Article

2004-07-23

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Posted by Fred 2004-07-23 10:42:53 PM|| || Front Page|| [11131 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 [John Cleese] I told you once. [/John Cleese]

Fred, your explanation is more than gracious but an apology is out of place. Anyone who participates here obviously appreciates your outstandingly open forum. I for one thank you, and will gladly toss in a belated hat-tip to .com for donating the new server.

Posted by Zenster 2004-07-23 12:13:32 AM|| 2004-07-23 12:13:32 AM|| Front Page Top

#2 Good thing it's a slow news week. I miss Fred's ascerbic wit and assorted drollery in the comments when he's gotta go tinkering around under the hood. (psst, Fred ... the arc welder is right behind you on the workbench; mind the sparks ... )

Posted by Seafarious 2004-07-23 12:25:13 AM|| 2004-07-23 12:25:13 AM|| Front Page Top

#3 Go to Apache and Chilisoft will run your ASP apps on Win platform.

IIS flat out sucks - there are no *good* reasons to use it.

They dont call it Internet Infection Server for nothing.

But my advice aside, thanks for all the work - be assured that at least one of us out here knows the pain you are working thru (I would never inflict IIS on my self ).

Posted by OldSpook 2004-07-23 12:31:52 AM|| 2004-07-23 12:31:52 AM|| Front Page Top

#4 As I heard one of our tech support guys say about IIS once, "it's like hanging your schmecker out an open window, and slamming the window shut."

Posted by Steve White 2004-07-23 12:38:02 AM|| 2004-07-23 12:38:02 AM|| Front Page Top

#5 Old Spook knows the deal.

Fred: Come on over to the dark side where the LAMP shines.

Posted by Classical_Liberal 2004-07-23 1:08:43 AM|| 2004-07-23 1:08:43 AM|| Front Page Top

#6 I say target the evil thing, then deny. If anybody sez anything then target them.

Posted by Lucky 2004-07-23 1:54:10 AM|| 2004-07-23 1:54:10 AM|| Front Page Top

#7 Why would anyone voluntarily use Windows and IIS unless they were required to by their job?

It's a stinky combination, horrible to administrate, unreliable, and full of security holes big enough to throw a MOAB through.

Posted by gromky 2004-07-23 4:06:06 AM|| 2004-07-23 4:06:06 AM|| Front Page Top

#8 Fred: Apologies unnecessary . . . and thanks again for all you do for us.

Posted by Mike 2004-07-23 6:44:03 AM|| 2004-07-23 6:44:03 AM|| Front Page Top

#9 You guys provide an assome service,your efforts are much apreciated.
Thank you.

Posted by raptor 2004-07-23 7:00:02 AM|| 2004-07-23 7:00:02 AM|| Front Page Top

#10 Fred I feel your pain but ISS is a train wreck. I hate to think how much you spent on W3K.
I have been running Linux since 1999 on my desktop I have lots of trust in it.
Thanks for all your work Fred. You'll get all the bugs you can worked out at some point. When I see the error messages I just ignore them :D

Posted by FlameBait93268 2004-07-23 7:11:08 AM|| 2004-07-23 7:11:08 AM|| Front Page Top

#11 At this point I'd switch to Apache, if all my links didn't point to ASP. I'm still trying to figure a way...

Posted by Fred 2004-07-23 7:24:28 AM|| 2004-07-23 7:24:28 AM|| Front Page Top

#12 ASP -> PHP converter?

Posted by Lux 2004-07-23 7:55:04 AM|| 2004-07-23 7:55:04 AM|| Front Page Top

#13 Fred,

Thanks for a great job and a great site.

Posted by Mr. Davis 2004-07-23 8:21:48 AM|| 2004-07-23 8:21:48 AM|| Front Page Top

#14 The problem's not so much rewriting all the pages as PHP, but changing the links. We're pushing 40,000 articles, and over 150,000 comments. I'm not going to go through each by hand!

Probably, at some point in the future, we'll just make the changeover and go without the internal links working until I replace all occurrences of ".asp" with ".php", checking each to ensure it points at a Rantburg article and not at Arab News or someplace like that.

I'll probably convert the data entry (editors, comments, guest poster, etc.) pages and maybe Thugburg this weekend. I don't write PHP code as naturally as I do ASP -- most of my customer are Microsoft-based -- but I guess practice will make perfect.

Next time I mod the server maybe I'll just put Red Hat on it and grumble at having to maintain it from Win platforms.

Posted by Fred 2004-07-23 8:34:15 AM|| 2004-07-23 8:34:15 AM|| Front Page Top

#15 A non-working, vulnerable site is worse than a site that works but has broken links in the archives. I never read old stuff, does anyone?

Posted by gromky 2004-07-23 8:46:33 AM|| 2004-07-23 8:46:33 AM|| Front Page Top

#16 I sometimes read the old stuff.

I won't pretend to know what Fred should do.

Maybe use the old server as something to experiment on, and leave this one running ASP?

Posted by Phil Fraering 2004-07-23 8:59:15 AM|| [http://newsfromthefridge.typepad.com] 2004-07-23 8:59:15 AM|| Front Page Top

#17 Fred, look into "Chilisoft" - its an app that will run ASP pages under Apache (and, as I recall, under Linux as well if you wanted to go for the full ride).

This would obviate the need to rewite all the .asp linkages.

Otherwise, just get the source files in one big directory and use a unix shell:

for f in 'ls *'; do
cat $f | sed -e 's/asp/php/g' >$f.changed
done;

muahaha!

(I know - way too simplistic but its one of the geek tricks I learned. Use it to change certain words in my files at work).

Posted by OldSpook 2004-07-23 9:05:21 AM|| 2004-07-23 9:05:21 AM|| Front Page Top

#18 I haven't been able to access this site for several days. I kept getting a page saying the site is being reconfigured. I am now logged on from work and am surprised to see that the site has been operational for those days. What gives?

Posted by Mike Sylwester 2004-07-23 10:37:24 AM|| 2004-07-23 10:37:24 AM|| Front Page Top

#19 never read old stuff, does anyone?

What? Hell yes I read the olde stuff. It reminds me of how brilliant I was just a year or two ago! :)
Seriously, I always read the 1 year and 2 year agos.

Posted by Shipman 2004-07-23 11:09:08 AM|| 2004-07-23 11:09:08 AM|| Front Page Top

#20 Shipman ... how brilliant I was ...Interesting use of the past tense.

Posted by Dragon Fly 2004-07-23 11:13:15 AM|| 2004-07-23 11:13:15 AM|| Front Page Top

#21 Mike,

Sounds like you got cached. We weren't down that long...

Posted by Fred 2004-07-23 11:39:06 AM|| 2004-07-23 11:39:06 AM|| Front Page Top

#22 My name is Matt, and I am a Rantburg addict.

Hellooo, Matt.

I understand that the server has to be down from time to time, but when it is, I keeping hitting the link, irrationally expecting Fred to have brought the server up in the last 5 seconds. I keep thinking, suppose the Seals lit bin Laden up like a Christmas tree just now? I might have to wait until the NYT runs the story ("Arab Man Dies As Bush Continues to Falter") or maybe watch it on Lou Dobbs ("Today the military hit a single man with 9768 rounds of .50 caliber ammunition. Halliburton's stock rose by a quarter of a point. Coincidence? We'll discuss that question with our panel blah blah blah."

Is help available?

Posted by Matt 2004-07-23 11:41:40 AM|| 2004-07-23 11:41:40 AM|| Front Page Top

#23 Hello Matt too. I'm with you as the other commenters here are talkin some strange dialect. Fred have you tried hitting the refresh button. Eventually it works.

Shipman, did you go race'n?

Posted by Lucky 2004-07-23 1:04:59 PM|| 2004-07-23 1:04:59 PM|| Front Page Top

#24 Hell, Mr. Fly you should have seen me in the 7th grade! :)

Im watching close Lucky, just saw Armstrong try his cannibal immitation!

Still have hope for Basso or maybe the heavy German gent will crank up the RPMs tomorrow, he's an ugly sucker but I'm rooting for him to finish on the podium.

Posted by Shipman 2004-07-23 1:14:11 PM|| 2004-07-23 1:14:11 PM|| Front Page Top

#25 LOL!
Forgot who I responding too.... ;)
7th Grade or what you might call UF grad skool. :)

Posted by Shipman 2004-07-23 1:15:20 PM|| 2004-07-23 1:15:20 PM|| Front Page Top

#26 Matt:

There is no cure, and you wouldn't want it if there was. Embrace your Rantburgness . . . become one with the 'Burg.

Posted by Mike 2004-07-23 1:16:21 PM|| 2004-07-23 1:16:21 PM|| Front Page Top

#27 Agreed: Apache/ChilisoftASP is a good pair. But if you just HAVE to run IIS, 6 is way better than 5, not that that's saying much. At least the app processing isn't in kernel space anymore - app pools in userland, where they belong...

Check out a nice ISAPI filter from eEye called SecureIIS, as well. Expensive, but worth it.

Posted by mojo 2004-07-23 2:43:17 PM|| 2004-07-23 2:43:17 PM|| Front Page Top

#28 I think secure and Microsoft product is an oxymoron.
Buying extra apps to toss on that steaming pile seems counter intuitive. Moving away from MS while having a learning curve seems top be a good thing if you have the time to devote to it.

Posted by FlameBait93268 2004-07-23 4:31:27 PM|| 2004-07-23 4:31:27 PM|| Front Page Top

#29 I can't figure out why Microsoft keeps making money hand over fist. I expect it has to do with hard radiation.

Posted by Shipman 2004-07-23 4:47:06 PM|| 2004-07-23 4:47:06 PM|| Front Page Top

#30 I can't figure out why Microsoft keeps making money

Because grandma can't use Linux.

Posted by Rafael 2004-07-23 7:12:01 PM|| 2004-07-23 7:12:01 PM|| Front Page Top

#31
My name is Matt, and I am a Rantburg addict.

You aren't alone, Matt. I missed about three days needlessly because of a cache catch, and I have been totally upset.

Posted by Mike Sylwester 2004-07-23 8:26:16 PM|| 2004-07-23 8:26:16 PM|| Front Page Top

#32
Here's proof of how upset I was:
I missed .com, I missed Badanov, I missed Jen, I missed Zhang Fei, I missed Frank G. ....
.

Posted by Mike Sylwester 2004-07-23 8:27:42 PM|| 2004-07-23 8:27:42 PM|| Front Page Top

#33
I missed Dog Bites TROLLS!
.

Posted by Mike Sylwester 2004-07-23 8:36:27 PM|| 2004-07-23 8:36:27 PM|| Front Page Top

#34 "... I missed Jen..."

You? Missed Jen? Oh, wow... That's some serious withdrawal. Isn't there a hotline you can call, or something?

For me, what was traumatic was having Roger Schultz (http://www.terpsboy.com/) give up on blogging on the same day Fred's server went tits-up in the gutter.

Bad shit, man; I even started rummaging around for my old Lizard Suit, in case I might need to re-join the minion at Little Green Footballs.

Posted by Dave D. 2004-07-23 8:45:20 PM|| 2004-07-23 8:45:20 PM|| Front Page Top

#35 I'm glad somebody did.

Posted by Pappy 2004-07-23 8:45:33 PM|| 2004-07-23 8:45:33 PM|| Front Page Top

#36 For you PHP freaks, heh...

Posted by .com 2004-07-23 11:16:54 PM|| 2004-07-23 11:16:54 PM|| Front Page Top

01:28 Sock Pupet of Doom
00:22 Cheemp Threemp7965
00:21 Cheemp Threemp7965
15:07 Brett_the_Quarkian
12:39 Lucky
10:38 Aris Katsaris
10:24 MacNails
09:25 Anonymous5089
03:20 Zenster
02:39 Super Hose
00:44 Super Hose
00:42 Super Hose
00:40 Lucky
00:37 Lucky
00:34 Lucky
00:26 Old Patriot
00:21 .com
00:16 Old Patriot
00:04 Stephen
23:43 .com
23:36 GreatestJeneration
23:28 Lucky
23:28 Old Patriot
23:27 Zenster