RoundCube Webmail is an web based IMAP client that uses AJAX to provide a drag and drop interface that operates very much like a regular desktop application. RoundCube is Open Source and PHP based using a MySQL or Postgres database for data storage with a presentation layer that is fully skinnable using XHTML and CSS 2. Feature wise RoundCube includes things such as multilingual support, MIME support, personal address book, folder management, message searching and spell checking just to name a few. I've been using RoundCube for several years now to access my personal email from all corners of the globe, and I absolutely swear by it which is why I've decided to write this install guide for IIS.

The PHP group have just released PHP 5.2.6 containing over 120 bug fixes, with several of them being security related. This is the first production release of PHP since PHP 5.2.5 was released back in early November last year, so it is good to see things are moving along.

I recently brought a new Dell M1330 laptop which came preloaded with Windows Vista. The problem with preloaded operating systems is that they almost always come configured with a load of trialware software which is often restricted feature wise and consumes considerable system resources. This aside I wanted to put Windows XP SP2 onto my Dell M1330 as I had several applications that weren't Vista compatible which I used on a regular basis. The problem was that my new Dell M1330 used the new Advanced Host Controller Interface (AHCI) for which there are no drivers on the Windows XP Professional SP2 installation CD, and as my Dell M1330 has no floppy disk drive I wasn't able to load additional drivers when installing XP which brought me to a stalemate. The only option from here was to slipstream the AHCI SATA drivers into my Windows XP installation which is what I'll cover in this article.

By default IIS is installed to run using the credentials of the iusr_machinename user account for anonymous access and is configured with the least amount of privileges required to run a website making it ideal for a lot of smaller environments. Sometimes though it is necessary to configure multiple IIS user accounts to segregate web applications and/or users to increase security. Although the task of creating a new IIS user account while ensuring that it is only granted the minimum privileges to the system might sound like a complicated task, it is in fact quite easy as far as system administration task go. In this article we'll look the five steps involved in creating user accounts for IIS 6.

Simple Network Monitoring Protocol (SNMP) is a protocol designed to be the eyes and ears for the System Administrator by providing a standard interface that can be used to monitor all manner of items connected to a network. Not only can SNMP monitor, it can also alert System Administrators to elements of their environments that are operating outside of their threshold. It was for these reasons I recently installed the Microsoft SNMP agent on my own Windows 2003 server, however I had forgotten just how limited the scope of the Microsoft SNMP agent was.

Cacti is an open source PHP/MySQL based graphing and monitoring solution designed to utilise the very powerful RRDTool data logging tool by Tobias Oetiker. Using RRDTool, Cacti is capable of graphing and monitoring everything from network interface usage to temperature. Basically anything that can log data in a format RRDTool can read can be graphed and monitored by Cacti. In this guide we'll look at the steps necessary to install Cacti into your IIS environment.

Virtualisation is a very hot topic at the moment, and although VMWare are definitely on top of the pile Microsoft's is set to make a challenge with its soon to be released Hyper-V offering which is now in release candidate stage. VMWare have got years of experience on their side, and may even have a more polished product (if you believe all the VMWare blog posts) but Microsoft are set to have a massive advantage, particularly with SMEs, as Hyper-V is a key feature of Windows Server 2008.

It's been quite sometime since any updates have been made to the IIS Aid PHP Installer, so it is quite overdue that I announce the release of the first beta versions of the all new IIS Aid PHP Installer using PHP 5. You may notice I said versions. This is because the IIS Aid PHP Installer is now offered in both 32-bit and 64-bit, and is the only free PHP Installer program built specifically for IIS to do so.