DavidJSmitty.com

Soldier on Ron Paul vs. Huckabee

david — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 12:49:00 GMT

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5uk-T46soz8 via http://digg.com/2008_us_elections/U_S_soldier_who_fought_in_Iraq_slams_Mike_Huckabee_video_2

Made me cry.

Migration from Windows Server/IIS/SQL/ASP.NET to LMono (not LAMP and not LAMMono)

david — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 07:40:00 GMT

For those loyal readers of my blog, I'd like to announce a personal change of direction back to lighter, more open tools in the form of Linux, Mac OS, and Windows and Mono.

Background

It wasn't many years ago that I was enjoying burning my time by presenting .NET tech talks at Michigan State University. While I was on this .NET journey, I grew far away from my roots in linux and open source. And now, as we get closer to 2008, I'm taking a slightly different direction from the relative ease of Microsoft software to supporting Linux and Mac OS.

I'm building on Mono now, and look forward to writing software that will run cross-platform (so now my friends will all be able to play with my stuff on their macs). I've been playing with lighttpd on CentOS since I'm already very familiar with Apache. I've installed CentOS 5.1, Ubuntu 7.10, and have an UltraVNC connection to a local G4 so I'm pretty set with regards to testing.

The migration path from Windows Server /IIS/SQL/ASP.NET to Linux/Mono and will be slow, but satisfying. I'll be describing my experiences with the migration here.

Step 1: Install alternate OS's

Download Virtual PC
Install Ubuntu 7.10 w/ GUI - Virtual PC has a problem with the default Ubuntu mouse and video resolution settings, but 1 hour of tinkering will solve it.
Install CentOS 5.1 - I decided to install CentOS because I wanted to be able to support lighttpd with FastCGI Mono plugin installed.
Get a Mac - Install VineServer for VNC connectivity.

Install UltraVNC on your Windows machine

Depending on what you want and need, install Apache or Lighttpd. Since I'll be developing desktop software first, I'm not interested in the web server setup until I'm ready to migrate from IIS. I've played with the FastCGI mod, but will not be going over that yet.

Step 2: Install Visual Studio Express Versions on your Windows machine

They're simpler, lighter, faster, free-er, and easier than Visual Studio Standard or Pro. While you'll be forced to seperate your Web and C# projects into Web Express and C# Express, this was a welcome forced seperation for me.

Step 3: Install Mono on alternate OS's (official site: http://www.mono-project.com/Downloads)

Ubuntu 7.10

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install mono
sudo apt-get install mono-gmcs

CentOS 5.1

The built-in installer for CentOS 5.1 is called yum. If you run into any dependency issues, you can issue a command such as yum install XXX to install the XXX libraries and executables.

wget http://go-mono.com/sources/mono/mono-1.2.6.tar.bz2
tar -xjf mono-1.2.6.tar.bz2
cd mono-1.2.6
./configure
make
make install

Mac OS

Download and run the installer from http://www.mono-project.com/Downloads

Step 4: Share projects between computers and create build scripts

You can mount a windows share from Mac OS by exploring your 'Servers' tab in the Finder.
On Ubuntu, create a directory under /mnt and type: sudo mount -t cifs //192.168.1.102/SharedDirectory /mnt/SharedDirectory -o username=John,password=mySecretPassword
On CentOS, create a directory under /mnt and type: mount -t cifs //192.168.1.102/SharedDirectory /mnt/SharedDirectory -o username=John,password=mySecretPassword

The compiler for Mono (.NET 2.0) is called gmcs. I like to build a project on Windows, then copy the project over to a shared folder that's mounted between all the computers and execute the build command on each of the separate computers to do unit testing.

Since I'm starting very simple, my build script is a simple gmcs command that compiles 2 projects, 1 library and 1 executable.

/mnt/SharedDirectory/build.sh

rm -r -f ./bin
mkdir ./bin

gmcs ./Directory1/SourceFile1.cs ./Directory1/Directory2/SourceFile2.cs ./Directory1/Directory2/SourceFile3.cs /d:TRACE /t:library -out:./bin/MyLibrary.dll
gmcs ./Directory1.UnitTest/Program.cs /d:TRACE /t:exe -out:./bin/MyProgram.UnitTest.exe -r:./bin/MyLibrary.dll

To run the compiled program, I then type:

mono ./bin/MyProgram.UnitTest.exe

This is the start. I'll be adding things as I go deeper down the rabbit hole. Nice to be back in the more open arena everyone.

RE: IFPI on BitTorrent

david — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 07:22:00 GMT

The IFPI and ISPs like Comcast make me angry. http://torrentfreak.com/isps-should-block-bittorrent-and-tpb-071226/

"There’s noway this can happen…Everybody knows there is so much people in p2p that someone will find a way to go around all this. " - most_uniQue

most_uniQue is right. They can't stop anything. Developers will always be 2 steps ahead.

TLS is just the start.

I know you only stumbled across this

david — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 11:08:00 GMT

I know you may have only stumbled across this, and I know this will only be seen by maybe 5 or 10 people, but if you spend 2 minutes listening to Ron Paul, you may like him. Please visit http://thisnovember5th.com/ and watch the video.

If you like him, tell your friends and family and donate on December 16th. http://www.teaparty07.com/ We'll be setting a record, and you should be part of it. How much will you give for freedom, honestly, and accountability?

The only canidate that makes any sense. Ron Paul 2008. http://ronpaul2008.com

GoDaddy upload / download limits and false advertising

david — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 09:09:00 GMT

I'll make this post as objective as I can, even though I'm angry with GoDaddy for misleading customers. Maybe it will help other people to not suffer because of GoDaddy's false advertising practices.

GoDaddy limits each shared hosting account GLOBALLY to 250 KB upstream, no matter what the plan. Which means if you have 100 people downloading from your shared-hosted account, they will each get 2.5 KB/s.

Of course, they wouldn't admit this to you up front. It took many days of testing and talking with their sub-par tech support to get the final answer. "Yes, we cap your shared-hosting account to 250 KB / s." Try it out for yourself from 2 download connections that are greater than 2 mbps. (244 KB /s) 2 comcast connections or high-speed AT&T connections will do just fine.

What this means as proof of misleading (false) advertising.

What this means is: 250 KB /s * 60 seconds * 60 minutes * 24 hours * 30 days * (1 MB / 1024 KB) * (1 GB / 1024 MB ) = 617 GB transferred / month.

They advertise 2000 GB transferred / month on their "Premium" shared hosting plan.

Even if you tried as HARD AS YOU CAN to saturate their 250 KB / s upstream from a shared hosting account - you'll never even hit 650 GB / month, much less 2000 GB / month.

False advertising? BBB complaint? Class action lawsuit? You decide for yourself.

What this means to the shared-hosting customer: NEVER purchase a "Premium" shared hosting plan with GoDaddy unless you're looking for the ease-of-use associated with a 200 GB storage limit on their "Premium" plan. And even if you are looking for that ease-of-use, you'll get much better performance out of 2 "Deluxe" plans. Don't let them scam you - because they really are trying hard to.

Quote of the Day (Happy Hardcore - Children of the Night)

david — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 08:43:00 GMT

I must say, I've heard this song more than 100 times, and the message only really hit me today. So this quote is a bit larger than the usual, but it holds just as much value.

http://cdn22.ceedien.com/HostingService2/download.ashx?token=200812040900010000813972Happy+Hardcore+Anthem+-+Children+of+the+Night+-+Trance-Rave-Jungle.mp34B611FC2779E1E8AC19813EC1643177423D4B7F9

"We are the children of the night
And fight for the future of our nation
Lets come together and unite
Nothing's gonna stop us now!
Let the fire burn inside
Nobody can stop this generation
Cause we're the children o the night
Dont ever let them put u down!

Get up,get up, Get up, now is the time to change
Get up, get up, get up, there is no time to waste
Get up, get up, get up, dont ever let them put u down
Get up, come along and join the scene
Live your life like a rave machine."

We, the people that take part in the internet, are the future, and we will not be silenced.

Fox News, CNN, ABC, MSNBC - All of the mainstream media. It's all a farce.

I don't mean to be offensive in any way, but we will have the power, when landline consumers die off. We can change the future already.

Ron Paul 2008. http://www.ronpaul2008.com/
Tea Party 07. http://www.teaparty07.com/

Quote of the Day (Samuel Adams)

david — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 21:46:00 GMT

"It doesn't require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires to people's minds." -Samuel Adams

http://stealthfiction.com/please-ignore-ron-paul/

As I read each paragraph, I was reaffirmed that the way I feel about Ron Paul and America is typical.

If you like Dr. Paul, tell your friends, and tell them to tell their friends, that's how this movement keeps going.

http://freeme.tv (4.5 minutes)
http://youtube.com/watch?v=wIivoqLbeeg (8.5 minutes)

Don't be afraid to show you care about America, be proud to be a patriot.

This revolution requires more than just a vote, it requires you to tell your friends and family, because we know the main stream media (MSM) is never going to care. At least give them a chance to make a decision about Ron Paul.

P.S. Democrats pulled all of their delegates out of the Michigan primaries this election. Now when Michiganders go to the primaries on January 15th, we're only voting for Republican canidates. It makes me upset that the Dem leaders would be so naive and short-sighted to do such a thing, but it does position Michigan to go to Ron Paul when we show up to vote.
[Source http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071202/NEWS07/712020675]

I still believe in America, and I've seen support for our country to be restored to greatness from France, Canada, Brazil, and the UK.

For the United States of America.

Tea Party 07

david — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 11:31:00 GMT

Stand up for the value of the dollar, our civil liberties, and accountability and honesty in our government.

http://www.teaparty07.com/

Personal responsibility for your goverment

david — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 00:28:00 GMT

After watching the movie posted in the comments of http://digg.com/world_news/Awful_screaming_in_Taser_video_to_be_made_public, I can't help but think of what I would do in that situation.

Perhaps instead of just video taping, someone could step up and defend the person being wrongfully attacked (tazed repeatedly). Perhaps instead of just taping, someone could call for help, or 911, or immediately BE THE HELP by tackling/punching the guy doing the tazing.

This isn't rocket-science. If something feels wrong about a situation, think about it, and then act.

Tazing an unarmed and clearly unthreatening person whom you have in custody is wrong.

I might understand tazing him once for 3 or 4 seconds - alright, fine, life goes on. Tazing him multiple times with no reason - no, I won't stand for that. And when I get the chance to stand up to wrongfully oppressive power, I will.

Ron Paul 2008.

Link of the Day: AnySolider.com

david — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 21:32:00 GMT

http://www.anysoldier.com/

The right to resist wrongful arrest

david — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 02:30:00 GMT

http://dovelove.wordpress.com/2007/09/19/it-is-every-citizens-duty-to-resist-false-arrest/

http://www.constitution.org/uslaw/defunlaw.htm

People (especially Americans): You have the right to resist unlawful arrest. You have the right to defend somebody being unlawfully arrested.

Wrongful arrest = assult and battery.

Overage charges - A sad day for GoDaddy and I

david — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 21:35:00 GMT

To: suggestions@godaddy.com; ******@godaddy.com
CC: president@godaddy.com; ******@godaddy.com; ******@godaddy.com; ******@godaddy.com

Subject: Overage charges - A sad day for GoDaddy and I

Hey friends at GoDaddy,

I’ve CC’d all you nice people that have worked with me in the past to tell you that your awesome customer support has regretfully been in vain. Your customer relationship with me has been permanently scarred for a measly $44. Maybe Bob will see this someday and realize that screwing people isn’t a healthy idea for long-term business.

I was recently charged me $298.76 for using an extra 4400 MB on a - $5 shared hosting account.

That’s a $298.76 surcharge on a $5 account. (Are you insane? That's BBB status right there.)

No automatic-upgrade to deluxe hosting (100 GB from 5 GB) for an extra $2.
No phone call to upgrade my account.
No error when trying to write to disk.

Just a $298.76 bill.

I buy a $5 economy shared hosting account that has 5000 MB of storage allotted to it. I accidentally upload 9400 MB to it. What do I get in the email?

Hosting Fee - Additional 100 MB - Renewal $6.79 $6.79 44 $.00 $298.76
Length: 1 month(s)

Now, after chatting with ******@godaddy.com for a while, his final conclusion was that he would drop the overage price to $1/ 100 MB. That’s $44 for 4.4 GB of storage space. I told him that this would make me a very unhappy customer. He didn’t care. $44 … for 4.4 GB of storage space – for 1 month? Can I just buy you a new 80 GB SATA II hard drive and send it to you to put it in the server? – no I’ll just send you $44 and you can do it yourself.

I pay you just about $200 every month for hosting services (including a dedicated server), and you’ve gone and smeared my relationship with you over $44 dollars. Thanks.

If you know someone in GoDaddy that has the power to refund money (that is not ******@godaddy.com), then by all means, please have them give me a call.

SUGGESTION FOR GODADDY

1.       Offer an option of automatically upgrading to deluxe hosting for an extra $2 when the storage space is 90% used.
2.       Call me if my account is 90% used, an automated call is fine.
3.       OR just give an error when trying to write to disk if the storage space is used!

Have a nice day,

David J. Smith

Great Digg on Ron Paul and Fox

david — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 22:45:00 GMT

http://openletter2foxnews.wordpress.com/

I especially like the third movie from the bottom. Short and sweet.

Ron Paul 2008.

Sandvine's RST packet patent

david — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 23:48:00 GMT

From: http://text.broadbandreports.com/forum/r18944131-Re-Comcast-is-using-Sandvine-to-manage-P2P-Connections

A patent Sandvine has:

said by Sandvine Patent Application 20040006643-TCP proxy providing application layer modifications :
[0097] State machine 100 will on occasion need to generate segments, for example when:

[0098] a) sending ACK segments to the sender to force the sender's rapid re-transmit algorithm to activate;

[0099] b) sending ACK segments to the sender when entire segments are deleted by application layer analysis module 104; and

[0100] c) sending RST segments in both directions when the flow is forcibly terminated by application layer analysis module 104.

[0101] This generation of segments is handled by segment generation module 106.

Notice that this is EXACTLY what we're seeing in the wild on Comcast networks.

Comcast and Sandvine, working together to control your internet.

On another note, I've been in contact with Comcast's abuse department. They've told me to find a new ISP if I don't like their practices; so I am.

Comcast killing BitTorrent upload connections (Verified)

david — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 18:01:00 GMT

[Update] I've posted instructions here on what to do if you're being affected.

Being a skeptic, I didn't believe TorrentFreak's announcement that Comcast is resetting upload connections from BitTorrent. "A misconfigured router, or an isolated problem", I thought. I was wrong.

Since I didn't see any hard proof of this in the post, I decided to test it out for myself. I can verify that the post is accurate, and Comcast is indeed interfering. (More evidence)

Pictures or it didn't happen.

This is a packet trace of a BitTorrent transfer between two peers. The seeder is on Comcast, and the leech is on AT&T DSL. Both peers receive RST packets.

What do I think?

I've never been a proponent of Net Neutrality, but I think that this may sway me. I had faith that ISP would be responsible and respectful of their customers' access to the internet, but I guess I may have been mistaken.

Comcast's response

I've contacted customer support. Not surprisingly, they deny that they interfere with any sort of P2P traffic.
I'm following up the incident with their abuse department to get to the bottom of this. More to come.

What to do now?

Test it out for yourself. If you're on a Comcast connection, start seeding a file. (You can use http://tracker2.btsharp.com/announce.aspx as a tracker) Upload the .torrent file to http://piqd.com and send your friend a link to the file. When your friend establishes a connection, see how long it takes for your connection to be reset. It took about 10 seconds for me.
Contact abuse@comcast.net and complain.

Seeding vs. Leeching

Comcast doesn't reset connections from a peer that is only downloading. This is what makes me think that Sandvine is involved.

Setting up an SMTP server on a GoDaddy dedicated server

david — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 12:24:00 GMT

Other topics you might find interesting: Godaddy Email limits on shared hosting accounts and Sending email from an ASP.NET application hosted on a GoDaddy shared hosting account, non-shared hosting account (GoDaddy), and non-shared hosting account (Gmail)

GoDaddy blocks port 25 outgoing for all dedicated servers.

GoDaddy doesn't block port 25 incoming, so your SMTP server can still receive relayed emails from anybody. (@gmail.com, @godaddy.com, @yourdomain.com, etc.)

You can only send 1000 emails per day from your dedicated server. If you call GoDaddy, they'll bump it up to anything you want, they just use 1000 as the default to make it harder to spam.

SMTP Outgoing

1. After you install your SMTP server, set your Smart host. This forwards ALL emails sent from your SMTP server to GoDaddy's SMTP relay-server.

In your IIS Management console screen, right-click on your Default SMTP Virtual Server and click "Properties".

Go to the "Delivery" tab and click the "Advanced" button.

Type k2smtpout.secureserver.net in the Smart host text field.

SMTP Incoming - to accept relayed emails for your domain

Set your MX record for the domain you want your SMTP server to handle email for to the domain name of your dedicated server.

You're done.

GoDaddy offers installation of optional Windows components on dedicated servers

david — Sat, 18 Aug 2007 00:00:00 GMT

[Editted]

Just got a call from GoDaddy support. It went like this.

GoDaddy Rep (Patrick): "The files you need are in c:\i386"

*Me uninstalling/reinstalling and it working*

Me: "Damn it."

I previously did search GoDaddy FAQ for “Windows Optional Components”, “Optional Components”, “Windows Optional”, and nothing showed up, I figured the customer support rep I was speaking to was correct.

This was obviously a huge misunderstanding and a waste of everyone's time.

#### Everything below has been saved only for posterity. ####

~~Bob wouldn't be happy about this.~~

While installing an optional Windows component on a dedicated server at GoDaddy, I was prompted for some files that are located on the original installation CD.

Since I don't have the CD, I recalled that GoDaddy charges me a $20 fee every month for Windows Server 2003 Standard. I figured I'd just ask them for the files.

Turns out after calling up GoDaddy, their response was: "You have to buy Windows Server 2003 Standard and upload the files through FTP yourself."

Ummm... Why the $20 monthly charge if you won't even go through the trouble of copying the install CD to my dedicated server hard drive? Poor service. Either drop the charge, or copy the install CD to the hard drive.

GoDaddy, should you ever stumble across this blog, I've included instructions for your Advanced Hosting Team.

Make a copy of the Windows Server 2003 Standard ISO that you used to install the original server
Post an article in your FAQ on how to use daemon tools to mount an ISO
Allow your customer server representatives to escalate an "optional windows component install" ticket with your Advanced Hosting Team. The AHT will copy the ISO file to the dedicated server's C: and the customer can mount the ISO and install the optional component.

Until you offer access to the Windows Server 2003 CD files, you should probably drop your $20 charge for the Operating System, cause that's crazy.

Disclosure: While I have access to MSDN Universal (for now), and could upload the files over FTP, this situation screws the little guy.

In support of medical marijuana

david — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 01:44:00 GMT

http://www.intosanity.com/?p=8

Quote of the Day - Ed Howdershelt

david — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 23:03:00 GMT

“There are four boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order.” - Ed Howdershelt

As a US citizen, I feel responsible for atleast stating how I feel, and my blog is the only way to do it.

When Bush was elected, I figured I'd give him a chance.

Then:

The Patriot Act
The Iraq "war"

Now the thing that really gets me about the Iraq conflict is that there never was any, nor has been any evidence of any threat to the US. To be honest, that's all I need to support impeaching Bush.

Touché

david — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 07:01:00 GMT

Using Argotic to create an RSS feed from an ASPX page

david — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 20:43:00 GMT

It's simple. Thanks Brian, for making such an easy-to-use syndication library in .NET.
You can find Argotic at: http://www.codeplex.com/Argotic

Interesting points about this sample include:

There's no easy way to get the MIME-type from a certain file extension. (that I know of). I've used a static MIME library to get the MIME type for file extensions. This is included with the example as a referenced library (Okaypublish.Mime.Static)
The example I've included uses a pre-defined DataTable as its datasource, which you would then wire up to your SQL database.
I'm using a constant file size for the enclosure file sizes since I'm not packaging any example content files with this source. I've commented out how to get the filesize from the local file. (If you're hosted on a shared/dedicated server, you should probably append Environment.CurrentDirectory to the begining of the file name)

You can download the example from: http://piqd.com/get/q/bor

Source

While I don't know how to post really pretty code samples on the blog, I'll do my best with copy and paste.

// Demo application written by David Smith of OkayPublish LLC

// http://okaypublish.com

// http://btsharp.com

// http://ceedien.com

// http://piqd.com

using System;

using Argotic.Core.Rss;

using System.Data;

public partial class feed : System.Web.UI.Page

{

/// <summary>

/// This code will be executed every time somebody visits the RSS feed page

/// </summary>

protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)

{

// This will be used to query the correct information from the SQL database

long userId;

// Don't respond if the request is not in the form of:

// "http://example.com/feed.aspx?q=1"

// "http://example.com/feed.aspx?q=2"

if (Request.Params["q"] == null)

{

Response.Output.Write("This URL must be in the form of http://example.com/feed.aspx?q=2. Be sure you're not missing the \"q\" parameter.");

return;

}

// Check to see if the GET parameter in "q" is garbage

try

{

userId = Convert.ToInt64(Request.Params["q"]);

}

catch (ArgumentException)

{

return;

}

catch (OverflowException)

{

return;

}

catch (FormatException)

{

return;

}

if (userId == 0)

{

return;

}

// Create the RSS feed to be published on this query

RssFeed myFeed = new RssFeed();

// Create the new RSS Channel. This has an array of RssItems.

myFeed.Channel =

new RssChannel("Argotic Demo Feed from User #" + userId.ToString(),

"Published feed from Argotic Demo User #" + userId,

new Uri(Request.Url.AbsoluteUri.ToString()));

// Create the data access layer

// NOTIC: this would be your SQL code

ExampleDataLayer exampleDataLayer = new ExampleDataLayer();

// Get all of the items the user has published

using (DataTable dataTable = exampleDataLayer.CreateDataTable(userId))

{

// Loop through the results of the SQL query to the

// database and insert them into the RSS channel items

foreach (DataRow row in dataTable.Rows)

{

// Title of the post

string title = (string)row["Title"];

// Description of the post

string description = (string)row["Description"];

// Time posted

DateTime dateTime = (DateTime)row["Time"];

// Attached file. This will be an RSS enclosure.

string filename = (string)row["File"];

// Get the right MIME-type for the attached file

string fileExtension = Utils.GetExtension(filename);

string mimeType = "";

if (fileExtension.Length > 0)

{

OkayPublish.Mime.Static.MimeType currentMimeType =

OkayPublish.Mime.Static.MimeType.FromExtension(fileExtension);

if (currentMimeType != null)

{

mimeType = currentMimeType.MimeName;

}

else

{

mimeType = "application/octet-stream";

}

else

{

mimeType = "application/octet-stream";

}

// Create the new RSSItem to be inserted into myFeed.Channel

RssItem newItem = new RssItem();

// Bind each of the returned results to a new RSS item

newItem.PublicationDate = dateTime;

newItem.Title = title;

newItem.Description = description;

newItem.Link = new Uri("http://example.com/readmore.aspx?q=" + filename);

//FileInfo fi = new FileInfo(Environment.CurrentDirectory + @"\" + filename);

newItem.Enclosure = new RssEnclosure(

new Uri("http://example.com/download.aspx?q=" + filename),

1024 * 30, //fi.Length, 30 KB, since these aren't real files right now

mimeType

);

// Add the new RSS item to the RSS feed channel (there is only one channel per RSS feed)

myFeed.Channel.Items.Add(newItem);

} // End Databinding loop

}

// Set the ContentType for the response

Response.ContentType = "application/xml";

// Write the feed to the output stream

myFeed.Save(Response.OutputStream);

return;

}

As always, comments are appreciated. Cheers.

Using ISAPI_Rewrite Lite with ASP.NET 2 and a dedicated server

david — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 14:33:00 GMT

Inspired from: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000797.html and all the websites out there that have nice-looking URLs.

You have to have a dedicated or virtual dedicated server in order to use IIS plugins such as ISAPI_Rewrite because administrative privilege is required. You can use ASP.NET UrlMappings to a lesser extent in a shared environment, but you're not going to get away from the .aspx page extension.

Supposing you have a computer you can serve from, and you've installed ASP.NET, you can turn your entire website into a RESTful-seeming site by using the following httpd.ini file.

Restrictions:

No .aspx pages may be nested in the root folder
No folders may have a period in them

[ISAPI_Rewrite]

# /user
# This turns every .aspx page into a "VERB" sort of page, like http://piqd.com/upload
RewriteCond URL (?!.*\.).*
RewriteRule /([^/]*)(.*) /$1.aspx$2

# /user/q/23
# You can now append GET parameters to the URL with /VERB/PARAMNAME/PARAMVALUE
RewriteRule (.*?\.aspx)(\?[^/]*)?/([^/]*)/([^/]*)(.*) $1(?2$2&:\?)$3=$4$5 [NS,I]

# /
# If the request is only a /, then redirect to /
RewriteRule /\.aspx /

Smitty's Low Cost Computer: July 15th

david — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 10:30:00 GMT

Not many people know it's a little hobby of mine to peruse newegg.com and try to put together the least expensive computer I can. I decided I'd publish the one I just put together for fun.

I used a lot of mail-In rebates, but I've got liquid funds, so that's not a concern to me. (I also keep very strict records of any rebates I have and my Outlook keeps me on top of it)

Summary

The total comes out to $235.40 US. With $59.98 in mail-in rebates, slimming it to $175.42.

Hard-drive: Cheapest SATA 3 Gbps I could find.
The processor and motherboard are as cheap as I could get them.
The fans may not be necessary, but I like keeping things cool.

512 MB of DDR2 RAM should be enough for XP/Linux.

Rebates

The (steel) case, power supply, keyboard, and mouse are free after rebate.

This list is available in text form at http://piqd.com/get.aspx?q=jy.

I'd love to hear any feedback you have, or improvements on Smitty's Low Cost computer.

Cheers!

Quote of the Day: Steve Ballmer

david — Sat, 14 Jul 2007 20:59:00 GMT

"Developers..."

I'm glad atleast a couple people out there get as excited as I do about developers. You and me both Steve, you and me both.

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Argotic on the Web: Part 2 (Setup)

david — Sun, 17 Jun 2007 04:19:00 GMT

Continued from Argotic on the Web: Part 1 (Solution Design)...

Prerequisites:

1. Microsoft Visual Web Developer 2005 Express Edition (direct link)

We'll use this to design the website that we'll be building for the creation of RSS feeds. The project will reference the Argotic library and will be end up being hosted on a GoDaddy shared server.

2. Microsoft Visual C# 2005 Express Edition (direct link)

We'll use this to create the RSS reader. The Windows Forms application will be used to read data from the website's RSS feeds (view.aspx).

3. Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Express Edition (direct link)

We'll use this to create a Database and Table for the Users table. We can test the SQL server statements on our own machines before we post the website to GoDaddy.

4. SQL Server Management Studio Express Edition (direct link)

This will be our administrative interface for the local SQL server. We'll code up the website against the local SQL server before we upload it to the server through FTP.

5. Argotic (direct link)

This is the library we'll be using to create (feed) and consume (read) the feeds published by our ArgoticWebSample.

Optional Setup Items

5. A GoDaddy shared hosting account (direct link)

We can set up a GoDaddy shared hosting account that will be used for hosting our web application. After we set up our hosting, we can upload from our computer to the website.

6. CoreFTP (direct link)

We'll use this to upload to the GoDaddy server.

This wraps up part 2 to the ArgoticWebSample. Next we'll be diving into the implementation of the Feeder and Reader.