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Page Contents
(8/18/2008) A New Hacker Problem
(1/3/2008) A New Year's Resolution You Need To Make
(7/17/2007) About Blogging
(6/2/2008) Adobe Enters Online Sharing Competition
(7/17/2007) Affiliate Marketing
(10/27/2006) Alabama Code Camp III Presentation--Sending Email From Your Windows or Web App
(7/17/2007) Alternative Payments and Discounting Strategies
(9/11/2008) Another Big Email Scam Hits--Don't Be A Sucker
(3/12/2007) ASP.NET Uses Wrong Browser
(6/30/2006) ASP.NET 2.0 Validation Error
(7/12/2006) ASP.NET 2.0 Parser Error: The type xxxx.Global is ambiguous
(5/8/2008) Before You Download That MP3 File Read This
(1/11/2008) Beware The New Mebroot Virus
(7/5/2007) Beware Trojan.Kardphisher Windows "Hacktivation" Program
(12/16/2006) Buying A New Computer?--Here's What You Should Know
(8/1/2007) Cannot Copy Parameter is Incorrect Error
(10/17/2008) Congratulations To The Folks Who Got DarkMarket
(7/17/2007) Email Marketing For Your Business
(8/10/2008) Error BC30002: Type 'MyDllName' Is Not Defined.
(5/30/2008) EU Plan Calls For Speed-up To IPv6
(3/13/2007) File-folder Thumbnails In Vista--Gone?
(8/1/2008) Google--Complete Privacy Doesn't Exist
(7/17/2007) Growing Your Business
(3/3/2008) Huntsville Code Camp--Feb 2008
(9/26/2007) IE 7 Problems
(4/8/2008) Kraken BotNet Is New And Wide-Spread
(7/17/2007) Log Analysis
(7/10/2008) Microsoft Patch Problems With ZoneAlarm
(2/21/2008) Microsoft Makes Major Announcement
(1/25/2007) Microsoft Releases ASP.NET AJAX Version 1.0
(12/4/2008) Mouse (or Keyboard) Stopped Working Properly
(7/17/2007) Other Ways to Sell Your Software
(2/14/2007) Patch Tuesday Fixes 20 Security Holes
(12/29/2008) Running Vista On Your Notebook?
(7/21/2006) SBS Suddenly Lost Connection From ISA to IIS and Gives Error Code 64R
(11/11/2007) Secure Your WIFI Network--Kill Your WEP
(5/11/2007) Secure Your Wireless Network
(9/11/2006) Small Business Server 2003 Configuration For Multiple Websites
(5/13/2008) So You Think Your Password Is Secure...Check This Out
(7/17/2007) Taking Google AdWords To Next Levels
(4/16/2007) There's A Software And Computer Revolution Underway
(4/8/2008) Thinking of Buying A Printer? Here's A Suggestion
(7/17/2007) Upgrades or Rebilling--How To Create A Service Product and Win Recurring Revenue
(4/13/2007) Upgrade To Vista
(8/4/2008) Using Twitter And Like Porn--Read This
(7/17/2007) Using PodCasting - Blogging - NewsLetters To Help Your Business
(1/24/2008) Visual Studio 2008 Is Loaded--Here's My Recommendation On How To Do It
(1/3/2007) Writing A Windows Service
(7/17/2007) Your MicroISV
(5/30/2007) Your Domain Name


Running Vista On Your Notebook?

(12/29/2008)  If you're like me--and lots of people are--you've long since embraced a notebook as your main computer. And for whatever reason you may be running Vista. So here's something you should know.

Over the Christmas holidays while I was out of town and just sitting around, I was using my notebook and doing some programming. OK, what I was doing was stretching the Microsoft envelope and maybe I went a bit too far at that. Or, maybe not...I may never know for sure. What I do know is that the machine suddenly locked up--not uncommon when you're doing the kind of programming I was--and had to be restarted. That's when I hit the real problem.

It didn't reboot.

Instead it gave me the Vista equivalent of a "blue screen of death." It told me my registry was missing or corrupt. But it assured me that if I just plugged in my Vista disk and restarted with it, the system could repair itself. Oh, sure, and where was my Vista disk? About 200 miles away.

Fortunately, I was able to borrow someone else's Vista disk and sure enough, after a couple of hours of work it did come back to life...not for the computer neophyte or the faint of heart. It lost its trust arrangement with my network--I didn't know that until I got back to the office--and my C# program was missing...but that was a minor loss compared to having to restore the entire machine.

So here's my recommendation to you, find a machine with 2 DVD units, one a reader. Make yourself a copy and store it in your computer case so you can "repair" your machine if you need it.

P.S.I'm sorry you guys in Redmond, but if you're going to require that disk to do a repair, this is a legitimate need for a copy--not for piracy. And if you want to sue me for this advice, rest assured we will go before a jury to decide the question...how do you think they'll vote?

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Mouse (or Keyboard) Stopped Working Properly

(12/4/2008)  Lately I added a new wireless keyboard to my main development and work computer. Redmond markets this particular keyboard only with a wireless mouse, but I didn't want the wireless mouse so I just didn't plug it in. (I use a Kensington "Pro" track ball--costs about $100 if you can find one--and as long as it lasts I'll not give it up.)

Things went well with this until about a month had gone by. When we returned from our annual Turkey-day pilgrimage, the mouse suddenly became erratic, then stopped working. You could move the mouse cursors around, but when you clicked a button nothing happened. Very frustrating. Not my track ball plugs into the USB port, so my first thought was that I would unplug it and the touch unit on the notebook would get me through until I had time to work with the problem...nope. That "mouse" did the same thing. So I was forced to work on the problem--that took a couple of hours because it's very difficult now to do anything when your mouse doesn't work...try it some time. I want to point out that I was able to generate a same problem with a change of keyboard, so either device falls subject to the same real problem here.

I did a couple of web searches for the problem...no use to reinvent the wheel, right? I saw a number of people with the problem, but I stopped before I searched very long. I was pretty sure I knew what to do and I was right. Here's a thumbnail of what's happening and it will be the same answer whether you're on XP, Server 200n, or any Vista version--32 or 64-bit. You have a driver installed--in my case a Microsoft driver for the wireless mouse--and it's screwing up how the operating system interacts with the actual mouse (or keyboard) you're using. It's that simple.

To get rid of the problem, you have to "uninstall" the "device" from Windows.

Say what? It's not installed.

Yes, but as long as the driver is there and registered, the OS "thinks" the device is there. Some hardware is more "intelligent" and the system can tell it's not really there. A mouse or keyboard is pretty "dumb" and the OS can't determine much detail about what is actually going on.

How to fix it? You need to get to Device Manager. In older systems, i.e., XP, my suggestion is to open the control panel, find the system icon, and double-click it. Now, you'll see what I meant about working without a functioning mouse. Use the arrow keys and the Enter key to navigate around. It's slow, but you can do it. Find hardware and "click" (ha, ha) that button that says Device Manager. In Vista and later versions, open the control panel and select the "Device Manager" icon. Next, look down the list for the hardware in trouble--"Keyboards" or "Mice and other pointing devices." Click the little plus-mark to open the tree and if you see more than one device, you'll know you're on the right track. If you see 2 or more other devices, you may need to repeat the following step, including the reboot, for each device. Notice that if you only see an HID-compliant mouse or an HID Keyboard Device, you're probably barking up the wrong tree and this isn't going to help you. Still, you can find out quickly enough without much risk of screwing anything up, so you may want to try it anyway while you're here...just to see how it hits your problem.

Select the device you don't have...in my case that was a "Microsoft Wireless Mouse." Select "Properties" option. Get to the "Driver" tab. Select the "Uninstall" button, "click" the OK button when warned about what you're about to do. Click the check box to uninstall the driver and say "OK."

Reboot...can't be helped. Sorry. Just do it.

That should do the trick for you and your mouse or keyboard should function OK.

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Congratulations To The Folks Who Got DarkMarket

(10/17/2008)  All over the web--well, almost all over the web--there should be a cry of thanks and of congratulations to the FBI and other law enforcement people who helped bust DarkMarket.

DarkMarket, an international by-invitation-only forum where credit card details and banking logon information were freely traded has been shut down. Some 60 people associated with DarkMarket were arrested in London, Manchester, Germany, Turkey, and the U.S. Other raids are in progress and there will, almost certainly, be follow-up arrests.

The Serious Organized Crime Agency (SOCA) of the FBI worked on the sting for 2 years--infiltrating the site and gathering evidence.

You may wonder what sets DarkMarket and a few others like it apart...after all, you can find hundreds of criminal-activity-laden sites just by hitting your favorite search engine. Most or maybe all of those will be full of con men trying to take your money. The serious, organized-crime sites operate on a by-invitation-only basis. You have to make your reputation as a "serious, honest criminal" who can be trusted by the crooks before you can wrangle such an invitation.

In case you still don't quite get it...imagine you went to use your credit card and were refused because it has been maxed out. It and all your others. New accounts have been opened in your name and they're running up quickly. Oh, and your checking and savings accounts are empty, too. That would hurt. Right? That could well have been a DarkMarket operation.

So, thanks to the FBI and friends. Congratulations on a job well done. Now go get some more of 'em.

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Another Big Email Scam Hits--Don't Be A Sucker

(9/11/2008)  P.T. Barnum was right..."There's a sucker born every minute." The latest thing to prove this adage is an email with the subject, "Barack Obama sex story with girls." The email looks as if it came from "obamasex@obama.com." It didn't.

The email tells you, "Sensation!!! United States Senator for Illinois Barack Obama in 2007 was travel to Ukraine and have sex action with many Ukrainian girls! You may view this private porno in a flash video. Download and view now."

If you are dumb enough--and lots of people seem to be suckers--to click on it, you'll go to a website in Finland and you'll pull down what's called a key-logger. It logs your keystrokes looking for ID/password, etc. and sends it to a site in Finland.

So, don't be stupid enough to get duped. The virus you'll load on your computer could cost you lots of time and, of course what they really want is...money!

In short, no matter if your mom sends it to you, don't open any attachment if you're not absolutely sure of the original source. Ever. Period.

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A New Hacker Problem

(8/18/2008)  The hackers have come up with a new trick. This time they use a Flash advertisement--the kind found on many websites--to take control of your clipboard. All known browsers are affected--FireFox, IE, Safari, all of them.

You click on the advertisement and it grabs the clipboard and puts its own link in. It also sets itself up in an endless loop to clear the clipboard and reinsert itself--that makes it very hard to stop.

The link you're carried to, ironically, tries to sell you fake security software.

If you're hit by this new tactic, perhaps the easiest and safest way to rid yourself of it is just to reboot your machine.

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Error BC30002: Type 'MyDllName' Is Not Defined.

(8/10/2008)  I've hit an interesting "fluke"--we call these bugs here but I'm sure they call it something else in Washington State--working with Visual Studio 2008. I've never seen it come up in Visual Studio 2005, and I'm still not certain about the exact cause of it, but here it is. I have a number of well-tried-and-true dynamic link libraries (DLLs) that I've built over the years. I use them in lots of different places--web pages, windows forms, etc. So here I was building a new website using VS2K8. I included the DLLs I wanted using the good old "Add Reference" menu option. Everything went as expected and after I got rid of a couple of minor problems, it ran with zero errors or warnings. All looked good. I right-clicked on my ASP.NET code and said to "Show in browser." It came up and looked exactly as it should have using the local dev-box server and I was happy.

We use a simple method to publish--some may not like it, but that's OK. We copy the entire project, including our precompiled site, to the server and let it run from there. (That gives us a quick, simple, backup of what's on the dev boxes. Then when both are backed up and some other copies are made we're pretty much disaster ready.) So I did that as I always do. Then I went to IIS. (It's a Windows Server 2003 product using IIS 6.) I navigated to the new page and set properties on it so it would run--same way we always do it. While I was there, I checked that things would work by right-clicking on the new "site" and then clicking on the "browse" option. Sure enough, it showed up just as it should have.

I went back to the dev box to tweak and polish the new page. I pulled up IE7 and entered the appropriate URL to bring up the new page. WHAM! That's when I discovered the problem. I got "Error BC30002: Type 'MyDllName' Is Not Defined."

I went back to the server and IIS--still browsed OK there. So, thinking maybe my network had a problem, I flipped back to the dev box and ran PingBats. That showed no network problems. I check my ability to get to other pages on my existing website--no problems. (Thank God.) I went back to the server and opened IE7 there--ERROR BC30002.

After trying lots of things I thought might fix it, I went searching on the Microsoft site for an answer. No luck. The DLLs were in the new page's BIN directory, I made certain they were all registered on the server, I tried new "<%@" directives in my ASPX code, I tried Imports (same as Inherits) lines, I tried lots of "stuff." I've been at this for many years, so I know lots of stuff to try, but none of it worked. What I learned was that I could easily duplicate the problem--all I had to do was build a new website in VS2K8.

Grasping at straws, I finally hit on a way to make the thing work. I went into IIS and defined a "new virtual directory" using the name for the new webpage and pointing to it. Then, I went to IIS and polished the settings for my "virtual directory site." (If you've never done this before, you'll notice that the new "virtual directory" page shows up as a separate entry in IIS. I'll advise you to take a look at it before you leave.) And you know what? That fixed it. Suddenly I can browse to the new web page from my dev box, across the internet...from everywhere and anywhere.

Now, my position is that this shouldn't be necessary. But that's what I found. I hope it will help you, too.

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Using Twitter And Like Porn--Read This

(8/4/2008)  Are you all a Twitter? If you are, be careful of a message that says it links to a porn video. It doesn't. It's a phishing scam.

The fake Twitter payload actually downloads a version of Adobe Flash and that, in turn, installs programs to steal your data. The method isn't new, but so far as we know, it's the first such attack on Twitter, the micro-blogging spot.

The fake profile only attacks the majority of users--it is written to target Windows-based machines.

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Google--Complete Privacy Doesn't Exist

(8/1/2008)  "Complete privacy doesn't exist."

That's a quote from Google...just in case you're one of those they-can't-do-any-wrong folks. The company is defending its Street View mapping tool in court where lots of people, including some leading Democratic politicians, just don't seem to agree with the company.

Aaron and Christine Boring sued Google when pictures of their Pennsylvania home showed up on Street Maps. The company's response to that suit contains this fabulous argument that, "Complete privacy doesn't exist." You can see the entire thing on The Smoking Gun website. [That's in case you're having trouble getting off to sleep.]

Google responded that there are privacy safeguards built into all their products, including Street Maps. The couple could have chosen to simply remove their house from the database, but chose to sue instead.

But just to add a little evidence, those who oppose Google's attitude took less than 30 minutes to compile a ton of information about an un-named Google executive. They included auto license plate numbers, the landscaping company the exec uses, and the name of the next-door neighbor's security company--all in under 30 minutes.

So remember, "Complete privacy doesn't exist."

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Microsoft Patch Problems With ZoneAlarm

(7/10/2008)  It was "Patch Tuesday" for Microsoft and, as often happens, they put out a number of new patches which have been downloaded by millions.

Problems arose, however, for many who were using the popular ZoneAlarm firewall product on Windows XP and 2000 machines. After applying the latest patches they couldn't get online because one of the latest patches (KB951748) fixed a security vulnerability in the Domain Name System (DNS).

If you have the problem, you are advised to uninstall the Microsoft path or temporarily lower your ZoneAlarm settings to "Medium." Then download and update the July 9 ZoneAlarm version 7.0.483. After that you should reinstall the Microsoft patch. CheckPoint, which owns ZoneAlarm, says this will fix your problem(s).

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Adobe Enters Online Sharing Competition

(6/2/2008)  Adobe has opened a new document-sharing service with its  www.Acrobat.com  community site. The new site will let you create, store, and share documents online plus you can hold web conferences to discuss changes to a document.

The new website service was announced at the same time as the latest version of Adobe's Acrobat software. The new software will let you embed Flash video into a document and it has menu options to let you share your Acrobat 9 documents online at the new website which, by the way, is still in beta testing.

The new website service puts Adobe in direct competition with Google, Microsoft, and others who are trying to bridge the gap between online and offline computing.

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EU Plan Calls For Speed-up To IPv6

(5/30/2008)  The EU is calling for a speed-up of work designed to move the internet to IPv6 addressing. They're warning that innovation on the net could be stifled as the current pool of IPv4 addresses is exhausted. Their new plan calls for 25% of internet users in the EU to be on the new system by 2010.

The current IPv4 scheme provides some 4.3 billion possible addresses and projections are that this will be exhausted in 2011. IPv6 will provide many times that number of addresses and should last for many years even with explosive internet growth.

Microsoft's latest operating systems all include the capability to use IPv6, and they tout fantastic speed increases in their latest, re-written TCIP-handling code sets. Still, the net has been slow to adapt IPv6. The EU plans to push it forward. Main points of the EU plan:
  • Governments' core networks will migrate to IPv6 ASAP
  • Public procurement contracts will include a move to IPv6
  • The top 100 European websites are to be reachable by IPv6 by 2010

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So You Think Your Password Is Secure...Check This Out

(5/13/2008)  Think you have a really secure password? Here's a probably shock for your system...if it's not 15 characters or more in length, it's probably being stored on your machine as a LanMan Hash, which means it's not secure at all to the hackers out there.

What is an LMHash, you may ask?

The LMHash is a legacy-left-over from many years ago. It fits your actual logon into 7 characters and all the good hackers know how to get at it. Turns out your strong password isn't so secure after all--about 8 seconds worth of security is all you have.

So you need to disable storing of LMHost data. There are 3 ways to do it and they're all shown in the Microsoft Knowledge Base article referenced at this URL support.microsoft.com/kb/299656

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Before You Download That MP3 File Read This

(5/8/2008)  McAffee says almost a half-million people are known to have fallen prey to a trojan-horse virus that is being delivered via a fake MP3 file claiming to be of the group "Girls Aloud."

The actual file is being sent out with different names and in different languages to make it more difficult to detect. Among other things the file can include a key-stroke logger that emails private information and website histories. In other cases it calls for you to download a music codec so you can play the media file--the "codec" is really a pop-up-causing adware software.

McAfee says the size of this outbreak is unusually large and advises caution anytime you to a file-sharing site. This virus has been widely distributed on eDonkey and Limewire file-sharing networks

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Kraken BotNet Is New And Wide-Spread

(4/8/2008)  I've been doing some research because of a series of recent articles on how the Kraken botnet has exceeded what the Storm worm did, i.e., Kraken is now the largest botnet ever--a huge malware problem that's spreading.

First, let's say that at this point there's only one or two sources telling us how big Kraken is. That's not to say they're incorrect...it does, however, raise a flag that perhaps we shouldn't get as upset as we might be. Another little red flag goes up when I see that Damballa (see below), the company most quoted on the subject says they have a list of infected servers' IPs and they're not putting it out yet so we can check to see if we have the botnet infection.

According to  SearchSecurity.TechTarget.com , quoting Paul Royal,principal researcher,  damballa.com Damballa Inc.:

The Kraken code arrives in a file disguised to look like a typical image file, such as a JPEG or a PNG, but with a hidden extension that prevents users from recognizing it as an executable. Once a user opens the file, it copies itself to the local machine, restarts and then deletes the original copy. One somewhat interesting feature of the code is that the binary is not packed, as many malware binaries tend to be. However, Royal said that the code does have some other forms of obfuscation that make it difficult to analyze completely.

Most security people still view botnets as something that infects home-use computers and believe their enterprise-level machines and networks are safe because of av, firewalls, etc. That's just not the case anymore and we all have to update our thinking to match what our enemies are doing. Kraken has already been shown to have infiltrated Fortune 500 enterprise-level networks and that should be enough to tell you the botnets are not limited to consumers any longer. Most AV programs and anti-spy-ware products can't catch Kraken-quality software.

As of now, Kraken looks like it is part of the Bobax family of malware identified earlier--at least that's what the Internet Stormcenter  isc.sans.org people believe.

Kraken hides by using a combination of ploys, including changing its binary code regularly and morphing itself so that it evades static pattern matching.

Some known registry searchs for this family of bots and related problems:

31b68fe29241d172675ca8c59b97d4f4
e13b7e828a1bb84d9e76baa4eb4c9ddb
cc16f5fdf705fe76f61588561f866c29
31b68fe29241d172675ca8c59b97d4f4
c05eb75e00d54a041a057934979fed6d
1d51463150db06bc098fef335bc64971
c1d078b93df31d032cea89f25dc56362
3a8bd37f9b33de4d29198d125030f587
b0e7ac28f0a899afa0fcdda5f1252675
1c6d6f727ee55a5797c369f7aa4a0f38
f43bebf91ae2f5cf1f2ad5168bf9d202
ffc2e41d8e729c7b8622a8420767cfb5

(And while you're there, search for:
0xCDA0044FF8FFA136697C7DBA4C5F1165
  This one is for Vundo (aka VirtuMonde/VirtuMundo), a trojan
0xE1CB4605082E6D2034CF6FD34474C3F3
0x4C6EC51EAF30FF4DFDB0A21163850B94
0xCF7E228D291CF229A7CEBED8D9DEACDF
0xE78487517E534757156ECDDEA9BADC2D
0xE7E72C842570969845DE71DBBAF59E75

If you find others, please, make them known.

Also put a sniffer on port 447 and watch for strange traffic--that will be a good indication of Kraken's presence.

ZDNet has a free "Kraken Reports" program that will supposedly work with Squid and ISA to identify the botnet's presence. DISCLAIMER: I now nothing more about the program that what its author says at the ZDNet site click here

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Thinking of Buying A Printer? Here's A Suggestion

(4/8/2008)  From time to time we learn things that should be shared with others. This is one of those kinds of things.

Our marketing group recently welcomed Cartridge World in Greystone (on US 280 at Lee's Branch) as a new member. Now I have an HP 2605 DN printer--a color laser that works well and I've been happy with. The printer is nearing its point where it needs new cartridges...there are 4 of them and they're averaging about $80 each. (The printer only cost about $340 back when I purchased it.)

Looking at how Cartridge World uses quality "stuff" and trained people to do a really good job, I thought to save a few bucks by getting my cartridges refilled. Alas, to my surprise, I learned that these cartridges are hard to refill. We could only send them out to a company that would do it, but the overall cost would save me almost nothing over just buying a new set from the manufacturer.

OK, fair enough. But I also learned that the manufacturer has a chip built into the cartridges. Exactly what the chip counts or looks at is unknown--probably a count of pages printed. This much we do know...if that chip hits a certain point, you will replace the cartridge because it won't work any farther--even if it has plenty of ink left in it to do another 1,000 pages or more. Now, I don't know about you, but this rubs me the wrong way. I don't like that way of doing business or people who do it that way. If I can find another vendor who's not guilty of this kind of trickery and penny-gouging, I'll buy their stuff next time.

Consider a circumstance where your printer is a little older and you can't find cartridges for it easily...that could be a problem.

So here's the idea. If or when you're looking to purchase a new printer, begin by selecting 3 or 4 printers you could use, i.e., they meet your needs. Next, go down to the local Cartridge World (or, if you have another favorite place to refill your cartridges, go there) and ask them which printer they can refill cartridges for before you buy the thing. That way you should be able to cut your printing costs and to extend the usable life of your printer.

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Huntsville Code Camp--Feb 2008

(3/3/2008)  My pics and info are on my blog click here

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Microsoft Makes Major Announcement

(2/21/2008)  Microsoft says they're going to share more trade secrets in order to gain interoperability with other platforms and systems. Their announcement, which they called "major" says,

“By increasing the openness of our products, we will provide developers additional opportunity to innovate and deliver value for customers...Microsoft will publish on its Web site documentation for all application programming interfaces (APIs) and communications protocols in its high-volume products that are used by other Microsoft products. Developers do not need to take a license or pay a royalty or other fee to access this information. Open access to this documentation will ensure that third-party developers can connect to Microsoft’s high-volume products just as Microsoft’s other products do...

Companies that engage in commercial distribution of these protocol implementations will be able to obtain a patent license from Microsoft, as will enterprises that obtain these implementations from a distributor that does not have such a patent license."

Opening of API documentation to the developer community will make it possible for many new uses of such Microsoft products as Office and Exchange to be developed by 3rd parties. That may not seem like much, but in reality it is a huge step forward for the software industry.

You can see the entire announcement at:  click here

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Visual Studio 2008 Is Loaded--Here's My Recommendation On How To Do It

(1/24/2008)  I let Visual Studio 2008 (VS2K8) languish on my desk for 2 or 3 weeks--just not enough time to load it and risk having things go wrong with my development platform. Finally, over the weekend, I decided to load 'er up. But, somehow, I just had a bad feeling about it. So the first thing I did was what I'd advise you to do first...just in case.

Windows Vista has a wonderful new Backup/Restore facility built into it--one of the great reasons to move to Vista, by the way. If you haven't used it, now's the time. Find the "Backup and Restore Center" and run it. For a load of 100Gb, it took about 2.5 hours to do a full backup for me. You'll need an external USB hard drive with enough free space to hold what's used on your C: drive. It's easy and intuitive. Make a backup of your computer's C: drive on the USB drive, disconnect it, and hope you don't need it.

Now, as to what I'm about to advise. I'm sure that some people will simply go in and do what I did first--they'll say to install "full" and let 'er go. And it will work. But developers I know are like me in this respect. We have lots of weird stuff on our machines. So here's what I'll recommend and why. In the end, you'll do it your way, anyway, so this is just my recommendation. Good luck.

I'd recommend that you first reboot your OS...trust me. Go into the VS2K8 setup and mark it as "custom." Tell it not to install any part of VS2K8 and see what other goodies it wants to load. Probably you'll see the .NET Framework 3.5 as the first of these. Let it load them first and see what happens. If all goes well, Reboot the OS, and try Windows Update. If it works, rerun the VS2K8 install and let it load VS2K8. Reboot and try Windows Update again. Finally, restart the install and let it put your product documentation on.

In my case, I began by foolishly telling it to do a "full" load. It blew up. I still don't know why, but for some reason it couldn't load the .NET Framework 3.5. I fooled with it for about 3 hours trying to get it to work. Windows Update was even stopped by it, giving an error code that Microsoft really doesn't seem to know how to deal with--more on that another time.

Finally, knowing I didn't have forever to mess with the problem and things seemed to be threatening not to even let me in short of F8, I plugged up the USB HDD and let it "fix" Windows.

Then, I began again. This time, I followed the recommendations above and, voila', it worked. I loaded VS2K8 in about 4 steps, watching and fearful of a return to the problem I'd had before, but things went OK I think--can't prove it--doing it in smaller parts and rebooting in between let it get past whatever inconsistency bombed it the first time.

So, that's my experience with Orcas, now known as VS2K8, and my recommendation. Doing it this way will probably take you an extra 15 minutes, but it might save you 3 or 4 hours. Take your pick and best of luck. By the way, developers love our $24.95  Catapult Garage software package. You should at least look at it.

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Beware The New Mebroot Virus

(1/11/2008)  Europe has seen about 5,000 victims so far. A malicious new virus program steals login details for your bank accounts. The virus, named "Mebroot" is what we call a "rootkit." It burrows deep inside the operating system and hides as part of it. This one hits the Master Boot Record (MBR)--that's what the computer uses whenever it starts up so it knows how to load the operating system. As viruses go, this is an old technique, but once this one takes over the MBR, it can download other programs including a keylogger. It waits for you to logon to one of over 900 financial institutions it knows about and when you do, it sends your logon information to the thieves--probably with a Russian connection.

Fully patched Windows computers are OK, but those with XP, Vista, Server 2003, and 2000 that have not been fully patched are vulnerable.

Few commercial anti-virus programs even detect the rootkit and none of them can get rid of it once it infects the machine--that takes special software.

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A New Year's Resolution You Need To Make

(1/3/2008)  What will 2008 see in the way of new cyber attacks? The answer may surprise you, but the general consensus is that the social-networking sites are attracting criminals as they try to get individuals' information. Sites like MySpace, Facebook, Bebo, YouTube, and Orkut are where the crooks are turning in their efforts to hurt you.

Why? There are 4 main reasons and at least one may surprise you.

First, the very nature of the sites is a sharing of personal information--a level of trust is implied and that is the first step toward leaving you open for internet security breaches. This is the world-wide web and what people put there are open and available to the entire world--crooks and all.

Second, 3rd party add-ons are common-place there, thus opening the way for virus, worm, and root-kit attacks. Let your computer download and run unknown software and you'll get what you deserve. (There's no cure for stupid.)

Third, there's the file-sharing aspect of the sites. Need one say more on that than "sharing on the world-wide web."

Fourth, and this may take some people by surprise, the number and type of vulnerabilities in the most popular Windows operating systems are making it more and more difficult to penetrate. Government lists of unpatched "holes." In fact, they often now show more vulnerabilities in Linux/Unix than Windows. They also show more holes in other browsers than in IE 7. This is forcing some of the crooks to look in new places for the vulnerabilities they can exploit.

In Brazil there's already been a worm attack on Google's Orkut users--it tried to steal bank account details. Others have tried to use video clips on YouTube to draw users to pages designed to download malicious code. Still others have used code embedded in pictures to try to get into your computer.

Some of the internet crooks just want to get your contact lists so they can increase their spam reach. They'll take your personal information and use it to get at such information. Others want to get at accounts where they can buy "stuff" using your identity. Still others want to get into your banking and investment accounts. Finally, of course, there's the occasional terrorist who wants fake ID for all kinds of bad stuff--ID theft won't be a pleasant thing to deal with.

So, for 2008, you should make a New Year's resolution not to tell the entire world, via the world-wide web, things you wouldn't tell a stranger who walked in and sat down next to you in a bar somewhere.

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Secure Your WIFI Network--Kill Your WEP

(11/11/2007)  The FBI did a presentation to a group of us. They showed us that you can download free hacker software that lets you obtain a WEP key from a WiFi network. In their example, it took exactly 1 minute to display it. Not to worry, they said. Sometimes it takes much longer--up to a full 90 seconds.

They pointed out the obvious: once a person using this software breaks into your network, they can get to lots of data and information. But it's organized criminal organizations that are stepping into this new security gap. They break in and load key-stroke-capture software on your computer. Every key stroke is saved and then emailed to them...including your ID/pwd data for online banking, credit cards, etc. They have software that helps them analyze your key strokes to identify the pieces they want. Hey, they're not doing this for fun and entertainment.

There's also the case of the WiFi data break-in a well-known retail giant suffered last year. The estimated loss from that hacker's intrusion has risen to a cool $1 billion.

The message overall--move from WEP to WPA2 encryption using a private key (WPA2/PK). Then, be sure you keep your private key private. So far as is known, WPA2/PK, properly setup, has not been cracked.

Armed with this knowledge, I moved to re-secure and update my WiFi network along with those of customers. That ran into some unbelievable challenges and I'm not going to relate all of them to you here because if I did, I'd probably be hit with law suits for telling how bad some of the stuff I tried really is. To avoid that, what I'm going to tell you is that I finally settled on a combination of equipment that actually works as what I use and recommend to my friends and customers.

The first problem is to find a router with a usable management interface that accommodates WPA2. It should also let you setup MAC filtering if you want to limit access to just a few network interface cards (NICs). This router should work with as many of your existing notebooks as possible. Finally, if you want to plug a cellular-wireless card in and use it as your WAN input, it should let you do that, too...my Sprint Card could sometime be my only way out to the internet.

The 2nd problem you have is to find a WiFi NIC that plugs into older notebooks or goes internally into a desktop. Did I mention that it should actually work with WPA2/PK at the best possible speed? That, too, is important and we were shocked to see some that just plain failed this requirement even though they were supposed to work. I won't name them (see above about legal stuff.)

So here's what I've settled on. I'm sure there are other combinations that work, but after hours of hair pulling experimentation and testing, this is what we found worked best and we can recommend it.

Start with a D-Link DIR-655 router. This thing says it's an "Xtreme N gigabit router." It is faster than our previous g-level router--running under the not-approved protocols it should be--but gigabit? Well...maybe on the LAN side?

If you're familiar with routers and their setup, you won't have much trouble setting up the router--if you're not, you may need to find a geeky friend or hire someone to help. The actual setup is beyond what we're going to cover here.

Setup the router to use WPA2/PK and don't forget that, depending upon how you're using it, you may need to disable its DHCP server and/or change your LAN interface IP for the router.

We definitely recommend you change the default ID and password while you're at it so that someone who manages to get onto your network can't change settings. (This is about securing your WiFi network.)

Once you have the router up and going, you'll find that Windows XP and Windows Vista both work well with it to get you in and working. Your only problem will be with older hardware or hardware that you can't reach with a cable. For these you'll need the WiFi network card. We found that the Belkin N Wireless cards work and aren't prone to dropping out under load. They're also plug-and-play, requiring only that you load drivers and do the WiFi WPA2/PK setup to get them going.

As I said, I'm sure there are other setups that will work. I'm equally sure we tried some obvious combinations that would not actually work with WPA2/PK...surprise! So I hope this will help you save some hair...you may need it one day.

A word on cost--we didn't work to get the least-expensive thing we could find. We worked to get a fast, secure, setup that will actually work and hold off more hardware purchases for a while. As the word gets out on WEP's inadequacies and demand for some of the stuff out there that should be working with WPA2/PK rises, it will probably get better and cheaper.

Whatever you decide to do, secure your WiFi network before some war-driving hacker gets in and loads a key-tracker on you. Don't depend on WEP--it's obsolete.

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IE 7 Problems

(9/26/2007)  I'm trying to get a Sprint air card to work in my Windows Vista machine--so far, and that's a separate story--the air card's been a bust despite hours of my efforts and hours of Sprint support folks' time. All I can say is there's something weird when trying to use a Pantech PXE500DORA. If you're getting an error 720, good luck. More on this situation as I go forward with a different card.

During the time of it, though, IE7 quit working. All of a sudden it would open a page, then immediately give me an App-fault named BEX and showing "stackhash_8d13." Now it could have begun when I downloaded and installed the latest Microsoft patches, or it could have begun with the Sprint software...who knows. Who cares? The point is that suddenly my IE wouldn't work.

There's more than one kind of possible problem here, but if DEP is indicated, here's what to try.

Begin simply--go to START -- ALL PROGRAMS -- ACCESSORIES -- SYSTEM TOOLS -- Internet Explorer (no add ons) and see if it works. If it does, odds are the following steps will fix your problem. If not, it may still fix the problem.

The theory is that most IE problems are caused by poorly written add-ons or add-ons that work as virus software. DEP can stop IE on either kind of event, but it never tells you what's actually causing the problem.

Go to the START -- SETTINGS -- Control Panel, and use Internet Options. Click the "Advanced" tab. Notice that at the bottom of the page is something new in IE7--a "Reset" button. (This is known as RIES--reset Internet Explorer Settings.) Click on it and you'll be warned of what it's going to do. Since the presumption is that IE won't run or you wouldn't be here, you may as well click on the "Reset" button. When it's finished, close the Internet Options dialog and try to start IE7. It should work for you.

I hope this helps someone out there to get back up and running. Check back on the Sprint Card problem in a few days.

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Cannot Copy Parameter is Incorrect Error

(8/1/2007)  This is a common error and the answer is almost always the same. If you try to copy a file with a size of greater than 4GB to an FAT-partitioned drive, it blows up and gives you this message. This is especially common when you try to copy files to USB-connected hard drives and similar devices.

So what's the answer? Either get a different drive to copy to and format it as NTFS or reformat the drive you have as NTFS.

CAUTION: when you reformat a drive, everything on the drive WILL be lost forever in the black hole of Redmond.

To reformat the drive, simply follow these steps.
  • Open "My Computer" in Windows Explorer. You should see the drive in question. If you don't you have some other problem.
  • It's a good practice to open the drive in question and be certain there's nothing on it that you're about to lose (CAUTION above) and that you do have the correct drive.
  • Right-click the drive and then click the "Format" option.
  • Be sure to select the NTFS format. Let other stuff default unless you know what you're doing.
  • SEE THE CAUTION ABOVE
  • Let it format the drive--takes several minutes depending upon your system, your drive speed, and your drive size.

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Alternative Payments and Discounting Strategies

(7/17/2007)  

At SIC in Denver--Alastair Rampell spoke on using alternative payments, coupons, discounting strategies, etc., to make more sales and money. These are my notes on this session:

He refers to Dell to start--their coupon just winds up cutting down on their sales' prices--it doesn't drive the sales. But a discounting strategy can help raise revenues by:
Increased sales
Reduced software uninstalls
Winning back lost customers

6 Issues Software vendors face:
  • Converting trial (demo) users into paying customers: Youneed more than 1 price/payment method--potential buyers often balk at the price pt., don't believe in paying, have no-credit-card or trust issues.

    merchants--almost never try to monetize non-payers, only accept limited credit card/cash payments.
    So this raises thequestion: How to capture the non-paying users?

    Coupons:
    1. Help convert frugal/cost-sensitive consumers
    2. Sometimes there's a better alternative: time or feature limited service product (A Bronze at $9.99 vs. Platinum @ $29.99)Sometimes this pricing strategy is a better alternative than platinum. Give the $9.99 only a short time frame to work or fewer features.

    His coupon experience: 20% took almost any coupon offered as a "good discount." Hence, about 40% of people took a 20%, 17% took a 30%, 32% took a 50%, 8% took a 75% as they were offered over time. Hence you had a section of people that just wouldn't buy even at 75%-off pricing!

    Question: How do you get people to let you send them the offers in the 1st place? When you don't request email from downloading visitors--more people download it, but the drop-off if all you require is the email address is minimal. [This is a recurring theme I've heard from any number of people.] He says he made far more money with the email address than without. That's because you can make them offers and do follow-ups and get conversions from this. He says this is a no-brainer--ask for their email address and permission to email them with information about your product in the future.

    where Y = visitors, D=drop-offs, Z%= conversion rate for coupons, promos, special offers, etc.
    (Y-D)*X% Conv(~) = --> (Y-D-[(Y-d)*x% Conversions]) * Z%

    So you need to run a test and see what values plug into your setup--it is often more profitable to lose some initial customers and gain contact info. Then you offer "extended" trial to be mailed to an email address.

    When a trial period is over, send them a message:

    "Your trial has expired. If you would like to extend your trial, please enter your email address below and we will mail you a code."

    Hence, on extended trials, you're rid of bogus email addresses they may have entered and they had to have some interest in i to respond--your conversion rate is much better.

    Questions: Can we do this on the download screen? Yes, with a slightly higher drop-off.

    Questions: They've tested--used 14-day and 30-day trial periods.

    Questions: How long before sending follow up offer if they didn't already convert by time their extended trial is over? His answer was a week after extended trial was over.

    Questions: Why not architect the product with the coupon built in? That could be a good idea, if you built it in from the ground up.

    Questions: What if your coupon code gets out to the world and a hundred million people buy at 20% off using the coupon? Retire!

    Another kind of coupon--"Send us a copy of your receipt for your Valentine's Day flowers and we'll send you our product for half-off" can actually get you sales but you have to have a valid/good email list to do that.

    Look through www.wallet.com and see what may be there.

    Affiliates are a problem here: An example came up withwww.BlueNile.com which had an affiliates problem--people would see coupon codes and many affiliates would link to the coupons. People who saw the coupons on Google would then buy it via an affiliate, thus forcing BlueNile to pay the affiliate 10% and give a 20% discount when the affiliate didn't have a discount code. Their answer was to call the code to give a consumer a source, promotion, or discount-code rather than a coupon code. When, on their site, the customer is buying, they ask, "How did you hear about us?" and if the person enters their code at that point, they get the discount. Be sure there's a time limit on this, too, so a given code dies on a certain date and prevents it from being a "forever" problem.

    He thinks coupons are the best way to get started in price segmentation. When people have differing price sensitivities, you need to be able to do price segmentation. So, how do you segment the "rich" vs. the "frugal?"

    • Coupons
    • Different product versions--bronze, silver, gold, platinum = 4 different levels of product and 4 different price points. Versions had differing features.
    • Customers will self-select their own group
    • Example: Shoe-maker's Pro Air ($69) vs. Show-maker's Super Air ($99)? Some minor differences, but it's more about pricing than materials or cost to manufacture and market the product.

    If your product lends itself to time sensitivity, you can do segmentation by selling programs/services that last for differing time periods.

    Try to catch users where they are most likely to exit from the purchase/conversion process. There's little risk of cannibalization.

    Alternative Payments:E.g., www.TrialPay.com

    These can actually increase the amount of the order. A mixture of pricing segmentation, couponing, and alternative payments is the best combination to maximize revenue.

    Trialware Uninstalls-how do you segment them? These are users who don't want your product. Some just don't like it and you can't do anything about them. But for others, coupons and alternative payments can work.

    Question: Wouldn't everyone go to uninstall and get the coupon and then buy at a discount? That's a lot of work--they'll have earned it. Most people won't go to that much pain, so it's not worth worrying about.

    [My thought: the real problem here is not the money/sales amount--it is why don't they want to keep the software. Some just will find it's not what they thought or wanted, but others may have a problem with it--maybe it doesn't install right or doesn't do something they thought it would and should. You need to take steps to try to learn what that problem is and fix it if possible.]

    His idea is, "Before you uninstall, here's a 50% off discount code if you'd like to keep it.

    You can follow up after they've uninstalled some time earlier with a special offer with no risk at all--if you get a sale, it's one you had already lost, so you make money, even if you sell at a significant discount.

    Shopping cart abandonment--popups were in use, but they're dead now. Still, if they empty the cart, that's a good time to offer them something for free...especially w/low-cost products.Consider this last one on your site.

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Affiliate Marketing

(7/17/2007)  Saturday afternoon in Denver at the Software Industry Conference, Alastair Rampell spoke of How to Win Affiliates and Make It Work. These are a few of my notes from that session.

You can do affiliates work with a number of online vendors, some of the best-known:
  • AZoogleAds
  • MallNetworks.com
  • Nextjump.com
  • ABestWeb.com
  • LinkShare
  • CommissionJunction
  • Performics
  • DR (software only)
  • Plimus (software)

Other sources for this kind of income are fromarbitrageurs (buy blocks of key words and resell them), portal owners, review sites, etc.

Affiliates look at payout first, conversion 2nd, but often test. If you're not known, expect to pay them more.

Affilitaes like safety, payment aggregation, and brand name of large networks.
It'spainful to pay their fees, but it's worth it.
Digital River attracts mostly software promoters, but is not diverse enough to be called a market place like CJ

Top affiliates get offers claiming unrealistic eCPMs (think of that as purchases/money)

Break thru:
Use a well-known affiliate brand (CJ, LinkShare, Performics, etc.)
Proof of concept--affiliates watch competitors
Be aggressive and be competitive
Think about affiliate recruitment

Pepperjam, PartnerCentric, AMWSO, etc. manage programs and work with top affiliates
ABestWeb and other forums--you can find consultants there to help you work with top affiliates.
Plain old communication is important--find the ones you're looking for and call/email once you have a compelling offer.

You have 1 shot with bigger/best affiliates, so you must be honest and earn their trust.
Affiliates love advertisers who do the work -- provide them with multiple graphics of all sizes, numerous creatives, matrix charts, emails, Flash, etc., so they don't have to build all of that themselves and they're more likely to use it.
Be responsive and proactive--update affiliates often with changes. Show you care
Run Promos!--Prize for top affiliates for a month, etc. Build loyalty to your brand vs. others.

There is a meeting called the Affiliate Summit--but it just passed in Miami.

  • Be careful of bad affiliates--e.g., TopSoftwareDownloadHQ -- tries to sell FireFox for $19.95
  • Affiliate strategy may interfere with SEM or SEO--if you have a high SEO location, you will usually go down if you get lots of affiliates bidding for your same keywords. Need to have terms that call for a maximum bid (lets you keep your key words) and don't allow them to bid on your trademarked name(s).
  • Make sure there aren't too many conflicts or over-laps between affiliates' marketing efforts and yours
  • TandC's of your affiliate program (trademark bidding, etc.)Look up and learn about cookie stuffing--3rd party networks watch for this. It's dishonest and some bad affiliates try to do it to steal from you. It's hard to catch and it will fall on you to do it.

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Exhibits Night

Growing Your Business

(7/17/2007)  SIC in Denver on Saturday afternoon--David Raimando of Accoustica, Inc. speaking on Growing Your Business by using the retail channel.

Retail products: Rules
Less than 1 of 20 software products succeed in the retail channel. In order to be one that makes it, you need to create a demand for your product.

Never undercut your resellers on the web. They will discount their prices--and they will cost you more.

Packaging is VERY important--it sells the product on the shelf in many cases.
    Your product's NAME should tell you something about what it does.

  • PROBLEM what problem does it serve for your users

  • PRODUCT DESCRIPTION -- What software category is it?

  • What features to highlight, benefit--why is it important to the user. Positioning Statement--how will you differentiate your product.
  • Competitive statement--how does it compare to others?
  • An absolute must is the UPC--it must be on the box or most retailers won't touch your product.

Seed the market:
  • Make NFR (not for resale) promo copies of software and distribute them
  • Offer NFR to any employee of the reseller who's selling the software--hope they become familiar with it so they can sell it.
  • Send NFR to computer user groups
  • Make a presentation of your software to your local user groups. (Great Feedback)

INeta, Smart Computing website,

A great goal is to piggyback on success of another best selling product.
Your goal: create brand name awareness for your software.

Make a Marketing Kit and do Press Releases:
  • He uses www.PRWeb.com at max of $360
  • 1 page product information sheet w/overview of your product
  • Marketing lit, tech info, and camera-ready art
  • Be sure a full NFR copy of your software in the retail package goes out with each major press release/marketing kit.

For magazine ads, ask if they'll put a review or article about your product in their magazine. If they say no, so do you.

Send an email thank-you note when they register a retail copy--it can offer a cross-sell or promo on another product to say, "thanks."

Distributors want a minimum of 55% discount from suggested list price--dist. probably won't sell your product, just fills orders.

"The Software Channel Sales Guidebook" is no long in print, but has good information.

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Log Analysis

(7/17/2007)  At SIC in Denver Saturday afternoon, Dave Collins of SharewarePromotions speaking on "Log Analysis -- Reaching the Gold" was followed by Adriana Iordan of Avangate, who spoke on Web Metrics. These are my notes on what they had to say. They don't agree on some things, so was an interesting session.

30 useful things you can do--and he says you should do at least 20. He divides it into4 categories

  1. Stop waste time/money on wrong pages
  2. convert more visitors to downloads
  3. convert more downloads to sales
  4. saved advertising money
  5. get more ROI(yep, that's 5, not 4--but who's counting?)

    Internal analysis -- you should know you best 3-5 pages and spend your time there. You should knowwhich pages are leaking visitors,performing well, orlosing visitors

    Black holes--pages that pull people in and they never come back -- check links to these pages and try to determine why the people come, leave, and never come back--the search engine links may be giving you referrals for a bad word that you're wasting money to promote.

    Are visitors going where you want?--Download page, see it in the action page.How long are visitors spending on pages--put emphasis/work on the ones that matter most and ignore ones with less importance--include testimonials and clients page in your most-important list.

    Know what visitors are looking for and whether they can find it. Even more imporants, know if they do find what looking for.

    What's changing--keep watch on it. Why are the changes occurring?

  6. Steer visitors to important pages
  7. Make important links on your site more prominent. placement, color, text, buttons, etc.
  8. Link to important pages througout site, in =main navigation
  9. Set navigation to work for you--don't bother w/obscure links
  10. Get important pages in rt order
  11. Are all visitors looking for the same thing?
  12. Where do visitors come from? Allow for different sources' visitors to want differing things when they get there--to have different interests. [Use diff landing pages.]
  13. Are referrals opperations for cooperation? You need log watch to know about them at all
  14. Are referrers changing a lot over time--why? You'll need logs to know.
  15. What is changing? referrers? portals, search engines?
  16. Later for specific referrals--tailor landing pages for them
  17. Follow-up articles, blog postings, forum discussions quickly--if your company is being linked, use it to create sales--need logs to see this, too.
  18. Explore opps w/referrers
  19. Search Engines--what's rt? How much traffic from diff srcs?
  20. Know which pages do best in search engines (Log needed)
  21. Know which pages are not being indexed or ranked well and find out why
  22. Compare search-engine visitors to other traffic to see what they do/where they go
  23. Look at exit pages--compared w/non-engine visitors--what search terms got them in?
  24. What keywords are and are not working and why
  25. What's changing? Are you going up or down?
  26. Use what you know to optimize your web site for key words, strengths, weaknesses...don't fix what ain't broken or you may lose traffic
  27. Use "neglected but indexed" pages: jump ahead in queue--change an exsiting page rather than creating a new one to avoid the time delay before it shows up in search engines at all.
  28. Cater to site visitor and spiders--visitors get preference.

Wallet, Cash, money

Which ad campaigns are working and should be expanded.
Which keywords are worthwhile & which are not.
Where are you wasting money--need nalytics
Where else might you consider spending--AdWords, TuCows both great
The most important question to ask is:What are you really getting? Visitors? Trial-software downloads? Sales? Profits? Are you making money and where from.

Weg Log Analysis Sware

He has two packages he likes. He ues Web Log Storming by Dtaland Software--see www.DatalandSoftware.com. If you attended SIC, there's a promocode on the SIC disk that will get you a 50% discount off standard price of $129.00. He also likes a $9,000.00 package...I didn't even bother to take notes at that price, though I'm sure it's great stuff.

Adriana Picks up here:

1. Reporting vs. AnalyticsTake risk out by getting started w/free tools

Understand that numbers say nothing by themselves--they must be considered in context and with analysis.

Choose performance metrics than can increase revenues and improve customer satisfaction.

Primary performance metrics
1. money spent/unique visitors = avg cost/unique visitor
2. money spen/prospects = avg cost/prospect
3. Money spent/customers = avg cost/cust (CPA-Cost/acquisition)

Propspect = a visitor showing more interest in your site than just a visitor

Desired action/total number of unique visitors=converstion rate(%)Site visitors who stay on site for <10 seconds or view only 1 page/total number of visitors ="" site bounce rates(%)

Never measure conversion rates without goals
Trend over time, segmentation = a must
Multi-marketing channel = conversion rate
Compare revenues w/conversion rates
Measure, experimentation tests, optimization--all are important

How do you start measuring?

1. set objectives & goals
2. use free tools: Google Analytics (javascript tags) or Clicktracks Appetizer (Log file parsing) are 2 examples
3. Top Referrals & keywords

Others:
CrazyEgg.com or Google Site Overlay
See which landing pages are converting--tells you where you need work
Revenue by referring URLs or campaigns--see where to put your advertising budget
Competition comparative traffic analysis

A bounce rate < 20% is hard to get. A Bounce Rate over 40% is trouble, over 50% is a real problem. If it's over 50%, you definitely need to improve your design, content, etc. Or, maybe "spam" is coming to this page for some reason. "Spam" is defined here as visitors who came for the wrong reason, e.g., looking for model trains, but came to rails page where bed rails are being sold, or as people who came there for their right reason, but not yours...e.g., you want to sell them via your content, but all they want to do is read the content. (They're there, but it's not for the right reason--it's "spam.") So maybe coming from Google AdWords you've paid for and you're getting visitors, but they're not really working for you.

Multivariate Testing w/Google Website optimizer (another "free" tool)

Their site = www.avangate.com/newsletter, articles, interviews

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Technical Expertise On Display at SIC

Your MicroISV

(7/17/2007)  Phil Schnyder of Avanquest Software (again) and Bob Walsh of 47Hats.com (again) on Saturday morning at SIC in Denver. These are my notes on this session:

What do you want to do with your company?
  • Grow and Enjoy?
  • Grow and Sell?
  • Prepare for an IPO?
  • Get Venture Capitalist funding and blow it all on a Superbowl ad with Carmen Elektra?

Sole proprietership vs. LLC, LLP, Inc., etc.

Funding--use 3 F's, family, friends, and fools as first choice. Angel investors can help if you can find them.

Make a business plan for how to run business--not a fictional plan for investors

Put together financial projections based on reality and figure out how to grow the numbers

Sections on sales/marketing/development

Look at market data and competitive products to make sure your plans are realistic

Put together a "board of directors" to get together once or twice a year and talk about your business and what you need to do/change. Get some smart people who are not wrapped up in what you're doing so you get ideas and input from smart people who are interested, but not so deeply involved in your stuff.

Most business's fail because of undercapitalization, poor (or non-existent) cash flow management and poor accounting practices.

Know your numbers:
  • What's profitable or not
  • What's worth growing?
  • What are your "real" costs? Profits vs. sales

Get a good accountant--best if he/she has experience w/small software firms

Lawyers--best if he/she knows software industry:
  • Written agreements are vital
  • Proper articles of incorporation, etc., are necessary--especially if you want to sell the company or products
  • Employee contracts, end-user license agreements, confidentiality agreements, etc.
  • Software experience
    • A good lawyer (oxymoron) helps get deals done.
    • They know what's important and what's not
    • Bad lawyers (Tautology?) waste time on unnecessary issues and make things more expensive--they may also miss important points--they cost you lots of money to do very little.
  • digital contracts -- http://www.digicontracts.com -- may help you get off the ground, but they're generic and won't take local laws into account.

Cash?
  • Start w/3 F's (above)
  • Get and use a business line of credit wisely--borrow only what you mus and can pay back quickly
  • Do the Venture Capital Boogie (get kneepads--you'll be begging a lot!)
  • Raising money, especially from venture capitalists, is a full time job

Employees?
  • Employees are work--they take work off your shoulders, but they bring their own set of issues. [Consult your accountant (see above) before you hire anyone. Consider the hidden costs of hiring someone before you do it--taxes, insurances, etc. may run the price up far higher than you realized.]
  • Are you trying to free your time or bring in external expertise? Hire accordingly.
  • Value your time -- there are things you know and do best--make sure your company is getting that value by hiring someone to free you up for what you are best at.
  • Experience is important -- esp in certain positions, i.e. marketing. Getting people who know online marketing, sware development, etc., can be worth the extra cost
  • When to hire and when to outsource? [Think of it as buying and renting. If you only need it occasionally, don't buy it--rent it.]

Sell Your Company?
  • Planning to sell, plan from the beginning and be sure it's properly organized. Start positioning from beginning.
  • Know who could acquire you...build your company so it appeals to them
  • Many companies won't want to acquire a company--they want its assets (IP, user base, email list, etc.) Selling a product or product line can be a great way to make money. You WILL need an attorney to do this kind of sale and protect your interests.
  • Be realistic about valuation...position your company/product to take advantage of opportunities

Bob Walsh picks up and talks about Getting Things Done:

1. Build systems you trust for getting things done
2. Control email or it will control you
3. Information without action is nothing

"Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity" and "Ready for Anything: 52 Productivity Principles for Life" are from David Allen and his is the start of GTD.

GTD is a systematic approach you can come to trust to
  • Collect -- several in-baskets where you put your ideas, info, etc. in a trusted system
  • Process --
  • Organize -- project organization, etc.--grouping info so you can find it. Files, or whatever--group like-to-like.e.g., grouping of errands so you do like errands at same time--use context to org
  • Do -- build systems that take as little time as possible because you need time to "Do." Multi-tasking goes by the way here...know the desired output when you start. Anything of any substance will take time and you need to know where you're going before you start. Figure out the steps you'll have to do to complete it.
  • Review -- where you are, what you've done, where you're going on regular basis so you can make course creations.
Get things out of your head and get them done.

Email is the enemy for most people becuse they let it take them over. Look at the number of times an email is actually important--maybe 1 out of 100?

4 ways to control email:
  • Take your life back--set boundaries between work and non-work hours and don't check email out of boundaries.
  • No email during the 1st 3 hours of the day--BUT he's a morning person. I'd say, no email during YOUR most productive time of the day if you can help it.
  • Process email [first]--don't check it
    1. Throw out spam
    2. Throw out stuff that "might" be helpful in future and shove them away somewhere
    3. Look at rest and take care of quick-handle items--do them immediately
    4. Put the rest in your system as action-needed items
  • Set expectations on the action-needed items--1 day, 1 week, etc.
  • Turn email into actionable Next Steps -- [Put them into your work schedule/system to lead to results, something done.] - don't keep rehashing the same email over and over as that's just wasting time and procrastination.

Questions on VC? Where do you find them? Blogs, www.garage.com for information, local universities' business schools, small-business association (SBA), chambers of commerce, your accountant, your lawyer, local "incubators", etc.

Question: How do you handle the difficult question of price for a product you're selling? Phil--tell me what you can do and we'll tell you what we can do and then we have to either come together--or not. Ideally, don't name your price--ask them what they're able or interested in paying first. That way you know if you're way far apart and you haven't offered them a price that's far too low. You also haven't turned them off by stating a price that's far too high.

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Email Marketing For Your Business

(7/17/2007)  At SIC in Denver today, the speaker for this section was Chuck Davis with BlueHornet Networks, Inc.--a Digital River Company--all he does is email marketing.

Email, SEM, Affiliate, SEO, TBYB (trialware) are all part of reaching online buyers.

France and Germany are your main targets in Europe. The US is the 1st target.

On average we get an 88% delivery rate. Once we actually hit inbox--get about 30% open rate. Then get about 12% average click-thru. (VERY IMPORTANT All emails are sent to opt-in addresses and we work very hard to not be spammers.) Average purchase rate is 4%. [That's much better than with a blind mailing.]

Challenges:

Average e-mail deliverability is at 40%
List turnover (churn) is at 37%

And example: Say your customer is on AOL.To AOL--their internal blacklists are hit 1st, AOL reputation Metrics "Abuse data", then, is it in the user's address book or URL blocklist. Then there's also an enhanced white list, a standard white list, and a no-whitelist. So you're most likely not going to get in the inbox anyway--even if you just send to your own email address from work, our own chances are poor.

But, 85% of people do not use a secondary email address for offers/spam.

First suggestion--put on pages a (above the fold) button to let the visitor to your site just opt-in by entering nothing more than their email address and maybe 1st name to get your newsletter, etc.

The majority of companies don't spend money to get email registrations.

  • Make opt-in ubiquitous, convenient, compelling
  • Build subscriber profiles systematically over time--ask for geo-data next, then next item, etc.
  • Put customers in control
  • Use an email address immediately--do a real-time welcome message. Always ask them to "Please add me to your inbox so you'll get our newsletters" Include opt-out on emails.
  • Choose acquisition marketing partners carefully--opt-in your own name to see what you get from them.

Useful scenarios:
  • Automated warranty renewal campaign
  • Customer downloaded a trial product that expires in x days--offers to try to convert them
  • Biz Communication rules
    • 1st contact at 30 days before trialware expires
    • 2nd 15 days before trialware expires
    • 3rd 7 days before trialware expires (test incentive--coupon for other product--cross sell)
    • 4th contact 4 days b4 trialware expires (text incentive--customer reward points)
    • 5th contact: 1 day b4 trialware expires (test incentive--discount)
    • 6th contact: 0 days -- trialware has expired
    • 7th contact: after trialware

Setup a Yahoo! and a Gmail account and see how your email looks when it comes through their account. You'll need a tool to let you see it in various clients. PivotalGrassy [sp?] and Google for email rendering tools.

Phil Schnyder of Avanquest Software -- speaking about using the email for marketing.

Each month they send about 16m marketing emails.

  • Email penetration is at all-time hi: 91% among internet users between 18-64 (Search is 2nd most popular use of the internet)
  • In US, 88% of adult internet users have personal email accts--46% have them at work. Estimate is that 147 m people across US use email almost every day
  • Fewer users consider Spam a problem than 4 years ago

There are 3 parts to email strategy:
  • The email list is the most important
  • List must be opt-in. Only use opt-in addresses.
  • Don't share w/others because if they spam it comes back on you.
  • Maintain lists--remove unsubscribes, watch undelivered emails, etc. Important to keep off blacklists
  • Segment lists by country, product, version, type user (biz, consumer, male/female, age, etc.)
  • Minimize unsubscribes
  • Strategy to grow your list--offer them something to get them to subscribe to your list.

Special offer drives action:
  • Good offers have a huge effect on response
  • Time limited--short time frame
  • Test, test, test...for a $20 what's better?
    • Save $10
    • Save 50%
    • Only $10
    • Or make more selling at $15.95? Or including Ginsu knives?

The message can be most time consuming part of it.--ironically, it oft has less effect on results than the list and the offer.
  • Subject line -- most important thing of the message
  • From: -- important, be consistent. Some say better to have from a person's name@company
  • Clear presentation / purpose (Buy or download?) If doing newsletter, do that. If doing sales, do that--be specific and focus on purpose.
  • Text vs. HTML -- Much better results from HTML than from txt
  • Avoid spam words -- free is a spam word. Look for tools that check on the "spaminess" of words. "Viagra" will get you in there as spam.
  • Graphics, buttons, length, layout, etc. TEST!

Use different email templates for different lists.

There are differences of behavior -- in Europe, send them straight to cart, but in US, this doesn't work. They want to go to a landing page. Test!

Important to track results as test new ideas to improve results. Track
  • email sent & delivered (hard vs. soft bounces
  • Open rate (can track w/HTML emails)
  • Clicks
  • Sales % of people converted and in dollars
  • Turnover / 1,000 emails (sent & read)
  • Conversion rate
  • Unsubscribe (sent & read)
  • Tracked/mailing with averages for each mailing list.

Manage subscribers who've never purchased separately from existing users which should have a much higher conversion rate.

  • Broadcast/special offers
  • Newsletters
  • Targeted special offer
  • upgrade offers
  • transactional emails (order confirmation, download, cart abandonment)
  • follow-up emails for downloads are very effective--for ea 1K, make 100Euro
  • One-to-one sales emails (depending on content viewed--coming)
Goal--get smarter and make more money /email sent.

Main things:
  • Keep list clean and growing
  • Offer--find special offer price point that works for you--keep testing
  • Subject line
  • Don't get caught up in the email design--pick something and test & improve
  • From all testing--follow up emails for download versions are very effective. If you need help with support or your product has shipped, etc.
  • Look at other ways to use automated emails

Questions: Does email-capture button distract buyers from purchasing? Should purchase URL go straight to store from email? Best practice is straight to cart/Chuck, to landing page/Phil???

On Phil's landing pages, he says first in US statement, it shouldn't be that way, but their tests show it is. They're just putting a little more detail and info on the landing pages than was in the emails...worth trying.

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Other Ways to Sell Your Software

(7/17/2007)  Phil Snyder of Avanquest spoke at Software Industry Conference in Denver. These are my notes on the session.

Ways to Sell your software:
  • on line
  • retail stores
  • catalogs
  • corp VARs/Resellers
  • Distributors
  • Bundled w/hware/sware (OEM)

Ways it is sold?

Web 12%, OEM 21%, Corp 32%, Retail 35%

Customers = Corps, SMB, SOHO, Consumers

Selling to customers

Dist --> Corp, Vars, Gen Resellers --> Corp & SMB
Mail-order, eCommerce Partners, eTilers, Specialized stores, wholesalers --> some SMB, SOHO, Consumers
Major Retailers --> Consumers
Web Sales --> Consumers

If you move into a new channel, will it steal sales from existing channel? Answer: rarely does this happen. A different group of people see it on the shelf than online and buy it. Press reports more on it if its on the shelf. Buyers are very different.

They sell a lot of software on Amazon--what do you have to do to get on Amazon?

The online consumer --
  • Smarter -- You have to think about who these people out in a retail store are--dumb!
  • More likely to research products
  • Higher disposable income (more money)--
  • Important to establish trust--getting 1st sale is hardest. Repeat sales easier once relationship is established. People will see it on their website and then go buy it on Amazon. Especially true in Europe--people may know the net, but they won't buy on it.
  • In Europe about 52% of homes have internet--Germany is best with 67%. 94% of European businesses have internet access, but still won't buy online.

Retail Channels
  • Computer stores
  • Home electronics
  • Dept stores
  • Supermarkets/warehouse clubs
  • Photo, music, book stores
  • Games
  • Mail order
  • e-tailers
  • distributors

Customers:
  • Less likely to research product
  • Product package plays major role in buying decision--they repackaged one product and sales increased by factor of 8.
  • Rely on recommendations from staff at retail stores even if they're dumb as dirt.
  • Often think because a product is on shelf it is better than other options--not necessarily true, of course, but there it is.
  • Brand is important

In Europe there are more corporate resellers and VARs.

Corp Channel
  • Diff corp resellers work differently w/their corp accts--some provide product recommendations to corps while others just wait for orders to come in.
  • Sales cycle is longer due to product eval period--no immediate results
  • License packs are important to sell --10pack, 25 pack, etc.
  • Role of corp reseller varies greatly depending on product too.

How get into retail channel
  • Thru publisher like Avanquest
  • Thru distributor
  • Directly contacting major retail chains
  • Directly contacting specialized VARS and resellers--can be very effective for business products. Look for complementary or competitive products and tell them they're missing your part of the market and we fit in there. Look at their resellers.

(Encore is another publisher like Avanquest.)

Send an email to them and ask them if they are interest in product.

  • Broad Appeal--needs number of target audience
  • Target Audience -- must be audience that buys in channel
  • Product Category -- Must be a category of product that sells in the channel
  • Competition -- how will the proeduct compare and competition with the competition currently in the channel?
  • Price -- Make sure product is priced appropriately for the channel you select. Retail products tend to be inexpensive. Products for VARS must be expensive enough so the VAR earns money. (Linux exemplifies this problem.)

Eval Product
  • Sales success in 1 or many territories
  • Rapid sales growth
  • Positive reviews in the press
  • Awards for the product--not the meaningless ones, but the good ones
  • Unique selling propositions--esp in comparison to top competitors
  • On-line we are adventurous--we'll try new products & emerging categories. We look at page views, downloads, sales to determine interest for retail.

In the Channel you must work to keep it there:
  • Marketing & channel promosin-store promos, end caps, special offers
  • Sales: building the channel--channel education for distributors/resellersPresentations & acct visitsTrade shows and events
  • Press/PR support
  • Sell-thru tracking & analysis--make adjustments to get sales

OEM SALES
  • Different types of OEM dealsHardware bundoles, sware bundles, re-branding opporunities
  • Bigger deals may require signifcant integration/support
  • Re-branding or tech licensing can be simple as recompile w/a new name or supplying an API
  • Low-cost/cost/copy--depends on volumes
  • Avanquest sold over 60m OEM licenses in past 6 yrs--OEM w/Motorola, Dell, HP, others. Some of these require lots of really-tight integration.
  • Avanquest licenses tech and regbrands products from different companies

My question...what categories are best right now. Answer: Anything with security is hot. Video stuff is coming up. Educational is so-so. Tax/financial is good all over world.

QVC bundles spawn software sales other than on the TV.

If they take on a product, it's not a great hit, but sells some. In US, you'll get about 15% in Europe about 20%. If it's in business channel, it's about 20-30%.

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Upgrades or Rebilling--How To Create A Service Product and Win Recurring Revenue

(7/17/2007)  At the Software Industry Conference in Denver today Alister Rampell gave a presentation suggesting the use of software as services (SAS). My notes on this follow:

He started writing shareware in 1991. In 1997 made mistake of promising "unlimited upgrades"--there's a better way to do it.

Product Types:Repeat disposable consumerables1-time goods--software usually here--buy it once, keep using it.Recurring services--cell phone, insurance, cable TV, etc.In Between--automobile.

With 1-Time Pattern:
Saturation point--what happens if 50% of market buys--e.g., SEM Buys
software often sold on a "one-time use" model allowing perpetual use
How can a business continue operating?

Old strategy: upgrades
Many people are content and won't upgrade--60%+
Hard to fund continuing development/support
Customers often expect continued backwards compatibility

New Strategy: software as Service
  • Internet enabled auto-rebilling and auto-updates (subscription model) -- and lets you collect a lower cash point from the customer at a time.
  • Continuous cash flow from active users
  • Annihilates the notion of upgrades
  • Better for business, and if done right, a better customer experience results

Make product "service-Friendly"
Obvious trendsetters--Norton and MacAfee anti-virus
Stop serving feature updates after a time interval
Force product to stop functioning after time interval: lease vs. buy
This is not for everything--1-time use products are not well suited, but many seemingly 1-timers will work if you look at it.

Increasingly this is the std.
Cell phones are example
Consumers can always opt out
Svc product means all upgrades, features, etc. are free--no more sporadic updates
An "auto-upgrade" plan for consumers who like to stay current
Upgrades are always fair
Users are easier to support since they're all current.

You can introduce and auto-update plan to keep them up to date if they buy a 1-time-use product or one that seems like it.

How to make it work?
Rebill-friendly payment processor...bill at given interval.
Allow change in billing type w/out cancellation
Most important thing: make it easy for users to update payment info
More max flexibility-to pro-rate charges, refund pro-rated charges, etc...merchant acct may be best.

How to price?
More pricing options and billing durations is a great way to price segment, capture more price-sensitive customers.
Monthly, quarterly, yearly, etc.
Most important--make it easy for users to update their payment info.

Offer different pricing schedules
Make clear opt-in/out on rebilling
Sell additional services on a service model.
In his case, people on quarterly plan stayed there longest and were the 2nd largest group. Annual was the biggest group, but they only stayed with the plan half as long...about 1.7 years.The quarterly plan made more money because it cost more.

The monthly plan was least profitable for them, but partly because people jumped from it to the annual plan.

software as a service--increasingly well-suited for consumer goods
Oft better for the consumer--better support
Higher revenues and better cash flows
Consumer choice allows for price segmentation

Question -- what service would you use to do billing? He says it's a lot more work to deal with rebilling. Didn't actually give a good answer for this.

Question -- what percent of people drop off and won't do auto-pay? Majority of people actually go for it, but there are some who do not.

Question -- would you handle a grace period for people who might be on vacation or something like that? Answer--we warned people and gave them one-month warning period with emails that they were running out. Then when it runs out, people often said they wanted back and wanted to pay in.

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Using PodCasting - Blogging - NewsLetters To Help Your Business

(7/17/2007)  Michael Lehman (Business-Podcasting.com) and Bob Walsh--Podcasting for MicroISVS at SIC in Denver Friday--these are my notes on the session:

Why do it is the 1st question most people ask--podcasting has no search capability, etc.
  • Express excitement about product & company.
  • It puts a "human face" on your business. It changes the way people see you--you become a person.
  • It gives customers value so they come back and recommend you to others.
  • It gives them a tip on how to better do something they're interested in in their job and how to do it better with your software.

RECORD ---> EDIT ---> ENCODE ---> UPLOAD ---> BLOG

Make it into an MP-3 file, edit it, upload it. Put links in your blog to your podcast. This helps you be found in Google, etc. "Hello, Welcome to ..... I'm your host, Michael Lehman."

Tips:
  • Keep it short--brief is beautiful
  • Do it regularly -- build anticipation
  • Add value -- give something away
  • Send them away -- outbound links to other useful things are the best way to increase your search engine rank--counter-intuitive
  • Make your title memorable.

His email is Michael@business-podcasting.com, his URL is www.business-podcasting.com


Michael Lehman(L) & Bob Walsh

Bob Walsh on Blogging -- (See www.47hats.com, you can email him at bob.walsh@47hats.com)
Your customers want information that helps them--your insight into their problems, how your product can help them. They want insights from you into their world, their problems, etc. Give them a sense of who you are. In short, they want value from your blog.

Since you're not a huge company, they want to have a sense about who you are, that you'll be there, and that you are someone they should listen to. This is a way of getting to know you in the online world.

They don't want to hear about the customer from hell. Even if you want to, don't. Never post anyone's confidential information. Never just do your marketing online on a blog--they want content and if they only find your marketing information, they see that as a waste of time and they don't want to have their time wasted. This goes along with another rule--stay on target and don't go far, far off it.

He believes that the smaller you company is, the more blogging becomes the best marketing activity you can do.

Blog for your cusomters first, your product/service as a distant second--1 of 10 posts or less directly about your product/service.

A good (or bad) blog differentiates you from your competitors. Don't be a me-too blog against a competitor who has a blog.

Put it at the top, not the bottom, of your list of things to do.

Question? Put on your home page? Have it as part of your top-level menu structure. Comment: put up a transciprtion of your blog as text--CastingWords is one such that Microsoft uses. The alternative (better/cheaper) is to script it out and post it as a blog, then read it. Why? Google, etc. do searches on text, not audio.

He shows a link nameclean We'll need to look up how this linkage is setup within the page.

To start a blog:

1. goto typepad.com and sign up for $9/month to get look, feel, name, etc. for your blog.
2. Decide what you want to say--overall approach to blogging--themes, topics, etc. The top 3 things you'll blog about.
3. Keep it short. Use action words, 1st person.
4. Remember: what you say or blog never goes away

Scoblezier.com and Scripting.com are good examples they like. MicroPersuasion.com is another blog they like--1 of the top 10 in the world--where the fellow running it is internationally recognized in public relations--Steve Rubel [sp?]

Question--how to determine ROI on your blogging? FeedBurner (now by Googole) service can tell you about about the statistics on it.Also Libsyn.com can help determine what's going on.

Question--how long should a podcast be? Consensus is that 5-minutes is about tops unless it's something you are "really pasionate" about. From Chanel9 Microsoft knows people don't listen to the entire thing if it's like 40 minutes or something.

Question--what kind of equipment should you use? He shows a small portable, digital hand-held (Sony or Olympus make them) and a cell-phone headset he's using. Equipment is less of an issue today than about 5 years ago.

Can do video, but offer audio-only version as well--Chanel9 recently ugraded to do that.

To search only blogs, go to Google Blog Search to see blog entries segmented by time to see what you see within last few hours or days or whatever. This is also useful because you can put in most any term and get only a few hits compared to the normal Google search. You can also take that search and w/one click, convert it to an RSS link so you can see automatically what's been said about your product/company/etc.

Suggestion about encoding--use 64K mono to keep files small and still sound good. Can use WMA to make it even smaller.

After you setup a podcast, go to iTunes, Podcast Pickle, and others to register your podcast so people can find it. PodcastingNews.com has a directory and software to build/consume podcasts...all you can want to find out about.

Blog directories? Yes there are some like icerocket, but they're languishing. More importantly, send an email to your friends/customers, etc., to say, "I've started a blog...tell me what you think." This will get a conversation going for a start.

Conversational index--take # of comments and track backs and divide by number of posts--the higher the number, the better your ROI.

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Taking Google AdWords To Next Levels

(7/17/2007)  Dave Collins spoke at SIC in Denver--these are my notes on the session:

We all want to spend less and make more. Of course there are lots of titles like, "5 top tips they tried to ban" or "Guaranteed techniques to succeed." This discussion won't do that.

He divides discussed items as:

1. Useful
2. Puzzling
3. Danger
4. Deadly

You may have noticed that 1 of these is positive, 3 are negative.

Today's discussion is on the Hidden control panel (where you setup your campaigns.) Itoffers 11 options to fine-tune your AdWords Account.
1 Useful item--setup a campaign is as far as most people go but there are 11 choices to be made...trusting Google is a really bad idea.
Campagn name--clarity is best: name it so you can know what it was later on
Expiry Date--usually there's no need on a daily basis--you can use it for time-limited, seasonal, new prices testing, new landing pages, etc.
Budget--Google's is intriguing. Uncheck/check content network makes no difference to this.
Source network "loading" makes no difference. Their budget is based on their desires. What does it mean and can you rely on it. You're asking them how much to give them, so think about it.

Delivery Method--there are 2 options:
  • 1. standard--ads are spread evenly over time
  • 2. Accelerated delivery--show ads as fast as can...Google likes it, but don't use it. Why would you

Keyword bidding...last few months there've been changes.

options:
1. Set max limits --traditional pay-per-click approach, you say what is the most to pay, Google pays
2. Set preferred bids--tell them how much you'll pay, Google ignores it & charges what they want to anyway---Bad idea for you.
3. Budget optimizer -- Similar to preferred bids, but here get even more risk--not a recommended approach.

Ad Scheduling--seems to be a good option, often used "because it's there". If set to display between 9Am-6PM, whose time zone is that? This can be useful but there's huge potential for lost sales.

Position preferences -- Rarely used. I.e., says I want my ads to be shown between 1 & 2, so it sounds good, but experience varies--1 great, 1 erratic, 9 disastrous--suggestion is to play with it for 1 week maximum. Chances are it will be a disaster for you.

Ad Serving -- 2 options:
1. Optimize--display better-performing ads more often,
2 Rotate: show ads more evenly.

The key word here is "MORE." There's some control, but Google decides what will make them more money and will do what they want to. He marks this one as a dangerous option to use.

Networks--Search & content must NEVER be mixed--don't let individual bids option tempt you. Google tries to tempt you and they don't give up--overall it is bad for you, good for them

Target Audience--most only see in their own language so stay in your own in most situations

Locations -- AdWords Guru say things like, "Google won't refund blatantly obvious click fraud" but they will.. You must ask in the right way. "It's not worth it to advertise in India" but it can be. They also say, "It's best to target only the US, Canada, UK, and Australia"--but he says not so.

With experience and trials he says you can do well--if a campaign isn't working over weekend, run Monday-Friday only and see how it works. Test, test, test.

Go for unbelievable low bid content campaigns--what do you have to lose? Even lower content campaigns in low-ROI countries. At .01 if you get one sale, you'll make money.

Raised Bids at Off Peak--can be good.

Approved Ads can be interesting...he showed some, i.e.--"CIick on this or die"--great CTR, etc. the "L" is a capital "i"

Disapproved Ads -- Pharmacy-related content is a no-no. "Click" can't be there. Can't say "Google."

Some words are not so clear-cut. E.g., youcan't use "idiot" but "moron" is OK.

AdWords are good, but make them work for it. Don't bid on EBay and let seller set the bid price. Since EBay lets Google set the price, that means you're letting Google tell you how much to bid.

AdWords Reporter -- 50% discount using code SIC2007 and you really need to use it.www.SharewarePromotions.com/SIC2007

When you incorporate Google Analytics into your AdWords Account, you give Google everything about your AdWords use, success, etc. They know so much--too much--because they will use it to make money off you.

Their reports data is heavily underused--you can download all the data about what you've done.

The software package named Urchin, in its last incarnation was very good if you can find a copy of it and it doesn't report everything back to Google if you use it.

Asked about a good book to use for AdWords, he recommended Andrew Goodman's book on "Making AdWords Work." Also mentioned was Perry Marshall (.com) to get the "Ultimate Guide to..."

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About Blogging

(7/17/2007)  Bob Walsh was speaking at SIC about blogging--he's the author of "Clear Blogging" (Apress, 2/07). His first question: "Why do blogging?" His answers are that it will boost your Google rating thus helping people find your software. It will also make a connection with your potential customers...no connection equals no sales.

"How should you do it?" is his next question. What should I write about? Here he says to write about what your customers are interested in so they want to read it. Write about what you know and are passionate about. Don't try to just sell your product. In fact, if you write about it sparingly and obliquely, that will help bring people to your site. Do write carefully and strive to keep down animosity. Do write in 1st person, not 3rd person etc.

Examples:NickZBrawn.comEricsink.comUserScape.com

Sustainable Blogging is a major problem.

Process to capture, collect, process --work out a procedure where you look in 1 place for things you'll blog about. This can include a folder, other sites you regularly check, or whatever fits your schedule.

Be creative on a schedule--not an easy thing to do. It's business, so you have to treat it that way. Apply basic principles about how/when you'll do it. Schedule it in your calendar and be consistent.

Newspaper tricks worth knowing--Keep a couple of not-time-dependent articles ready and use them when something unplanned prevents your normal blogging. Keep this ready to use.

Story lists, interviews, news roundups, more. News roundup--of just a few items you've covered in your blog during the week. You can do a links post--he's using delicious??--to group them up and put them out on a given day.

Google Radar--use a Google home page and there are at least 10 others that let you do it, too. Take RSS feeds and post those in your page. Google Radar will help you keep up with what feeds have hit the subjects.

Passion matters--write about what you care about, care about what you write about. Short and regular works well.

Long and worthwhile requires in-depth info--researching something and getting new information. This will be a strong jolt for your blog if it shows information that both new and older readers will want to know about. Others bloggers will link back to your blog because of these articles, helping raise your ranking.

You want to get comments and track-backs to your posts--the more you get the better. [duh]

Take a stand and be a thought leader. If it offends a few people in a respectful, non-belligerent way, we as small businesses can afford that and it will make you come across as a thought leader and clear voice.It's all about the conversation.5 things not to do:
  1. Don't put advertising from other companies/products, etc. in your blog at all. It's your blog and a part of your company. You'll lose sales if you put ads there.
  2. Don't go off-message. Try to stay on subject and not be drawn off to other subjects that have nothing to do with your main subject (related to your products.)
  3. Don't agonize over posts. Use your own language an don't worry about a misspelling--passion has more importance than precision.
  4. Common spam -- don't allow spam into your blog.
  5. Have fun with your blog--don't make it so painful you don't want to do it.

It will take about 6 months for your Google rank to go up...it won't happen quickly.Growth will not tend to be a steady climb.

Blogging is your single best marketing activity.

Blog for your customers 1st, your product/service a distant 2nd

You're in this for the long haul--work accordingly so you can keep it going, sustain it, and enjoy it.

His is at http://47hats.com

Says the people in your company should contribute to the blog on a regular basis. Not just the marketing people or the CEO/Founder should be included.

Says if you have products that are not directly related, you should build more than one blog, starting with your most valuable product.

3 rules:
1. Reread your posts and clean them up
2. If you're angry--sit on that post for a while before you put it out--Google never forgets
3. Respond on your blog to comments you receive so there's a conversation--whether they say good or bad things about what you said.
Focus on building the conversation.
email: bob.walsh@47hats.com

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Beware Trojan.Kardphisher Windows "Hacktivation" Program

(7/5/2007)  You come in one morning and turn your computer on. It starts to boot up and all looks normal until you get an official-looking screen with a title of "Microsoft piracy control." The screen tells you that someone else has already activated your copy of Windows and you must "re-activate" your copy now. Here's the kicker--it tells you, "We will ask for you billing details, but your credit card will NOT be charged." Then the computer will be shut down and if you try to restart it, it does the same thing. So, you throw your hands up and cry, "curse you, Microsoft." WAIT!

No matter how official it looks, this is not a Microsoft program. It is a phising scam designed to get your credit card information. It is known as Trojan.Kardphisher.

Your anti-virus software should be able to get rid of this one, but if it can't you'll need to start in Safe Mode and delete certain registry keys--not for the faint of heart or newbie. But, so you'll know, you can get more details at www.symantec.com on how to do it.

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Your Domain Name

(5/30/2007)  I am constantly working with users who either need to get a domain name, or who already screwed up when they bought their domain name. First, for the true neophyte, let's answer the question, "What is a domain name?"

A domain name is your website name. To illustrate this, here are 4 domain names you should recognize:

  1. ITSBITS.com
  2. Micosoft.com
  3. Amazon.com
  4. Sears.com

Notice that the domain name does not actually include "www." which is used to say to your system, go out to the internet and find this web site. (A subject we could spend days on lies behind that alone.)

Your domain name is very important. If you don't yet own your own domain name, but you're in business, you should try to get your domain name even if you don't know when you'll get around to using it.

You want your domain name to reflect your company's name, of course, but there are a few rules you should follow:
  1. Keep it short. Here's a purely fictional example: don't use CrazyBohanskyAutomobileSalesIncorporated.com. How many people are going to remember it? How many people are going to type it wrong and wind up saying your site is down or going somewhere else? Would you go there? How about, Bohansky.com or BohanskyAutos.com--heck, how about BoCars.com? Any of these are much better and the last one is best by far--short, sweet, memorable, it rolls off the tongue.

    A great doctor, a good man, and a good friend once allowed me to build his websites for him. He was a plastic surgeon and his practice was known as XXXXXX Plastic Surgery Center, P.C. He would have it no other way than to use xxxxxxplasticsurgerycenterpc.com as his domain name, so we did. It never really got the traffic I wanted it to because of it. Remember this: if no one can find it, it's useless.

  2. Don't use a hyphenated name--people can't remember where the hyphen goes and they won't find you next month when they're looking for you. (If no one can find it...)
  3. Do get a ".com" domain, even if it's not your first choice--people will always try .com first when they look for you.
  4. Before you buy it, check the .net and .org variations of it. You may find that one of these is a porn site or something of the sort. You may need to change to something else if it's too much to risk.
  5. If you can afford it, and if it's available, buy the .net and .org variations of the domain when you buy the .com domain. This will ensure that you don't have a situation that puts a porn site next to you.

    The Birmingham Software Developers Association goes by BSDA for obvious reasons, so we wanted to get BSDA.xxx as our domain. At the time, BSDA.com was a perfectly respectable website run by someone in another state and it looked stable. The same could be said for BSDA.org and BSDA.net, so we finally got BSDA.info. (See point 3 above.) Later, when we didn't know it BSDA.com came available. We didn't catch it, but someone else did--believe me, they had nothing to do with software development. We're still trying to get BSDA.com, .org., and .net

  6. Register your own domain naming yourself as the owner--don't let some else own it.

    On numerous occasions we've seen cases where the "webmaster" purchased the domain using their name and their credit card. To make a long story short, they own the domain--you don't. If they don't service your account well and you want to get someone else you have a problem. If they get hit by a truck or move out of state or fail to renew it or any of a number of other things, you have a problem. We've seen it. We've worked with it. Buy it yourself so you know who owns it and who controls it.

  7. Register your domain for at least 2 years when you buy it. Some search engines actually penalize you for short-term ownership because they figure you won't be around very long.
  8. Only register your domain with a reputable registrar. After bad experiences with some of the well-known ones, we've settled on Network Solutions as the only registrar who's never given us problems, the only one we can recommend to you for domain registration. Be careful, though. Network Solutions tries to sell you everything under the sun and you have to scroll to the bottom of their pages to get just what you want. Talk to your tech person before you pay for anything else.

    One well-known registrar we used seemed great...until we had a customer who retired and closed his business. The registrar wouldn't take no for an answer and continued to charge for renewal (on the credit card) for the next 2 years until we finally threatened to bring in the states' attorney generals to get get it stopped. Believe me, you don't want the experience.

  9. Setup the domain for automatic renewal--you don't want to be out of town and lose it when it expires just because you forgot about it. Put it on your long-term calendar to be sure you got an auto renewal when you should.
  10. Assuming you're going to build a website, put it on every piece of paper you send out including invoices, envelopes, business cards, everything! Always put a regularly-checked email address on these things, too. Get it setup on your new company website so you look professional--you don't want to use something like I saw on a realtor's card. (Her email address--on her business card--was "bigjugs@hotmail.com"--very professional image, there.)

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Secure Your Wireless Network

(5/11/2007)  Think about this. Someone pulls up near your house and hooks onto your WIFI network. Then, using your shared-IP connection, they send kiddy porn across the network. A few hours later the FBI and local law enforcement people show up at your door to arrest you for sending the kiddy porn. You say, "I didn't do it." They say, "Gee...we've never heard that before. You have the right..."

Can't happen?

Early in April the FBI issued a warning that many of the WIFI networks in the Birmingham area are either totally unsecured or were using WEP (wireless encryption protocol) security and should be upgraded. They demonstrated how a WEP-protected network could be hacked in about 1 minute.

Those who have a WIFI network are urged to upgrade to a more secure protocol such as WPA2, TKIP, or AES.

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There's A Software And Computer Revolution Underway

(4/16/2007)  In case your head is in the sand or you just haven't looked around lately, there's a revolution going on in the software/computer world. It is just beginning, so if you pull your head up right now, maybe you won't miss too much.

Vista includes .NET Framework 3.0. It's new. What was in the old .NET Framework 2.0 is all unchanged: they just added 4 new libraries on top of it. One of these is the Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF). That's where the real action is--the "wow!"

For years, we've had battle-ship-gray applications and limited graphics operations. Multi-media has largely been a joke. Now, that's coming to and end. If you're still building battle-ship-gray apps two years from now, you'll turn green with envy--that's green as in oldy-moldy green, not dollars-green.

The WPF includes a rich set of media-capable software to let us use new, far more power graphics than we've ever had before. Yes, it is obvious that it includes new stuff that's designed to compete with our old fave, Flash, but let's be very clear about it--there's much more to it than that. XAML is a whole new (in this context at least) language and it's all about doing cool new graphics work in your desktop app or on a web page. The "wow" in Vista, the greatly improved graphics, the way it finally uses the memory on the graphics cards, and lots more is largely due to the WPF.

Microsoft got a little ahead of themselves on this. Why say that? Well, the toolset isn't quite there yet. Expression is out, but the real stuff is going to hit in the next couple (I hope) of months when they release new tools for Visual Studio that are really designed to work with the WPF...and Expression. Then comes the ability to do graphics "things" you've only dreamed of. I've seen some of it and it's amazing, cool stuff.

If you're interested in seeing more, take a look at these Microsoft pages:SilverLight  and  Expression. While you're it, be sure to check out Expression Media from a link on the Expression page.

Now, for those of you who are developers, take note. Action is required NOW. Microsoft has some guys in a back office somewhere--probably graphics artists--who believe strongly that Expression is just for them and developers never do web design--NEVER! You have to remember that they live in an ivory tower and wear pink-tinted glasses. If, like me, you find this assertion ludicrous, please, take a minute and talk to your Microsoft Sales Rep. Tell him/her how you feel about this decision. Tell them you want Expression included in MSDN. If they don't get the message and get it quickly, we're screwed up for at least a couple of years until they finally admit it was a mistake--and it'll cost you hundreds in the meantime to get the toolset you need, namely, Expression bits.

Meantime, get ready for a change in the way we've built apps. Start looking at what you want to do when battleship gray is a thing of the past and you can put multi-media apps out. The message is simple. Change or face extinction.

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Upgrade To Vista

(4/13/2007)  My friend Blain Barton, who works for Microsoft, has put together a list of the "Top 5" things to consider when moving to Windows Vista. These are taken straight from his blog at blogs.technet.com/BlainBar because he says he wants others to spread the word.

After that, I'll add some comments about what I've found about using Windows Vista so far.

Blain Barton's "Top 5" things to consider when moving to Windows Vista After many discussions with my customers around moving to Windows Vista, I took some time to put my own personal list together to help assist them.Here are my "Top 5" things to follow when moving to Windows Vista:

#1 - Look at the upgrade paths to Windows Vista before you "break the seal" on your new, sleek Windows Vista package.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/buyorupgrade/upgradepaths.mspxYou can upgrade from your current edition of Microsoft Windows XP or Windows 2000 to a corresponding or better edition of Windows Vista by purchasing and installing an upgrade copy of Windows Vista. If you're upgrading multiple PCs in a household, you can save time and money with Windows Vista Family Discount Program. http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/buyorupgrade/familydiscount.mspx

#2 - Run the Windows Upgrade Advisor at:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/buyorupgrade/upgradeadvisor.mspx?wt_svl=20409a&mg_id=20409b

This small software tool will scan your computer and create a report of all known system, device, and program compatibility issues, and recommend ways to resolve them. Upgrade Advisor can also help you to choose the edition of Windows Vista that best fits the way you want to use your computer.

#3 - Run the Windows Easy Transfer at: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=2B6F1631-973A-45C7-A4EC-4928FA173266&displaylang=en

The Windows Easy Transfer helps you to easily move the files and settings stored on your PC running Windows 2000, Windows XP, or even Windows Vista to a new PC running Windows Vista. Windows Easy Transfer will automatically transfer things like: User Accounts, Files and folders, Email messages, settings, and contacts, Photos, music, and videos, Windows settings, Program data files and settings, and Internet settings. What about my applications Blain? !!!!#4 - Run the Windows Easy Transfer Companion (For Applications :) -

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=39F724EB-4E37-4BE0-ADFC-786786E73E50&displaylang=en&clcid=0x409

The Windows Easy Transfer Companion (WETC) is a program that you can use to help transfer programs from a computer that is running Microsoft Windows XP with Service Pack 2 (SP2) to a computer that is running Windows Vista. WETC does not replace Windows Easy Transfer. Instead, WETC is an independent program that complements Windows Easy Transfer. You can use WETC to transfer many kinds of programs between two computers that are connected by an Easy Transfer Cable or by a network connection. For a list of applications that will transfer, check out:

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=931696

#5 - If you are purchasing a new machine from Dell, HP or other OEM vendors you might want to get all of that trial software off of your machine, I like the PC Decrapifier, a free utility at:

http://www.pcdecrapifier.com/home

"When did I ask for this?" you ask. Well, you didn't and that's where the PC Decrapifier comes in. The PC Decrapifier attempts to remove all of the crap on your PC that you never asked for or wanted. To manually remove all of this stuff by hand can take at least an hour (depending on the severity of the infestation.) The PC Decrapifier will detect the 'crap' on your system, you choose what to uninstall, then sit back and let the PC Decrapifier work its magic.

GOT HARDWARE? Check out all Windows Vista Devices!

http://winqual.microsoft.com/HCL/Default.aspx

Go for it, enjoy!

Thanks to Blain for providing these 5 great steps in his blog, and I hope it helps to see them. Check out Blain's blog for more good stuff.

Now, let's talk about what I've experienced. I'm not trying to say that what I'm seeing is typical. I'm just going to report some things I've found in hopes it will help you to know about them. I'm going to step through what I've found is a pretty efficient way to do a new-load. It's probably not in the "best practices" book, and you're free to take issue with it, but it works and I'll do a Forest Gump at that point.

That's all I want to say about that.

  1. First, I've done several RTM Vista clean installs where I was able to simply over-write the existing "stuff" and they each seemed to work flawlessly. I hope you have that luck. I've not been so lucky with upgrades--more on that anon.

  2. From The Art Of War

    Know your enemy...

    So, I'll echo what Blain said in his blog. Before you load it up, look at what I'll call your "mission-critical" software. That may be very different than your company's "mission-critical" list. If you have software you just can't live without, check it out before you go forward. Check out the site on Blain's list (above). If you don't find your software listed there, take a quick look at this site's list to see if it's listed there.

    http://www.iexbeta.com/wiki/index.php/Windows_Vista_Software_Compatibility_List

    Find it in either place and you might save yourself lots of grief.

  3. So far, I've had one older box with an unrecognized DVD R/W drive--an early one. But be sure to check the hardware if you have an older box. Microsoft has done a great job of getting and adding drivers for the new OS, so hopefully you won't find any such problems.

  4. Once the OS is installed, I suggest you consider what you're using the box for. If its going to be a developer box (like mine) you'll need to go to the control panel and add components like IIS. Of course, if you're just going to do email, text editing, and maybe a little light-weight stuff for fun, this won't be necessary so just move on. (If you're on a corporate network where an IT staff controls the options, just move on now.)

    If in doubt, open the control panel and find "Programs and Features." (This used to be "Add/Remove Programs.) On the left side there's a colorful bar with options and one of them is "Turn Windows Features On Or Off"--click that. On the resulting dialog you'll find a number of features you can use--or not--according to your needs. A word of caution here to the uninitiated--if you don't know what you're doing, don't just turn it on for fun--you never know what you're getting and it will have some impact on machine performance. Turn on/off the features you're going to need.

  5. Now is a good time to run the Windows Update and pull down updates that affect the OS and its components.

  6. Now, you've setup the OS and the components, you're ready to install software. The User Account Control (UAC) is much more robust on Vista and you'll undoubtedly find some older apps that don't seem to work just right. (See step 1 above.) In most cases, when I contacted the software vendor/author they had a shim or a new version I could get and make it work...but not in all cases. I wound up with a couple of programs I never got to work, and I'm still trying to figure out why some--not all--of my legacy OCX (remember ActiveX components) components won't register and be recognized.

  7. OK, if you're an IT person, and if you're setting up a new box, you're about to appreciate that other computer company's ad where the security guy is standing behind the PC-guy saying, "You've requested that something happen--accept or deny." UAC is a good thing in most situations and I definitely want my users to ALWAYS be on it, but COME ON. I'm "building" this box and I just want it to work--not stop and ask permission every single time I turn around. This page will tell you how to turn UAC off while you build the box:

    http://technet2.microsoft.com/WindowsVista/en/library/0d75f774-8514-4c9e-ac08-4c21f5c6c2d91033.mspx?mfr=true

    Understand that IE protected mode is also turned off when UAC is off. But you're building the box. It's not in production yet. So the solution is easy--unplug the sucker from the network until you're ready. (On a notebook, unplug it and turn off WIFI.) Do this and I can say without fear that no virus, spam, or malware of anykind is going to get into your box from the internet--duh!)

    Don't forget to turn it back on when you're finished--more on that later.

  8. OK, so now you've loaded your software. UAC is still off. Here's a hint. You need to run Windows Update again to pick up any software updates there. Now is a great time, but remember UAC is off. Leave your WIFI off if you're using a wired LAN (preferred). If you're only using WIFI, be sure it's security-enabled NOW. (That's another discussion.) Go straight to the Microsoft windows update, do it, and don't go anywhere strange.

  9. Now, you can go to www.Adobe.com and pull down the Flash player. You may as well pull down the latest Acrobat Reader while you're there. Depending on your use of the box, you may want to go towww.Sun.com and download the Java add-in. Now's a good time. REMEMBER: UAC IS STILL DOWN. Go nowhere you don't have to and minimize connected time.

  10. OK, you've loaded tons of "stuff." Your box is "built." Enable UAC and step through your programs to be sure they run. Chances are you'll find you need to elevate security for one or more and it's better to do it now than after your user finds it. If that's you, it's better to do it now than when you're in a real bind and need it to work.

  11. You're set. Now all you have to do is become familiar with the myriad features you've never had before.

  12. For an upgrade:

    • My life has not been as good. So far, I've only run the upgrade advisor from behind a firewall and it has failed every time. I'm looking for whether it uses a strange port or something. Probably because of this, I've had minor problems on each upgrade attempt.
    • The difference at this point--you won't be loading so much stuff so you won't need to turn UAC off. In fact, since this is a production box (I assume) you don't want to turn off UAC and potentially expose sensitive data even for a short time.
    • Other than that, you'll essentially answer a couple of questions differently and follow the same steps as above for a clean install.

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Writing A Windows Service

(1/3/2007)  I gave a talk at the Georgia Code Camp in January. The topic was "Writing a Windows Service--Warts And All." You can find the entire setup for this discussion at www.WallaceAllison.com

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File-folder Thumbnails In Vista--Gone?

(3/13/2007)  No, the thumbnails features is not gone in Vista, but you have more options and you can easily shoot yourself in the foot. Go to the control panel, open "Folder Options" and look at the "View" tab.

You'll see "Always show icons, never thumbnails" as a new option. Click this and all thumbnails are gone.

You'll also see "Display file icon on thumbnails"--click that and watch .jpg files' thumbnails go away.

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ASP.NET Uses Wrong Browser

(3/12/2007)  While loading a nice, shiny, new Vista-laden computer as my main machine, I hit a strange problem with Visual Studio. I had it loaded and working. I loaded FireFox's latest incarnation. Then Microsoft announced release of SP1 for Visual Studio in Vista and I downloaded and installed it. Everything looked OK until I discovered that FireFox had taken over as my default browser.

"No problem," I thought. I'll just go in and change the default browser back to IE so it works right with ASP.NET 2.0. I did. It didn't. Everything else found IE as the default browser, but Visual Studio clung tenaciously to FireFox. I even took FireFox off the computer--no help. I searched for hours to no avail. Finally, I discovered how to set the default browser in Visual Studio 2005. It's simple, but it's ugly.

Here's how to do it:
  • Open an ASP.NET project in Visual Studio 2005
  • Look in the Solution Explorer (see View menu if it's not showing)
  • Right click on the project you have opened
  • Click on "Browse with"
  • In the resulting "Browse with" window, add IE to the mix if necessary and select it. If it's already there, just select IE.
  • Now click on the "Set as default" button.
  • That should do it.

That's simple. But it's ugly because of where it is, and I can only call this, hidden. With all that beautiful UI for Visual Studio "options" (see tools if you're not familiar with it), why did they put a Program Default in this out of the way place and not under the "options" section?

Hope this helps you.

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Patch Tuesday Fixes 20 Security Holes

(2/14/2007)  Second Tuesdays of each month are known as "Patch Tuesday" in the IT trade because that's when Microsoft posts new patches to their products on their websites.

This Patch Tuesday saw patches for 20 security holes--some of which Microsoft says are already being exploited by hackers who want to do all kinds of bad stuff via or to your machine. None of these latest patches are for the new Vista operating system, but a number of them are rated as "critical" meaning you need to get those patches yesterday.

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Microsoft Releases ASP.NET AJAX Version 1.0

(1/25/2007)  If you're a web developer, your wait for Ajax is over. It was code-named Atlas, but that's changed so it's officially ASP.net AJAX. You'll need to download both the extensions, the Control Toolkit, and, if you're like me, you'll want to see a doc set. Hit ajax.asp.net to get it all.

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Buying A New Computer?--Here's What You Should Know

(12/16/2006)  So, you want to buy a new computer for that special someone...maybe as a Christmas present. But you've heard that Microsoft's new Vista® operating system is on the way and you're not quite sure what that means to you. Well, here's a swipe at helping you.

First, to answer a question that numerous people seem to have, yes, Vista® is real. It is RTM (released to market) for big customers even now and sometime very soon all new computers from your favorite manufacturer will come with the new OS. In January, it will be RTM for general retail distribution.

Second, yes, Vista® will include numerous improvements that will make it worthwhile for many users. It will have better security, stronger graphics than ever before, and lots of new capabilities. That's the good news, but it brings new requirements, too...read on.

Now that we've established those things, what about all the articles out there that say now is the time to buy to save a bundle. That may be true. It may not. The question becomes whether you actually need all that new stuff during the next, say, 3 years. If the answer is yes, then this part of the conversation is mute--you need to wait just long enough to get Vista® to have that. On the other hand, if for a couple or three years all you use this computer for is going to be email, a little surfing of the net, maybe some word processing and playing a little music, it is a great time to save some money. You can get a great bargain on a 32-bit-processor computer with Microsoft Windows® XP. Download the latest IE7 and enjoy.

But, what to do if you're not sure of the usage you'll want or need? Then you can take a middle-road. Here's what to do and why. First, the new OS and lots of new software that's in the pipeline right now need a 64-bit processor. Within a couple of years all new releases will be designed strictly for a 64-bit processor. So, you need to purchase a 64-bit processor--avoid the Intel Itanium because it doesn't qualify, even though it's often called a 64-bit processor.

Now, realize that much of what's new and great in the computer world revolves around a new batch of graphics processors. There's the problem with lots of the machines you can buy right now. Their graphics cards aren't up to the task presented by Vista® and you will have to buy a new graphics card later to really use the new OS. It's hard to say what that will cost you, but a guess would be $100 to $350 dollars--depending on how serious you are about graphics work (but excluding true graphics pros who will pay much more--you know who you are.) There are 3 kinds of labeling on the market right now that can affect what you want to buy--especially in a notebook.

  1. No label--just pass it by no matter how good a bargain it appears to be
  2. Vista® Compatible--pass it by. The video card will let you run Vista® but it won't be able to do lots of things you want it to.
  3. Vista® Ready--OK! This one has a video card that can handle the new OS's most complex video needs. This is the one you want.

Finally, there's the questions of memory and hard-drive space. In over 30 years of IT work there are two complaints I have never heard from anyone. First, I've never heard anyone say, "Darn it--I bought too much memory." They always say, "How much will it cost me to upgrade my memory?" Second, and in a similar vein, I've never heard anyone complain, "Dang, I bought too big a hard drive." It's always more like, "Can you put a bigger hard drive in my system?" There's a message here, but I'm going to let you figure out what it is. OK?

Finally, let's look at 2 other things to note. Many of the new notebooks will not be equipped with either a floppy drive or a serial port, though they will almost all come with a built-in modem. Normally, this is not a problem, but if you need a floppy drive or a serial port for any reason, the absence of it becomes a problem very quickly. So, look before you leap. You may need to budget for a USB-driven floppy drive or serial-port adapter. Or, of course, it may be time to budget for a new printer.

There are 4 "flavors" of the new OS. You can see what the differences are by hitting this link Features

There's also a Windows Upgrade Advisor program you can download, install, and run to see how your existing computer will react to the new Operating System. You can find this at Vista Advisor but be aware that it may not be working properly yet.

®Microsoft Windows and Vista are registered trademarks of the Microsoft Corporation.

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Alabama Code Camp III Presentation--Sending Email From Your Windows or Web App

(10/27/2006)  The code snippets used in the presentation to show 3 ways to send email from your winform or web application are here for you. To download them click here

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Small Business Server 2003 Configuration For Multiple Websites

(9/11/2006)  



Begin With ISP-DNS
Now Your DNS
   Forward Zone
   Reverse Zone
Next Is IIS
And now, ISA
And finally, Exchange 2000 Server



Add a new domain to your Small Business Server 2003 (SBS) web-hosting setup. Make it receive email as user.NEWDOMAIN.xxx, too. Sounds easy and it is...after you figure out how to do it. There are 4 places you have to do work to make it so: DNS, ISA, IIS, Exchange.

As with all of these little gems, I'm not going to go through a lot of theory and esoterica...you can read that in lots of different places. My theory is simple==get the thing working and move on; So here goes.

Let's begin with the assumption that you have purchased NEWdomain.xxx and you've set the DNS pointers to it so that they point to your ISP's 2 DNS servers. That means that whenever anyone hits NEWdomain.xxx, it should come to the ISP's DNS and get your IP address to go back to. Nothing is going to work outside your own domain until the ISP works their order and you are in their DNS properly.

This is called "park and point" and they'll be only to happy to add $5/month/domain to your bill. This is, of course, a rip-off because once they set it up (a 1-time thing) they'll never touch it again until you tell them to kill it. So, be sure to complain, even though you know it won't do any good.

Now, let's see if the ISP is ready for you. Pull up a DOS prompt and enter the command:

nslookup www.NEWdomain.xxx

You should get back some 4 lines of text that will look something like this:

Server: ns1.YOUR-isp.yyyAddress: 999.999.999.999

Name: www.NEWdomain.xxxAddress: 888.888.888.888

Where 999.999.999.999 is the primary DNS IP for your ISP and 888.888.888.888 is your server's IP address.

If you get this, it means that any request for NEWdomain.xxx will be routed to 888.888.888.888. EXCEPT that we need to carefully check the mail-exchange (MX) record to be sure they didn't screw it up. So now enter:

nslookup -q=mx NEWdomain.xxx

If all is well, you will get back some 6 lines of text something like this:

Server: ns1.YOUR-isp.yyyAddress: 999.999.999.999

NEWdomain.xxx MX preference = 10, mail exchanger = mail.NEWdomain.xxxNEWdomain.xxx nameserver = Server: ns1.YOUR-isp.yyyNEWdomain.xxx nameserver = Server: ns2.YOUR-isp.yyymail.NEWdomain.xxx    internet address = 888.888.888.888ns1.YOUR-isp.yyy    internet address = 999.999.999.999ns2.YOUR-isp.yyy    internet address = 999.999.999.998

The first 2 lines are the same as before. The MX preference line is your first important one since it says where mail is to be routed. In more than one case, I have seen the ISP route this to the wrong place, so watch it closely. Check that all else is correct as well, because a wrong value on any of these settings means trouble and/or erratic performance for you.



Now, it's time to move on to your own DNS. Remember that this is for an SBS installation, so if you have a different install, you'll need to modify your thinking a bit, but the principles are the same. You need to create 2 primary zones for everything to work right. So, nav those menus:

START -- PROGRAMS -- ADMINISTRATIVE TOOLS -- DNS

Double-click on Forward Zone to expand it. Now you'll see your existing domain has an entry. We'll call it YOUROLDONE.com from here on just to have something we can use. Double-click on YOUROLDONE.com to expand its entries. Note the Start-of-Authority (SOA), Host(A) records, Name Server (NS), and Mail exchanger (MS) records.

Rt.-click on Forward Zone and then click on New Zone to open the New-zone wizard.
  • Click Next
  • Check the Primary Zone radio button. Check to Store the zone in AD. Click Next.
  • Check the radio button To all domain controllers in the AD.... Click Next
  • Type NEWdomain.xxx in the "zone name:" text box. Click Next
  • Check the radio button Allow only secure dynamic updates. Click Next
  • Click Finish

Now, you will see your new Forward Zone in the zone list. Click on it to open it up and you will see that you have an SOA and a NS record. You need two (A) records and an MX record.
  1. First your external Host (A) record:
    • Right-click on the white-space beneath your NS record and select New Host A...
    • Just go to the IP address and enter your EXTERNAL (Wan/internet-facing) interface IP numbers (888.888.888.888)
    • Click Add Host
    • Click OK
    • Click Done
  2. Now Your MX Record
    • Right-click on the white-space beneath your NS record and select New Mail Exchanger (MX)...
    • Leave the first text box for "host or child domain" blank
    • Skip the FQDN text box
    • In the text box for the mail server, type mail.NEWdomain.xxx
    • Click OK to finish
  3. Next your internal Host (A) record:
    • Right-click on the white-space beneath your NS record and select New Host A...
    • In the New Host dialogue box, enter mail in the "name" text box
    • In the New Host dialogue box, just as before, go to the IP address, but enter your INTERNAL (LAN-facing) interface IP numbers (333.333.333.333)
    • Click Add Host
    • Click OK
    • Click Done

Now, upon inspection, you will see an SOA pointing to your server, an NS pointing to your server, 2 Host (A) records, one for your external interface, one for your internal. Be sure the one for the internal has the name "mail." It will be the only one that is not the "same as parent folder." Finally, you should see your MX record which points to mail at NEWdomain.xxx.



OK, now you need a Reverse Look up entry. Double click on the Reverse Lookup Zones entry in the table at left. (You will not change anything you see when this opens.)

Just for future reference, with 333.333.333.x open, notice in the right-hand viewing panel that you have an existing SOA record and an existing DNS, and an existing MX record. Since this is an SBS server, all 3 of these have an entry like

YOURserverName.YOUROLDDOMAIN.xxx

already there. Notice what this entry is, as you will need it in the next step.

Right-click on the 333.333.333.x LAN-subnet entry in the table at left. Click on New Alias (CNAME). This will open the "New Resource Record" dialogue box.

  • In the "Alias Name" text box, type NEWdomain.xxx
  • In the FQDN text box, type YOURserverName.YOUROLDDOMAIN.xxx (You can see this
  • Click OK

Now, you'll notice that in the xxx folder, you have an entry for NEWdomain.xxx that points to the SBS server. That does it for the reverse DNS lookup, so you can close the DNS Management window and move on.




Next up is IIS. We're going to do a quick little ditty, just to get something out there. Configuration of IIS is beyond the scope of what we're trying to do here (maybe a later article) so we're just going to put up a little something to test with.

Begin by picking out a directory where you want the website's files to reside. Usually, but not always, this will be under the C:\INETPUB directory, which is preset as the default in an SBS installation. In our case, we'll name our subdirectory NEWdomain so our path will be

c:\inetpub\newdomain\

Create the folder newdomain at this time. Look at permissions on folder inetpub and be certain that they were inherited by your new folder. If they weren't, you'll need to add them.

Now, let's build a very simple little web page, just so we'll know when we get to the right place. Open notetab and copy in the following lines:

<blockquote><html><Head><Title>www.NEWdomain.com test page</title></head><body bgcolor=Green><font color=white><B>www.NEWdomain.com<P>We're building this site right now--please come back later.</B></font></body></html>

Save this file as c:\inetpub\NEWdomain\default.htm

Now open the IIS manager. Find it at
START -- PROGRAMS -- ADMINISTRATIVE TOOLS -- Internet Information Manager(IIS)

  • If you don't see your server, right-click on the top line and click connect. Then give your server name and hit OK. Now you should see your server.
  • If needed, double-click on your server to expand it's information.
  • Double-click on Web sites to expand this information.

At this point you can see the websites that are running on your server. You'll notice that the Default web site is there. Also, you'll see such things as Sharepoint Central Administration.

  • Right-click on Web sitesNEWWeb site to open the Web site creation wizard.
  • Click Next
  • Type a name for the website--in our example, NEWdomain.com is good. Click Next
  • Select the INTERNAL IP address of your server in the IP-address text box. For now, at least, leave the port as 80. Leave the Host Header text box blank. Click Next
  • Now enter the path you established for this site. In our example, it is

    c:\inetpub\newdomain\

    Assuming you want any and everyone to be able to see your website, leave the box for Allow annonymous access... checked.
  • Check Read and Run Scripts (such as ASP). Then Click Next
  • Click Finish

Now, look to see if the new website is there and if it is stopped. If it is, you'll almost certainly need to use another port besides 80. Verify this by right-clicking on the new website and then clicking Start. If you get an error message that

IIS was unable to start the site. Another site may already be using the port you configured for this site. Please select a unused port for this site.

(ignoring Microsoft's poor grammar) this will verify that you need to change the port number. Not a big thing, just something to do and carry through into ISA.

Now, right-click on your new website and click on Properties.
  • Click on the Web site tab.
    • Verify that "Description" is correct as NEWdomain.xxx.
    • Verify that your INTERNAL (LAN) IP is selected
    • If you need to use a different port than port 80 (as determined above) type in that number here. I suggest you use 81, 82, 83
    • Unless you know you need to change them, leave the other fields here as they are.
  • Click on the Home Directory tab
    • Be sure that A directory located on this computer is selected
    • Be sure that your folder path is shown in the "Local Path" text box (C:\inetpub\NEWdomain\)
    • Be sure that Read is checked
    • If the "Application Name" textbox is blank click the Create button so that the words "Default Application" show up in the textbox
    • Verify that Execute Permissions is Scripts only
    • Your "Application Pool" should be DefaultAppPool
  • Click on the Documents tab
    • If needed, check the Enable Default content page check box
    • If needed, add Default.htm to the list of default documents recognized.
  • Click on the Directory Security tab
    • Click the Edit button
      • If needed, check the Enable annonymous access check box
      • Check the Integrated Windows authentication check box
      • Click OK
  • Click OK to close the NEWdomain.xxx Properties dialogue

Now, if necessary, right-click the website and select Start to start it. You should see the website start without trouble UNLESS the port you used is already in use. In which case, run back through that part of the steps above and put it on the next higher-up port number. Then try again to start it.

Right-click the webiste and select Browse to see our little green web page. Ah, there's the color of money.

You can close the IIS manager at this point.



OK, as you will remember, we are adding a 2nd or 3rd website to the SBS server. That means there are steps we're not worried about in ISA. Also, we're not going to deal with using an SSL 3rd-party certificate for our example...that's a lot more complicated and maybe we'll do an article on that later if anyone says they appreciated this one. If not, why bother?

Begin by opening the ISA management module:

START -- PROGRAMS -- Microsoft ISA Server -- ISA Management

As always, double-click to show your server's information. You should see "monitoring, Computer, Access Policy," etc.

  • Begin by going to Network configuration and opening it. There you will see your Local Domain Table (LDT).
    • Right-click on the LDT entry and select NEW -- LDT Entry.
    • In the Name text box, enter

      *.NEWdomain.xxx

  • Now, expand Policy Elements by clicking on it. Click on Destination Sets.
    • Right-click on Destination Sets and select NEW -- Set.
    • In the Name text box, enter NEWdomain.xxx
    • Click the ADD button--the Add/Edit Destination dialogue comes up.

      • If it isn't selected, click to select Destination:
      • In the Destination text box, type *.NEWDOMAIN.xxx
      • In the Path: text box, enter your chosen folder path as:

        c:\inetpub\NEWdomain\*

        (That trailing asterisk is important since it tells the system to use all files and sub-paths. Be sure you include it.)
      • Click the OK button to proceed.
    • Note that there is now a destination in your destination set.
    • Click the ADD button--the Add/Edit Destination dialogue comes up again.

      • If it isn't selected, click to select Destination:
      • In the Destination text box, type www.NEWDOMAIN.xxx
      • Click the OK button to proceed.
    • Note that there are now 2 destinations in your destination set.

  • Now, expand Publishing by clicking on it. Click on Web Publishing Rules by clicking on it. Right-click on Web Publishing Rules, Select NEW -- RULE to open the New Web Publishing Rule Wizard.
    • In the publishing-name text box, enter www.NEWdomain.comthen click NEXT
    • Select the option for Specified Destination Set in the combo-box. A second combo-box will appear. Select your www.NEWDomain.xxx destination set that you created above. Click NEXT
    • Select Any request. Click NEXT
    • Select Redirect the request to this internal... option. Enter your server's INTERNAL (WAN) interface IP address in the text box that lights up when you make this selection. Now check the Send the original host header... option. Unless you changed the port assignment for this website (see above), leave the port numbers alone. If AND ONLY IF you did change it from 80 to something else, set that same port number in here for HTTP bridging. Click NEXT
    • Click FINISH
    • Note that your NEWdomain.xxx publishing rule was created, but it is probably at the very top of your list. That means that it will always be the first rule the firewall tries to use when it sees an incoming web request. If you expect it to take the heaviest part of your traffic, that's good. If not, you'll want to Right-click on it and use the Move Down option until it is in the appropriate point in the list of rules to match expected usage.
        Close the ISA manager module. At this point, if you've done everything correctly, you should be able to go out to the web and use the URL

        http://www.NEWdomain.xxx

        and see that little green screen show up for all the world to see. Ah, how sweet it is.



Our assumption here is that SMTP email is working for your existing web site. If it is not, then what follows will not fix the problem...it is only designed to add your NEWdomain website so you can get email. Get the first site's email working first, then come back here.

We will open the Exchange Manager module to do this. Go to:

START -- Programs -- Microsoft Exchange -- System Manager

In the Exchange System Manager, expand Recipients. Click on Recipient Policies. In the right-hand window, right-click Default Policy and select Properties to open the Default Policy Properties Dialogue.
  • Click the E-Mail Adresses (Policy) tab
  • Click the NEW button to add a policy.
  • Select the SMTP Address, then click OK
  • Leave SMTP as type. In the Address text box, enter @NEWdomain.xxx. NOTE the use of the "@" sign.
  • Check the box for "This Exchange Organization is res..."
  • Click the OK button
  • Now check the box under "Type" for SMTP at NEWdomain.xxx
  • Click OK to close the dialogue
  • Usually, you will click NO to answer the next question because you won't want email from NEWdomain.xxx going to all recipients. However, if you are familiar with Exchange, you may want to click YES on SBS since there are a small number of users. If you're not sure, it's just like with drugs--just say no.

Now, in the left-hand window, expand this path:

Servers -- YOUR-SERVER-NAME -- PROTOCOLS -- SMTP

In the right-hand window, you should be looking at the Default SMTP Virtual Server. Right-click on the Default SMTP Virtual Server -- Properties.
  • Click the Delivery tab
  • Click the Advanced tab
  • Be sure there is a check in the box to Perform reverse DNS lookup on incoming messages
  • Click OK to close this dialog box
Close the Exchange System Manager at this time.

Now, you'll want to go out to a user's record. For this, we'll use the SBS Server Management console you're probably already familiar with from doing setup on SBS. If you're not, it should be on the desktop. If it's not, it's in the Start Menu--just look for Server Management. Click on Users

Now, just as an example, let's say that John Doe is the user who'll get email as JohnDoe@NEWdomain.xxx. Let's also assume that John's User record already exists. You should see it in the right-hand window of the MMC. Double-click on it.
  • Click on the E-mail Addresses tab.
  • Click on the New button.
  • Click on the SMTP option and then click OK
  • Enter the new email address--in our example, we'd enterJohnDoe@NEWdomain.xxx.
  • Click on the OK button.
Repeat this procedure to setup email accounts for each person who will receive email at NEWdomain.xxx.

Test your email work by going to a server outside your LAN and sending an email to good old John Doe. It should come through with flying colors. If it does not, retrace your steps above. If it still does not, I suggest that you download the white paper, Troubleshooting Message Flow in Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server--A Step-by-Step Approach.

I hope this has helped you with your situation. Any comments (or donations) can be sent to me...just look at the "Contact us" page on this website.

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SBS Suddenly Lost Connection From ISA to IIS and Gives Error Code 64R

(7/21/2006)  OK, here's the story. I was working in ISA to move some new domains over to my webserver when, to my dismay (and disgust) I was told that our main website was down. Sure enough, it gave

Error Code: 64R (ISA)
whenever anyone tried to hit the site. Of course, my first thought was that I'd messed something up in ISA. A took about 2 milliseconds to congratulate myself on having made a backup of ISA just before I started and then I did a restore. I don't know if you've ever used the ISA restore, but it actually works to save your bacon and I heartily recommend it.

It didn't fix the problem!

I had not touched anything else but DNS and ISA and I quickly ascertained that DNS was NOT the problem. ISA was back where it started from so it couldn't be the problem. I decided to try "the cure"--I rebooted the box. Did that fix it? NO! I checked IIS and, sure enough, all my websites were stopped. I clicked to start them. Nice...only, it didn't fix the problem. 64 stared at me like a guillotine hanging over my head.

My partner in crime did a quick Google for it--amazingly, nothing came up but a quick definition that said the system had lost connection with the website. I found that one or two of my sites actually still worked--well, almost.

Perplexed and confused, I went to the event viewer and there, in the Application log, I saw it. There was a series of several W3SVC errors--2214 followed by 2268. The 2214 gave me a clue--it said

The HTTP Filter DLL c:\inetpub\sbsflt\sbsflt.dll failed to load. The data is the error.

Now, I've never even known that there was such a .dll before, but I went straight out to look for it and, yes, there it was. Maybe it got corrupted somehow, I thought. But then again, I wondered what permissions it had. So I looked and it seemed strange that noone had permissions on it...not the users IWAM (the app-pools), Interactive, ASP.NET, or even the nebulous "Everyone." So I gave IWAM and Interactive read/execute permissions and, voila! The trouble went away--all fixed.

I don't know what caused the subdirectory to loose its permissions like that and I probably never will, but it cost me a couple hours of down time and ran by blood pressure up a few points to find and clear the problem...I hope this will help you if you've had the same thing happen to your box.

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ASP.NET 2.0 Validation Error

(6/30/2006)  While working with ASP.NET 2.0 and loading the website to my remote IIS 6.0 server, I hit a problem.that you may well hit, too. The Error Message occured each time I tried to go from my page to another page...in my case I was using an ImageButton control to try to redirect to the next page. Each time I tried this, I got the message:

An unhandled exception was generated during the execution of the current web request. Information regarding the origin and location of the exception can be identified using the exception stack trace below.

Stack Trace:


[HttpException (0x80004005): Unable to validate data.]System.Web.Configuration.MachineKey.GetDecodedData(Byte[] buf, Byte[] modifier, Int32 start, Int32 length, Int32& dataLength) +196System.Web.UI.LosFormatter.Deserialize(String input) +60

[HttpException (0x80004005): Authentication of viewstate failed. 1) If this is a cluster, ...yada, yada, yada...

There are number of possible causes for this and most of them are described in detail on numerous blogs and other articles. Essentially, the problem they describe is that view state is tied to the MAC (machine address code) of the server that generates the state variables in the first place. You can cure this problem using one of a couple of methods.

To see if these will fix your problem, go to your .ASPx code and change the directive at its top to includeenableViewStateMac="False" so it looks something like this:

<%@ Page Language="vb" AutoEventWireup="false" Codebehind="MyPage.aspx.vb" Inherits="MyAssembly.MyPage" enableViewStateMac="False" >

If this fixes your problem, then you need to consider changing the machine key. You can find a really good discussion on this atcodinghorror.com. There are serious security considerations if you're doing eCommerce, banking, or handling personal data, so you don't really want to leave the enableViewStateMac="False" statement as your problem cure in these cases. See Ms KB Article 831150for still more information you can use on this problem.

What if this doesn't fix your problem. Consider the cycle times on your IIS Application Pools. If the pools are cycling too quickly, i.e., too often, you will sporadically see this error message as the app pool is replaced and the existing state from when a page was opened is replaced.

Another problem you could be hitting is that some Proxy Servers limit http-Post data to somewhere around 1024 characters--ISA isn't guilty but some are so if you're passing through a proxy server, there is a low probability that it may be your problem.

Now, all of this is well and good, but it did NOT cure my problem--I still had the error message. So...I began studying the difference between the page in question and another one that actually worked doing exactly the same thing. I found that during my programming, I had done something differently. I had given my new page a postback URL for the ImageButton control in question. At first blush, this didn't seem to be a problem since I wasn't letting the system do a postback--I was doing a Response.Redirect(URL,true). But, after I considered what I saw happening, I saw that the system was trying to do a postback and the postback was actually over-riding my redirect command. Proving this was simple and it immediately fixed the problem. I went to my ASPx code and deleted the part that said PostBackUrl="http://www.itsbits.com" from my <ASP:ImageButton... statement. Sure enough, this does away with the error message because the system no longer has a parameter (the URL) to use for a postback.

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ASP.NET 2.0 Parser Error: The type xxxx.Global is ambiguous

(7/12/2006)  The error message is Parser Error: The type xxx.Global is ambiguous and it comes up when you convert an ASP.NET website to ASP.NET 2.0...but only after you upload the new website to the server. (xxx is your site/page name.) The error does not show up on your development machine.

The answer here is that your ASP.NET setup had a file in the xxx/bin directory named xxx.dll. When you convert on the deveolopment box, this .dll file is deleted for you. But...unless you delete it from the server's .dll directory, you probably still have file /xxx/bin/xxx.dll there. You can simply delete it. If you're a little skittish about that, just rename it as OLDxxx.dll so the system won't see it and try to use it. That's all there is to this one.

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