If you are reading this you have probably realized that installing an MSI on Server 2008 has gotten more difficult. This is due to some UAC stuff and is pretty thoroughly discussed here.
Basically to get the extensions installed takes a few steps:
- If UAC is enabled, you will need to disable and reboot. This can be done from cmd line via: C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe /k %windir%\System32\reg.exe ADD
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System /v
EnableLUA /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f
- If you have run the Security Configuration Wizard, I would hazard to guess that you will probably need to run it again and roll back to a period prior to originally running the wizard. Otherwise, your guess is as good as mine as to what you will need to adjust. I just rolled back, installed and then reapplied.
- And here is the really odd part. Run the MSI from the command line. I don't know why this works, but it does. Change to the directory that has your Ajax Extensions MSI and run this: msiexec /i ASPAJAXExtSetup.msi /l*v c:\Package.log Substitute c:\package.log for the location and name of the install log that you want.
- After it installs you should probably turn UAC back on with this: C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe /k %windir%\System32\reg.exe ADD
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System /v
EnableLUA /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f
It took me a few hours to accidentally discover this, but I am glad to know it and share now.
Today I had to add a bunch of IP addresses to my public facing servers. The first one I did manually and let me tell you, it gets old real quick. So I did a quick Google search and came up with this:
netsh interface ip add address "Local Area Connection" 192.168.0.1 255.255.255.0
Where "Local Area Connection" is the name of your adapter and 192.168.0.1 is one of the IPs you are wanting to add. 255.255.255.0 is the subnet mask for the IP you are adding.
Just make a quick copy of that in notepad, change the IPs to what you want and then copy and paste into a cmd prompt window. TADA, it will start adding your IPs to the interface.
Quick, easy and clean.
Gotta love it.
Again, I'm still reading through Exodus and this morning this really jumped out at me. Ex 33:11
The LORD would speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks with his friend.
Moses had such a strong relationship with God, that God called him His friend. He spoke to him as a friend.
Moses says to God "Now show me your glory." And God does it, God tells Moses that he can't see His face or he will die, but God lets Moses see Him.
And the LORD said, "I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of
you, and I will proclaim my name, the LORD, in your presence. I will
have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on
whom I will have compassion. 20 But," he said, "you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live."
Stacy brought up a great point about how in verse 11 Moses and God are speaking face to face and how in verse 20 God says Moses can't see His face. One thing I love about God and His word is that I don't have to understand everything, cause it keeps giving me something new to learn.
Moses even questioned God on numerous occasions.
12Then Moses said to the LORD, "See, You say to me, '(R)Bring up this people!' But You Yourself have not let me know (S)whom You will send with me (T)Moreover, You have said, 'I have known you by name, and you have also found favor in My sight.'
13"Now therefore, I pray You, if I have found favor in Your sight, (U)let me know Your ways that I may know You, so that I may find favor in Your sight (V)Consider too, that this nation is Your people."
So how is your relationship with God? Are you close enough to be called His friend? Do you listen to Him? Do you allow Him to speak to you? Can you ask Him questions? I'm not saying you should treat God as if He is an old college buddy, you still need to treat Him with reverence. Remember, He is not a tame God.
I'm having my quiet time this morning and reading Exodus 28, when near the end I read this:
It shall be on Aaron when he ministers; and its tinkling shall be heard
when he enters and leaves the holy place before the LORD, so that he
will not die.
OK, my first thought was, "heh, God said tinkling". Shouldn't He use a more manly, awesome word than tinkling? But then, when you're talking about bells the size of a dime, I guess they would make a tinkling sound.
This just to say God is true and accurate. If the bells make a tinkling sound, that is the word God will use. If they make a gong sound then that is what He will use. We have to keep our thoughts and impressions of what the bible "should" say out of our study/quiet time. We have to read His word and let it tell us what it says. We have to use exegesis to truly understand what God is saying to us.
So remember, God is bigger than any box you or I want to put Him in. He can use the word tinkling to describe little bell sounds. He can take care of us in ways we can't even imagine. He loves each one of us individually. How awesome is that? The creator of EVERYTHING loves you and me, not only collectively, but individually.
And since it is running through my head right now:
God is bigger than the boogyman, and He's watching out for you and me. 
Over the past couple of days I have spent about 3 hours trying to get SQL Server 2005 installed on a new PC. The basic install process was going well until time to start the service and every time the service would fail. Checking the event log I was able to find this error: Microsoft SQL Server 2005 -- Error 29503. Of course the built in MS help wasn't. But I was able to find an old post about SQL 2005 not installing on AMD K6-2 processors because the processors use an instruction set that SQL can't understand.
So I'm not sure exactly what is happening here, but I would assume that we have a similar occurance here.
I used to love AMD, but this really gives me grief. I see that the original issue was probably a problem with MS, but three years later and this is AMD's problem. I'm sure they knew about this instruction set problem and should have tested better to prevent it in the future.
I recently had an issue with one of the sites that I manage getting hit with a SQL injection attack. ARG!!! What a pain in the butt!! Fortunately Steve Schofield had posted some great info about closing down the attack surface here and here. After a little bit of work cleaning all the injected crud out of the DB all was back up and running in just about 2 or 3 hours of work. Many thanks to Steve for his help.
But, now to the real point of this post. If you are like me in this case and run a website and webmail from the same IIS server if you use URLScan and add the SQL injection rule you will find that your SmarterMail webmail starts to have problems.
I made the mistake (kinda) of applying URLScan to the entire IIS server and letting it trickle down to all sites on the server. Obviously for attack prevention this is the best way, but it did cause the problem with SmarterMail. So, my first idea was to adjust the rule to allow the text that URLScan was blocking. After having to do this a couple of times I started to worry that I was leaving too many wholes in the URLScan filter.
Then I had the better idea, I just removed the URLScan filter from the SmarterMail site in IIS and put the removed rules back in place in URLScan. I don't have to worry about SQL injection on SmarterMail since it doesn't integrate with SQL. Another alternative would be to have a second URLScan instance on the server and customize the filter to work with SmarterMail. I'd have to really think hard on this, but with the right situation it might be better to have a dedicated instance of URLScan for each site that you run. This would allow you to completely "tweek" your filter to block everything but what that specific site needs. Obviously on a large scale this does add alot of overhead, but it might be mitigated because your security is tighter and you are less likely to need to spend time fixing problems.
This next post was supposed to be the second post about Gideon, but on Sunday, George Carlin died. In case you don't know he was 71 and died of a heart attack.
If you've read my blog for any amount of time you know that I am a Christian, but I still loved Carlin's comedy. He was over the top many times and I'm sure he could have toned down his language a bit, but the ideas he had were just classic. He had a bit on "stuff" that is my all-time favorite. I'll link to it at the end.
This bit on stuff kind of exemplifies how I see stuff in our lives. We all have way too much of it. I taught a lesson a couple of years ago on stewardship that centered on the fact that God gives us stuff to take care of and use for the benefit of His people. How are we doing on that? Do you horde your stuff just for yourself, or do you use your stuff to bless others? Remember that when you bless others, you too will be blessed in return.
Carlin dying makes me feel old today.
Goodbye George.
Why do bad things happen to good people? This seems to be one of the most often asked questions, both from Christians and non-Christians.
Let's skip the whole "none of us is truly good, only God is good" part of that question and assume that good in this question means that we are in general at least 75% good, haven't murdered anyone, have been faithful to our spouse, etc... Additionally as Christians, most of us tend to forget the whole "If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me." That in and of itself shows that we will not necessarily live wonderful lives.
Stacy was reading to Emily a couple of days ago and reminded me of the story of Gideon. I'd like to use this as one example where God has let bad things happen to "good" people. The story of Gideon starts in Judges 6, but I'd like to backup a little and start with Judges 5:31.
Thus let all Your enemies perish, O LORD; But let those who love Him be like the rising of the sun in its might." And the land was undisturbed for forty years.
The land was undisturbed for forty years. Hmmm, that indicates two things. The first that there was disturbance prior to this passage. Specifically the land of Canaan ruled Israel for 20 years, but God used Deborah and Barak to deliver Israel from the Canaanites. The second thing this passage indicates is that the land is now disturbed again. Darn it, here we go again. Following this we have Judges 6:1& 2.
1Then the sons of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the LORD; and the LORD gave them into the hands of Midian seven years.
2The power of Midian prevailed against Israel. Because of Midian the sons of Israel made for themselves the dens which were in the mountains and the caves and the strongholds.
The people of Israel had messed up yet again. They were worshiping Baal and Asherah AGAIN. God had told them time and again not to worship any other gods. They just had a hard time getting this one write. (Not that we as a society have any problems worshiping false idols.) Can you imagine being so scared of a huge band of marauders, approximately 132,000 men on camels, that you leave your home and go to live in caves??? The Midianites would sweep through Israel at harvest time and take all the crops, as well as any livestock the Israelites had managed to get. The people were poor, scared, hungry and finally calling out to God for help.
So, why does God allow bad things to happen to good people. I would argue, and I know I am not the first nor will I be the last, God allows bad things to happen to us so that we will call out to Him. We will call out to Him to save us from our current predicament. We will search Him out and love Him. We will turn back to Him. God loves us, both individually and corporately.
Do all bad things happen because we're not obeying God? No. That is not to say that God is not in control of everything, He is. Rather, some bad things happen to us because God has a purpose that we may not even see.
What do we do about this? If some things happen because we have fallen away from God and He is trying to get our attention but other things happen because He has a plan and this is just a cog in that plan, how do we respond? The first response is to take a look at your relationship with God. Are you right with Him? Do you love Him with your whole heart? Are you obeying His rules? If your answer to those questions is yes, then He may be using you as part of His plan. You may need to learn something or He may be teaching someone else something through you. He may be preparing you for another task later. Pray, pray that He will reveal to you what your role is. Not, "Why is this happening to me?" Pray, "Lord, what do I need to know to accomplish your task for me?" I recommend this as a perfect time to grow closer to Him. We can never be too close to God. Pray that He will reveal Himself to you. Not so that you will know why, but rather so that you will know Him.
We have an amazing God. He created everything, the heavens and the earth, yet He loves each of us individually. That is stupifing to me. Make sure you tell Him you love Him too.
I just spent the past 3 hours reading (or at least glurging through) every RSS post from Alexander Muse's blog texasstartupblog.com. Why am I posting this??? I don't know, it just seemed like the thing to do. If you haven't read his blog he has some interesting advice for would be entrepeneurs and also some just plain funny posts. I highly recommend checking it out.
Next up Chris Havard's blog. He's been writing about the book of Act's and has some great insight.
Please excuse the photos on the site. We use Shutterfly to store pictures and link to and we discovered tonight that they have changed the way images are available. It appears that only thumbnails are able to be linked to so now we'll be transferring all of our pictures to a different site. That could take a little while so please forgive the mess of images for a little bit till we get everything straight.
We also print pictures from Shutterfly, a paid service, but not anymore.
Bad on you Shutterfly, bad on you.
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