Programmers, particularly those Adobe fans, know about AIR apps. People who deal with websites know about Google Analytics. Now AIR meets Analytics and you can get in on the beta!
Month: September 2007
MyQuire only wants links to the front page
If you sign up for MyQuire and actually read the Terms of Service, you might notice the section forbidding "deep linking." This means they only want you linking to the top level of the website, like http://realityme.net/ rather than directly to functionality or articles like http://realityme.net/2007/09/22/warning-on-blogrush/. I am sure their intent here is to prevent people from using MyQuire functionality within their own domain but it is phrased such that if MyQuire has a discussion forum, you will be in violation of the terms of service if you link to a forum discussion.
Wearing down
This machine is breaking. I need more rest. Throat raw.
Today’s focus: ColdFusion! (with a side of Access)
Today I will use ColdFusion for PDF manipulation of data received by fax and saved as gifs or jpegs. I will also generate lots of reprots with ColdFusion, I will make data dance on the screen, and I will get MS Access to produce a printed book from its 14 tables of data.
This evening I’ll take the boys to their scout meeting.
Break into a Dodge Caravan? No problem.
Today we took the children to church. Typically the younger four go with the grandparents while the heathens, Cathy, Tommy and I, stay home where I work on client projects or the house while taking the Lord’s name in vain; everyone sins right? When Tommy was younger, multiple churches requested that he stay away so he never formed a church habit. My religious upbringing is a different story culminating with me tending to keep my religious views to myself. Tommy has discovered that he is comfortable at Two Rivers Church’s youth group and goes there on Wednesday nights although conflicts have kept him away recently.
The grandparents enjoyed the UT Vols game in the stadium last night so we had the responsibility of getting the children to church this morning. Tommy chose to stay home of course. Cathy and I dropped the children then looked at Sunday school options for ourselves finding 4 possibilities for our age group. The one we picked at random turned out to be the group devoting themselves to getting the word out through activities like car washes and entertainment at festivals; anything to get an audience then try to get them to convert or accept the Lord. That directly conflicts with my "keep religious views to myself and let others make their own decisions" mindset.
After class, I went to the van to get some Alavert and Cathy joined me to get some Tylenol. I opened the tail gate for the medical supplies. Cathy took the keys and let herself into the car for a drink to wash her medicine down. I close the tailgate. Then I see someone waiting to get into their car and tell Cathy she is in the way. She jumps out of the way and closes the door. I ask for the keys and her face goes blank. Then she giggles. I think I’ll start carrying two sets of keys for the car! Cathy’s father came out to help me which is good otherwise God and I might have had a lively discussion.
Consistency, who needs it!
So I work in ColdFusion a lot. I also work in PHP a lot. Just did a round of work on ASP. Working on web applications involves integral knowledge of Javascript, CSS, HTML, and a variety of other buzz words like Flex, AIR, AJAX, and so forth. It also means decent familiarity with databases such as MS SQL, MySQL, and MS Access and others.
Tonight I work in the one I dread the most…MS Access! I wonder what it would be like to go to work and do the same thing day in and day out.
I DO need a Macbook!
Because I also want to follow 5,700 Twitterers!
The ASP Butt Kicking Saga
Hurdle 2 is now complete! The host’s local SMTP server is not configured correctly. The website is hosting its pop/smtp email else where. Using Method 3 of Sending email using CDOSYS ( THE REAL DEAL ) I was able to finally get email to send!
Method 3 ( Using remote mail server )
<% Dim ObjSendMail Set ObjSendMail = CreateObject("CDO.Message") 'This section provides the configuration information for the remote SMTP server. ObjSendMail.Configuration.Fields.Item ("http://schemas.microsoft.com/cdo/configuration/sendusing") = 2 'Send the message using the network (SMTP over the network). ObjSendMail.Configuration.Fields.Item ("http://schemas.microsoft.com/cdo/configuration/smtpserver") ="mail.yoursite.com" ObjSendMail.Configuration.Fields.Item ("http://schemas.microsoft.com/cdo/configuration/smtpserverport") = 25 ObjSendMail.Configuration.Fields.Item ("http://schemas.microsoft.com/cdo/configuration/smtpusessl") = False 'Use SSL for the connection (True or False) ObjSendMail.Configuration.Fields.Item ("http://schemas.microsoft.com/cdo/configuration/smtpconnectiontimeout") = 60 ' If your server requires outgoing authentication uncomment the lines bleow and use a valid email address and password. 'ObjSendMail.Configuration.Fields.Item ("http://schemas.microsoft.com/cdo/configuration/smtpauthenticate") = 1 'basic (clear-text) authentication 'ObjSendMail.Configuration.Fields.Item ("http://schemas.microsoft.com/cdo/configuration/sendusername") ="somemail@yourserver.com" 'ObjSendMail.Configuration.Fields.Item ("http://schemas.microsoft.com/cdo/configuration/sendpassword") ="yourpassword" ObjSendMail.Configuration.Fields.Update 'End remote SMTP server configuration section== ObjSendMail.To = "someone@someone.net" ObjSendMail.Subject = "this is the subject" ObjSendMail.From = "someone@someone.net" ' we are sending a text email.. simply switch the comments around to send an html email instead 'ObjSendMail.HTMLBody = "this is the body" ObjSendMail.TextBody = "this is the body" ObjSendMail.Send Set ObjSendMail = Nothing %>
In addition to what you see here there are plenty of properties you can add to these examples.
Here are a few examples.Carbon Copy
ObjSendMail.CC = “someone@someone.net”Blind Carbon Copy
ObjSendMail.BCC = “someone@someone.net”Send Attachment (we hard code it here, but you could specify the file path using Server.Mappath as well)
ObjSendMail.AddAttachment “c:\myweb\somefile.jpg”and a ton of other things you can do…
[Source]
Pages I found useful during this hurdle:
- CDOSYS or CDONTS, Which Will It Be?
- Send via ASP Page w CDONTS – Mail Stuck In SMTP Queue – Please help!
- Localhost mail stuck in QUEUE
- Mail Stuck in Queue Folder – IIS SMTP Virtual Server – Windows XP Service Pack 2 This one advised adding two crlf’s to the end of email.
See also Microsoft’s CDOSYS Documentation.
The final hurdle is rewriting their document management system. Presently, they have an admin piece that uploads documents to a single directory. The documents are then accessible to their customers. They want the ability to classify those documents. The approach will be to allow the documents to live in subdirectories representing the categories. This should be interesting.
Of Being Dad
I jumped on the trampoline with Amy today. We had a blast! My poor head and body didn’t handle it that well. We become sedentary and our bodies uncomfortable with such motions. I’ll have to do it more often! We then went exploring the property and discovered a hole in the ground that we guess must be where a raccoon or skunk lives. We walked down into the dry creek for an inspection. Amy has never done that before and was very amused! While I was inspecting the largest tree on our property, I disturbed a nest of ants and got bit by something. I think they are carpenter ants. Looks like I need to call the Agriculture Extension Agent for a recommendation on a tree doctor. I’d hate to lose that tree! I think I’d cry then sell the house.
Amy and I had a great time outside and she cheerfully requested another exploration and "hike" tomorrow.
WARNING ON BLOGRUSH!
I was reading 99 Ways to Promote Your Blog for Free and liking the suggestions. Perhaps it would be fun to promote a little extra traffic to the site. I despise watching websites get overloaded with Javascript widgets and gizmos. However, I am guilty of doing that to Reality Me. It is bogged down with useless, behind the scenes Javascript. My list of round tuits includes cleaning up Reality Me and Domestic Psychology. Things like RobotReplay and PhpMyVisites are no longer of use to me but they remain behind the scenes slowing the site down. The Twitter widget and the MyBlogLog widget I find enhancing to the functionality of the site. I see Google Analytics as a necessary evil and I still debate the value of Adsense on a blog such as Reality Me (although apparent it protects – Can someone help me find that citation? I think Michael Silence carried it a while back. Some law was passed saying that if you run ads on your website you are protected the same was as traditional journalists.).
When I read 99 Ways to Promote Your Blog for Free, BlogRush was in the number one or two position. I should have taken a warning when I noticed the author was not using a referral link. Today I noticed that the Javascript code I put in my sidebar to validate Reality Me with Blogrush had changed from a box of links to other sites to become a Google Adsense box. Now, I have Google ads that run on Reality Me (when the ad isn’t encouraging you to buy the shirt off Cathy’s back) so I think Blogrush put me in danger of being in violation of my TOS with Google. Granted, I was supposed to read the Blogrush TOS and I’m sure they revealed that putting ads on my site is part of the agreement. But I do not agree with that! So I will be parting company with Blogrush. I wonder what is in the #3 position on 99 Ways to Promote Your Blog for Free?
Yesterday’s Butt Kicking Continues
Yesterday’s morning R&D centered around trouble shooting an SMTP problem with a Windows2003 server and ASP. Basically, I don’t get the error on my development server, which is still a Windows2000 machine. That means it could be code or server setup. The problem manifests itself when an attempt is made to send an email after a form is submitted.
CDO.Message.1 error ‘80040220’
The “SendUsing” configuration value is invalid.
This error message is all over Google (see also) (remember to use Blingo – aff link!).
I solve this in the next 2 hours!
Update: Why does Google continue to index www.experts-exchange.com?! Never click anything that is a link to www.experts-exchange.com! They obviously understand SEO really well.
Update: Troubleshooting thus far.
- Contacted the web host and explained that I think the server is not configured correct since emailing through telnet seemed to fail (but I might have done something wrong). Tech support explained that although they host the website that another company hosts the email. Excuse me? And that has exactly what to do with sending an email from asp through localhost? Here’s another testing through telnet instructional.
- Wow! SMTPDiag is fantastic. I’ve used it before but sort of put it out of my mind until now. It returns "failed to connect to the domain controller Error: ‘8007054b"
- How to test outbound mail flow with a file in the Pickup folder
- Initially looked like ColdFusion could send from the domain that ASP could not then I realized someone has changed cfmail to use an external mail server. Wonder how I would do that with ASP.
- After reading "SendUsing" configuration value is invalid (80040220), and access privilege problems caused by Exchange 2000 SP3, and how to test the SMTP service, and Troubleshooting email, the telnet way, and Troubleshooting IIS SMTP, and Testing email using RFC-822 and the pickup folder, I finally returned to reading all the comments in CDOSYS or CDONTS, Which Will It Be? to discover an astute comment by Scott Forsyth that this is indeed a permissions error and fixed by searching google for metaacl.vbs to discover these two technotes: ACLs and using MetaACL for metabase ACL permission changes (for understanding) and The MetaAcl tool for modifying metabase permissions on the IIS Admin Objects is available (for the vbs packaged within a self-extracting archive)
Title: The “SendUsing” configuration value is invalid in Windows 2003
Name: Scott Forsyth
Date: 3/27/2006 10:10:04 AM
Comment:
Hi Monde,On Windows Server 2003, if you don’t specify the default smtp server, it needs to obtain that from the IIS metabase. That isn’t allowed by default in IIS6, but you can add it with metaacl.vbs. Google and download a copy of metaacl.vbs and the run the following:
cscript metaacl.vbs “IIS://Localhost/smtpsvc” IIS_WPG RE
cscript metaacl.vbs “IIS://Localhost/smtpsvc/1” IIS_WPG REThis will give the IIS_WPG group read permissions to the smtpsrv node so that you’ll be able to obtain the default SMTP server without specifically setting it in code. This will often resolve the error that you have run into.
[Source]
Now, all of that said, only hurdle one has been jumped. My error message of "The "SendUsing" configuration value is invalid." is gone but mail is getting stuck in //Inetpub/mailroot/Queue. At least it is not going to the Badmail folder. Brief break then onto hurdle two.
Dear Technical Writers
If you are writing a reference manual on a programming language, please, I beg you, include "Hello World" in the index!
What do I do?
Yesterday I typed frantically for 20.5 hours straight. I am only going to count 12 hours of those since I broke for lunch and 3:30am to noon did include a lot of R&D. Let’s assume I type 60 words a minute. So 12 hours times 60 minutes equals 720 minutes. 720 minutes times 60 words = 43200 words.
The average length of a novel is 60000-100000 words. [Source]
65000+ [Source]
12,500; 15,000; 62,500; or 75,000 [Source]
So even if we cut my 43,200 words in half for 21,600 words it looks like I am well on my way to writing a novel in a day or two. Of course, we could add in the other 8.5 hours of typing for another 30,600 words plus the 43,200 totaling 73,800! A novel in a day! What does Stephen King make per book?
Happy Birthday Dean!
My younger brother celebrated another year today! Happy Birthday! I remember in my early teens going to a shoe store and having our feet measured. The shoe salesman spoke the sizes and said the larger number went with my younger brother’s foot! Absurd! I corrected and told him he got the sizes backwards to which he explained he didn’t. I finally came to terms with my brother’s foot being bigger than mine and when he grew taller than me I could accept that too. I’ve just never understood how my younger brother got to be older than me!
Separating Consultants from Employees
What separates a consultant from an employee? If I were an employee there’d be an IT guy fixing this server configuration.
