Archive for Blog

Backing Up RDS Instances (Microsoft SQL Server)

Just recently we had to decommission a RDS instance where we had “upsized” an Access database into a Microsoft SQL Server hosted on Amazon’s cloud.

This decommissioning was merely a cost-saving step to eliminate resources that were used transitionally on one of our Access-application-to-full-web-app conversion projects. However, we did want to preserve a copy of the database that we could reference locally on development machines in the future.

Overall, this procedure was surprisingly complicated, although once the right components were configured in Amazon’s ecosystem, the process went smoothly.

The Amazon document Importing and Exporting SQL Server Databases was our basic guide for this process.

 

 

 

ServiceCEO Consulting

Some of our clients run ServiceCEO! We are privileged to help them with various aspects of the software, including Backups, Credit Card Processing, Data Migration, Reporting, and Troubleshooting. If ServiceCEO is something you need 3rd party consulting help with, please give us a ring at (503) 383-9243!

 

 

A Pet Peeve Regarding Tokenization and Forms

Look, if you are going to tokenize your forms (and you should because of CSRF), you also need to have some active JS (or whatever) on the page that at least hides the form after the last valid token expires. For those of us who leave websites that we sign into open, we are tired of logging in twice! Citi.com I’m looking at you.

My Mac Was Confused

…because I have both a Logitech Trackball (usb) and an Apple Magic Trackpad (bluetooth)… I could randomly use either one at any time because I am unpredictable like that.

So I need my scrollbars back.

Sophos Home Launched

There is some very exciting news from Sophos — Sophos Home has launched (in beta) for free, for non-commercial use. It is licensed to never expire, and it works on Mac and Windows. This is very good news for every home computer!

Somewhere in here there is a way to display 500 Errors in Remote Browsers with II 7.x

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2640526/detailed-500-error-message-asp-iis-7-5
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2640526/detailed-500-error-message-asp-iis-7-5/2640607#2640607
http://www.ksingla.net/2009/02/iis75_updates_to_custom_errors_and_compression/

This may be the coolest thing this decade!

AutomaticLink

For automotive cross computer geeks…

http://www.automatic.com/

WooCommerce Products Import/Export

What is the best way to export 5000 products, let the client manipulate them in Excel, and then re-import them?

Freshbooks Users …

@Freshbooks

Do you guys delete projects after you finish them? How do you keep the ones you have closed out out of your billing and tracking workflow?

Thanks!

MusicBee

It seems like there is finally a great replacement for iTunes on Windows: http://getmusicbee.com/