Robba's Thoughts

Use AppCmd to create update script for IIS websites from Subversion

Robba — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 19:08:00 GMT

Just a quick update here from my original post about two years ago. I’m using publishing directly from Subversion now, so I thought I’d recycle this script. I recommend downloading the CollabNet command line SVN client.

echo off

Set /P Dest=[new folder date]
Set /P Prev=[old folder date]

cd "C:\Program Files\CollabNet Subversion Client"

svn co https://svn.yourdomain.com:8443/repository/%dest% C:\WebSite\%dest%

"c:\windows\system32\inetsrv\appcmd.exe" set vdir site1/ -physicalpath:c:\WebSite\%dest%

copy /y "C:\WebSite\%prev%\web.config" "C:\WebSite\%dest%\web.config"

Echo "Site Update Complete"

Just put this in a batch file and run it when you need to update your site on IIS7.

IIS 6.0 website update script using Adsutil.vbs from Subversion

Robba — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 18:59:00 GMT

A little over 2 years ago I put out a post for the original version of this script. At the time I FTP’d the files in a compressed format. Now I am pulling the files directly from Subversion, so I thought I’d recycle the script and update it. I recommend downloading the CollabNet command line SVN client. So here we are:

echo off

Set /P Dest=[new folder date]
Set /P Prev=[old folder date]

cd "C:\Program Files\CollabNet Subversion Client"

svn co https://svn.yourdomain.com:8443/repository/%dest% C:\WebSite\%dest%

cscript.exe c:\inetpub\adminscripts\adsutil.vbs set w3svc/1/root/path "C:\WebSite\%dest%"

copy /y "C:\WebSite\%prev%\web.config" "C:\WebSite\%dest%\web.config"

Echo "Site Update Complete"

Just save this as a batch file and run it when you need to update your website from SVN.

US Supreme Court, Constructionism vs. Liberalism

Robba — Fri, 01 May 2009 19:06:29 GMT

On April 29th, 2009 the United States Supreme Court released its opinion on the case of Dean v. United States. I have to say that I am proud of the ruling that the court handed down. They basically said that even if you don’t intend to fire a weapon in the process of a crime you are still breaking the law by firing the weapon. Here is a link to the actual opinion. I have to say I love what constructionist Chief Justice Roberts says:

“An individual who brings a loaded weapon to commit a crime runs the risk that the gun will discharge accidentally. A gunshot in such circumstances—whether accidental or intended—increases the risk that others will be injured, that people will panic, or that violence (with its own danger to those nearby) will be used in response. Those criminals wishing to avoid the penalty for an inadvertent discharge can lock or unload the firearm, handle it with care during the underlying violent or drug trafficking crime, leave the gun at home, or—best yet—avoid committing the felony in the first place.”

WOAH!!! What a concept!! Don’t commit the felony in the first place!!!

Now let’s look at what the dissenting opinion from liberal Justice Stevens has to say.

“Accidents happen, but they seldom give rise to criminal liability. Indeed, if they cause no harm they seldom give rise to any liability. The Court today nevertheless holds that petitioner is subject to a mandatory additional sentence—a species of criminal liability—for an accident that caused no harm.”

So, I guess it is just fine if a guy “accidently” fires off a full 30 round burst, as long as he “didn’t mean to do it”!!! This just drives me batty. These are the same people that think we don’t have a right to keep and bare arms in the first place, but now they want to say it is ok, as long as he didn’t “intend” to do it. That is all these guys care about, intent, not about what really happens. It's all ok as long as you meant to do good or you didn’t intend to do bad. It doesn’t matter what the real outcome is.

Now let’s top this off with Justice Souter retiring. He was appointed by George Bush and thereafter showed considerable liberal leanings, however he could sometimes be counted on to rule in favor of the Constitution. With his retirement, President Obama gets to appoint a radical, socialist ideolog to fill the vacancy. This along with the probable retirement of Justice Ginsburg during the Obama presidency will point our Supreme Court in a far left leaning direction that will not be righted for YEARS.

Our country and the world are now paying and will be paying for a long time for the way the general US population voted in the November 2008 election.

“Change we can believe in” How are you believing this stuff?

Robba — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 18:06:10 GMT

100 days down and how is your hope level? Are you happy with the change we’ve made?

RSS feeds vs. reading websites

Robba — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 18:58:00 GMT

I’m noticing lately that I almost don’t need to use my web browser except for looking up new information. All the websites except one that I visit on a regular basis whether they are blogs or standard sites have an RSS feed. I’ve subscribed to those feeds and now I am able to follow the updates to the sites even easier than reading the actual site because I get the RSS update more often than I would actually visit the website.

So what does this mean? Am I “normal”, are other people reading more RSS feeds than websites? If this is the way things are moving then it leads me to wonder about site layout and design.

As an application portal, we here at SalesBook are looking at the various methods where we can allow our users to set up RSS feeds of their profiles as well as other features that they will have access to soon.

For those of you that read the blog, I’d love to know your thoughts on RSS and how it has affected your consumption of information from the web.

Technorati Tags: RSS,Technical

Adding a reference page for Community Server posts

Robba — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 21:22:00 GMT

As I mentioned previously, this site used to run on Community Server and I have recently moved it to Graffiti. I had a few posts that were linked to and hit quite a lot and since the move my traffic has been way down. I was wanting a better method of allowing people to find the post that they were looking for so I merged a couple of different tools together to make a page that allows me to set up a directory of links to those pages.

Part of the solution was getting the Permanent Redirect Plug-in from Rich Mercer. I got the rest of the idea from the Archive Posts plug-in.

Dan Hounshell helped me do the actual behind the scenes thinking, so kudos to him.

Ok, so to the implementation:

The Archive Plug-in creates three new views: olderitems.layout.view, olderitems.view and archive.view. Take the olderitems.layout.view and the olderitems.view files and copy them to two new files, movefiles.layout.view and movefiles.view respectively. Don't worry about the archive.view, we don't need it for this.

In the new movefiles.view file you will see:

<h2>Older stuff...</h2>

$postArchive.renderdata

You can change the title and add the HTML to manually link to the new pages for you old posts here. You will need to KEEP the $postArchive.renderdata text, but you can comment it out like this .
Like the Archive plug-in you will need to create a new category named MoveFiles.
In the Permanent Redirect Plug-in edit tool choose "go to a URL" and then place your the full URL to your new folder in the blank. For me it is http://robbaugh.com/movefiles/.

Again, thanks to Dan for helping me figure this out. Also thanks to Bobby for seeing that I needed to keep the $postArchive.renderdata and just comment it out.

Moved to Graffiti

Robba — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 09:45:00 GMT

For those of you that didn't notice, I've made a couple of changes recently. The first one was not really of my choice, Google moved Feedburner to a different location and I think it changed my feed link. I say I think, because I didn't notice until I had made my second change. I also moved my blog from Community Server 2008.1 to Graffiti.

I have to say, that while the move to Graffiti wasn't effortless, it was very easy once I figured out the proper formating for the connection string parameter in the migration tool. If you are interested in moving to Graffiti from CS check out Jayme's blog posts and the comments on the migration tool. Post 1 and Post 2. These are invaluable references for getting the migration complete.

I had held off on moving to Graffiti for so long, even though all the cool kids had moved to it, for a couple of reasons:

I really liked my blog skin in CS and I didn't like any of the Graffiti skins I saw available. Not being a programmer I had no idea how to port a skin from WordPress or any other blog.
Graffiti doesn't have a built in Archive list tool.

When it came down to it, the biggest reason was the skins, but then Ado ported the Freshy 2.0.8 theme from Wordpress and I LOVED it. I played with my own tweaks and got it looking like I wanted in a few hours. Hey I said I'm not a programmer. :) I was also able to find a whole bunch of plug-ins and widgets for Graffiti that made things alot more like the way I wanted them to work and look, including an Archive widget(s). I was able to find a working version here on Steve Smith's blog. With a little tweaking of the instructions, rather than creating two uncategorized posts, I had to create two new categories, I had the Archive up and running.

So as with any new software package I am finding a few things that I like and a few things that I'd like to see done either better or at all.

First, the things I like better than Community Server (CS), or just like about Graffiti:

First realize that Community Server and Graffiti are two TOTALLY different types of software, that can both be used for creating blogs. I like that I can run Graffiti with VistaDB rather than using MS SQL. This saves me money on hosting every month. Now I can use an inexpensive hosting company that doesn't provide MS SQL hosting. LOVING THIS!!!
Video insertion. In Graffiti, inserting a video is much easier than in CS 2008.1. Honestly I don't know if it got better with the SP1 for CS 2008.1, but inserting videos in CS got to be a real pain in the backside. Sometimes it would work and other times it wouldn't. I really couldn't figure out a rhyme or reason. In Graffiti, although there is no video insertion tool, just click on the "Source" button and insert the video embed code and the video is there.
I love that widgets can easily be built to extend Graffiti. (ok, not by me, but it can be done. :) )
I like the "Maximize the editor size" functionality. I like having a large area to write on so I don't have to scroll.

Now the things I either liked better in CS, or would like to see in Graffiti:

I like having a "preview" window for my post. However, in CS the preview didn't always look like it would when posted. Videos were the biggest problem.
I like smilies, wish there were some here. ;)

I would give Graffiti a big two thumbs up so far. <insert thumbs-up image> :) Many kudos to the Telligent team for their on-going work with both CS and Graffiti. I'm looking forward to seeing what Graffiti 2.0 has in store.

Stop the Stimulus Bill Now

Robba — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 21:05:00 GMT

As a conservative I don't like the government bailing out the private enterprise in general, but today when I saw the hidden health care reforms in the stimulus bill I am absolutely outraged. This type of hidden agenda rings of imperialist oligarchy. We (the government) know what is best for you, so just sit back and let us take care of things. Don't worry that we'll tell your 74 year old grandmother that she can't have a surgery that might save her life. If for no other reason this bill HAS to be defeated.

Contact your elected representatives here:

Senators

Representatives

This article is from Bloomberg and can be found here:

Ruin Your Health With the Obama Stimulus Plan: Betsy McCaughey

Commentary by Betsy McCaughey

Feb. 9 (Bloomberg) -- Republican Senators are questioning whether President Barack Obama’s stimulus bill contains the right mix of tax breaks and cash infusions to jump-start the economy.

Tragically, no one from either party is objecting to the health provisions slipped in without discussion. These provisions reflect the handiwork of Tom Daschle, until recently the nominee to head the Health and Human Services Department.

Senators should read these provisions and vote against them because they are dangerous to your health. (Page numbers refer to H.R. 1 EH, pdf version).

The bill’s health rules will affect “every individual in the United States” (445, 454, 479). Your medical treatments will be tracked electronically by a federal system. Having electronic medical records at your fingertips, easily transferred to a hospital, is beneficial. It will help avoid duplicate tests and errors.

But the bill goes further. One new bureaucracy, the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology, will monitor treatments to make sure your doctor is doing what the federal government deems appropriate and cost effective. The goal is to reduce costs and “guide” your doctor’s decisions (442, 446). These provisions in the stimulus bill are virtually identical to what Daschle prescribed in his 2008 book, “Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis.” According to Daschle, doctors have to give up autonomy and “learn to operate less like solo practitioners.”

Keeping doctors informed of the newest medical findings is important, but enforcing uniformity goes too far.

New Penalties

Hospitals and doctors that are not “meaningful users” of the new system will face penalties. “Meaningful user” isn’t defined in the bill. That will be left to the HHS secretary, who will be empowered to impose “more stringent measures of meaningful use over time” (511, 518, 540-541)

What penalties will deter your doctor from going beyond the electronically delivered protocols when your condition is atypical or you need an experimental treatment? The vagueness is intentional. In his book, Daschle proposed an appointed body with vast powers to make the “tough” decisions elected politicians won’t make.

The stimulus bill does that, and calls it the Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research (190-192). The goal, Daschle’s book explained, is to slow the development and use of new medications and technologies because they are driving up costs. He praises Europeans for being more willing to accept “hopeless diagnoses” and “forgo experimental treatments,” and he chastises Americans for expecting too much from the health-care system.

Elderly Hardest Hit

Daschle says health-care reform “will not be pain free.” Seniors should be more accepting of the conditions that come with age instead of treating them. That means the elderly will bear the brunt.

Medicare now pays for treatments deemed safe and effective. The stimulus bill would change that and apply a cost- effectiveness standard set by the Federal Council (464).

The Federal Council is modeled after a U.K. board discussed in Daschle’s book. This board approves or rejects treatments using a formula that divides the cost of the treatment by the number of years the patient is likely to benefit. Treatments for younger patients are more often approved than treatments for diseases that affect the elderly, such as osteoporosis.

In 2006, a U.K. health board decreed that elderly patients with macular degeneration had to wait until they went blind in one eye before they could get a costly new drug to save the other eye. It took almost three years of public protests before the board reversed its decision.

Hidden Provisions

If the Obama administration’s economic stimulus bill passes the Senate in its current form, seniors in the U.S. will face similar rationing. Defenders of the system say that individuals benefit in younger years and sacrifice later.

The stimulus bill will affect every part of health care, from medical and nursing education, to how patients are treated and how much hospitals get paid. The bill allocates more funding for this bureaucracy than for the Army, Navy, Marines, and Air Force combined (90-92, 174-177, 181).

Hiding health legislation in a stimulus bill is intentional. Daschle supported the Clinton administration’s health-care overhaul in 1994, and attributed its failure to debate and delay. A year ago, Daschle wrote that the next president should act quickly before critics mount an opposition. “If that means attaching a health-care plan to the federal budget, so be it,” he said. “The issue is too important to be stalled by Senate protocol.”

More Scrutiny Needed

On Friday, President Obama called it “inexcusable and irresponsible” for senators to delay passing the stimulus bill. In truth, this bill needs more scrutiny.

The health-care industry is the largest employer in the U.S. It produces almost 17 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product. Yet the bill treats health care the way European governments do: as a cost problem instead of a growth industry. Imagine limiting growth and innovation in the electronics or auto industry during this downturn. This stimulus is dangerous to your health and the economy.

Vaccines 2 steps forward... but then several steps back

Robba — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 22:28:00 GMT

I am cross posting this here because Stacy posted it on her private blog and I think it is important to be public.

2 steps forward...

1) Recently, the court just decided in favor of a child who developed seizure disorder and acute encephalopathy or the marked deterioration in neurologic development as a result of the MMR, his name is Ben Zeller. My heart just breaks for this family as I watched this video from the Florida Sun Sentinel.

2) US Coast Guard SUES and then WINS exemption from abortion-derived vaccine

but then several steps back...

According to the FDA, Merck is only manufacturer of measles vaccines (MMR). Previously, they also manufactured a monovalent version of this. However, they have decided that it wasn't making them enough money, so they have stopped production of the individual vaccines and will only offer the combination one.

Did they not learn already that more is not always better?

Children suffered higher rates of fever-related convulsions when they got a Merck & Co. combination vaccine instead of two separate shots

And now this....

Manufacturer Stops Sales of Monovalents for Measles, Mumps, Rubella

By David Mitchell
12/24/2008

Merck & Co. Inc. has stopped production and sales of its monovalent vaccines for measles, mumps and rubella. The manufacturer instead plans to focus on its combination vaccine, MMRII.

Merck spokeswoman Amy Rose said MMRII accounts for 98 percent of the company's volume for measles, mumps and rubella vaccines, compared to just 2 percent from monovalent vaccines Attenuvax (measles), Mumpsvax (mumps) and Meruvax (rubella).

"The combination vaccine is what's recommended, and it's such a significant portion of the orders we see," said Rose. "It's in the best interest of public health to make more of that rather than dedicate manufacturing capacity to monovalents."

Rose said Merck had not decided when, or if, it might make the monovalent vaccines available for sale in the future.

Doug Campos-Outcalt, M.D., M.P.A., who serves as the AAFP's liaison to the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices and is a former member of the AAFP Commission on Clinical Policies and Research, said Merck's decision was insignificant in terms of public health. He added, however, that some parents likely will be unhappy.

"The use of the single antigen is pretty limited," he said. "There's no harm if you need one in getting all three. There are some parents out there that want a delayed vaccine schedule. They want the vaccines spread out over a longer period of time and not so many at once. That's a lot of hooey. Alternative schedules have never been proven to be superior."

That means that you no longer even have the option to give them to your child individually. If they have a reaction to it, you will not know which one caused it. So now, many of the parents who would have given their child the individual vaccines, will end up giving none of them as a result.

I'm also offended by the comment that it's "a lot of hooey" for us as parents to want a delayed vaccine schedule. It's not "hooey" for a parent to be concerned about the safety and health of their child. Delaying the vaccines until their bodies & immune systems are older and stronger can be a very wise decision.

I know that for me personally, my child has never had, and will never receive the MMR vaccine. There are enough vaccines that she has had that I regret allowing because I didn't do the research and arm myself with enough information as a new mom. I won't make that mistake again, and I definitely won't make it with this particular vaccine. I have seen firsthand what it did to a very close family member of mine, and I won't take that chance.

I encourage you to do the research yourself and pray about the right decision for your family, and your children.

RESOURCES

If you are in Texas, and are interested in requesting an immunization exemption form for your child, go HERE.

VaccineInfo.net

Vaccine Ingredients - read carefully if you are against abortion

How Vaccines are made

Don't Buy Stuff You Can't Afford

Robba — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 02:41:00 GMT

Stacy just forwarded this SNL clip to me.

I'm having problems getting the video to embed properly. For now here is the link. http://www.hulu.com/watch/1389/saturday-night-live-dont-buy-stuff

As I watched it, it really hit home with me. You see Stacy and I went through bankruptcy a few years ago and we are now in the process of putting things in their proper place. We thought we had it all under control. "As long as we can make the monthly CC payments, everything is fine." That is until life changes or emergencies happen. Guess what, life does change and emergencies do happen.

It seems that this isn't just our problem, but a major problem in our country. How many people are losing homes because they bought more than they could afford. (I can give grief, cause I am one of them.) How many people are losing cars because they bought more than they could afford? (Again, I did it too.) It doesn't stop with our individual citizens, how many corporations are spending more money than they make??? Can you say 1.3 trillion dollars spent bailing companies out so far, with another 1 trillion likely as soon as the new administration is in office? With that, we have our own government. We have a 10 trillion dollar gross national debt and Social Security will be insolvent within 12 years.

We have to stop this. Individually, corporately and nationally. Debt is BAD!!! There is this really neat concept that has worked for a very long time, "if you don't have money, don't spend money".

The Bible speaks more about managing money properly than any other subject because debt causes our focus to be directed not on God, but on the material things of this world. We are told that debt makes us slaves. If you don't think you're a slave to your debt, do two things. 1) Imagine what you could do with the money that you spend on bills every month. 2) Try not paying your bills. Will you be able to keep your home, your car?

Proverbs 22:7

The poor are ruled by the rich, and those who borrow are slaves of moneylenders.

We should focus on saving our money rather than spending every dime of it every paycheck. Save for those purchases you want to make. Pay cash, it is an amazing feeling. When you do make purchases, make sure you still have money in your savings to be prepared for the rainy days in life.

Genesis 41:35-36

Give them the power to collect the grain during those good years and to store it in your cities. It can be stored until it is needed during the seven years when there won't be enough grain in Egypt. This will keep the country from being destroyed because of the lack of food.

Proverbs 21:20

Be sensible and store up precious treasures, don't waste them like a fool.

When you do have debts pay them off quickly.

Romans 13:8

Let love be your only debt! If you love others, you have done all that the Law demands.

As we move forward in this economy I hope that each one of us has grown in wisdom concerning money. It is a tool provided by God to use for the benefit of His kingdom. Make sure you are using your tools wisely for Him.