Project 31-A

It is tempting to think that you could have a configured Windows desktop computer on Amazon EC2 that you turned on whenever you like paying 12.5 cents an hour, then turned off and have it cost you nothing but storage of the hard drive. This computer you could use as a configured desktop with all your favorite applications installed to check email, do work and that you could access anywhere. However, Amazon EC2 isn’t set up that way; in fact it would be very hard to work day to day on an EC2 machine unless you left it turned on constantly. Here are the reasons that Amazon EC2 doesn’t make a good desktop environment: Amazon EC2 only runs Windows 2003 (As of 10/24/2009). Most people are used to a better desktop experience provided by Windows 7, Vista, or Windows 2008 and the Windows 2003 Windows 2003 desktop will feel old to them. When you terminate your Amazon EC2 instance (which stops the meter) EC2 deletes the underlying hard drive and everything that you have saved to that drive ...

Restarting Windows in Amazon EC2 doesn't terminate the EC2 instance. This is good to know if you are installing software and wonder will the required restart terminate the instance before you are able to Bundle it into an AMI. The answer is no, restarts don't cause termination. {6230289B-5BEE-409e-932A-2F01FA407A92}

Started a new web site yesterday with an idea from Rob S -- it is called PuzzleOverflow.com and it is using the Stack Exchange technology. Stack Exchange was written by a team at FogCreek Software to run the hugely popular StackOverFlow.com website. Our version of PuzzleOverflow.com is all about asking and getting answers to puzzles, riddle, and brain teasers. The unique feature of the Stack Exchange technology is that it allows the smartest user to rise to the top with reputation. The whole site only took me an hour to configure in that hour I purchased a domain name, started a Stack Exchange instance and added Google’s AdSense to the web site. Promoting the web site will take me much longer then the technology aspect for this undertaking. If you like brain teasers, riddles and puzzle come visit: PuzzleOverflow.com {6230289B-5BEE-409e-932A-2F01FA407A92}

Microsoft has this code for the LogOnUserControl.ascx partial control when you create a brand new ASP.NET MVC application: <%@ Control Language= "C#" Inherits= "System.Web.Mvc.ViewUserControl" %> <% if (Request.IsAuthenticated) { %> Welcome <b><%= Html.Encode(Page.User.Identity.Name) %></b>! [ <%= Html.ActionLink( "Log Off" , "LogOff" , "Account" ) %> ] <% } else { %> [ <%= Html.ActionLink( "Log On" , "LogOn" , "Account" ) %> ] <% } %> However, this isn't 100% correct. It just so happens that Page.User.Identity.Name in their example is the User's name, however really Page.User.Identity.Name in most cases is a unique (primary) key to a users table. This is a little cleaner: <%@ Control Language= "C#" Inherits= "System.Web.Mvc.ViewUserControl" %> <% if (Request.Is...

For the last couple of days I have been thinking about how browsers send passwords across the network. I think I have a safer way. I would have to work at Microsoft or Mozilla to get this implemented however, I am content with blogging about it and getting some feedback. This is a line of code that as a web developer I write all the time: < INPUT TYPE =” TEXT ” NAME =” Login ” />< br /> < INPUT TYPE =” PASSWORD ” NAME =” Password ” /> This HTML delivers the login and password to the browser in clear text. The web application takes the password and concatenates it onto a stored piece of random text (called salt) and then hashes the complete string. This hash is compared with the hash store for that login and if they match then the web application can assume that the user knows their password. If the web developer implemented good security for his system then he never stores the password, only a hash of the salt and the password. The salt helps make every ha...

Twitter’s strong word-of-mouth characteristics are derived from the common courtesy of retweets of its user base, not on technology – this is changing with an announcement this week. This arbitrary courtesy is the flaw that could lead to its demise once Twitter becomes more commonplace and the tight knit group of early adopters finds that courtesy gets undermined. For example: I have 100 followers and I post an event notification for the small city I live in. One of my followers (call him @WhatcomTravel) decides that this posting is relevant to his/her followers and decides to retweet my posting. By common courteous he starts the post RT: @myusername which gives me credit for the original posting. If he has 2000 followers, some of them will start to follow me to if they feel my postings are relevant to their interest. In essence they go to the source. Here lies the issue; if they follow me it dilutes the attention that they pay to the person that retweeted my post (@WhatcomTrav...

I am working on converting some ASP.NET WebForms pages into MVC Views and there are a couple of things I have run across in MasterPages that are not obvious in the beginning. With ASP.NET WebForms if you wanted dynamic content in your MasterPage one way to do it is to have the code behind of the MasterPage insert it, which means that your Page either need to tell the Master Page what to insert or the Master Page need to figure it out. Take this for example: < head > < meta name ="Description" content ="" id ="metaDescription" runat ="server" /> </ head > Here I am trying to add a meta description the head of the HTML so that the search engines know what this page is about. What I was doing is have the page check the type of the master class on the pages OnInit event and if it was the right master class, find the public property in the MasterPage that would set the MetaDescription. When the MasterPage pre-rende...