Sometimes technical, sometimes not, never a kitty

This is for people who get the following error either immediately after you create a WSS site, or when you try to access a WSS site or SPS portal:

You are not authorized to view this page
You do not have permission to view this directory or page using the credentials that you supplied.
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Please try the following:

Contact the Web site administrator if you believe you should be able to view this directory or page.
Click the Refresh button to try again with different credentials.
HTTP Error 403 - Forbidden: Access is denied.
Internet Information Services (IIS)

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Technical Information (for support personnel)

Go to Microsoft Product Support Services and perform a title search for the words HTTP and 403.
Open IIS Help, which is accessible in IIS Manager (inetmgr), and search for topics titled About Security, Authentication, and About Custom Error Messages.

If you are using SPS, try to access http://<portalname>/default.aspx instead of http://<portalname>/.  If you can access the URL with the pagename, then the problem may be in your application pool settings.  Likewise, if you try to access a WSS site and get this error, see if you can add default.aspx to the URL.  If that works, same problem.  You might also get this error immediatelyt after you create a WSS site, at the point where you are supposed to pick the site template.

Fortunately, the fix is really easy.  You need to open up the IIS manager on the server, and the open the properties for your virtual server.  On the Home Directory tab, you probably need to change the Application Pool the site is running under.  There's probably one named SpsAppPool or something like that.  If there are several and you're unsure, try choosing them one by one, and trying to access the URL (the one without the default.aspx) after each change.

For more technical information, I recommend

Now playing: The Calling - Wherever You Will Go

We're happy to announce the lauch of the completely revamped Designer Display Cakes (http://www.displaycakes.com/).  Designer Display Cakes is a local creator of artifical wedding, occasion and everyday cakes, and her cakes have been featured in commercials for Saturn and on the TV Show "Ed".  The new website is powered by CandyPress shopping cart, with some tweaks and modifications.  The photo gallery is nGallery with a customized theme.  If you're looking for a fake wedding cake, Designer Display Cakes is the place to find one!

Now playing: BoDeans - True Devotion

First, let me traingulate you on my feelings for similar books.  “Who Moved My Cheese” – hated it.  I thought it was puerile and condescending, but I’m not a person who has change issues either.  “Good to Great” – excellent book, and I’ve used the advice in my business dealings.  “Everything I Needed To Know I Learned In Kindergarten”– not a big fan of the entire book, but some of the chapters were though provoking (haven’t seen it in many, many years though).

The Big Moo is the brainchild of Seth Godin, but credited to “The Group of 33”.  It’s not written in traditional chapters, but rather short vignettes—written sound bites, if you will—in some cases, possibly originally scrawled on a napkin at a bar and later transcribed verbatim.  Perfect bathroom reading.  Not being in formal chapters means I can’t do my usual chapter-by-chapter technical overview, so look for a short review here.

Some of the vignettes are the “what if” type of philosophy like you got in your freshman dorm after a lot of beer from people you barely knew.  The ones I found the most interesting covered actual situations, such as Rockport shoes or the fall of the Berlin Wall.  Some made me think, some inspired me, and some were just plain dumb (and I don’t mean in the good way as talked about in the sketch entitled “The Power of Dumb Ideas”, which was a good vignette).  Thankfully, there were more of the interesting or thought-proviking ones.  It doesn’t matter which stories did what, because I think everyone will take something different away from the book.  Perhaps my opinion of some of the dumb ones would be different if I weren’t on the loo, but rather in a place in my life where they would inspire me.  This isn’t a book that changed my life, but it is one I’ll keep around and flip through from time to time.

Readers are encouraged to share the book with their coworkers to try and inspire them to be remarkable.  Assuming you have coworkers who can be inspired to be remarkable, this book could really be a good thing.  Everyone will take something different from the book, and that makes for good conversation at the coffee pot or over lunch.  In my experience, good communication on anything is the basis for a cohesive group, and those are the groups that become remarkable ones.  Reading this book isn’t going to help you turn anything into something remarkable single-handedly.  But look around, and if you have a few coworkers you think can help you overcome stagnation, definately share this with them.  Make sure to read it first yourself. 

Now playing: The Clarks - Mercury

If you haven't read the article "CodeSnip: Opening Crystal Reports in a New Window in ASP.NET" (http://aspalliance.com/525), do that before you read this.  I received this comment recently:

When I tried this, it was blocked by Windows XP SP2. When I said to temporary allow blocked items, it stated it had to refresh, and then nothing happen.  I got the original page back, not the new page containing the report.

Any suggestions.

My first suggestion is to make sure there are no other pop-up blockers installed and running.  Many antivirus programs install pop-up blockers (sometimes called "ad blockers"), and every search engine toolbar I know of also includes a pop-up blocker.  I use this codesnip in an application I wrote and support; on one support call, we found four pop-up blockers installed (XP SP2, McAfee, Google and Yahoo toolbars).

I also suggest permanently allowing pop-ups from the site you're working on--add your site to the "allowed sites" list (Tools >> Popup Blocker>> Popup Blocker Settings, then enter the URL of your site).  This will always allow pop-ups from the site in question, and will make debugging easier.

If you are exporting to PDF, XLS, etc. in this window, there are a couple of other settings you may need to adjust.  Go to Tools >> Internet Options >>Security, and choose the zone your website is in (Internet or Local Intranet), and click "Custom Level".  Scroll down about 1/3 of the way, to the Downloads section, and Enable both "Automatic prompting for file downloads" and "File download".  In my case, I've had to adjust these settings for both zones, since I develop and test in Local Intranet, but deploy to Internet.

I have yet to have a problem after doing all of these things.  You may need to close and restart IE to get all the settings to take effect.

Now playing: Marc Broussard - Home

New Location!

Communifax has graciously offered to host us in their conference room.  They're located just a minute or two down 228 from BC3; find directions at http://www.communifax.com/company/directions.aspx.  Thank you Communifax!

Tool of the Month ("use one, don't be one"): Excel XML Writer

It's a safe bet more business decisions are made in Excel worksheets than in all the boardrooms and golf courses in the world, combined.  If you spend any time at all querying data from ERP systems or data warehouses, and think there has to be a better way than VSTO, you'll want to see this free library in action.  Rich Dudley will make your life a little better.

Main Presentation: nHibernate

We'll all feel like hibernating come late January, but no time for naps yet.  nHibernate is an "object persistence library for relational databases".  Basically that means you can use nHibernate to keep database stuff in memory, and get at it very easily, to build more scalable ASP.NET applications.  Eric Kepes will show us how.  We'd write a better description, but we don't fully understand it ourselves.

Full details at http://badnug.org/Events/tabid/54/ctl/Details/Mid/370/ItemID/13/selecteddate/1%2F26%2F2006/Default.aspx.

The launch videos asked if we were ready to be rocked, and I know one person who was totally rocked by The Launch.

A little background: one of my consulting clients wants to upgrade their website, with multiple branding based on URL used to access the site.  At my suggestion, they waited on the upgrade until the .NET 2.0 was launched, since I felt the versatility of Master Pages and other new additions would make our lives a tremendous amount easier.  They didn’t want to buy new software, so I told them to register for the “Best Of” event in Pittsburgh, which was held Thursday (12/1), and they’d get a copy of VS 2005 for free.  Their guy attended both the SQL Server and VS sessions, and the MS Events folks can claim “Mission Accomplished” with at least one person.

At the SQL Server 2005 session, my client saw for the first time SQL Server Integration Services and Reporting Services.  The company uses an old Oracle-based ERP system that doesn’t provide much in the way of business intelligence, which hurts their competitiveness in today’s environment.  All morning, visions of a new data warehouse with a reporting front end danced through my client’s mind.  Knowing they just added a new Windows 2003 file server, I suggested they look into Windows Sharepoint Services as an intranet, and explained a little of the integration with reporting services and WSS.

Once he saw Master Pages in action, he felt my recommendation to take advantage of technology was very sound, and wondered when could we get started.

My client walked away from one day’s events with a whole new outlook on how to make use of his company’s data, and the tools to provide a proof-of-concept to the decision makers.  He was rocked.

tags: Visual Studio 2005 : SQL Server 2005 : Rock The Launch

Now playing: Povertyneck Hillbillies - One Night In New Orleans

Naked Conversations covered it in depth, and now Downloadsquad's Ten Things We Love About Microsoft includes Microsoft embracing employee blogging:

So many Microsoft employees write blogs. Whether it is an astute marketing ploy or not is yet to be determined, but hearing from the likes of Omar Shahine and Chris Pratley is a good thing. The spread of blogging throughout Microsoft has added a humanizing quality to the company that you can't imagine coming from other tech behemoths like IBM or (especially) Apple.

Besides humanizing, the information in these blogs will be a huge driver of another entry on the list: Microsoft's wealth-creation machine.

The latest update of my favorite RSS aggregator—RSS Bandit—has been released.  Find the full announcement at http://www.25hoursaday.com/weblog/PermaLink.aspx?guid=4e452051-706b-4464-92b8-52221fca8077.  Notable new features include:

• NNTP Newsgroups (no more Outlook Express!)
• Synchronization with NewsGator Online.  The synchronization features are what make RSS Bandit my favorite aggregator, since I read posts from home and at work.  With a free Newsgator Online account, now I even have a web-based aggregation and sync.
• Atom 1.0 support

Scott Swigart started this off with his post about undocumentation; Jeff Atwood picked that up and suggested Wikis in his post, which has generated some follow-up comments.  I dislike wikis, mainly because the community which is supposed to contribute is generally too busy or apathetic to do so, and that makes them next to useless.  Take, for instance, the dasBlog Wiki, in particluar http://wiki.shahine.com/default.aspx/DasBlog/ReleaseNotesOnePointSeven.html.  It's not to say that Omar and Scott aren't putting out a great app--they are, and it's truly wonderful.  But the release notes are a minor version behind.  Most wikis-as-software-documentation that I've seen usually end up like this.

Rather than Wikis, or moderated comments, or whatever, I think we could already use the tools we have at hand--our blogs.  All Microsoft would need to do is add an RSS filter similar to Memeorandum or Blogniscient to the bottom of a KB article or method documentation, and interested parties could easiliy see any additional comments, examples, etc. in the blogosphere.

On our end, tag your posts.  You can find some tagging information at http://www.technorati.com/help/tags.html.  Basically, a tag is a link with rel="tag" added to it.  I suggest making the HREF link back to the KB article or MSDN documentation page, and using the KB article ID or the full namespace declaration as the tag's text.

Think about it--if you have a namespace or particluar method you need to follow, you could set up a search at Blogdigger, and subscribe to the RSS results.  There's probably an MS Live gadget in the future as well.  Finding relevant commentary would be significantly easier for newbies, and presentation or results could be finely tuned by advanced users.