Lance's TextBox

Could Congress Please Keep its Eye on the Ball?

Am I the only one who wonders why a congressional committee has time to discuss Roger Clemens (and other athletes') use of steroids, while there is a recession in the works, an aging baby boom generation, wars in the world (not just in the middle east), wide-spread poverty and hunger, global warming, renewable energy shortages, over-dependence on oil, and NCSU hasn't won a major ACC championship in 20 years? I mean seriously, can we please get our freaking priorities straight and let the damn baseball leagues deal with their own problems?

posted @ Thursday, February 28, 2008 4:11 AM | Feedback (1) | Filed Under [ Personal ]

Sending Email On Behalf Of

When you get an email from a yahoo group list, for example, it might say it was sent from yourgroup@yahoogroups.com on behalf of the person who actually sent it.  Both addresses will be included in the message.

This is done in SMTP with the SENDER header.  If the Sender header is present, the email client should identify the mail as being "from" the sender you specify in the SENDER header (they are "the responsible mail submitter"), on behalf of the from-address that you specify in the FROM header.  You can do it with IP*Works! by simply adding the SENDER header (which is not the same as the FROM header) using the OtherHeaders property, ie:

smtp.OtherHeaders = "Sender: sender-address@mydomain.com";

So, to send an email from test@mylist.com on behalf of the someuser@somedomain.com, just say: 

smtp.OtherHeaders = "Sender: test@mylist.com"; 
smtp.From = "someuser@somedomain.com"; 
smtp.SendTo = "test@nsoftware.com"; 
smtp.Subject = "SendOnBehalfOf"; 
smtp.MessageText = "message text"; 
smtp.Connect(); 
smtp.Send();

posted @ Tuesday, February 26, 2008 4:38 PM | Feedback (0) | Filed Under [ Programming IPWorks ]

ASP.Net Medium Trust and IPWorks/IBiz ASP.Net Editions

This great MSDN article: "How To: Use Medium Trust in ASP.NET 2.0" will probably answer nearly all of your questions about how to work in medium trust and how to customize medium trust permissions.  Here are a few extracts from this document that serve as a sort of "quick start" to medium trust.

• By default, ASP.NET 2.0 Web applications and Web services run with full trust and applications can perform privileged operations and access resources subject only to operating system security and Windows access control lists (ACLs).  You can use code access security (CAS) to restrict access to certain resources by using the trust element of the web.config.  You can set full, high, medium, low, and minimal trust.
• Medium restricts you from using OldDbPermission, EventLogPermission, ReflectionPermission, RegistryPermission, calling unmanaged code, and using Enterprise Services.  Also WebPermission (you can only communicate with address(es) defined in the trust element) and FileIOPermission (You can only access files in your applications virtual directory hierarchy) are restricted.
• To turn on medium trust, set the trust level to medium in your app-level or machine-level web.config (<trust level="Medium" />).  Consider the originUrl attribute for the trust element, which allows you to limit what Urls the web application(s) can access.
• You can customize medium trust restrictions (e.g., modify FileIOPermission to allow access to a specific directory outside of the applications virtual directory hierarchy) by creating a custom policy file and custom policy level.  There is a great example of this provided in the article.

Note: machine.config can be found in the "%windir%\Microsoft.Net\Framework\xxx\config" directory.

How all this applies to IP*Works! and IBiz products:

• In general, all /n software .Net components will need the following permissions, all of which are granted by default in Medium trust except SocketPermission:
  
  
  1. FileIOPermission - all components, for licensing and file access.
  2. ReflectionPermission - all components, for licensing.
  3. SocketPermission - all components that use socket communication.
  4. DnsPermission - anytime a hostname is used instead of a dotted IP address.
  
  To add SocketPermission to your custom medium trust, just add the following security class and ipermission to your custom policy config:
  
  <SecurityClass Name="SocketPermission" Description="System.Net.SocketPermission, System, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089"/>
  
  <IPermission class="SocketPermission" version="1" Unrestricted="true" />
  
  
• If you build with nsoftware.System.dll or if you're using a product that uses unsafe or unmanaged code (like SSL which uses pinvokes to security libraries installed on Windows machines), you'll need to set the SkipVerification flags and ManagedCode flags (respectively) of SecurityPermission in your custom policy file.
• You may wish to alter the WebPermission permission to allow access to any Uri. 
• You could use CodeGroups with the IMembershipCondition (StrongNameMembershipCondition) to restrict custom config settings specifically to code signed by /n software.

posted @ Thursday, February 21, 2008 1:58 PM | Feedback (1) | Filed Under [ Programming Software IPWorks IBiz ]

Lori McKenna Live!

5 or 6 years ago, I was cleaning my apartment with the tv on in the background.  I wasn't watching the tv, but a song started playing on the show that was on, and the song (not the show) immediately caught my attention.  The singing voice was so striking.  Extremely expressive and painful, I ended up watching the rest of the tv show just so I could see the credits and find out what angel had this extraordinary singing voice.  It was Lori McKenna.

I searched her out on the Internet and found out that she played only in the New England area, but I found some other songs of hers through her website and WUMB (public radio in Boston) recordings.  All amazing.  Fast forward to 2007 and Faith Hill records three of Lori's songs on her CD Fireflies (including the title track), Lori McKenna opens for Faith and Tim on tour, and Tim McGraw produces Lori's album Unglamorous.  Pretty impressive!  I always knew I had a golden ear and could pick out a star from a mile away (now I know its much further than a mile...how many miles from NC to Mass?).

So last night I got to see Lori live, at her show at the ArtsCenter in Carrboro, NC.  The show was just Lori, Mark Erelli (backup vocals, mandolin, and guitar), and Russell (electric guitar) in a small theatre with a max seating of something like 300.  I sat less than 10 feet from the stage at a table and drank a local brew while listening.  Very nice!  :)

If you want to check it out, I took a short grainy video of one of her songs:  Written Permission.  She apparently categorizes her music as country these days, since she signed with Warner Bros:

posted @ Thursday, February 21, 2008 1:47 PM | Feedback (0) | Filed Under [ General Just For Fun Personal ]

My Rat Terrier Anna Says "Hi!"

This is Anna, my 8 year old Rat Terrier.  She doesn't howl very much, so I thought this was really funny.  I think my favorite part is right near the end, after the alarm stops, she just freezes.  She's so frozen that it almost looks like the video is over, but its not.

posted @ Tuesday, February 19, 2008 5:22 PM | Feedback (1) | Filed Under [ Personal ]

Radiohead Meets "Family Guy"

My friend James loves Radiohead, and he introduced me to their music.  I like it because its really chill and relaxing.  But when I told him that one of the songs from their latest "In Rainbows" album (particularly the songs "Reckoner" and "Nude") reminded me of the old guy from Family Guy, James said, "I'm gonna be angry with you if that image sticks".  Well...here you go James:

posted @ Wednesday, February 13, 2008 5:56 PM | Feedback (1) | Filed Under [ Just For Fun ]