NullifyNetwork

I'm sitting here, waiting, wondering about Visual Studio .NET. It works well for any one task, yet I have a fairly small project I'm building to solve a friends problem at their work and it seems too big for Visual Studio. Let me explain: The solution has five projects - the web client, a smart client for one type of user, a smart client for the admin user, an assembly with shared classes, an installer add-on to install the database - and a couple of installers. In total there are barely fifty forms/source files. That isn't too much stuff, I've seen projects with twenty assemblies, resulting in thousands of files. Visual Studio, on opening my small solution opens every file. Slowly. The end result is a single line of tabs for each file so you can't find anything in it and end up ignoring and instead use the solution explorer. You can compile everything in the solution quicker than you can open it initially on my machine. And I have no animations or anything on, it simply takes AGES to load and show everything. I can close it all before I save, but I shouldn't need to - and even then it still insists on doing SOMETHING with every file when you load it. I pity anyone that doesn't start to split their solution into multiple smaller solutions when they get to 100 files... Question is... Will Whidbey really speed things up a bit... Permalink 

It appears that the expensive car (Windows 2003) crashes more often. It looks like the last crash was to do with an ISAPI module and IIS. Windows itself remained up. It bought down the whole of IIS too, not just the web services, and not just the ability to run one type of dynamic page (I don't know which isapi module as of yet, but my guess is asp.net or the gzip compression module as they are the only ones loaded). On the other hand, the tiny debian server with jvds.com has only been down because of a reboot for a kernel vulnerability. The ability to auto-restart after a short delay is built into the OS, but what about IIS - why can't you set an IIS service to auto restart, then if it fails x times wait 20 secs and try again?? Permalink 

7 Days uptime and we're on a roll. The TCO for Windows may be higher, but it is for getting a more expensive car too. Now we get to see if the more expensive car is better than the economy model. Permalink  3 Comments 

Lets hope there's no more patches released. I've finished moving everything across, it's just a case of checking that nothing is using the other server for a few hours before I shut it down. Permalink 

I got my test web service to run on the new server! Since my network provider has blocked ports 135 etc. I have to use frontpage extensions if I wish to access it with visual studio - which was really slow as I only have cable. Would be nice if you could use the tried and trusted ftp to publish projects! (I know I can manually do this, it's just not the same building it locally then ftping it up every time I build something - I'm going to go try script it myself, should be fairly easy...) Permalink  1 Comments 

Firstly, now I'm into the swing of posting stuff, I appear to have become addicted... Someone tell me when it gets rediculous and I need to stop. Some background: Today till friday are days off from my day job as a network admin at a College in the UK. I intended to read up a bit more on my MCSD, relax, go shopping, do some coding, etc. I'm actually spending most of it still doing a migration from cobalt server appliances onto a Windows 2003 Standard box (the Linux VDS' are already up and running, and have been now for 11 days). This is for my hobbyish hosting business. Why I'm writing this however is that I'm actually seriously concerned that I have today off, as part of my responsibilities at work include ensuring everything is secure - and that includes running patches of which it appears the one that showed up for the Windows 2003 Server earlier (I didn't recognise what it was for) appears to actually be a very serious one indeed. I expect to see a vulnerability for this flying around the net within the next few days causing appropriate devastation, and all the other things that ensue. I just have to hope that the firewalls, antivirus, and 'overkill' filtering at work actually holds out against whatever nasty bug gets invented. *sigh* Permalink 

My first almost server wide crash. I opened IE (configuring frontpage extensions) on terminal services and somehow it crashed the whole GUI. The last thing I got to do was send an error report. Not a real crash, as the server was actually okay and still serving pages - but still, a real inconvenience and I couldn't reboot it through the admin interface (it said it was rebooting, then did nothing. Same with trying to use shutdown.exe in a telnet session - I intend to install pskill on it ASAP) so was a right annoyance as I had to ticket a hard reboot. There is no way a Windows server is even remotely close to as stable, or as reliable as a Linux server at the moment, the kernel might be - but the user interface and patching is letting the whole system down. UPDATE: I'm really glad I personally know the customers I've already moved onto this server, if I didn't I'd feel really bad about this - instead I know I can make it up elsewhere, but if I had just moved a business critical website over I would be fuming. Permalink 

I got the new server on the 1/2/2004. I applied security fixes and rebooted it. Today, I found another security update to apply. I apply it and it wants a reboot. With the cobalt box, it would run literally for 200+ days without needing a reboot for a patch. I know I moved away from it for security reasons as the patches were't coming anymore, but Microsoft really need to fix the rebooting of the machine. You don't need to restart ASP.net whenever you replace a web application, so why do you need to reboot the machine when it's a simple service or process that could be restarted on its own? The ability to replace a binary whilst running has been in Linux for a long time (no idea how long) - Microsoft recently added it to Windows in that it provides volume shadow copy services to permit the same kind of thing. So why does it still need a reboot?????? Anyway, enough of my frustrations. At least Microsoft are releasing patches unlike Sun do for Cobalt raq's. Advantage: It reboots fast. Permalink 

My customers like Windows 2003, well so far every one who's tested their site on it. Everyone (so far) who's tested the ftp thinks it's much faster. The ftp speed difference may be related to the hardware difference and current lack of users, 2ghz is considerable. On to a breakdown with more detail, please feel free to ignore this if you're stopping by for progress updates on the migration - it's more just for those who are interested.

• The DNS server... Well, works. The configuration is again GUI based, which places restrictions on the speed of doing it, where I'd paste another four lines (or use a for loop!) and change the domain I now have to go through a wizard each and every time. Then go back in to turn on notify!
• I like the look of the ATRN option on the smtp server. It makes what would have been a very painful thing to set up on Linux fairly easy. I dislike the lack of a basic IMAP4 server to go with the POP3 server though.
• Permissions are massively better on Windows than on Linux, although the defaults always seem a little lax. The ability to fine grain restrictions can only be considered a benefit. cacls (command line tool) is a nice touch too. I miss the tickbox that Windows 2000 had where you could stop the rights being inherited. I know it's one click deeper, but that's annoying when you have to use it fifty times.
• I want to script changes to the DNS Server, anyone have any ideas? Preferrably without stopping it, editing the registry, then starting the service again.
• Why do I have to go through the process of manually doing a million things for each user I create. I want to be able to trigger a batch file to run every user that's created, and to create users based on a template!

Well, that's enough stressed babble from me for the moment, I'm off to try to find an alternative to .htaccess files that works on Windows so my users can configure their own restrictions and settings. Permalink 

To those experiencing strange problems with their hosting, this is as per the e-mail. All databases are now coming off xerxes.nullify.net, mysql.nullify.net redirects to it to continue to provide service without interruption if configured correctly in the first place. The databases on shodan are now in read-only mode, and all users are denied access. You MUST e-mail me with details of what accounts you need created on the new server setup. Your sites are already moved onto the new server unless you are paying, if you're paying they're going to be updated on the new server when I have confirmation of the final DNS change that will be coming sometime soon. Several people I own the domains for and host because they're friends have already been moved over, if they are experiencing problems then they need to contact me for their username and password - I'd mail it but without it you can't download your mail! (I'm trying to set them the same as initially - but if you changed your password I won't know.) Permalink 

I've started the test migration of data to the new windows 2003 server, this could be interesting. First points of note:

• I prefer editing a config file to wiggling the mouse and using a gui.
• Terminal services is laggy compared to SSH.
• Microsoft's telnet server is very laggy compared to SSH, easily worse than a full graphics session over terminal services. Not sure how they managed that.
• IIS 6 is almost the exact same speed on a 2.4Ghz machine as Apache on a 400Mhz machine.
• PHP doesn't work so well under Windows, but fastcgi almost fixes this. Might just be the way Windows deals with starting new processes.

All in all, I am not impressed. But there is still time for things to change before I change my mind and get a debian server. Permalink 

Okay, I'm looking for comments primarily from users of the hosting regarding a hosting network rework. At the moment the setup is both overkill, and soon to be underpowered. I'm also concerned about the supportability of Cobalt units. I'm proposing to change the setup to one of the following options: Option 1, most outlay, best performance:

• One UK Server, from dedipower with copious bandwidth and Windows 2003 Standard (expensive licensing is the biggest outlay) - acting as the main web server, main database server, backup mail relay and primary DNS
• One US Virtual Dedicated Server, with very little disk space and memory but a decent chunk of bandwidth, running Linux - acting as secondary DNS and the primary mail server, but backed up onto the UK server.

Option 2, low(er) outlay, US only and less reliable:

• One US Server, with Windows 2003 Web Edition - acting as the primary web server and DB server
• Two US Virtual Dedicated Servers, running Linux - DNS, MAIL, etc.

There are other options, but those are the main two. Any suggestions, comments, ideas? I'll be getting the VDS as soon as possible as it's a part in every single setup and I wanted a backup mail server in a different datacentre anyway. Update: Just bought the VDS Update: Just bought the Win2k3 server, I'll see how it is for a few days before moving anything. Permalink  2 Comments 

The spammers are at it again, please do not mail me complaining about stuff with stupid addresses @nullify.net. The addresses do not exist, and were sent from the spammers directly, I had no involvement. Less than 25 addresses exist at nullify.net itself, of which only three send mail. Please check the message headers and report the issue to the appropriate abuse@ISP address. Permalink 

For 2004! And it appears that the big spam problem I've been having has been resolved, I do hope permanently. I think Microsoft are likely on the right track with 'charging' people cpu cycles to send spam, but fear that it's not going to affect spammers who use distributed trojans to send it. At least until that's not a possibility. Permalink 

This domain does not send spam. Infact, I go out of my way to prevent spam from entering it, and there are preventative measures should anyone attempt to send it. Recently a spammer sent a batch of messages with a return address at nullify.net that didn't exist, and have never existed. Please understand that a from address is easily faked to look like it came from anywhere, and that you should check the message headers for the true origin. If you have more details to enable me to trace this please IM me over ICQ or MSN. Permalink 

So, I think I've stopped updating subconsciously. I do still exist, I'm just thoroughly learning c# and the .net framework and being impressed that I can run stuff anywhere from linux to windows to my pocket pc without recompiling... Very handy. Permalink 

How do you notify a computer user, in a unobtrusive way that they'll still notice and have the opportunity to look at what you want to tell them? It's easy when it's important, you just show a dialog. But what about when it's not important? A system tray icon is sometimes missed, even flashing. The best I've seen so far are those little transparent popups in the bottom right. Any other ideas? Permalink 

I just rolled up a little application called [winunrar] that allows for extracting rar archives. Rar archives have better compression than zip, and this is a free app. Hopefully it'll be of use to someone, and it should mean that those without winrar, who don't like shareware, or generally want something small should still be able to benefit from rar compression! Permalink  2 Comments 

Looks like Microsoft are listening... Voice Command basically fullfills a half of what I was talking about a little while ago. Permalink 

I think I'm going to give C# a try after seeing Don Box and Chris Anderson do a MSDN TV program on Longhorn, programming in C# as easily as I program a page in PHP, yet writing a tile for the sidebar, and doing tcp/ip comms over http in just a couple of simple lines to make a Windows App post to Do's blog. Impressively simple. It might also be a solution to my long standing problem of decent RAD tools that develop for Pocket PC... .Net framework for Pocket PC should be usable from it. Combined with Mono on Linux, C# may well be the future of software development. I'm annoyed I discarded it as another Visual Basic when I heard about it initially... Permalink 

[Sitebuilder] now supports XML and particularly RSS formatting of pages. By including support in the site creation engine I've inherantly got syndication support for any page I feel like, including the main page. Check out the archive and the headlines in RSS - you can now blogroll my musings and silly observations! I've also started removing posts that when converted to XML don't conform to the standard or do but are unusable. It's easier than editing them and I think I want to start afresh. They'll always be in the iarchive if needed. If you're interested in using [sitebuilder] I can probably wrap you up a version under the GPL, so just [contact] me. Permalink 

Dylan Greene has found some pics of vs.net (and aero). Urls are at his site. Interesting... It looks like phpedit but with bits of dreamweaver. Permalink 

You could probably use a bayesian scheme to categorise music by mood based on the similarities of the compressability over time. It'd take training the system in the first place, but then it would probably be fairly accurate as the compressability is directly related to the music content. Then you could always listen to the right music for the moment... Permalink 

Tablet PC's are impractical. Looking at my PDA I find that hard enough to use with a pen - something bigger must be worse. We need a more natural means of control, the keyboard certainly cuts it for speed so maybe separate the tablet pc's screen into a keyboard (not like normal, but more like a pda's onscreen keyboard where applications don't hide behind it.). Voice recognition would be the most natural, but then you might as well scrap the screen and just have a bluetooth headset with a small flip out screen. Then you could see stuff, and hear stuff - whilst being able to dictate things to it too. Clearly we're not there yet... Permalink  1 Comments 

It's possibly the most twisted and inefficient language in existance, taking up an inordinate amount of storage space. It's not even easy to programmatically work with. Then again it's also almost human readable and you can fix almost all problems using notepad/vi. Grrr. Why can't there be a better portable storage medium... Permalink 

Bluetooth should auto-connect to a particular service when it was within range... So a pocket pc will just connect/sync as you walk in the house... Permalink 

There's loads of adverts on the net, but never for what you actually want... That and it's usually intrusive. I mean, I wouldn't mind being able to pull up on demand (a non-intrusive system, not something that comes up constantly) a selection of adverts for a particular thing, in a particular area, possibly with the ability to search by if they accept mastercard/switch/cheque/cash if they can fix your boiler on a sunday, if they have someone you can talk to about a product available at the moment, etc. A single like ebay but for adverts for anything would be handy. Permalink 

Why do people rely on the clock of the computer that the document is being accessed on? Why not rely on the senders clock... To enforce this it'd need for a small part of the encrypted document to exist only on the senders/intermediaries computer. When the document was requested this part could be requested, and sent without fear since the rest of the document is also required. After the time the part can be destroyed on the senders/intermediaries machine. This leaves a giant loophole - once you open the message, you can always read it, it relies on the software to destroy the part it has recieved after using it to successfully show the document. But I fear THAT loophole is unavoidable if the document is ever to be readable. (The document sent is encrypted so that only the correct reader can open it, and only when it's in its entirety.) Permalink  2 Comments 

I want a copy of a couple of days TV schedule on my PDA, preferrably in a searchable format as a simple listbox. That would be fairly useful... How on earth do you write a today screen plugin? Permalink 

My PDA isn't useful enough sitting on the desk whilst I'm at my machine. It should interact with the computer when I dock it and automagically: - Log into my chat mediums - Notify me of new e-mail rather than my computer, keeping the computer for work - not as a place to press F5 lots on a mail window - Notify me of new events, happenings and other things that would normally have me visiting sites - Be an information source that's not on screen, and therefore not a distraction Perhaps I can virtualise this by loading a page in IE that pulls data off my servers and shows the info? I don't have the first clue about programming on a pocket pc device... Shame you can't compile things in Delphi for it. Permalink 

Folders that show the contents of the inbox filtered would be handy. Permalink 

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/31/30699.html Join The Registers cancer busters team, download a bit of software, and your computer will be scanning molecules for cancer fighting abilities while your computer is idling. Permalink 

I'm at work at the moment, but I just this morning tried Trillian 2 beta and have to share the good news that it has [jabber] support! I mean, yes - you have to pay for it, but it's well worth it and at only £15 approx it's not that expensive. Check out their website at www.trillian.cc and see if you like the free version. If you do you'll love the pay for version. (Hey, at least they're not paying me for the ad) Permalink 

I'm now the highest possible battle rank in Planetside (A MMOFPS - or massively multiplayer online first person shooter. Bet you didn't know that eh? Game with lots of people is more descriptive...). I still have another three command ranks to go, but what happens when you complete a MMOFPS? *breathes* Do you stop paying the monthly fee and never return, or do you continue paying, but not play except occasionally? A question for the ages... Permalink  2 Comments 

I've built an installer to download and install PuTTY - a free SSH client. It's available from the [putty] page. Permalink 

A CNN article has pictures (which were already in the wild) and some good commentary about half-life 2. It looks like the nda gloves are off. Permalink 

A very good T3 trailer is available at the apple site if you have quicktime. Permalink  2 Comments 

It is coming out. It will be at E3 this year. The NDA will end April 28th. The future is coming this year... And Duke Nukem Forever missed another slot! With Half-Life 2 coming out, pretty much all attention will be on it, and they're in media wind up already so we can expect less than four months of waiting, other people are thinking November to commemorate the first half-life. I don't know, but one thing is certain, the most popular game on the planet will have a sequel. Permalink 

3D Realms decided that they'd play an april fools on everyone. They announced in a very suspicious manner that they were releasing Duke Nukem 3D's source code to the public under the GPL. The april fools are those who think they're kidding... Fileshack have it up here for all to download! and we'll have a mirror at some point. Note that you require the duke nukem content to play the game. Update: Mirrored here. Permalink 

Jen Frickell's site is back. That is all. Smorr.

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Not run by me, DonEasy provides a free file storage service like workdrive. If you have any other free file storage sites leave them in the comments! Permalink  1 Comments 

I've marked a number of accounts to no longer have the ability to upload files. Those people have one week to ensure they have a copy of the files before their accounts will be purged. Thanks to everyone that made constructive critisism, I'll be getting the new layout for workdrive up and running when visiting from www.workdrive.com and the billing system will come next month. Read more for a list of users that will have an extra free month for their feedback and assistance. Permalink  6 Comments 

Oh my god, where did they get a frigate from...? Permalink  7 Comments