs to create SCORM-compliant content that can be deployed to learning management systems (LMS). Adobe, a leader in the multimedia authoring and programming industry, has recently thrown their hat into the ring and released Adobe Captivate – a SCORM-compliant authoring tool that includes screen capture, simulation, automated testing and more.

Adobe Captivate and LMS Software Working Correctly

When exporting content from Adobe Captivate, you have the option of making your package SCORM 1.2 Compliant. Specifics of the SCORM specification could fill an entire book (in fact, it does!), so let’s just say that SCORM defines what must be included in a content package (certain files which contain certain information in a certain format) and the methods that the content package must use to communicate information (student name, score, etc.) to and from the LMS. The idea is that content authoring programs and learning management systems would all be programmed to comply with the spec and therefore be compatible with each other. Unfortunately, reality has not lived up to the vision.

The SCORM 1.2 specification is long, open to some interpretation and not always logical. Developers have had to make some assumptions and, at the same time, had to predict and hope that other developers made the same assumptions! Our experience with the workings of Adobe Captivate and the development or our own SCORM-compliant LMS has given us some insight to help you get the most out of Adobe Captivate and your LMS – even if it’s not our LMS! Note that we are only focusing on SCORM 1.2. The SCORM 1.3 specification was recently released, however most learning management systems and authoring tools, even those recently released, still support SCORM 1.2 and rightfully so.

Problem 1 – Setting Captivate to be SCORM 1.2 Compliant

If you export a Captivate package that does not have any graded questions in it, it will not be SCORM-compliant. I don’t mean that it just won’t track because it has no grade to send; I mean it is not compliant. In tracing method calls from Captivate lessons, we’ve found that a lesson with no questions will not make the required call to the LMS to initialize itself upon start-up. It will make the finalize call upon exit, however any compliant LMS will throw back an error when this happens. The spec dictates that a content package must initialize itself before it can finalize itself. Makes sense, right?

A tangential problem to this is that a lesson with no questions (even if the correct initialize and finalize calls are made) has no way to tell when it’s been completed, so it does not send that information to the LMS either. This secondary problem is not an issue of compliance as the SCORM specification does not require this information to be sent, but more an issue of usability. What’s the point of making a SCORM-compliant lesson and loading it into an LMS if you never find out when your users have completed it?

Solution 1 – Captivate SCORM Solved

The resolution to both these problems is easy – just make sure that you have a graded interaction in your lesson. It can be an interaction that is actually presented as such or even a button or hot spot that you are sure your users will click while viewing the lesson. The possibilities here are endless, so be sure to test your solution, but the bottom line is that there needs to at least one graded interaction in your lesson.

Problem 2 – Passing the Proper Lesson Status Value

Adobe Captivate lets you choose whether to report ‘pass/fail’ or ‘complete/incomplete’ values for lesson status, but this is not an arbitrary choice. The spec dictates that this shall be determined by the lesson after querying the LMS and deciding based upon the response it receives.

When publishing with Captivate, if you select complete/incomplete, and the user fails or fails to finish the lesson, the value of ‘incomplete’ will be reported to the LMS. In the event that the user completes or passes the lesson, the value of ‘complete’ will be reported to the LMS. Likewise, if you select pass/fail, then the value of ‘pass’ will be used instead of ‘complete’ and the value of ‘fail’ will be used instead of ‘incomplete’.

Additionally, Captivate lessons never query the LMS for the value of ‘credit’, which is the element that the lesson should be using to determine whether to use ‘complete/incomplete’ or ‘pass/fail’.

Problem 2 – Solution to Captivate Lesson Status Value

Solving this problem may or may not even be necessary – it’s a rather minor issue. The best thing to do is make sure that you coordinate the credit setting you use in the LMS with the lesson status value you select here. Lessons that are for credit should use ‘pass/fail’ and lessons that are not for credit should use ‘complete/incomplete’. However, one thing to note, and this takes us indirectly to Problem #3 and beyond, is that the spec dictates that the LMS revaluate the score and change this value if you have set a mastery score. We’ll come back to this when we get to Problem #4.

Problem 3 – Passing Score in the SCORM Format

The ‘Publish’ interface in Adobe Captivate lets you choose whether to report score as a raw value or as a percentage while the spec dictates that this value must be ‘normalized between 0 and 100′ (meaning it must be a percentage score). When you choose to report this value as a raw score, your lesson is not compliant.

Adobe tells us that they put this option for a very specific reason. The spec defines 3 values relating to score and all shall be normalized between 0 and 100 – minimum score, maximum score and what they call raw score (oddly enough, the spec calls it ‘raw score’ and at the same time dictates that it be normalized – no wonder everyone is confused!). Logically, since they are required to be normalized between 0 and 100, minimum score would always be 0 and maximum score would always be 100 so why even use them? Because of this confusion, Adobe decided to allow the content author to decide whether to report score as raw or normalized.

The problem occurs when you choose to report score as raw and then load your content into an LMS that has been implemented according to the SCORM spec because it will expect to receive score normalized. Confusion ensues!

You create a Captivate lesson and choose to report score as a raw value. Your lesson has 5 questions and your user gets them all correct. Your lesson is going to report ’5′ as the score and a compliant LMS is going to interpret this as 5%. Of course, your lesson should also report a lesson status of ‘complete’ or ‘passed’ (see problem #2) which will truly confuse your user when they look at their stats and see that they passed/completed a lesson with a score of only 5%!

Problem 3 – Solution to Passing SCORM Score Correctly

This is an easy one. Unless you are certain that your LMS implements score as a raw value, always select ‘percentage’ to ensure that your lesson is compliant.

Problem 4 – Making it all Work

Take a deep breath, because problem #4 might get a little confusing. The SCORM specification instructs the LMS to change the lesson status (the same value discussed in problem #2) when certain conditions apply. When this happens, the LMS shall use the score to decide how to change the lesson status value. If you remember though, from problem #3, you may be reporting score as a non-compliant raw value, so the LMS may change the lesson status based on bad information.

To get a better understanding of this, let’s introduce mastery score. You set the mastery score by clicking the ‘Manifest’ button on the Publish Interface. mastery score is value stored in the manifest file that is included in the content package you load into the LMS. The LMS reads this value and stores it with the lesson. If you notice, Captivate instructs that this value should be between 0 and 100, or normalized.

Now the SCORM specification instructs the LMS that if mastery score is set, the lesson is being taken for credit and the lesson status is not ‘incomplete’, the LMS shall change the lesson status to the appropriate value (complete, incomplete, pass or fail) by comparing the score reported from the lesson and the mastery score that is defined in the manifest. This occurs even if the lesson has already passed a value for lesson status.

The first thing to notice is that you probably should set the mastery score to the same value that you set passing score. That way, if the LMS re-evaluates the lesson status, it will use the same value as the passing score that the lesson itself does.

Now let’s refer back to Problem #3. You had the option of reporting score as a raw value. If you chose that option, when the LMS performs this re-evaluation of lesson status, it is going to compare a raw score to the normalized mastery score. Since one value is normalized and the other is not, it should be clear that you will have some unexpected results from this.

Example

You create a Captivate lesson with 20 questions. You choose to report score as a raw value (non-complaint per Problem #3, but Captivate lets you do it), choose to use ‘pass/fail’ for lesson status, enter a mastery score of 80% and enter a passing score of 80%. Your user gets 17 questions correct.

When the lesson finalizes, the lesson reports ‘pass’ to the LMS for lesson status and ’17′ for score. Everything looks good until the LMS sees that there is a mastery score and therefore it must re-evaluate the lesson status. The LMS looks at score (’17′) and sees that it is less than mastery score (’80′), so it changes lesson status to ‘fail’. In fact, a lesson created with these settings will always have its lesson status re-evaluated to ‘fail’ by the LMS because even a perfect raw score (’20′) will always be less than the mastery score (’80′).

The root of the problem is that Captivate prompts you to enter mastery score normalized, but gives you the option to report score as a raw value. They need to be on the same scale for the re-evaluation by the LMS to work properly.

Solutions

Solution 1 – Don’t enter a mastery score. By doing this, the LMS will not re-evaluate the lesson status and you avoid the problem altogether. But don’t forget about Problem #3 and its solution.

Solutions 2 – Make sure that mastery score and score are both normalized by choosing to report score as a ‘percentage.’ You’ll notice that this is also the solution to Problem #3. If you have confirmed that your LMS expects to receive score as raw, then use Solution #3.

Solution 3 – If you must report score as a raw value, then be sure to enter a raw value for mastery score. In our scenario, instead of entering ’80′ for mastery score, you would enter ’17′. That way, when the LMS re-evaluates lesson status, both score and mastery score are on the same scale and the calculation is done correctly. While technically incorrect since the spec dictates that mastery score be normalized, we won’t worry about it because you’d only use this solution in the case that your LMS is also non-compliant because it’s expecting raw values for score. It’s a workaround.

Conclusion

We’ve seen that Adobe Captivate provides a robust solution for quickly developing online training solutions. But let’s not forget that we need to be mindful of the implementation of the SCORM specification by the LMS and how it’s going to react to our Captivate lessons.

Review the problems and their solutions and you can be sure that your Captivate lessons are going to comply with SCORM 1.2 and function properly when loaded into a SCORM 1.2-compliant learning management system.

An otherwise happy install suddenly failing to start, or if is started it would be very slow.

Once started, it would not close from the task manager, even if I killed the process with the end process.

Initially

I suspected that it was possibly a virus etc. However I found that there are a lot of people on the net with this exact problem.

I then set about a solution, and figured on out myself, that involves replacing some of the files use by the MSTSC.EXE application.

Basically there are 4 files that I replaced with the same version from another computer that was functional and healthy. They are:

c:\windows\system32\

MSTSCAX.dll

MSTSC.exe

c:\windows\system32\EN-US\

MSTSCAX.dll.mui

MSTSC.exe.mui

I would create a .zip copy for download except I fear giving out some stored connection settings in the files I already have. So sorry, you will have to find your own backup files.

The Bitch of it

The annoying problem is that you cannot just copy the 4 files into the two folder locations as Windows 7 in all it’s wisdom will not let you copy files there, as you are not the “Trusted Installer”.

You might be like me, Administrator and God of your computer that at any time can take to it with a hammer and replace it with a Mac, but Windows 7 knows best… so let’s show you what you have to do to hack that crap!

Give Permissions

First, go to the folder or set of files that you need to change permissions for, right-click on them and choose Properties.

Next click on the Security tab and then click on the Advanced button at the bottom:

Next click on the Owner tab and you’ll now see that the current owner is TrustedInstaller.

Now click on the Edit button and choose who you would like to change the owner to, either your account or the Administrators. If your account is an Administrator account, I would suggest just picking Administrators.

You can also check off Replace owner on sub containers and objects if you need to delete more than one file in a folder. Go ahead and click OK. Now you will see that the Current owner is the account you picked.

Click OK until you have closed all properties windows and are back to the Windows Explorer screen. Then right-click on the folder or file again and choose Properties again.

Now click on the Security tab again, but instead of clicking on Advanced, you need to click the Edit button.

Now click on the user name in the list that you want to change the permissions for, which should be the same as who you changed the current owner too. If the user name is not in the list, click Add, type in the name and click OK.

Since I had changed the current owner to Administrators, I clicked on Administrators here and then clicked on the check box next to Full Control. When you do that, all the other boxes get checked too.

Click OK once and then click OK one more time to get back to Windows Explorer. Now you can replace those files without any UAC messages telling you that you can’t! Enjoy!

Today we received notification during a PCI compliance check that our Microsoft CRM 2011 server was not PCI Compliant.

The cause of the lack of compliance was due to the server accepting connections via an SSL v 2.0 protocol.

Synopsis : The remote service encrypts traffic using a protocol with known
weaknesses . Description : The remote service accepts connections encrypted
using S S L 2.0, which reportedly suffers from several cryptographic flaws and has
been deprecated for several years . An attacker may be able to exploit these
issues to conduct man-in-the-middle attacks or decrypt communications between
the affected service and clients . See also : http://www.schneier.com/p

aper-ssl.pdf
Solution: Consult the application’s documentation to dis able S S L 2.0 and us e
S S L 3.0 or TLS 1.0 instead. Risk Factor: Medium / CVS S Bas e S core : 2
(AV:R/AC:L/Au:NR/C:P/A:N/I:N/B:N)

Perhaps not the worlds biggest deal, as the SSL certificates in place are using the SSL 3.0 however we needed to remove the V2.0 for compliance with PCI.

The solution turned out to be no so easy… Mostly due to the fact that we are using a 64bit Windows 2008 server and Microsoft have only appeared to provide details on fixing 32 bit servers to remove SSL v2.

We did manage to get there and this is what we had to do

Remove SSL v2

You need to run the following commands at a command prompt on the server:

REG ADD “HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\SecurityProviders\SChannel\Protocols\SSL 2.0\Server” /v Enabled /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f
REG ADD “HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\SecurityProviders\SChannel\Protocols\SSL 2.0\Client” /v Enabled /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f
REG ADD “HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\SecurityProviders\SChannel\Protocols\SSL 3.0\Server” /v Enabled /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f
REG ADD “HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\SecurityProviders\SChannel\Protocols\SSL 3.0\Client” /v Enabled /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f
REG ADD “HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\SecurityProviders\SChannel\Protocols\TLS 1.0\Server” /v Enabled /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f
REG ADD “HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\SecurityProviders\SChannel\Protocols\TLS 1.0\Client” /v Enabled /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f

We created a batch file to make this easier.

You can download the file here, and extract the batch file. Then double click the file called: “DisableSSLv264bit.bat”.

Then Reboot the server.

All it will do is run the above commands and in the registry it will add:

and similar sets to enable SSL v3 and disable SSL v2.

Then you can use a free test service here:

to check that you are disabled.

A failure like this: http://foundeo.com/products/iis-weak-ssl-ciphers/test.cfm

indicates something did not take correctly.

If you are using a 32 bit version of windows. (Not possible with CRM 2011) but possible otherwise, then you can use the Microsoft tool here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/187498/en-us

We have found an issue that would prevent the Google Analytics report module from rendering in certain websites under certain conditions.

The symptoms of the issue are that the module reports “invalid data” when you have configured the module settings.

If you experience this error messages, then the solution is easy…

Ensure you have a version of the module that is later than 45.06.02 – Available from our website as a download here: http://www.interactivewebs.com/DotNetNukeModules/ModuleDownloads.aspx

Then after updating, you need to check the option that says: “Render Chart from Control”

This should allow the chart to report past the Invalid data error.

The error relates to the DotNetNuke Alias redirection settings in the DNN Site Admin settings, and appears to be when a redirection has been defined in the settings.

If the redirection is turned to none, this should also fix the error.

Alternatively it appears to have been fixed in DotNeTNuke release 06.01.01. But who is to day that the issue will not creep into later releases of the module.

If you are receiving this error in Chrome, and finding that installing the plugin does absolutely nothing.

And clicking the":

Takes you to a Windows media and Java error page.

http://www.google.com/support/chrome/bin/answer.py?answer=95697&topic=14687&hl=en-US

Which if you bother to follow the instructions will not help you at all.

The cause

Almost certainly the cause of this problem is going to be a recent update by Skype. One could posture that it did not take long after the Microsoft purchase for Skype to become annoying, but I am saddened to say that I thin they have buggered it up without needing to call anyone from the Vista development team.

The most recent update of Skype 5.6.0.8.442 adds a little feature to your browsers (without asking you) that reads numbers that look like phone numbers and allows you to click and call them in Skype.

It also adds a little blue Skype thing to the top of you page:

The Solution

So the fix to stop Chrome asking you about installing a plug-in all the time is to disable the Skype plugin in Chrome.

1. Click the spanner

2. Tools \ Extensions

3. Un-tick the Skype Extension

That should be all you need to do to stop Skype mucking up your browser.

Thoughts

It is bad practice for Skype or anyone to add invasive features such as this that “take over” your experience without making it clear in the install process that this is being done. Skype did it in the past then dropped the idea. Not sure why they have returned to it, but it sucks!

I remember the annoying days of Real Player and their invasive installs that totally bombarded you with their crappy experience. I hope that Skype is not taking that path.

Interestingly the only other plugin that I found installed in Chrome that I was not asked specifically if I wanted installed was a RealPlayer extension.

Funny that!~

All pages with HTML blank when logged out, but show this error logged in.

Error: Services is currently unavailable.DotNetNuke.Services.Exceptions.ModuleLoadException: The type initializer for ‘DotNetNuke.Modules.Html.DataProvider’ threw an exception. —> System.TypeInitializationException: The type initializer for ‘DotNetNuke.Modules.Html.DataProvider’ threw an exception. —> System.InvalidCastException: Unable to cast object of type ‘DotNetNuke.Modules.HTML.SqlDataProvider’ to type ‘DotNetNuke.Modules.Html.DataProvider’. at DotNetNuke.Modules.Html.DataProvider.CreateProvider() — End of inner exception stack trace — at DotNetNuke.Modules.Html.WorkflowStateController.GetWorkflows(Int32 PortalID) at DotNetNuke.Modules.Html.HtmlTextController.GetWorkflow(Int32 ModuleId, Int32 TabId, Int32 PortalId) at DotNetNuke.Modules.Html.HtmlModule.OnInit(EventArgs e) — End of inner exception stack trace —

Solution

In our case, the upgrade left 2 things behind that DNN 6 did not like.

1. in the app_code directory, we deleted the ‘HTML’ folder (since it does not seem that it was in use anymore and was potentially conflicting with new html module code)
2. in web.config, I removed the following line in the <Codesubdirectories> section
   <add directoryName="HTML" />

Save and you are done.

We had a requirement today to run a DotNetNuke Website in .Net 4.0 as some code we are using as part of the Microsoft CRM 2011 SDK require .Net 4.0.

Problem is that with many of the DotNetNuke websites, they have some references that will cause this error when you flip your website worker process to 4.0. in IIS.

This will give you an error that looks like this:

Generates an error:

Server Error in ‘/’ Application.

---

Compilation Error

Description: An error occurred during the compilation of a resource required to service this request. Please review the following specific error details and modify your source code appropriately.
Compiler Error Message: CS1703: An assembly with the same identity ‘System.Web.Extensions, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35′ has already been imported. Try removing one of the duplicate references.
Source Error:

[No relevant source lines]

Source File: Line: 0

Show Detailed Compiler Output:

Interestingly too the reference to Version=4.0.0.0 initially said Version-3.5.0.0 until the second page refresh on the error.

The Problem

The problem in our case, and it may differ with others, related to an older file for Microsoft Ajax.

There is a file called: System.Web.Extensions.dll

in the \bin    folder.

We renamed this to: System.Web.Extensions.dll.bak

And our problem was fixed.

This is due to an older way that Microsoft handled Ajax vs the new way in .Net 4.0.

DotNetNuke Support Services

We do offer DotNetNuke support services and would be happy to assist others with this or other DNN problems that need professional support services with.

http://www.interactivewebs.com/Services/DotNetNukeSupport.aspx

Moving from one IIS 7.0 server to IIS 7.5 is relatively easy and there are a number of tools that can assist you. Probably the best is the Web Deploy tool mentioned here:

• http://www.iis.net/download/WebDeploy

This tool can allow you to package up and migrate the entire web sites, including configuration and database files etc.

Because our IIS 7 server is almost dead, it prevented us from configuring the tool. The install files see .Net 2.0 as required, and although it was installed we were unable to get the server to see it as installed. Anyway we tried all sorts of things, and finally gave up. (Good opportunity to rag on Microsoft, but we will leave that alone).

So now we find a need to migrate without the good tools.

Migration

We shared the IIS root folder on the source server. Then pulled all the folders containing websites across from that server to the same location on the new server.

In IIS manager, you need to export the config from the already-configured server. In IIS manager, click the Server node, and go to Shared Configuration under Management.

We then clicked to Export – on the right.

Enter the path you’d like to export the config to, and set an encryption key password:

Note: One thing here that is a real BITCH is that they make you select a pass that is so complex you absolutely have to write it down. We never suggest writing down passwords but they are out of control in what they make you do with this.

Copy administration.config, applicationHost.config, and configEncKey.key to your new server to a temp location.

On the new server, go back to the “Shared Configuration” section and check “Enable shared configuration.” Enter the location in physical path and click “Apply.” It should prompt for the encryption password that you had set. Enter it, and reset IIS.

After resetting IIS (command prompt “iisreset”), go back to Shared Configuration and uncheck “Enable shared configuration.” Click apply. You should see this:

Click YES and it will import all of the settings from your Shared Config into the local config on your new IIS server.

At this point, all you should need to do is change your server-specific site bindings, and it should be good to go.

Bindings

How to add binding information to a site

1. Open Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager:
   • If you are using Windows Server 2008 or Windows Server 2008 R2:
     • On the taskbar, click Start, point to Administrative Tools, and then clickInternet Information Services (IIS) Manager.
   • If you are using Windows Vista or Windows 7:
     • On the taskbar, click Start, and then click Control Panel.
     • Double-click Administrative Tools, and then double-click Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager.
2. In the Connections pane, expand the server name, expand Sites, and then click the Web site on which you want to configure the bindings.
3. In the Actions pane, click Bindings…
4. In the Site Bindings dialog box, click Add..

5. In the Add Site Binding dialog box, add the binding information, and then click OK.

Something strange that we have encountered with CRM 2011 is a 404 – File or directory not found error.

What is particularly strange about this one is that the error happens from IE 9 on one computer, but the same URL and site loads correctly with another browser on another computer AND loads correctly to the authentication screens on the same computer but with a different browser.

Go figure right!

Microsoft show it as:

So what is the Solution?

We tried a number of things that did not work, and we will not bother to list them all, but interesting the clearing the browser history and cache etc does not fix it but is needed to fix it.

1. Clear history and cache in the browser:

2. Close the Browser entirely

3. Navigate to C:\Windows\Temp and delete everything in that directory.

4. From this screen, got to browser history settings:

Then View Files:

5. Takes you to this location: C:\Users\XXUSERXX\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Temporary Internet Files

6. Close Outlook and IE.

7. Delete Everything in that folder that it will allow you to delete. Some files are in use and not able to be deleted.

8. Start IE, and away you go.. you should be able to access the site again.

Rant!

IE really does suck as a browser, it is a real same and the worst thing about CRM 2011 is that they make you use this junk browser.

To correct this, we have created two new templates that are designed specifically to work with the DarkKnight skin in DotNetNuke.

Called:

• DarkKnight-Small
• DarkKnight-Large

They produce the following results…

With the Large template being the content on the left, and the bottom right showing the content of the small template.

This makes the module perfect for use with DotNetNuke 6x our of the box.

How to Set the Templates

The templates are selected through the normal RSS Template Tab in the module.

1. Select Load Template Button

2. Select the appropriate template and press the select button.

That will load the new templates and be ready to use on your site.

InteractiveWebs Support Services

At InteractiveWebs we have years of experience with DotNetNuke, with more published modules on SnowCovered than any other module developer in the store. (And we don’t publish all our modules.)

• We have our own full time employed team of DNN developers.
• We have our own full time employed Server Administrators.
• We have our own Data Centres with our own equipment.
• We have Years of Professional DotNetNuke Development Experience.

Quite literally there is no one who is more experienced with everything dotnetnuke.

We Offer Paid Support Services for DotNetNuke

We offer paid support services for DotNetNuke in an easy and covenant process.

1. You advise us of the issue you are facing.
2. We estimate an up front cost and advise you.
3. If you decide to accept the quote, we will request that you buy the equivalent number of support tickets from our store.
4. We will then complete the support job.

Purchasing Support Tickets

You only need to purchase support tickets if we have advise you how many tickets you will need to purchase upfront for the particular job.

You can purchase support tickets from our Support Store Here.

Supporting our Modules Free VS Charged

All of our DotNetNuke Modules are supported free of charge. We will work to resolve issues that our modules cause, or problems directly related to our modules not working as they should.

Sometimes we have clients who need our modules to be configured in a complex environment, or would like them to work with another conflicting product, or they may just want the people who made the module to set them up for them.

In these instances, we are happy to identify work that goes above an beyond “product support” and provide a quote for the additional work. You will find that we are very reasonable both about the price and what we cover for free.

Purchase Support Tickets Here

Apple has released the iOS 5 and new Apple App Cards.

The Cards App is an exciting and easy way to send a card to someone anywhere in the world.

One thing that did surprise me was the App asked me to: Please Enter Your CVV

This is asking you to enter the Credit Card CVV number:

Either 3 or 4 digit number depending if you have an AMEX card or not.

Why I was surprised  was that apple usually make things incredibly easy to follow, but in this case I suspect that not everyone would know that the number on the back of your card are called CVV Numbers (Card Verification Value). Hence this post.

What to do?

Easy… if asked for the CVV number while using the Cards App. Just enter the number as you previously provided with the credit card on file with your iTunes account. That is all there is to do.

Why Do They Ask?

This is just anther way to verify that you are indeed you. It is a low level security check that the person who put the card on file is using the App.

In just the last few days, I have started experiencing some issues with Outlook when opening messages sent from PayPal.

This is happening with the recent versions of Outlook, including Outlook 2010 and Outlook 2007.

Some of the indications of the problem include.

• Outlook taking longer than normal to open.
• Outlook with “Reading Pane” on
• Outlook Stops Responding when clicking on an email from PayPal.
• If you wait a long time, it will come good, and even show the email message.
• If you are impatient and cancel out of outlook, your reading pane is gone when you next open it.

When loading Outlook you receive a message about and address: Contacting: \\102.112.207.net\b\ss\paypalglobal\1\G.4-NS

Background information

It appears that the cause of this is some malformed tracking cookies being sent from PayPal.

While it could be argued that Outlook should handle this invalid link much better than it does… We all know that Microsoft is responsible for Outlook, so really we should not expect too much in the way of “graceful error handling”. (After 20+ years of Windows system events, they still don’t have an online library of error codes and meanings.)

At the bottom of the message, there is a hidden tracking image. Instead of this image pointing to a web server, it is pointing to a non-existing network share. As it is pointing to a network share and not to a web server, Outlook’s “Internet picture blocking” functionality doesn’t kick in and tries to retrieve the content.

So what to do what to do?

First, I know for a fact that PayPal is aware of this issue, and while it is literally a 10 min fix for the right person, we know that finding the right person probably means contacting the dev team out of India that they hired last month, and asking them to fix their crap!

Oh I have been doing this too long!

Really… what to do!

1. Nothing… If you are patient when opening email messages from PayPal while this issue happens, then they will open.
2. Delete all recent messages from PayPal permanently form both your inbox and deleted items.
3. Turn off the reading pane in Outlook.
4. Turn your Outlook into plain text preview
   
5. Redirect the invalid call using a modification to hosts
   

   ---

   1. Start Notepad as an administrator.
      You can do this by right clicking on the Notepad shortcut in the Start Menu and choosing “Run as administrator”. If you don’t see this option, hold SHIFT while right clicking on it.
   2. Choose File-> Open… and open the following file;
      C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts
   3. Add the following line at the bottom.
      127.0.0.1        102.112.2o7.net
   4. Save the file and close Notepad.

   
   4. Save the file.

6. This will basically route 2o7.net request back to your computer, which will reject it, allowing you to read your emails quickly and in peace once again.
   This fix will work on 32/64 bit versions of both Vista and Win 7

   ---

If you still have a problem

In Microsoft Windows, use the command ipconfig /flushdns to flush the DNS resolver cache. Open the command prompt and type the following:

C:>ipconfig /flushdns
Windows IP Configuration
Successfully flushed the DNS Resolver Cache.



Corporate solution for all computer clients at once

If you are in a corporate network, your system administrators can fix this for everyone at once by adding a Forward Lookup Zone (Primary Zone) for the 102.112.2o7.net domain. Then add an A host record without a name and have it resolve to 127.0.0.1.

After PayPal fix the issue.

The invalid link when fixed will not fix messages already sent with the issue. So unless you permanently delete message with the problem, you will see the trouble each time outlook references them for reading. This is because the reference is totally invalid, not just temporarily down.

Today we are please to announce that the Activity Emailer Module for DotNetNuke, will support and run on DNN 6x.

This single package will now run on all DNN versions from 04.05.05 and later, including DNN 5x (all versions) and DNN 6x.

To Understand the Module

To understand the best use for this module, it is necessary to understand the type of situation it was designed for…

Any business that has a membership database, for example a gym, club or association, church etc. Who currently have an in office database of membership details, and want to run a website that allows members to update their details online, will need a way to have the databases linked from the website back to the membership database in the office.

In many cases we develop custom modules that feed and sync data to a “backend database” to meet specific needs. However sometimes clients simply cannot afford the expense of a customized application that links membership databases.

This module is the cost effective solution. This module sends a simple email to a configured email address with a list of the changes that members who have logged into their website have made. This email can then manually be entered into the “backend database” by staff in the office.

Example

• A local gym with 500 members has a database to manage membership and billing information in the office.

• The office database is proprietary software and although a connection module is possible, the cost of development is prohibitive.

• Membership details are exported from the office to the web.

• Members of the gym are encouraged via promotions etc. to keep their details up to date on the login area of the gyms DNN website.

If you are using the Advanced Email Module for DotNeTNuke, called bulk emailer, and you find that the links you place in your emails are not working when they arrive as an email. Then the fix is simple.

In the Bulk Emailer Settings Menu

Click on the option to Update Link

This will force the module to operate on the URL that you are currently working with on the site. It is necessary when you install the module in a dev URL and then try to operate through another URL such as a final domain name url.

The help for the item reads:

If you change the domain name that this module is operating on, then you should click ‘Update Links’ to reset the base URL for Email Tracking, Unsubscription and View Online.

With our DotNetNuke Image Module, the module comes with several templates. It is possible to modify any of the templates and create images and looks to suite your needs.

The original lightheads template that we use the following html for the thumbnail:

     <div class="iwebs-pic " style="background: url(‘$item.image’) no-repeat scroll 50% 50% transparent;">

     That means the raw image will be used as background image for the thumbnail rectangle. Since the background image will not be cropped or resized, you can only see part of the whole pic.

I You can change the template <div class="iwebs-pic " style="background: url(‘$item.imageresize‘) no-repeat scroll 50% 50% transparent;">

However, in order to keep the proportion, there will be some blank area for each thumbnail.

If you do not care about distortion of the thumbnail and want to fill the blank area any way he can use <div class="iwebs-pic " style="background: url(‘$item.thumbnail’) no-repeat scroll 50% 50% transparent;">

http://www.interactivewebs.com/mushroom-image/Demo/LightBoxEffect.aspx

Other DNN Modules

Posting to your WordPress Blog

We recommend that you use Windows Live Writer to post to your WordPress blog site.

Windows Live Writer (WLW) byMicrosoft is an application for composing and managing blog posts. You can write your posts offline and publish them later. There are many helpful tools in WLW that make creating popular posts easier:

• WYSIWIG using the theme of your blog
• Image manipulation
• Spell check
• Easy HTML tables
• Include maps from Virtual Earth
• Automatically syncs changes before re-editing posts

Download the Windows Live Writer 2011 setup program. If you are using Windows XP you will need this Windows XP Version of Windows Live Writer.

Select “Choose the programs you want to install.”

Uncheck everything except for Writer. Click Install. You’ll be prompted to restart your computer once the install completes.

Note: Please be patient while waiting for the install process. It can take several minutes to install Writer.

Once you have restarted, you can find the new program in your Start Menu. Go to All Programs > Windows Live > Windows Live Writer.

When you start Windows Live Writer for the first time, you’ll be prompted to configure the program to connect to your blog.

• For “What blog service do you use?”, select WordPress and click Next.

• For “Add a blog account”, enter your WordPress blog address, user name, and password, then click Next.

Finish and Your Are Done

If Windows Live Writer cannot detect your blog settings, a screen titled “Select blog type” will appear.

• Type of blog that you are using – make sure WordPress.com is selected from the dropdown box.
• Remote posting web address for your blog – only change blogname to your actual blog name. The URL needs to end in xmlrpc.php.

Once you select your blog type, you’ll be prompted to Download [your] Blog Theme. If your blog is notprivate, click Yes. (This feature will allow you to view your blog post like it’ll look on your blog before publishing.)

The final screen should say “Your blog has been set up.” If you’d like, you may edit the Blog nickname before clicking Finish.

Now, you should see an [untitled] post screen. On the Home tab, your Blog nickname from the previous screen will appear next to the Publish button.

Getting Started With Windows Live Writer

Basic Authoring with Windows Live Writer

How To Blog for SEO Results

If you have your own blog on your company or personal website, or post on others’ blogs, blogging can be a great tool for improving your search engine rank. Google  picks up on new content being added to your website sites, and the more often you add new content, the more often Google will visit you. Especially with WordPress blog sites. Simply throwing up useless blog posts, however, will not do you much good at all. Here are some SEO tips you can use to give results.

Only Relevant Blog Posts

If you are going to be using a blog post to link to one of your website pages, whether internally or externally, you need to try and write relevant content. If you have a website offering Sydney SEO services, blogging about your neighbours new cute dog won’t do you any good at all. Although there are many benefits that come from Blogging, blogs are for people to actually read. Users don’t want to visit your blog post expecting one thing, and end up with your life story. Keep your blog post within the framework of your industry. Save your musings on other subjects for your journal or personal blog.

Target Your Blog Posts

Following the previous point, try to not make your blog posts a wild fantasy journey that takes you from one magical world to the next. Try to have a central theme or idea to your blog post. Some blogs may take on a kind of free-for-all style, where anything goes and one blog post may just be someone recalling how their day went. This is not the best way to use a blog to increase your SEO rankings. Keep your blog, and blog posts targeted to your industry.

Post Only Unique Content

For heaven’s sake, this should not need to be said. Google clearly does not like duplicate content. Do not copy from Wikipedia, or any other site! Write your own stuff, or you will be penalized. Enough said.

Use the Opportunity for Links in Each Post

Obviously, adding new content to your site is great and Google loves it, but each blog post can be a great opportunity to link to some of your pages internally, or to get a link to your site if you are blogging on someone else’s blog. Do not mistake me, I am not suggesting blogging solely for the purpose of a link. But if you are going to blog, don’t waste a good opportunity to get a good link. This will boost your search engine rankings better than anything.

Clearly, the art of blogging is something that can be abused. But if these few steps are followed, I believe many useless and irrelevant blog posts will be prevented from being written.

Not just a Search Engine Optimization Service, but a true Search Engine Marketing Solution.

Search Engine Marketing

The directed marketing of your websites towards producing a natural Google search results, using a range of SEM tricks and tools to deliver results for specific key words.

Website Optimization

The configuration and management of your website to ensure that it is correctly and effectively indexed by Google and other search engines.

AdWords Management

The management of your Google AdWords campaign to ensure that your advertising money delivers that maximum targeted "bang for your buck".

Are you attracting visitors who want your product and are wanting to buy?

Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is a highly specialized field of Online Marketing that analyses your company’s website, and provides proven tools and expertise to improve your website and its visibility in Google, Bing, and other Internet search engines. Improving your search engine performance and rankings attracts higher and more targeted visitors to your website.

Why is Search Engine Marketing so important?

The Internet is Australia’s fastest growing sales channel with some industry commentators indicating that Internet Advertising is growing at 10 times the rate of traditional media advertising. More and more of your customers are looking online for your products are services, and less are looking at the traditional “Yellow Pages”. Most people will look at the first (and sometimes the second) page of Google results to find what they’re looking for. A high ranking becomes a high visibility on the results of Web Search Engines.

There is no silver bullet!

Search Engine Marketing is not something that you can “set and forget” on your website, and then wait for the traffic to come to you. Search Engine Marketing is an ongoing and iterative process of research, competitive analysis, measurement and modifications. InteractiveWebs will work with you, for an initial period of three (3) months, to provide you with dramatically improved results. You’re not locked into an ongoing contract, so you can start seeing the effectiveness of the InteractiveWebs Search Engine Marketing solution, and then make the wise choice of continuing to engage our specialist SEM services.

Why you should use InteractiveWebs SEM solutions.

Search Engine Marketing is a very specialized field, and the goal posts move on almost a daily basis. In order to stay competitive, your SEM team needs to be aware of these changes, and react to them quickly. InteractiveWebs are constantly monitoring these changes, and will supply whatever changes are needed for your website. At InteractiveWebs, we use cutting-edge tools and proven techniques to improve your search engine visibility, and then work with you to maintain and continue to improve those rankings.

See more about the services here: http://www.interactivewebs.com.au/sem/WhatWedoforYou.aspx

Advanced Login module for DotNetNuke works with DotNetNuke 4x, 5x and now 6x.

However because DotNetNuke 6x has some popup effect by default with the login button it interferes with the Advanced Login Module popup mode.

Solution

To fix this issue, the solution is relatively easy.

After selecting “Popup" from the Advanced Login Basic Settings Edit the skin object login and register as follows.

Default Settings

Update to:

Login

#dnn_Login,#dnn_LOGIN1_loginLink

Register

#dnn_USER1_registerLink

Save Tab Changes

Update to Templates

Then we need to make a small mod to the templates. After Selecting the Templates tab, click on Custom Script.

And modify the script to:

jQuery(document).ready(function(){
    /*
     add any custom initialization logic here,
    */
       jQuery("#dnn_LOGIN1_loginLink").attr("onclick","");
       jQuery("#dnn_USER1_registerLink").attr("onclick","");

})
function custom_validate_login(){
    /*
    add any custom login form validation logic here,
    return true if pass validation
    */
    return true;
}
function custom_validate_registration(){
    /*
    add any custom registration form validation logic here,
    return true if pass validation
    */
    return true;
}

Note: We added two new lines highlighted in yellow.

Save Tab Changes and you should be done. With the default skin in DNN 6.0.1, now the advanced login popup mode should work fine. Look at the Advanced Login Module for more assistance with configuring the module with different skins.

Aviation Airline News App launch.

We are pleased this week to announce the release of our latest iPhone / iPad / Touch App. The Aviation Airline News App.

The app is a super covenant way to keep track of news and updates about a range of Airlines and Airline industry news, including:

• Airbus
• Boeing
• IATA
• ICAO
• Qantas Airways
• British Airways
• Virgin Australia
• United Airlines
• Cathay Pacific
• Singapore Airlines
• Delta Airlines
• United Airlines
• Southwest Airlines
• American Airlines
• Lufthansa
• Ryanair
• US Airways
• Emirates
• Continental Airlines

If you are involved in the industry or just interested in what is going on, then this app is a great way to stay updated.

See it on the App Store: http://itunes.apple.com/app/aviation-airline-news/id462360506?mt=8

One of the most common problems experienced by users of hosted email services is that they find they can only send email messages to their own domain.

For Example, if you have two hosted email addresses:

1. ted@mybusiness.com
2. john@mybusiness.com

You find that you can successfully send an email message from one user to another, but when you try to send to any other domain:

1. anything@hotmail.com

You find that the email messages do not send.

Solution

You need to enable “Authentication” in your configured email account settings. There are many client email programs, probably the most common is Outlook.

When you configure an new POP3 email account you normally end up with something that looks like this:

If you click on More Settings / Outgoing Server

and just tick the option to use the same settings as the incoming mail server.

This is all that is needed to enable outbound SMTP authentication.

Background

SMTP Servers (or email servers) are setup to need stop people using them for sending email messages. As strange as that sounds, if they were not setup this way, then anyone could SPAM the world using that email server.

To prevent users from abusing an Open Relay Mail Server, the administrators say that anyone wanting to send email messages from that server to any other server, will need a users name and pass. Almost always this is the same user and pass as the one needed to download your mail from that server.

This this need for user and pass is referred to as “Authentication” and is necessary on almost all servers, other than internet service providers who give you an internet connection. In that instance they authenticate you from your internet connection.

Why Can You Send to Your Own Domain?

Because Email Servers by nature will received email messages to addresses they host. This is part of the process necessary for email messages to be sent and received.

At Owen Hodge Financial Planning we offer advice and create solutions that fit your individual needs. Importantly, our clients have trusted us to deliver worthwhile advice for over 60 years.

We would welcome the opportunity to learn about your financial needs and to offer worthwhile advice that you can benefit from, now and over the long term.

Check out the new website at: http://www.ohfp.com.au/default.htm

Sick of seeing the message “Your session in Microsoft Dynamics CRM is about to expire. To continue working, you must sin in again.” and would like to extend the session time so as not to bother you as often?

This is quite easy with an IFD setup of CRM 2011. We have an IFD configuration and setup that we use to test settings and some of our CRM Portal – Linking to DotNetNuke on.

Taking the server as configured as described here: http://www.interactivewebs.com/blog/index.php/server-tips/microsoft-crm-2011-how-to-configure-ifd-hosted-setup/

We ended up with an ADFS Relying Party Trust that is named “CRM IFD Relaying Party”

This is the name we must use in the Windows PowerShell program to make the necessary changes.

To Extend the Auto Logout of IFD CRM 2011

1. Start Windows PowerShell

2. Copy and Paste the following command into PowerShell and hit enter (you can right click to paste):

Add-PSSnapin Microsoft.Adfs.PowerShell 

3. Check you have the correct name of the Relying party trust by typing the following:

Get-ADFSRelyingPartyTrust -Name "relying_party"

Where you replace “replying_party” with the name of your relying party trust. In our case we would use:

Get-ADFSRelyingPartyTrust -Name "CRM IFD Relaying Party"

You should see a bunch of junk, indicating that you have the correct name:

4. Now type the following command:

Set-ADFSRelyingPartyTrust -Targetname "relying_party" -TokenLifetime 480

Where you replace the “relying_party” with the name of your relying party. Again in our case we would use:

Set-ADFSRelyingPartyTrust -Targetname "CRM IFD Relaying Party" -TokenLifetime 480

Note that the 480 is in minutes. You can change that value up or down as required.

We chose to use 24 hours for example.

That’s all there is to it. Close the PowerShell and you are done.

Microsoft CRM 2011 allows XRM services that use application/soap+xml content type.

When you install Microsoft CRM 2011 in an IFD / hosted environment, it is smart enough to automatically configure IIS gzip compression on the website.

What it does not do, is configure the

C:\Windows\System32\Inetsrv\Config\applicationHost.config

file to compress XRM calls out of the CRM database.

In a test we were performing for an update to our Microsoft CRM 2011 Portal technology, we found that retrieving a list of around 20,000 items returned a 19 MB data package without gzip dynamic compression. Not huge but pretty big! What amazed us was that after enabling dynamic compression on the XRM data, this reduced from 19 MB to 890 KB, a huge performance improvement!

We also noticed that the Microsoft Hosted CRM 2011 service already has this compression enabled, so we figured if it is good enough for them, then we should give it a shot.

How to Enable XRM gzip Compression in IIS

Navigate to: C:\Windows\System32\Inetsrv\Config\applicationHost.config

and open it in your favourite editor.

Search for the Section: “<httpCompression directory=”

And in that section you will probably find an entry that looks like this:

<add mimeType="application/x-javascript" enabled="true" />

Below that, add the following:

<add mimeType="application/soap+xml" enabled="true" />

So the file looks like this:

Note: We are making the assumption that you are on Windows 2008, and that CRM 2011 was successfully installed, and that this in turn enabled IIS compression on the Microsoft CRM website.

These steps should massively improve data access to CRM using XRM calls.

Typically this limit is set to 5000 but with some types of calls it will return 7000. In any case, the process to remove the limit and set it to 20,000 is very easy.

On the server running CRM

1. Click Start, click Run, type regedit in the Open box, and then click OK.
2. Locate and then select the following registry subkey:

   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\MSCRM

3. On the Edit menu, point to New, and then click DWORD Value.
   
4. Type TurnOffFetchThrottling, and then press ENTER.
   
5. Right-click TurnOffFetchThrottling, and then click Modify.
   
6. Type a number other than 0 in the Value data box, and then click OK.
   

   
   Note Step 6 lets you retrieve the number of records specified in the Count attribute of your fetch statement.

7. On the File menu, click Exit.
   

InteractiveWebs DotNetNuke Modules require a license to be activates on each sub domain from which the module is accessed.

The license is per sub domain, and NOT for each instance of DotNetNuke.

A sub domain example is:

1. www.domain.com
2. dev1.domain.com
3. domain.com

In the case of domain.com and www.domain.com, these are considered as one single license. EVERY other sub domain needs it’s own license.

If you activate a module on dev.domain.com then browse to the same module using another sub domain (like dev2.domain.com) the module will not be activate with the new sub domain in the browser URL.

Trial

Each module will automatically enter into a 100% functional TRIAL mode the first time you access the module with any particular sub domain.

The trial period is automatically set from the date you first visit the module with any particular sub domain.

Example

If you access dev1.domain.com the module will start it’s trial period from today, and may expire if you don’t activate.

If you then use another sub domain like dev2.domain.com the module will start a new trial and you will continue to be able to access the module on that dev2.domain.com sub domain.

Note: All the settings and modifications you make to any module in trial WILL be preserved and waiting for you once you activate the module license. So if your trial expires on your development sub domain, you can simply activate the module in it’s final www.domain.com location when you are ready to go live.

Before You Activate

We recommend that if you need to configure and test (development site) before going live, that you do that on a development sub domain (like dev.domain.com), IN TRIAL MODE.

From that dev.domain.com, Setup the module, test and be sure things are working. Don’t be concerned if you get things just right, and the trial time expires. Because as soon as you access the module page on a new sub domain, it will go back into trial, and be available fro activation.

All your module settings and customizations will carry over to the new sub domain when you access it. So in this example, if you are ready to go live with www.domain.com you can access the module page with that sub domain, and extend the trial, or activate the module.

For this reason we always suggest that you only activate your module on www.domain.com as your final public URL of your website.

To Activate Your Module

Select the Licensing Dropdown Menu Item from the module Menu:

The module will tell you about the Module Name, Version Installed, sub domain you are on, and trial days remaining.

If you have not purchased a License yet, you can click the Buy Now icon and purchase a license from our site.

Note: Check that the sub domain shown in the module is the final correct sub domain you wish your license to be active on:

Click: Request License Activation

Fill in the details requested, including the store you purchase from and the email address that you used with your purchase.

Note: The email address must be the one you have on file. With SnowCovered, it is apparently possible to have more than one address on file. The address we need is the one that is in the purchase order confirmation data sent during purchase. This is the accounts primary e-mail address.

Wrong License E-mail Address

If we are unable to match the email address against a valid license activation, we return the error:

We suggest that you verify the email address used for purchase and try again with the correct address. You can also monitor your License Management on our site by logging in with the email address that you try to activate with.

Correct License E-mail Address

With the correct details, you will receive a message like this:

Managing Licenses

You can monitor your licenses and activations by visiting our License Management page here.

Ensuring that you login to our site using the e-mail address that the license was purchased with.

Module Support

We provide several Support services for our modules.

1. Where necessary our modules come with extensive manuals (like our bulkemailer module).
2. Each Module has it’s own pages on our website. Visit the module website by clicking on the correct module from this list: http://www.interactivewebs.com/DotNetNukeModules.aspx

Then use the support menu to find module specific support. This will include KB Articles, Support Forums, Blog Posts.

Today we have launched a new Sydney Photography Website for John Armytage Photography.

One of Sydney’s newest professional photography specialists, John has launched this website to support the sale of some of the tremendous photos he takes.

Check out all the details at: http://www.johnarmytagephotography.com

Bouncing around the place today putting some updates to the Microsoft News App for iPhone and iPad.

One of the big sites for information and news around Microsoft for Mac products is naturally their own website.

What we did find interesting was the blog site on this Microsoft web page:

Is actually running on WordPress.

http://blog.officeformac.com/

Which makes perfect sense to us, as we run the http://www.interactivewebs.com website blog on WordPress too. It really is so good for blogs, that at this time there is nothing better around.

We like it so much that we are recommending it to all our clients as a supportive SEO / SEM tool to bring hits to their site. We have setup our on server environment specifically for blog sites (and can offer hosted WordPress sites).

Just like the fact that good old Microsoft has dumped using their “junk blogs” in favour of a WP site.

This week we have launched our newest iPhone and iPad App. Joomla News.

The app is an easy to way to stay informed with the Joomla community.

Download the App now form iTunes

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If you use IE9, you must be familiar with this message: “Only secure content is displayed.”

This kind of messages are implemented by Microsoft because they want to inform you that you are about to access some unsecured content on a website. This is actually a security purpose message. Unfortunately, this kind of messages are more often annoying or unnecessary than useful. Internet explorer show this message when the same website page contain both secured and unsecured content: in this way, some unsecured scripts may have access to secured data on that page. Same thing happens when you play a game (unsecured scripts) on Facebook and want to publish that game information on your wall (secured action).

1. Launch Internet Explorer.
2. Go to Tools -> Internet Options.

Then, navigate to Security tab.

3. Click on “Custom level” button.

4. Search for “Display mixed content” under Miscellaneous section. Change it to enable.

Select Yes and that’s all.

The module is now ready for use on DotNetNuke 6x versions, and can be seen here:

http://www.interactivewebs.com/mushroom-image/Demo/LightBoxEffect.aspx

pulling feeds directly from Flickr in this instance. Use the Demo menu to see other examples.

The module is now ready for use on DotNetNuke 6x versions, and can be seen here:

http://www.interactivewebs.com/mushroom-lite/Demo/MushroomLiteDemo.aspx

pulling feeds directly from our blog here: http://www.interactivewebs.com/blog/

New Account

Next

Next

Enter:

• Your Name
• Your Domain Email address in the format: first.last@yourdomain.com
• Your Password (as used to access webmail)

Next

Comes up with a message about encryption. That’s expected

Tick the Manually Configure server Settings (bottom left) Next

More Settings

OK

Update Both the Incoming and Outgoing servers to: mail.interactivewebs.com

Finish

Your New IMAP Account is configured with Encrypted Communications.

Next

Next

Enter:

• Your Name
• Your Domain Email address in the format: first.last@yourdomain.com
• Your Password (as used to access webmail)

Next

Comes up with a message about encryption. That’s expected

Next

Finish

Your New IMAP Account is configured.

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Since we published an extensive set of step by step instructions on how to setup CRM 2011 as an Internet Facing Deployment IFD.

We have continued on to find a few issues with the Email Router Tool that are probably worth sharing.

The Tool Does Not Connect to Exchange 2010 like the CRM 4.0 tool.

We had a previous test environment that included CRM 4.0 and the well patched Email Router Tool. It was talking nicely to Exchange Server 2010 using the Exchange Web Service URL: https://server.domain.com/EWS/Exchange.asmx

In our instance the HTTPS was configured with an service signed certificate that was a trusted provider. In other words. We purchase an expensive certificate and used that for testing a real world deployment. No self signed junk.

That all hummed nicely, but we find that in CRM 2011, the Email Router Incoming Settings, using the same settings are worked in 4.0 fails.

Name: FirstName Last Name
Incoming Status: Failure – No results were found.

Note: It is worth noting that after you import an Organization into CRM 2011 from CRM 4.0 that all the user credentials in each users CRM E-mail setting for user defined access:

have the wrong passwords. They need to be reset.

We have not fixed this yet!

Try as we may, and generally we know what we are doing with this stuff, we have not as yet found a solution. We tried heaps of things, from opening up Non SSL access to the Exchange Server to running REG EDITS on the CRM server. Nothing as yet!

We can verify that the URL can be hit from the CRM server (Where the Email Router Resides) and that the return of information is the same as it was for CRM 4.0 Email Router.

We also have verified that the Error Changes once user pass words are made invalid.

Incoming Status: Failure – The remote Microsoft Exchange e-mail server returned the error “(401) Unauthorized”. Verify that you have permission to connect to the mailbox. The request failed with HTTP status 401: Unauthorized.

Indicating that it is authenticating correctly.

We have deployed Rollup 2 at this time, and really are starting to think it is a bug. So we are about to get the BIG Microsoft Involved with a support ticket. Will let you know how that works out.

One Big Problem

We did not think a lot of the issue, and left our test Environment sitting doing a few things that included a DotNetNuke integration that was running some automatic billing processes from web service calls into CRM. This generated email messages in CRM that needed to be sent, and naturally the email router would have sorted that.

Again, we thought nothing of that.

We also noted that huge amounts of memory were being allocated toward the CRM test server in Hyper-V. Like 12-14 GB. That that was high, being that it was a SQL server and website in essence. Memory sits nicely at around 3-4 GB if things are working well.

What we have since discovered is that with the invalid inbound CRM – Exchange access, the CRM Email Router service consumed huge amounts of memory (Over 48 GB if allowed), and also bogged down process time to the point that nothing else ran on the server.

She’s a Fickle Bitch! and obviously there is a memory leak of epic proportions there some place.

The solution, was to remove the invalid Inbound Rule while we sort out what the heck is going on with the program.

Stay Tuned….

UPDATE

After much mucking around, we found our problem.

In our instance the Default Global Address List had us listed, but our mailbox was tied to another custom address list, that was not listing our address correctly due to a typo. The access to the GA was being blocked by custom security settings.

This comes back to the same post above. Although nothing to do with the check box about  “Hide from Exchange address lists” – we were in effect being hidden from the address list that mattered.

Although the default DNN login is much improved, the advanced login module offers a range of especially useful feature that can greatly improve the users experience.

http://www.interactivewebs.com/advancedlogin/DNNLoginModule.aspx

A possible error was introduced with DotNetNuke 05.06.03 that caused certain types of post backs to generate an error:

Invalid postback or callback argument. Event validation is enabled using <pages enableeventvalidation="true" /> in configuration or <%@ page enableeventvalidation="true" %> in a page. For security purposes, this feature verifies that arguments to postback or callback events originate from the server control that originally rendered them. If the data is valid and expected, use the ClientScriptManager.RegisterForEventValidation method in order to register the postback or callback data for validation.

Details: http://www.dotnetnuke.com/Resources/Wiki/loc/print/Page/Event-validation.aspx

This error was introduced into the Advanced Login module, when the registration form was set to use the auto filling Country / Region Selector.

We have produced a fix for this in release version: 45.03.22 of our module. Update to this or a later version if you are receiving the above error.

Another Fix

If you are not using our modules and you receive this, you can resolve it by setting EnableEventValidation to false in the web.config.

Note: The above website mentions that this is “not ideal”. That is not really accurate. The change to the web.config for this has little to no effect on anything else at all.

Today we posted a blog about How to configure IFD Hosted Setup in CRM 2011

Following on from that we tested the migration from CRM 4.0 hosted CRM instillations to the newly configured test environment for CRM 2011.

We ran into a few problems (and a few things we did not know) and thought others may benefit from this.

CRM Migration

The process was reasonably simple for us and for that reason we will just list the steps.

1. Backup the CRM 4.0 database to file.
2. On the new CRM 2011 SQL server, perform a normal SQL database restore from the backup file.
3. Use the CRM 2011 deployment tool to “Import and Organisation”. Specifying the obvious settings for the database selection and user mapping. (In our case, we were on the same domain, so user mapping was easy).

All this worked well, but there were a few problems when we went to browse the new Org from outside the server. In other words, using the IFD to access the org.

Internally the org was accessible with https://internalcrm.domain.com/orgname  but external access: https://orgname.domain.com:xxx  failed.

The Problems

First one

Was simple but only because we have seen it before. Originally we had accessed the org from our IE 9 browser with https://org.domain.com and accessed the CRM 4.0 IFD. Actually we used it for over a year.

Now we wanted to use the new IFD on CRM 2011, but on the same browser. We found when going to: https://org.domain.com:444 that the browser was not even rendering the request for user name and pass that we expected:

The IE failure gave no message or indication of why. Basically a 404 failure to hit anything useful.

Yet in another “real browser” (not IE) we could at least get prompted for user and pass info.

The Cause

IE really sucks with clearing old data. The delete all / clear cache / remove cookies appears on the outset to dump everything, but it does not. In our case, it cached something from the previous connection to CRM 4.0 that was killing our access. We then also deleted data in “C:\Windows\Temp”  Can’t explain what the cause is… I would just rather put it down to the fact that IE 9 “blow chunks” (big ones).

The solution is to manually navigate to the Temporary Internet Files directory under Windows, and manually delete everything you find in there. That fixes the page rendering issue.
More information here: http://www.interactivewebs.com/blog/index.php/crm/crm-2011-server-error-404-file-or-directory-not-found/

The Second One

Second, we entered a user name and pass, and received a message:

There was a problem accessing the site. Try to browse to the site again. If the problem persists, contact the administrator of this site and provide the reference number to identify the problem. Reference number: numbers

There was a matching set of AD FS 2.0 Event Logs that looked like this:

A token request was received for a relying party identified by the key ‘https://org.domain.com:444/default.aspx’, but the request could not be fulfilled because the key does not identify any known relying party trust.
Key: https://org.domain.com:444/default.aspx

This request failed.

User Action
If this key represents a URI for which a token should be issued, verify that its prefix matches the relying party trust that is configured in the AD FS configuration database.

and

Encountered error during federation passive request.

Additional Data

Exception details:
Microsoft.IdentityServer.Web.InvalidScopeException: MSIS7007: The requested relying party trust ‘https://org.domain.com:444/default.aspx’ is unspecified or unsupported. If a relying party trust was specified, it is possible that you do not have permission to access the trust relying party. Contact your administrator for details.
at Microsoft.IdentityServer.Web.FederationPassiveAuthentication.SubmitRequest(MSISRequestSecurityToken request)
at Microsoft.IdentityServer.Web.FederationPassiveAuthentication.RequestBearerToken(MSISSignInRequestMessage signInRequest, SecurityTokenElement onBehalfOf, SecurityToken primaryAuthToken, String desiredTokenType, Uri& replyTo)
at Microsoft.IdentityServer.Web.FederationPassiveAuthentication.RequestBearerToken(MSISSignInRequestMessage signInRequest, SecurityTokenElement onBehalfOf, SecurityToken primaryAuthToken, String desiredTokenType, MSISSession& session)
at Microsoft.IdentityServer.Web.FederationPassiveAuthentication.BuildSignInResponseCoreWithSerializedToken(String signOnToken, WSFederationMessage incomingMessage)
at Microsoft.IdentityServer.Web.FederationPassiveAuthentication.BuildSignInResponseCoreWithSecurityToken(SecurityToken securityToken, WSFederationMessage incomingMessage)
at Microsoft.IdentityServer.Web.FederationPassiveAuthentication.BuildSignInResponseForProtocolRequest(FederationPassiveContext federationPassiveContext, SecurityToken securityToken)
at Microsoft.IdentityServer.Web.FederationPassiveAuthentication.BuildSignInResponse(SecurityToken securityToken)

The solution

An easy one, but something we did not know. With CRM 2011 in IFD. Each time you add an org, you need to update your Relying Party Trusts from Federation Metadata. Big words that mean…

1. Open AD FS Management Tool
2. Expand Trust Relationships
3. Click on Relying Party Trusts
4. Click on you IFD Trust, Right Click and Select Update From Federation Metadata

I have no idea why this is not automatically updated every time the service starts, or even every time the service is called upon….

In any case, that fixed the issue and we are on our way for testing our CRM – DotNetNuke integration suite with CRM 2011 and DotNetNuke 6.0. Wish us luck.

Today we released a version of Word Editor that is ready and tested on DotNetNuke 06.00.00 release.

The popular Word Editor module allows users to edit the content of HTML on a DotNetNuke website using Microsoft Word 2007 or later.

If you have not seen the module, check out the website here:

http://www.interactivewebs.com/dnnwordeditor/AboutDNNWordEditor.aspx

Or the online demo here: http://demo.interactivewebs.com.au/dnnwordeditor_demo/dnnwordeditor_demo.htm

A Microsoft Team Member Accessing one of their White Papers!

Having just beaten the Microsoft CRM IFD challenge, I felt it necessary to blog about how mush I dislike the way Microsoft supply data about their own products.

The image above is not too far from the truth. You read a pile of “bla bal” data, only to find that the detail about the really important and difficult part is vague and relies on prior knowledge or experience to complete.

Evidence of this is the number of internal blogs, videos and instructional information that is always produced by MS team members and community members explaining the real low down on how to get their stuff to work.

Want to know what a White Paper is?

Google “Microsoft White Papers”

Returns this:

That opens to this:

This gives a URL: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=5672

That fails to this:

GO Microsoft!

So their Bing steps in with a suggestion. Did I mean

Do you mean service providers bus resources bizreswp?

What?

Really Microsoft, things should be getting better, not worse!

So after reading the White Papers, blogs and YouTube videos on the topic, I figured I would need notes for myself as much as anything. This is mostly because I am yet to find one single example that covered the setup I was after. That being:

Single Server

On an existing domain

Running true IFD ready for customer access.

The last point it telling, as all the Microsoft examples give a self generated SSL cert, that really is an example of a DEV environment only. We want to test the “real deal”, and don’t mind spending a few $ on a real Certificate to see this in a true working environment.

The Existing Setup

Because this is a test environment, we are running the server on a Hyper V server. A single VM machine, that is running a fully patched version of:

• Windows 2008 R2 SP1 64 Bit
• SQL 2008 R2 64 Bit
• Microsoft CRM 2011 64 Bit

Interesting enough, something that always takes me 15 min, it ensuring I download the correct version of the ISO files from MSDN. I get it that I am somewhat lame, but if you get a wrong version you can waste a load of time and energy later.

With a list looking like this it can be painful. Anyway, these are the files we used for install:

For those who care, the VM was set to run with 6000 MB ram, and fold out to use more.

Importantly

When we setup CRM, we selected the option to NOT use the default website, but configure a new one with the default settings of port 5555. This is necessary as you will see later.

Backup First

In all things Microsoft world, it is vital what you establish a working point to avoid unnecessarily installing things all over again. To get things working we have started fresh over 4 times.

Hyper V is great for this, as we just stopped the server, and made a copy of the VHD file. Then when it is time to start all over, it is just a matter of restoring from copy/backup.

Test First

Test that your CRM setup is working. Go to the local computer name (ours is VSERVER08) on the correct port: http://vserver08:5555

We called our Deployment of CRM – "CRM2011” So the URL redirects to: http://vserver08:5555/CRM2011/main.aspx

and after being prompted for login, we are in and testing.

Apply a Wildcard SSL Certificate

In CRM, the accessing of deployments is handled by the sub domains. So if we call a deployment “business1” we will access that as:  https://business1.domain.com

For testing, we purchased a standard Wildcard SSL certificate that applied that to the IIS7 server.

We will let you work out that bundle of joy, but a few tips.

1. Godaddy was about as cheap as you find on the net.

2. Setup involves creating a certificate request from within IIS, then pasting that text into the online providers order system. They then generate the certificates that you then import back into IIS and the server.

3.

Application for a certificate

Here, I will be a wildcard certificate, for example, describes how to create a certificate:

1) Open IIS Manager

2) Click the server name in the main screen double click Server Certificates

3) In the right panel, click Create Certificate Request…

4) fill in the following diagram each column, click Next

5) Cryptographic Service Provider Properties page to keep the default, click Next.

6) In the File Name page, enter C: \ req.txt , and then click Finish.

7) Run cmd , run

certreq-submit -attrib "CertificateTemplate: WebServer" C: \ req.txt

Select the CA , click OK.

9) the certificate is stored as C: \ Wildcard.cer . ( 7-9 can also be in the CA to complete)

10) back to the IIS Manager, click No. 3)  Step graph Complete Certificate Request …

11) Select the C: \ Wildcard.cer , Friendly name named *. contoso.com , of course, you can take a different name.

12) Click OK.

13) so that we completed the wildcard certificate request.

Additional SSL Certificate Imports

1) RUN MMC at the start / search

2) Select File / Add Remove Snapin – Select Certificates – ADD

Computer Account

NEXT / Finish

3) Expand the first two folders, and Right Click on the Certificates Folder and select: All Tasks /  Import.

4) Browse to your wildcard SSL certificate file, and import that into the Personal and Trusted Root Certification Authorities.

Ensure that you

Binding site for the default SSL certificate

1) Open IIS Manager.

2) In the Connections panel, expand Sites , click Default Web Site.

3) In the Actions pane, click Bindings.

4) In the Site Bindings dialog box, click Add.

5) Type select HTTPS.

6) SSL Certificate , select the certificate you just created *. contoso.com , and then click OK.

Ours is interactivewebs.com

7) Click Close.

Repeat for the Personal certificate folder.

For the CRM 2011 binding site SSL certificate

1) Open IIS Manager.

2) In the Connections panel, expand Sites , click CRM Web Site.

3) In the Actions pane, click Bindings.

4) In the Site Bindings dialog box, click Add.

5) Type select HTTPS.

6) SSL Certificate , select the certificate you just created *. contoso.com .

7) Port to select a different 443 (e.g. 444 ) and port number, and then click OK

Click Close.

DNS configuration

For MS CRM 2011 configuration Claims-based authentication, you need the DNS to add some records to make CRM 2011 for each breakpoint can be resolved correctly.

There are two ways you can achieve the desired result. But first lets understand the desired result.

1. We make the assumption that your server is running at least one static IP address.
2. Because this is Internet Facing, that IP needs to be accessible to the world.
3. That same IP can be used for access to your server both internally on the matching we are playing with, and externally form anyone on the net.

Lets Get Basic

Start a Command Prompt, and work out what your IP address of the server is.

Click START > RUN > CMD

Type IPCONFIG – Enter

Under the name: IPv4 Address is a number that looks like: 66.34.204.220

That is Your IP Address of the Server.

The DNS Goal

Make sure that when you PING xxx.domain.com that it points to that IP address. Both for the world and for you when you do that on your server.

(xxx is the sub domain that we are about to configure.)

To configure CRM, we need some sub domains to point to the server IP.

1. sts.domain.com
2. auth.domain.com
3. dev.domain.com
4. Your ORG name.  org.domain.com (Where ORG is the CRM deployment name of your organization or organizations), e.g.

We have two setup here: CRM and CRM2011. So we need to configure crm.interactivewebs.com and crm2011.interactivewebs.com.

Hosting Your Own DNS

If you host your own Domain Name Server (DNS) and you host the domain name that you are using to setup IFD. Then configuring an A record for the above mentioned sub domains is easy.

START > Administrative Tools > DNS

Find your Domain Name

Right Click and select NEW HOST A

Add an A record that points to your servers IP address.

Repeat this process for all of the above mentioned sub domains. auth, sts1, dev, and your own organization names.

Test DNS

You must be able to ping all of those names and get the correct server IP address. Both from computers on the internet, and from the server.

Note: If you have added the DNS records, but still encounter name resolution problems, you can try running on the client ipconfig / flushdns to clean up the cache. You can also click the DNS server root and click CLEAR CACHE so that the server is responding with the latest updates.

Note: Don’t bother proceeding past this step if you cannot ping your sub domains internally and externally correctly.

Firewall configuration

You need to set the firewall to allow the CRM 2011 and the AD FS 2.0 port used by the incoming data stream. HTTPS (SSL) is the default port 443.

For Initial setup testing etc. We recommend just turning the thing off. Better start from a place where it does not muck you around, then turn it all back on after you are successful.

Configuration Claim-based authentication -internal access

Configure the internal access Claim-based authentication requires the following steps:

• Install and configure AD FS 2.0 .
• Set Claims-based authentication configuration CRM 2011 server.
• Set the Claims-based authentication configuration AD FS 2.0 server.
• Test claims-based authentication within the access.

Install and configure AD FS 2.0

CRM 2011 with a variety of STS provider ( STS Provider ) together. This article uses Active Directory Federation Services (AD FS) 2.0 to provide a security token service (security token service ).

Note: AD FS 2.0 will be installed to the default site, so install AD FS 2.0 , you must have CRM 2011 installation in the new site. (Remember we said that earlier)

IIS Looks like this if it is correctly installed:

If you only see the default website with CRM installed in that. Start AGAIN!

Download the AD FS 2.0

From the following link to download the AD FS 2.0

Active Directory Federation Services 2.0 RTW( http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=204237 ).

Install AD FS 2.0

In the installation wizard, select the federation server role installed, for more information refer to

Install the AD FS 2.0 Software( http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=192792 ).

Configure AD FS 2.0

1 in the AD FS 2.0 server, click Start , then click AD FS 2.0 Management .

2 In the AD FS 2.0 Management page , click AD FS 2.0 Federation Server Configuration Wizard .

3 In the Welcome page , select Create a new Federation Service , and then click Next.

4 In the Select Deployment Type page , select Stand-alone Federation Server , and then click Next.

5 Choose your SSL certificate (the choice of a certificate created *. contoso.com ) ,add a Federation Service name ( for example , sts1.contoso.com), and then click Next.

Note: Only you as the AD FS 2.0 sites when using the wildcard certificate, only need to add the Federation Service name.

6 Summary page, click Next.

7 Click Close to close the AD FS 2.0 Configuration Wizard.

Note: If you have not added ( sts1.contoso.com ) to add DNS records, then do it now.

Verify the AD FS 2.0 is working

Follow the steps below to verify that the AD FS 2.0 is working :

1 Open Internet Explorer.

2 Enter the federation metadata of the URL , for example:

https://sts1.contoso.com/federationmetadata/2007-06/federationmetadata.xml

3. to ensure that no certificate associated with the warning appears.

Claims-based authentication configuration CRM 2011server

After you install and configure the AD FS 2.0 , we need to configure the Claims-based authentication before setting CRM 2011 binding types ( Binding type ) and the root domain (root Domains) .

According to the following steps to set up CRM 2011 bound for the HTTPS and configure the root domain address :

1 Open the CRM Deployment Manager.

2 In the Actions pane , click Properties .

3 Click the Web Address page .

4 In the Binding Type , select HTTPS .

5. Ensure that the network address for the binding CRM 2011 site SSL certificate and SSL ports. Because you configured for internal access to Claims-based authentication, so the address of the host for the root domain name. Port number must IIS in CRM 2011 is set in the port the same site.

6 For example, *. contoso.com wildcard certificate, you can useinternalcrm.contoso.com: 444 as the network address.

7 Click OK .

Note: If the CRM Outlook client configuration using the old binding value, then the need to be updated to use the new value. + Make sure you have a DNS entry for: internalcrm.

From the CRM 2011 is passed to the AD FS 2.0 of Claims data you need to use the Claims-Based Authentication Configuration Wizard (described below) specified in the certificate for encryption. Therefore, CRM Web application CRMAppPool account must have read the certificate’s private key encryption ( Read ) permissions.According to the following steps to give this permission:

1 in CRM 2011 server , run the Microsoft Management Console (Start => Run MMC).

2 Click Files => Add / Remove Snap-in …

3 left panel, select Certificates , click Add to add to the right panel.

4 In the pop-up window, select Computer account .

5 next page, select Local Computer , click Finish .

6 Click OK .

7 Expand the Certificates ( Local Computer ) => Personal, select Certificates .

8. In the middle panel, right-click you will be in the Claims-Based Authentication Configuration Wizard to specify the encryption certificate (in this case *. contoso.com ), click All Tasks => Manage Private Keys.

9 Click Add , add CRMAppPool account (if you are using Network Service , select the account directly), and then give Read permissions.

Note: You can use IIS Manager to view CRMAppPool what account to use. In the Connections panel , click Application Pools , and then see CRMAppPool under Identity .

10 Click OK .

Configure Claims-Based Authentication

Below, we setup Claims-Based Authentication Configuration Wizard ( Configure Claims-Based Authentication Wizard ) to configure the Claims-Based Authentication. To learn how PowerShell to configure Claims-Based Authentication, refer to the English original.

1) Open the Deployment Manager.

2) on the left navigation panel, right-click Microsoft Dynamics CRM , and then click Configure Claims-Based Authentication.

3) click Next.

4) In the Specify the security token service page , enter the Federation metadata URL, such as

https://sts1.interactivewebs.com/federationmetadata/2007-06/federationmetadata.xml

Note: The data is usually in the AD FS 2.0 website. Can this URL copied into IE to seeFederation metadata , to ensure that this is the correct URL . Using IE to access the URL can not have a certificate-related warnings (Ignore that crap!)

5) Click Next .

6) In the Specify the encryption certificate page , click on Select…

7) select a certificate, where we choose *.interactivewebs.com.

This certificate is used to encrypt the transmitted AD FS 2.0 authentication security token service security token.

Note: Microsoft Dynamics CRM service account must have the private key encryption certificate Read permission.

10 Click Next . Claims-Based Authentication Configuration Wizard validates the token and certificate you specified.

11 In the System Checks page, if the test passed, click Next .

12 In the Review your selections and then click Apply page , just to confirm the input, and then click Apply .

13. On this page, note which of the URL , because then, you will use this URL to add a trusted party ( Relying Party ) to the security token service.

14 IMPORTANT – Click View Log File

15 Scroll to the end, and Copy the URL from the bottom of the file.

- This will be used in the next configuration. Note that this is different to the URL used in step 4 above, as it represents the internal URL. Subtle but vital (and the cause of frustration the first 10 times we tried this).

16 Click Finish.

17 Validate that you can browse to the URL above. If you cannot view this in a browser, then have a look again at your permissions on the certificate in relation to the account on the application pool in IIS for CRM. Read above: Claims-based authentication configuration CRM 2011server.

18. Once you can browse this URL, you are done here.

Claims-based authentication configuration AD FS 2.0server

After completion of the previous step, the next step we need AD FS 2.0 to add and configure the statement provider trust ( claims Provider trusts ) and the relying party trust ( Relying Party trusts ).

Configure claims provider trusts

You need to add a claims rule come from Active Directory to obtain user ‘s UPN (user principal name) and then as a UPN delivered to MS CRM . Follow these steps to configure the AD FS 2.0 to UPN LDAP attribute as a claim is sent to the relying party ( Relying Party ):

1 installed in the AD FS 2.0 on the server , open AD FS 2.0 Management.

2 In the Navigation Pane , expand the Trust Relationships , and then click the Claims Provider Trusts.

3 In the Claims Provider Trusts under , right-click Active Directory , and then click Edit Claims Rules.

4 in the Rules Editor , click Add Rule.

5. In Claim rule template list , select the Send LDAP Attributes as Claims template ,and then click Next.

6 Create the following rule:

• Claim rule name: UPN Claim Rule ( or other descriptive name )

· Add the following mapping:

• Attribute Store: Active Directory
• LDAP Attribute: User Principal Name
• Outgoing Claim Type: UPN

7 Click Finish , then click OK close the Rules Editor.

Configuration relying party trusts

In the open claims-based authentication, you must ensure CRM 2011 server configured as a relying party to use from the AD FS 2.0 statement to internal access claims certification.

1 Open AD FS 2.0 Management.

2 In the Actions menu, click Add Relying Party Trust.

3 In the Add Relying Party Trust Wizard , click Start.

4 In the Select Data Source page , click Import Data about the Relying Party Online or published on a local Network , enter the positioning federation metadata.xml file URL.

Federation metadata is set Claims when created. Use Claims-Based Authentication Configuration Wizard. The URL used here is IMPORTANT – Read point 14 in the above section. It is the URL retrieved from the VIEW LOG FILE That we did when  from configuration of Claims Based Authentication:  In this case

https://internalcrm.interactivewebs.com:444/FederationMetadata/2007-06/FederationMetadata.xml

Note: Ensure that no certificate-related warnings appear when hitting the URL.

5 Click Next .

6 In the Specify Display Name page , enter a display name, such as CRM Claims Relying Party , and then click Next.

7 In the Choose Issuance Authorization Rules page , choose Permit All users to access this Relying Party , and then click Next.

8 In the Ready to Add Trust page , click Next , then click Close .

9. When the Rule Editor appears , click Add Rule . Otherwise , the Relying Party Trusts list , right-click you create a relying party objects, click the Edit Claims Rules , and then click Add Rule.

10. In Claim rule template list , select the Pass Through or Filter an Incoming Claim template, and then click Next.

11 create the following rule:

     · Claim rule name: Pass Through UPN ( or other descriptive name )

· Add the following mapping:

• Incoming claim type: UPN
• Pass through All claim values

12 Click Finish .

13 In the Rule Editor , click Add Rule , in Claim rule template list , select the Pass Through or Filter an Incoming Claim template , and then click Next :

   · Claim rule name: Pass Through Primary SID ( or other descriptive name )

   · Add the following mapping:

•      Incoming claim type: Primary SID
•      Pass through All claim values

14 Click Finish .

15 In the Rule Editor , click Add Rule

16. In Claim rule template list , select the Transform an Incoming Claim template , and then click Next.

17 create the following rule:

   · Claim rule name: Transform Windows Account Name to Name ( or other descriptive name )

• Incoming claim type: Windows account name
• Outgoing claim type: Name
• Pass through All claim values

18 Click Finish , to create a good three rule later , click OK close the Rule Editor

Test claims-based authentication within the access

You should now be able to use the claims certified to the internal access CRM 2011 a

1 Open the Deployment Manager.

2 Expand the Deployment Manager node , and then click on Organizations .

3 Right-click your organization , and then click Browse . so you can open the CRM web page of ( for example: https://internalcrm.contoso.com:444 ).

Trouble Shooting

If the CRM web page can not be displayed, then run the following iisreset and then try again.

If the CRM web page still does not show, then you may need to setup AD FS 2.0 server setup a SPN (Service Principal Name) . Re-run the Claims-Based Authentication Wizard, and then browse to the Specify the security token service page, note the AD FS 2.0 server in the Federation metadata URL in the name. (In this case sts1.interactivewebs.com )

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/crm/archive/2009/08/06/configuring-service-principal-names.aspx

1 Open a command line tool .

2 Enter the following command : ( application, in your own environment, substitute the name of the name of the command line )

c: \> setspn -a http/sts1.interactivewebs.com fserver4\VSERVER08$

fserver4\VSERVER08 = the domain and machine name of the server.

c: \> iisreset

3 and then re-access the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Server 2011 site, so you should be able to successfully access to the CRM 2011 Web page.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg188614.aspx

If you receive ADFS – sts1 errors.

There was a problem accessing the site. Try to browse to the site again.
If the problem persists, contact the administrator of this site and provide the reference number to identify the problem.
Reference number: xxx

And or if you look in your log files under ADFS 2.0 You will see errors like this.

In our case, this was because we used the external Metadata URL and not the Internal URL that we should have copied from the “View Log File” When configuring the Claims Based Authentication. Step 14 in the section above.

Note the difference between this:

https://internalcrm.interactivewebs.com:444/FederationMetadata/2007-06/FederationMetadata.xml

and the original meta data check we did with:

https://sts1.interactivewebs.com/federationmetadata/2007-06/federationmetadata.xml

We incorrectly figured it would be pulling the same XML data. It does NOT!

Configuration Claim-based authentication -external access

Open to the CRM 2011 Data Claims-based authentication of external access, you need to do the following steps:

1 complete contents of the previous section: Configuring Claim-based authentication- internal access.

2 for the IFD configuration CRM 2011 server.

3 for the IFD configuration AD FS 2.0 server.

4 Test claims-based authentication external access.

The IFD configuration CRM 2011 server

When opening Claims certified internal access, you can open by IFD external claims visited. The following describes using the IFD Configuration Wizard to configure, if you want to learn how to use PowerShell to be configured, refer to the English original.

1 Open the Deployment Manager.

2 In the tree structure , right-click Microsoft Dynamics CRM , and then click Configure Internet-Facing Deployment.

3 Click Next.

4 Fill in the correct domain information for the Web Application, Org, and Discovery Web services. Remembering here that in our case: *.interactivewebs.com was the name of the wildcard certificate used, and that PORT 444 was the port we configured for the CRM Web Instance in the bindings for IIS.

Thus we use:

• Web Application Server Domain: interactivewebs.com:444
• Organization Web Service Domain: interactivewebs.com:444
• Web Service Discovery Domain: dev.interactivewebs.com:444

Note – Enter the domain name, rather than the server name .

• If the CRM installed on the same server or servers are installed in the same domain, then the Web Application Server Domain and Organization Web Service Domain should be the same .
• Web Service Discovery Domain must be a Web Application Server Domain as a subdomain like the  "dev." that we setup in DNS earlier.
• domain name must be on the SSL certificate name

Domain examples :

• Web Application Server Domain: contoso.com: 444
• Organization Web Service Domain: contoso.com: 444
• Web Service Discovery Domain: dev.contoso.com: 444

For more information on the website, please refer to Install Microsoft Dynamics CRM Server 2011 on multiple computers( http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=199532 )

5 In the Enter the external domain where your Internet-facing servers are located input box , enter for your internet to CRM 2011 server located outside the domain of information, and then click Next .

You must specify the domain specified in the previous step Web Application Server Domain sub-domains . default , will be "auth." added to the Web Application Server Domain before.

Domain examples :

• External Domain: auth.contoso.com: 444

6 In the System Checks page , if there is no problem, click Next.

7 In Review your selections and then click Apply page , confirm your input , and then click Apply.

8 Click Finish .

9. Open a command line tool, run: iisreset

The IFD configuration AD FS 2.0 server

To open CRM 2011 on the IFD , you need to add AD FS 2.0 server for the IFD to create a relying party endpoints. Follow these steps:

1 open AD FS 2.0 Management .

2 In the Actions menu, click Add Relying Party Trust.

3 In the Add Relying Party Trust Wizard , click Start .

4 In the Select Data Source page , click Import Data about the Relying Party Online or published on a local Network , enter the positioning federation metadata.xml file URL.

Note – This is almost the same URL as we used previously, but has the .auth sub domain that we used in point 4 above. For use the Federation metadata is configured IFD when created. In this case https://auth.interactivewebs.com:444/FederationMetadata/2007-06/FederationMetadata.xml .

Check in your browser the URL, to ensure that no certificate-related warnings appear.

5 Click Next.

6 In the Specify Display Name page , enter the display name , such as CRM IFD Relying Party , and then click Next.

7 In the Choose Issuance Authorization Rules page , select the Permit all users to access this relying party options , and then click Next.

8 In the Ready to Add Trust page , click Next , then click Close .

9. If the Rule Editor appears , click Add Rule. Otherwise , the Relying Party Trusts list ,right-click you create a relying party objects, click the Edit Claims Rules, and then click Add Rule.

10. In Claim rule template list , select the Pass Through or Filter an Incoming Claim template, and then click Next.

11 create the following rule:

   · Claim rule name: Pass Through UPN ( or other descriptive name )

   · Add the following mapping:

•     Incoming claim type: UPN
•     Pass through All claim values

12 Click Finish .

13 In the Rule Editor , click Add Rule , in Claim rule template list , select the Pass Through or Filter an Incoming Claim template , and then click Next :

   · Claim rule name: Pass Through Primary SID ( or other descriptive name )

   · Add the following mapping:

•     Incoming claim type: Primary SID
•     Pass through All claim values

14 Click Finish .

15 in the Rules Editor , click Add Rule ,

16. In Claim rule template list , select the Transform an Incoming Claim template , and then click Next .

17 create the following rule:

   · Claim rule name: Transform Windows Account Name to Name ( or other descriptive name )

•     Incoming claim type: Windows account name
•     Outgoing claim type: Name
•     Pass through All claim values

18 Click Finish , you have created three rule later , click OK close the Rule Editor .

Test claims-based authentication to access external

Now, you should use the claims certified external access CRM 2011 a. In IE the browser CRM 2011 external address (for example: https://org.contoso.com:444 ), you will see the following pages:

Enter the user name password, log CRM 2011.

Final Notes

Like anything Microsoft, this was not easy. It took us over 10 attempts drawing on over a dozen resources to get this worked out. For us, the main tripping points related the the meta data URL’s used in configuring the endpoints. Our fault, but it also appears to be a common error to other administrators on the net.

To Microsoft – you documentation sucks badly! If I never read another White Paper it will be too soon!

Thanks to – Jackie Chen (Chen Pan) Your blog was GOLD!

Look for our other posts on Email Router Configurations. “is a fickle bitch!”

Today, like a kid in a candy store, I upgraded to the new Mac OSX Lion from the Mac App store.

It can’t go without noting that it has been a long time since I was excited about the prospect of a new release software download. Today gave me glimpses of the days long gone when Microsoft would release new and innovative software. Those days are “dust in the rear-view mirror”. True geek like I know… but hay! You are the one reading this!

So How Did it Go?

Generally it went exceptionally well.

1. The download was way faster than I expected. I had imagined that the apple servers would be getting hammered all day, but that was not the case. The 4 GB package came down in around 30 min on a Telstra Australia cable connection.
2. The initial install and reboot was fast. Around 1 minute and a MacBook Pro running an SSD hard disk.
3. The setup and install of the operating system was reported by the software to be around 30 minutes, but took less than 20. Not bad for a new 4 GB operating system. The important thing was that there were no errors or stalls. At one stage the screen went to sleep or reset with a blank screen. Space Bar fixed that. So no problems there.
4. After reboot, there was one small glitch. The OS detected that a new version of Java was required to be downloaded. The download window started and on first attempt stopped after about 50% download. It stalled and did not go further. I could not quit the program so decided to reboot. After which it prompted again and this time the download reached 100% 63.3 Meg from memory. However it stopped and did not appear to install.

   Again I rebooted but wised up to this download. Rather than say, install. I quit the auto detected download prompt. Then went to the “Software Update” and asked it to check for updates. This time the updated worked, along with an iTunes update. All good.

More Findings – Mail

We noticed that the Mail application that was updated and previously linked with an Exchange connection to our Exchange server 2010 ended up with two accounts. Both with the same details and same settings, both of them as IMAP accounts, and not exchange accounts.

The Fix

We deleted both accounts from Mail. Then added the exchange connected account again, and this worked. Holding the details as an Exchange account.

Not sure why this happened, but it did happen on 3 machines.

More about Microsoft Office for Mac on Lion

Over the weekend Microsoft published a knowledge base article that outlines some known issues with Office for Mac on OS X 10.7. Overall, if you have Office 2004 and rely on it, then do not upgrade to OS X Lion until you have an alternative Office version installed (2008 or preferably 2011). Office 2004 is PowerPC code, and as with Intuit’s Quicken 2007 and earlier versions, if you install Lion then you will not be able to launch Office 2004.

Luckily there are options, including the ability to upgrade, or even install Snow Leopard in an alternative partition so you can still use Rosetta, but these may require you to either purchase new software licenses or set up a relatively cumbersome dual-boot situation.

In addition to the lack of support for Office 2004, there are a few situations in which Office 2008 and 2011 applications may crash. In Excel, a crash may occur when moving spread sheets between workbooks. PowerPoint may also crash when you use Command-Tab in presentation viewer mode. The only other known crash situations involve Communicator (only in Office 2011), which may shut down when initiating calls or messages.

If you regularly use any of these options or application functions, then you might consider waiting to upgrade to Lion until they are fixed.

Some Other Issues Especially in Xcode

The other interesting observation is that the scrolling is not only reversed (which we don’t essentially mind) but that in a few applications the scrolling is so bad it is virtually unusable. Xcode is a great example.

When using the new revered scrolling to browse simple lists of code, the stop start nature of the scrolling is so bad that it is almost unusable. It feels like your fingers may not have enough pressure when in actual fact they do!

Summary

All in all the update was exceptional. I cannot help but think back to MS updates that totally killed my system so often that I would NEVER consider a Windows Update, but would always start fresh with a new install. (What a pain). Never gain! Apple, your careful eye to easy end user experience has mean that as an advanced Windows Server Administrator I have never needed to “look under the hood” at your OS. Thanks for that!

That being said, clearly there are some bugs. Some of like the scrolling in Xcode make me wonder if updating is really necessary until they patch things like this.

The net is changing fast. Release of the iPad and other mobile devices that have correctly made the decision to discontinue Adobe Flash.

I say correct decision because not only is flash yesterdays technology, but it is far from the optimal way to produce simple motion in web pages.

Flash still has it’s place, just not as a way to inject interesting motion into websites.

So what do we use on http://www.InteractiveWebs.com home page?

We have some simple code that renders motion:

<div class="slideshow">
<div class="slide">
<div class="inblock_first">
<div class="wsc_image_frame">
<div class="wsc_frame_tl">
<div class="wsc_frame_tr">
<div class="wsc_frame_tc">
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="wsc_frame_cl">
<div class="wsc_frame_cr">
<div class="wsc_frame_cc">
<img alt="" src="/Portals/0/banners/slide2.jpg" />
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="wsc_frame_bl">
<div class="wsc_frame_br">
<div class="wsc_frame_bc">
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="inblock_second">
<h1>Have a Business that needs to get a message out?</h1>
<p>InteractiveWebs provides the best of Content Management Systems on our professional hosting services.<br />
Combining DotNetNuke, WordPress Blogs, iPhone Apps, Microsoft CRM &amp; hosted solutions..<br />
<br />
</p>
<a class="button2" href="/Services/Mushroom.aspx"><span><strong>More</strong></span></a>
</div>
<div class="cleaner"></div>
</div>
<div class="slide">
<div class="inblock_second">
<h1>We have a solution… that is perfect…</h1>
<p>We have some&nbsp;increasable solutions with years of experience…</p>
<h4>
We would love to share them!</h4>
<p><br />
</p>
<a class="button2" href="/Services/Mushroom.aspx"><span><strong>More</strong></span></a>
</div>
<div class="inblock_first">
<div class="wsc_image_frame">
<div class="wsc_frame_tl">
<div class="wsc_frame_tr">
<div class="wsc_frame_tc">
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="wsc_frame_cl">
<div class="wsc_frame_cr">
<div class="wsc_frame_cc">
<img alt="" src="/Portals/0/banners/slide1.jpg" />
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="wsc_frame_bl">
<div class="wsc_frame_br">
<div class="wsc_frame_bc">
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="cleaner"></div>
</div>
<div class="slide">
<div class="wsc_image_frame">
<div class="wsc_frame_tl">
<div class="wsc_frame_tr">
<div class="wsc_frame_tc">
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="wsc_frame_cl">
<div class="wsc_frame_cr">
<div class="wsc_frame_cc">
<img alt="" src="/Portals/0/banners/slide.jpg" />
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="wsc_frame_bl">
<div class="wsc_frame_br">
<div class="wsc_frame_bc">
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="cleaner"></div>
</div>
</div>

The source references some jQuery effects known as cycle: http://jquery.malsup.com/cycle/

You will see on this page that it uses code in this method:

<!DOCTYPE html>

<html>

<head>

<title>JQuery Cycle Plugin – Basic Demo</title>

<style type="text/css">

.slideshow { height: 232px; width: 232px; margin: auto }

.slideshow img { padding: 15px; border: 1px solid #ccc; background-color: #eee; }

</style>

<!– include jQuery library –>

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.5/jquery.min.js"></script>

<!– include Cycle plugin –>

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://cloud.github.com/downloads/malsup/cycle/jquery.cycle.all.latest.js"></script>

<script type="text/javascript">

$(document).ready(function() {

$(‘.slideshow’).cycle({

fx: ‘fade’ // choose your transition type, ex: fade, scrollUp, shuffle, etc…

});

});

</script>

</head>

<body>

<div class="slideshow">

<img src="http://cloud.github.com/downloads/malsup/cycle/beach1.jpg" width="200" height="200" />

<img src="http://cloud.github.com/downloads/malsup/cycle/beach2.jpg" width="200" height="200" />

<img src="http://cloud.github.com/downloads/malsup/cycle/beach3.jpg" width="200" height="200" />

<img src="http://cloud.github.com/downloads/malsup/cycle/beach4.jpg" width="200" height="200" />

<img src="http://cloud.github.com/downloads/malsup/cycle/beach5.jpg" width="200" height="200" />

</div>

</body>

</html>

Producing this page: http://jquery.malsup.com/cycle/basic.html

Within DotNetNuke

Within DotNetNuke, there are a bunch of module and skins that have this effect built in. We use a skin known as LightHeads (not developed by us) that uses some hard coded references that make the implementation of this effect really simple. As the first block of code above indicates.

We love jQuery and have used it in our Mushroom Image module and our Mushroom Lite Module.

If you look at the project downloads for dotnetnuke, you will notice that the forums module has the latest version as: 05.00.01

And if you click the link from within this page: http://www.dotnetnuke.com/Resources/Downloads/Projects-Downloads.aspx

05.00.01 is exactly what you get.

All sounds neat and tidy… right?

Not really, because if you install the latest version of DotNetNuke 05.06.03 (an important security release) you will kill your forums. Dead as dead.

And if you check around for an update of the forum module, you will not find one either in your Module Definitions, or in the DotNetNuke website. But keep looking to codeplex and you find this:

05.00.02 and what is strange, it is released before the DNN 05.06.03 update, like significantly before it… like 1 month.

This Forum Update is NEEDED if you want the forum module to work on DNN 05.06.03

http://dnnforum.codeplex.com/releases/view/67840

Release Notes

The same module as 5.0.1, except compiled against DotNetNuke 5.6.3 (and therefore is a minimum requirement) and the same version of Telerik (2011 SP2) included with it.
NOTE: This was compiled against, and for, 5.6.3 and is included with that release (Not released yet, as of June 12th (try 5 July).

All so confusing!

It waisted a lot of our time trying to work out what is going on. All we know is that DNN 05.06.03 broke a bunch of stuff, including the Forum Module. There is a fix but it is hidden on codeplex and is incorrectly referenced.

Very Unprofessional DNN Corp!

What you need to know

If you update to DNN 05.06.03 – your forums will die.

To fix it, download the hidden forum update 05.00.02 here: http://dnnforum.codeplex.com/releases/view/67840