Archives
-
Upgrading a Baby Computer
I'd like to take a brief departure from my normal series of IIS-related blogs and talk about something very near and dear to the hearts of many geeks - ripping a computer apart and upgrading its various hardware components just because it's fun. ;-)
-
FTP Clients - Part 11: Beyond Compare 3
For this installment in my series about FTP clients, I want to take a look at Beyond Compare 3 from Scooter Software. At its heart, Beyond Compare is a file/folder comparison tool, so it might seem an unlikely candidate for an FTP client, but it has a lot of great FTP features packed into it.
-
Using WebMatrix to Take a PHP Class
With the release of WebMatrix 2, I thought that it would be great to take a PHP class and use WebMatrix exclusively for the entire class. Much to my surprise, this proved to be a great experience. Seriously, I did not expect it to go as well as it did. This has nothing to do with WebMatrix, it's just that I've picked up some cynicism over the years where editors are concerned. This pessimistic outlook is largely due to the fact that I've tried a lot of editors based on the recommendations of my fellow geeks, and those have often been bad experiences. Usually they say something like, "Dude, if you're going to write code in <some language> then you have to use the <some editor> application."
-
Programmatically Starting and Stopping FTP Sites in IIS 7 and IIS 8
I was recently contacted by someone who was trying to use Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) code to stop and restart FTP websites by using code that he had written for IIS 6.0; his code was something similar to the following:
-
The New Look for IIS.NET
Following up on today's public release of Microsoft Windows Server 2012 and Internet Information Services 8.0, you'll notice some big changes on the IIS.net website.
-
Windows Server 2012 and IIS 8 are now available!
Microsoft has just released Windows Server 2012! You can find out more about this release on the Official Windows Server 2012 Launch Website (http://www.windows-server-launch.com).
-
Troubleshooting Custom FTP Providers with ETW
I recently received a question from a customer about troubleshooting custom FTP providers, and I recommended using the FTP service's Event Tracing for Windows (ETW) features in order to help troubleshoot the problem. I've helped a lot of customers use this little-known feature of the FTP service, so I thought that it would make a great subject for a quick blog.
-
Advanced Log Parser Charts Part 5 - Creating a Generic Chart Color Script
In Part 5 of this series, I'll show you how to create a generic script that you can use to add some color to your Log Parser charts. As I mentioned in Part 1 of this series, the default colors for Log parser charts are really dull and boring. For example, if I parse one month's worth of log files from one of my low-volume websites with the following query:
-
Windows Cache 1.3 for PHP 5.4
The IIS team has officially signed off on the Windows Cache Extension (WinCache) version 1.3 for PHP 5.4, and the files have been uploaded to SourceForge. This version addresses all of the problems that were identified with WinCache 1.1 that customers were seeing after they upgraded their systems from PHP 5.3 to PHP 5.4.
-
Windows Cache 1.3 for PHP 5.4
The IIS team has officially signed off on the Windows Cache Extension (WinCache) version 1.3 for PHP 5.4, and the files have been uploaded to SourceForge. This version addresses all of the problems that were identified with WinCache 1.1 that customers were seeing after they upgraded their systems from PHP 5.3 to PHP 5.4.
-
WebDAV Website Importer for WebMatrix
The other day I was talking with one of my coworkers, Yishai Galatzer, about Microsoft's WebMatrix. By way of introduction, Yishai is one of our senior developers on the WebMatrix project; I'm not sure if you've used WebMatrix, but it's a pretty handy website editor. Here's a few generic screen shots:
-
Creating "Pretty" XML using XSL and VBScript
I was working with an application recently that stored all of its settings in a large XML file, however, when I opened the XML in Windows Notepad, all I saw was a large blob of tags and text - there was no structured formatting to the XML, and that made it very difficult to change some of settings by hand. (Okay - I realize that some of you are probably thinking to yourselves, maybe I wasn't supposed to be editing those settings by hand - but that's just the way I do things around here... if I can't customize every setting to my heart's content, then it's just not worth using.)
-
Working with the Different IIS Express Modes and HTTPS
I had another great question from a customer the other day, and I thought that his question was the perfect impetus for me to write blog that explained the different modes of IIS Express.
-
Error: Class Not Registered (0x80040154) when Querying FTP Runtime State
I had a great question from a customer earlier today, and I thought that it was worth blogging about. The problem that he was running into was that he was seeing the following error when he was trying to query the runtime state for the FTP service in an application that he was writing:
-
Using URL Rewrite with QDIG
One of the applications that I like to use on my websites it the Quick Digital Image Gallery (QDIG), which is a simple PHP-based image gallery that has just enough features to be really useful without a lot of work on my part to get it working. (Simple is always better - ;-].) Here's a screenshot of QDIG in action with some Bing photos:
-
Microsoft IIS 8.0 Express Release Candidate is Released!
In addition to all of the other great products that Microsoft has released today, I’m happy to announce the release of the Internet Information Services (IIS) 8.0 Express Release Candidate. You can install the IIS 8.0 Express Release Candidate through the Microsoft Download Center by using the following URL:
-
Advanced Log Parser Charts Part 4 - Adding Custom Input Formats
In Part 4 of this series, I'll show you how you can do a couple of cool things:
-
Advanced Log Parser Charts Part 3 - Missing Office Web Components for Charting
In Part 3 of this series, I'll explain what to do when you're missing the Office Web Components that are required for creating the charts that I have been demonstrating in this series.
-
Configuring FTP Client Certificate Authentication in FTP 7
We had a customer question the other day about configuring FTP Client Certificate Authentication in FTP 7.0 and in FTP 7.5. It had been a while since the last time that I had configured those settings on an FTP server, so I thought that it would be great to re-familiarize myself with that feature. To my initial dismay, it was a little more difficult than I had remembered, because there are a lot of parts to be configured.
-
Extensibility Updates in the FTP 8.0 Service
A few years ago I wrote a blog that was titled "FTP 7.5 Service Extensibility References", in which I discussed the extensibility APIs that we added in FTP 7.5. Over the next couple of years I followed that initial blog with a series of walkthroughs on IIS.net and several related blog posts. Here are just a few examples:
-
IIS.net is running on IIS 8.0 Beta!
Here at Microsoft we're pretty passionate about testing our own software.
-
FTP Logon Restrictions in IIS 8
One of the biggest asks from our customers over the years was to provide a way to prevent brute-force password attacks on the FTP service. On several of the FTP sites that I host, I used to see a large number of fraudulent logon requests from hackers that were trying to guess a username/password combination. My first step in trying to prevent these kinds of attacks, like most good administrators, was to implement strong password requirements and password lockout policies. This was a good first step, but there is an unfortunate downside to password lockout policies - once a hacker locks out a user account, that means that a valid user is locked out of their account. What's more, a hacker can continue your server.
-
Microsoft IIS 8.0 Express Beta is Released!
Earlier today the IIS Express team released the IIS 8.0 Express Beta, and there are some great new features in this release! Here are just a few of the highlights:
-
Programmatically Flushing FTP Logs
I had a great question from Scott Forsyth earlier today about programmatically flushing the logs for an FTP site. Scott had noticed that there was a FlushLog method listed on the following page in the IIS Configuration Reference:
-
Using URL Rewrite to Insert Different Scripts Based on Browser Type
I just stumbled across a piece of sample code that I had written several months ago for a coworker, and I thought that I'd share it with everyone.
-
Advanced Log Parser Charts Part 2 - Using Gradient Colors for Area Charts
In Part 2 of this series, I'll show you how to customize the area chart from Part 1 to show the chart area with a gradient. More specifically, there are three different chart gradient methods that we'll take a look at in this blog post:
-
Advanced Log Parser Charts Part 1 - Working With Configuration Scripts
I recently had a situation where I wanted to customize the chart output from Log Parser, and after a bunch of research I eventually arrived at the conclusion that configuration scripts for create customized charts are probably the least-documented feature of Log Parser. After a lot of experimentation, (and a bit of frustration), I finally managed to achieve the results that I wanted. With that in mind, I thought that it would make a great blog series if I documented some of the settings that I used.