My last post was a review of Work The System by Sam Carpenter. In the book I erroneously conflated several themes and accidentally inserted a quote from a review in progress into the Work The System review. I have taken the original review down it will not reappear. I apologize for the errors.
Popularity: 2% [?]
The Problem: You try to access your web service on IIS 7 and you get the following error
The service cannot be activated because it requires ASP.NET compatibility. ASP.NET compatibility is not enabled for this application. Either enable ASP.NET compatibility in web.config or set the AspNetCompatibilityRequirementsAttribute.AspNetCompatibilityRequirementsMode property to a value other than Required.
at System.ServiceModel.Activation.HostedAspNetEnvironment.ValidateCompatibilityRequirements(AspNetCompatibilityRequirementsMode compatibilityMode) at System.ServiceModel.Activation.AspNetCompatibilityRequirementsAttribute.System.ServiceModel.Description.IServiceBehavior.Validate(ServiceDescription description, ServiceHostBase serviceHostBase) at System.ServiceModel.Description.DispatcherBuilder.ValidateDescription(ServiceDescription description, ServiceHostBase serviceHost) at System.ServiceModel.Description.DispatcherBuilder.InitializeServiceHost(ServiceDescription description, ServiceHostBase serviceHost) at System.ServiceModel.ServiceHostBase.InitializeRuntime() at System.ServiceModel.ServiceHostBase.OnBeginOpen() at System.ServiceModel.ServiceHostBase.OnOpen(TimeSpan timeout) at System.ServiceModel.Channels.CommunicationObject.Open(TimeSpan timeout) at System.ServiceModel.Channels.CommunicationObject.Open() at System.ServiceModel.ServiceHostingEnvironment.HostingManager.ActivateService(String normalizedVirtualPath) at System.ServiceModel.ServiceHostingEnvironment.HostingManager.EnsureServiceAvailable(String normalizedVirtualPath)
Popularity: 3% [?]
Several days ago I decided to use PayPal’s Website Payments Pro system for the Stronico credit card processing system. At the time, I thought PayPal was the obvious choice. It had relatively low fees (about $60 per month), no setup fee, and it seemed to be the 800 pound gorilla in the space, so how bad coudl it behard could the setup be?
As it turned out, I was very, very wrong. I spent part of the day Sunday and all day Monday wading through non-working sample code, looking at near duplicate setup guides for the 56 (how it is 56 I don’t know) versions of their Website Payments Pro system, installing all of the add-ons needed to get the sample apps going and so on and so forth. All of that merely to make a Get request with the proper query string (which is all the Website Payments Pro System really is). Read the rest of this entry »
Popularity: 4% [?]
People like to use the Five Whys of Toyota to diagnose problems (in deductive fashion). I use the 5 Whats to explain what I do for a living, Stronico, and my music. Which version you get depends on what I think your subject matter expertise happens to be. For my consulting company the 5 Whats are:
Question: What do you do?:
When I describe Stronico it goes like this: Read the rest of this entry »
Popularity: 1% [?]
The Problem: You send an email to someone and get the following back
Your message did not reach some or all of the intended recipients.
Subject: Any Subject
Sent: 6/4/2010 2:31 PM
The following recipient(s) cannot be reached:
This User on 6/4/2010 2:31 PM
Server error: ‘550 Requested action not taken: mailbox unavailable or not local’
The Cause: Both sender and recipient are on the same mail server, but the recipient’s mail server is hosted by Google Apps (or some other mail server). Your smtp server makes a preliminary request to the wrong server, and causes this false error message.
The Solution: The recipient (who has the mail server hosted by Google Apps) needs to disable mail services for their domain. You can do it in IIS directly (assuming you are running Windows). In Plesk simply go to Domains > Mail > Disable Mail
Popularity: 4% [?]
The Problem: You want to make your website all SEO friendly by creating a single, canonical url. For example, if someone types in http://www.stronico.com, you want them to be redirected to http://stronico.com (Google likes it this way). You do some research and discover that all of the default code and documentation for handling canonical Urls in IIS 7 uses web.config files and the URL Rewrite application program. All is well and good so far, but what if you use SSL? The stock code will always redirect you to http://stronico.com/Signup/ even if the original url was https://stronico.com/Signup/ (note the https). Read the rest of this entry »
Popularity: 4% [?]
Leo Babauta recently wrote The No. 1 Habit of Highly Creative People on ZenHabits.net, and the number one habit is solitude. By eerie coincidence I recently finished reading Switch: How To Change When Change Is Hard by the Heath brothers, which makes something of the same point.
The rational portion of your brain (the rider as the Heath brothers put it) is a weak limited thing that wears itself out quickly by making decisions, exercising self control, and ingesting information. If you isolate yourself for long periods, be it long bike rides or marathon running, or simply taking the phone off the hook, closing email, and minimizing distractions, you free your mind to work on important matters, like being creative. The above explains why I tend to have creative breakthroughs while on long bike rides.
As I write this it occured to me that visual clutter probably plays a part in tiring your brain as well. I must clean the office!
Popularity: 2% [?]
Earlier today I began writing a blog post about the artisan style of entrepreneurship and I began wondering: what is the right amount of meta thinking to do in a given day? Stronico has yet to emerge from beta and I have not earned a reputation as a visionary (yet). Who really cares what I think about a given meta topic? By looking at my web stats and links to the site it does seem that no one cares about my meta thoughts but they do love the posts on QuickBooks and how to solve Silverlight problems.
Therefore from this point forward I resolve to do no more than one meta post per week; all other blog posts will be practical information on solving business and technical problems. Deep thinking will return once the first million is made.
photo credit: mescon
Popularity: 1% [?]
Last night while thinking about the Stronico marketing plan I thought about ways in which I’m already remarkable. I am not saying remarkable to brag; I just came up with a list of things other people say about my abilities. They are:
Of all these, the last is the most useful. I am considering making the Stronico marketing have a sinister delivery. The product remains the same, a brain helper to remember the weak ties in life, but I will make the marketing have a film noir quality.
photo credit: Sebastian Fritzon
Popularity: 1% [?]
I wrote about my desire to form a secret society several months ago and so far have found no suitable web application to help me do that. IMind seems to be the closest complete solution but it seems too jumbled to accomplish much (I’m judging them purely from their website, I have not tried the product.) Recently I came across BrainTrustHQ.com and I think it supply the collaboration tools needed for a workable secret society. I’ve signed up for their free version and I’ll let everyone know how it goes.
photo credit: conorwithonen
Popularity: 2% [?]