Jupiter Chevrolet Inc : Thank you for choosing Jupiter Chevrolet Inc !
System: We have alerted the online representatives that you are waiting. Someone should be with you momentarily.
System: A representative has joined the conversation. Compose your message below and then click Send.
Francis Oguntosin : Hello, How may I help you?
You: Hi there. I’ve sent a couple emails today about your Chevy Cruze inventory
You: I’m about ready to make a decision and purchase today and there are a lot of competitive offers.
Francis Oguntosin : great
You: Can you get me out the door for $14,500 on the silver 2011 LT?
Francis Oguntosin : best deal is $14.600 plus TTL
You: OK. I’ve already got that deal with only 8k miles on it from another dealer
Francis Oguntosin : are you still there
You: yes. on the phone with another dealer
Francis Oguntosin : this is an LT
You: yes
Francis Oguntosin : that is a great price for $14,900
You: It is. I assume you are talking about Autohause listing, but I’m talking with a different dealer who is competitive with your offer, has lower miles and is dealer certified
Francis Oguntosin : we do have a life time warranty (powertrain warranty)
You: Yeah, I’m going to have to go take a look at those other two cars unless you can do something for me to get the price down or find some upgrades or something.
Francis Oguntosin : i can asure we are not going to miss your business.
You: I don’t imagine that you will. That’s a pretty poor attitude to have with a potential customer, especially when you’re doing it in writing.
You: If you haven’t heard of Ocean Marketing, you might want to Google it. It’s a cautionary tale of another customer service rep who shot his mouth off on the internet

Technologies Used

• XHTML
• CSS
• WordPress
• PHP
• JQuery
• JavaScript

Live Site
www.compactionunlimited.com

It’s a pretty cool service, and did I mention that it’s free to index up to 100,000 documents?

The only problem is that there wasn’t a PHP client available for the CodeIgniter framework, until now.

Haystack is a PHP client offering basic interaction with the IndexTank API, implemented as a CodeIgniter library. It is very much a work in progress, and as I wrote it primarily for use in my current project, it is not as general as it could be. I will be maintaining the library on Github and will continue to add new functionality and improvements as time allows.

You can download the library from my Github repository.

Basic Usage

class Search extends CI_Controller
{
     $this->load->library('Haystack');
 
     // Create a new index
     $this->haystack->create_index('cars');
 
     // Set the index to work with for the next one or more IndexTank API calls
     $this->haystack->set_index('cars');
 
 
     // Add a single document to the currently selected index
     $docid = 1;
     $fields = array(
          'text' => 'The Chevrolet Impala is a full-size automobile built by the Chevrolet division of General Motors introduced for the 1958 model year.',
     );
 
     $this->haystack->add_document($docid, $fields);
 
 
     // Add multiple documents to the currently selected index
     $docs = array(
          array(
               'docid' => 1,
               'fields' => array(
                    'text' => 'The Chevrolet Impala is a full-size automobile built by the Chevrolet division of General Motors introduced for the 1958 model year.'
               )
          ),
          array(
               'docid' => 2,
               'fields' => array(
                    'text' => 'The Ford GT is a mid-engine two-seater sports car. Ford Motor Company produced the Ford GT for the 2005 to 2006 model years. The designers drew inspiration from Ford\'s GT40 race cars of the 1960s.'
               )
          )
     );
 
     $this->haystack->add_documents($docs);
 
 
     // Delete a single document from the currently selected index
     $this->haystack->delete_document(1);
 
 
     // Delete multiple documents from the currently selected index
     $docids = array(1, 2, 3, 10);
     $this->haystack->delete_documents($docids);
 
 
     // Select a different search index to work with and add a new document
     $this->haystack->set_index('trucks');
     $docid = 12;
     $fields = array(
          'text' => 'Bigfoot, introduced in 1979, is regarded as the original monster truck. Other trucks with the name "Bigfoot" have been introduced in the years since, and it remains the most well-known monster truck moniker in the United States.'
     );
 
     $this->haystack->add_document($docid, $fields);
 
 
     // Delete an entire search index and all of its documents
     $this->haystack->delete_index('vans');
 
 
     // Search in the currently selected index
     $terms = "monster truck";
     $results = $this->haystack->search($terms);
 
     if($results->matches == 0)
     {
          // No results found
     }
     else
     {
          // Results found. Loop through them and print the id.
          foreach($results->results as $doc)
          {
               echo "Found document {$doc->docid}<br />";
          }
     }
}

Technologies Used

• XHTML
• CSS
• WordPress
• PHP
• JQuery
• JavaScript

Live Site
www.quiltcraft.com

Just log into SQL Server Management Studio, open the database where the Stored Procedure resides, and execute the following query:

sp_helptext ‘dbo.stored_procedure_name_here’

Specifically, I wanted to use the Office and Description field of their Active Directory profile to include them in a distribution group.  For instance, I have the following basic information stored in Active Directory for each user:

User A
Description: Dallas User
Office: Corporate Office

User B
Description: Dallas User
Office: North Dallas Field Office

User C
Description: Houston User
Office: Houston Office

If I want to maintain distribution groups in Exchange for each geographical area as well as each individual office, that is pretty easy in Exchange 2007.  You just create a new Dynamic Distribution Group.  However, the difficulty comes when you want to use an Active Directory profile field that is not built in the Exchange Management Console GUI.

Executing the following command in the Exchange Management Shell will create a new Dynamic Distribution Group that selects every mailbox-enabled user with a Description field set to “Dallas User”:

New-DynamicDistributionGroup -Name “GroupNameHere” -OrganizationalUnit “domain.local/OUNameHere” -RecipientFilter { ((RecipientType -eq ‘UserMailbox’) -or (RecipientType -eq ‘MailContact’) -or (RecipientType -eq ‘Contact)) -and (Description -eq ‘Dallas User’) }

Technologies Used

• HTML5
• CSS
• JavaScript
• JQuery
• Google Analytics

Live Site
www.mallicktower.com

The following steps outline how to use the Stsadm.exe utility to backup a Windows SharePoint Services 3 installation.  This tutorial assumes you will be logged onto the SharePoint server when you run this command, and that your SharePoint site is set as the default website in IIS.

Step 1:  Open a comman prompt and find Stsadm.exe
There is a chance that this location is already part of your PATH variable, but if not you will find Stsadm.exe at:

C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\12\BIN

Step 2: Run the Stsadm.exe utility with parameters

stsadm -o backup -url http://localhost -filename mybackup.bak

This walk through assumes that you are logged onto the machine as the non administrative user.

Step 1:  Launch the registry as the administrator
Navigate to Start > Run and issue the following command:

runas /user:localhost\administrator regedit

A command window will appear and prompt you for the administrator password.  You will not see the password on the screen as you type.

Step 2: Modify permissions on the PowerCfg registry key

1. Browse  to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Controls Folder\PowerCfg
2. Right-click on the “GlobalPowerPolicy” key and choose “Permissions”
3. Click on the “Advanced” button
4. Click “Add”
5. Type INTERACTIVE and click “Check names”, then OK
6. Check the “Set value” and “Create Subkey” checkboxes in the “Allow” column, and click OK to apply your changes all the way out
7. Repeat the above steps for the “PowerPolicies” registry key

Step 1:   Grant the SeSystemtimePrivilige to the user
You can perform this step on the command line with the NTRights application or via the GUI.  We will perform the steps using the Windows GUI.

1. Navigate to the Control Panel > Administrative Tools
2. Hold the shift key while right clicking the Local Security Policy applet and choose the Run As option
3. Specify that you want to run the applet as the local administrator and provide the appropriate password.
4. From the menu on the left hand side, navigate to Security Settings > Local Policies > User Rights Assignment
5. Double click the “Change the system time” policy located in the right side of the screen.
6. Click the Add User or Group button and locate the user you wish to grant permission to.  Click OK to apply your changes all the way back out.

Step 2: Launch the registry editor as the local administrator
To begin, click Start > Run and type the following:

runas /user:localhost\administrator regedit

A command prompt window will open and prompt you for the local administrator credentials.  Enter the password and hit Enter.  You will not see any characters appear in the command window while typing the password.

Step 3:  Grant permission to the user on the TimeZoneInformation registry key
It should go without saying, but messing around in the registry can cause system problems, so be careful.  Use this link to create a backup of the registry before continuing.

1. Locate the HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\TimeZoneInformation registry key.
2. Right click on the key and choose the Permissions option
3. Click the Advanced button
4. Locate the appropriate user or group you wish to delegate permissions to.  Click on the user or group and hit the Edit button
5. Modify the permissions so that the Query Value, Set Value, Create Subkey, Enumerate Subkeys, Notify and Read Control permissions are applied.
6. Click OK to apply your changes all the way out

Step 4:  Reboot
Once you reboot the machine the non-administrative user will be able to adjust the time and time zone settings on their machine.