Deep Thoughts with Richard Schoen

UltiDev Cassini is a free, light-weight and  redistributable web server  that can host  ASP.NET 2.0 and 1.1  applications and static HTML sites. Whenever your customers need an alternative to IIS — UltiDev Cassini web server is the answer. UltiDev Cassini was built using Microsoft Cassini web server sample as a base, but was vastly improved and expanded compared to original Cassini sample by adding lots of new features and fixing existing bugs. UltiDev Cassini runs on all flavors of Windows XP including Windows XP Home, Windows Vista, Windows 2000 and Windows 2003 Server.

Well, we started testing Windows Vista this summer to see how well our software would run on the new upcoming Windows platform. Short of a few tighter security items, Windows Vista seems to look and feel a lot like Windows XP. I just read an item that said Windows Vista would be released in January.  I’m thinking it just might start showing up in stores in time for Christmas.  Either way I can report that RJS plans to support the Vista operating system from day one. This doesn’t mean that there won’t be issues we run in to, but it does mean that your investment in RJS products will be safe for at least the next 7 years, since that’s probably when the next Windows Desktop OS version will be released if history is any indicator. But what do I know, I can’t see the future

One of my favorite system utility companies was gobbled up by Microsoft this year. Sysinternals has been my favorites spot to go when I need a free tool to allow me to forcefully end windows processes, look at remote PC processes, restart computers and tell me why a program won’t run because of file permissions.
After Microsoft acquired Sysinternals, I thought the freebie utilities might go away, but to my delight these utilities are still FREE. They are just now part of the Microsoft site. The FREE utilities are available from the Sysinternals link. The commercial cousins of these products are available at Winternals.

Well, since it’s been roughly seven years since Microsoft has released a new browser I found myself compelled to install the latest interation: IE7. IE7 brings us some of the features that have been available in Firefox for a few years now such as tabbed browsing. This was the main reason I updated to IE7 right away. I like Firefox, but it doesn’t work with ActiveX controls. To me, IE7 is simply an iterative release that brings the MS browser to current look and feel along with adding several security bells and whistles which have been sorely needed.   Before you update to IE7 make sure all of your web applications work with it. I’ve run into a few vendors who say they don’t support IE7 yet.

For the most part, this was a sorely needed browser update, although I have to admit there’s something about browser version stability. Any of you web developers remember supporting Netscape, IE3, IE4, IE5 and IE 5.5 at the same time ? Get it at Microsoft. It’s a small download and definitely worth updating to within the next few months.

For those of you interested in developing and scaling your Visual Studio VB.Net and C# applications to run Cross Platform, you may want to check out the open source Mono product. The following paragraph is a description of Mono from the Mono Project web site:

Mono provides the necessary software to develop and run .NET client and server applications on Linux, Solaris, Mac OS X, Windows, and Unix. Sponsored by Novell (http://www.novell.com), the Mono open source project has an active and enthusiastic contributing community and is positioned to become the leading choice for development of Linux applications.

Mono also includes its own web server that runs .Net code and web services. The web server is called: XSP. Apparently there is also an Apache Web Server Add-in called mod-mono-server which allows .Net applications to run under the standard Apache Web Server.

Check it out and have fun developing cross platform code.

OK all you Windows Web Developers, I have found a utility that you will find indispensible. IIS Admin allows you to create new IIS Web Sites on a Windows XP PC with a few mouse clicks. The FREE utility’s system tray icon also allows you to quickly switch between your IIS web configurations without the need to use the IIS Administrator or stop and start each site. If you’re working on a production web site for customer A and you suddenly have the need to test your new web invention stored on another web site on your PC, simply click on the site in the system tray program and your new site is ready for action. This is a utility that any web developer cannot do without. Test it out and have some fun.

Here’s a cool product that I found on the web that can be used to allow a single XP PC to host multiple users at the same time via the Windows Terminal Services RDP client software. The product is called XP Unlimited. The benefit of software like the XP Unlimited product is the fact that a single low-end Windows XP workstation can be easily turned into a multi-user Windows Terminal Server without the expense of purchasing a large server. For users who are sending a lot of email, surfing the web, word processing, using iSeries 5250 emulation or other similar tasks, the XP Unlimited software can be a great way to save money and bring your PC budgets back in line. By allowing user’s older existing PC’s to be used as a simple Windows Terminal that accesses a more powerful Windows XP PC where all the software is loaded, IT departments can extend the life of existing PC investments and minimize the purchase of new hardware every 1-2 years. Check it out and let me know what you think.

For those of you looking for a decent ZIP file tool other than WinZip, I have found a tool named 7-Zip that seems to be a nice replacement. The cost is also FREE, so you can’t complain about the price. If you’ve been looking for a good zip file tool, check out 7-Zip. Let me know of any good software utilities you find and I will publish them here.

OK, we’ve been doing cross platform Java development for just over a year now. I can still recall the moment I finally gave in to the dark side. Although in my case Darth Vader isn’t my father.

Along the way we’ve discovered a new tool called Grasshopper from a company called MainSoft. Yes I know it sounds wierd, but this tool is an add-in for Microsoft Visual Studio that utilizes the open source .Net Common Language Runtime project called MONO.

So what ? What does this tool really do for me as a Microsoft or Sun Java software developer ? Basically this tool lets our developers ride the fence in between the Microsoft, IBM and Sun worlds and allows us to maximize on our skills as Microsoft, IBM and Sun developers.

Let me explain. Our company background is AS/400 and iSeries so naturally we have applications that still run on the iSeries to support. We also have several VB programs along with developers who know VB well. Thirdly we have developers who are developing cross platform code in Java for the portability.

Using a tool like Grasshopper allows us to utilize our existing VB and C# skills to generate web applications using the Microsoft .Net languages and philosophies, yet the compiled executables can run on iSeries, Windows, Unix or Linux by simply installing and using the Apache Tomcat Web Application server.

This approach is limited to web applications and web services, but a lot of what we’re doing today involves web applications and web services. Imagine an aspx web application running natively on the iSeries under Tomcat. Believe me it works and it’s cool stuff.

Tell me your experiences after trying the Grasshopper product. Have fun and go develop cross platform.

If you develop PC and cross platform software like we do, I would recommend looking into using Microsoft Virtual PC or VMWare Workstation to set up testing environments. These tools allow you to truly run separate copies of an operating system such as Windows or Linux on the same PC where you develop. The best part about these tools is you can boot up into a Virtual PC environment such as a test version of Windows 2000 or XP, make as many changes as you want and then close the session and all the changes you just made don’t get saved. The ability to journal all of your changes and then commit them to disk only if you say so is a powerful feature of Virtual PC software that makes it a must have product for PC software testing.