Thursday, July 16, 2009
#
As I have been
installing my own personal server I came across one piece of software where I couldn't find what I believed to be satisfying functionality. I ordered my server with Windows 2008 and MS SQL 2008 Web Edition. I found
hMailServer to be a good, reliable mail server and as a bonus it comes with a web interface for configuring it - but there's no webmail, bummer!
I tried searching around for free webmail implementations but most free ones out there are written in
PHP which is not an issue at all my IIS server can run PHP easily - however they either come with an installer written for
Linux or they require you to download seven other components that needs installed.
I was annoyed that I couldn't find any free
ASP.Net implementations at all - so I will set out to make that my project that I can work on once and awhile, while blogging about it here too. Once it has reached a satisfying level of functionality I will start releasing it, along with the source code. I am not exactly sure which license this will end up under - but time will show.
I intend to develop this using ASP.Net MVC, I want this to be usable while easy to install and configure. Also, this will be for the IMAP protocol only.
Technorati tags:
ASP.Net,
Open Source,
Webmail,
Project
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
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It has been many years since I switched away from Microsoft's Internet Explorer - that was around the time when IE 5.5 was ruling the world. I stumbled upon Mozilla Firebird (which was one of the earlier names of Mozilla Firefox, it was named Phoenix before that) - and have been with the Firebird/Firefox browser ever since. In the beginning it was the "magic" of tabbed browsing that got me switching - but today there's
three major reasons why I prefer Firefox over Google Chrome - which I believe to be one of the best browsers out there.
1. Google Chrome doesn't exist in a Mac OS X version (yet)
Using a MacBook daily in OS X - this is a no brainer, I cannot use the browser if it doesn't support my operating system. It is on it's way and you can even
sign up for notification of news on this.
2. The Firebug extension doesn't exist for Google Chrome
As a web developer - the Firebug extension is simply something I cannot do without. The functionality brings debugging of JavaScript into my world in a usable way - just like how I know debugging from other tools, such as Visual Studio. There's also network monitoring, DOM manipulation and much much more - it's simply a must have. Even
Internet Explorer has an add-on with this functionality.
3. The wonder of "typeahead"
When I first started using Firefox, there used to be an option in the preferences that was named along the lines of "Type Ahead Find". I enabled this, without really knowing what it did. It turned out that this wonderful option enabled you to simply type, while browsing a website, and Firefox would simply start searching for whatever you typed - saving the entire Ctrl+F keystroke. I got addicted to this and have used it ever since, and
I cannot live without it!
If you want to enable this today it's a little more tricky. Here's how you do it:
Disclaimer: I take no responsibility for any harm this may do to your hamsters!
- Open Firefox, in the address bar type in "about:config"
- Let Firefox know that you won't blow up the universe by continuing and select "I know what I'm doing"
- In the filter box enter "typeahead"
- Set the option named "accessibility.typeaheadfind" to the boolean value of true (or 1 if you enter an integer value)
- Save, close and restart Firefox - and now it should work
- Get addicted
I just wish Chrome would add this option, release the Mac version and allow for extensions... that's all I want for Christmas, really - I mean it.
Technorati tags:
Browser,
Firefox,
Chrome,
Typeahead,
Firebug
Monday, July 13, 2009
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Along with the makeover of the site - alot more has been undergoing changes. In fact, the entire site is now hosted at my own VPS (Virtual Private Server). This means that I have full control over everything and this gives me nice options to run other types of servers as well - such as Subversion for Source Control, TeamCity for Continuous Integration - but also more commonly known services such as a mail server.
With this freedom also comes the tiring job of setting it all up and getting it working. I have previously set up several
Linux servers for own use like this - but as I have lately been working alot with
ASP.Net I wanted a Windows server this time, and as such I am now running all of this off a Windows 2008 server.
Getting ASP.Net pages to compile
Seeing as this is my first real time setting up a server like this even the most trivial thing of getting an ASP.Net page to compile was tricky to me (although, to my excuse it was not entirely my fault). The service provider which I am using - preinstall their servers with a 2GB Virtual Hard Disk, which is used to host the page file - I am guessing this is done in respect to performance. This is all great - however it seems that the rest of their setup expect this drive to be mounted to the T-drive ("T:"). For some reason mine was mounted on the D-drive - this caused confusion as this drive is also used to host other temporary files - such as the files that the ASP.Net pages compile down to! I managed to work this one out after having read through their documentation quite a few times, where this mysterious T-drive was mentioned - and I didn't have one.
I had changed permissions on various folders several times - changed the temporary folder where these ASP.Net files were supposed to go and nothing helped - untill I reset all of that, finally managed to re-mount the D-drive to the T-drive (which is some mess when the drive is hosting something important, such as the page file...) - and then it just worked!
Follow up
I've had several other "quirks" along the way - but here's just one of them. I will write about some of the other "fun" things I've had to deal with over the next couple of days - stay tuned.
Technorati tags:
System administration,
Windows 2008,
IIS
Sunday, July 12, 2009
#
I have been running this site for a long time on a blog engine I wrote myself quite a while back. I mainly did this - because I wanted to write a blog engine - and what better way of testing it other than using it yourself can you possibly do? However - this engine was really simple and lacked alot of features, and I, unfortunatly, now years later have lost the source code for it.
So, I decided to try and use one of the more known engines - and have now gone with
SubText. I am still trying to get this set up right so that it will look, feel and behave the way I want it to - but so far, it looks good.
I have a ton of stuff I wanna touch on, so hang in, cause over the next few days I will be posting a bit as I manage to make this blog my own!
Technorati tags:
Blogging,
Programming,
SubText