I’ve created a small program which allows you to bulk validate email addresses. Just enter the addresses and the separator character (leave blank for new line), then click validate. The good and bad emails addresses can then be saved off. Easy. VaidateEmails.zip VaidateEmails.zip

After a power crash on a DC the replication can go crazy.  To bring it back you can follow the below on the primary DC. Afterwards, remove the keys added.  The log should show a restore has happened and then secondary servers should then be able to synchronise. To perform an authoritative restore of the SYSVOL when using DFS-R, use the following steps: Start the Registry Editor Navigate to "HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\DFSR" Create a key called "Restore" (only time only) Create a string value called "SYSVOL" (only time only) For the strin... [More]

With Windows Server 2012 comes the ability to switch between Core, Minimal and Full GUI options after the Operating System has been installed. To switch down to minimal Uninstall-WindowsFeature Server-Gui-Shell –Restart To switch down to core Uninstall-WindowsFeature Server-Gui-Mgmt-Infra –Restart To switch up to minimal Install-WindowsFeature Server-Gui-Mgmt-Infra –Restart To switch up to full Install-WindowsFeature Server-Gui-Shell –Restart To Remove all of the unused windows binaries, thus saving on storage space Get-WindowsFeature | Where-Object -FilterScript { $_.Installed -Eq $... [More]

At Shore Tech Systems we primarily develop on the Microsoft stack of technologies.  Although not ‘free’, the final TCO to clients is normally very low. With web editions of Server 2008 & 2012 and SQL express, web sites can be running on a virtual server or fresh iron with just £10 a month payable to Microsoft. Our development is broken down in to two broad areas.  Bespoke Systems and Web Design.  When Shore Tech Systems was formed we focused primarily on Bespoke Software Systems.  However, as time has gone on many of these bespoke systems are delivered through a web in... [More]

When we are approached to build new web sites we explain to potential clients the advantages that the Content Management System (CMS) Dot Net Nuke (DNN) brings. We can offer clients different options when it comes to DNN site design and implementation depending on what work they have already commissioned we can fit it and complete the job. Graphics Design The first stage in creating a web site is good graphics design.  This is where mockups of different pages are created.  This can either be completed by the client and supplied to us is a suitable graphics package format or we can... [More]

Over the last few months John has been busy working on both a new design and also all new content for the Shore Tech Systems web site. Our previous site has been running a custom CMS which we rarely updated due to the fact that there was always something else to do.  As we are now rolling out more and more Dot Net Nuke web sites, we decided that it was time we moved our own site to it.  The site looks fantastic, with a Dot Net Nuke Skin that is both simple to use and great looking. Along with the great new look is much more useful content.  Before the site was cluttered wi... [More]

Today I got to the office to find our internet incredibly slow. We’ve got a BT ADSL line, normally it is about 13Mb down 1Mb up, but today it was 0.05 Mb Down, and 0.05 Mb Up. After rebooting the router and switches and still no change I started looking at our servers to try and find one that was hammering the connection. After a while I tracked it down to a web server which was running DNS as a backup for a few domains. There was 1 connection to ENR-G.com at 199.59.163.149. It was saturating our broadband link. I enabled the DNS service logging and found I was getting hundreds of conn... [More]

Uniquely British now have 150 telephone boxes from Britain's streets, ready to restore and be shipped world wide.   http://www.uniquelybritish.com/Item/BRITISH_RED_K6_TELEPHONE_BOX.aspx?Cat=TELEPHONE_BOXES_KIOSKS  

Our first server has been in colocation now for a couple of months and all is going well.  Below are a few shots of it in place.

Its easy to want to do this:   using (var stream = new MemoryStream()) using (var writer = new StreamWriter(stream)) { writer.WriteLine("My line to write"); writer.Flush(); } However, code analysis points out that stream can get disposed twice. So, the first way to get round this is just to nest the stream inside the writer and don't hold reference to it. using (var writer = new StreamWriter(new MemoryStream())) { writer.WriteLine("My line to write"); ... [More]

It's an old post from 2003, but i think it still holds true today. LoadFrom() goes through Fusion and can be redirected to another assembly at a different path but with that same identity if one is already loaded in the LoadFrom context. LoadFile() doesn't bind through Fusion at all - the loader just goes ahead and loads exactly what the caller requested. It doesn't use either the Load or the LoadFrom context. Extract from: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/suzcook/archive/2003/09/19/loadfile-vs-loadfrom.aspx  

Yesterday (7 March 2012) DNN released an update to 6.1.  the highlights are: Major Highlights Fixed issue with loading the splash page skin in the login, privacy and terms of use pages Fixed issue when searching for keywords with special characters Fixed redirection issue when the user does not have permissions to access a resource Fixed issue when clearing the cache using the ClearHostCache() function Fixed issue when displaying the site structure in the link to page feature Fixed issue when inline editing the modules title Fixed issue with incorrect redirect... [More]

We’re currently working on a project www.theatretripskent.co.uk and we needed a booking system to integrate with it as quickly as possible.  We chose to buy the source code for invenmanager events.  They had a lot of the core functionality we required, including multiple payment gateway, and with the source code we knew we could do a few changes to get it in line with the requirements. The only draw back for us with the source was the fact the it is all VB has not been ported to C# to be inline with the core of DNN. The first big change we made was to the registration process.
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ImageDuplicationFinder.rar This photo image duplication finder looks through the specified directories and can move duplicated to a new folder.  It bases the comparison on: camera model camera make date taken The program is designed to help you find duplicate photos and leave the most recently modified version in place. Files that have been modified but are the same photo will be identified as duplicates.  The most recently modified image will be left in place and all others moved to the move folder.  It will also pick up photos that have been renamed. The du... [More]

A red phone box in the garden would be a nice quirky addition, http://www.uniquelybritish.com/Item/BRITISH_RED_K6_TELEPHONE_BOX.aspx. From their site we have a nice use of www.photolinedrawing.com to convert the images into a pretty good line drawing.  

Here is a neat fix for making ie7 deal with inline blocks: http://flipc.blogspot.com/2009/02/damn-ie7-and-inline-block.html

My AVR Dragon arrived today.  It enables me to debug as well as program with the STK600.  It plugs into the STK600 via the 6 pin ISP ribbon and via USB to the PC. You have to also remove the jumper on the reset on the STK600. Now in AVR Studio you can enable debug wire on the fuse and use the debug button.

Its been along time since I really did any electronics work and programming the ATTiny44 microcontroller has got be back into it. I’ve ordered some electronic starter kits, Beginners and Component Kit as the first you can use with some tutorials from the electronics club web site. The first circuit I’ve made is a 555 timer which is is sending its signal to a 4017 decade counter. A 555 timer can have lots of functions but I’m using it as an astable circuit.  This means it makes regular pulses on its own without any interaction from you. The 55 does this by continual charging and d... [More]

The ATTiny44 is a small 8 bit AVR microcontroller with a 10Mhx processor, 4KB of Flash, 256B of EEPROM and 256B of SRAM.  There is a comprehensive data sheet from Atmel which is pretty much the bible for when trying to program the chip. There are also lots of copies of the STK600’s manual online.   When you first look on the Atmel web site for finding the equipment needed to program an AVR microcontroller, your naturally drawn towards the starter kit, the latest version of which is the STK600, I was.  Once you start looking around on the internet people say it has a few draw... [More]

This is my first foray into Linux.  It makes sense to do it now with a powerful server going into colocation I can make the most of offing Linux hosting to clients. I’m going with Centos 6 as my first option.  This is how I got on. I’m aming to install the LAMP stack so play to try and follow http://library.linode.com/lamp-guides/centos-6 First things first make sure you install a legacy network adapter on the virtual machine as by default linux doesn’t pick up the standard adapter. I downloaded the DVD ISOs from the University of Kent mirror service via the Cen... [More]

So, all of the parts for the colocation server have arrived.  In the end I have gone for: Supermicro SYS-2026T-6RF+ Xeon 2.4ghz E5645 24GB Ram 9 x 147GB 10K SAS6Gb Drives The super micro board is a beast, supporting 2 processors and its 18 DIMM slots supporting 198GB of RAM.  This server should be good for a while. The 9 2.5” SAS Drives are only 147GB. I wanted 300GB but the hard drive shortages and high costs at the moment made it impossible to get anything but very small or very large SAS drives, and my budget wasn’t going to stretch to 9 900GB SAS drives righ... [More]

If you get the error System.InvalidOperationException: '~/Telerik.Web.UI.WebResource.axd' is missing in web.config. RadStyleSheetManager when installing DNN via the Web apps in WSP, just add this to the web config for the domain: <handlers> <remove name="WebServiceHandlerFactory-Integrated"/> <add name="LogoffHandler*" path="Logoff.aspx" verb="*" type="DotNetNuke.Services.Authentication.LogOffHandler, DotNetNuke" preCondition="integratedMode"/> <add name="RSSHandler" path="RSS.aspx" verb="*" type="DotNetNuke.Services.Syndication.RssHandler, DotNetNuke" pr... [More]

I’m currently working on building our first server for colocation. Until now our servers have all been rented servers.  This has been fine until now, but with the new version of TARAS, our rota software, we’re looking to build a more powerful server to host this.  We could rent a server, but I want to be fairly specific over the specifications, and the ability to easily upgrade the server if demand requires it. The big negative with colocation is having to worry about component failure and having to replace the parts yourself. Luckily, a new data centre has opened within... [More]

I always forget the syntax for parsing a string and converting it to an enumerable. Here it is: object Enum.Parse(System.Type enumType, string value, bool ignoreCase) The use is: var planetEarth = (PlanetEnum) Enum.Parse(typeof(PlanetEnum), "Earth" true);    

I've recently found a compact little tool in Windows 7 that generates a report for your power consumption.  It looks at drivers and settings over a 60 second period to see what can be done to improve the power efficiency of your machine. To run it just use: powercfg.exe /energy It generates a HTML file in your standard user space with its findings.