• Goodbye BlogEngine; Hello Orchard

    It has been 375 days since my last blog post. Why so long? Well I have been busy but the main reason was that there were tweaks I needed to make to the site that made me feel it wasn’t worthwhile. While I am incredibly busy at the moment there are a few posts I have brewing in my head so it’s time to bite the bullet and fix the blog now! Continue reading...

  • Deduplicating SQL data

    So you stuff up and didn’t write unit tests to properly test that duplicate data does not get appended to the database. Plus you were a bigger idiot and had not set a unique index on the column. Continue reading...

  • How to install Python and CGI scripts on IIS 7 (Windows 7, Vista, Server 2008)

    Download and install required version of Python. Open Internet Information Services. Select the site that requires Python CGI scripts. Ensure Features View is the current view in the middle pane of IIS. Double-click Handler Mappings. Click Add Script Map… in Actions pane. Set the Request path value to *.cgi. Set the Executable value to C:\Python26\python.exe -u "%s %s" (Change path appropriately) Set the Name value to PythonCGI. Click Request Restrictions… button. Click the Access tab in Request Restrictions dialog. Select Execute. Click OK to return to Add Script Map dialog.  Click OK to save the mapping. Click Yes to Do you want to enable this ISAPI application? dialog. Right-click the newly create PythonCGI mapping and select Edit Feature Permissions… Ensure every permission is ticked. Click OK. Install a simple CGI script to test the web site.print 'Status: 200 OK' print 'Content-type: text/html' print print '<html><head>' print '' print '<h1>It works!</h1>' print '' print '' Point your browser to the test script and hey presto it should be working. References http://vampirebasic.blogspot.com/2009/06/running-mercurial-on-windows.html http://www.jeremyskinner.co.uk/mercurial-on-iis7/ Continue reading...

  • How to install Python and CGI scripts on Windows Server 2003

    Download and install required version of Python. Open Internet Information Services. Open the Properties dialog for web site that required Python CGI scripts. Go to the Home Directory tab. Ensure Execute permissions is set to Scripts Only. Click the Configuration button and select the Mappings tab. Click Add… button. Set the Executable value to C:\Python26\python.exe -u "%s %s" (Change path appropriately) Set the Extension value to .cgi. Set Verbs to All Verbs. Tick Script engine on. Tick Verify that file exists on. Click OK to return to the Application Configuration dialog. Click OK to return to the web site Properties dialog. Click OK to return to Internet Information Services manager. Install a simple CGI script to test the installation.print 'Status: 200 OK' print 'Content-type: text/html' print print '<html><head>' print '' print '<h1>It works!</h1>' print '' print '' Point your browser to the test script and hey presto it should be working. References http://vampirebasic.blogspot.com/2009/06/running-mercurial-on-windows.html http://www.jeremyskinner.co.uk/mercurial-on-iis7/ Continue reading...

  • Building a MVP Framework: Table of Contents

    Lately I’ve spent a reasonable amount of time with ASP.NET MVC and grown to love the pattern.  My current project is a Windows Form application and in need of help from a similar. Having spent the last two days researching the topic I’ve not been able to find a framework that I’m satisfied. Largely they are under documented or overly complex. I’m trying to make development easier that harder! Continue reading...