Since installing Option Pack 4 for Windows NT to get IIS running Classic ASP, we have all felt the lack of ease from Microsoft to actually create websites on a developer box. There has always been an expressed need to not need a custom configured machine to install Visual Studio and create web sites right away. Why must we open Windows Configuration and add all these pieces if a solution for our OS could be added to the development product line.
My first development job was 10 years ago when I worked as an intern creating ASP site at the 19. I remember always struggling to deploy updates to the servers and usually reverting to “coding-on-the-server” for high risk bugs and debugging.
After that Windows 2000 really helped us out with IIS 5.0 on the server media and developers quickly moved to Windows 2000 as a developer environment. Shortly after that we all started playing with the betas of .NET in 2001 and developing on a “server-like” environment became second nature.
Then XP came out and we were able to install a consumer OS while retaining the ability to have IIS installed with the Professional edition. Dynamic URLs were becoming the appropriate way of web site design instead of default.aspx?id=234. We were entering the world of competitive SEO and ASP.NET needed to follow. IIS 6 with Windows Server 2003 or XP allowed this to be done, but it was up to the developer to build the right HttpHandlers and Modules to make it happen.
With Visual Studio 2005, we received the tool Cassini for web site development in the IDE, however it was always a quirky tool to use and large applications would tend to default to an IIS installation on the developers box. The task of removing the installed web server on the developers box was still not complete.
Then the age of Vista/7 came and we received all sorts of goodies, but limitations to “Run as Administrator” or if you were a SharePoint 2007 developer, you were launched back into the world of Server OS installation on your client box and the posts about how to make Windows Server 2003/2008 look like Vista started popping up all over. Most developers could still use Vista/7 for their typical ASP.NET development however, and IIS had started to receive a lot of the features that were added to IIS 7.0 on the server.
Today, ScottGu announced the addition of IIS Express and it makes a lot of promises to elevate the need for IIS installations on the developers machine. Read over the article and tell me what you think. I think it is a step in the right direction and I am looking forward to using it. I have never been a fan of Betas for Web Servers because it is easy to think your code is wrong when it could be an issue with the web server, but in this scenerio, I think I will give it a try when it is available for download.
Here are the highlights mentioned in his post:
- It’s lightweight and easy to install (less than 10Mb download and a super quick install)
- It does not require an administrator account to run/debug applications from Visual Studio
- It enables a full web-server feature set – including SSL, URL Rewrite, Media Support, and all other IIS 7.x modules
- It supports and enables the same extensibility model and web.config file settings that IIS 7.x support
- It can be installed side-by-side with the full IIS web server as well as the ASP.NET Development Server
- It works on Windows XP and higher operating systems – giving you a full IIS 7.x developer feature-set on all OS platforms
Even though this week has been a bear for me dealing with AT&T support for DSL service and after 4 hours on the phone with their support team trying to get to the place where I can connect to their service again, I am still happy with the new product I introduced into our house, the 3G MicroCell. The 3G MicroCell is a mini cell-tower for your house that generates a stronger 3G signal for you while going over your DSL/Cable modem to connect back into the AT&T network.
Why did we get it?
After reviewing our phone situation in the house, we have came to the conclusion that we didn’t need some of the home phone features we were using if we had a solution for in-house unlimited calling. We keep unlimited data and texting on our iPhones already, but our minutes would be limited if we turned off the nationwide long distance plan we had on our phone. We were really tired on chasing down cordless phones all the time, making sure they were charge while the whole time, our cell phones were on attached to us.
Does it work?
Our house is pretty wide open, but it does extend the suggested limit. I placed the MicroCell in the location where we spend the majority of our time and also central to the other places we work and live. Michelle has been baking a lot of cakes lately so we needed the ability to have it reach her kitchen and I needed full strength in my office. The MicroCell has definitely been able to make that happen. Outside, we are back on the 3G network, due to the concrete walls we have framing our house. Even our Wireless-N signal has trouble breaking through to the outside.
Am I being ripped off?
Some people say it is a rip off to pay AT&T to use your DSL to take the load off their network, but you aren’t really taking the load off anything else than the cell towers because all your traffic is going to their core network via VPN. The fact is I was able to turn off our $20/month unlimited long distance plan on our land line and turn on the $20/month unlimited calling plan on our phones while we are using the MicroCell. Since the landline is pretty much dead and most our calls in and out are made via our cells, we are definitely seeing a benefit in how we communicate with each other and the outside world. Since our home phone is pretty much unused now, we took all the bells and whistles off the line and will keep it around for a few more months until everyone gets used to calling us on our mobile phones, then in the end we will nuke the service and MicroCell will have started to save us money. Some reviewers say it does not replace the home phone, but I just haven’t seen the same things they have. Time will tell.
Would I suggest it to a friend?
If you want the unlimited calling or you want the ability to have stronger signal in your home, absolutely. You can trying it out and I believe with-in 30 days return it if you don’t like it. It is very easy to setup and after some minor tweaks with your router (placing it in the DMZ was suggested) you can get the most out of the device.
Looks like I was one of the lucky 114,000 who AT&T lost their email to “hackers”. Why is “hackers” in “double quotes”. I can just imagine some executive at AT&T in their “Oh No, We Messed Up Meeting” saying, what happened? Then someone replied, well we have had a breach and “hackers” broke in (using the quote in the air gesture) and stole our iPad 3G customers emails.
Oh well, I am sure my email has been sold and sold again by many different vendors, why not AT&T now. At least Dorothy Attwood could have gave us her email to give to someone else instead of blinking it through a newsletter system.
June 13, 2010
Dear Valued AT&T Customer,
Recently there was an issue that affected some of our customers with AT&T 3G service for iPad resulting in the release of their customer email addresses. I am writing to let you know that no other information was exposed and the matter has been resolved. We apologize for the incident and any inconvenience it may have caused. Rest assured, you can continue to use your AT&T 3G service on your iPad with confidence.
Here’s some additional detail:
On June 7 we learned that unauthorized computer “hackers” maliciously exploited a function designed to make your iPad log-in process faster by pre-populating an AT&T authentication page with the email address you used to register your iPad for 3G service. The self-described hackers wrote software code to randomly generate numbers that mimicked serial numbers of the AT&T SIM card for iPad – called the integrated circuit card identification (ICC-ID) – and repeatedly queried an AT&T web address. When a number generated by the hackers matched an actual ICC-ID, the authentication page log-in screen was returned to the hackers with the email address associated with the ICC-ID already populated on the log-in screen.
The hackers deliberately went to great efforts with a random program to extract possible ICC-IDs and capture customer email addresses. They then put together a list of these emails and distributed it for their own publicity.
As soon as we became aware of this situation, we took swift action to prevent any further unauthorized exposure of customer email addresses. Within hours, AT&T disabled the mechanism that automatically populated the email address. Now, the authentication page log-in screen requires the user to enter both their email address and their password.
I want to assure you that the email address and ICC-ID were the only information that was accessible. Your password, account information, the contents of your email, and any other personal information were never at risk. The hackers never had access to AT&T communications or data networks, or your iPad. AT&T 3G service for other mobile devices was not affected.
While the attack was limited to email address and ICC-ID data, we encourage you to be alert to scams that could attempt to use this information to obtain other data or send you unwanted email. You can learn more about phishing by visiting the AT&T website.
AT&T takes your privacy seriously and does not tolerate unauthorized access to its customers’ information or company websites. We will cooperate with law enforcement in any investigation of unauthorized system access and to prosecute violators to the fullest extent of the law.
AT&T acted quickly to protect your information – and we promise to keep working around the clock to keep your information safe. Thank you very much for your understanding, and for being an AT&T customer.
Sincerely,
Dorothy Attwood
Senior Vice President, Public Policy and Chief Privacy Officer for AT&T
Technorati Tags:
AT&T,
iPad 3G,
Email
I have been recently been doing more photography and Flickr was only allowing me to do so much with the images in displaying them. No customization of skin, no page grouping, no post like pages. So I decided to host a WordPress blog to host my images. I really wanted to try WordPress to see what features single-hosted blog products offer that our multiple-hosted blog system could take advantage of.
So far the product is very cool, I can see how such a large developer network would help produce such cool “apps” for WP. The product makes if very easy to make changes to your hosted environment that would be a little scary for a multiple blog host. I need to compare features for their hosted solution.
Any who, FotoJeff.com is my new photography blog home. I have been working with the Kansas City Rescue Mission a lot lately so most of my shots are for them.
FotoJeff.com – Photography Blog of Jeff Julian
My hope is to make this blog again my technology blog, Staff of Geeks our Geekswithblogs.net announcement blog and FotoJeff.com my photography blog. I need to start dog fooding my thoughts on blogging and keep the noise down (by making more noise with this post :D).
Here is the list of Zone ID’s for the Blank WebPart Page (BlankWebPartPage.aspx") that is part of the Publishing Portal with MOSS 2007:
- TitleBar
- Header
- TopLeftRow
- TopRightRow
- CenterLeftColumn
- CenterColumn
- CenterRightColumn
- Footer
- RightColumn
I was in need of these and wasn’t able to find them with a simple search on Google so I wanted to share them with you.
To get a list of WebPartZone objects for a page that a webpart lives on can be done with the following code:
foreach (WebPartZone zone in this.WebPartManager.Zones)
{
this.Controls.Add(new LiteralControl(zone.ID + "<br />"));
}
Use this code in a webpart that inherits from Microsoft.SharePoint.WebPartPages.WebPart. This is a simple way to do the equivalent of a Response.Write while having the output in the webpart zone your part resides in. It also saves you from attaching to the process and debugging with the watch or quick watch.
I am learning how to write apps for the iPad/iPhone/iPod! Why, well several reasons. One reason, I have 5 devices in my house on the platform. I had an iPad and iPhone, Michelle has an iPhone, and each of the kids have iPod Touches. They are excellent devices for life management, entertainment, and learning. I am amazed at how well the kids pick up on it and how much it effects the way they learn. My two year old knows how to use it better than any other device we own and she is learning new words and letters so quickly.
Because of this saturation at home, it would be fun to write some apps my family could use. Some games to bring the hobby of development back into my life.
Second reason is we want to have a Geekswithblogs app for the iPhone and iPad. We are not sure if it is purely informational (blog posts and tweets) or if members want to be able to publish from the app. Creating a blog editor would be tough stuff, but could be just the right challenge.
There are so many more reasons, but the last one that really makes me excited is that it is a new domain of development where I get excited when I think about writing apps. That excitement level where I want to see if there are User Groups and if we are just watching TV, to break out the MBP and start working on it. That excitement level where I could really read a development book cover to cover and not just use as a reference. I really do like this feeling.
Who knows how long this will last and I am definitely not leaving .NET. Microsoft software will always be my main focus, but for the time, my hobby is changing and I am getting excited about development again.
Image: Courtesy of Apple
St. Louis is definitely a cool city. I have always looked at it as Kansas City’s big brother. I love to Arch, wonder what is would be like to have pro hockey, really like the downtown area, and have some great friends who live there.
The reason we left for St. Louis on Thursday evening was to get us a head start on our journey. Since we were doing a Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives tour, it made since to have the journey start there. We picked the Hyatt Downtown as our hotel because they had an Arch Package which was suppose to get you tickets to the arch so you didn’t need to arrive early and wait in line. That ended up not working cause the arch had been selling out every day and they were no longer accepting the hotels tickets. No biggie and the hotel did try very hard to get us tickets, but we just took our chances in the line and waited. We walked over to the park and had to wait for about 20 minutes for the doors to open and had tickets after another 20 minutes of waiting in line and at that point walked right up and were able to get to the elevators.
I want to stop here to have a little aside. I don’t know who started the rumor that the arch ride is scary but it is not. You do sit in a small pod, but it like the accent on a roller coaster to the top of the first drop and an elevator with no windows outside. Nothing to be afraid of here if you aren’t claustrophobic. If you are afraid of small spaces, stay clear of this ride. Once you get to the top, you walk up 10 to 30 stairs depending on which car you were in (lower the number the less stairs you climb) and you are then at the top in a decent sized room where you look out the windows. Beautiful view of the city. I don’t typically like heights, but this felt like being inside a building and not hang out on a roof.
Here is the view from the arch:
Related Tags:
Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives,
St. Louis,
Vacation
Coming to Kansas City April 8th and 9th is the Microsoft Azure Bootcamp. This event looks very promising for those developers who are looking into Azure for themselves or their companies. It covers the wide range of topics required to understand what Azure really is and is not. Space is limited so if you are considering Azure, register for this event today.
Agenda:
Module 1: Introduction to cloud computer and Azure
- How it works
- Key Scenarios
- The development environment and SDK
Module 2: Using Web Roles
Module 3: Blobs: File Storage in the cloud
Module 4: Tables: Scalable hierarchical storage
Module 5: Queues: Decoupling your systems
Module 6: Basic Worker Roles
- Executing backend processes
- Consuming a queue
- Leveraging local storage
Module 7: Advanced Worker Roles
- External Endpoints
- Inter-role communication
Module 8: Building a business with Azure
- Using Azure as an ISV or a partner
- Advantages to delivering value
- BPOS
- Pricing
Module 9: SQL Azure
- Setting it up
- SQL Azure firewall
- Remote management
- Migrating data
Module 10: AppFabric
- Service Bus
- Access Control System
- Identity in the cloud
Module 11: Cloud Scenarios
- App migration strategies
- Disposable computing
- Dynamic scale
- Shunting
- Prototyping
- Multitenant applications
(This is my second attempt at this post after MacJournal decided to crash and not save my work. Authoring tools all need auto-save features by now, that is a requirement set in stone by Microsoft Word 97)
Related Tags:
Azure,
Microsoft,
Kansas City
This weekend, we were planning on going to Mt. Rushmore, but with the weather the way it is, we decided to head south instead. So what are we going to do? A tour of different restaurants on the show Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives. Not very original I know since there are web sites and iPhone apps dedicated to locating the establishments, but it definitely sounds like it could be some fun. We are going to leave KC tonight and go through St. Louis, Memphis, Little Rock, Dallas, Oklahoma City, and back to KC. The kiddos are excited and we have plenty of movies, coloring books, etc in the car for the trip. This will be the first time we will get to use our turn around seats in the mini-van with our pull out table.
I will have my laptop and phone if anything goes wrong with the site while I am gone and John will be back in KC as well. I hope to pushing some photos and reviews of the restaurants as we travel.
Related Tags:
blogging,
Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives,
Vacation
With the popularity of twitter growing, we wanted to enable users to have the possibility to have a shorter URL for posting. To complete the idea, we purchased http://wblo.gs and http://geekswithblo.gs, and you can selected which ever you prefer. Once the request is made it will be redirected to the page under that http://geekswithblogs.net domain, but it will shortcut the amount of characters needed. Here are some examples:
I hope you enjoy these additions. Photo was taken by me on 6/25/2009 at 5:00am while I was waiting on @clinted to wake up. He forgot to set his alarm.