Exhibit A

What's so big about OSCommerce?

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 09:16:00 -1600

Sure, they have an extremely large 3rd party/open source community behind them but wow, is this software backward in terms of usability and manageability. I'm doing some work on http://www.forcefieldmagnets.com/ and this is like working with Wordpress software from 3-5 years ago. Sure as heck doesn't hold a candle to ASPDNSF. Perhaps I'm just spoiled?

Anyone have any good, positive comments on OSCommerce? Perhaps because the version I'm working on is so old that is why it seems so limited/backwards.

SQL Files Grown Out of Control?

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 00:31:00 -1600

For merchants running AspDotNetStorefront who aren’t regularly running the Monthly Maintenance routines, you might find yourself in a situation similar to one of our clients where the size of the transaction log for their SQL database had grown large enough that their site was shut down because it couldn’t grow any more.

In this case, since we couldn’t access the admin section of the site to run the monthly maintenance, I was able to run the following commands in order to clear the transaction log to the point of the last backup AND then shrink the physical size of the SQL database files. Please note that before running these commands GET A FULL BACKUP OF THE DATABASE. If you can’t do this directly from SQL Management Studio (or similar tool) you should be able to initiate an ad-hoc backup from your hosting company’s control panel.

  USE database_name 
  EXEC sp_helpfile

--Truncate Log
  BACKUP LOG database_name WITH TRUNCATE_ONLY
  GO

--Shrink Log file
  DBCC SHRINKFILE (logfile_name, 1)
  GO

--Shrink Data File
  DBCC SHRINKFILE (datafile_name, 1)
  GO

Where:

database_name is the name of the database
logfile_name is the name of the logfile (not the filename of the physical file) as shown in the sp_helpfile results
datafile_name is the name of the datafile (not the filename of the physical file) as shown in the sp_helpfile results

The assumption in the latter two are that the datafile_name is the name of the database and the the logfile_name is the name of the database with _log appended to it (like exhibita, exhibita_log for the database named exhibita) but this is not always the case. If you can’t access the results of exec sp_helpfile command from SQL Management Studio (or equivalent), you should be able to get this via your hosting control panel or from the host directly.

Here is an example of that command on one of my databases:

As you’ll see from the above, the rule of thumb that I mentioned in the previous paragraph doesn’t apply here as the filename for the Data file is different than the “standard”.

DON’T FORGET TO BACKUP YOUR DATABASES before trying this though.

Do you have other techniques that you use to accomplish this task? If so, please let us know using the comments section below.

Change Starting Order Number in ASPDNSF

Wed, 28 Dec 2011 02:45:00 -1600

From within your storefront's "Run SQL" option under "Configuration" | "Advanced" (or from within SQL Mangler, I mean Manager, enter the following command:

dbcc checkident(OrderNumbers, reseed, XXXXXX)

Where XXXXXX is the new number you want to use as your seed.

This can come in very handy if you moving from one storefront to another to ensure a continuity of orders.

from: http://manual.aspdotnetstorefront.com/p-1335-changing-the-starting-order-number.aspx

Allowing Others to Manage Your AdWords Account

Mon, 28 Nov 2011 08:53:16 -1600

Struggling with getting your AdWords campaigns working properly? Hoping for better conversion rates at a lower cost? Perhaps the time has come to search out an AdWords professional to assist you in reaching your goals. There are two ways to allow someone else to assist you in managing your Google AdWords account:

“+ Invite other users” – accomplished by clicking on the button of the same name in your AdWords account
or by accepting a request by a Google AdWords profession to gain access to your account via “User Interface and API” (or the My Client Center)

Most Google AdWords professionals will have a My Client Center and will prefer that you use this latter mechanism to grant access over the simpler “+ Invite others users” method. In order to take advantage of this you’ll need to provide us with your Customer ID or AdWords Account which you can find in the upper right side of your AdWords account page:

Once we’ve requested access to you AdWords account, you’ll see the following if you log into your account, go to My Account and then choose Account Access. The button to allow your AdWords professional access to manage your account is labeled “Accept Request” adjacent to the individual’s email address and name (as shown below for example)

Google, of course does their best to ensure this is something you really want to do. By doing this, you are giving the AdWords professional the ability to make changes to your account that COULD cost you money. That is why they encourage you to form an agreement with your AdWords professional first. DO NOT EVER grant someone access if you aren’t expecting the request and knowing who you are dealing with!

If you decide after that fact, or after the project is complete, that you’d like to terminate this user’s access to your AdWords account, you can revoke their permission by going to the My Account page from your AdWords account and selecting “Terminate access” under the “Actions” pulldown adjacent to their name and type of Access.

One thing to keep in mind is that Google is regularly updating their services and these instructions may not be the most current. They were, however, current as of the time of writing this.

Any questions on how to make this happen? Use our comments form below! Better yet, if you are looking for FREE $100 coupons to use with your new Google AdWords account, send us a note via the Contact Us page and request a discount code (prior to the end of 2011).

InfusionSoftDotNet library v1.0.1.0 Released Today

Sun, 20 Nov 2011 03:59:00 -1600

The latest version of InfusionSoftDotNet library to enable Dot Net applications and Asp.Net web applications access the InfusionSoft API was released this morning on CodePlex at http://infusionsoftdotnet.codeplex.com.

One of the biggest changes in this version of the code is the addition of _LastException property to the isdnAPI class to allow you to retrieve any exception thrown during an API call. (Thank cchubb!).

This release is available in full source or as binaries with a sample Asp.Net application. This version will work with Asp.net v2.0 and up.

If you have any thoughts or additions that you'd like to see in this library, please leave a note in the comments below or in the discussion area under this open source project's CodePlex page.

Turning on Google+ for Google Apps, Finally!

Thu, 27 Oct 2011 05:25:43 -1600

Google has finally allowed Google Apps customers to take advantage of Google+

They claimed that if you’ve got Enable New Apps by default turned on that Google+ would be turned on but that didn’t appear to be the case for the first Apps domains I tried this on. In both cases, they are set up to enable new apps by default but I still had to go in and turn it on. I’m guessing it is so they can get positive assent to the following screen (and to avoid a Buzz-type corporate privacy problem):

Note that the default button on this page is to NOT turn on Google+. I’m guessing some serious CYA thought went into this screen. Clicking on “Turn Google+ on” should return you to the Services tab where you can save your changes.

Once you’ve done that, you can inform your employees they can go in and signup for Google+. By going to http://plus.google.com/ your domain members will no longer be greeted by a message saying you are not allowed to join Google+. Your employees should, instead see the following:

In addition to reminding your domain users that the account is managed by the domain administrators (who can access, modify or delete your data at any time) they also have the signup screen to create your Google Profile. Note that Google insists currently on people using their real, commonly used names rather than psuedonyms or generic Corporate profiles. This is coming however soon they say.

When you set up your profile, you can get creative with your photos, even applying Halloween effects.

Enjoy!

Some caveats to keep in mind:

Your Google Apps account must have already been transferred over to the newer account infrastructure (where the Apps account is a Google Account as well).
Your domain users/employees/students can share information easily outside the organization
You must have Picassa Web Albums and Google Talk turned on as services in your Google App account
Know that your users can export/transfer their Google+ data using services such as Google Takeout at any time.
If you are a Google Apps for Education customer that is NOT an institution of higher learning, you’ll need to apply to get Google+ added to your account. I assume this is to prevent exposing underage (ie: high school or grade school) students from getting accounts through their school but I could be wrong.

Android Solves Rubik’s Cube

Fri, 21 Oct 2011 02:24:18 -1600

FAST!

Quickly Map Manufacturers to Store in ASPDNSF Multi-Store solution

Wed, 12 Oct 2011 09:19:00 -1600

I’m sure you’ve been there before. You (or your customer) have gone in and added all your products and defined which products go with which stores but then decided after the fact that you want to have a manufacturer’s page (or menu) that shows all the manufacturers of products that exist in a give store on your Multi-Store solution.

What’s the solution? Enable all the Manufacturer’s for a given store? No, then you’ll end up with empty Manufacturers on the manufacturers listing page.

Do you slog through each store’s list of products to find the manufacturers and map them one by one as you encounter a new one? No, as not only is that too time consuming, this human process is far to ripe for chance of error.

The solution?

You can run a SQL command that will generate a series of insert commands that you can then paste back into SQL Mangler (I mean Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio) or Visual Studio in order to quickly add the mappings you need. Here is some sample code and it’s output:

Select DISTINCT  'Insert INTO EntityStore (StoreID, EntityID, EntityType) Values (4, ' + RTrim(Cast(ManufacturerId as char)) + ', ''manufacturer'')' as InsertCommand from ProductManufacturer WHERE ProductID IN (
    Select ProductID from ProductStore where StoreID=4
)

Note that in the example above, the number 4 is used in two places and this represents the StoreID that I want to affect these changes for.

The output from the above command will give you the following (note that the results below are for example only. Do not run THESE on your site)
Insert INTO EntityStore (StoreID, EntityID, EntityType) Values (4, 10, 'manufacturer')
Insert INTO EntityStore (StoreID, EntityID, EntityType) Values (4, 36, 'manufacturer')
Insert INTO EntityStore (StoreID, EntityID, EntityType) Values (4, 39, 'manufacturer')
Insert INTO EntityStore (StoreID, EntityID, EntityType) Values (4, 40, 'manufacturer')
Insert INTO EntityStore (StoreID, EntityID, EntityType) Values (4, 59, 'manufacturer')
Insert INTO EntityStore (StoreID, EntityID, EntityType) Values (4, 6, 'manufacturer')
Insert INTO EntityStore (StoreID, EntityID, EntityType) Values (4, 7, 'manufacturer')
Insert INTO EntityStore (StoreID, EntityID, EntityType) Values (4, 8, 'manufacturer')
Insert INTO EntityStore (StoreID, EntityID, EntityType) Values (4, 9, 'manufacturer')

As always, usual caveat’s apply:

Always back up your database first
Always test in a non-live environment before running batch commands like this
I cannot be held responsible for the failure of this code in your environment!

Any questions? Have tried something similar? If so, tell us about it in the comments below!

Running Asp.Net 4.0 Application on IIS6 under Asp.Net 2.0 Parent App

Mon, 10 Oct 2011 14:00:00 -1600

Phew, that title sure is a mouthful… but it is kinda hard to describe the problem in so few words.

I had just finished the primary work on a new customer’s website (http://www.BuyMyBatteries.com) and was trying to hook up the latest and greatest build of BlogEngine.Net (2.5) underneath it for the corporate blog.

The challenge, as you might have guessed is that while BE.NET requires Asp.Net 4.0, the server was running IIS 6.0 and more importantly, the parent website is running ASP.NET v2.0. Resolving this took a number steps but it appears to be working quite nicely now

Step 1

Install the application and ensure that file permissions are correct. This is a no-brainer but is an oft-overlooked step; especially if you do installs of this program regularly.

Step 2

Set the folder containing the application (in this case BlogEngine.Net) as an application and ensure that it is running in a DIFFERENT application pool than the parent’s app pool. I’ve found it to be safest to have unique app pools for every site as well as for every application but you should at minimum have a different app pool for each version of Asp.Net that you are running. The Identity of the app pool can be what ever you want but in most cases it makes sense to be Network Services in order fall in line with most install instructions.

Step 3

This is where I really had a head scratcher. When going to the application, I continued to get 404 errors even though I was certain that I had the file permissions set up correctly. As it turns out, with IIS6, just ‘cause you have Asp.Net 4.0 installed doesn’t mean it has permissions to run under the web server. If found a great solution to this in Johan Dreissen’s blog. He pointed out why this wasn’t working and more importantly, provides the command prompt to get the 4.0 version of aspnet_isapi.dll working:

cscript iisext.vbs /EnFile C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\aspnet_isapi.dll

Note that you’ll find the iisext.vbs script in %SYSTEMROOT%\system32.

Step 4

There is a known breaking change in Asp.Net 4.0 that, by default, prevents 4.0 apps from running as children under 2.0 or 3.5. This whitepaper on asp.net site was crucial in resolving the final mystery. By wrapping the <appSettings />, <connectionStrings /> <system.web /> <system.webServer /> and <system.codedom /> sections of the PARENT web.config file in a <location> tag, you can eliminate the compilation of the earlier version of ASP.NET from trickling down to the 4.0 application. Mine looked like this:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<configuration>
  <configSections> ...  </configSections>
  <location path="signin.aspx">...</location>
  <location path="lostpassword.aspx">...</location>
    <location path="" inheritInChildApplications="false" >
        <!-- Note above Location Wrapper has been added to enable .Net 4.0 app (BlogEngine.net) to run as a subweb under this app -->
        <appSettings> ... </appSettings>
        <system.web> ... </system.web>
        <system.webServer> ... </system.webServer>
        <system.codedom> ... </system.codedom>
    </location>
    <runtime> ... </runtime>
</configuration>

So, after taking the steps above, I’ve been able to run BlogEngine.Net v2.5 (an Asp.Net 4.0 application) successfully under AspDotNetStorefront v9.2.0.0 (an Asp.Net v3.5 application) as the parent application.

Have you encountered a similar problem? What was your solution? Use the comments below to share this with the rest of the class!

Stop YouTube Videos from Hiding Your Menus - Two Methods

Tue, 28 Jun 2011 03:20:00 -1600

Has putting YouTube videos on your website embarrassed you by being so bold as to insist on being in front of other elements on your website? This is a common problem seen across the Internet daily. However, just ‘cause main people suffer from this ailment doesn’t mean that you have to. The resolution to this problem doesn’t rely on setting Z-Index or anything fancy, just making some small changes to the original code provided by YouTube to embed the video.

The preferred method these days for embedding a video appears to be to <iframe> in the video. This is clean, simple, and more importantly, won’t get stripped out like the embed code or javascript embeds by most WYSIWYG editors that people use online to edit their content. A normal IFrame call would look like this:

<iframe width="200" height="200" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/FOpoARz3k1I" 
frameborder="0"></iframe>

while the corrected HTML code would look like the following:

<iframe width="200" height="200"
 src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/FOpoARz3k1I?wmode=transparent" frameborder="0">
</iframe>

With the inclusion of 18 characters, you’ve solved a big problem. And who said the keyboard isn’t mightier than the sword? Hmmm… nobody I’d guess.

But if you are screaming at your monitor now “Hey, I use Object tags rather than Iframe. What about me?” I have the solution. It is going to entail setting the wmode=transparent again but this time, it will involve a little more work. Here is a sample embed snippet from Google:

<object width="560" height="349">
    <param name="movie" 
value="http://www.youtube.com/v/FOpoARz3k1I?version=3&amp;hl=en_US"></param>
    <param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param>
    <param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param>
    <embed src=http://www.youtube.com/v/FOpoARz3k1I?version=3&amp;hl=en_US 
type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="560" height="349" 
allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed>
</object>

whereas the corrected code would look like this:

<object width="560" height="349">
    <param name="WMode" value="transparent"></param>
    <param name="movie" 
value="http://www.youtube.com/v/FOpoARz3k1I?version=3&amp;hl=en_US"></param>
    <param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param>
    <param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param>
    <embed src=http://www.youtube.com/v/FOpoARz3k1I?version=3&amp;hl=en_US 
wmode="transparent" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="560" height="349" 
allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed>
</object>

Note the include of the <param name="WMode" value="transparent"></param> after the opening <object> tag and the inclusion of the wmode="transparent" parameter/value in the <embed> tag. This is the secret sauce to help hold YouTube videos at bay so they don’t take over the universe… Ok, at least they won’t take over your site.

Got any other, better ways to address this? Please feel free to leave a LEGITIMATE comment using the form below. As always, Spammers Need Not Apply^SM.

Google Doc Discussions: Google Wave lite?

Wed, 16 Mar 2011 00:36:00 -1600

I among many others, mourned the loss of Wave. While it had many fantastic features, I think it was exactly this broad feature-set that caused it’s early demise. One of the features in Wave that I thought was a killer app was the ability to easily hold group discussions while collaborating on documents.

Well today, Google Docs announced their new Discussion feature that will go a long way towards resolving this issue. Watch the video for more details and see me after the break…

Discussions in Google Docs will blow you away!

The pace at which Google keeps improving the Google Apps suite is just amazing. Just in recent days we’ve seen the ability for admins to choose their release track (scheduled or rapid release), improved Gmail labels, greater integration between Google Sites and Google Apps Script, multiple chart ranges and hidden sheets in Spreadsheets and so much more!

If you aren’t currently using Google Apps for your small business, you really need to. An you can’t beat the buy in: FREE! Of course you can pay for enhanced levels of service but you don’t need to as they offer a 90 day free trial (what they call their Appsperience) as well as still offering their their Google Apps Free level of service. Why settle for lame email service that comes with your domain name provider or, worse yet, using a email from a free mail provider or @aol.com address to represent your business when you can get world class email and collaboration tools for nothing! Ask us how…

Time Killing with Chrome

Mon, 14 Mar 2011 08:14:58 -1600

This Katamari game is a javascript implementation (interpretation?) of the Japanese video game Katamari Damacy which roughly translates to “clump spirit”.

The point of the game, if there is a point, is to roll a sticky ball around and the more objects you pick up , the bigger the ball becomes and the bigger the objects it can pick up. This version will load in your browser and you hold the control key and roll the ball around the screen picking up words and images off of the screen. I suppose the goal is to get the ball big enough that it goes super-nova.

To get a better idea of what this is all about, you can watch the following video which is a commercial designed for the launch of this game:

Advert for the game that launched this phenomenon…

Load up your favorite website (like this one) in Chrome browser and paste the following javascript into the address bar and enjoy!

javascript:var h='http://174.129.249.239/js/',i,n,ss=['http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.5.1/jquery.min.js',h+'Renderables.js',h+'Game.js'];for(i=0;i<ss.length;i++){n=document.createElement("script");n.src=ss[i]+'?'+Date.now();document.head.appendChild(n);}

Using Webmaster Tools to Optimize Your Site for Google

Wed, 26 Jan 2011 03:24:00 -1600

This is a GREAT video that shows you how to use Webmaster Tools to do Search Engine Optimization on your own website. Watching this is probably the best 10 minutes that a website owner can spend. Learn about:

Signing up for message forwarding to get real-time emails from Google about your site
Check out Search Queries to see items that are already ranking
Use Keywords to understand how to better target content
Reduce duplicates through HTML suggestions and URL paramter handling
Diagnose crawl errors to capture 404 traffic and reduce visitor frustration
Prioritize content by comparing internal links
Verify access through Fetch as Googlebot
Use Site Performance to improve speed of the website.

Google Apps is Changing

Thu, 18 Nov 2010 03:59:00 -1600

Google announced today the timing for what we consider to be a HUGE change for Google Apps customers (that we talked about on October 1st): The consolidation of Google Apps accounts into the overall Google Accounts structure that control non-apps services (like Analytics, AdSense, Alerts, Reader, Earth, FeedBurner, Custom Search Engine, Checkout, Blogger). See the top integrated Google services by following link.

This video from Google explains how this change will positively affect Google Apps users

Logging into your Google Apps administrator control panel, you’ll find the following announcement:

One step that isn’t mentioned in my previous article about transitioning Google Apps accounts is that you can pre-approve (at least 61) Google services for your users during the wizard:

On the next screen, realize that Google doesn’t automatically send the conflict message they talk about here:

You will want to take the template linked and email it to the account shown in your control panel to reach out to all the users who have conflicting accounts.

Having worked under this new scenario for 3 months from one of our domains during their early adopter testing, we applaud Google on this change! We understand that this must be a HUGE undertaking given the number of Google Apps accounts but better now than waiting until there are more OR just keeping this artificial wall in place. Way to go Google!

What do you think about this change? Anticipating it or are you going to wait until they make the change for you in early 2011? Let us know in the comments below.

Twitter Plugin for Windows Live Writer Updated for OAUTH

Thu, 14 Oct 2010 00:48:00 -1600

Ever since the oauth-calypse back in August, I’ve been really missing my this plugin for Windows Live Writer. WLW is, in my mind, the best way to manage and compose your blog posts regardless of the platform you are working on (Wordpress, BlogEngine.Net, SubText, etc) however the Microsoft-built plugin that I relied upon on every post, called Twitter Notify, stopped working abruptly when Twitter dropped support for basic authentication.

It appears that on August 31 Microsoft quietly introduced an update to this plugin which has been downloaded close to 17,000 times that promises to take care of this problem. This will be our official first post using the new plugin so let’s see if this works!

If so, everyone within earshot who uses WLW should go grab this immediately! If you don’t use WLW, tell us why not in the comments section below!