Next Step

Seeing as my first experiment went well, I plan on building on it. My next step (which I plan to post this Thursday or Friday) will include directions on customizing an install of a remote install of Firefox. This process is going to be new to me but with some help from fellow students and a little documentation, I think it should be easy.

What I have to investigate is MKaply's CCK add-on for Firefox. I havn't been able to play with it as of yet because my computer at home is Vista and the extension isn't really Vista tested. I am planning on using both CCK and Server 03 with AD to push a customized install of Firefox over a network.

Stay tuned for details.

Dave

Active Directory & Group Policies

After all my experience working in a corporate environment and working with software, I have never really had a chance to sit down and play with Active Directory. After about 30 minutes I already had a grasp on its concepts and uses. It, after all, is a pretty intuitive piece of software.

With a little bit of time I found a Microsoft document on pushing an install through Server 2003. Believe it or not, its actually pretty easy to do. I created a unique user group, a test user in that group and a group policy that pertains to that group. After a couple of hours of reading a playing around I was successful in pushing a Firefox install through Server 2003 to my user. It installed with almost no visible sign of the installation. I logged in as my test user and it was there, seamless and painless, Firefox was installed.

For more information on the process, read my Jan 25th build post.

An Introduction, again

After setting myself up on IRC and updating my Seneca wiki profile, I realize I have stepped back into the world of OS software development. Interestingly enough, I have been through most of this before but one important factor has changed since I took the prerequisite to this course, my physical presence. Working away from school has already added an interesting and unexpected twist on my motivation. I find that I am actually getting a very realistic insight into what many developers experience. I can't rely on others to do my work, but rather constantly work with others to accomplish my goals and help them accomplish theirs. It will be a good experience for me regardless of my accomplishments, as a I will have to exercise the communication tools such as IRC, blogs and email while working on something new and exciting.

Should be interesting.