Visual Studio 2010 has an extremely functional and easy-to-use publish feature built-in. I use it to push sample code and changes up to my free ASP.NET 4.0 RC trial account (sure, I can get a site free as the CEO, but with this beta program running through March, anyone can get a free test account!).

When you get your account information for your hosting account it will contain all the information needed to quickly and easily set up VS2010 for 1-click-publishing. With those few pieces of information in hand, select the VS2010 Publish option then "<New...>" to add the connection.

You then get a dialog box with fields for you to enter your account information.

The service URL for our free beta program is already entered above, as is the name of my personal test site. I then just enter my username and password, and save the connection using the huge button at the top of the window. Note that if you click Close or Publish the settings will not get saved automatically.

Once the connection is set up, all you need to do for your code to be uploaded to the site is to click the single Publish icon.

If you need to edit the settings for any reason, there is a easy access edit icon right there next to the publish icon.

Microsoft has made it super easy with Visual Studio 2010 to publish and maintain your ASP.NET applications. You should definitely set up and use this handy feature.

 

C# is case-sensitive. C# is case-sensitive. C# is case-sensitive.

I have to keep reminding myself of this.

I'm not used to case-sensitivity yet and it continues to challenge me.

If you decide to install the IIS Manager for Remote Administration on Windows 7 you will likely initially get an error message stating that the IIS Management Console is not installed.

This error threw me for a little loop initially. It's pretty straight forward, but my first thought was "I know it isn't installed, that's what I'm installing". It seems that when installing the IIS Manager it should be smart enough to also enable the IIS Management Console, but it doesn't - likely for a reason related to security - but still, it struck me as a little odd.

Resolving the issue is easy and straight forward. Just as the message notes, open the Control Panel and select Turn Windows Features On or Off.

Then check the box next to the IIS Management Console.

Then click okay and accept the installation prompts.

After that completes, you can restart the installation of the IIS Manager for Remote Administration.

 

Visual Studio 2010, the latest and greatest version of Microsoft's developer toolset, will be releasing soon. I've been around hundreds of users (OrcsWeb clients, MVPs, and industry Insiders) who have used it through the beta cycle (as I have too) and the comments are overwhelmingly positive. If you haven't tried it out yet, you might want to check it out for free during the current RC phase.

Once you've got it downloaded and running, feel free to set up a free ASP.NET 4.0 RC test hosting account with us this month to try out the deployment related features and the general hosting experience.

.Net 4 (still in beta right now) has a handy new method that can analye a string and return where it is null or just whitespace versus other text. Here's a quick sample:

ScratchPage.aspx

ScratchPage.aspx.cs

 

The subject of this post speaks for itself. I'm not sure how long the "latest news" will sit on the homepage of this site, but it's there now. Let me know if it moves and I'll adjust the link. http://www.codeplex.org/

Here is more information about the specific MVC project: http://www.codeplex.com/MVCContrib

 

If you aren't already familiar with the ASP.Net forums, you should browse over and check them out. It's a great place to get answers to frequently asked questions, post your own custom questions for solution assistance, answer questions for people to provide peer support, and find information about new and upcoming solutions (like the ASP.Net 4 forum).

Some of the general topic groupings include General ASP.Net, AJAX, Visual Studio, Data Access, Advanced ASP.Net, Migration, and a number of Starter Kits and Source Project discussions.

When Windows Server 2008 is installed and the IIS roles are enabled, it defaults to .Net 2.0.

If you want to run .Net 3.5.1 on the server you might think the process is as easy as just downloading the bits from Microsoft and running the installation process. No, it isn't. It still isn't hard, but it can be frustrating for someone who isn't familiar with the required process.

To enable .Net 3.5.1 on a Windows Server 2008 machine that already has the IIS role enabled...

To get started, from within Server Manager you need to select Features in the left-hand tree and then Add Features in the right-hand pane.

NOTE: I have the SMTP feature enabled on this test server but on your machine you likely won't see that listed.

On the next screen select the ".Net Framework 3.5.1 Features" option from the list.

As soon as you click that box, a pop-up window like the one below will be displayed.

Clicking "Add Required Features" will then install the necessary dependencies and files required to support .Net 3.5.1 on the server.

 

(I updated the code sample based on feedback about C# naming standards and leveraging iDisposable - which I'm sure I'll forget many times until I get comfortable more with C#.)

Below is sample code showing how to send email from ASP.Net 4 (currently in beta as of this posting) using C#. With this code I am assuming that the server already has a local SMTP service installed, so I use "localhost" to relay the email.

Here is the SendMail.aspx page:

Here is the source code of the SendMail.aspx.cs page:

using System;

using System.Web.UI.WebControls;

using System.Net.Mail;

 

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

{

    protected void SendMail_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)

    {

        using (MailMessage mailItem = new MailMessage(

            from.Text, to.Text, subject.Text, body.Text))

        {

            SmtpClient smtpServer = new SmtpClient("localhost");

            try

            {

                smtpServer.Send(mailItem);

            }

            catch (Exception ex)

            {

                Label1.Text = ex.ToString();

            }

        }

    }

}

 

 

The SMTP services are not installed by default on Windows Server 2008. To install that service, follow these steps...

First go to the Features Summary section of the Server Manager and click Add Features.

Then scroll down and select the SMTP Server option from the list.

Once you click the SMTP Server option, you'll get a dialog box showing the other roles and features required for the SMTP service to work.

Click Add Required Role Services then Next on the three subsequent dialog boxes. You're then presented with a summary and an Install button. Click Install and all the required services will be installed to support SMTP on the server.

 

First things first, you can download the Visual Web Developer 2010 Express Edition Beta 2 (wow, that sure is a mouth-full!) for free from Microsoft's site here.

On the initial welcome screen there is nothing to do but click next. No option to opt-out from sending your information to Microsoft. Hey, it is a beta, and a major goal with beta programs is to get feedback, so I certainly don't blame them for locking that in.

Next, agree to the license (read it first of course).

After that you get an optional install screen. There is only one option presented to me, and it's SQL Server 2008 Express SP1. I'm going to select it and highly suggest you do to. After all, what fun is a web application without a SQL source?

The next screen lets you select a specific install folder - or accept the default.

I'm going to leave the defaults alone. Space requirement shows as 3.2GB, which isn't horribly large. Well, yeah, it's big for sure, but just wait until you see everything included - then you'll likely agree that 3.2GB of space is not a bad trade-off.

Click install from there and a download and install process starts. I show 18 items for a total of 292MB being downloaded, which matches what the install screen earlier showed. What takes up the additional 3GB?? I guess I'll have to wait and see.

Well, the install is done now. That was painless. I have no idea why the space requirements were 3.2GB though. I've clicked around the folders and did a quick estimate around 400MB of new files. Either the install needs a ton of temporary installation space (3GB) or maybe that's a small bug on the install screen.

 

 

Here is a useful post giving an introduction to Microsoft's WCAT - which can be used to generate load against a web application.

http://blogs.msdn.com/alikl/archive/2008/03/09/stress-test-asp-net-web-application-with-free-wcat-tool.aspx

 

Let's say you have lot of Classic ASP pages or HTML pages on your site that are bringing in good search engine traffic but now you want to redesign your site using ASP.NET. What do you do so you don't lose your established traffic with the new design?

In the HTTP protocol you would use a 301 redirect. Keep the old page name in place but edit the file using the following syntax. In time the search engine will have the new page indexed:

<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="0;url=http://www.xyz.com/newpage.html">
</head>
<body>
This page has moved to <a href="http://www.xyz.com/newpage.html">http://xyz.com/newpage.html</a>
</body>
</html>

If you want to move some Classic ASP pages you can use the following:

<%@ Language=VBScript %>
<%
Response.Status="301 Moved Permanently"
Response.AddHeader "Location", "/newpage.asp"
%>

If you want to move some .Net pages you can use the following:

 <%@ Page Language="C#"%>
<script runat="server">
protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
   Response.Status = "301 Moved Permanently" ;
   Response.AddHeader( "Location" ,"/newpage.aspx" );
}

</script>

 

 

Five years ago I had my head in the clouds and wrote a short introductory article about highly-available and highly-scalable hosting.

 http://www.orcsweb.com/articles/web_cluster.aspx

Yes, in February of 2004 I was trying to help people understand and appreciate the benefit of cloud hosting. I didn't have the marketing powerhouse of Microsoft or Google, nor was the term "cloud" being used in the industry, but the technology was available and at ORCS Web we had already been supporting clients of various sizes on cloud platforms with great success.

I continue to be a huge fan of cloud hosting and believe it deserves consideration from anyone who takes their web application hosting seriously. Success on the platform takes a lot more than just throwing a few servers online though so clients should be looking for a host with years of experience and proven successes. There is also more to hosting than just the infrastructure. Strong technical support and excellence in customer service are also key to successful hosting solutions so clients should read reviews and check references before entering into a hosting relationship.

We'd love to help your web solutions be successful so let us know if you have any questions or if there is anything we can do for you.

Happy hosting!

Brad

 

 

I've noticed that a few hosting companies are now advertising that they have "dedicated cloud" solutions. That's an interesting bit of marketing. A dedicated cloud, as I understand it (and confirmed by details on competitor sites) is basically a webfarm front-end with possibly a database cluster on the backend (though often the term "cloud" is targeted toward the front-end solution).

Either these companies are new to the webfarm / cloud space, or they're just putting a marketing twist on existing services.

At ORCS Web we have been hosting highly-available and highly-scalable webfarm solutions for clients for over ten years. Here's a short case-study about a webfarm solution we manage for Lake Quincy Media. We also host webfarm / cloud solutions for http://www.asp.net/, http://www.zagat.com/, http://aspalliance.com/, and many other clients.

I guess I need to start getting comfrotable with using the term cloud now since it seems to be the new buzzword. Whether you call it a cloud, webfarm, server farm, or anything else - I'm all for HA/HS solutions and believe that anyone who relies heavily on their web site/application being online should go this route. It's the best way to avoid costly downtime that might otherwise occur with hardware failure or resource overload.

Happy Hosting!

~Brad

 

Jeff Sandquist announced on his blog that his team has released Oxite, a new open-source content management "sample" (I'm not sure what makes it a sample, but that is the word used on the site) for people to use when adding blog and wiki functionality to their websites.

Check it out:
http://www.jeffsandquist.com/supporting-web-standards-with-microsoft/
http://visitmix.com/Lab/Oxite

Brad

I came across this today and wanted to share.  I have looked for this in the past with little success so maybe you will come across this post when you need it.  Sometimes you need the default password that was assigned to IUSR_MachineName and IWAM_MachineName from when you initially installed IIS.  That information is actually quite easy to get.

First make a copy of adsutil.vbs located in c:\inetpub\adminscripts, name it something else, and move it to a folder with locked down permissions:
copy c:\inetpub\adminscripts\adsutil.vbs c:\admin\adsutil_iispw.vbs

While you could certainly put the copy in the same location and delete it when you are done, I prefer to put it in a location that only administrators have access to so I can easily reference it in the future.  It all depends on what your best practice security measures are.

Next edit adsutil_iispw.vbs and go to line 2592.  It currently reads:

IsSecureProperty = True

Edit it so that it reads:

IsSecureProperty = False 

Save adsutil_iispw.vbs and close it.  Remember  that any time you are editing script files, config files, etc., you are best off using Notepad so that extra characters and formatting are not saved to the file which would prevent it from running properly.

Now you can run the following to get the IUSR password:

cscript c:\admin\adsutil_iispw.vbs get w3svc/anonymoususerpass

or the following to get the IWAM password:

cscript c:\admin\adsutil_iispw.vbs get w3svc/wamuserpass

I hope this helps when you need it!

If you are trying to embed Flash video files (.FLV) into your Flash site, you may be wondering how to get those .FLV files to play. You will need to make sure to add the mime type for the .FLV (video/x-flv). If you do not do this, you will receive an "inaccessible file" error.