Software Development (.NET)

Adding Social Bookmarking to Community Server 2008 Or Any Website

davestechshop.net — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 14:30:47 GMT

Here is an excellent article on how to use the "addthis.com" widget with Community Server by mystyleit:
http://mystyleit.com/blogs/mystyleit/archive/2008/02/07/adding-social-bookmarking-to-community-server-2007.aspx
I used the instructions with Community Server 2008 without any modification even though they were written for CS 2007.

In case it is not clear in the original post, here are my steps:

sign up with addthis.com
get your button code from addthis.com. I used the "website" button version and the dropdown style option.
URL encode the button code you got from addthis.com using http://www.albionresearch.com/misc/urlencode.php
paste the URL encoded button code into the PasteHere variable in the line below, which is the new config element:
<add name = "SPWReferItModule" type = "SPWorks.CS.Freeware.SPWReferIt,SPWorks.CS.Freeware" ReferLinks="PasteHere" />
paste the entire new config element as modified by step 4 (e.g., <add name ... />) into CommuntyServer.config at the end of the CSModules element.

Forget your passwords

davestechshop.net — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 22:39:31 GMT

Sxipper lets you log into any website with a single click. Sxipper saves you time by keeping track of an unlimited number of usernames and passwords and it has a useful feature called personas. Sxipper is different from most password managers or form fillers in its use of artificial intelligence to figure out how to properly fill in web-based forms (with your data) that it hasn't seen before. In other words, when you visit a web page for the first time, Sxipper can often figure out where your data should go.

Here's a nice review of Sxipper:

http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/business/
You can download Sxipper here:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/4865

I like the fact that it is cross platform - runs on Linux, Max and Windows.

Quote from the review:
Sxipper the dog loves to learn new tricks as he gets older
Malcolm Parry, Vancouver Sun
First Published: Thursday, April 05, 2007

"... includes straightforward stuff like remembering and applying site passwords, automatically filling in forms, and remembering all the sites you've accessed and what you've told them.

"But today's dynamic data is much harder to handle than it was when web pages were static. Sxipper is in his element here, Hardt says, especially when its master's identity data is dynamic and would be hard or impossible to manage.

"He's referring to stuff like disposable e-mail and one-time credit cards."

Checklist for Moving to A New Webserver

davestechshop.net — Sun, 10 Jun 2007 18:08:53 GMT

Does anyone have a checklist of the things they do when moving client websites to a new server? This is a quick list I threw together from memory. The next time I do this, I will keep exact notes and update this post. This info applies to a dedicated server or a virtual private server (VPS) hosting account running Windows 2003.

If you have a similar checklist, please leave me a link.

As you'll see below, I set up some very limited access user accounts and there are a few extra steps because of this.

rename all standard user accounts such as “Administrator”; and make sure “Guest” account is disabled
change Remote Desktop Connection port (see http://support.microsoft.com/kb/306759 -- ONLY takes effect after a REBOOT!)
set up Windows firewall on new server. Add exceptions for:
1. RDC (custom port)
2. FTP
3. HTTP
create a special very limited Windows account for FTP use.
get FTP working on new server
1. set up logging and upload folders for FTP
create folder structure on new server. Here are some examples I use on a system with three drives:

D:\InetPub\Subtext
D:\SQLData\Subtext
E:\SQLLogs\Subtext
E:\Logs\WebLogs\websitename.com
E:\Settings\IIS (for config files, etc.)
Etc.

install NTFS Link and set up junctions for Community Server as per http://blog.davestechshop.net/archive/2006/10/22/CommunityServerMultipleCommunities.aspx
add Windows user account for LimitedWebAccount and make it a member of IIS_WPG on web server
add read permissions for LimitedWebAccount account to:
1. C:\WINDOWS\Temp (and maybe C:\temp) for LimitedWebAccount account
2. Logging folders
3. Website folders
install MS SQL
1. add login for LimitedWebAccount account
Add custom trust policy as per http://blog.davestechshop.net/archive/2006/11/12/CustomTrustLevelForCommunityServer.aspx or http://blog-howto.com/archive/2006/09/24/CustomizingTrustLevelPolicy.aspx
create config files for IIS web sites and app pools on existing server
edit IIS config files:
1. change server name
2. change logging folder
create database backups on existing server
copy website applications (CommunityServer, DNN, Subtext, etc.)
1. zip up all stuff on existing server
2. FTP it to new server
add security login for LimitedWebAccount to MSSQL
restore databases to new server
add custom app pools in IIS (use config file)
1. set app pool Identity to LimitedWebAccount account & set password
add web sites from config file (after checking edits for new server)
copy website applications
edit web.config files for db connection string and folders
Set up backup jobs
Set up offsite backup (FTP transfer)

URL Dogma for Community Server

davestechshop.net — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 11:53:56 GMT

A long time ago I read Ian G's blog post about URI design and his approach immediately appealed to me. His ideas on this subject continue to withstand the test of time, so I recently decided to implement this design for Community Server. Next I may attempt to do the same thing with Subtext, which runs this blog.

Ian's stated goals for his URL design were:

No extensions (e.g. .aspx) or other implementation artifacts. The fact that I’m using .aspx pages internally is of no real relevance to anything, so it has no business appearing in a web browser’s address bar – I want the name of the page to be the name of the page, no more, no less. I also want the name to be durable, so that whenever I switch over from .aspx pages to whatever technology comes next, I don’t break any links.
‘Hackability,’ as Jakob Nielsen calls it. In other words, the user should be able to munge the URL by hand in the address bar and have it behave like it looks like it should behave.

These goals are in tune with another good article on URI design by Mike Amundsen: see what makes a good URL.

I believe I have now accomplished the implementation of these URI design goals for Community Server and I'll show you how in this post.

Below is an example of what my URIs look like now. From the blog post URL shown below, each URL segment can be hacked off and the resulting URL is valid and works as one would expect.

http://mydomain.com/blogs/myblog/2006/11/12/my-blog-post-name

http://mydomain.com/blogs/myblog/2006/11/12

http://mydomain.com/blogs/myblog/2006/11

http://mydomain.com/blogs/myblog/2006 (this one probably isn't ideal. Currently, for CS, I just show January for the year instead of showing the whole year)

http://mydomain.com/blogs/myblog

http://mydomain.com/blogs

http://mydomain.com

I was able to accomplish this implementation with two fairly simple changes to Community Server. The change that took the most work to get right was my revised SiteUrls.config. (Clicking that link will download a zip archive containing the actual SiteUrls.config file I'm using on a production web site.) If you drop this config file into your Community Server installation, your blog URLs will look and act just like the example shown above -- as soon as you take care of the second step of my solution.

The second step was much easier for me to implement, but it does involve modifying code. I posted about this code change on the CS forums. In ReWrittenUrl.cs, the Convert method had to be refactored as shown here:

public virtual string Convert(string url, string qs)
{
string newUrl = _regex.Replace(url, _path);
if(qs != null && newUrl.Contains("?"))
{
qs = qs.Replace("?","&");
}
return string.Format("{0}{1}", newUrl, qs);
}

As I said, it ended up being a really simple change and it doesn't alter any of Community Server's standard behavior.

I believe the easiest way to deal with this is to build a new CommunityServer.Components.dll using the code shown above and then drop this assembly into your \Web\bin folder. In fact, I'll provide such a dll for CS 2.1 SP2 here if enough people request it.

The installation steps are:

Enable wildcard mapping in IIS.
Back up your old SiteUrls.config and replace it with my SiteUrls.config.
Drop the modified CommunityServer.Components.dll into \Web\bin.

Please share your feedback with me. Let me know if you have problems with any of my modifications. And if you extend this implementation with success, please contact me and let me know, in keeping with the open source spirit.

Stephen Hawking On Computer Viruses

davestechshop.net — Sun, 10 Dec 2006 00:12:43 GMT

"I think computer viruses should count as life. I think it says something about human nature that the only form of life we have created so far is purely destructive. We've created life in our own image."

Stephen Hawking
English cosmologist and physicist (1942 - )

I agree with Hawking's quote in some ways. However, I'm not so sure that computer viruses are a life form, and if they are, then maybe other aspects of the hardware and software in which they live should also be considered a life form.

Either way, computer viruses aren't the only significant thing human beings have created. Human beings have created a lot of positive things. However, I like Hawking's quote because it does point out the ironic absurdity of computer viruses.

Running svn_load_dirs.pl on Windows

davestechshop.net — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 20:12:27 GMT

I use Subversion for source code control. Today, I attempted to run svn_load_dirs.pl on Windows and I was initially greeted by an error message similar to this:

<output>
Directory e:\libs\loadpng-1.0 will be tagged as 1.0
Please examine identified tags. Are they acceptable? (Y/n) Y

Checking that the base URL is a Subversion repository.
Running svn log -r HEAD file:///svn/vendortest/vendor/loadpng
'@SVN_BINDIR@/svn' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.
E:\bin\dev\svn_load_dirs.pl: svn log -r HEAD file:///svn/vendortest/vendor/loadpng
failed with this output:

Press return to quit and clean up svn working directory:
</output>

I searched on Google and didn't find much except this message, which had no reply. So I opened up the Perl script and noticed that the line containing this code seemed to be the problem:

my $svn = '@SVN_BINDIR@/svn';

I changed it to this

my $svn = 'C:\Program Files\svn\svn-win32-1.3.2\bin\svn.exe';

That fixed my problem. BTW, if you are starting from scratch with this, you'll need a Windows diff utility and it must be accessible from the path, and you'll need ActiveState Perl. After installing Perl, I copied diff.exe into C:\Perl\bin.

You can get svn_load_dirs.pl from the Subversion Repository. (Grab svn_load_dirs.pl and the readme.)

Don't forget to check out the relevant section of the Subversion book if you need more info.

Custom Trust Level For Community Server

davestechshop.net — Sun, 12 Nov 2006 11:49:26 GMT

Community Server 2.1 (including SP1) will not quite run in Medium Trust. I have found that it needs WebPermissions or the Feed Reader doesn't work correctly. See Community Server Feed Reader Fails in Medium Trust Level. And I have found that it requires ReflectionPermissions because of code in Global Application_End. If ReflectionPermissions are not granted, you'll see exceptions like this in the Windows Event Viewer (Application section).

This post proposes a solution if you have access to the following folder on your server:
%windir%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\{version}\CONFIG\

By default, this location is C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\CONFIG

Here are the steps:

Modify your machine-level web.config file:
1. If you have not changed your machine-level web.config file, simply copy my version (included in the download as web.config) over your existing web.config file in %windir%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\{version}\CONFIG\
2. Or, if you have customized your machine-level web.config file, simply add the following element to the <securityPolicy> element near the top of the file:
  <trustLevel name="MediumTrustPlusForCS" policyFile="web_mediumTrustPlusForCS.config" />
Copy web_mediumTrustPlusForCS.config into this same folder (%windir%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\{version}\CONFIG\).
Open the web.config file in your CommunityServer Web folder and change the trust element as follows:
<trust level="MediumTrustPlusForCS" originUrl="" />

Here is the download:
MediumTrustPlusForCS.zip

It includes:

web_mediumTrustPlusForCS.config - the new trust-level policy file
web.config - the machine-level web.config that goes in %windir%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\{version}\CONFIG\

I added the following permissions to the standard Medium Trust level:

WebPermissions (for web services - required for CS Feed Reader)
ReflectionPermissions (for reflection access to non-visible members - required to prevent application_end exception)
SocketPermissions (required only for some custom code I'm using -may be required for certain other custom modules)

If you wish, remove SocketPermissions from web_mediumTrustPlusForCS.config unless or until you need it.

Rick Strahl has a nice post on this general topic here with more details.

Community Server Service Pack 1 With Multiple Communities

davestechshop.net — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 20:58:01 GMT

Here are my notes for upgrading to Service Pack 1 when using the multiple community setup described in this article:
Community Server - Setting Up Multiple Communities.

Run the update SQL script that comes with SP1.
Copy all the new files to the CS Web folder. I'm working with the source and it is in Subversion, so I exported the CommunityServerWeb20 (Internal) to the Web folder on the server. Then I manually copied all the bin files. If you are building from source, note these tips:
1. use right version of config files - for ASP.NET 2.0, you have to copy the config files from the ASP.NET2_configs folder.
2. set the build type to release in Visual Studio.
3. add a reference to CommunityServerWeb20 (Internal) for lib/Framework2/CommunityServer.ASPNet20MemberRole.dll
Copy Web/blogs folder to each community. (See the original article for details.) I deleted all files in the target folders, but I made sure I did not delete the placeholder folders for user created blogs. Then I copied all the new files.
I don't believe files and photos folders had any files that changed, so I didn't make any changes to those folders.
According to my original article, each community has completely independent themes.
1. I had customized the site skins for some communities, so I only copied the SP1 changed files to each community. These are the files I copied into the appropriate folder in each community:
2. I had added some custom blog skins, but I had not customized any existing blog skins. Therefore, I copied the entire /Web/Themes/Blogs folder to each of my communities.
I did not detect any changes to any of the config files with the changes in SP1. Therefore, I did not alter my custom config files for each community. However, I did alter the trust setting as described in my earlier article.

Community Server Feed Reader Fails in Medium Trust Level

davestechshop.net — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 20:33:37 GMT

[UPDATE: see this new post here Custom Trust Level For Community Server]

I just installed Community Server 2.1 SP1 for a client. I had been told that it would run in Medium trust, so I tried that setting. Unfortunately, in Medium trust, adding feeds gives the following error:

The problem is the same as discussed a while back in this thread. And apparently it was not fixed in 2.1 or 2.1 SP1.

Here is my solution:

In web.config, I added this element to <system.web>
<trust level="MediumWithWebServices" originUrl="" />

Taking advantage of this simple fix requires you to have first followed the steps listed in this article:
Customizing Trust Level Policy. The steps are not specific to Subtext, even though the article focuses on Subtext. The exact same approach works for Community Server or probably any other ASP.NET 2.0 Web application.

Visual Studio Window Issues

davestechshop.net — Tue, 24 Oct 2006 13:17:14 GMT

Who is using the Visual Studio WindowManager PowerToy?

http://www.gotdotnet.com/workspaces/releases/viewuploads.aspx?id=7ca49cdf-3b34-4da7-b783-3679cd4cdec5

This sounds like it might fix the problems I'm having with Visual Studio 2005 windows.

I use dual monitors and I keep the properties window and various explorer windows (such as Solution Explorer) undocked and on the primary screen with the IDE main window on the secondary monitor. When I save a solution and then later reopen it, the property window or the group of explorer windows (including Solution Explorer, Server Explorer, etc.) come back in the wrong position. They appear on the opposite monitor from where they were saved. Putting them back in place and "saving all" does not resolve the problem. They always get restored in the wrong location (and on the other monitor).

This problem is affected by whether the undocked windows are on the primary monitor or the secondary monitor. I hope Microsoft tests (or has tested) any resolution with the main IDE window on each monitor while the undocked windows reside on the other monitor.

When people mention this issue in connection with debugging, Microsoft seems to think the people reporting the problem don't understand that there are independent layouts for editing and debugging.

In my experience, this problem described above also happens when the display mode changes between debugging and editing. I experience undocked windows jumping to arbitrary positions upon leaving debug mode. This is not the same as switching between two different layouts for debugging and editing. In VS 2005 on dual monitors with undocked toolboxes, the windows do not remember their positions in each mode as they did in VS 2003. In 2005, when I leave debugging mode, they forget to return to the position they were in before I entered debugging. This means that every time I debug, I also have to rearrange my windows. It's a real pain.

Just to be clear, the problem also happens when debug mode is not involved - as I said, simply saving and closing the IDE, then reopening the solution, causes the undocked windows to forget where they were.

Who else has the same problem?