Problem:

You just received your brand new Vista 64 bit machine and you try to develop an Asp.Net application using IIS 7. The error "is not a valid Win32 application" is displayed.

Solution:

Open a command window and paste this in:

cscript %SystemDrive%\inetpub\AdminScripts\adsutil.vbs set w3svc/AppPools/Enable32bitAppOnWin64 1



Google Credits:

http://www.cassidy.dk/blog/sitecore/2008/06/is-not-valid-win32-application.html

http://www.eggheadcafe.com/articles/20050417.asp

To replace text in multiple files in PowerShell:


$localPath = $dirPath
cd $localPath
$files = dir * -Include *.Master
foreach ( $file in $files )
{
$path = $file.fullname
$text = [System.IO.File]::ReadAllText($path)
$new = $text.Replace("vs:Form", "form")
Set-Content $path -Value $new
}

Test post....

So I've read some semi-interesting things on speech recognition software, and have wanted to experiment with it. When I fired up my latest favorite browser tonight I was told a new version was available. I downloaded it and quickly glanced through the new features, noticing something called Opera Voice, which promised to read to me!

I couldn't resist, and ran out to Best Buy and bought a "Premium Stereo Headset" by Logitech. (This is where a real blogger, one who really cared about his three readers, would find the actual model and supply a link.) Now while surfing or reading blogs with Google Reader, I can simply highlight some text, hold down my Scroll Lock key, and order, "Opera, speak"! I tend to say this sternly, like I'm talking to a big I think might follow my orders, but I found out I don't need all that when my wife calmly stated the same command in her normal speaking voice. So now I can get a bunch of reading done on the web while resting my eyes, and I even understand most of what the Opera guy is saying. Click here for a sample of that Opera guy reading one of Scott Hanselman's recent posts on home networking. The real, live Opera guy sounds even better, given that I used Windows Sound Recorder to capture the audio.

Asp.Net Validators Gotcha

Today I was working with an Asp.Net 2.0 Web Project. I debugged the javascript with firebug, looked at the web.configs, and finally figured it out. I was using the "New in Asp.Net 2.0" property ValidationGroup, and failed to indicate the group on the button.

If you ever surf the web, then you probably know the feeling of following links around, with each destination more interesting than the previous, until, after a half hour, or maybe longer (on good days) you think to yourself, "What the hell was I doing anyway?". Well I thought I'd quickly share my last link journey (can it really be called that, I only have 4 links).

I started reading some blogs, which may be, by the way, the laziest, least effective, but most interesting way to be a better programmer. And interestingly enough, the last link on this post is also how my journey started. In reading a recent post of Mr. Hanselman he linked to a Google search. The top two results of said search both were, surprisingly enough, links to posts by Mr. Hanselman himself. (Do you think he realized that, when he provided the link?) I digress.

The first result of said search was this post, which had a link to here. The post Scott linked to was enjoyable, but it linked to a great article, and it seems like these deep dives into the web always involve Paul Graham. What does that say about me? Among other things, it may mean that I have similar values to Mr. Graham, minus the love of Lisp, the ambition, the money, and probably the intelligence and writing skills as well.

Tonight I'm back on my machine, playing around a little with IronRuby, Microsoft's recently released (Pre-Alpha) ruby implementation. I just downloaded the source, (yes I said source; it's being released under Microsoft's Permissive Licence), opened the solution, and built.

Here's a screen shot of IronRuby's version of irb, called rbx.exe, an interactive Ruby shell. Notice the class return is 'mutable string', whereas in Ruby the class would just be string. I'm guessing they're avoiding name conflicts with the .Net strings, which are, of course, immutable. From John Lam's blog,

"In micro-benchmarks which measure method call performance, we are significantly faster than Ruby 1.8.6. In micro-benchmarks which measure library performance, we are on par with Ruby 1.8.6; we expect to see performance improvements in these benchmarks in the future."

In somewhat related news, Digg has abandoned Google for its online ad service, and chosen a young, innovative upstart, Microsoft. Read the gory details.


I'm not sure, but I think I actually feel good about being a Microsoft developer, at least for the moment. Weird...