FromSMS - Turn your S60 device into SMS interface for your web application!

FromSMS - Turn your S60 device into SMS interface for your web application!: "When your web application needs to send and/or receive SMS messages cost-efficiently, FromSMS is the solution for you. FromSMS offers a simple HTTPS POST interface for sending of SMS messages - all you need is an S60 mobile device with free FromSMS Client installed."

Where to download merge modules for visual basic 6 SP6

If you follow the link above you can download all merge modules that ships with Visual Basic 6.0 and Visual C++ 6.0 - updated to SP6.

Where to find merge modules

Merge modules are nice to have when you create packages using common components. A good source for such merge modules can be found here.

How to install to other folders than default folder

From time to time you want to install your Advanced Installer MSI file to another folder than the default folder as specified in the project.

Except from installing the MSI file by hand and specifying where to install the application there are two other ways to change the install dir.

1. Install the application, specifying the target directory as the public property APPDIR. APPDIR is not listed as a public property, so you need to type it by hand.
2. Create a transform file using Orca, a tool from Microsoft. (An example on how to do so can be found here.) As the property is not listed you will need to create a new transform, go into the PROPERTIES table and then create a new property called APPDIR.

Good luck!

Codesmith template driven engine

CodeSmith is a software development tool to help you get your job done faster. Technically speaking it is a template driven source code generator that automates the creation of common application source code for any language (C#, Java, VB, PHP, ASP.NET, SQL, etc.).

If I ever go into software development this is a tool that I will look into.

Global Load balancing solutions

As I have received some questions about GLB I will try to answer some of them here.

What is Global Load Balancing?

Global load balancing is a concept where several data centers answers to a web site.

In its simplest form you can create a GLB by using DNS to point to the IP address of your different web sites. This way you can share the load between your data centers.

But often you want more. Today most modern GLB solution can give you more:

• Direct you to the closest data center (based on IP addresses). (Speed.)
• Make sure the data center is up and running before sending clients there. (Always up.)

And probably more as well.

Most load balancers, if not all, uses DNS to direct traffic. The GLB is basically a DNS server that checks the incoming request and makes intelligent decisions before returning an answer.

This page talks about why GLB does not work. I do not agree to everything on this page but you will have to make out your own mind.

What GLB is not

With GLB you only get the solution to distribute traffic between your data centers. You still have to solve database replication, how to maintain your files in sync and so forth.

Who are the players?

I have done some research and found these vendors. I have not tried any of the solutions, only read the product documentation. I am sure there are other players, but they are sometimes hard to find.

Player	Comment
F5 Big-IP GTM	The most expensive solution I have found. I have used F5 products before and they usually work well. You can only buy this as an appliance. You can choose to buy it as a GTM only or as a local traffic management (load balancer) with GTM on top.
Zeus ZXTM GLB	You can buy this as an appliance or as a VMWare image. Promises good performance, supports active-active data centers and you can make rules on how to route traffic.
Coyotepoint Envoy	Envoy is an add-on to their local load balancer appliance. That is - you need to buy everything from them. With Envoy you can create policies for traffic management.

CRM and IIS error 2148074242

IIS retuns 500 2148074242 when you access an MS CRM site.

When you try to connect to a Web site that is hosted on Microsoft Internet Information Services 6.0, Microsoft Internet Information Services 5.1, or Microsoft Internet Information Services 5.0, you may receive an error message that is similar to the following: Error 500: The function requested is not supported. Additionally, you may receive entries that are similar to the following in the Extended W3C log: 18:59:54 127.0.0.1 GET /localstart.asp 500 2148074242

The solution is found here.

Fortigate and SNMP graphs are broken

For some time I have suspected that Fortigate firewalls does not return the right SNMP value for traffic statistics on VLAN interfaces.

I asked Fortinet support. This is the answer I got:

Actually this is due to NP2 accelerated traffic. Only part of this traffic is seen by the main CPU (mainly the first and last packets of the session) and therefore traffic statistics for vlan interfaces can only report these packets which are seen by the main CPU.

Statistics on physical ports and aggregate ports are correctly collected because these are low-level statistics. Many vlan interfaces can be bound to the same physical or aggregate port. So, dispatching traffic statistics between these vlan can only be done if the traffic goes through the main CPU.

FortiOS allows to disable NP2 acceleration (for tests purposes). As soon as NP2 acceleration is disabled then statistics on vlan interfaces is consistent with the actual traffic.

There is no way to collect these statistics from the NP2. It can't be fixed.

My question is why support SNMP when it is broken???

Online service manuals for cars and boats

Have you ever needed handbooks, service manuals, blueprints or other documentation for your favorite car or boat? Original documentation is hard to get, at least for newer engines. DIY is an acronym for do it yourself.

For cars, Haynes books have been around for some years now. And probably some other books.

Luckily for all of us that don't want to wait forever for books to arrive there are some online sites that gives you exactly what you want. You have to pay for it as a subscription, instead of a one time fee as books are.

Site	Content
ALLData DIY	Online content for cars
Seloc online	A sea of information. Seloc Online is the most comprehensive database tool available for do-it-yourself repairs! Our database of marine engine repair offers complete service procedures, wiring diagrams, maintenence schedules, specifications, parts database, a marine dealer locator and much more.