Active - Active best practices

Hello
Are there any best practice white papers on a Active-Active GG configuration?
I've read chapter 8 "Using GoldenGate for active-active high availability" in the Admin Guide here:
-http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E18101_01/doc.1111/e17341.pdf
I also found this pdf:
-http://www.oracle.com/dm/offers/fy10/wp-oracle-goldengate_activeactive_final.pdf
Any other documentation would be much appreciated.
Thanks

Hi All,
I am looking for some ideas and steps to put my AD domain for Public / Internet Facing. Appreciate your help in advance.
If you are asking about best practices then do NOT place AD for public as mentioned before. If you have remote users, they can still accept group policies if they have appropriate infrastructure like VPN available. Otherwise you can start from here:
Active Directory Domain Services in the Perimeter Network (Windows Server 2008)
Mahdi Tehrani |
|
www.mahditehrani.ir
Please click on Propose As Answer or
to mark this post as
and helpful for other people.
This posting is provided AS-IS with no warranties, and confers no rights.
How to query members of 'Local Administrators' group in all computers?
Hi Mahdi,
MY DC runs on win 2012.
Regards, Prabhu

Similar Messages

SAP Best Practice Client copy

Hi,
Is it possible to omit some activities activated through best practices, while making a client copy.
Thanks in advance.

hi,
client copy is necessary for all activitys.evry thing is important because local client copy,RFC,and export and import every thing is important for client copy,
and also it is not possible for omitting .
regards,
reddy

Best practice for Active Directory User Templates regarding Distribution Lists

Hello All
I am looking to implement Active Directory User templates for each department in the company to make the process of creating user accounts for new employees easier. Currently when a user is created a current user's Active directory account is copied, but
this has led to problems with new employees being added to groups which they should not be a part of.
I have attempted to implement this in the past but ran into an issue regarding Distribution Lists. I would like to set up template users with all group memberships that are needed for the department, including distribution lists. Previously I set this up
but received complaints from users who would send e-mail to distribution lists the template accounts were members of.
When sending an e-mail to the distribution list with a member template user, users received an error because the template account does not have an e-mail address.
What is the best practice regarding template user accounts as it pertains to distribution lists? It seems like I will have to create a mailbox for each template user but I can't help but feel there is a better way to avoid this problem. If a mailbox is created
for each template user, it will prevent the error messages users were receiving, but messages will simply build up in these mailboxes. I could set a rule for each one that deletes messages, but again I feel like there is a better way which I haven't thought
of.
Has anyone come up with a better method of doing this?
Thank you

You can just add arbitrary email (not a mailbox) to all your templates and it should solve the problem with errors when sending emails to distribution lists.
If you want to further simplify your user creation process you can have a look at Adaxes (consider it's a third-party app). If you want to use templates, it gives you a slightly better way to do that (http://www.adaxes.com/tutorials_WebInterfaceCustomization_AllowUsingTemplatesForUserCreation.htm)
and it also can automatically perform tasks such as mailbox creation for newly created users (http://www.adaxes.com/tutorials_AutomatingDailyTasks_AutomateExchangeMailboxesCreationForNewUsers.htm).
Alternatively you can abandon templates at all and use customizable condition-based rules to automatically perform all the needed tasks on user creation such as OU allocation, group membership assignment, mailbox creation, home folder creation, etc. based on
the factors you predefine for them.

Advice on Best practice for inter-countries Active Directory

We want to merge three active directories with on as parent in Dubai, then child in Dubai, Bahrain and Kuwait. The time zones are different and sites are connected using VPN/leased line. With my studies i have explored two options. One way is to have parent
domain/forest in Dubai and Child domain in respective countries/offices; second way is to have parent and all child domains in Dubai Data center as it is bigger, while respective countries have DCs connected to their respective child domains in Dubai. (Personally
i find it safer in second option)
Kindly advise which approach comes under best practice.
Thanks in advance.

Hi Richard
Mueller,
You perfectly got my point. We have three difference forests/domain in three different countries. I asked this question becuase I am worried for problems in replications.
And yes there are political reasons due to which we want to have multiple domains under one single forest. I have these following points:
1. With multiple domains you introduce complications with trusts
(Yes we will face complications that is why I will have a VM where there will be three child domains for 3 countries in HQ sitting right next to my main AD server which have forest/domain - which i hope will help in fixing replication problems)
2. and
accessing resources in remote domains. (To address this issue i will implement two additional DCs in respective countries to make the resources available, these RODCs will be pointed toward their respective main domains in HQ)
As an example:-
HQ data center=============
Company.com (forest/domain)
3 child domain to company.com
example uae.company.com
=======================
UAE regional office=====================
2 RODCs pointed towards uae.company.com in HQ
==================================
Please tell me if i make sense here.

What is the Best Practice for publishing Offline Root CA Cert and CRL to Active Directory?

Hi,
I've read and seen in a few labs different approaches to what is published in Active Directory for a Offline Root CA. I've seen just the Root Cert published to AD as well as the Root Cert and the Root CRL published to AD.
I can understand why the Root Cert is published to AD, but why would the Root CRL need to be published to AD, especially if my Offline Root CA just issues the Cert for my Subordinate Issuing CA? So looking for Best Practices here.
Thanks for your help! SdeDot

On Sun, 22 Feb 2015 18:44:25 +0000, Andrzej Kazmierczak wrote:
Best practice is to publish CRL to 2 alternative paths - LDAP for your internal users to access them on the first place and HTTP as an alternative option to LDAP and as the only option for your external users.
No, the current recommended best practice is to publish to a highly
available HTTP location first (and possibly the only CDP) that is available
both internally and externally. This covers Windows and non-Windows
devices, domain joined and non-domain joined devices and internal and
external devices as well as multi-forest scenarios with no trust between
forests.
Paul Adare - FIM CM MVP

Best practice for ASA Active/Standby failover

Hi,
I have configured a pair of Cisco ASA in Active/ Standby mode (see attached). What can be done to allow traffic to go from R1 to R2 via ASA2 when ASA1 inside or outside interface is down?
Currently this happens only when ASA1 is down (shutdown). Is there any recommended best practice for such network redundancy? Thanks in advanced!

Hi Vibhor,
I test ping from R1 to R2 and ping drop when I shutdown either inside (g1) or outside (g0) interface of the Active ASA. Below is the ASA 'show' failover' and 'show run',
ASSA1# conf t
ASSA1(config)# int g1
ASSA1(config-if)# shut
ASSA1(config-if)# show failover
Failover On
Failover unit Primary
Failover LAN Interface: FAILOVER GigabitEthernet2 (up)
Unit Poll frequency 1 seconds, holdtime 15 seconds
Interface Poll frequency 5 seconds, holdtime 25 seconds
Interface Policy 1
Monitored Interfaces 3 of 60 maximum
Version: Ours 8.4(2), Mate 8.4(2)
Last Failover at: 14:20:00 SGT Nov 18 2014
This host: Primary - Active
Active time: 7862 (sec)
Interface outside (100.100.100.1): Normal (Monitored)
Interface inside (192.168.1.1): Link Down (Monitored)
Interface mgmt (10.101.50.100): Normal (Waiting)
Other host: Secondary - Standby Ready
Active time: 0 (sec)
Interface outside (100.100.100.2): Normal (Monitored)
Interface inside (192.168.1.2): Link Down (Monitored)
Interface mgmt (0.0.0.0): Normal (Waiting)
Stateful Failover Logical Update Statistics
Link : FAILOVER GigabitEthernet2 (up)
Stateful Obj xmit xerr rcv rerr
General 1053 0 1045 0
sys cmd 1045 0 1045 0
up time 0 0 0 0
RPC services 0 0 0 0
TCP conn 0 0 0 0
UDP conn 0 0 0 0
ARP tbl 2 0 0 0
Xlate_Timeout 0 0 0 0
IPv6 ND tbl 0 0 0 0
VPN IKEv1 SA 0 0 0 0
VPN IKEv1 P2 0 0 0 0
VPN IKEv2 SA 0 0 0 0
VPN IKEv2 P2 0 0 0 0
VPN CTCP upd 0 0 0 0
VPN SDI upd 0 0 0 0
VPN DHCP upd 0 0 0 0
SIP Session 0 0 0 0
Route Session 5 0 0 0
User-Identity 1 0 0 0
Logical Update Queue Information
Cur Max Total
Recv Q: 0 9 1045
Xmit Q: 0 30 10226
ASSA1(config-if)#
ASSA1# sh run
: Saved
ASA Version 8.4(2)
hostname ASSA1
enable password 2KFQnbNIdI.2KYOU encrypted
passwd 2KFQnbNIdI.2KYOU encrypted
names
interface GigabitEthernet0
nameif outside
security-level 0
ip address 100.100.100.1 255.255.255.0 standby 100.100.100.2
ospf message-digest-key 20 md5 *****
ospf authentication message-digest
interface GigabitEthernet1
nameif inside
security-level 100
ip address 192.168.1.1 255.255.255.0 standby 192.168.1.2
ospf message-digest-key 20 md5 *****
ospf authentication message-digest
interface GigabitEthernet2
description LAN/STATE Failover Interface
interface GigabitEthernet3
shutdown
no nameif
no security-level
no ip address
interface GigabitEthernet4
nameif mgmt
security-level 0
ip address 10.101.50.100 255.255.255.0
interface GigabitEthernet5
shutdown
no nameif
no security-level
no ip address
ftp mode passive
clock timezone SGT 8
access-list OUTSIDE_ACCESS_IN extended permit icmp any any
pager lines 24
logging timestamp
logging console debugging
logging monitor debugging
mtu outside 1500
mtu inside 1500
mtu mgmt 1500
failover
failover lan unit primary
failover lan interface FAILOVER GigabitEthernet2
failover link FAILOVER GigabitEthernet2
failover interface ip FAILOVER 192.168.99.1 255.255.255.0 standby 192.168.99.2
icmp unreachable rate-limit 1 burst-size 1
asdm image disk0:/asdm-715-100.bin
no asdm history enable
arp timeout 14400
access-group OUTSIDE_ACCESS_IN in interface outside
router ospf 10
network 100.100.100.0 255.255.255.0 area 1
network 192.168.1.0 255.255.255.0 area 0
area 0 authentication message-digest
area 1 authentication message-digest
log-adj-changes
default-information originate always
route outside 0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 100.100.100.254 1
timeout xlate 3:00:00
timeout conn 1:00:00 half-closed 0:10:00 udp 0:02:00 icmp 0:00:02
timeout sunrpc 0:10:00 h323 0:05:00 h225 1:00:00 mgcp 0:05:00 mgcp-pat 0:05:00
timeout sip 0:30:00 sip_media 0:02:00 sip-invite 0:03:00 sip-disconnect 0:02:00
timeout sip-provisional-media 0:02:00 uauth 0:05:00 absolute
timeout tcp-proxy-reassembly 0:01:00
timeout floating-conn 0:00:00
dynamic-access-policy-record DfltAccessPolicy
user-identity default-domain LOCAL
aaa authentication ssh console LOCAL
http server enable
http 10.101.50.0 255.255.255.0 mgmt
no snmp-server location
no snmp-server contact
snmp-server enable traps snmp authentication linkup linkdown coldstart warmstart
telnet timeout 5
ssh 10.101.50.0 255.255.255.0 mgmt
ssh timeout 5
console timeout 0
tls-proxy maximum-session 10000
threat-detection basic-threat
threat-detection statistics access-list
no threat-detection statistics tcp-intercept
webvpn
username cisco password 3USUcOPFUiMCO4Jk encrypted
prompt hostname context
no call-home reporting anonymous
call-home
profile CiscoTAC-1
no active
destination address http https://tools.cisco.com/its/service/oddce/services/DDCEService
destination address email [email protected]
destination transport-method http
subscribe-to-alert-group diagnostic
subscribe-to-alert-group environment
subscribe-to-alert-group inventory periodic monthly
subscribe-to-alert-group configuration periodic monthly
subscribe-to-alert-group telemetry periodic daily
crashinfo save disable
Cryptochecksum:fafd8a885033aeac12a2f682260f57e9
: end
ASSA1#

SAP Best Practices - Error during the activation of Baseline Package

Hello,
I don´t know if this is the right forum to post this message, but I posting here as i didn´t get the info from the related forum, apologies for that.
During the process of activation the Baseline Package 603V8 on ECC6.0 EHP3 (I´m importing all scenarios) from solution builder (txcode /n/smb/bbi)... it stopped and it shows me the following error:
Start activation BC Set: /SMBA0/V_T001P_B0BN_J01
Not activated - error
End of activation BC Set: /SMBA0/V_T001P_B0BN_J01
Can someone help me solve this problem?
Thank you
João Dimas - Portugal

Hello again,
I already solved this specific issue that I reported in my previous message, I did the manual activation (txcode SCPR20) of that BC Set: /SMBA0/V_T001P_B0BN_J01 guided by the document "SAP Best Practices Tools". After this activation I pressed the Change button that is displayed in the Old Status column and I changed the status to successful, after I chose the Activate to continue with the installation. But, once again, other error stopped the installation, now with other BC Set:
/SMBA0/V_T001L_B175_J0A
I tried to solve with the same method through the manual activation, but now it was not possible, when I do that in SCPR20 the activation logs show me four warnings (see the image "BC Sets: Activation logs")... and I don´t want to continue with activation/installation of the full scope without solve this issue or can I continue?!
Can you help me please?
Thank you,
João Dimas - Portugal

Best Practices guides for activating New GL in BW?

Dear BWers,
Does anybody have any links to the best practices guides for implementing the New GL in BW? Please share if you have any.
Thanks
Raj
Message was edited by:
Raj Singh

Hi Raj,
See if this is helpful:
http://help.sap.com/bp_biv170/BBLibrary/documentation/B70_BB_ConfigGuide_EN_DE.doc

Printing best practices

I've been asking a bunch of questions recently on TS printing and realize that I should just start from scratch. Since I'm not sure what best practices are for this environment, I would like to get everyone's opinion.
This environment:
20 Server 2008 R2 TS' and approximately 200 fat clients (mixed XP and 7). Currently, all network printers are installed on each TS individually (not shared). We also have about 10 USB printers that redirect. Our network printers are set up on 5 different local
servers since we have multiple locations. We print both from local desktops and terminal servers.
What we need is for all network printers to be on each server like they are currently but I'd like to eliminate the need to manage each one on each and every server whenever there is a change. Our current environment was set up by previous IT personnel and
I'm not sure if it's optimal
I understand there are multiple ways to deploy printers but I don't know what is best for our environment. I've tried Print Management but I need to be able to set preferences. I've tried GPP in Computer Configuration but it doesn't seem to work (possibly because
of the current set up). I would like to know how others would manage the printers in this environment, even if I need to delete everything and start over. I am also inexperienced with servers and group policy so I will ask follow up questions to most responses.
Sorry in advance!
Edit:To be more clear about my scope of knowledge- I know where the Active Directory and Group Policy Management reside. I have modified existing group policies
but not made new ones. Since all of our changes always apply to all users/terminal servers/roaming profiles, I've never needed to create OU's or use any kind of item-level targeting so I am not familiar with those.
Also, I would greatly appreciate not being redirected to another site/forum for answers. I've read hundreds
and am getting mixed responses since I'm not sure what is appropriate for this particular environment. That and because I need layman's terms :) Thank you!

Hey Lynnette
I read through some of the other questions you were asking.
Deployed Printers from Print Management is only for adding printer connections, it's not for adding local printers and Deployed Printers does not support setting a default printer.
Group Policy Preferences supports adding local printers and connections. It can be used to set the default but not sure if that's for connections or local printers.
If the end result is to have the same configuration of local printers on multiple machines, I suggest using \windows\system32\spool\tools\PrintBRM.exe to backup the local printers from your Primary machine, then restore to all the other targets.
You can create a scheduled task to perform the backup and restores.
If you are looking to add printer connections in the "Computer" context (all users logging on will get the connection to the shared printer), you can achieve this using the local machine policy or using a domain policy that only applies to a specific
set of computers. But once again no default is set but it's fairly easy to set the default with printui.exe or prnmngr.vbs both included with the operating system.
Alan Morris Windows Printing Team

Best Practices when replacing 2003 server R2 with a new domainname and server 2012 r2 on same lan network

I have a small office (10 computers with five users) that have a Windows 2003 server that has a corrupted AD. Their 2003 server R2 is essentially a file server and provides authentication. They purchased a new Dell 2012 R2 server.
It seems easier to me to just create a new domain (using their public domain name).
But I need as little office downtime. as possible . Therefore I would like to promote this server to its new domain on the same lan as the current domain server. I plan to manually replicate the users and folder permissions. Once done, I plan to
remove the old server from the network and join the office computers to the new domain.
They also they are also running a legacy application that will require some tweaking by another tech. I have been hoping to prep the new domain prior to new legacy tech arriving. That is why I would like both domain to co-exist temporarily. I have read
that the major issues involved in this kind of temporary configuration will then be related to setting up dns. They are using the firewall to provide dhcp.
Are there any best practices documents for this situation?
Or is there a better or simpler strategy?
Gary Metz

I followed below two links. I think it should be the same even though the links are 2008 R2 migration steps.
http://kpytko.pl/active-directory-domain-services/adding-first-windows-server-2008-r2-domain-controller-within-windows-2003-network/
http://blog.zwiegnet.com/windows-server/migrate-server-2003-to-2008r2-active-directory-and-fsmo-roles/
Hope this help!

Best Practices for Passwords

Is there a "Best Practices" guide on setting passwords for HandHelds?
When we create accounts for users, we can either do it one at a time via
ConsoleOne or bulkload, and we usually put in the same temporary
first-time password. This gets them into their PC, portal, etc.
How would this work for HandHelds? I'd like to do the same thing. Who
has done this, what does it take to do, and what do you recommend?
Thanks!

Jason Doering wrote:
> JimmyV wrote:
>> Thanks Jason.
>>
>> I had hoped to get more feedback from people.
>>
>> Can I implement Password policies on a Handheld just as I can for a PC?
>> Complexity, length, etc?
>>
>
> Have a look at screen shots in the documentation:
> BlackBerry Security Policy:
>
http://www.novell.com/documentation/...9.html#ajla0a2
> Palm Security Policy:
>
http://www.novell.com/documentation/...9.html#ah36cbk
> PocketPC Security Policy:
>
http://www.novell.com/documentation/...9.html#ah36cc6
>
> As stated before, I have my Palm and PocketPC settings to use the
> eDirectory password. This way, it inherits whatever requirements I have
> set for that, and so far my users have preferred this to a separate
> password for their device.
>
> The first time a user syncs a device, it prompts them to enter the
> eDirectory password. If a password already exists on the device, the
> user gets prompted to enter the existing device password and then the
> eDirectory password. In either case, the device password then gets set
> to the eDirectory password. When the eDirectory password gets changed,
> the user will need to enter the old device password and the new
> eDirectory password.
>
Having done the both IP only version and the regular desktop sync I can tell
you that the user administration is probably not similar enough to what you
have been used to with desktops. Most handhelds (of any kind) are not
capable of multiple profiles (multi-user) on the device. So the catch is a
single user and single profile of that user on a handheld is going to have
the device access (NOT THE PROFILE) password set to the eDir password. If
another user were to need to login to the device and the eDir controls are
in place then the device access (power on password) would change to that
user. The profile would not change nor would the devices relationship with
anything it sync's with.
Sorry - long answer and late. This is not a very active forum.

Networking "best practice" for setting up a farm

Hi all.
We would like to set an OracleVM farm, and I have a question about "best practice" for
configuring the network. Some background:
- The hardware I have is comprised of machines with 4 gig-eth NICs each.
- The storage will be coming primarily from a backend NAS appliance (Netapp, FWIW).
- We have already allocated a separate VLAN for management.
- We would like to have HA capable VMs using OCFS2 (on top of NFS.)
I'm trying to decide between 2 possible configurations. The first would keep physical separation
between the mgt/storage networks and the DomU networks. The second would just trunk
everything together across all 4 NICs, something like:
Config 1:
- eth0 - management/cluster-interconnect
- eth1 - storage
- eth2/eth3 => bond0 - 8021q trunked, bonded interfaces for DomUs
Config 2:
- eth0/1/2/3 => bond0
Do people have experience or recommendation about the best configuration?
I'm attracted to the first option (perhaps naively) because CI/storage would benefit
from dedicated bandwidth and this configuration might also be more secure.
Regards,
Robert.

user1070509 wrote:
Option #4 (802.3ad) looks promising, but I don't know if this can be made to work across
separate switches.It can, if your switches support cross-switch trunking. Essentially, 802.3ad (also known as LACP or EtherChannel on Cisco devices) requires your switch to be properly configured to allow trunking across the interfaces used for the bond. I know that the high-end Cisco and Juniper switches do support LACP across multiple switches. In the Cisco world, this is called MEC (Multichassis EtherChannel).
If you're using low-end commodity-grade gear, you'll probably need to use active/passive bonds if you want to span switches. Alternatively, you could use one of the balance algorithms for some bandwitch increase. You'd have to run your own testing to determine which algorithm is best suited for your workload.
The Linux Foundation's Net:Bonding article has some great information on bonding in general, particularly on the various bonding methods for high availability:
http://www.linuxfoundation.org/en/Net:Bonding

(Request for:) Best practices for setting up a new Windows Server 2012 r2 Hyper-V Virtualized AD DC

Could you please share your best practices for setting up a new Windows Server 2012 r2 Hyper-V Virtualized AD DC, that will be running on a new WinSrv 2012 r2 host server. (This
will be for a brand new network setup, new forest, domain, etc.)
Specifically, your best practices regarding:
the sizing of non virtual and virtual volumes/partitions/drives,
the use of sysvol, logs, & data volumes/drives on hosts & guests,
RAID levels for the host and the guest(s),
IDE vs SCSI and drivers both non virtual and virtual and the booting there of,
disk caching settings on both host and guests.
Thanks so much for any information you can share.

A bit of non essential additional info:
We are small to midrange school district who, after close to 20 years on Novell networks, have decided to design and create a new Microsoft network and migrate all of our data and services
over to the new infrastructure . We are planning on rolling out 2012 r2 servers with as much Hyper-v virtualization as possible.
During the last few weeks we have been able to find most of the information we need to undergo this project, and most of the information was pretty solid with little ambiguity, except for
information regarding virtualizing the DCs, which as been a bit inconsistent.
Yes, we have read all the documents that most of these posts tend point to, but found some, if not most are still are referring to performing this under Srvr 2008 r2, and haven’t really
seen all that much on Srvr2012 r2.
We have read these and others:
Introduction to Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) Virtualization (Level 100),
Virtualized Domain Controller Technical Reference (Level 300),
Virtualized Domain Controller Cloning Test Guidance for Application Vendors,
Support for using Hyper-V Replica for virtualized domain controllers.
Again, thanks for any information, best practices, cookie cutter or otherwise that you can share.
Chas.

Best practices for setting up projects

We recently adopted using Captivate for our WBT modules.
As a former Flash and Director user, I can say it’s
fast and does some great things. Doesn’t play so nice with
others on different occasions, but I’m learning. This forum
has been a great source for search and read on specific topics.
I’m trying to understand best practices for using this
product. We’ve had some problems with file size and
incorporating audio and video into our projects. Fortunately, the
forum has helped a lot with that. What I haven’t found a lot
of information on is good or better ways to set up individual
files, use multiple files and publish projects. We’ve decided
to go the route of putting standalones on our Intranet. My gut says
yuck, but for our situation I have yet to find a better way.
My question for discussion, then is: what are some best
practices for setting up individual files, using multiple files and
publishing projects? Any references or input on this would be
appreciated.

Hi,
Here are some of my suggestions:
1) Set up a style guide for all your standard slides. Eg.
Title slide, Index slide, chapter slide, end slide, screen capture,
non-screen capture, quizzes etc. This makes life a lot easier.
2) Create your own buttons and captions. The standard ones
are pretty ordinary, and it's hard to get a slick looking style
happening with the standard captions. They are pretty easy to
create (search for add print button to learn how to create
buttons). There should instructions on how to customise captions
somewhere on this forum. Customising means that you can also use
words, symbols, colours unique to your organisation.
3) Google elearning providers. Most use captivate and will
allow you to open samples or temporarily view selected modules.
This will give you great insight on what not to do and some good
ideas on what works well.
4) Timings: Using the above research, I got others to
complete the sample modules to get a feel for timings. The results
were clear, 10 mins good, 15 mins okay, 20 mins kind of okay, 30
mins bad, bad, bad. It's truly better to have a learner complete
2-3 short modules in 30 mins than one big monster. The other
benefit is that shorter files equal smaller size.
5) Narration: It's best to narrate each slide individually
(particularly for screen capture slides). You are more likely to
get it right on the first take, it's easier to edit and you don't
have to re-record the whole thing if you need to update it in
future. To get a slicker effect, use at least two voices: one male,
one female and use slightly different accents.
6) Screen capture slides: If you are recording filling out
long window based databse pages where the compulsory fields are
marked (eg. with a red asterisk) - you don't need to show how to
fill out every field. It's much easier for the learner (and you) to
show how to fill out the first few fields, then fade the screen
capture out, fade the end of the form in with the instructions on
what to do next. This will reduce your file size. In one of my
forms, this meant the removal of about 18 slides!
7) Auto captions: they are verbose (eg. 'Click on Print
Button' instead of 'Click Print'; 'Select the Print Preview item'
instead of 'Select Print Preview'). You have to edit them.
8) PC training syntax: Buttons and hyperlinks should normally
be 'click'; selections from drop down boxes or file lists are
normally 'select': Captivate sometimes mixes them up. Instructions
should always be written in the correct order: eg. Good: Click
'File', Select 'Print Preview'; Bad: Select 'Print Preview' from
the 'File Menu'. Button names, hyperlinks, selections are normally
written in bold
9) Instruction syntax: should always be written in an active
voice: eg. 'Click Options to open the printer menu' instead of
'When the Options button is clicked on, the printer menu will open'
10) Break all modules into chapters. Frame each chapter with
a chapter slide. It's also a good idea to show the Index page
before each chapter slide with a progress indicator (I use an
animated arrow to flash next to the name of the next chapter), I
use a start button rather a 'next' button for the start of each
chapter. You should always have a module overview with the purpose
of the course and a summary slide which states what was covered and
they have complete the module.
11) Put a transparent click button somewhere on each slide.
Set the properties of the click box to take the learner back to the
start of the current chapter by pressing F2. This allows them to
jump back to the start of their chapter at any time. You can also
do a similar thing on the index pages which jumps them to another
chapter.
12) Recording video capture: best to do it at normal speed
and be concious of where your mouse is. Minimise your clicks. Most
people (until they start working with captivate) are sloppy with
their mouse and you end up with lots of unnecessarily slides that
you have to delete out. The speed will default to how you recorded
it and this will reduce the amount of time you spend on changing
timings.
13) Captions: My rule of thumb is minimum of 4 seconds - and
longer depending on the amount of words. Eg. Click 'Print Preview'
is 4 seconds, a paragraph is longer. If you creating knowledge
based modules, make the timing long (eg. 2-3 minutes) and put in a
next button so that the learner can click when they are ready.
Also, narration means the slides will normally be slightly longer.
14) Be creative: Capitvate is desk bound. There are some
learners that just don't respond no matter how interactive
Captivate can be. Incorporate non-captivate and desk free
activities. Eg. As part of our OHS module, there is an activity
where the learner has to print off the floor plan, and then wander
around the floor marking on th emap key items such as: fire exits;
first aid kit, broom and mop cupboard, stationary cupboard, etc.
Good luck!

Best practiceS for setting up Macs on Network

Greetings.
We have six Macs on our Windows Server network; three iMacs and three laptops. We have set up all the machines and they are joined to the Active Directory. In the past, we have always created local users on the machines and then "browsed" to the server shares and mounted the them. We've learned things have improved/changed over the years and we're just now realizing we can probably have the machines set up to work better. So, I have a couple of questions for "best practices" when setting up each of the machines.
1. Since we’re in a network environment, should we not set up “local logins/users” and instead have users login using their AD login? It seems having a local account creates some conflicts with the server since upgrading to lion.
2. Should we set the computer to not ask for a “list of users” and instead ask for a username and password for logins?
3. For the user that uses the machine most often, they can still customize their desktop when they use an AD login, correct?
4. Should we set up Mobile User Accounts? What exactly does this do?
Any other advice on how we should best be setting up the clients for our environment to make sure we are following best practices would be great!
Thanks for any help!
Jay

Greetings.
We have six Macs on our Windows Server network; three iMacs and three laptops. We have set up all the machines and they are joined to the Active Directory. In the past, we have always created local users on the machines and then "browsed" to the server shares and mounted the them. We've learned things have improved/changed over the years and we're just now realizing we can probably have the machines set up to work better. So, I have a couple of questions for "best practices" when setting up each of the machines.
1. Since we’re in a network environment, should we not set up “local logins/users” and instead have users login using their AD login? It seems having a local account creates some conflicts with the server since upgrading to lion.
2. Should we set the computer to not ask for a “list of users” and instead ask for a username and password for logins?
3. For the user that uses the machine most often, they can still customize their desktop when they use an AD login, correct?
4. Should we set up Mobile User Accounts? What exactly does this do?
Any other advice on how we should best be setting up the clients for our environment to make sure we are following best practices would be great!
Thanks for any help!
Jay

Active - Active best practices

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