Software piracy has been a problem from the earliest days of Microsoft. When they developed Altair BASIC, only about 10% of its users bought the software. The rest pirated it.

Bill Gates wrote a letter to the Altair community on February 3, 1976, explaining the need for buying software instead of just copying it. His arguments are very good and still apply to today’s software industry.

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NeatUpload will not work by default when used with Windows 2008 Server. Like many other web applications that you install from earlier Windows servers, you need to make modifications to the web.config file.

First of all, you need to make sure that the component is installed properly. This procedure is described in its documentation. Then you need to make the following change (in bold) in web.config:

<httpModules>
     <remove name="ScriptModule" />
     <add name="ScriptModule" type="System.Web.Handlers.ScriptModule, System.Web.Extensions, Version=3.5.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35"/>
     <add name="UploadHttpModule" type="Brettle.Web.NeatUpload.UploadHttpModule, Brettle.Web.NeatUpload" />
</httpModules>

The component should function normally now. You can read the post on the Brettle web site where this question was answered by Dean Brettle.

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A web site created with Visual Web Developer 2008 Express Edition will not work in Windows 2008 Server. The web.config file needs to be modified in order for the web site to run correctly.

For an ASP.NET Web Site (.NET 3.5), make the following changes:

1. In <configSections>, add comments around scriptResourceHandler:

   <!–
   <section name="scriptResourceHandler" type="System.Web.Configuration.ScriptingScriptResourceHandlerSection, System.Web.Extensions, Version=3.5.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35" requirePermission="false" allowDefinition="MachineToApplication"/>
   –>

2. Again, in <configSections> in the scriptResourceHandler section, place comments around jsonSerialization, profileService, and authenticationService:

   <!–
   <section name="jsonSerialization" type="System.Web.Configuration.ScriptingJsonSerializationSection, System.Web.Extensions, Version=3.5.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35" requirePermission="false" allowDefinition="Everywhere" />
   <section name="profileService" type="System.Web.Configuration.ScriptingProfileServiceSection, System.Web.Extensions, Version=3.5.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35" requirePermission="false" allowDefinition="MachineToApplication" />
   <section name="authenticationService" type="System.Web.Configuration.ScriptingAuthenticationServiceSection, System.Web.Extensions, Version=3.5.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35" requirePermission="false" allowDefinition="MachineToApplication" />
   –>

3. In <system.web> in <httpModules>, place comment around ScriptModule:

   <!–
   <add name="ScriptModule" type="System.Web.Handlers.ScriptModule, System.Web.Extensions, Version=3.5.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35"/>
   –>

The web.config file will now work in Windows 2008 Server. You can download a fixed web.config file and replace the old file when you create a new web application.

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I’ve been trying to view .htaccess files in a web site connected to remotely in Eclipse. These do not appear in file listings so they can’t be opened. I’ve added an .htaccess file type, but that didn’t work. After searching around in the Preferences (found in the Windows pull down menu), I found an option in the Remote Systems->File section. If you check on Show hidden files, then .htaccess will appear (you may need to Refresh the folder first). Then you can open the file by double-clicking on it.

I’ve shown below where this option can be found in Eclipse 3.3.2 and the new Zend Studio for Eclipse. Click on the image for a larger view.

Preferences in Eclipse 3.3.2

Preferences in Zend Studio for Eclipse

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The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) will now be in control of Adobe’s Portable Document Format (PDF). The new standard, ISO 32000-1, Document management - Portable document format - Part 1: PDF 1.7, is not only an excessively long name but its also based on version 1.7 of PDF.

The PDF format was created in 1993 and has become the standard format for creating documents for viewing and printing. The format does have several problems. Fonts that require a licence do not get embedded in a PDF which causes all sorts of problems when trying to print the document. Instead of the correct font appearing, it will default to Courier instead. Colour separation and colour matching are also difficult to do in a PDF.

There are many PDF creators and viewers, but the only ones that really work properly are Adobe’s products. I haven’t used anything displays documents as accurately as Acrobat Reader, and Acrobat Distiller still produces the cleanest PDF’s.

All of this may change with the ISO standardization.

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