Rampidbyter Rampid byter: A byte of my .Net developing life.

Assuming that the internet service provider (ISP) is in fact Zoomtown, and the subscriber trying to setup the bridge is using a Westell router provided by Zoomtown. I want it noted that you should only follow these steps if you have the hardware and knowledge needed to both secure and maintain the network setup.

The ideal setup, in my opinion, is having the Westell router provided by Zoomtown going into another router that will be used as the central router used for the home in this case. The internal router should hopefully have intrusion protection, and at very least a firewall built in. If you’re questioning whether your particular network router has those capabilities you may want to skip the step related to disabling the Westell router’s firewall settings. See the diagram on the right for an overview of the network setup I described above.

To begin it’s best to have either the desktop near to or bring the Westell router to close proximity. A laptop is most likely the best solution in this case as you’ll be able to place the Westell router at it’s permanent location.

Step 1: Connect to the Zoomtown Westell router directly.

To do this you’ll need a cat5e network cable that you’ll plug directly into the Westell router’s network port, and the opposite end into either your desktop or preferably laptop. Please note ahead of time that you should have a working virus scanner running and a firewall package enabled on the computer used to connect to this router directly.

Step 2: Log into the Westell router directly.

IP Address: 192.168.200.1

In order to log into the Westell router open the internet browser of your choice. I prefer Internet Explorer, but FireFox works just as well. Enter the IP address listed above into the address bar of the browser and navigate to the internal Westell router configuration interface. If this does not work then identify the IP address the PC you’re using to connect to the Westell router is currently using. Enter the IP exactly as your PC shows except for the last three digits. Change the last three digits to simply 1. So if you have 192.168.500.233 then enter 192.168.500.1 into the browser’s address bar.

Step 3: Change the Administrative password.

People forget to change the administrative password all the time for internet accessible routers. In my neighborhood alone there are six unsecured wireless networks. Each one of them is easily accessible and has a very decent signal strength. Not say I’ve gone into them, but simply that this is often the most overlooked security vulnerability  problem.

Once logged into the Westell router you’ll be greeted with the friendly Westell logo and menu options displayed below:

Mouse over the “Maintenance” option and click on the “Change Password” menu option. You’ll be prompted to enter both a name and password twice for validation. Enter in something you’ll remember like ‘Admin’ for the name and at least a decently hard password to crack using any standard dictionary attack. All in all it’s better than the no user name and password to enter into this setup right?

Step 4: Turn off the Westell firewall settings. (optional)

Keep in mind this step is optional. In my setup there is a Linksys business class router with built in firewall, IPS, and other assorted mechanisms to secure my network. At that level having two routers providing firewall protection is overkill for my needs and most likely is just an added network delay. I also want to just make sure I am in total control of what the firewall blocks and does not block via my own personal router.

To turn off the firewall simply mouse over the “Configuration” menu option and click on the “Firewall Configuration” menu option. From the firewall configuration settings simply click the “None” radio button option. This will disable the internal firewall for the Westell router. The default is most likely set to “Low”, but this step is optional and up to the end user to decide.

Step 5: Set the virtual connection to bridge mode.

In order to set the virtual connection to bridge simply mouse over the “Configuration” menu option and click on “VC Configuration" menu option. A list of virtual connections will be displayed with the current status, and ability to edit the connections by clicking on the “Edit” button located next to the connection.

Locate and identify the enabled virtual connection, should be the only enabled connection by default. This connection it needs to be set to bridge mode from the default routed bridge mode. To do this again locate the enabled connection, and click the “Edit” button from the same row.

A pop-up configuration window will appear with the settings for the virtual connection. The only setting that needs to be changed on this window the drop down box next to “Mode” under Bridge Settings. Locate and click the drop-down menu for “Mode”, and select “Bridge” from the drop-down listing.

Click the “Set VC” button to save the changes and to close the configuration window.

Step 6: Turn off Private LAN.

The last step is to disable the private LAN functionality of the Westell router. The private LAN will provide to the internal router an internal IP address making direct forwarding a problem. To receive an external IP address mouse over the “Configuration” menu option, and click the “Private LAN Configuration” menu options.

From the “Private LAN Configuration” settings simply uncheck the “Private LAN DHCP Server Enable” also uncheck the “Private LAN Enable” settings. This will now allow the internal router to receive an external IP address instead of the private LAN IP provided from the Westell router.

Summary

There are many other ways to get the same sort of behavior. The Westell router could be used in combination with a switch as the primary router to divvy out DHCP IPs to connected PCs. The port forwarding and firewall option on the Westell are not bad at all so it should offer itself as a nice router out of the box.

For my purposes I already had a business class VPN router and would prefer to work with the Linksys configuration UI I've acclimated to over the years. So as far as the preference goes it’s in my opinion the best option available. From this point the internal router can be used to forward ports used for remote desktop on 3389, web servers on port 80, or any other general purpose port used externally.

Hahahaha. Came across this gem while reading about Visio Services and Sharepoint 2010.

Came across an article where the question was asked whether software developers are naturally weird. That is a tough question. When you examine our occupation its not hard to see that it’s very difficult to be a software developer. It’s down right exhausting, irritating, and puts us in a constant state of tension trying to create works of art at fast-food speeds.

I suppose a programmer that seeds in little comments here and there of song lyrics in the code seems like a lesser evil than say a disenfranchised employee coming in and shooting up the place. Programming at it’s most basic state is equivalent to writing a novel every day, not even a novel you might be interested in, but a novel none the less. It’s constantly coming back day and day again and writing more paragraphs. Even writers get writers blocks, and at least get to pick the stories they’re interested in working on. Software developers have to sit down and work on a book someone else is dictating to us, and they expect it to be a totally flawless story written exactly how the end user pictures it.

Day in and day out we’re writing another chapter, fixing a paragraph here and there, and worse yet sometimes have to edit another persons story. That’s the worst part when working on someone else’s contribution because maybe they were spinning off the story in a totally different way than they should have. Basically have to go back in, figure out the plot, and start fresh with a new middle or end. To top it off some stories require you use a different typewriter (language) so you’re constantly changing the equipment used to write these stories. We’re like doctors in that we constantly have to train until the day we leave the practice on new techniques and procedures, but without the glory or the respect.

Yah, i suppose we’d have to be weird to put ourselves into this position. A persons natural approach to things beyond their control is to either laugh or cry about it. I think as a profession we tend to take the humor approach by creating humor that others of our own types can take solace in. A funny saying here or there, seeding in a special action if someone searches for “Chuck Norris” on a site (not naming names here), or even song lyrics near code that should be written so clear real comments were not even necessary..

I suppose yes, we are a little weird, but at the same time we’re able to do something most people cant. I think we deal with our stress by approaching life and work with a greater sense of humor than any other profession. Those who can’t see this probably spend too much of their day taking things a little too seriously for their own good. Still there is a balance in that we can be quirky and funny here and there, but we’re still professionals. There are times to act professional.

Added SSL recently to our production WCF service site. The big change happened when trying to setup a customer feed to begin testing implementations against the fixed service location. After setting the site to require SSL a particular friendly yellow-screen-of-death appeared with the following message “The HttpGetEnabled property of ServiceMetadataBehavior is set to true and the HttpGetUrl property is a relative address, but there is no http base address.  Either supply an http base address or set HttpGetUrl to an absolute address.”

The fix is to change the httpGetEnabled=”true” to httpsGetEnabled=”true” under serviceMetadata tag for the defined service behavior settings. A simple little s character cost an hour of time in configuration to find. There was another one similar when changing the IMetadataExchange endpoint to use mexHttpsBinding instead of mexHttpBinding. That was another topic all together but very related as far as the fix. Below you’ll find a snippet of the configuration section with https changes.

 1:  <behaviors>

 2:  <serviceBehaviors>

 3:  <behavior name="Services.ServiceBehavior">

 4:  <serviceCredentials>

 5:  <userNameAuthentication userNamePasswordValidationMode="Custom" customUserNamePasswordValidatorType="Services.Validators.UserValidator, Services"/>

 6:  </serviceCredentials>

 7:  <serviceMetadata httpsGetEnabled="true" />

 8:  <serviceDebug includeExceptionDetailInFaults="false" />

 9:  </behavior>

 10:  </serviceBehaviors>

 11:  </behaviors>

Upgraded Windows Home Premium 64x last night. Took six grueling hours of starring at the screen while Windows 7 installation upgraded the system. It did take six hours, but unlike any other OS upgrade I have done it actually left the programs in tact.

To my dismay found that while Visual Studio 2005, and Visual Studio 2008 work fine the beta Visual Studio 2010 crashes whenever I try to open it. I get the beautiful exception dialog below. Bummer.

We’ve all been there. We’ve just downloaded an installation to a CD/DVD that requires a CD Key. The first instinct is to grab the sharpie marker, and scribble the key down onto the top of the CD. Some of us may have more unintelligible scrawl than others, but we all do it. The problem is later on, could be minutes, could be hours, we all need to enter that CD key into the computer system we’re installing software to.

That is where problems start to happen. At first you know clearly that that character is a B not an 8. No, it’s an 8 not a B. Wait, is it one or is it the other? Is it really the problem or did i mix up that 6 with a G? Man i just don’t know! This leads us into the potential hours it takes us to finally get the right combo, and after having tried so many times we totally forget what we did but don’t care because it’s installed now. Don’t need to worry until next time…. and there is always a next time.

I have started labeling my CD keys by putting a single dot over top of the numeric characters. No need to get fancy. I can easily tell it’s a 2 not a Z or 2 instead of S by just looking for the dot. Well you may say the dot will wear away. I say back to you it’s just as likely the little notch on the G will fade off too. So for now adding a little dot will at least be a temporary solution for the label directly on the CD because at least in the meantime we’ve probably got it saved in a text file for later use. Just thought I'd share that little nugget i picked up after years of wasted time.

I’ve been using AWStats for a few years now and figured I would give it a plug. What is AWStats you may ask? Well, AWStats is a command line application that takes web logs generated by IIS or Apache, formats the log information, and is able to generate HTML reports on the traffic data.

Not only will it function on web server logs but it will also do the same for FTP and Mail server logs. The data is formatted into varying sections of interest. For web server logs it presents the specific browsers used, the number of unique visitors, pages accessed, and traffic to the site over a months period with previous months aggregated for a summary table. The information is incredibly handy to figure out traffic patterns, identify potential robots.txt ignoring search engines, bot attacks, and see what pages present a 404 or 500 error to be taken care of.

At some levels this program can be compared with Google Analytics (GA), but unlike GA AWStats can work on a specific log file or series of log files instead of being limited to live site visits. The same information is stored in the web server log so you’re actually getting more pertinent information from AWStats. AWStats exposes the same keyword referrers, bandwidth usage over time, and can show the individual days with traffic breakdowns. Handy information for any web hosting or personal user looking to not piss off the ISP.

The catch is you’ll have to install Perl in order to install/use AWStats but by visiting ActiveState there shouldn’t be a problem acquiring Perl for Windows for use with IIS web servers. The configuration is a breeze so long as you actually follow the documentation installed with the program. Essentially create a config file, change the config domain to the domain name being hosted, and map a new virtual directory to the cgi-bin installed under AWStats. That’s really it in a nut shell. Below is a screen capture from the AWStats project site so you can see the initial HTML generated report. There is a lot more to it so give the image a click to see the live site demo.

I’m excited for Windows 7, and I was actually thinking of trying to setup a Windows 7 party. I was really curious to see exactly what would come in the Windows 7 party pack too, and it’s been an itch I couldn’t scratch. I know maybe one person, pro-Microsoft, that I could definitely get to come, and the rest would be inclined to come if the party also included LAN party games.

I was really bummed to hear from PC Pro what exactly was in the party pack. Apparently just playing cards, a puzzle, one poster, and one free copy of Windows 7 Ultimate. The free Windows 7 copy aside that’s a pretty lame party pack. That’s a party for 50 something's who sit around the card table, and talk about how in their day they didn’t have computers. No sir, they had slide rulers and those were the shizzle. Seriously, my parents play cards every now and again with people and call it a party.

Our generation, X and that Y generation like games. We play games a lot. Remember that the average gamer is a 30 something male with an above average BMI, or a 30 something woman with emotional problems. Yah, I’m actually serious about that fact. So why would we want to have a party with just playing cards, one poster, and a puzzle? I want Windows 7, home networking, and Halo for the PC at the very least!

I’m not interested in a Windows 7 party, unless Microsoft wants to send me a copy of Windows 7, and I’d cave in a heartbeat because I want Windows 7. Don’t worry Microsoft you’ll get my $200 x2 to get your sweet merchandise. Still I’m left wondering why after the friggn’ millions spent on the new marketing blitz you’d be so cheap on something the party is supposed to be centered around? As it is it’s more of a sit around and watch Bob install the newest OS while the rest of us have to play solitaire with the pack of playing cards. Bummer.

I came across this video when I was scraping some blogs and tech sites for information. It’s called “Dead All Along.” I am not sure if it’s the music or the animated film that goes with it but I can’t get the thing out of my head!

As the acting senior on the .Net team it’s fallen on me to conduct technical interviews for the past few weeks. Since I’ve never really conducted technical interviews before the whole concept was pretty nerve wrecking trying to figure out the best approaches. After all I have to see through what people want you to see down to what they can or can’t do. Needless to say the whole experience has been an eye opener.

The first thing I didn’t realize was how nervous I was going to be in this position. The best way to describe having to conduct interviews is like going on a blind date while trying to buy a used car all at the same time in under an hour! All you have to go by is a description of the person that they, or someone they hired created in order to impress a potential ‘buyer’. Of course I’m talking about the resume, which I’d really compare to nothing more than a professional personal ad.

A resume is the first real picture you get to see of the person, and just like a professional photo its probably touched up to look better. I’d compare resumes to looking at a photoshoped picture where it looks fantastic, but of course it is probably too good to be true. I didn’t actually start out with this mindset. Each resume set before me I would read line by line, go through each project listed, and I’d compare what they’ve done with what we need. There were some beautiful resumes that were filled with great projects, listed with tons of skills associated, and were just what we were looking for. Not only that but the person(s) had certifications that backed up these great projects to give us a sense of security on the candidate. Man, was that a dream that popped quickly.

The reality of it was besides the name on the resume everything else is exaggerated. Key take aways on resumes should probably only include the listed company names, years at the jobs, and then potentially job tittles. Assume that if the project listed out sounds very impressive the persons role probably wasn’t. I saw some roles on the project that were only related to ‘requirements’ or ‘business integration’ so it turned out that the person was merely a QA or at best a assistant analyst. Not saying that’s not helpful, but when interviewing for a senior developer position being a document creator or requirement gatherer isn’t going to earn many brownie points.

At the end of it I’ve come up with a more refined system for conducting these interviews. I like the two stage interview approach. The first being the ‘get to know you’ phase where I ask you about all the projects you’ve got listed, the skills you’ve claimed to have, and bounce back and forth on applications where their skills overlap with things we’ve worked on or needed. The second phase is the actual technical interview where I ask a series of questions starting from easiest to hardest.

The actual technical questions range from telling me the difference between ViewState and Session state. Describe to the performance benefits versus impacts of using InProc Session state or database Sessions state. I may mix this question up with other questions about OO class design, custom user controls, run-time generated controls, using generic collection objects to build a list of items, tier design, and then followed up by the real-world problems we’ve faced. The real-world problems are the trickiest because we’ve had hindsight on our side along with a good team system to help overcome the obstacles.

Really there are lists and lists of websites and blogs about what to ask,and how to ask them for interviewing. This has been my first experience at doing so and I can safely say it was far more nerve wrecking than I ever thought it would be. At the same time when you find that one person it is totally worth it. Unless of course you offer them the job, they turn it down, and then you’re stuck wondering if you need to start lowering your expectations. Ugh, sometimes you just can’t win, but the search continues.