I can't say I ever gave much though to the differences between IIS's Integrated and Classic modes before. If it worked, it worked. I never had a need to use one over the other.... until the other day.

We recently got some nice new servers and as well as moving an application to the servers, it's being upgraded at the same time. Exciting times and all was going swimmingly until I began looking into updating the basic authentication process to use Siteminder Authentication. That's when I took note that the website was using Integrated mode. Siteminder requires Classic mode. No problem. I'll just switch the website to use Classic mode and....  IIS is no longer serving up the aspx pages? not good.

So I dug a little deeper. There's some great explanations about the differences between Classic and Integrated. Here's one...

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/716049/what-is-the-difference-between-classic-and-integrated-pipeline-mode-in-iis7

That makes sense with Siteminder since it uses an ISAPI filter to intercept http requests.

That still doesn't explain why switching to Classic mode breaks the website but it suggested ISAPI filters were to blame. Initially I thought perhaps the Siteminder ISAPI filter was the problem. Disabling that didn't fix the issue.Checking the Siteminder handler mappings didn't show anything strange either.

Next, checking the aspx ISAPI filters. That was the problem.

The IIS installation process installed all the aspx filters but it didn't 'allow' them to the ISAPI restrictions list. So the solution....

- Open IIS and select your website.

- Open the handler mappings and select the aspx handler. For our 64 bit server it's called PageHandlerFactory-ISAPI-4.0-64

- Double click the aspx handler and select 'Request Restrictions'.

- Then click OK, and OK again.

- you should then get a pop up message to allow the handler. Click Yes.

 

You've now enable the aspx handler and shouldn't have any issues with Classic mode when dealing with asp.net web sites.

It's been an interesting week for Instagram. On Monday they changed their privacy policy to allow them to sell users' photos without their permission. This was introduced as a "like it or lump it" section.

Meaning if you wanted to opt out then you could... by not using Instagram. Not only was the policy change a mandatory agreement if you want to use Instragram, it didn't differentiate between a photo of your carpet or one of your 3 year old kid.

The change was a little heavy handed but presumably Instagram thought most users either wouldn't care or wouldn't notice; That is pretty much how it has worked for Facebook so far and now that Instagram is owned by Facebook why wouldn't they hold the same views? It made sense.

Unfortunately, for Instagram the actually truth was a lot different. The change was picked up by users and news of it spread like wildfire. Soon, many users were threatening to drop the service completely. But did the actually leave? Reports differ with some news stories saying 'many' users abandoned and others repoting users suspending their account, like National Geograpic.

Whatever the truth, the media furore has been huge and enough to make Instagram back down. Or they are at least rewording the change to 'make it clear', suggesting that they're not actually backing down on anything! In reality, the bad pulicity for Instagram is likely to big good for business, few users will actually leave and Instagram becomes even more of a household name.

An interesting thought that's come out of this is the idea of ownership on the web. For years the music business saw a decline in sales until the embraced the Internet and offered people what they want; cheap, easily accessible music. But before that exist (and still now) users wouldn't think twice about downloading a pirated copy of their favourite piece of music. For some reason that was ok to take that from the musicians without their permission but as soon as Instagram tries to take photos for free that they own then the users get their back up and rightly so.

Maybe we're finally seeing some level of understanding of the importance of privacy. Maybe. Companies need to make money and

 

people are willing to give up a certain amount of privacy for a quality service (e.g Facebook, Instagram) but having limits and saying 'What a minute, you've gone to far' is a step in the right direction. The whole idea of privacy online is still very much in it's early days and will probably take a generation before we see the true damage that can be done. Think 'losing a job because the employer found some photos of you from your early colege years'! It's good to know people are becoming more aware of privacy issues and that people power has some affect on business like Instagram...  ignoring the fact that they didn't really backdown just rework the wording of the policy to confuse people further so they don't complain. Still, it's great to see the online version of a protest and people threatening to walk.

 

 

Is there? great! But should you really care?

 

 

Apps have exploded in the last few years. Initially, that drive came from Apple and, more specifically, the iPhone. The iTunes store has an ever growing number of apps available for Apple products and I'm sure Apple are a lot more interested in the paid apps. It's big business; revenue from 'app stores' is expected to top $14 Billion in 2012.

That's much more money than you get from selling access to you website. It's great there are so many apps but sometimes they're just not needed. With so many different formats these days, if you go down the app route then you will need to develop an app for the iPhone, Android and then there's tablets as well, they'll probably require some more format changes. Did I mention Windows 8 is out? you'll need a windows app as well. And you do have a website, don't you? mobile website?

Where do you start?! Well, that's just it, isn't it? It's getting too complicated and too crowded. Apps do have many benefits but do you really need an app for your website? In many cases, all that effort would be better directed into making a really great 'mobile' website. That should be the first place to start. If there's a great mobile site then there'll be no need to create an app to browser your news website or to transfer funds from your bank app. Many great apps could simply be great mobile sites.

Lets start there and try reduce how much work needs to be carried out rather than increase it. After all, if you need to make a change to something then you'll also need to update all those apps and test them all! It's ludicrous when maybe, just maybe, all you need is one mobile website.

So it's finally happened, Facebook's IPO. It's been talked about for months with an estimate value of anywhere from $23 per share and up. The actual price came out at $38, valuing the company at $104 billion! Not bad, but is it worth it?

 

In 2011 Facebook took home just over $1 billion in profit. I agree that's a lot of profit but no matter what way you look at it, valuing the company at 100 times their operating profit just seems wrong. I'm sure everyone remembers the last time Internet companies were so highly valued, it was only a little over a decade ago and it didn't end well. Those companies couldn't live up to the hype or create the profit that their value promised. Facebook has huge potential but it's such a new company, in an entirely new market, with so many users and so much information. It's all unchartered territory and at the moment Facebook has stumbled in the right direction. Now, after the IPO, they need to be steered to further profit.

And that's really the bottom line, you put your company on the markets and they'll expect you to make money for them. If you're not doing that then your share price will drop. Facebook is valued high because it's popular, as simple as that. Maybe some think that it's a good bet and that Facebook will keep churning out more and more profit. That hardly seems like sage advice considering, by Facebook's own admission, that they expect a fall in profit. Combine that with the actual figures for the first quarter of 2012; rising revenue, falling profit. Does it still seem like a $104 billion company? 

Despite all the news and even Facebook warning of trouble ahead, the market hunger for the IPO remained unaffected. The crazed blood hungry traders want those shares at any cost and that's just what they got. What's interesting is that other early private investors were actually cutting their shares by much greater margins at the last minute. It doesn't seem to say much about their confidence in the stocks. If you expected the stocks to perform well then you wouldn't sell half of them. If you thought you could get a good price now and wanted to hedge your bets, then you would sell. Goldman Sachs and Tiger Global Management, who originally decided to off load 23% and 7% of their shares, suddenly upped it to as much as 50%. Obviously admitting to sell 50% from the start could have negatively affected the share price, although probably not since the markets have ignored all the other snippets of bad news.

So far we have falling profits, rising revenue, high share prices, bailing private investors and an unrelenting market. BubblejQuery1520010906498180702329_1337332560782 But it doesn't end there. Facebook need to turn the company into more profit. So far that's been the standard Internet advertisement modal. Selling adverts in little blocks on their website. Yawn! Generally that means around the 3-5% click through rate. If Facebook has the estimate 900 million daily users then that equates to roughly 36 million clicks a day. But does it work for sales? GM doesn't seem to think so, completely abandoning their $10 million advertising campaign on Facebook.

Facebook need to adopt a new modal. The problem is it doesn't exist yet. Now the IPO has passed the pressure is on to find that modal quickly and to make it work. Time will tell but at the moment all the signs point to an over-inflated market price. Facebook obviously isn't going anywhere any time soon, it's too big, but the markets prices needs to accurately reflect its value and a $1 billion yearly profit would take quite a while to generate the $100 billion price tag. Which means a lot of the price is built purely on expectations.

Chrome OS is maturing quickly these days. Techcrunch.com has a short article about the latest release of Chrome OS and it certainly does look promising as an OS. The OS is slowly migrating away from the Chrome browser and the extra functionality means it no longer has the look or feel of just being a browser. 

In some ways this is a good thing, it makes Chrome OS a better system. But in another way, I have to wonder if Google are missing out a little here. After all, they do have a very capable OS already. The Android OS may have been developed with phones in mind and it has since expanded to incorporate tablets and other mobile devices. So why not grow it further for desktops?

Google is one of the main jaugenauts in technology. They always have multiple projects going on, from small changes to big dreams. In this case it seems like two projects are starting to converge. An OS for phones is expanding to other devices and what was initially a browser is expanding to become a fully functional OS. 

There are, of course, many problems with integrating the two projects but imagine the ultimate goal, a universal OS. Familiar to users across desktops, tablets and mobiles. In terms of OS it's the holy grail.

Maybe Google have something in the works further down the line. I would be very surprised if they haven't at least considered trying to merge the projects or to slowly integrate both. Only time will tell.

If you ever set up a website which makes use of the extensionless URLs then you may have come across a problem where the page www.yourgreatsite.com/Home cannot be found but www.yourgreatsite.com/Home.cshtml works perfectly.

The problem is that, by default, IIS is not set up for URL rewriting. So you need to enable it. If using a shared host, like I was, then you should add the following to your web config file...

<system.webServer>
<modules runAllManagedModulesForAllRequests="true"/>
</system.webServer>

IF your hosting your own site or you have more control over IIS then you can enable URL rewriting yourself.

BlueStacks have created this nice image using user data they gathered. I bet it would be very interesting to compare to a iPhone user....

It's been a few thousand years since Moses came down the mountain proclaiming how great tablets were and everyone is beginning to agree. Small US businesses are looking to purchase tablets in the near future. The iPad is hugely popular, Samsung's Note has shipped more than a million units, Amazon are actually giving away Kindles (losing 3 dollars per unit while shipping one million a week in December).

It's clear Amazon want a cut and giving away their devices below cost price is helping to create a customer base for future sales. It's risky and costly in the short term but with potential huge returns if they can now provide a solid service to their customer base. The kindle is slight set in a different niche compared to other tablets but that could change down the line as the Kindle matures further.

So back to tablets like we know them for now. Apple and Samsung are leading the way. But what's customer satisfaction like? Do tablets have the same characteristics as 3D? perhaps. I believe they have a bit more substance to them but I also believe a lot are jumping on the band wagon. Do most small-medium companies have a use for an iPad or is it something nice to be seen with? I'm guessing the latter for most. But having said that, the image of a company can help increase sales so even that may not be a bad thing as long as the return on investment can be founded. It'll be interesting to watch how this unfolds. Tablets aren't as new as they were in 2011. The honeymoon period will be coming to an end and now they'll have to prove their worth. Mobile devices have pretty much destroyed the netbook and tablets have taken over from the netbook, providing a lot more style. They do have their uses but they're not for everyone unless you want and expensive paper weight.

Silicon Republic's Adam Renardson compiled the tech year in numbers for 2011 but what does this mean for 2021? What's interesting is that mobile technology is finally really maturing into something great. Apple's iPhone may have slipped up slightly with now iPhone 5 but they have time to redeem themself, Android is coming of age with 4.0. It's stable, smooth and has great features. 4G is coming to Ireland too. Auctions begin next year so expect to see networks up in 2013. Mobile is looking good. It's becoming more and more user friendly and more useful. YouTube passed one trillion playbacks for 2011 and that included more than 200 million mobile views per day. impressive figures which can only increase in 2012 not to mention when 4G becomes widespread.

2011 has also see substantial increases in the number shopping online. The general public are becoming more comfortable with the idea of spending their hard earned cash in the digital realm. Companies are beginning to realise that they're going to need an online marketing strategy that can rival their bricks and mortar strategy. The online money promised by companies before the dot com boom is finally coming true. Technology is ready and more importantly, the public are ready for it.

So to 2012, it's time that mobile and money combine. NFC will no doubt blur the lines between the real and digital and I'm sure that will be successful but here I'm talking about using a mobile device to spend money online, to check bank accounts, transfer money. Everything that people are finally becoming comfortable with on the computers, this will spread to mobile. The biggest delay with people willing to spend money online originally was their lack of confidence with the system. Is it safe? will I get my goods? will my money disappear? Those are the same questions now being asked of mobile, perhaps they are somewhat more mature now but the fears are the barrier. 2012 will see those fears fall and mobile commerce rise.

Late last year, October 2010, Michael Mace posted a great article about his views on RIM. It is definitely worth reading, even more so now that pretty much everything he suggested is coming to pass. It makes for sad news for RIM but I think most, at this stage, would agree that Blackberry is on the way out. There's a lot of room in the mobile market for a few companies to successfully compete. After all, Android, Apple and RIM were all doing nicely. But it's hard to argue with the facts and then throw in Microsoft's promising Windows 7.5 phones and it's looking increasingly unlikely that there will be a way back for RIM.

That got me thinking about 3D. It was pushed a lot in 2011 yet it really got no where. Sure, it was great for a while. The first decent 3D film was amazing to look at for a few minutes but then you pretty much forgot it was in 3D (provided it was a good film with a good story). The next 3D film you saw was probably nice but you could take it or leave it. By the time you sitting down to watch a 3D, do you really care anymore? I doubt it. But yet we're still being sold 3D movies at the cinema, 3D TVs for our home and 3D TV broadcasts. Obviously these can be sold at a premium so is it any wonder why film studios and TV manufacturers are telling us it's the future?

Perhaps it's not the same fall from grace as Blackberry. It's a different situation. Blackberry is technology that once ruled, never moved with the times and is now getting left behind. 3D technology is something that sounds great, sounds like it should rule, yet it never has, and now it's getting left behind. Not surpassed by something better, the gimmick has just lost its shine.

A great example is the Nintendo 3DS. Sales of the Wii and DS have reached saturation. Believe it or not, the Wii is now five years old and the DS is seven, almost archaic in technology terms. It's great to see Nintendo innovate and that approach certainly paid off for them in recent years. But not even Nintendo could make 3D work, not even without glasses and at very reasonable prices. Nintendo posted substantial loses for the last few months. The 3DS is great to play, at first, in 3D. But the more I played the more I found that the 3D just didn't matter. Eventually switching back to full 2D just for a cleaner image.

3D has nothing to offer. I said last year it would grow and it has. It's also slowly moving to glasses less technology. But it needs more. Immersive 3D is it's only possible saving grace.