Brent Holliman

Encrypt / Decrypt Configuration Data in ASP.NET 2.0

Brent Holliman — Sat, 29 Jul 2006 20:00:00 GMT

I have been developing in ASP.NET 2.0 for a good while now and I just found out about this neat little trick so I thought I would share it with you (in case you overlooked it). Almost all of the configuration data in the web.config can be encrypted and decrypted using the aspnet_regiis command line tool.

For example, if you want to encrypt the connectionStrings section in the web.config, all you have to do is type:

aspnet_regiis -pef connectionStrings C:\MyWebSite

and if you want to decrypt the connectionStrings section in the web.config just type:

aspnet_regiis -pdf connectionStrings C:\MyWebSite

The cool thing about this utility is that there is absolutely no code involved to get this to work in your website and when you are evaluating the value of say the connectionString property in debug mode, you can see plain text.

Pretty cool!

PEACE!!

Vonage - VoIP

Brent Holliman — Sat, 03 Sep 2005 09:47:00 GMT

I finally took the plunge and joined the Vonage voice over IP revolution! So far I am very impressed. There have been no unexpected hangups and there is a very clear signal. For a flat fee (very cheap) I am able to make as many long distance and local calls as I like. All the good features come with it too like call-forwarding, voicemail, caller id, etc. It even comes with a built in router with 4 ethernet ports and 2 phone jacks. I can also use any of my existing phones with it. It comes standard with email notifications and email notifications with a voicemail attachment. The only bad thing is that you have to pay extra for the software that will allow you to use your computer as a phone. All in all, it seems to be a really good deal.

Audio - Mixing Beats

Brent Holliman — Thu, 18 Aug 2005 22:15:00 GMT

After playing with Audacity for a little while, I got inspired to go a little further with mixing and re-mixing audio. I was pointed to Ableton to check out Live 5.0.1. Now this is what I've been really wanting to play around with. Very cool stuff but it isn't cheap and it takes patience.

Alcoholic Powder

Brent Holliman — Tue, 02 Aug 2005 13:01:00 GMT

I don't know how true this is but I read about this today and it can't be good. First I'm not sure if you can even convert ethanol to a powder substance unless there were some other ingredients mixed in with it to make it powder. This is marketed at teens and escapes the Alcohol tax. Check it out Here.

Peace!!

FREE Microsoft Training

Brent Holliman — Sun, 31 Jul 2005 14:56:00 GMT

This may be old news to avid MSDN viewers but I just noticed that there are several *free* training courses for Visual Studio 2005 including Team System.

https://www.microsoftelearning.com/visualstudio2005/

PEACE!!

SSWI - SourceSafe Online

Brent Holliman — Fri, 22 Jul 2005 12:30:00 GMT

I haven't downloaded this yet from component workshop but there has been a lot of hype around it and there are a ton of benefits to having a web based sourcesafe.

Here ya' go...
http://www.componentworkshop.com/Default.aspx?cid=441

Peace!

Windows Vista

Brent Holliman — Fri, 22 Jul 2005 11:32:00 GMT

Longhorn is now Windows Vista!

I guess Microsoft is getting closer to actually releasing the new OS. It is said that a test version will be available next month. We'll see...

Peace!!

Spitting Services Through The Wire! That's what I'm Talking About!

Brent Holliman — Thu, 21 Jul 2005 03:10:00 GMT

MSDN just released this section of the new upcoming book by David Pallmann called Programming Indigo.

The service contract is sweet and generic. And they even mention a little toolset that comes along with it which includes Comsvcutil.exe for COM+ interop with services. Good Stuff!

Programming Indigo

PEACE!!

Visual Studio Tools For Office 2005 Links

Brent Holliman — Wed, 29 Jun 2005 05:21:00 GMT

Great post on several resources to help you get started developing Office solutions using VS Tools For Office 2005.

http://weblogs.asp.net/SBehera/archive/2005/06/27/415715.aspx

Pulling Your iTunes Library Using XML

Brent Holliman — Wed, 29 Jun 2005 05:20:00 GMT

MS released a Coding4Fun article on pulling your iTunes library using xml. Pretty cool...

http://msdn.microsoft.com/coding4fun/xmlforfun/ITunesLib/default.aspx

PEACE!!

Billy Hollis' GrokTalk on CodeHeads - Hilarious

Brent Holliman — Wed, 29 Jun 2005 05:18:00 GMT

Very funny video on the code addiction of the IT industry. He even says that Bill Gates is the “Higher Power”! ;-P

http://mediaserver.aspsoft.com/blog/BillyHollisPresentingCodeheadsAnonymous.aspx

PEACE!!

Remember the days of CoolEdit?

Brent Holliman — Tue, 28 Jun 2005 05:02:00 GMT

CoolEdit was such a cool free tool we used to use to edit, convert, and splice audio files. It eventually turned in to Adobe Audition which is cool but it costs $$. So today I ran across another free all out fully functional audio editior on Sourceforge and it ROCKS!

http://audacity.sourceforge.net

Enjoy!

PEACE!!

Brent Holliman

Encrypt / Decrypt Configuration Data in ASP.NET 2.0

Vonage - VoIP

Audio - Mixing Beats

Alcoholic Powder

*FREE* Microsoft Training

SSWI - SourceSafe Online

Windows Vista

Spitting Services Through The Wire! That's what I'm Talking About!

Visual Studio Tools For Office 2005 Links

Pulling Your iTunes Library Using XML

Billy Hollis' GrokTalk on CodeHeads - Hilarious

Remember the days of CoolEdit?

FREE Microsoft Training