February 16, 2007

readme.txt vs. readme.html

Filed under: .Net,PHP,Programming — pj @ 6:53 pm

I’m mulling over the idea of publishing some of the development tools I’ve created. For right now, I’m just looking for a simple way to allow “friends and family” to see my notes and source code for a few key projects. I don’t think many people on my list will have the time and energy to download and compile stuff (unless it’s something they happen to need right away). I personally like to kick the tires of interesting projects around a bit first by browsing the source code.  So, what I have in mind is a web interface to a Subversion source code control repository. The idea of browsing my project folders via the web brings up the idea of using readme.html files. I’ve considered this idea more than once in the past. (more…)

February 15, 2007

“Green Address Bar” SSL Certificates

Filed under: .Net,Networking,PHP,T3city — pj @ 8:02 pm

I’ve written other places about SSL certificates. Once upon a time, you bought your SSL certificates from either Verisign or Thawte. Back then, all (both) SSL Certificate Authorities (CAs) did some real validation on the entity (business or person) that was applying for the SSL cert. To validate the entity, they did things like review corporate records to make sure addresses matched, looked up phone numbers in public directories and matched drivers licenses to domain registrations.

I can understand why they wanted a bit of money for the work that was required for validation that first year, but overall, SSL certificates have long been overpriced for the value they provide. After that first validation, the next year’s renewal costs the CA practically nothing, but they used to give no renewal discounts at all and, even now, renewal discounts don’t exist and multi-year discounts are not as substantial as they could (should?) be. (more…)

February 9, 2007

Linux vs. Windows for Web Hosting

Filed under: .Net,PHP,T3city — pj @ 3:19 am

A lot of people think I’m an Linux/open source bigot. That’s not true at all. I do love Linux and open source. As a programmer, I dig the ability to “use the source, Luke”. Not only is looking at source code interesting on its own (at least for some of us), but every now and then it really helps with debugging and troubleshooting. Linux Servers are simply better than Windows Servers for a lot of the hosting I do, so I learned how to host on Linux. Back in the days of Windows NT, there was no comparison – our Linux web servers ran heavily loaded for years at a time while Windows NT systems with more than one web site needed regular reboots – really, I’m not making it up. (more…)

Blackberry “Enterprise” saga continues

Filed under: Networking — pj @ 2:09 am

A customer of mine has a voice mail system that forwards .wav files to the Exchange Server email address. They also have a Blackberry Enterprise Server (BES) that (on good days)  keeps their Exchange Server mailboxes in sync with their Blackberries. Naturally enough, these users would like to listen to their voice mails on their Blackberry units. The emails are already there on the Blackberry with the .wav files downloaded. All they needed was the ability to play the .wav file attachments.

It turns out that the ability to listen to .wav files was added to Blackberry Enterprise Server 4.1 Service Pack 2. We were only running Blackberry Enterprise Server 4.1, so an upgrade was in order. After downloading the 225MB “upgrade” file, the upgrade program managed to run just long enough to wipe out our Blackberry Server. The error message I was getting said something about being logged into a different account than the one that started the setup program. I might have even believed that message if I weren’t so very careful about logins. After a sort time of trying to get things fixed on my own, I decided to wait until morning to call BES support. (more…)

Enterprise = Overly Complex and Slow

Filed under: Networking — pj @ 1:46 am

A lot of the  “enterprise” hardware and software I’ve been exposed to these last few years is really badly designed. Take for example, those Dell rack-mount servers I see everywhere. On the surface, they are really nice machines – dual CPUs, RAID with hot-swap, all kinds of fancy diagnostic tools. Right off the bat, though, they take forever to reboot. And of course, everything you have to do on them (work on RAID, upgrading Windows, installing just about any software) requires a reboot. (more…)

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