The last release of Virtual Desktop of Ulteo has a new Web-portal mode providing applications’ loading in self supporting browser windows. Besides that it has in-built MP3 and FLV players for multimedia files.

Also OVD supports LDAP- and CAS-services for autointoxication and Windows, WebDAV и Samba file services.

Linux applications basic set available in Ulteo Open Virtual Desktop 2.0 includes OpenOffice.org, Web-browser, Firebox, Thunderbird, and IM-client Pidgin.

Ulteo Open Virtual Desktop 2.0 is available for free downloading. The code can be taken under GNU GPLv2 license on code.ulteo.com.

Many of the AD deployments have been relegated to lab testing or small, virgin Windows 2000 environments.
Based on my experience as a systems consultant for enterprise environments, many of those 1 million Windows 2000 servers are:
Rogue workgroup file and print boxes or member servers in existing Windows NT 4.0 domains.

Acting as non-domain-connected workgroup IIS 5.0 Web servers.

Acting as Windows 2000 Terminal Servers replacing aging Citrix Winframe or Metaframe or Microsoft Terminal Server machines.While Windows 2000 Server provides a huge improvement in stability and functionality over previous versions of the product, the reception to its Active Directory has been less than lukewarm.

Why hasn’t it been embraced?

Reason 1: No PDC functionality

Microsoft shot itself in the head by not giving Windows 2000 Server the ability to act as a drop-in replacement for an existing NT 4.0 Primary Domain Controller (PDC) or Backup Domain Controller (BDC). For many environments, the NT 4.0 master domain/resource domain model is fine, and they don’t need or want a sophisticated directory service.

As it stands, you can run Windows 2000 as a member server, as a rogue workgroup machine, or as an AD domain controller. You can have a “mixed-mode” AD domain where NT 4.0 servers authenticate to a Windows 2000 domain controller, but to accomplish this you have to perform an upgrade install on your existing PDCs and BDCs.

Optimally, you should be able to drop a new Windows 2000 box into your domain and have it assume the role of a BDC (or a workgroup or member server), which could then be promoted to PDC. Then, when the environment is ready, you should be able to promote the PDC to an Active Directory domain controller, allowing for mixed-mode use.

Reason 2: History repeats itself

Remember Novell’s initial release of NetWare 4 bundled with NDS way back in 1994? Because of NDS’s complexity, it took a long time for NDS to get mind share in NetWare 3.12 shops.

Microsoft’s bundling of the first version of AD with its operating system forces an upgrade to AD if you want any kind of centralized security authentication, so it’s clear the company hasn’t learned from Novell’s bundling mistakes.

It would have made sense for AD 1.0 to be an add-on product to Windows 2000, probably in the form of Exchange 2000; except that Exchange 2000 came out quite a few months after Windows 2000.

You can’t deploy or upgrade from Exchange 5.x to Exchange 2000 without Active Directory, so it makes sense that AD’s early adopters are often Exchange shops, which already understand AD’s replication and site architecture.

Reason 3: A firm hand on the namespace

One of the key factors in a successful AD deployment is designing the Active Directory DNS namespace. Unlike NT 4.0, which uses WINS, Windows 2000 uses DNS to resolve names on the network.

Unfortunately, you can’t just use any old DNS. Active Directory requires that the DNS support dynamic updates via RFC 2136; and guess what, the only DNS that does that out of the box is included in Windows 2000.

Those environments that already have Internet domains and DNS servers on their networks now have to replace their existing DNS servers with Windows 2000 boxes or create a new internal domain to host the AD. For example, if your company is called WidgetCo, and all your internal servers are TCP/IP hosts on widgetco.com, you either need to create a sub-domain called ad.widgetco.com or you need to create something like widgetco.net, as one of my associates had to do at a large Manhattan-based international law firm.

It’s possible to make Unix DNS servers like BIND (Berkeley Internet Name Daemon) support Windows 2000 dynamic DNS, but it’s a little tricky. Microsoft TechNet’s white paper on Windows 2000 DNS provides information on getting your non-MS DNS to comply with RFC 2136.

Chances are you’ll need to upgrade your Unix server to the latest version of BIND, version 8.2, to make it work. Creating an entirely new domain may be less of a headache.

4. The predominance of IT fiefdoms

Most large companies are collections of fiefdoms that each has its own IT standards. In a worst-case scenario, AD may be implemented by each IT fiefdom separately and on its own time frame.

The problem with this is that once you start an AD, the first domain becomes the parent domain and all successive domains are child domains. You either have to live with the hierarchy that someone else started or you have to wipe the entire thing out and start from scratch.

Microsoft still hasn’t given us a way to graft two ADs together, although these tools are reportedly coming in Windows 2002 Server.

5. Deficient built-in tools

AD is a failure because it lacks good tools for administering it on a large scale. Key features, such as easy drag-and-drop of objects and organizational units, and trouble-free pruning and grafting, are only available through third-party utilities.

The problems with the built-in tools are exacerbated by the Microsoft Management Console (MMC). With its scores of plug-in modules, the MMC is a bear to deal with. If the MMC designers thought like NT administrators, they would use tabular views instead of endless levels of layered dialog boxes.

What Microsoft needs to do is provide an uber-management tool like SystemTools.com’s Hyena or Dorian Software Creation’s UltraAdmin. These products let you drill down to manage the directory, objects, and services.

Those are the top five flaws I think are holding AD back. Let me know what your issues are, or, if you’ve implemented AD, whether the gain is worth the pain.

The software giant has earned a notorious reputation over the years for missing its release targets. And it looks as if it will be business as usual for Windows XP, which is the successor to Windows Millennium Edition and Windows 2000 Professional, formerly code-named Whistler.

But Office XP, the product formerly known as Office 10, seems to be more on track, testers said.

Microsoft announced earlier this month that it plans to brand the 2001 versions of its flagship Windows and Office products with the XP moniker. XP stands for “experience” and is intended to help differentiate the forthcoming Web-enabled versions of the products from the current versions of Windows 2000 and Office 2000.

Various Web sites that closely track Windows developments reported over the weekend that Microsoft is preparing to deliver within days a near-final beta of the next version of Office for Windows, which the company recently designated Office XP. Testers corroborated those reports.

“We’ve just received word that Microsoft is preparing their release of the Corporate Preview Beta (RC 1) to the public,” read a notice posted Tuesday on the ActiveWin site.

ActiveWin added that some testers already have received “Corporate Preview Beta” packages, which are set to expire in August 2001.

Microsoft declined to comment on RC 1 availability. A spokeswoman reiterated, however, that the company is on track to deliver the final, shipping version of Office XP by June.

The same may not be true on the Windows XP side of the house. While testers expected Microsoft to deliver the eagerly awaited Beta 2 version of Windows XP before the end of February, and possibly as early as Feb. 19, it now seems that Beta 2 will not be released until mid-March.

A posting on the WinInfo Windows enthusiast site quotes from what it claims is an internal e-mail message from a Windows program manager to the rest of the Whistler team. The message notified the team that they were not meeting their internal goals, resulting in a two-week postponement of the release of Beta 2.

A Microsoft spokeswoman declined to comment on any beta release dates for Windows XP, saying only that the company is on track to deliver Beta 2 in the first quarter of 2001. Microsoft still plans to ship the desktop versions of Windows XP for consumer and business users before the end of 2001, she said.

The spokeswoman also would not confirm the authenticity of the memo. Some testers were surprised that Microsoft wasn’t ready to pull the trigger on Windows XP, given that company executives called last week’s press and analyst Windows XP preview its “Windows XP launch.”

“Microsoft probably wanted to include more bug fixes and improve some additional features for Beta 2, and they needed the two-week period to accomplish that,” speculated one Windows XP tester who requested anonymity.

Another tester had a harsher assessment as to what’s holding up Beta 2. “It’s still pretty buggy, the help is still missing, and beta tester feedback has been pretty negative regarding the ‘cartoony’ look of the new UI (user interface),” said the tester, who spoke on condition of anonymity. The tester added that he happened to like the new, streamlined “Luna” interface that Microsoft showed off at the Windows XP preview in Seattle last week.

The WinInfo site noted that Microsoft needs to adhere fairly closely to its Windows XP timetable to be able to get PC makers to preload the operating system release on new computers in time for the 2001 holiday season. Typically, once Microsoft delivers “gold,” or final, Windows code to PC makers, another few weeks to two months is required to get the software preloaded onto the machines.

What is LDAP Browser/Editor ?

The LDAP Browser/Editor (LBE) provides a user-friendly Windows Explorer-like interface to LDAP directories with tightly integrated browsing and editing capabilities. It is entirely written in Java with the help of the JFC (SwingSet) and JNDI class libraries. It connects to LDAP v2 and v3 servers. What’s new in 2.8.1?

• Improved SSL integration.
• Improved DnD and copy-and-paste interface.
• A number of bug fixes and UI improvements.
• A couple of new attribute editors/viewers.

Features:

• Browsing, searching and editing of the DIT.
  • Browsing
    • easy navigation through the hierarchical DIT
    • viewing of entries’ contents
  • Editing
    • adding, removing, modifying and editing of a single entry or an attribute
    • copying, renaming, deleting, and moving entries or entire sub trees inDIT
  • Searching
    • search results can be saved into an LDIF file
• LDIF support. Entire trees and single entries can be easily exported to and imported from LDIF.
• Object templates. Object templates are used for creating and adding new entries. The templates can be manually or automatically (from existing entries) created.
• Binary value support. Attribute contents can be saved or loaded from a file.
• LDAP v3 aware. Handles and manages referrals, allows for specifying and displaying operational attributes and also for retreiving the naming contexts from the server root DSE.
• SSL support.
• Drag and drop, copy-and-paste interface. Allows for copying and pasting or dragging and dropping entires or attributes between multiple instances or within a single instance of the browser.
• Named sessions. Allows for working with LDAP severs with different configurations.
• Attribute viewers/editors. Each attribute can be associated with a particular viewer/editor that helps to display/edit the contents of the attribute in a specific manner.
  • Built-in viewers:
    • CertificateViewer for displaying certificate information
    • ImageViewer for displaying any gif or jpg images
    • PasswordEditor for verifying and generating MD5, SHA and Unix Crypt passwords
  • Custom viewers:
    • can be written by users and easily plugged-in into the browser
• Applet support. The browser can be ran as a singed or unsinged applet within a web browser.

How do I get the LBE 2.8.1 software?

Information is outdated, links remote