May 2005 Entries
Browsing through SourceForge I've found a new project (maybe new for me
): IETest.
IETest is a .NET library for testing web sites through
Microsoft Internet Explorer. It enables you to automate Internet Explorer to the
point where you can perform automated testing without any human attention
required.
The tool is written in C# and works by remote controlling an instance of
Internet Explorer. Test programs can be written in any .NET language.
Seems really interesting but must be tested for a definitive opinion.
In these days on the new Microsoft
Architect Resource Center is appeared a new link with official
details about the future Microsoft
Certified Architect certification (I was talking about this in the
past).
This will be a high level certification only reserved for IT experts with
about 10 years of more of experience on building enterprise architectures and
will be a totally new way to get certified. This new way will be more similar to
a standard university degree, with a tutor (or a staff) that will evaluate your
final project.
In the future we'll see more about this... for the moment...
This article on Microsoft Watch seems to be an incredible news for many readers: contrary to what many believe, Longhorn won't be built on top of the .Net Framework.Why is this so incredible? I'm not so shocked... Longhorn must be a stable OS with high performances and can't be entirely based on .NET. .NET Framework must be an important piece of the entire OS, strictly integrated, but building important pieces of Longhorn on top of .NET for me is an hazard that Microsoft can't take. The OS core must be solid and .NET is marvellous but not so solid. So, .NET...
Knoppix seems to stimulate people to
build applications on top of it and this is my last discover: Whoppix.
Whoppix is a stand alone penetration testing
live cd based on Knoppix. With the latest tools and exploits, it is a must for
every penetration tester and security auditor. Whoppix includes Several exploit
archives, such as Securityfocus, Packetstorm, SecurityForest and Milw0rm, as
well as a wide variety of updated security tools. The new custom kernel
also allows for better WIFI support.
If you want to check if your network is secure, this tool could help you.
Recommended!
Robert McLaws today has written a
post about some news of the future version of Internet Information Services
(IIS 7).
His post in an interesting reading that I recommend... some news are known (I
remember an old post by Fritz
Onion) but what I absolutely didn't know (and I want to put in evidence
here) is that IIS7 will be on Longhorn Client and in what will be
the "Home" version of Longhorn.
The only limit that will be added to Longhorn Client is a request limit.
After a certain number of concurrent requests are made, requests will be
throttled back and...
This is a tool that I think it's fundamental and really useful when you've to
deploy your applications:
Microsoft
Component Installer Software Development Kit (Spring 2005) helps
you deliver the needed Windows component to your customer in order to run your
application. The SDK provides support for installing any or all of the following
components (in the following order):
Microsoft Data Access Components (MDAC) 2.8
Microsoft .NET Framework 1.1
Microsoft DirectX 9.0c
Microsoft DirectX 9.0c for Managed Code
Microsoft .NET Framework Version 1.1 Language Pack
Microsoft .NET Framework 1.1 Service Pack 1
Microsoft ASP.NET Security Update for Microsoft .NET Framework 1.1...
It's not the first time that I saw some popups opened when surfing with my
Firefox, but today the limit o my patience was reached...
I was surfing on ActiveWin.com but when I've
reached the site, 2 popups was opened (they are opened only the first time you
visit the site).
Firefox popup blocker is now bypassed? Seems that the answer is yes: sites
that uses plugins (like Flash for example) now are able to open popups in
Firefox (they use the plugin to launch it). Searching on Google for this
problem, I've found a post
on a forum that seems...
Today Google has opened its Google
Personalized Page.
Here you can entirely cuystomize your Google page by selecting the section
you want and placing them on the page using drag'n'drop feature (works very
well).
I've see that for the moment the possibility to add RSS feeds is not present,
but on the help page they say that it will be present in a near future. We're
waiting for this!
.NET is my love and Navision is my main activity now. But can .NET and Navision be integrated together? The answer is obviously YES!!Navision sometimes lacks on some features (for example on graphic features) and if you need a feature that Navision doesn't have, a possible solution could be the integration with a .NET control.Is this task so difficult? No... integration with Navision is really simple. If you have a .NET control (for example MyControl.dll) and you want to integrate it in Navision, just follow this steps:First, you have to register your control (dll) into the system. To do so on...
Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft, has launched his last delirium:
Google might disappear in the next five years!
I want to say that this opinion comes only from Ballmer's mind and not from
Microsoft (fortunately), but I'm asking why the Microsoft's number 2 is a person
that can't stop speaking when his mind thinks something like this stupidity.
Excuse Mr. Ballmer, I love Microsoft but (as usual) I'm not able to agree
with your opinions!
As lots of bloggers that hosts their blog by themself, I'm always thinking if move my blog on CommunityServer platform or remain with .Text (the old engine) and, if the previous answer will be YES, when will be the right time for a migration.Today I was searching the roadmap about CommunityServer's development and I've seen the news that has turn on the light in my eyes: CommunityServer will have a tight integration with Sharepoint.This is absolutely wonderful and I think that this will be the definitive jump of this platform, will have a real enterprise platform ready to use. No doubt that...
Google has ehnhanced its Desktop Search tool by releasing a new version called Enterprise Edition.This new version (totally free, exactly like the standard version) is specifically created for corporate usage and it can search on your local machine, on the Internet and also on your Intranet (as you can see on the picture below, it adds a new Intranet tab for searching).Unfortunately seems that Intranet search is only available if you have a Google Mini or Google Search Appliance, but it's a good news to see that now you have an administrative panel where you can centrally manage user preferences using Microsoft...
The IE Team today has officially announced that IE7 (the
next Internet Explorer version) will have
tabs natively (not only with third parties extensions or with the new MSN Search Toolbar just launched).
This is a good news for all IE users (maybe not too much a news) but this is
the minimum that the IE Team can do on a new browser version (all modern
browsers now have tabs). IE users are waiting much more than tabs on this new
version (something like more customization features, more standard compliant
etc.).
IE Staff, we're waiting more interesting and consistent news for the...
One of the thing I love to do is to check periodically the Windows Forms site (I'm always in love with
Windows Forms Programming) and today I've discovered a good free control, a
C# UML
Design Tool that permits you to write UML Diagrams.
The source are available and the application is really interesting to observ
(well written).
Mart Muller (one of my favourite Sharepoint bloggers) has build a project called WikiSharePoint, a nice set of SharePoint web parts which make it possible to create a Wikipedia-like application in SharePoint Portal Server or Windows SharePoint Services.FeaturesWikiSharePoint Beta 1 comes with 3 web parts:Tam Tam WikiSharePoint, which creates the list for you if you like and displays the results. Automatically create thesaurus Finds other terms in the results and makes them clickable Tooltips with descriptions Shows path and more specific items Terms editable form the result page for users with edit rights Insert new items from the web part...
This tips comes from Sahil Malik and it's too much interesting for not bookmarked it:XP SP2 has SSL disabled, and if you want to enable it, these are the steps:Enable to HTTP SSL Service.Download IIS resource kit for IIS 6.0 (Even though XP has IIS 5.1)Run SelfSSL.Exe /N:CN=Sahil /V:30 /S:1Now your SSL is enabled!
For more accuracy, remember that the above are instructions to enable an SSL website, and install a development environment certificate, on Windows XP SP2.
With a press release, Microsoft officially has revealed what will be the Windows OneCare platform, the future security suite. In summary, we'll have:An antivirus and antispyware toolFile system utilities, such as tools for repairing files, for disk defragmentation and cleanup, backup and restoreA new two-way FirewallWe'll se from the first betas if this new suite will be a good tool or not, but what I'm asking now is that why this suite will not be integrated into the system itself, expecially the firewall (Microsoft for the moment has never created a Firewall that can respect its brand, but only poor products).
Raymond Lewallen has shared a SQL Script to automate removal of database logins. The script search on every database on a server and remove the login's permissions and object ownership. When a login you want to remove owns a database, that database ownership is given to 'sa'.
This is a really useful script that I want to copy on my blog because I'm sure I'll use it a lot in the future (and I'll save lot of my time). Thanks Raymond!
sp_RemoveLogin
Use masterif exists (select * from dbo.sysobjects where id = object_id(N'[dbo].[sp_RemoveLogin]') and OBJECTPROPERTY(id, N'IsProcedure') = 1) drop procedure [dbo].[sp_RemoveLogin]Go
Create procedure sp_RemoveLogin ...
This is the
confirmation that I was waiting and that stops my nervous against a problem that
I was not able to solve: if you install .NET Framework Beta 2
on a machine with Windows Sharepoint Services, you'll obtain an
error like this:
Cannot
connect to the configuration database
I was not able to solve the problem and this seems to be a problem that will
be solved with WSS SP2. Thanks Dave for the confirmation!
So, if you want that your Sharepoint will continue to work, keep it as far as
possible to .NET Framework Beta 2!
I want to give support to a post written on our User Group by Marco Santoni regarding MSDN License: why not a reducted license just like MSDN Professional Edition, but for the home developer?
Microsoft has never think to a program like this that, in my opinion, could be a great choice for all developers (or students) that want to be in touch with Microsoft's products without spending too much money.
I think that actually MSDN Professional Edition could be a good choice for a small company, but for a single developers (that for example wants a license to work at home) will...
John Kennedy has signalled an interesting Managed
Wrapper for Bluetooth that makes possible to write applications in
C# or VB .NET that can detect, link with, and share data over Bluetooth in an
easy manner.
Bookmarked!
This morning, thanks to a link signalled by my friend Lorenzo,
I've discovered an article that I can't resist to comment.
The article is
written by Nigel Shaw and essentially talks about the culture beside C# and
VB.NET programmers. Some analysis on the article are interesting, but the
conclusions given are really terrible:
80% of C# programmers are good, while 80% of VB programmers are not good,
essentially because VB.NET is designed to attract less skilled
programmers.
Hiring the average C# programmer costs more than hiring the average VB
programmer. This is because the...
In these days we're totally involved with the launch of our Navision addon (I can't talk too much about it, but it's a complete module for business analysis) and the demo we're doing was the chance to keep in contact with a new future Navision module (that Microsoft will launch with Navision 4 Service Pack 1): Business Analytics for Microsoft Navision.This tool is a powerful data analysis tool that, by using Online Analytical Processing (OLAP) from Microsoft SQL Server 2000, permits you to organize all your business data into information units (cubes) and (by using a familiar Microsoft Outlook-style interface), helps you to presents...
I'm not an RSS Aggregators fans because usually I love to read my favourite
blogs via web, but on my Notebook I've an RSS aggregator installed (sometimes
could be useful when I'm in travel) and my choice lots of times ago was to
install Sauce
Reader.
Sauce Reader was a good aggregator for my usage, with lots of
features, with the nice interface of Office 2003 and totally written with .NET
Framework.
Today I've checked the product site for the new version availability and I've
discovered a curious thing: SauceReader 2.0 (the new version) is extremely
more fast than the previous version and...
Haaron Gonzalez has developed a good application really useful to automatically generate data access layers.The application is called DataTierGenerator and it's a Windows Form application that generates your data access layer based on a SQL Server 2000 database and implements the Data Access Application Block of Enterprise Library.No tryed, but the project seems interesting (but I'd like to know Spanish a little bit more ).
This is a little tool that could be useful in a lot of scenario (thanks to Bink for the signalling): StartRDP.
Have you ever forgot to start the "Remote Desktop" option in Windows
XP or in Windows 2003 Server after installation and you've discovered this lack
only when you need to work with your remote machine? To resolve this issue you
had to interactively login to the system and mark the "Remote Desktop"
checkbox in the computer properties... If you are on a remote side, this thing
is really difficult (you have to enable it using remote
registry, group policy (if...
I've just finish reading the announce of a new Firefox exploit published by Secunia, rated as "extremely critical" (mayber I'm wrong, but I think it's the first Firefox bug with this rate).This is another cross site scripting bug, that (in summary) permits to create and execute a malicious code on the target system if the user clicks on a specially crafted page. Obviously, this is a bug that must be patched as soon as possible (a new Firefox version will arrive and new megabytes of data must be downloaded) but I want to remember that this vulnerabilities could not be so...
TheServerSide.net has released another interesting Ebook for free: COM and .NET Interoperability.This book covers al the aspects of working with COM components in .NET and .NET components in COM, by starting from an introduction/review of COM concepts such as IUnknown, IClassFactory, and IDispatch interfaces as well as Active Template Library and IDL and then moving on to cover the basics of .NET to COM interoperability before building on that with more advanced topics such as handling Variants and manually destroying a COM object.An interesting download and a good reference if you have to work with COM and .NET (always an hard...
With a terrible punctuality, Microsoft has released today at 18.00 the attended Microsoft SQL Server Service Pack 4.It contains all the previous Service Pack releases plus:Includes a new version of MSXML version 3.0 SP6. With SP4, the OPENXML statement is updated to use a custom-built XML parsing technology designed to be backward compatible with MSXML 2.6. Includes MDAC 2.8 SP1 except for Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 platforms, where it is included with the operating system service packs for those platforms. Support for Microsoft Windows Server 2003 x64 Edition (allowing 32-bit SQL Server 2000 applications to run on 64-bit...
Yesterday I wrote a post about
Google Web
Accelerator and I've launched a prediction: "we'll see some
privacy problems during the next days"... I was terrible right!!
Guys on the SomethingAwful.com
Forum has discovered a big security and privacy hole: when they refresh the forum page,
lots of time they were logged in as a different user (another UserID)
and they was able to view the control panel of the wrong user, with all the
settings.
You can see screenshots here:
The problem is surely a caching problem... Google, why a big company like you
release tools with this terrible holes? Web Accelerator is a...
Google has released a curios tool, Google Web
Accelerator, an application that uses the power of Google's
global computer network to make web pages load faster.
In summary, Google Web Accelerator works
by requesting web pages from a dedicated Google cache (different from the normal
cache used by the search engine) and by prefetching pages. The tool is able to
check your mouse movements and download pages before you click on the link
(note that it only downloads the updates to pages, not the whole page).
Only tests could say if this tool really speed up your surfing experience,
but I think that in the...
Roger Grimes, one of the man that works for the Windows IT Pro Magazine and a big expert of Internet Information Server has launched a contest: try to hack an IIS 6 site.Hes' tired of the myth that IIS is an insecure platform (you're right Roger!) and so he has setup a site and a domain: HackIIS.com.Although someone could criticize this, I think that Roger had a great idea. This is a chance to demonstrate that most security breaches are caused by not following basic security guidelines and best practices and that IIS 6.0 is highly secure when you implement it correctly. This is also a big...
On the Microsoft Visual Basic Developer Center is available a little
tool that could really increase your productivity during development, a
Code
Snipper Editor for Visual Basic .NET 2005.
This is a little Windows Forms application with UI for creating,
editing, testing VB code snippets (you can preview your snippet as it will
appear when inserted into the code window, and you can even test whether it will
compile).
The curious thing is that a similar tools was available from a lot of
time (I think that lots of us knows the famous Snippet
Compiler).
Similarity, casuality or the same thing?
Code Snippet Editor for...
Blogs are one of the biggest Internet phenomenon of last years, the biggest font of informations you can find now on the net. If you need last minute informations, tips, opinions, you've only one choice: go to the right blog.Microsoft seems to have understood the power of this growing phenomenon and they've taken a big decision: the Longhorn evangelism effort will be composed of bloggers that will become Microsoft's voice to the masses.Maybe a team devoted to promote Longhorn to the masses will be created in the future (called Team99), but what is important here is not the evangelist team, but...