Example batch file to dump Subversion repositories

  • November 19, 2009
  • James Skemp
I have a large collection of repositories, and until now ran a single batch file that had to be updated each time I created a new repository, to add the new directory. To combat that, I did some research and created a new batch file that does all the heavy lifting for me. To save others time, I present it below. SET timeVar=%date:~10,4%%date:~4,2%%date:~7,2% SET repoDumpDir=..\repos_dump FOR /D %%G IN (*) DO svnadmin dump %%G > %repoDumpDir%%%G%timeVar%.

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Steps to setting up a Windows Server 2003 Web Server on VirtualBox

  • October 24, 2009
  • James Skemp
The following goes through the steps needed to setup Windows Server 2003, with Web server capabilities (IIS 6 in this instance), on a Sun VirtualBox virtual machine. Why Windows Server 2003 when Server 2008 is out and available? Because a large number of hosts (mine included) haven't made the switch yet. Requirements Sun VirtualBox. We want this in particular for the great networking functionality, but other apps, like Microsoft Virtual PC, will work fine as well.

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Applications I have to install on my core development machine

  • October 9, 2009
  • James Skemp
Here's a listing of applications, as I run into them, that need to be installed on my core development machine. TortoiseSVN iTunes Oxygen Xml Editor Visual Studio CollabNet Subversion FileZilla FTP client Sun VirtualBox Serious Samurize 7-Zip Amazon MP3 Downloader Why bother creating this list? Because at the moment I've just upgraded to Windows 7 and need to reinstall my programs. Above is the order I did it. Notepad On every computer I touch for more than 15 minutes, I always add Notepad to the Send to menu.

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Parsing iTunes data with C#

  • February 22, 2009
  • James Skemp
This application has since been updated. Read about the current version of iTunes Playlists to Xml. For better or worse, when I began setting up my iPod I opted to manually organize my iPod. In large part, this was because at the time I had a machine with a pretty small hard drive, and couldn't keep all of my music on it. However, with a new HP, I was able to store all my music on that computer, as well as back it up to a USB drive.

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Formatting drives in Windows Vista

  • June 18, 2008
  • James Skemp
So Disk Management can't be found using the Vista Start Search. However, you can type in Computer Management, and get to Disk Management from there. From what I was reading online, as long as the BIOS sees the drive, Windows should have popped up a message asking about formatting it. Too bad you have to go through this extra step - it would have been nice to have at least seen a small pop-up regarding this.

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Installing TortoiseSVN to Windows Vista

  • June 8, 2008
  • James Skemp
In a previous article, I installed Subversion and TortoiseSVN to a Windows XP Home Edition machine. Later, I upgraded the installation. Just recently I covered installing Subversion 1.4.6 to Windows Vista. This time I'll be installing TortoiseSVN on that same machine. The setup The system I'm using is a HP Pavilion a6360t, with 4GB install RAM, 2.20 GHz, with two cores, running Windows Vista Ultimate SP1, 32-bit. Downloading TortoiseSVN Since TortoiseSVN is for Windows, it makes it even easier to find the version to download.

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Installing Subversion to Windows Vista

  • June 7, 2008
  • James Skemp
In a previous article, I installed Subversion and TortoiseSVN to a Windows XP Home Edition machine. Later, I upgraded the installation. This time I'll be installing Subversion on a Windows Vista Ultimate SP1 machine. The setup The system I'm using is a HP Pavilion a6360t, with 4GB install RAM, 2.20 GHz, with two cores, running Windows Vista Ultimate SP1, 32-bit. I'm already running IIS 7, so I won't be installing Apache to run Subversion.

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How to quickly hide all of the Windows Vista Ultimate language packs

  • April 24, 2008
  • James Skemp
While there's no way to hide them all at once, you can make it a short chore to hide the Windows Vista Ultimate language packs that you don't use. 1) Right-click, H. 2) Allow admin privileges. 3) Right-click, H. 4) Repeat step 3 for each language pack. It takes less than a minute.

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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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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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