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March 03 SSL Encrypted SQL Communication: SQL Hosting Security EnhancementFor Q1, we've been focusing on many enhancements to our SQL server hosting service. I'm happy to announce that we've added an extra level of security to our SQL hosting service with the introduction of SSL Encrypted SQL Connections.
With this security enhancement, DiscountASP.NET customers can use SQL Management Studio and use the “Encrypt Connection” option when connecting to their database. This is an option for SQL 2008 and SQL 2005 in both the US and UK hosting locations.
We hope that this becomes a standard for all hosts.
Here is a link to the press release.
Takeshi Eto
VP Marketing and Business Development
DiscountASP.NET March 01 It's not a blow off, really. We still love you...If you have ever had to contact DiscountASP.NET support, you might have seen that there are certain issues that will result in a response asking you to check the forum for an answer. The first reaction of a lot of people when they receive a response like that is something along the lines of, "Hey, why are you blowing me off!" (often expressed in more...colorful...language). That reaction is understandable. For a lot of hosts that would be a blow off. We don't consider it to be a deflection though, because we take a lot of pride in the quality of our forum. You might have seen that quality yourself if you have searched Google for something related to .NET, SQL, DNS, etc., and the first links listed are threads in our forum! That tells you that we're dealing with some technical and often unique stuff in there. The level of questions always amazes me, and the answers even more so. There are some really smart people posting in there, and you can benefit from their brainpower, research and mistakes very easily. Forum regulars include many members of our staff, from tech support all the way up to the CTO. "Hey, wait a minute," I hear some of you asking, "why didn't tech support just answer my question in the helpdesk if they are only going to turn around and answer it in the forum?" Good question. There are a couple of answers. First, the support staff cannot troubleshoot customer code or applications. They can't alter files or otherwise make any changes to customer data. That rule is in place to protect both us and you. It is a thin line between troubleshooting and development work at times, and we cannot cross over into that territory. But in the forum, if you can post relevant bits of code or configuration, you are likely to get some suggestions. If they don't work, hey, everyone tries again, and eventually your problem is solved. It's not a grand and official proclamation from THE COMPANY that doing A, B and C will fix your problem (though they do have some of those answers up their sleeves as well). In the forum, more than two people can join in, and that increases your odds of finding a successful resolution.
The second reason we might point you to the forum is because a helpdesk ticket benefits only one person, but a forum post can benefit hundreds of people. Of course we don't take that concept so far that we send people to the forum for issues support can assist with. But for a lot of common issues, sending someone to the forum opens their eyes to the wealth of information there. And maybe the next time they have a question they will search the forum and find an answer much more quickly than they could have with a support ticket. But again, all of this doesn't mean that every support ticket ends with a trip to the forum. Not at all. We answer about 100,000 helpdesk tickets every year, as opposed to about 10,000 posts in our forum. So we answer a lot of questions in the helpdesk. But we like to think of the forum (and the Knowledge Base!) as an extension of the helpdesk. Michael Phillips February 23 Social Trumps SearchAs reported in a Los Angeles Times article, based on Compete.com web traffic comparison data, web traffic to Facebook has just surpassed Yahoo in the United States. This makes Facebook the second most popular site on the web after Google!
If you run a Compete Rank Comparison for the past year, you see Facebook gaining fast from the 8th position and overtaking Yahoo for the #2 spot sometime in Mid-December 2009.
 If you check out the Compete comparison of the Unique Visits and Visits chart for the last 6 months, Facebook surpasses Yahoo mid-December 2009 in unique visits but Facebook passed Yahoo back around October 2009 in Visits.
  Another way of looking at the popularity of these social network sites is the examine how much users rely on them to share content. While in the past, users would just email each other interesting links, nowadays people will share interesting content they find via their Facebook, Twitter and other social media outlets.
In a recent article in TechCrunch, they presented some interesting data from Social Sharing Enabling services on the distribution of social sites used to share content. There a many services out there now that help connect a website to the social network by placing a social widget on a website. Users can use these widgets to share website content through a variety of social networks. These services have very special insight into how users are sharing content.
Based on data from Gigya, Facebook commands the most percentage (44%) of social sharing.
 When you break down the data by type of website content, you can see the percentages shift but Facebook is still on top. For News Sites, Facebook is just slightly ahead of Google, but for Entertainment Sites, Facebook is used to share content by far.
  While Gigya is used by a 5000+ network of large sites, another service AddThis is used by a lot more smaller sites (600,000+). AddThis also provided some aggregate data on what they are seeing. They show a lower percentage of use of Facebook as compared to Gigya's website network, but still Facebook is the clear winner. Interestingly, they also show that the traditional "old-school" way of sharing content - email and printing - is still popular.
 With the growing traffic volume to social media sites and the large volume of content sharing going on through social media sites, Email services alone is not enough to capture today's users. It's no wonder why Google is getting into the Social Media game with the Google Buzz. And even Microsoft is working on adding a Social Media Connector/Accelerator to their Dynamics CRM and Outlook products.
Takeshi Eto
VP Marketing and Business Development
DiscountASP.NET February 22 DiscountASP.NET Enhances Microsoft IIS Database Manager 1.0 Support with SQL Backup and SQL Restore IntegrationToday, we announce launching support for Microsoft IIS Database Manager 1.0 for our Windows 2008 hosting platform, allowing our customers to manage local and remote databases from within IIS Manager. We also announce enhancing the user experience by integrating a SQL backup and SQL restore solution within the DB Manager interface! This is a new way to backup and restore SQL databases. The IIS Database Manager is an out-of-band IIS UI module released by Microsoft that allows the user to manage their local and remote databases from within IIS Manager. Once connected, IIS DB Manager provides an array of functionalities including managing tables, views, stored procedures and data as well as running ad hoc queries. IIS Database Manager provides support for both SQL Server 2008 and SQL Server 2005 databases. To improve the user experience, we integrated the DB Manager UI with SQL backup and SQL restore functionality. With this enhancement, customers can use DBManager within IIS Manager to back up their SQL databases and save their backups within the App_Data folder. Customers can also use DB Manager to select from a list of previously saved backups and restore a specific SQL backup. Takeshi Eto February 18 Monitoring sb01We manage a lot of servers here, and there is a monitoring system in place that alerts us whenever a server is in trouble or on the verge of trouble. It's pretty effective, but it lacks one important feature: it cannot monitor sb01. sb01 is an integral cog in the DiscountASP.NET machine, and when it goes down activity here in the office comes to a standstill. People become edgy and anxious and pace around waiting for a fix. Our best system administrators are helpless to assist, and we have to rely on an outside service to get sb01 back up and running. sb01 is our Starbucks Interactive Cup™ Brewer.
A few months ago sb01 was on the ropes. It was breaking down every few weeks and management was becoming angry and frustrated. The I-Cup techs were scratching their heads and beards, at somewhat of a loss as to what the core problem could be. Eventually they called a regional meeting and spent several days monitoring sb01, resulting in a team of experts working on-site in a feverish two hour marathon session that culminated in the back breaking and dangerous replacement of a big metal thingy. And then, like a miracle, sb01 was back on its feet. Ever since those days we have been scrambling for a method to add sb01 to the monitoring network, but so far our attempts have been wildly unsuccessful. We have resorted to weekly "grounds maintenance" with a straw and a fistful of paper towels to avoid a crash, and so far it has been working very well. Keep your fingers crossed, because sb01 is a very important piece of hardware. Michael Phillips IIS 7 Event log filterWhen IIS 7 was introduced one of the key features I dug in to was the Windows Event Log. The Windows Event Log is the new version of Event Viewer. The Event Viewer is a record of the activities on the server. One key attribute I like about the Windows Event Log is the Filter feature. At first glance the Filter feature appears similar to the old Event Viewer's View/Find feature. It has the same criteria to choose from. Personally I found it limiting. But with IIS 7, the find and filter feature is XML based. This means you can access the XML query string and modify it to be more specific to your needs. Very Nice!
By default Windows Event Log has more logs than its predecessors, but if you wish you can define your own logs for the OS to track. Windows Event Log still records three of the core activities of the operating system; they are Application, Security, and System.
To me, the coolest thing about Windows Event Log is the XML base which you can access and modify. Here is an example. Say you want to find a specific instance in the System Log. You know the event ID and the text (could be a word or phrase in the body of the log). In the default Filter options it gives you the option to look for it with the event ID but not narrow it down to what is inside the body of the log. This is where you will go to the 'XML' tab click on 'Edit Query Manually' and type your specified query. Here is an example.
The Path="System" will query the System log. If you change it to Security or Application it will query those logs. The System[(EventID)] element is the event ID element, and of course the EventData[Data] element is the body of the text within the specific log.
If you want to look at all the XML elements attribute within the log, simply open one of the logs, click on one of the entries that is recorded, and then click on the Details tab. You'll get two options; either Friendly View or XML View. If you choose XML view you will see the elements within that XML query and you can use those elements to define your specified query.
Also pay attention to the word 'and' in my query. That lets you specify multiple elements so that you can pin point the records you are looking for in the Windows Event Log. Then you can save your filter for later use.
Now, isn't that nifty?
Raymond Penalosa
Technical Support
DiscountASP.NET February 16 Augmented Reality Maps: Incredible Microsoft Demo at TED2010One of these days, I will make it to a TED conference, but for now I'll resign to checking out content from their conference website.
Blaise Aguera y Arcas, an architect at Microsoft Live Labs, presented a crazy demo of augmented reality maps - basically a bing maps mashups with user generated content, live backpack cams and even WorldWide Telescope. You have to watch the demo (8:14) to believe it.
Takeshi Eto
VP Marketing and Business Development DiscountASP.NET
*Free* ASP.NET 4.0 Hosting Sandbox Updated and ExtendedLast week, Scott Gutherie announced the release of the latest .NET Framework 4.0 RC. Today, I want to announce that we have updated the *Free* ASP.NET 4.0 Sandbox we are offering developers with the latest .NET 4 RC.
The *Free* hosting sandbox program has also been extended until, Friday, April 16, 2010.
The free sandbox hosting program is a limited program offered as an open beta for developers on a first come first serve basis. The.NET 4 beta hosting account comes with 50 MB of disk space and 50 MB of SQL Server 2008 database space.
Interested developers are welcome to sign up at http://labs.discountasp.net while space is available.
Download links for .NET Framework 4 RC and Visual Studio 2010 RC can be found on the MSDN Site.
If you have any questions or feedback, you can post them to our Community Forum.
Takeshi Eto
VP Marketing and Business Development DiscountASP.NET
February 15 Google Social Networking – If you can’t buy Facebook or Twitter, try to beat them!We have been trying to be active in the social networking world. In addition to this blog, we manage our Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube pages. We even have our own DiscountASP.NET videos web site at www.dasptv.com, where there is a slew of videos along with partner videos. There seems to be a new social networking participant on the horizon. A new rival that could threaten the likes of Twitter and Facebook, and that new participant is Google Buzz. That’s right, Google is throwing their hat into the social networking ring. Now I know there are skeptics out there that may laugh at Google buzz because quite frankly very few of their products seem to gain in mass popularity (at least I don’t see them taking off in popularity – uhh, what happened to Google Wave?). I am also sure that there are people questioning at the fact that Google Buzz shares the same name as the less than stellar, Yahoo Buzz. However, I think Twitter and Facebook do have a legitimate reason to raise their eyebrows in concern. After all, Gmail users will see the new link, “Buzz”, right below their Inbox. Because Google will be throwing Google Buzz right in the face of Gmail users, there will be uptake for it. After reading the following two articles, “Google Buzz: Google Take on Twitter, Facebook & Even Foursquare” and “Liveblogging the Google Buzz Launch” , believe it or not, I think Google Buzz, if done right, can be a hit for Google because some of the interesting features it has. For instance, because Google has Gmail, you will automatically follow people you email. This is helpful because it saves time. The people you email on a regular basis will automatically be able to follow you on Google Buzz. Another interesting feature is that Google Buzz will use an algorithm to recommend updates/posts from people that you don’t follow. This is pretty cool because instead of having to search around and look for people that have the same interests as you do, Google Buzz will do that for you. These are just a few of the interesting features that Google Buzz has that I just don’t see in Twitter and Facebook. If you have more interest in learning about other Google Buzz features, I highly recommend reading the two articles that I mention here. Who knows, maybe one day you might see DiscountASP.NET buzzing on Google. February 10 How to use IIS7 URLRewrite Module to Enhance Search Engine OptimizationAt DiscountASP.NET, we set up your web site to handle both www.YourHostedDomainName.com and YourHostedDomainName.com. By having both hostnames (with or without www) bring up your web site, you don’t risk losing potential visitors. This setup, however, is not favored by search engines. According to many Search Engine Optimization experts, search engine bots will penalize you for duplicate content if you have multiple hostnames pointing to the same content. SEO experts recommend the server returns a 301 permanent redirect to avoid getting penalized on your search engine ranking.
In this post, I am going to discuss a very simple technique for configuring your site to redirect YourHostedDomainName.com to www.YourHostedDomainName.com using the URLRewrite module. Note that this feature is only supported on the IIS 7.x platform.
1. Download and install IIS Manager. See our Knowledge Base for more information.
2. Connect to your site using the instructions listed in the above KB article.
3. Navigate to the URLRewrite section. 4. Click on “Add Rules” in the Action pane. 5. Configure the rules as below. I am using IIS7hosting.com for this example; make sure you replace iis7hosting.com with your own domain name.    6. Click "Apply" in the Actions pane. 7. IIS should now issue a 301 redirect for all requests going to iis7hosting.com and redirect them to www.iis7hosting.com. 8. Note that the URLRewrite rule is written to your web site’s web.config file. If you update your site in the future, your web.config file may be overwritten. I recommend that you add the URLRewrite rule to your local development web.config file. Here’s the result of an HTTP header check to show that the rule is working properly:
Server Response: http://iis7hosting.com
HTTP Status Code: HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8 Location: http://www.iis7hosting.com/ Server: Microsoft-IIS/7.0 X-Powered-By: ASP.NET Date: Tue, 09 Feb 2010 09:05:42 GMT Connection: close Content-Length: 150 Redirect Target: http://www.iis7hosting.com/ Frank Cheung
CTO
DiscountASP.NET February 09 Videos from SoCal Code CampWe got some videos at the SoCal Codecamp that we sponsored on January 30-31, 2010 during the Raffle Giveaway on Sunday.
The organizers tossed tee shirts and other giveaways into the crowd before the raffle prizes were given out.
We made some water bottle schwag for this event. During a lull in the raffle prize giveaway, the organizers had me go into the crowd to pass out a box of water bottles. People went a little nuts for the water bottle.
Takeshi Eto
VP Marketing and Business Development
DiscountASP.NET
February 04 Yet Another Use for Twitter….CEO ResignationTwitter has so many uses. People use it to communicate with their family and friends, people use it to take polls/surveys, President Obama used it for his presidential campaign, NBA players use it during halftime of basketball games, etc.
Well now it appears that bigwig CEO’s are using Twitter to resign. At least that’s what now former CEO of Sun Microsystems, Jonathan Schwartz, did on Wednesday night. On his tweet, he wrote:
“Today’s my last day at Sun. I’ll miss it. Seems only fitting to end on a #haiku. Financial crisis/Stalled too many customers/CEO no more” – (Just under 140 characters I may add. Well done Mr. Schwartz)
You can find more on the story here on MSN MoneyCentral.
To summarize the article, in an interview with the NY Times, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, made it clear that he’s not a big of fan of Schwartz. According to reports, everyone knew that Schwartz was going to be cut when the Oracle acquisition of Sun Microsystems closed. I guess this was Schwartz’s way of retaliating, using a Haiku poem nonetheless. However, you shouldn’t feel so bad for Schwartz, he’s going to receive a $12M severance package.
Schwartz’s haiku has inspired me to bust out a haiku about Twitter:
Twitter makes me laugh
Expect the unexpected
Mark Medina
Director, Marketing
DiscountASP.NET
January 27 SoCal Code Camp – THIS WEEKEND – January 30-31, 2010 - Come meet usThis weekend, January 30-31, the SoCal Code Camp will be held at the Cal State Fullerton campus and DiscountASP.NET will be there! The SoCal Code Camp is a 2 day event that starts on Saturday morning and goes from 8:30am to 4pm and resumes on Sunday morning from 9am to 2pm. As always, code camps are absolutely FREE, but you must register on their website.
In addition, on Saturday night, after the code camp sessions have ended, the 2010 Geek Dinner will be held at Cantina Lounge from 6pm - 9pm. Register during the day at the Code Camp to get tickets to the Geek Dinner.
DiscountASP.NET is a sponsor and we will be there both days with free giveaways so make sure you stop by, take in some sessions and meet us.
If you are a web developer living in the Los Angeles/Orange County area, we urge you to come out to the SoCal Code Camp, to network with other developers, learn new skills, share your knowledge/experience and of course meet DiscountASP.NET. For more information and to register, please visit: http://www.socalcodecamp.com/
Mark Medina
Director, Marketing
DiscountASP.NET January 26 DiscountASP.NET Wins Editor's Choice Award 2010 from Mindcracker NetworkI'm very happy to announce that DiscountASP.NET was awarded the Editor's Choice Award for 2010 in the category of "Best ASP.NET Hosting Company" by Mindcracker Network, the group behind c-sharpcorner.com. (see c-sharpcorner announcement here)
Mindcracker sent us a nice plaque. We are very honored for this recognition. A great way to start out a new year.
  Takeshi Eto
VP Marketing and Business Development
DiscountASP.NET
January 25 TheWHIR Los Angeles Mixer: Networking Sure Pays OffA few of us from DiscountASP.NET braved the rain and travelled to the west-side of Los Angeles to attend The Web Hosting Industry Review's (TheWhir) Los Angeles Networking event at the Air Conditioned Super Club on the evening of Jan. 21, 2010. TheWhir started these networking events in different cities last year and they have been growing in support and in attendance. I think these regional networking events for the hosting industry are a great idea and I support this program. Even with the rain, the turnout was good. (I tried taking some pictures but it was too dark for my phone.)
As usual at these events, they had giveaways. I don't know, but DiscountASP.NET must be in the zone at these events or somehow the design, make, or cardstock weight of our business cards must give us some edge - because Mark Medina (Marketing, Director) won a $100 Amazon gift certificate courtesy of Enom. This is the second time he's won at a TheWhir mixer - the first time was last year at the San Francisco mixer where he won an Apple TV.
And I won a bottle of wine at the last TheWhir Los Angeles mixer in June 2009 and this time around, I walked out with another bottle of wine courtesy of AutomaticSiteMap.
  So I have to say again... Networking does pay off!
Takeshi Eto
VP Marketing and Business Development
DiscountASP.NET
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