IIS Configuration with WiX and Appcmd
I recently spent some time building an install package for a web application using WiX. There are some nice IIS extensions for WiX to help with that, but they're missing the ability to set some advanced properties, like an Application Pool's "Enable 32 Bit Applications" property.
Matt Honeycutt has a …
The NSA Questions My Lifestyle
The National Security Agency (NSA) has a video about their polygraph testing, which was critiqued by AntiPolygraph.org, and recently reported about on Slashdot. In 1991, while still a college student, I applied for a summer internship with the NSA, so I got to take one of these tests myself …
MessageBox: Just Say Nein
The Windows MessageBox is really convenient to use. A single line of code gets you a dialog box with a caption, a message, an icon and a set of available buttons that cover a lot of possible input scenarios. Unfortunately, the text on the buttons is supplied by the system …
This solution contains a web site...
I kept getting a message from Visual Studio 2008 when opening a solution saying:
This solution contains a web site at 'http://localhost/Services'. There is already a web site at this location on this computer. Do you wish to use this existing location for your web site (existing files …
Consumed by Technology
Despite the fact that I earn a living with technology, and that even many of my leisure hours are spent in front of a computer, I'm feeling especially consumed by technology lately. By "consumed" I mean more of the "waste or burn away" sense.
I'm beta testing a wireless music …
It's Just UI
Maybe I've just imagined this -- created my own straw man to take down -- but I've sometimes sensed some disparagement of user interface programming. "It's just UI," the architect will say. "It's not like it's a hard or interesting part of the system." As I've done more and more UI development …
Succumbing to the Smartphone Siren
So shortly after crowing about how cheaply I was getting cell phone service, I've sailed headlong into the rocks of an \$80 a month smart phone plan. In spite of all the Android buzz of late, I went with the Palm Pre.
As I've posted before, I used to be …
New Depths of Printer Evil
I frequently say, only half-jokingly, that printers are evil. Actually I love my HP LaserJet 1320, but my Canon Pixma 620 is just plain E-V-I-L.
OK, pretty much any inkjet printer is devil-spawn, with the well-cited fact that printer ink is the most expensive liquid on the planet. Canon has …
.NET Color Struct Equality
When is white not white? When one is Color.White and the other is
Color.FromArgb(0xff, 0xff, 0xff, 0xff).
I was trying to data bind a list of colors to a ComboBox and
have the SelectedValue property bound to a particular color. The
frustrating thing was that even though …
Defeating Antivirus System Pro
Antivirus System Pro is an irksome piece of malware that holds your computer hostage until you pay a ransom. It is nothing short of extortion. I just spent a few evenings removing it from a friend's computer, and the dozens of articles on the web (and even YouTube videos) were …