For those that work with Active Directory environments, but (for whatever reason) prefer to keep their computer off the domain (consultants — that’s probably you!), you DO have the option to run SQL Server Management Studio using Windows Authentication from your non-domain user account. I only recently discovered this, and I can’t believe it took […]
Author: matt
Exclude Squid Cache from updatedb.mlocat
One of the Squid servers in a cluster I manage had an unusually high load, while the rest of the Squid servers with a relatively equal amount of connections were within acceptable load levels. While reviewing the process list, I found that updatedb.mlocat was running during the busiest time of the day. Turns out it […]
Normalize Accept-Encoding Headers via HAProxy for Squid Cache
I noticed that when browsing one of our heavy traffic website’s under different browsers, I would see completely separate versions of a page depending on which browser I used. We use a cluster of Squid servers to cache the many pages of this particular website, but I believed the only thing that needed to happen […]
Google Search Gets a Facelift
I was trying to be productive and did a quick Google search when I noticed that the SERPs (search engine results pages) had just gotten a facelift. Apparently not everyone is seeing this yet, so Google is probably slow-releasing these changes, but here is a preview! Screen-shot #1 shows the new, clean header with side […]
How to Install SQL Server Management Studio 2005 on Vista 64-bit
If you have tried to install the 64-bit version of SQL Server Management Studio on Vista 64-bit, then you have probably run into the following error: Product: Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio Express — The installer has encountered an unexpected error installing this package. This may indicate a problem with this package. The error code […]
Delete Duplicate Rows/Records in MySQL Table
Most articles on removing duplicate rows from a MySQL table involve 3 steps, but the following query is what I use for purging dupe records in one simple query. DELETE FROM `myTable` WHERE id NOT IN (SELECT t1.id FROM (SELECT id, groupByColumn FROM `myTable` ORDER BY id DESC) as t1 GROUP BY t1.groupByColumn) – “myTable” […]
Using the ACL in HAProxy for Load Balancing Named Virtual Hosts
Until recently, I wasn’t aware of the ACL system in HAProxy, but once I found it I realized that I have been missing a very important part of load balancing with HAProxy! While the full configuration settings available for the ACL are listed in the configuration doc, the below example includes the basics that you’ll […]
Generate a PKCS #12 (PFX) Certificate from Win32 CryptoAPI PRIVATEKEYBLOB
We had an accounting system that used a Microsoft Win32 CryptoAPI blob to encrypt/decrypt credit card information for recurring customer information. It was time for an upgrade to .NET land. Keith, the lead developer for this project, decided it would be beneficial to switch to x509 certificates for improved key management (and I wasn’t going […]
How to Copy or Move a Joomla Website
Intro If you manage one or more Joomla websites, eventually you’ll have to move them elsewhere. It’s pretty much fact. Performance requirements will change, you’ll find better pricing elsewhere, your dedicated server died, etc. There are a few options most people have to choose from: FTP client and phpMyAdmin method (aka the long, boring method) SSH/Shell […]
Improve Scalability and Performance in ASP.NET Apps
If you’re looking to scale out ASP.NET applications, here is an interesting article that goes into length on important aspects to improve performance for .NET applications in high-traffic environments. The article covers the following topics: Optimizing the ASP.NET pipeline system ASP.NET, AJAX caching, and what you need to know Deploying ASP.NET from a staging to […]