Tentacle Software

If you’re using ASP.NET Routing (without the MVC abstractions), you’ll be trying to route http://www.mysite.com/Default.aspx sooner or later. This won’t work: public static void RegisterRoutes(RouteCollection routes) { routes.Add("Default", new Route("Default.aspx", new RouteHandler("~/Site/Default.aspx"))); } It won’t work because the request isn’t actually for Default.aspx, the request is for the site root, which IIS will catch. IIS responds by attempting to serve the default page for the site (probably Default.aspx), which may or may not exist. To route requests to the site root, you’ll need to do this instead: public static void RegisterRoutes(RouteCollection routes) { routes.Add("Default", new Route(string.Empty, new RouteHandler("~/Site/Default.aspx"))); } We’re...

By now, you’ve all read that Drive Extender has been pulled from “Vail” and “Aurora”. Here’s Microsoft’s announcement post and attempt at damage mitigation: When weighing up the future direction of storage in the consumer and SMB market, the team felt the Drive Extender technology was not meeting our customer needs. Therefore, moving forward we have decided to remove the Drive Extender technology from Windows Home Server Code Name “Vail” (and Windows Small Business Server 2011 Essentials and Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 Essentials) which are currently in beta. While this removes the...

The nasty ASP.NET error-handling security vulnerability has been patched. Go hit Windows Update right now. And if you’re a web developer, make sure your customer sites get the same treatment.

From ScottGu: A few hours ago we released a Microsoft Security Advisory about a security vulnerability in ASP.NET.  This vulnerability exists in all versions of ASP.NET. An attacker using this vulnerability can request and download files within an ASP.NET Application like the web.config file (which often contains sensitive data). At attacker exploiting this vulnerability can also decrypt data sent to the client in an encrypted state (like ViewState data within a page). You can download the .vbs script here.  Simply copy/paste the script into a text file...

TinyMCE is a great little WYSIWYG JavaScript text editor that we use quite often inside administration pages. It’s lightweight and just works out of the box. Well, except for the little issue of HTML encoding its output. When you submit an ASP.NET form that contains the TinyMCE text editor, you get this lovely message: A potentially dangerous Request.Form value was detected from the client (ctl00$ContentBody$TextBoxBodyHtml="<p>Test!</p>"). Which is good, because that’s ASP.NET doing some checking and helping to protect your site from XSS attacks. The standard solution you see floating around the web...

Ran across this one today, and because it’s weird and annoying I thought I’d post a solution. You can thank me later! The problem goes like this: You’re using Visual Studio 2010 and trying to add a control to an APSX page in an ASP.NET Web Application targeted to .NET 4.0, and some controls don’t show up in IntelliSense. When you type the tag manually, Visual Studio complains that Element 'ListView' is not a known element. This can occur if there is a compilation error in the Web site, or the web.config file is missing....

Great video on Channel 9 with Fabian Uhse evangelising the “Vail” SDK. Confirms Microsoft’s commitment to Windows Home Server extensibility. Fabian hints that retail “Vail” will be running .NET 4.0 and not .NET 3.5, so we won’t have to wait for it to be pushed via Windows Update. Awesome.

The Windows Home Server “Vail” preview is here. There have been lots of in-depth technical reviews of the new and updated bits in Vail, which is not surprising given how anticipated the new version has been. Overview and Review (MediaSmartServer.net) Overview and Review (We Got Served) Drive Extender v2 (HomeServerLand) Drive Extender v2 (AnandTech) Remote Access (UWHS) Server and Client Backup (UWHS) The new functionality and improvements to the basic Windows Home Server...

These are actually pretty funny! Starting today, two, 30-second Windows Home Server commercials will run for 3 months throughout 25 different shows that are aired on Hulu. The videos were created to be metaphors of Windows Home Server, and convey 2 of the key features – Backup and Recovery, and using it as a Media Server.In the 30-second clips, Windows Home Server is described as a “Genie in the Box” who magically works to keep your data safe, and in one central location.

This isn't a WHS-related post, but I'm throwing this out to Google as a vote for a specific solution to a specific problem. If you're trying to copy some really large files from an OSX user, ones that don't fit on a FAT32 volume, use HSFExplorer. To transfer large files from an OSX machine to Windows, if you don’t want to mess around with Bootcamp drivers: Copy large files from the OSX machine to an HSF-formatted USB disk Plug USB disk into your Windows machine Run HSFExplorer and locate...