Larry Brouwer

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Archives for April 2010

Blank emails with OfficeLive Outlook Connector and repairing Outlook 2007 .PST files

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This morning, my Outlook inbox has messages with no ‘From’, no ‘Subject’, and nothing in the ‘body’. So, I’m thinking that the .pst file has been corrupted at some point. I Googled on ‘Outlook 2007 repair tool’ and came up with this Microsoft Support article “How to use the Inbox Repair Tools to recover e-mail messages in Outlook 2002, Outlook 2003, and Outlook 2007”. I followed the instructions to repair my outlook .pst file as follows:

Open windows explorer and navigate to the folder where my outlook files are stored. Normally, this would be in: C:\users\username\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook, however, I’ve moved them to: My Documents\Exchange.

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IIS7 Extensions Loaded on development web server

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In this post, I just want to keep track of what IIS7 extensions I’ve installed on my development web server, and some brief notes about them. The extensions are located at http://www.iis.net/.

1. Search Engine Optimization Toolkit.

2. Web Platform Installer. This allows for installation of Web Platform Extensions, New Web Applications (i.e. BlogEngine.Net), and Beta Extensions from within the IIS manager. You should really check out the samples. They are also located at: http://www.microsoft.com/web/gallery

3. Advanced logging.

4. Admin Pack 1.0. Originally, I was doing some googling on reporting tools for IIS7 and came across a post for an open source report framework that is an extension to IIS. In the post it said that the reporting tools had been added to the Admin Pack. However, once I installed the Admin Pack, I could not find the reports anywhere. Upon further digging, I found some posts stating that the Reporting extension had been pulled at release, but was still in the Admin Pack RC. I could not find anything to suggest that a report extension is forthcoming.

5. URL Rewrite 2.0 (2010-04-05).

6. Microsoft .NET Framework 4 (2010-04-29)

7. Windows Powershell 2.0 (2010-04-29)

8. Visual Web Developer 2010 Express (2010-04-29)

9. Database Manager 1.0 (2010-04-29)

10. ASP.NET MVC 2 (2010-04-29)

11. Windows Cache Extension for PHP 5.2 (2010-04-29)

12. Update for IIS 7.0 FastCGI (KB980363) (2010-04-29)

13. PHP 5.2.13 (2010-04-29)

14. WordPress (2010-04-29)

15. MySQL Connector/Net 5.2 (Dependency) (2010-04-29)

16. MySQL Windows Essential 5.1 (2010-04-29)

17. Hotfix for IIS DB Manager (2010-04-29)

Researching WordPress for Clear Lake Auto Service

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Today I’m researching WordPress for Clear Lake Auto Service a client of mine. They are looking to upgrade their website to be more easily updated. So, I thought this software to be a perfect fit. They are currently being hosted by c-beyond, and c-beyond allows them to run PHP and MySQL, so it should install quite easily.

To install the WordPress software, I first read through the installation instructions found at installing WordPress. After verifying that c-Beyond’s hosting does meet the requirements, I downloaded the latest WordPress software release download (v2.9.2 as of 4/29/2010) and extracted the wordpress folder to a temp directory.

Next, I logged into the C-Beyond control panel for the web site and initialized the MySql database. I then looked under the AddOns folder, and I noticed that WordPress is already an installable package. So I installed it directly off the C-Beyond site. I then upgraded it to the current version using the auto-upgrade tab already in the software.

Fixing SqlServer Database Mail for HCMGA

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I got a call this morning that Master Gardener’s system is not sending emails. So now I’m in troubleshooting mode. I first logged onto the server and checked the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) service. It’s running. I then went into the application and sent out a test message. Did not receive it. I then went into SqlServer Management Studio (SSMS) and logged into prod. Clicked on Management. Then right clicked Database Mail and selected Send Test E-Mail. I sent a test email out from there. I did not receive the email. I then right-clicked and selected View Database Mail Log. There are many errors being displayed. The error message follows:

Message
The mail could not be sent to the recipients because of the mail server failure. (Sending Mail using Account 20 (2010-04-28T09:37:27). Exception Message: Cannot send mails to mail server. (Mailbox unavailable. The server response was: 5.7.1 Unable to relay for [email recipient]).)

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IIS7 Statistics Reporting with Log Parser and AWStats

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Today, I decided that I needed to see a little bit more about the traffic hitting my website. So I set off attempting to find a tool that will help me do just that. After doing some Googling, I ran across a Microsoft utility called Log Parser. So I downloaded and installed it. A great post to read about Log Parser is by Steve Bunting. Another post by Jeff Atwood here. Microsoft Technet has an article about how Log Parser works here. Log Parser is not officially a supported Microsoft tool, the forum site can be found here. Another article from Symantec discusses the fields for parsing and some examples here. I played around with Log Parser some and got some rudimentary results. But since I didn’t want to recreate the wheel, I decided to keep searching.

After Googling on “IIS7 Statistics”, I stumbled upon AWStats. I decided to install it. The documentation for installing on Windows Server 2008 is pretty weak. I found a  great guide to installing AWStats here. The steps can be summarized as follows:

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Adding AWStats to DotNetNuke (DNN)

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I’ve just configured AWStats to work with IIS7 on my web server (see my post, IIS7 Statistics Reporting with Log Parser and AWStats), and now I would like to integrate it into my DotNetNuke (DNN) website.

Here’s an outline of what I would like to do:

  1. Be able to log into my DNN web site as an authenticated user and navigate to a web statistics page. I don’t want anonymous users to view my stats.
  2. Create a script that runs in the background to keep the statistics up to date and have it re-generate the html page for the stats.
  3. See if I can programmatically adjust the LoadPlugin=”timezone –7” for US Central daylight savings or standard time. I really don’t want to have to remember this 2x per year.

So the first thing I did was to open the IIS7 Manager and navigate to my DNN website. I then Right Clicked on it and selected ‘Add Virtual Directory…’. I then choose ‘Statistics’ for my Alias, and navigated to the correct directory path of the AWStats webroot or ‘C:\AWStats\wwwroot’. I then opened up IE and navigated to my web site at https://www.larrybrouwer.com/stats/larrybrouwer_com_stats.html, and it displayed just fine.

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Debugging D-Link DIR-655 router issues

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Today started out with discovering our phone wasn’t working. Since we have Vonage or Voice over IP (VOIP), this usually means our Internet is down. At least I know when the Internet is down! My usual routine for this sort of thing is to first unplug everything (the cable modem, router, switch, and the Vonage router), let it sit for a good minute or so to discharge any kind of inductance build-up (or whatever), and then re-plug everything back in starting from the modem, then the router, then the switch, then the VOIP box.

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Fixed Yahoo Mail pop3 integration with Outlook 2007

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My yahoo mail stopped sending emails through Microsoft Outlook 2007 several days ago. I finally had some time to troubleshoot the problem. I fixed the issue by going into Tools / Options then selecting Mail Setup. Next, click on E-mail Accounts… I then selected my yahoo.com account and clicked Change… I first performed a Test Account Settings … and it gave me a send error. After changing several settings, I found and corrected the problem by clicking on More Settings … I then selected Advanced. In the ‘Use the following type of encrypted connection:’ I changed it from ‘Auto’ to ‘SSL’ and that seemed to fix the problem. Just to let you know, I’ve set up my Yahoo mail to ‘Yahoo Asia’ so I can enable Pop3 without purchasing a Yahoo Plus account. It’s been working great for me until recently, and now it’s working great again!

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Continued BlogEngine.Net installation for HCMGA

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Today, I’m working on getting BlogEngine.Net installed on the Harris County Master Gardener website. I’m trying to test the new post notifications, and I keep getting “You are now unsubscribed” message after entering a new email address. Since I’m using the SQL Server data store, I didn’t think to check the permissions on the “APP_DATA” folder. After looking at the tables, I didn’t see a newsletter table. So I added “NETWORK SERVICE” write permissions to the “APP_DATA” folder and it is now working fine.

So now, after adding a new post, notification emails are not being sent out.

Learning Visual Studio 2010, Silverlight 4, .NET Framework 4

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Installed Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate trial.

Installed Silverlight 4 Tools RC2 for Visual Studio 2010

Stumbled upon Ramp Up, a free learning resource.

Installed Silverlight 4 Toolkit April 2010 from codeplex

Installed Microsoft Expression Blend 4 Release Candidate (RC)

Installed WCF RIA Services Release Candidate 2 for Silverlight 4 and Visual Studio 2010

Installed WCF RIA Services Toolkit April 2010

Installed Silverlight 4 Offline Documentation

Installed Silverlight 4 Training

Installed Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4 Training Kit

Getting started with Silverlight

Navigate to Tools / Extension Manager and select Online Gallery

Visual Studio 2010 Training videos on channel9