Dot Net Blogs

Don and Melissa’s Wedding Slideshow

hughesdo — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 22:03:46 -1400

Here’s a slideshow. Thanks a bunch!

Melissa Simer’s Photography Akron, OH, 44310; Phone: 330-388-1369

Melissa was more than a photographer for me on my wedding day . My maid of honor had forgot to get my garters and her associate (Carlie) left the wedding and brought back two of hers so that I would have a garter or two. Not only were they supportive they helped us load and unload things from the Hall. I couldn't wait to open the gifts so I just had to open them that night . Melissa and Carlie stayed and took pictures. Melissa also wrote down the names and gifts on paper so when it's time to send Thank you cards I would remember what to thank them for . I just wanted to say that you are the BEST ! I will continue to always have my pictures done by you ! You are amazing !!!:)

Wedding Pictures

hughesdo — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 02:47:19 -1400

Don and Melissa wedding pictures click here!

Well, mom and pop’s been telling me that people are wanting to see our wedding photos. Pop said give me the URL so I can tell people where to go. Well that sounds good but they will mess up entering that log URL. I say just go to http://dink.no-ip.info and I’ll put the URLs into a blog. It’s not like I’m hard to find on the internet anyhow. If you Google for “Donald Hughes Akron Ohio” you will likely find a couple of my pages. not all of them. but until now you would not have found the wedding photos.

Or full Screen slide shows:

Slideshow1

Slideshow2

SlideShow3

How To Map A Network Drive To your Sharepoint site.

hughesdo — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 15:52:30 -1400

Here I have documented the steps to map a folder or drive to your Sharepoint web site. This allows you to interact with shared documents more like folder shares as shown in the picture below. If you need to move or copy several files to or from your Sharepoint site this tip is for you!

Step 1, navigate to you Sharepoint folder share as you normally would.

Step 2, when you have the listing of folders that you want to map to copy the URL in your address bar to your clip board. I’ve have selected the URL below you’re URL made be different.

http://www.sharepoint.corp.inside.tkr/sites/HRSystems/Shared%20Documents/

Note that I removed the last portion “Forms/Allitems.aspx”. This is important in step 6 below.

Step 3, Double click your computers My Network Places Icon to open it up.

Step 4, Click the Add a network place link from the left menu of the My Networks application.

Step 5, The Add a Network Wizard opens simply click Next to start the process. Then select Choose another network location as shown below.

Step 6, Paste the URL you collected from step 2 delete from the end of URL “Forms/AllItems.aspx” and click Next.

Step 7, type a name for this network location and you are done. The folder will open up when you click the final next button.

You can visit the location again and again by going to the My Network Locations. Using the My Networks folders allows you to copy and move many files in a simple drag and drop operations much faster than the web method.

Have heard about Kanye West’s outburst at the Video Music Awards?

hughesdo — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 18:16:56 -1400

A load of “Yo, I’mma going to let you finish”

Yo, I’mma going to let you finish Kanye West jokes on you..

10. Yo Shaq

[WeeGee, via rocdiesel]

9. Yo Mario

[I'mma Let You Finish]

8. Twitter Twibbon

What’s better than giving Kanye a way to interrupt absolutely everyone on Twitter? Not much.

7. Yo Jesus

[Tommy Oliver via rocdiesel]

6. Best Single Serving Website

This one really speaks for itself.

5. Yo Keyboard Cat

[I'mma Let You Finish]

4. Hitler Reacts

Not an interruption per se, but this adaptation of Downfall still deserves a spot on the list of Kanye interruption parodies.

3. Yo Palin

Tina Fey is a better Palin than Palin.

2. Yo Declaration of Independence

Surely one of the very few odes to the Magna Carta witnessed in recent memory.

1. Yo Obama

Kanye even managed to one-up Congressman Joe Wilson by interrupting President Obama’s health care reform speech. Obama still had the last word, though!

Do you have a favorite Kanye Interruption remix or mashup? Let us know in the comments! You can even make your own thanks to the Kanye West Apology Generator — link us to your version when you do!

Have heard about Kanye West’s outburst at the Video Music Awards?

hughesdo — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 14:28:00 -1400

A load of “Yo, I’mm going to let you finish”

Yo, I’mm going to let you finish Kanye West jokes on you..

10. Yo Shaq

[WeeGee, via rocdiesel]

9. Yo Mario

[I'mma Let You Finish]

8. Twitter Twibbon

What’s better than giving Kanye a way to interrupt absolutely everyone on Twitter? Not much.

7. Yo Jesus

[Tommy Oliver via rocdiesel]

6. Best Single Serving Website

This one really speaks for itself.

5. Yo Keyboard Cat

[I'mma Let You Finish]

4. Hitler Reacts

Not an interruption per se, but this adaptation of Downfall still deserves a spot on the list of Kanye interruption parodies.

3. Yo Palin

Tina Fey is a better Palin than Palin.

2. Yo Declaration of Independence

Surely one of the very few odes to the Magna Carta witnessed in recent memory.

1. Yo Obama

Kanye even managed to one-up Congressman Joe Wilson by interrupting President Obama’s health care reform speech. Obama still had the last word, though!

Do you have a favorite Kanye Interruption remix or mashup? Let us know in the comments! You can even make your own thanks to the Kanye West Apology Generator — link us to your version when you do!

tkr-uPerform Watchdog Windows Service

hughesdo — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 14:23:32 -1400

This documents the tkruPerformWatchDog windows service on the ctnhupwebp1 server. This windows service monitors the uPerform services on the ctnhupwebp1 box to determine when to start them. The Idol Autonomy box (ctnhupidolp) auto-starts it’s windows services and this must be running before the uPerform Web App box can start it’s windows services. Due to this fact the uPerform Web App box does NOT auto start it’s window services. Therefore the windows services could require a manually effort to have them start. This could be a potential problem due to patch management occurring about once a month. The worst case scenario without the additional Timken efforts here would be that China comes online on their Monday morning to find that regular patch has occurred and that uPerform is down. This would then require a call into the uPerform admin group to make the manual start of services on the ctnhupwebp1 box. This would likely occur late at night our time and cause one admin to dial into Timken and manually fix the problem of no SAP help. This potential reoccurring problem is something we want to avoid hence I have made a effort here to automate the process in what we are calling a Watchdog Windows Service. At this time the automated process will attempt to automate the known scenarios. I will document what the process currently does and attempt to expand on it given any unforeseen short comings.

The manually process is as follows incase this automated process should ever fail.

1) Test that SUCCESS is return from the IDOL server by browsing the web page: http://ctnhupidolp:9000/action=getstatus

Note that SUCESS is return in the web page as shown below:

If SUCCESS is not seen here you might attempt to reboot the CTNHUPIDOLP box and look again.

2) Logon the CTNHUPWEBP1 server then “Right Click” the “MY Computer” icon on the desktop of the CTNHUPWEBP1 box and select manage.

3) In the Computer Management application select services and scroll to the “Vignette Collaboration” service and select Start or Restart.

The watchdog service only exists on the uPerform Web App server and therefore it can only start it’s local services. The watchdog service can monitor the idol Autonomy server’s windows services via the URL and XML file at (http://ctnhupidolp:9000/action=getstatus). Currently the two servers are dependant on windows services. Here on I will refer to the servers by the common names (ctnhupwebp1, ctnhupidolp). Two servers would potentially have four distinct states and two automated actions as follows:

Server	State	Action of Watch Dog	The Likely Cause
ctnhupwebp1	Started	No Operation (NOP)	A-okay?
ctnhupwebp1	Stopped	Check IDOL wait if necessary (1 hour) and then start the services.	The web server was just rebooted due to patch management and the services are manual.
ctnhupidolp	Started	No Operation (NOP)	A-okay?
ctnhupidolp	Stopped	Stop the services and wait for IDOL (forever)and then start the local services once successful.	The IDOL server was taken for patch management and is currently rebooting.

The Windows Service installation batch file exists at : C:\uPerformWatchDogService\uPerformWatchDogService\bin\Release

This is also the location of the source files.

You can run “instaallservice.bat” and “uninstaallservice.bat” at the above patch to add and remove the tkruPerformWatchDog services. If the actual executable was delete prior to attempting to remove the service you could run “sc delete tkruPerformWatchDog” from the command line.

The source below has all the features documented and explained in comments.

     'Services Stuff

    Imports System

    Imports System.ServiceProcess

    Imports System.Diagnostics

    Imports System.Threading

    ' XML

    Imports System.IO

    Imports System.Xml

    'Email

    Imports System.Net.Mail

    Public Class TKRuPerformWatchDog

        '-------------------------------------------------------------------------

        'Global Variables

        '-------------------------------------------------------------------------

        ' The IDOL server to monitor and the local Windows Service to Start.

        ' (Manual changes in this section.)

        '-------------------------------------------------------------------------

        Dim strGetStatusPage As String = "http://ctnhupidold:9000/action=getstatus" '- -Test

        Dim strServiceToControl As String = "Vignette Collaboration"

        'Dim strGetStatusPage As String = "http://ctnhupidolp:9000/action=getstatus"  '-- Production

        'Dim strGetStatusPage As String = "http://ctnhhriis02/testxml.xml"

        'Dim strServiceToControl As String = "Telnet"

        '------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

        ' Major Error Reporting (Manual changes in this section.)

        '-------------------------------------------------------------------------

        Dim strFromEmailAddress As String = "uperformadmn@somewhere.com"

        Dim strGroupRecepientEmailAddress As String = "uperformadmn@somewhere.com"

        Dim strCCEmailAddress As String = "hughesdo@somewhere.com"

        Dim strBCCEmailAddress As String = "3308675309@vtext.com"

        '-------------------------------------------------------------------------

        Dim strPreviousStatus As String = "NOSTATUS"

        Dim intJustStartingAttempts As Int64 = 0

        Dim intNetworkHiccupCNT As Int64 = 0

        '-------------------------------------------------------------------------

        'Timers

        Private oTimer1 As System.Threading.Timer  ' JustStartingTimer

        Private oTimer2 As System.Threading.Timer  ' ContinuousMonitorTimer

        '-------------------------------------------------------------------------

        Protected Overrides Sub OnStart(ByVal args() As String)

            '----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

            ' Code to start the service as two separate timers.

            '

            ' The Just Getting Started Timer is impatient and expects that the IDOL server will start 

            ' without any problems.  The Just Getting Started is run first when this computer is rebooted.

            '

            ' The Continuous Monitor Timer knows that services had been running and therefore it only

            ' checks if everything is still running every 1/2 hour or so.  It is very cautious not

            ' to think things have gone down and to really tests that things are bad before restarting 

            ' local windows services.

            '----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

            WriteToEventLog("Root of the application start.  This occurs at restart and initial start of the service (reboot).", "tkruPerformWatchDog ", _

                          EventLogEntryType.Warning, "System")

            Dim oCallback As New TimerCallback(AddressOf JustStartingTimerEvent)

            oTimer1 = New System.Threading.Timer(oCallback, Nothing, 3000, 30000)  ' Three second wait and every thirty seconds there after.

            Dim oCallback2 As New TimerCallback(AddressOf ContinuousMonitorTimerEvent)

            oTimer2 = New System.Threading.Timer(oCallback2, Nothing, Timeout.Infinite, Timeout.Infinite)  ' Do NOT start this timer yet. Just Getting Started should start it.

        End Sub

        Protected Overrides Sub OnStop()

            ' Add code here to perform any tear-down necessary to stop your service.

            WriteToEventLog("Stopped: " & DateTime.Now, "tkruPerformWatchDog ", _

                                  EventLogEntryType.Information, "System")

            oTimer1.Dispose()

            oTimer2.Dispose()

        End Sub

        Private Sub JustStartingTimerEvent(ByVal state As Object)

            '+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

            ' Go check the status on the IDOL server

            '+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

            Dim myPage As String = readHtmlPage(strGetStatusPage)

            Dim strCurrentStatus = GetStatus(myPage)

            If strCurrentStatus = "SUCCESS" Then

                Dim sc As New ServiceController(strServiceToControl.ToString)

                If sc.Status.Equals(ServiceControllerStatus.Stopped) Or sc.Status.Equals(ServiceControllerStatus.StopPending) Then

                    sc.Start()

                    sc.Refresh() ' Refresh and display the current service status.

                    '------------------------------------------------------

                    'Switch timers and change gears into ContinuousMonitor

                    '------------------------------------------------------

                    oTimer1.Change(Timeout.Infinite, Timeout.Infinite) ' Pause the "JustStartingTimer" indefinitely. It will be restarted!

                    oTimer2.Change(300000, 1800000) ' Start the ContinuousMonitorTimer

                    'oTimer1.Dispose() ' Get rid of this timer we completed our just starting.

                    WriteToEventLog("The tkruPerformWatchDog has saved the day and started services normally.", "tkruPerformWatchDog ", _

                          EventLogEntryType.SuccessAudit, "System")

                Else

                    'Our local Services ARE started and the IDOL server responed with "SUCCESS" everything is good.  

                    If sc.Status.Equals(ServiceControllerStatus.Running) Or sc.Status.Equals(ServiceControllerStatus.StartPending) Then

                        '------------------------------------------------------

                        'Switch timers and change gears into ContinuousMonitor

                        '------------------------------------------------------

                        oTimer1.Change(Timeout.Infinite, Timeout.Infinite) ' Pause the timer indefinitely. It will be restarted!

                        oTimer2.Change(300000, 1800000) ' Start the ContinuousMonitorTimer

                        'oTimer1.Dispose() ' Get rid of this timer we completed our just starting.

                    End If

                End If

            Else

                '------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

                'The IDOL server is NOT responding with "SUCCESS" yet so continue this timer.

                '

                'Unless...

                'This timer continues to wait. but after so many attempts it will send out a email/pager.

                '

                'Start counting our attempts.

                '------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

                intJustStartingAttempts = intJustStartingAttempts + 1

                '------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

                'This is called every 30 seconds so twice that multiplied by 60 = times called per hour. 

                ' (30 * 2 * 60) = 3600 times in a hour and we just stated this portion time to email someone?

                '------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

                If intJustStartingAttempts = 3600 Then

                    'Log it.

                    WriteToEventLog("Waiting for one hour but never found SUCCESS. ", "tkruPerformWatchDog ", _

                                          EventLogEntryType.Error, "System")

                    '------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

                    ' Send a email Just one time.  

                    ' The counter will increment above the 3600 point and this email should never happen again.

                    ' If intNetworkHiccupCNT > 0 then obviously I failed in the ContinuousMonitor too and fell into the JustStarting loop. 

                    '------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

                    If intNetworkHiccupCNT = 0 Then

                        'SendMailMessage("uperformadmn@timken.com", "3304171597@vtext.com", "", "", "uPerform is down", "uPerform has been down for one hour now.   Please investiage.  Details: The TKR uperform Watch Dog was just getting started and after at least one hour of waiting for a SUCCESS I sent this email.")

                        SendMailMessage(strFromEmailAddress.ToString(), strGroupRecepientEmailAddress.ToString(), strBCCEmailAddress.ToString(), strCCEmailAddress.ToString(), "uPerform is down", "uPerform has been down for one hour now.   Please investiage.  Details: The TKR uperform Watch Dog was just getting started and after at least one hour of waiting for a SUCCESS I sent this email.")

                    Else

                        'SendMailMessage("uperformadmn@timken.com", "3304171597@vtext.com", "", "", "uPerform is down", "uPerform has been down over one hour now.  Please investiage.  Details: The TKR uperform Watch Dog was in the Continuous Monitor where it monitors the status every 1/2 hour and it began to find: " & strPreviousStatus & ".  After another hour of waiting for a SUCCESS I sent this email.")

                        SendMailMessage(strFromEmailAddress.ToString(), strGroupRecepientEmailAddress.ToString(), strBCCEmailAddress.ToString(), strCCEmailAddress.ToString(), "uPerform is down", "uPerform has been down over one hour now.  Please investiage.  Details: The TKR uperform Watch Dog was in the Continuous Monitor where it monitors the status every 1/2 hour and it began to find: " & strPreviousStatus & ".  After another hour of waiting for a SUCCESS I sent this email.")

                    End If

                End If

            End If

        End Sub

        Private Sub ContinuousMonitorTimerEvent(ByVal state As Object)

            '--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

            ' Because we have already been SUCCESSfull and everything was A-Okay at one time we are now only going

            ' to look every 30 min. to see that everything remains A-Okay ("SUCCESS" status returned).

            ' The "Vignette Collaboration" service may be stopped and restarted in this section. 

            ' Note that stopping the "Vignette Collaboration" service may be a fault within itself.

            '--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

            ' Web page to monitor

            Dim myPage As String = readHtmlPage(strGetStatusPage)

            Dim strCurrentStatus = GetStatus(myPage)

            strPreviousStatus = strCurrentStatus  ' Reported in the email where intNetworkHicups > 0.

            '--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

            ' If the web page reports SUCCESS then everything remains good. Do nothing for another 30 min.

            '--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

            If strCurrentStatus = "SUCCESS" Then

                Dim sc As New ServiceController(strServiceToControl.ToString) 'Global variable at the very top

                If sc.Status.Equals(ServiceControllerStatus.Running) Or sc.Status.Equals(ServiceControllerStatus.StartPending) Then

                    '--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

                    'Everything is good! no operation really.  But if had a network hiccup I better disable it.

                    '--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

                    ' Continuous Monitor found :" & intNetworkHiccupCNT & " network hiccups

                    ' "only report once" the location to have the system log written once.

                    '--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

                    intNetworkHiccupCNT = 0

                Else

                    '--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

                    ' Someone must have manually stopped our local services.  I don't want to do anything here but log it!

                    '--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

                    WriteToEventLog("Continuous Monitor found the local " & strServiceToControl.ToString & " service stopped. I assume that someone mannually stopped the service because it was previously known to be working.", "tkruPerformWatchDog ", _

                        EventLogEntryType.Error, "System")

                End If

            Else

                '--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

                ' Did the IDOL server really go down?   I really have to be careful here and retest the status.

                ' This could be a network hiccup.  I'll change this timer to every 30 seconds and within 5 minutes 

                ' or by the 10th test I'll restart this service.  let's not panic over a possible network hiccup (intNetworkHiccupCNT).

                '--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

                If intNetworkHiccupCNT = 0 Then

                    'Start Counting.

                    intNetworkHiccupCNT = intNetworkHiccupCNT + 1

                    'Change this timer to every thirty seconds.  Previously I only watch for status != "SUCCESS" every 1/2 hour. 

                    oTimer2.Change(3000, 30000)

                    WriteToEventLog("Continuous Monitor did NOT find a SUCCESS. Questioning if this was a network Hicup before doing anything yet. ", "tkruPerformWatchDog ", _

                          EventLogEntryType.Warning, "System")

                End If

                '--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

                ' The counter has been tripped we are monitoring this faster now.

                '--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

                If intNetworkHiccupCNT <> 0 Then

                    ' --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

                    ' The tenth time (intNetworkHiccupCNT) is it a for-sure IDOL is DOWN.  

                    ' The IDOL server must have rebooted and this server is still running.  

                    ' Likely cause is someone is rebooting the IDOL server.

                    ' --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

                    If intNetworkHiccupCNT = 11 Then  ' do not count the first one because we started at 1.

                        WriteToEventLog("Continuous Monitor did NOT find a SUCCESS after 10 attempts (5 minutes). Restarting this service and waiting for IDOL to come back online.", "tkruPerformWatchDog ", _

                            EventLogEntryType.Error, "System")

                        '---------------------------

                        'Stop our local service

                        '---------------------------

                        Dim sc As New ServiceController(strServiceToControl.ToString)

                        sc.Stop()

                        sc.Refresh()

                        '---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

                        ' Switch the timers and just wait for our IDOL server to start up again in the JustStartingTimer Event.

                        ' Of course a reboot might occur for Patch Management that will restart this WatchDog all over again too.

                        '---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

                        oTimer2.Change(Timeout.Infinite, Timeout.Infinite) ' Pause THIS timer indefinitely. It will be restarted!

                        oTimer1.Change(3000, 30000) ' three second wait and every thirty seconds there after.

                    End If

                    ' continue to count.

                    intNetworkHiccupCNT = intNetworkHiccupCNT + 1

                    'Debug Move this to: "only report once"

                    ' Debug Only to report this only once

                    WriteToEventLog("Continuous Monitor found :" & intNetworkHiccupCNT & " network hiccups", "tkruPerformWatchDog ", _

                        EventLogEntryType.Warning, "System")

                End If

            End If

        End Sub

        Public Shared Sub SendMailMessage(ByVal from As String, ByVal recepient As String, ByVal bcc As String, ByVal cc As String, ByVal subject As String, ByVal body As String)

            Try

                ' Instantiate a new instance of MailMessage

                Dim mMailMessage As New MailMessage()

                ' Set the sender address of the mail message

                mMailMessage.From = New MailAddress(from)

                ' Set the recepient address of the mail message

                mMailMessage.To.Add(New MailAddress(recepient))

                ' Check if the bcc value is nothing or an empty string

                If Not bcc Is Nothing And bcc <> String.Empty Then

                    ' Set the Bcc address of the mail message

                    mMailMessage.Bcc.Add(New MailAddress(bcc))

                End If

                ' Check if the cc value is nothing or an empty value

                If Not cc Is Nothing And cc <> String.Empty Then

                    ' Set the CC address of the mail message

                    mMailMessage.CC.Add(New MailAddress(cc))

                End If

                ' Set the subject of the mail message

                mMailMessage.Subject = subject

                ' Set the body of the mail message

                mMailMessage.Body = body

                ' Set the format of the mail message body as HTML

                mMailMessage.IsBodyHtml = True

                ' Set the priority of the mail message to normal

                'mMailMessage.Priority = MailPriority.Normal

                mMailMessage.Priority = MailPriority.High

                ' Instantiate a new instance of SmtpClient

                Dim mSmtpClient As New SmtpClient("ctnhemailsw01.corp.timken.com")

                'Timken Required settings. (hardcoded bad Don, bad!)

                mSmtpClient.Host = "ctnhemailsw01.corp.timken.com"

                mSmtpClient.Port = "25"

                ' Send the mail message

                mSmtpClient.Send(mMailMessage)

            Catch ex As Exception

                MsgBox(ex.Message)

            End Try

        End Sub

        Public Function WriteToEventLog(ByVal Entry As String, _

    Optional ByVal AppName As String = "VB.NET Application", _

    Optional ByVal EventType As _

    EventLogEntryType = EventLogEntryType.Information, _

    Optional ByVal LogName As String = "Application") As Boolean

            '*************************************************************

            'PURPOSE: Write Entry to Event Log using VB.NET

            'PARAMETERS: Entry - Value to Write

            '            AppName - Name of Client Application. Needed 

            '              because before writing to event log, you must 

            '              have a named EventLog source. 

            '            EventType - Entry Type, from EventLogEntryType 

            '              Structure e.g., EventLogEntryType.Warning, 

            '              EventLogEntryType.Error

            '            LogName: Name of Log (System, Application; 

            '              Security is read-only) If you 

            '              specify a non-existent log, the log will be

            '              created

            'RETURNS:   True if successful, false if not

            'EXAMPLES: 

            '1. Simple Example, Accepting All Defaults

            '    WriteToEventLog "Hello Event Log"

            '2.  Specify EventSource, EventType, and LogName

            '    WriteToEventLog("Danger, Danger, Danger", "MyVbApp", _

            '                      EventLogEntryType.Warning, "System")

            '

            'NOTE:     EventSources are tightly tied to their log. 

            '          So don't use the same source name for different 

            '          logs, and vice versa

            '******************************************************

            Dim objEventLog As New EventLog()

            Try

                'Register the App as an Event Source

                If Not EventLog.SourceExists(AppName) Then

                    EventLog.CreateEventSource(AppName, LogName)

                End If

                objEventLog.Source = AppName

                'WriteEntry is overloaded; this is one

                'of 10 ways to call it

                objEventLog.WriteEntry(Entry, EventType)

                Return True

            Catch Ex As Exception

                Return False

            End Try

        End Function

        Public Function readHtmlPage(ByVal url As String) As String

            Dim objResponse As Net.WebResponse

            Dim objRequest As Net.WebRequest

            Dim result As String

            objRequest = System.Net.HttpWebRequest.Create(url)

            Try

                objResponse = objRequest.GetResponse()

                Dim sr As New StreamReader(objResponse.GetResponseStream())

                result = sr.ReadToEnd()

                'clean up StreamReader

                sr.Close()

            Catch ex As Exception

                'Network fail return nothing.

                result = ""

            End Try

            Return result

        End Function

        Public Function GetStatus(ByVal uPerformStatusXML As String)

            Dim Status As String = "Nothing Yet"

            Try

                Dim Doc As New XmlDocument

                Doc.LoadXml(uPerformStatusXML)

                Status = Doc.DocumentElement("response").InnerText

                Doc = Nothing

            Catch ex As Exception

                Status = "Error"

            Finally

            End Try

            Return Status

        End Function

    End Class

The following page also documents the additional steps in creating a Windows Service:

Creating a Windows Service Using VBNET-By Vishal

UFOs Seen Over Akron Ohio

hughesdo — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 07:38:00 -1400

When All Else Fails. Getting a web page to work.

hughesdo — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 14:45:12 -1400

Often a page in known to be working and yet someone complains that they can not get the same page in it’s entirety that others have recently visited. In some of these cases the problem is the browser settings or installed features that are causing the problems.

A common problem that can occur on any website is that a cached portion of a corrupted webpage is stored and needs removed from the browsers cache. Clearing the cache is the first step in troubleshooting web browser problems.

When you visit a web page with your web browser it caches the layout and graphics of the pages to files on your hard drive. When you open these pages again within a short period of time it will show you the cached version if the content of the page hasn't changed. This is done to speed up the page rendering process since loading images from a hard drive is potentially faster than loading them from internet. Sometimes, that cache gets corrupt or the web browser fails to recognize new changes on the remote web page. In such situations you may be looking at an outdated cached version of the page or you may see garbled images or text or the elements of the web page may be missing altogether. You will need to clear the cache to force the browser to reload the pages.

Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0

1. Open Internet Explorer.

2. Click Tools in the upper toolbar.

3. Click Internet Options to open Internet Properties.

4. Click the General tab

5. Click Delete Files under "Temporary Internet Files".

6. Check Delete all offline content.

7. Click OK on the Delete Files dialog box.

8. Click Apply and then OK.

Video for clearing the cache in Internet Explorer 7:

Are all the features that the page requires installed?

Flash & Java

http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/

http://www.java.com/

Trusting a specific site and enabling more browser functionality via a Trusted zone.

The Trusted sites zone is a security zone for sites that you think are safe to visit. You believe that the site is designed with security in mind and that it can be trusted not to contain malicious content. To add or remove sites from this zone, you can click the Sites… button. This will open a secondary window listing the sites that you trust and permitting you to add or remove them. You may also require that only verified sites (HTTPS) can be included in this zone. This gives you greater assurance that the site you are visiting is the site that it claims to be.

For a more fine-grained control over what features are allowed in the Trusted zone, click the Custom Level button. Here you can control the specific security options that apply to the Trusted zone. Be sure that the Trusted Sites is highlighted and you are enabling features only to the Trusted Sites zone (picture below).

For example ActiveX can be Enabled by selecting Enable for Run ActiveX controls and plug-ins (picture below).

XBMC is not just for XBOX anymore.

hughesdo — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 14:42:00 -1400

The XBOX Media Center is now codenamed Atlantis and is NOT just for XBOX anymore. It now runs on Mac, Linux and Windows! So you don't know what XBMC is? Well it has been the best home movie player for years! It started as a project on sourceforge.net for the original XBOX to play movies and music and has been one of the most popular projects on sourceforge. Best of all it plays every file format you would ever want it to. It plays all them torrent/Usenet type movies. It also plays right from a .ISO file without the file needing to be burned. It will even go into a .rar and play it without extracting. Need I say more? Okay how about it is already compiled and has a installer too. Skip to the download already.

I did not know that XBMC had a windows version so me and the fiancé sat down to watch the Blue Ray version of Batman Dark Night. I had downloaded the 16 gig .mvk file and had my somewhat trusty VLC Player on my PC ready to go. I know what your saying, shame on us we downloaded a video. Well, bite me, we saw this one in the theater and I don't own a Blue Ray DVD player hence why we are using my PC. But I do own a 30 inch Samsung monitor that is hooked up to my PC. I also don't own any high def televisions and we wanted to see this movie again in high def. Hence the 30 inch PC monitor. We watched a good portion of this movie only to find that about every two minutes or so the video skips and continues. Arghh! What the heck can it be? this is my first Blue Ray movie but come on. I have a quad processor and two gigs of memory and a 300 gig sata drive running 64 bit vista. So I go to the command line and run perfmon and look for bottle necks but I don't see any. I figure it has to be caching but I don't have any options in the VLC Player to do caching. I also run "fsutil behavior set memoryusage 2" with no success. The video still skips on my PC. My fiancé is less than entertained and we "can movie night" and go watch advertisements on TV (crappy night).

Next day I have given up on the whole Blue Ray thing and started thinking about the kid's movie that needs to be push out to the XBOX. Yeah, I need some programming time today and the kid watches his movies off the original XBOX, not the PC with the 30 inch Samsung. Sorry, but I need some programming time today kid. That got me thinking and Googling, what about that lovely XBMC program that the kid uses on his XBOX? OH-Yeah they have done it! XBMC for windows my problems are solved. I know that XBMC will not have any issues skipping but I did have one small problem that is easily fixed. The windows download (here by the way) would not work on my less than wonderful VISTA 64 bit computer. This is somewhat understandable because I can not get a lot of things to work on 64 bit Vista. I know the real problem is the 64 bit part. This is likely just because Microsoft sucks and has no style. It is totally understandable, that XBMC's alpha software does not yet run on a crappy 64 bit version of Vista yet. Getting anything to run on 64 bit has been a ongoing pain. Why is that? 64 bit processors are pretty common place now a days.

To overcome XBMC not running on 64 Bit Vista I simply download what the XBMC team is calling XBMC Live and burned it to CD. The CD is bootable and therefore it does not run the Vista OS at all. The bootable XBMC version appears to use it's own tiny Linux OS and it DOES NOT INSTALL anything onto my PC if that is what I wish. XBMC Live simply runs off the CD! Thank god for that! We now don't need to rely on Microsoft to NOT break anything for XBMC to work! Please XBMC team let's remove the "Live" from the name it sounds like you guys are going to charge us a monthly fee like Bill Gates. They don't charge anything by the way, XBMC is Free and Open Source not Microsoft.

After booting XBMC I configured it to find the movie on my server with a SMB share or Samba share for you Linux people. What is a SMB share? Well a Samba is what the rest of the world calls a windows shared folder. This part was really easy for me because this is what I'm use to doing. I have a server in my basement that runs 24/7 that I call it Black-Server. So Black-Server is wired via a firewall router to two XBOXes and one computer. Black-Server also happens to be the server that is delivering you this web page right now. I sometime sing Cream's Song "White Room" but replace the lyrics with "In Black-Server with white hard-drive's.. In the Basement". But my sanity is another blog altogether, black server has a file share on it. The point being is that the computer with the big 30 inch monitor has a gigabit connection to the server in the basement where the movie was stored. The movie is 16 gigs and I don't have any media upstairs that has room for it. Black-Server has plenty of media in it's white hard drives where I keep all the movies, in the basement. (okay I'll work on the song later.)

So now a quick diagram in case you got lost :

Don't let Samba file sharing scare you into thinking this is a large project, you might not even need Samba or Networking to play your movies. I would also dare say that your not as nutty me. First off your computer will likely run XBMC's install because it's NOT the 64 BIT version of Vista and 2ndly you will not be doing file shares all over the house to two XBOX consoles and one PC. If you are like me and already have two computers on the same network the hard work of networking is done. Your basically just entering in a \\computer_name\folder_share_name\ and User IDs and Passwords into the dialog boxes in the XBMC application. The XBMC application is not like the older version of XBMC either where you needed to put this information into a xml file however this is still an option. We now have dialog boxes and your PC's keyboard at your disposal. So go for it easy stuff but if your need to read about the Samba Stuff try here. Expert PC (likely you) can really skip the manual just try the XBMC install here.

They stopped making Firebirds and Camaros

hughesdo — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 06:09:08 -1400

General Motors is betraying the mullets!