Open your console and use one of your Master Operator accounts.  Find the LDAP Directories branch in the left side tree and right click it.  Choose to Add LDAP Directory from that list…

Enter any “Name” you’d like and specify your LDAP authentication server as well as if it is a global catalog server.  In my tiny network, I only have the one DC.

Click the Test button to validate the connectivity…

My network is very tiny, however I would encourage you if alternate DC servers are available to specify them in the Backup Server X spaces provided.

Adding the link to the DC is one step… next you’ll probably want to create a special AD group which Console users will belong.  Remember that within TEM, we have Console Operators and Master Operators.  Each user/group has a specified set of computers they are responsible for and this can be extended into AD.  Simply create a AD user group for how your organization is divided and based on their required level of console access.

In my case I created two AD groups:  BigFix_Admin and BigFix_Console.  Then added my user account to the Admin group.

Our next/last step is to specify the level of access each of these new AD groups have within the TEM infrastructure.

You can name this new Role anything you’d like, however I like to match the AD group name up with this Role name to make it easy to understand.

My Admin group has near unlimited privileges… thus I’ll chose yes to the following options:  Master Operator, Custom Content, and Show Other Operators’ Actions.

Next we’ll need to assign the computers that this group will have control over… in my case I’ll be specifying “all computers”

Using this dialog I can specify individual computers as well as systems based on Retrieved Properties or Group Membership.

I will not be adding TEM users to this group as it was setup specifically for my LDAP Admin group… so I’ll skip the “Operators” tab.

Instead I’ll be focusing on the LDAP Groups tab… and Assigning LDAP Group to this TEM Group I’m currently defining…

Search for the group to be added to this TEM group, and Assign it.

Lastly I’ll glaze over the Sites tab since I currently only have 1 site in this new infrastructure, however I can specify specific site permissions just like I can for TEM users.

Don’t forget when you are done to Save Changes…

Since this is a fresh installation, the setting which requires entering your authentication password to authorize this new action has been disabled by default.  In a different article I will explain this very cool security feature, how it works and how to force the password requirement just like in previous versions.   For now, let’s log in with my Domain credentials to test things out!

Let’s re-launch the console but this time using my Domain credentials…

Be sure to include your Domain within the User name field…  In my case it’s “MoranIT\Daniel”

Success!!  The authentication was accepted and I’m logging into the console!

Something very important to notice here is that my operator site and account was automatically generated upon login.  This means that if too many new users login it could cause network traffic on your network since a subscription action is deployed to the authorized computers list.

Enjoy your new LDAP authenticated user access… let me know if you have any questions or comments in the section below.  I respond to all my comments, so please engage…

If you have any questions, let me know!

If you have any questions, let me know!

I have already attached my new virtual server to my internal Windows Domain so authentication is easily accomplished within my existing network.

I’m going to remove WebReports from this particular installation, favoring to install it onto a different server for simplicity.

I will be using a remote database to a different installed instance of SQL server as noted at the top of this article.

I plan on integrating this newest version of TEM with my Domain.  Thus a generic admin account is exactly what I need here.

Everything looking good according to the TEM Server Diagnostics tool.  The only error it showed was the resolution of the DNS name used for my new infrastructure.  Now I’ll add a quick little entry in my DNS server for this domain name.

There we go… that’s better…

If you have any questions, please them below…

Here are a few screen shots of my application:

		Windows 8 Metro App Submission VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

My application is based on the House of Representatives.  It allows you to quickly discover your congress person and provides you with contact information including Twitter, Facebook and other links they’ve shared on their websites.

The contest started here:  https://buildwindowscontest.com/

If I win, I will be included in the first round of apps added to the new Microsoft App store… very exciting!

Wish me luck!

• Became serious about my blog posts in August
• Rebuilt my office in late August and got a lot of attention
• Closed two businesses, failed start-ups
• Read several wonderful books and listened to many others
• Spent 15k on food 
• Bought a new Home
• Bought a new Car
• Paid off 4 Credit Cards
• Started a new LIVE video podcast:  Week in Review

To Come in 2012

• Write my first Book
• Write a blog post each week, 51 and counting, blog turns semi-pro
• More networking with peers
• Pay off 2 credit cards, 2 vehicles, and 2nd mortgage
• NOT spend 15k on food
• A few other experiments that I have in the works…

Did You Know?

• 1 in 4 children in the United States is food insecure.
• Too often, these same school age children are not eating the recommended amount of fruits, vegetables, whole grains and low-fat dairy products.
• Today, more than one in every three children in our nation is overweight or obese. One third of all children born in 2000 or later will face chronic obesity-related health problems like diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, cancer, and asthma.

Ways YOU Can Help!

GATHER Gather your family, friends or co-workers and make a team decision to
improve your health and the health of children in your community. Pick ONE food item you will give up each day to improve your health and add ONE Simple fitness activity! Save $1.00 per day by giving something up! Whatever it is, the key is to make the decision and do it — for 30 days!

LEARN about children in your community! Gathering is only one step. Invite a
teacher or a social worker to gather with your team to learn about the nutrition needs children have in your community.

GIVE That $30 you saved, can now be shared with others. Provide the teacher or non-profit representative a basket filled with $30.00 gift cards (per person) to help children have the resources they need to live healthy lives. Send us your Report and Photos to champion@championsforkids.org! It’s that easy. Choose the challenge, gather your team and then tell us how you did! Join our team of Champions for Kids and receive your personalized certificate of victory!

I Am One of Millions, Join Me!
#Champions2020

Lately I’ve decided to build a .NET v4 website…. thus I needed to add the IIS capabilities… after an exhaustive search, I found what I needed thanks to Brad over at StackOverflow:

1. Open your command prompt (Windows + R) and type cmd and press ENTER
   ^{You may need to start this as an administrator if you have UAC enabled.
   To do so, locate the exe (usually you can start typing with Start Menu open), right click and select "Run as Administrator"}
2. Type cd C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\ and press ENTER.
3. Type aspnet_regiis.exe -ir and press ENTER again.
   • at this point you will see it begin working on installing .NET’s framework in to IIS for you
4. Close the DOS prompt, re-open your start menu and right click Computer and select Manage
5. Expand the left-hand side (Services and Applications) and select Internet Information Services
   • You’ll now have a new applet within the content window exclusively for IIS.
6. Expand out your computer and locate the Application Pools node, and select it. (You should now see ASP.NET v4.0 listed)
7. Expand out your Sites node and locate the site you want to modify (select it)
8. To the right you’ll notice Basic Settings… just below the Edit Site text. Click this, and a new window should appear
9. Select the .NET 4 AppPool using the Select…
10. button and click ok.
11. Restart the site, and you should be good-to-go.

(You can repeat steps 7-on for every site you want to apply .NET 4 on as well).

I don’t know anything about the e00 or shp files, so I’ll be working with the available ascii files.

Each state’s zip file contains two dat files.  One dat contains the Long/Lat coordinates for various map-polygons which represent districts that are defined in the other dat file.  What I wanted was a way to tie together the dat files with the Districts table I’d already defined at the start of my development.

I need this information to be in the most covenant format for my application, therefore, I’ll be importing the information for each state into my SQL database.  I created a new table defined as follows:

Like many of my tables, I’ve setup an Id which auto increments and is the primary key for each row.  Next we have the linked DistrictID, the PolygonID identified within the dat file as well as the Latitude and Longitude values.

First thing was to download each individual ascii file, unblock (windows 7 “feature”), extract and rename each file… only took 20min.

Then using my import program, I follow the following sudo code to get into my database:

foreach DAT file

    read in dat and def files

    extract state name //will use this later to get district reference


    open database

    find state


    foreach dat file line

        parse Long/Lat and cur Polygon # if available

        if cur Polygon # found, then

            foreach def file line

                if cur polygon # then

                    district id = line

        if have district id and current polygon

            insert new coordinates into database

In the end we have a database called Boundaries that looks something like this:

If you have any questions or would like to see the source code for my importer mention it in the comments section below.

DE serializing your XML document is very simple.  First you’ll need to define a CLASS object the way your XML document is…

Here’s my example XML document:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>

<Congress>
  <Regions>
    <Region>
      <Title>Northeast</Title>

      <States>
        <State>
          <Title>Connecticut</Title>

          <Districts>
            <District>
              <Title>District 1</Title>
              <SubTitle>Larson, John B.</SubTitle>
            </District>
          </Districts>
        </State>
      </States>
    </Region>
  </Regions>
</Congress>

This is an example of an XML document I’m currently using in my contest application.  As you can see there can be multiple Regions, States or Districts.  Each organized in sub objects… I am showing you only one of each since it would get pretty long otherwise…

Now, we’ll need a few classes organized just like this XML document:

[XmlRoot("Congress")]

public class clsCongress

{

    [XmlArray("Regions")]

    [XmlArrayItem("Region", typeof(clsRegion))]

    public clsRegion[] Region { get; set; }

}


[XmlRoot("Regions")]

public class clsRegion

{

    [XmlElement("Title")]

    public string Title { get; set; }


    [XmlArray("States")]

    [XmlArrayItem("State", typeof(clsState))]

    public clsState[] State { get; set; }

}


[XmlRoot("States")]

public class clsState

{

    [XmlElement("Title")]

    public string Title { get; set; }


    [XmlArray("Districts")]

    [XmlArrayItem("District", typeof(clsDistrict))]

    public clsDistrict[] District { get; set; }

}


[XmlRoot("Districts")]

public class clsDistrict

{

    [XmlElement("Title")]

    public string Title { get; set; }


    [XmlElement("SubTitle")]

    public string SubTitle { get; set; }

}

As you can see form my class objects, you’ll need to specify the XmlRoot for each class as well as each XmlElement so everything maps correctly.  In my example, the elements match, but they don’t have to so long as they’re mapped with the XmlElement tag.

Now, I know you can find this code anywhere on the net… but what they don’t go into detail explaining is the array variables I have shown here. 

In my example, I have Congress which is made up of multiple Regions, which is made up of multiple States, and Districts.  In my example here, I demonstrate how to get multiple sub-objects pulled in easily and quickly.

Here is the code I use to load up the XML text, oh and I’m downloading this content using the new fancy async features from VS11 and Windows 8:

internal async Task PullRegionsAsync(Uri baseUri)
{
    string baseUrl = "http://danielheth.com/myexample.xml";

    //download the data xml
    //http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/system.net.http.httpclienthandler.maxrequestcontentbuffersize(v=VS.110).aspx
    //says there is a 65k limit on the size of what this function will download...
    var client = new HttpClient();
    var response = await client.GetAsync(baseUrl + "Data.xml");
            
    //------------------------------------------------
    //convert xml into an easily digestable object
    clsCongress congress = null;
    XmlSerializer des = new XmlSerializer(typeof(clsCongress));
    congress = (clsCongress)des.Deserialize(response.Content.ContentReadStream);
    //------------------------------------------------

    foreach (clsRegion r in congress.Region)
    {
        string RegionTitle = r.Title;

        foreach (clsState s in r.State)
        {
            string StateTitle = s.Title;

            foreach (clsDistrict d in s.District)
            {
                string DistrictTitle = d.Title;
            }
        }
    }
}

There you have it… deserializing your XML document into an easily digestible object within C#.

If you have any questions or comments please leave them below…