kindproject

Light reading : WCF

Posted by jonathan - 02/03/10 at 08:03:30 am

Setting up Windows Ftp 7.5

Posted by jonathan - 24/02/10 at 09:02:07 am

With the release of Windows FTP server 7.5, we finally move on from IIS6 metabase configuration and see some IIS 7 goodness. FTP can now hangout in the same playground as IIS web serving, with the managed code and .config file syntax for ftp administration. Finally, windows ftp supports sftp which has been a long missing feature.

The setup still seems a bit cumbersome to me, but its a configuration that requires n half-hour to setup and then no thought for months. Follow these walk-throughs and you should be on your way pretty quickly.:

1. http://learn.iis.net/page.aspx/263/installing-and-configuring-ftp-on-iis-7/
2. http://learn.iis.net/page.aspx/301/creating-a-new-ftp-site/
3. http://learn.iis.net/page.aspx/304/using-ftp-over-ssl/

Ip address configuration within the ftp administration, especially in a cloud environment, might need to be set to a specific address and potentially an ip6v address, as opposed to using the “All unassigned” option. Additionally some thought should go into how you want to secure the ftp access. I’ll tend to use ssl and then turn ftp off when I’m not using it, if updates are not frequent.

Pricing windows cloud servers

Posted by jonathan - 16/02/10 at 02:02:00 pm

Many clients are now asking about cloud computing and how their company might benefit from it. While cloud computing provides clear cut advantages for on-demand scaling especially for processor intensive activities such as data crunching or multi-media processing, the average small business never needs this capacity. Despite this, they can benefit from the scale that cloud computing offers in terms of bandwidth pricing and rapid scaling. As the graph on the right shows, cloud computing standards, especially pricing standardization, present some big issues for adoption.

The calculations below are a relatively simplistic way of calculating cost using on-demand pricing and data transfer. The pricing models for cloud computing are still being tweaked and standardized between the major providers. It remains cumbersome to compare the offerings since pricing of resources has not yet been standardized. For example amazon only offers certain tiers of ram level, they have restrictions on operating systems at certain tiers, they might offer monitoring, where others price monitoring a la carte.

It will probably take another few years for cloud pricing models to standardize, but since I work mostly in the windows space I thought I’d provide a quick breakdown of current (2/16/2010) pricing for the top three windows server cloud hosters:

Breakdown by size

Pricing Grid (RAM/Disk)	Instance Price	Data In	Data Out	Monthly bill (100GB Tranfer)
Amazon
Small - 1.7 GB / 160 GB	$ 0.13	$ -	0.15	$ 109.90
Large = 7.5 GB / 850	$ 0.53	$ -	0.15	$ 401.90
Extra Large - 15 GB / 1690 GB	$ 1.04	$ -	0.15	$ 774.20
Rackspace
512 MB / 20 GB	$ 0.04	$ 0.08	$ 0.22	$ 59.20
1 GB / 40 GB	$ 0.08	$ 0.08	$ 0.22	$ 88.40
2 GB / 80 GB	$ 0.16	$ 0.08	$ 0.22	$ 146.80
4 GB / 160 GB	$ 0.32	$ 0.08	$ 0.22	$ 263.60
8 GB / 320 GB	$ 0.58	$ 0.08	$ 0.22	$ 453.40
15.5 GB / 620 GB	$ 1.08	$ 0.08	$ 0.22	$ 818.40
GoGrid
512 MB / 30 GB	$ 0.10	$ -	$ 0.29	$ 102.00
1 GB / 60 GB	$ 0.19	$ -	$ 0.29	$ 167.70
2 GB /120 GB	$ 0.38	$ -	$ 0.29	$ 306.40
4 GB / 240 GB	$ 0.76	$ -	$ 0.29	$ 583.80
8 GB /480 GB	$ 1.52	$ -	$ 0.29	$ 1,138.60

Comparing a 2GB instance with 100GB transfer

Estimated bill for 2GB Server / 100GB Data Transfer	Price
Amazon	$ 109.90
Rackspace	$ 146.80
GoGrid	$ 306.40

Here’s links links to their pricing pages, amazon, gogrid, rackspace

Why is KISS so hard?

Posted by jonathan - 10/02/10 at 09:02:45 am

KISS, keep it simple stupid, is a hard practice to follow because your simple is my hard. Your configuration is my convention. Your DRY, do not repeat yourself, is my tight coupling.

CodeGen is cumbersome with tfs

Posted by jonathan - 28/01/10 at 11:01:12 am

Spent the better part of the morning trying to figure out how to setup a project which is using codesmith for codegen and tfs for source control.

Because tfs grew out of the VSS source control line where exclusive locking was the norm, the checkout command allows you set locking methodologies. Read about tfs source control lock types here if you want more info. Unfortunately, tfs also seems to use the “read-only” attribute to manage change tracking.

I have yet to uncover the logic or inner workings of this, but in a codegened system it presents a problem. There is contention between tfs needing something set as read-only, but codegen tools needing the file to be writable. Maybe I’m missing something, but I might need post ad pre and post build steps to handle the competing agendas of these tools.

Best one-liner about Apple’s tablet

Posted by jonathan - 27/01/10 at 06:01:52 pm

iPad for the bleeding in your iPants.

Facebook Connect, do you really need thirty cookies?

Posted by jonathan - 22/05/09 at 06:05:30 am

I know facebook was started by some guy in college, but you would think a more sophisticated, refined taste for sweets would have developed. Does facebook connect really need to stick its hands in the cookie jar 30 times in order to log me in?

Testing windows live writer

Posted by jonathan - 13/04/09 at 09:04:24 am

Here is my first post with windows live writer.

from xp to ubuntu

Posted by jonathan - 19/10/08 at 10:10:34 am

Yesterday I made my third attempt and first successful one installing a linux os on a home computer. Previously I had stumbled with Mandrake in ~2001 and Red Hat in ~2004. With $10 million dollar cash infusion, and initiatives to put machines in the hands of the bottom of the pyramid, ubuntu comes pretty close to matching the ease of use standard established by Microsoft’s simple GUI wizard install.

While packaged quite nicely for people making the switch, its important to follow the directions as there are still some hurdles.
Here are my cliff notes:

1. My first cd burn was crap.
   Follow the instructions here, using the cd burner it recommends.
2. I could not boot from cd
   Neither the full install or the help boot from cd option worked. I had to use the install in windows feature.
3. The install would hang partitioning drives.
   After some reading here, I tried going to the application > gparted software from the disc os but could not partition anything as ext3 (the favored drive format of ubuntu). My machine had two ntfs formatted drives so after shuffling around some files, I split the second drive into an ntfs partion and an unformatted drive using xp’s disk management tools. Once I did this the ubuntu installer had some unformatted space to play with and did its thing.

My only other gripe is that since I had to shuffle back and forth between operating systems and then reformat a drive, despite having burned the os onto disk the install process downloaded the 600+mb install more than once. I spent most of the day on this yesterday, but am happy with the results and will be spending some time sifting through documentation here and look for my next post about getting nx setup.

Finally, I went down this road because:

1. Microsoft OS’s are dead. Unless they start a new product line based on the newer xbox codebase, it will be a hard sell to get people to buy an os because it uses less resources. ubuntu, 256k ram, vista 1gb. I know the ram is cheap, but I’d still like to turn older machines into functional specialty appliances.
2. I hate Mac’s. I had a mac mini that I sold to a machead friend for .40 cents on the dollar, because i would have had to buy an os upgrade and then a ntfs file system reader etc. Macs have all the trappings of closed eco-systems, but they leech off of the open source community and then rape the consumer on price. Macs are for people who like designer jeans and overpriced coffee. Their concept of “it just works” means it just works if you overpay for a small set of products we have sanctioned.
3. I simply wanted to learn something new.

Is you office empty at 9:00AM?

Posted by jonathan - 29/09/08 at 08:09:56 am

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