BlogEngine.NET Theme - MWRT-002

  • October 13, 2007
  • James Skemp
Updated for BlogEngine.NET 1.3! Not a very original name, but I can see how it was created ... Anyways, I'm proud to present another theme for BlogEngine.NET, called MWRT-002. This theme is based upon the template of the same name by MyWebResource, and made available on Open Source Web Design. A zip of the theme can be downloaded from my testing site at JamesRSkemp.net. Download the zip file - for BlogEngine.

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Determining which IIS 6.0 Application Pool belongs to which application

  • October 6, 2007
  • James Skemp
In IIS 6.0, you can setup Application Pools for each of your sites. My knowledge of the exact benefits of this is somewhat lacking, but what I do understand is that these help applications (Web sites) stay within their own bounds, and prevent them from having a bad effect upon each other. For example, if one application is preforming poorly, as long as it's not a server-wide issue, the other sites on the server will be impacted minimally.

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Log Parser script: Percent of status codes across all hits/requests

  • October 1, 2007
  • James Skemp
Note: This article was written using Log Parser 2.2. Therefore, while it may work for a different version, it may not. The following SQL can be used by Log Parser to generate a chart with the total requests (for a day, month, or year) and what percent each status code is of those requests. An example chart can be found at the end of this article. First, I assume that the below is put in the same directory as the logs you would like to parse.

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Swan Dive updated for BlogEngine.NET 1.2 release

  • September 30, 2007
  • James Skemp
BlogEngine.NET 1.2.0.0 has been released. In 'honor' of this release, I've updated Swan Dive, using the Standard theme as a guide. Any questions or concerns can be directed to me via the comments on the original post. View the original post, and download Swan Dive.

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Review of Steve Krug's Don't Make Me Think: 2nd Edition (with notes)

  • September 28, 2007
  • James Skemp
As it promises, Steve Krug's Don't Make Me Think: 2nd Edition, is a quick, but extremely usable, guide to Web usability and design. The book took me less than a day to read (less than 3 hours total over the days of September 26 and 27, of 2007), but has become, in my mind, a requirement for even beginners (like myself) of Web design. Since everyone who develops for the Web should have some idea of design and usability, this book should really be a mandatory requirement for said work.

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How to ensure that performance counters continue after a restart

  • September 19, 2007
  • James Skemp
A few days ago my server was restarted in the early morning hours. I had been logging network and processor usage using Windows built-in performance monitoring, but when the server restarted, the logs did not. A bit of research later, it appears that there is a way to have Windows restart the logging after a system restart. To enable this, it seems you just need to have the log stop after a certain amount of time (for example, after x hours, or x days).

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Using Log Parser to find users accounts used to log into an FTP site

  • September 13, 2007
  • James Skemp
The following Log Parser query can be used on FTP log files in order to determine what user names were used to login, or attempt to login, to an FTP site. logparser "select cs-uri-stem, count(cs-method) from ex*.log where cs-method like '%USER' group by cs-uri-stem order by count(cs-method),cs-uri-stem"  This assumes that you've added Log Parser to your path, and that you're running this from your log file directory. This query will tell you what ip addresses successfully logged into your FTP site.

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Log Parser queries to find 400 and 500 http status codes

  • September 9, 2007
  • James Skemp
Note: This article was written using Log Parser 2.2. Therefore, while it may work for a different version, it may not. In a previous article, I discussed how to use Log Parser to find 404 errors in IIS log files. This time, I've made it a little broader, by giving some queries to find all 400 codes, and all 500 codes, through log files. There may be a better way to find these codes (instead of my IN statement), but a standard LIKE doesn't seem to work.

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Compiling BlogEngine.NET source with Microsoft Visual C# 2005 Express Edition

  • September 5, 2007
  • James Skemp
The follow covers how to compile BlogEngine.NET from the most recently available source code. This was originally posted to the Codeplex discussions for BlogEngine.NET, and will eventually get moved into the wiki. (Update Sept 8, 2007: Added to the BlogEngine.NET wiki, but not yet linked from other pages. Also made a minor change to step one.) Compiling source with Microsoft Visual C# 2005 Express Edition 1) Download the current source code from the Releases tab or the Source code tab on CodePlex.

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Is it really that simple - redirecting a single file on IIS

  • September 2, 2007
  • James Skemp
For various reasons, I've been working towards migrating from an Apache server to an IIS one for my sites. For Gavin's site, I couldn't get away with it, but I don't have any problem making things more difficult for myself :D However, this means that old URLs may not be working as they should. My experience with IIS is a working knowledge of it, and therefore I know what I need to know, picking up what I can.

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