How to Enable Audio When Remoting Onto Windows Server 2008

If you have ever tried to configure the audio settings on Windows Server 2008 so you could hear remote audio on your local computer, you have probably run into some problems. There are three major pieces to the puzzle, and all must be in place.

1. You need to configure the remote server to support audio. Make sure the Windows Audio service is running.
2. By default, Terminal Services on Windows Server 2008 disables audio redirection. To enable it:

• Run tsconfig.msc (Start -> Run -> tsconfig.msc)
• Double-click the RDP-Tcp connection to view its properties
• Choose the Client Settings tab
• Uncheck "Audio"
• Click "OK"

3. Your own Remote Desktop client needs to be configured to redirect audio from the remote server to your local machine. When you are about to connect to the remote server:

• Click the "Options" button in the Remote Desktop Connection window
• Choose the Local Resources tab
• Under "Remote computer sound", choose "Bring to this computer"

With those three pieces in place, you should see a working Sound icon in the system tray of the remote server, instead of the befuddling error message: ""No audio device is installed".

The Drink Cart

I dreamt a story last night, about two farms on a rocky coast. The two farms were about five miles apart from each other, this proximity making them neighbors by virtue of the relative desolation of the surrounding land. It was a time of war, in a nation run by militaristic fascists. One farm embraced the call to arms and cooperated with the war-hungry government while the other refused to cooperate and fought to maintain independence. Each became the focal point for the two perspectives in this rural district, and the conflict between the two ultimately came to a head: the people who lived on the independent farm caught wind of an attack being launched on them by the militaristic farm.

Hearing of this, the grown-ups on the independent farm sent all the children to a safe place, miles away. By contrast, the children on the militaristic farm were given bits and pieces of old uniforms, and the older ones were given old rifles and shotguns. On the day of the attack, the independents assembled their best defenses, coordinated their escape plan through an old tunnel, and went about concealing as much of their valuable seeds and stores as possible. As they went about this work, one of them spotted the squadron of children headed toward the farm. There was no sign of adults to follow -- somehow, most likely through an error in planning -- the children had arrived early. The independent farmers hid and quickly came up with a scheme to keep the children out of the fight.

It so happened that the pro-military farmers had ignored their farming in favor of preparing for war, and had been forced to cut back drastically on food as a result. When the children arrived, they walked in amid the farm buildings, weary from carrying their heavy guns, and couldn't believe their eyes. In plain sight, with not a soul around, was a cart piled high with clean pails of chocolate milk, coffee milk, and fruit juices, with giant straws.

"Alllright!!!" shouted the children. They dropped their guns and piled around the cart and drank greedily, their soldierly aspirations forgotten.

The Mix She Won't Like

Back in February, while making a "music discovery" mix for my wife (a mix made up entirely of newish songs she didn't know, ideally by bands unfamiliar to her), I made a similar mix for myself. It was a place to put the songs I discovered that I thought she wouldn't like, because they were too downtempo, too brooding. It's called "The Mix She Won't Like". I've listened to it many times since then, and it's really stood up. The melancholy, dreamy mood totally works for me, and should be especially appropriate as fall weather comes again. Just thought I'd share. (You can listen to it for free on Lala, which has become my favorite website. If you're interested, you can also listen to the one I made for my wife, Sampler Plate 3, a much brighter, more energetic mix.)

Finding Entrances to Seattle's Transit Tunnel

I've lived in Seattle for over a year-and-a-half now, and I've taken the 194 bus from downtown to the airport several times, but each time I feel like finding where to pick up the 194 is going to be a craps-shoot. Sometimes it's above ground, and I can pick it up on 2nd. But sometimes it's in the transit tunnel, and I haven't used the tunnel enough to know where the entrances are. The last time I took the 194, I did enough advance research to find that I should catch it in the tunnel... only to discover that the tunnel was closed because of a fire. So I ran around with my suitcase trying to find an above-ground stop nearby (since Metro Transit folks didn't post any guidance). Aarrgh! Makes me miss Chicago.

Anyhow, I just found this nice map of the Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel, and thought I'd post a link to it in case other people out there are trying to figure out where the tunnel stops are and how to get into them.

http://transit.metrokc.gov/tops/tunnel/tunnel-map.html

The Rise and Fall of Pleo

Fascinating lecture by the former CTO of Ugobe, makers of the Pleo robotic dinosaur:

http://www.gorobotics.net/the-news/latest-news/the-rise-and-fall-of-pleo-a-fairwell-lecture-by-john-sosoka-former-cto-of-ugobe

How to Disable CRL Checking

I went down the rabbit hole of certificate-revocation lists today, and came up with a headache. Yet more time wasted wrestling with security infrastructure. Such a shame that people aren't better behaved -- so much human effort is wasted on security measures.

What started it all was a problem where our .Net application was taking a very long time to start up (on the order of several minutes), but only on machines without Internet access. The root of the problem, it turns out, lay in the delay that was occurring while a .Net security component awaited a response from http://crl.thawte.com. The security component was dutifully trying to get an updated list of revoked code-signing certificates, so it could be absolutely certain that the assemblies in question had not been tampered with.

And it turns out you can turn off CRL checking. This article nicely summarizes the problem and describes your options: http://digital.ni.com/public.nsf/allkb/18E25101F0839C6286256F960061B282 . You can turn CRL checking off on a machine, or on a specific .Net application.


Disable CRL Checking Machine-Wide
Control Panel -> Internet Options -> Advanced -> Under security, uncheck the Check for publisher's certificate revocation option

Disable CRL Checking For a Specific .Net Application
See this Microsoft KB Article: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/936707

The Right Answer
Disabling CRL checking is handy when you trust your assemblies or you trust that their code-signing certificates will not be revoked. But, from a security best-practices point of view, what you should really do is routinely download up-to-date CRLs and install them on the machines that don't have Internet access. How best is this accomplished? I don't know. If someone stumbles across this post and knows how to do this, via Active Directory for example, let me know!

Sites I Should Know About

I took the Make online survey, and one of the questions asked which of the following sites I frequent. I had never even heard of many of them, so I thought I should blog the list and check them out over time. (Sorry I didn't take the time to convert them all to links, but some are .com and some are .net, so select, right-click, and Google away. If I thought I had more than one reader -- myself -- I would have turned them into links.)

43 Folders
Ars Technica
BoingBoing
Craftzine.com
CrunchGear
Digg
Engadget
Etsy
EurekaAlert
Fark
Gear Live
Geek.com
Gizmodo
Instructables
jkOnTheRun
Laughing Squid
Make: Online
Neatorama
NewScientist.com
O'Reilly Radar
Parenthacks.com
PopSci.com
Slashdot
Swapatorium
TechCrunch
Techmeme
ThinkGeek
ToolMonger