DaveHope.co.uk

Changing “IT Organization” text

After a bit of investigation and asking around I thought I’d share this simple Microsoft Deployment tip.

On the actions window by default it reads “IT Organization”, to change this add the following to CustomSetting.ini

_SMSTSOrgName=NWTraders

There, it’s that simple.

 

Microsoft Deployment & WSUS

Microsoft have recently launched the latest version of BDD, now called “Microsoft Deployment” If you ask me, BDD sounded better but oh well.

If like me you don’t want to create packages for each and every windows update for your deployment image, here’s how you can point the build process at your WSUS server.

Firstly, create the following file and store it in your ‘Scripts’ folder, for example ” C:\Distribution\Scripts\CustWsusSettings.wsf”:


' //***************************************************************************
' // ***** Script Header *****
' //
' // File: CustWsusSettings.wsf
' //
' // Purpose: Deploy WSUS Settings
' //
' // Customer Build Version: 1.0.0
' // Customer Script Version: 1.0.0
' //
' // Customer History:
' //
' // ***** End Header *****
' //***************************************************************************
<job id="CustWsusSettings">
<script language="VBScript" src="ZTIUtility.vbs"/>
<script language="VBScript" src="WizUtility.vbs"/>
<script language="VBScript">
sWSUSServer = "http://london.nwtraders.msft:8530"
oShell.RegWrite "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate\WUServer", sWSUSServer, "REG_SZ"
oShell.RegWrite "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate\WUStatusServer",sWSUSServer, "REG_SZ"
oShell.RegWrite "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate\AU\UseWUServer",1, "REG_DWORD"
' Return success.
wscript.quit 0
</script>
</job>

Be sure to change the sWSUSServer to point to your Wsus server. Now open up your task list in the Deployment Console and create a new command line task of the following:

cscript.exe "%SCRIPTROOT%\CustWsusSettings.wsf"

And as if by magic your updates will now come from your WSUS box from install.

 

WordPress Optimization

Just recently I’ve redesigned by blog (or rather, used the free ColdBlue) theme). I put off moving from my own Perl blogging software to WordPress due to performance reasons for a long time but have finally bitten the bullet.

I used to spend a fair amount of time using WebsiteOptimization.com to check for large page objects and load times.

Here are some general tips for improving the speed of your WordPress blog:

  • Use theGIMP, Paint.Net or Photoshop to optimize your images (do you really need 256 colours in your gif?);
  • Clean up your CSS. This is pretty crucial, and can cut your css file in half in many cases;
  • Combine CSS files. If you can, merge your CSS files into one. This will use less connection threads in the browser so will reduce load time;
  • Merge multiple small js files into one, again this will save on connection threads in the browser and decrease load time;
  • Get apache to handle gzip. If your host supports it, make apache handle the gzip output. Getting wordpress to do this can cause problems with some plugins.
  • If you use mod_gzip to do this you’ll also get the added benefit that apache will compress css/js files which are part of your template that WordPress doesn’t seem to do by default;
  • Place as much javascript as you can before the tag. This will ensure the content loads before the js file, which will ensure your visitors aren’t waiting on your ads to read the content.

If anyone has any thoughts about speeding up Adsense or Analytics I’d love to hear them!