Chanh's blog

I revisit WebMatrix site recently just to see what’s up with this nice little web editor from Microsoft and I must say I am in for a pleasantly surprise!

WebMatrix turn into a small full Web development that installs quickly and it support database and PHP. It comes with a build in IISExpress and it works extremely well for web site development.

If you use the web installer to install the open source script like WordPress, Drupal, etc then WebMatrix will configure to support PHP automatically but if you create a site from scratch you have to do some manual tweaking!

You have to edit and a few lines in the config file as shown below and will you be able to edit your PHP file in your site.

C:\Users\[youruserlogin]\Documents\IISExpress8\config\applicationhost.config

< location path="wordpress" >
< system.webServer >
< handlers >
< add name="PHP via FastCGI" path="*.php" verb="*" modules="FastCgiModule" scriptProcessor="C:\Program Files\PHP\php-cgi.exe" resourceType="Either" / >
< /handlers >
< /system.webServer >
< /location >


Note: The above is assuming you install PHP from the web installer

Relevant links:

http://www.asp.net/WebMatrix

http://www.microsoft.com/web/webmatrix/features/

This is a continuation of previous article on “Counting PDF pages” and due to some limitation that I discover during testing so I have to find some alternative.

The result is this completely free utility that you can copy and compile into a very tiny executable to use as you wish.

Here is the complete article and source code

Enjoy!

Did you ever have a need to count pages of all your PDF files?

If you do then you are in luck! There are many paid and free PDF counting utilities that you can use but if you are using Windows then you can do it yourself easily!

Here is an article and complete working code that you can take and use it for free.

I have been using Visual Studio for a long time and also using the Express edition but until recent version 2008 of Visual Studio Express Web Developer Edition I say this is a clear winner but one little wish item, more about that later…

The Visual Studio Express Web Developer Edition is a freeware web development tool from Microsoft. Its main function is to create ASP.NET pages, It has a WYSIWYG interface and very good HTML editor, support CSS, Javascript, XML, drag-and-drop user interface designer; a database explorer for SQL express edition; and lot more!

I would not go into the limitation in compare to the paid version of Visual Studio but I do want to expand on the database explorer for SQL express edition. Some might think it is limited but I think it is perfect for personal development. It allow you to explore SQL database file without needing to concern about the standard SQL security and all that headache! You can debug your web site which access your SQL database file easily. In some case I would prefer this Express edition over the paid version although I do have both version load on my computer.

I heard the rumor that the future version of Visual Studio Express 2010 will have build in support for PHP if that is to be true it would be wonderful for open source developer. There is a big void out there for a nice editor that support PHP for free! There are some out there and I won’t name it but it just take too long to start up. If Visual Studio Express will have build in support for PHP that will be a big thumb up from me.

One little wish item that I would like to see in Visual Studio Express is to have some kind of plugin or extension support so that the open source community can help to extend this wonderful product further!

Mod_rewrite was the only mean to have search engine friendly URL for a long time but it is no longer the case with this Microsoft URL rewrite module! It is extremely easy to use not like Mod_rewrite!

I will write more on how to use this URL rewrite module at my Docs site later but for now I will just post some high light!

Once this module is installed there are three templates available and they are:

# User Friendly URL
# Rule with Rewrite Map
# Request Blocking

There are so much more you can do with it!

You can download it here.

You can get more information here.

I have been looking for a search solution for our intranet site and have evaluate several search packages!

I recently come across Microsoft Search Server 2008 Express which is a free application that you can download from here.

It can crawl content from various sources such as Windows SharePoint Services sites, file shares, Exchange Public Folders, and Web sites. Although Search Server Express includes only a subset of the search features of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 but from what I can see it is just perfect for my need.

Here are a features list of this product.

On top of that, don’t forgot this is a SharePoint Service bundle with search so you can do all things that you can with SharePoint including Wiki, blog, calendar, and lot more…

With such a features list who need anything else!

This took me several weeks to figure out how to fix this problem!

It starts out when I try to install IIS to my Windows 2003 R2 sp2 server and for some reason IIS just only show htm file but none for asp, aspx or php!

I searched high and low, I tried numerous sources, I combed through many forum, Microsoft support site, etc but can’t find a solution!

In the process I found out that there are lot of people having very similar symptom but none seem to have the same problem like mine.

The symptom are:

. IIS won’t show asp, aspx but only show htm

. IIS MMC crashes when try to set “allow” in “web extension”

. There are no error in the event log

. Can’t un-install .NET framework 2.0 (keep asking for install.exe”) <– clue

The solution is very simple once I figure it out!

Here are the steps:

. Un-install all newer .NET framework

. download and extract .NET framework 2.0 to a folder call “dotnetv2″

. Un-install .NET framework 2.0 and point to “dotnetv2″ folder when prompt for “install.exe”

. Reinstall .NET framework 2.0

. Re-apply all patches and all new .NET framework

Now all the above symptom that I described are all gone and IIS happily serves up htm, asp, aspx, even php too!

That’s it!

Windows 7 is amazing!  It is fast!  It is super!  It is looking somewhat like Vista but much better than Vista!

It runs on almost all the pc that I have which are ranging from new to a several years old and even on pc that I built from components!  Many of these old pc that Vista refused to install but it all works fine with Windows 7!

Even if some of the devices might not have the right driver during initial install but as long as you can get your pc that is running Windows 7 on the network then it will detect and download the right driver for your pc.

I even able to install many legacy software using the compatibility mode in Windows 7 even though the “compatibility wizard” is missing in Windows 7 but I was able to get around that by using the compatibility mode that I mention above.

Windows 7 is definitely a done right out the gate!

IE 8 has just released and it is FAST!

I did a side by side comparison with FF 3. I double click on FF then double click on IE 8, IE 8 already finish render the page fully while FF still no where to be seen. A few second later FF show up but still trying to load the home page.

I also use IE 8 to search for site and run into a site that do some strange thing and might even be malicious, IE 8 just close that session like nothing has happen. If it would be FF either FF will freeze or lock up my computer, that is usually happen with FF.

IE 8 also come with tone of add-ons and if I can get most of the FF add-ons in IE 8 I will be going solo with IE 8.

You can check out IE 8 here

And the add-ons are here

Not too long ago Microsoft release its version of sourceforge call codeplex and now Wiki. Hard to believe, but it is true!

Microsoft launch a new Wiki at http://msdnwiki.microsoft.com

My first impression with this Wiki are as follow:
. You only need to have a passport to start edting the Wiki
. It uses Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 License
. Many sections are collapsable via the plus and minus icon
. This is not a typical Wiki, you need to click on the left pane to get the article and scroll to the bottom before you can edit the article.