Deploying ASP.Net MVC apps to IIS 6

I had to do this today, and found two blog entries that made it really easy.  I figure I’ll have to do this again at some point, so I’m putting them here for easy reference, and to give this guy another link, which he deserves.

http://blog.codeville.net/2008/07/04/options-for-deploying-aspnet-mvc-to-iis-6/

http://blog.codeville.net/2008/07/07/overriding-iis6-wildcard-maps-on-individual-directories/

Woot! Release date inc!

Win7 has a release date: October 22!  You definitely want to get your hands on Win7, it’s way better than XP, and a definite improvement over Vista.

More details here: http://tinyurl.com/pbw3v6

WoW on Vista and Win7

I’ve been using Win7 and Vista to play wow for a couple of years now.  Along the way, I’ve learned a few tricks that may help other folks out.  For those that have been following my blog a while, or who were pointed here by a friend that plays WoW, you will probably know about my previous entry on this subject, http://cullenwaters.blogspot.com/2007/04/disable-aero-for-better-game-perf-in.html.  It’s time for an update, and some additions.

So, here are the steps I take to get the most out of WoW on Vista and Win7, while running in windowed mode.

1. Update all your drivers, using the latest Vista drivers.  We particularly care about sound, video, and network drivers here.  If you are running Win7, avoid the beta network drivers.  I’m using the beta NVidia drivers for Win7, and those are pretty good. 
2. Disable Aero while WoW is running.  Right click on wow.exe, select properties, and click on Compatibility.  On that tab, check the box that says ‘Disable Desktop Composition’.  This will cause windows to disable Aero while you have WoW running, which should result in less contention for your video card’s resources, and therefore higher framerates.
3. The next time you run wow, be ready for a ‘toast’ message in the bottom right of the screen.  Click that message!  Once you click the message, you’ll be able to tell windows to stop alerting you that it has disabled Aero (after all, you just told it to do so).
4. There’s a little known setting that can, generally, cut your latency in half.  WoW makes heavy use of TCP traffic (which is rare among games, most use UDP).  Windows, by default, sends an acknowledgement (ACK) every 2nd TCP packet.  We are going to modify the registry so that windows sends the ACK every packet, instead.  I’ve seen this, almost without exception, cut everyone’s latency literally in half (mine went from ~120ms to ~60ms).  There’s a catch to this tip, though.  You have to be running XP SP3, Vista SP1 or Win7 for it to work.  There was a hotfix because Vista was ignoring the setting.  Anyway, here’s an article about how to change the setting: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/328890/.  As with all registry changes, you should backup your registry before you do this.

Of course, all this stuff is provided with no warranty, don’t complain if your computer blows up, etc.  This has worked well for me so far, but I make no guarantee that these steps will help you.

I was reminded today

of the funniest story that has ever been told.

http://cullenwaters.blogspot.com/2005/11/you-wont-believe-this-story.html

Please, go read this old post, and have a laugh yourselves.

Testing

This is a test post sent via email

Sent from my iPhone

Syncing your RSS feeds across multiple computers

As many of you know, I use several PCs regularly.  There’s the work PC, my personal PC, and a laptop that I use.  The work and personal PC are both at my desk, just on opposite sides.  I switch back and forth using a super cool KVM switch that supports dual monitors (anyone know of a KVM for triple monitors?).

As such, it is pretty frustrating for me to have data on one machine and not the other; I use the same keyboard, mouse, and monitors to interact with each PC, so it always feels like I am using the same PC.

I found Live Mesh, and I freaking love it.  I have all my docs synced, as well as my favorites folder, and some other random folders.  I’ve used up about half of my online storage space :).

So, I’ve got most of my stuff synced between these three machines, but my RSS feeds were a sticking point.  Previously I’d used outlook to synchronize between the two primary PCs.  This requires having outlook set up to connect to my MS account from my home machine, though, and I’ve not had a need for it yet.  I wanted another solution, and figured Mesh was a good place to start.

I found a blog posting that pointed me right where I needed to be: http://www.windowsobserver.com/tag/common-feed-list/.  The key part of this article is the location of the feeds files: c:\users\<user name>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Feeds.  So I added the Feeds folder to my Mesh, and voila, I have sync’ed feeds!

The dryer’s not broken, honey

Courtney: Is our dryer broken?

Cullen: I’m not sure, is it?  What’s wrong?

Courtney: It won’t start.

Cullen: <looks in the laundry room>. The light’s on, it’s got power.  Was the door closed all the way?

Courtney: <blushing, closes the dryer door>.  Dryer works!

My name is Cullen, and I support this message

FizzBin.  I’ve said it.  I hope it works, though I doubt it will.

http://www.hanselman.com/blog/FizzBinTheTechnicalSupportSecretHandshake.aspx