Posted by Alin Irimie
on February 28, 2009
There’s a little trick on handling 404 pages in Windows Azure, not only for .aspx pages, but also for static content. It is all related to IIS7 configuration. You need to perform the following steps to display a custom error page in IIS:
- Write a httpErrors section under system.webServer.
<httpErrors errorMode=“Custom“>
<clear/>
<error statusCode=“404“ path=“error404.aspx“ responseMode=“Redirect“/>
</httpErrors>
- Open C:\Windows\System32\inetsrv\config\applicationHost.config, and search for httpErrors. You’ll find the following section:
<section name=”httpErrors” overrideModeDefault=”Deny” />
- Note the overrideModeDefault is Deny. Please remove the overrideModeDefault=”Deny” attribute.
Now it should work in local IIS as well as Development Fabric. The cloud environment is already configured properly, so you don’t need to worry about applicationHost.config. Simply add the httpErrors section in your web.config.
Posted by Alin Irimie
on February 26, 2009
It looks like Microsoft is getting really serious about the software-in-your-car business. With the new mesh technologies and other integration software Microsoft builds, they’re tackling the big players in this field.
Microsoft Corp. today filed a patent infringement action against TomTom NV and Tom Tom, Inc., and issued the following statement from Horacio Gutierrez, corporate vice president and deputy general counsel of Intellectual Property and Licensing:
“Microsoft has filed an action today in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington and in the International Trade Commission (ITC), against TomTom NV and TomTom Inc. for infringement of Microsoft patents. We have taken this action after attempting for more than a year to engage in licensing discussions with TomTom.”
Continue reading…
Posted by Alin Irimie
on February 16, 2009
Today at Mobile World Congress 2009, Microsoft Corp. CEO Steve Ballmer along with key mobile partners, HTC, LG and Orange, unveiled new Windows Phones featuring new user-friendly software and services. The next generation of Windows phones will be based on Windows Mobile 6.5 and feature a new user interface and a richer browsing experience.
The new Windows Mobile 6.5 home screen keeps people up-to-date on important information by providing a dashboard-like experience to items such as new e-mails, texts, missed calls and calendar appointments. It also includes an improved touch-screen interface, making it easy to take action with a finger, and an updated version of the latest Internet Explorer Mobile browser, which in a third-party research study sponsored by Microsoft supported execution of up to 48 percent more assigned tasks than the other browsers and phones studied. What else? Continue reading…
Posted by Alin Irimie
on February 13, 2009
Want to make a quick buck? Today, Microsoft Corp. announced a partnership with technology industry leaders and academia to implement a coordinated, global response to the Conficker (aka Downadup) worm. Together with security researchers, Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and operators within the Domain Name System, Microsoft coordinated a response designed to disable domains targeted by Conficker. Microsoft also announced a $250,000 reward for information that results in the arrest and conviction of those responsible for illegally launching the Conficker malicious code on the Internet.
Microsoft’s reward offer stems from the company’s recognition that the Conficker worm is a criminal attack. Microsoft wants to help the authorities catch the criminals responsible for it. Residents of any country are eligible for the reward, according to the laws of that country, because Internet viruses affect the Internet community worldwide. Individuals with information about the Conficker worm should contact their international law enforcement agencies.
Good luck!
Posted by Alin Irimie
on February 11, 2009
Really informative screencast presented by Bill Lodin. Learn how to use queues to facilitate communication between Web and Worker roles in Windows Azure.
[videofile]http://download.microsoft.com/download/D/C/2/DC2804F4-7A84-4E67-B4A9-C901AFB865D1/windowsazure-Leverage_WindowsAzure_Queues_012709.wmv[/videofile]
Enjoy!
Posted by Alin Irimie
on February 09, 2009
Amazon just released Kindle 2.0. Longer battery life, and much better design. Slim: Just over 1/3 of an inch, as thin as most magazines, Lightweight: At 10.2 ounces, lighter than a typical paperback, Wireless: 3G wireless lets you download books right from your Kindle, anytime, anywhere; no monthly fees, service plans, or hunting for Wi-Fi hotspots, Books in Under 60 Seconds: Get books delivered in less than 60 seconds; no PC required
Improved Display: Reads like real paper; now boasts 16 shades of gray for clear text and even crisper images
- Longer Battery Life: 25% longer battery life; read for days without recharging
- More Storage: Take your library with you; holds over 1,500 books
- Faster Page Turns: 20% faster page turns
- Read-to-Me: With the new Text-to-Speech feature, Kindle can read every book, blog, magazine, and newspaper out loud to you
- Large Selection: Over 230,000 books plus U.S. and international newspapers, magazines, and blogs available
- Low Book Prices: New York Times Best Sellers and New Releases $9.99, unless marked otherwise
You can pre-order NOW! Release date is Feb 24th 2009.
Posted by Alin Irimie
on February 07, 2009
The Azure Services Training Kit was released the other day. It includes a comprehensive set of technical content including hands-on labs, presentations, and demos that are designed to help you learn how to use the Azure Services Platform.
The February release includes the following updates:
- 19 demo scripts that walkthrough several of the services
- 10 presentations covering the entire Azure Services Platform
- 3 additional hands-on labs for Live Services
This technical content covers services including: Windows Azure, .NET Services, SQL Services, Live Services.
You can find the training kit here.
Posted by Alin Irimie
on February 05, 2009
If you wonder how analytics are calculated in windows azure, bellow is a good indicator. Keep this in mind when you’ll have to pay for all this usage.
When the number of VM hours is calculated, both the staging and deployment usage is taken into consideration. If you have a worker role and a web role, both in staging and deployment, then you will generate 4 VMs per clock hour (2 x 2 x 1).
If you suspend your staging deployment, then those VMs are still in use and those values are still accruing to your VM hour analytics reporting. That’s because suspending a role simply stops execution of the IIS instance, but does not unload the underlying VM. You will need to actually delete the roles to avoid having those VM hours reported in the analytics.
Posted by Alin Irimie
on February 04, 2009
DirectThought, a New York Based company, is working on a native iPhone application, named directEC2 to access and control Amazon’s EC2. You’ll be able to keep tabs on your EC2 resource (instances, volumes, etc.) using this application running on your iPhone. Because it is a native application, it doesn’t rely on any other server. All you rely on are your iPhone, Amazon’s servers and your internet connection. This application is under development and has been tested on the iPhone and iPod touch.
This application uses a toolkit called cTypica which is an Objective-C version of the popular typica Java toolkit for AWS. This will be released under the Apache 2.0 License to enable others to gain access to Amazon’s service from their own iPhone applications.
There’s no indication when the application will be released.
Bellow are some screenshots of the application in action. Continue reading…
Posted by Alin Irimie
on February 04, 2009
In a rather bold move, VMware open sourced their VMware View Client (formerly VMware VDI Client), a client for virtual desktop infrastructure. VMware View Open Client is the name and lets you connect from a Linux desktop to remote Windows desktops managed by VMware View. It is available under the GNU Lesser General Public License version 2.1 (LGPL v 2.1).
Anyone can download, use, modify and distribute VMware View Open Client under the terms of the LGPL v 2.1. The source code is hosted at google code, so probably there’s a relationship between the two that we didn’t hear about yet.
The client has been optimized for thin client devices and VMware encourage their partners to use this open source software to develop clients fo non-x86 platforms, or operating systems other than Windows XP/e or Linux (read Mac OS X and mobile platforms). Continue reading…
