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Optimize Orchard Setup on Shared Hosting

In the past few days I was trying to setup Orchard on Godaddy shared hosting server. The steps that I follow was:

  1. Download Orchard CMS source code from the following link http://www.orchardproject.net/download   On this page, there is multiple options to download, I downloaded the one with Source Code as I’m interesting to look into Orchard code as well. but you can download the zip file which has no code. if you decided to download the zip file, then you can skip point 2
  2. Extract the source code zip file and open the solution in Visual Studio.. then publish the solution to your local drive.
  3. upload the published version to your shared hosting provide such as GoDaddy
  4. for the first time you access your website Orchard will compiling the code and building dependencies folder under App_Data.. so you need to make sure the App_Data folder has the proper permission for IIS user to write into that folder.
  5. once Orchard finish compiling the code, you will get into Setup page where you enter the site name and database information.
  6. after finishing the setup form, Orchard will start doing some internal stuff to add database tables.
  7. Once it done. you will get logged into Orchard dashboard. there you can manage Orchard CMS.
  8. Go to Module link and search for a module called “Keep Alive” install it. then enable it. this module will keep the IIS process working on Orchard website thus make it always alive and get rid of the worming up time.
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Enlarge the Font Size on Visual Studio

VisualStudio

I was using Visual Studio 2013/2015 on small screen. The main issue that I was facing is the small font size for solution explorer and menu items. That was the main issue that I’m facing of using small screen. Thankfully there is a way to enlarge the font size for menu items and solution explorer.. to do so, follow these steps:

1. From tools menu, select Options

2. On the left hand size, choose “Fonts and Colors” and on the right hand side section of this, under “Show settings for” choose “Environment Font”

VS2013OptionsPopup

3. On “Font (bold type indicates fixed-width fonts) “ drop down list, change Arial font type or whatever font type you would like to have

4. And under “Size” drop down list choose the proper font size that you feel comfortable with.

5. Hit “OK” on the popup..

Hope that would help having a better development experience.

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SQL Server Build Versions

SqlServerVersionsI was working on maintaining SQL Server DB backups on a new server of mine, but I faced an error message that telling me my backup file created on database engine 10.50.4042 version while my current database engine version is 10.00.5500. I believe you already faced such an error message.

Once I got that error message, the first question came into my mind is how can I know what these version numbers really menas to me and how can fix this issue.. answering to these question was nicely listed into this blog post, actually the author of this blog did a great job of creating a catalog of versioning numbers and what each one means.   https://buildnumbers.wordpress.com/sqlserver/

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The Golden Rules to Achieve Goals

Achieve Goals

Achieving goals might not be an easy thing. But by using the right approach to tackle your goals will be a big part of achieving your goals. There are some rules that might help you to setup and achieve your goals… Goals are more than a TODO list that you have in place. The rule of thumb, DON’T PROCRASTINATING ACTIONS. Procrastinating will kill your dreams.

Researches showed that to achieve your goals there are 5 basic rules that you need to follow, below is a summary of these 5 golden rules:

  1. Goals should motivating you, it is important to like what you do in order to excel and achieve your goals.
  2. Set the SMART goals. Read more about SMART Goals
  3. Have your goals written in front of you. Keep reviewing these rules every single day.
  4. You have to have action plan in order to achieve your goals.. Dreams will not come to real without action plans.
  5. Stick with your goals.. Keep progressing towards your dreams and don’t drop the ball.

This article is explaining each point in more details. I recommend reading it.

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First Step towards success

Toxic People
Toxic People

The first step towards making your success if to get rid of the toxic people from your life.. It is not easy task to be done, But this is what will make you moving quickly towards achieving your goals and make your successful story.

There is many toxic people in outlives, business insider listed the top 8 kind of toxic people in the real life. Click here to read the article

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Big Security Company has been Hacked!

LastPass

There is nothing non-breakable.. a word that I used to say while I was back in school and still valid word. Recently, news were talking about hacking LastPass company. LastPass is a security company that providing a secured way to store your encrypted credentials for different websites. The encryption for credintials relying on the user selecting a very strong password for LastPass login. Then using this password to encrypt other sites login info. LastPass said that as the credentials are encrypted on their servers it is still secured and the hacker have almost no chance to decrypt and get the info.

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Windows 10 Top Features

1. Start Menu is back – Welcome back

Windows 10 Start Menu
Windows 10 Start Menu

In Windows 8 and 8.1, Microsoft decided to get rid of the start menu and replace it with metro UI.. unfortunately, Users were not happy with that change and they wanted to have the start menu back.. that was one of the  main reasons that Windows 8 & 8.1 had market failure. The good news for those who are missing the start menu is you will have the start menu back in Windows 10.

It is not the same style that we used to have in Windows XP and 7.. the new start menu will have the live tiles on it but at the same time it has the old structure of the start menu that we used to have in Windows 7.

  1. Cortana for desktop users.

Cortana
Cortana

Microsoft is marketing the Cortana as the most personalized digital assistant. I personally have been using it in my Windows 8.1 phone devise for quite good time and I found it is very great digital assistant. Cortana wasn’t available in Windows 8.1 desktop version..

Microsoft is bringing Cortana into windows 10 desktop version. I believe that would make it easy to interact with your desktop devise by voice command. It will enable you to launch applications, adding meeting requests, searching your files on hard drive and onedrive….etc.

  1. Xbox app

This will enable you to play Xbox game on your laptop or tablet. With improved speed and graphics performance.

  1. Spartan Browser

Project Spartan
Project Spartan

Bye bye for Internet Explorer.. Microsoft officially announcing that IE is dead. Project Spartan including many built in features, like PDF reading and reading mode.. Project Spartan will have Cortana support from within the browser, so Cortana can read information from the sites you’re on to do some tasks like navigate to a restaurant you’re looking up or know n upcoming flight time without having to go into your email or ticket paper.

  1. Multi-tasking improvement

Very similar to Apple’s space feature on OSX; it enable you to have multiple desktops; each desktop has its own set of open windows and apps. I believe this will make it easier for you to organize your work in better way and isolate things.

  1. Switching between to modes

Switching Modes
Switching Modes

Microsoft introduced a new way to switch between desktop mode that more convenient to you. If you have mouse/keyboard attached to your devise; then you will have the desktop mode with start menu similar to the one you have in windows 7. If you de-attached the keyboard and mouse; you will be switched to the metro UI (after confirming that in confirmation message).

  1. Action Center

With windows 10, you will have all notifications in one place, it is similar to what we have in phone devises where you can see all notifications grouped by Application that generated the notification.

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How to roll back to Windows Phone 8.1 after Installing Windows 10 Preview (Pre-Released)

Windows Ohone 10
Windows Phone 10

Yesterday I wanted to try to use the pre-released Windows 10 on my Lumia 920 device. Per Microsoft, Windows 10 should work fine on my phone. But unfortunately that wasn’t the case. After installing windows 10, the tiles wasn’t showing up and the mobile devise wasn’t charging at all. So I decided to rollback to Windows 8.1. the good thing is Microsoft provided a backward path to roll back from Windows 10 to Windows 8.1. it was easy steps to follow; basically you need to do the followings:

  1. Backup your data on the phone
  2. On your PC Install Windows Phone Recovery Tool  from Microsoft
  3. Start the recovery tool on your PC
  4. Connect your phone to your laptop by using the USB cable
  5. Tool will detect your phone and model. Click on the phone model detected.
  6. Follow the wizard and read the warning messages carefully.
  7. Windows 8.1 compatible with your device will be downloaded it is around 1.4 GB. then it will be installed on your phone. This will wipe all of your data and settings form the phone and install a fresh copy of Windows 8.1

For more info, check this article here

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Restore SQL Database from Backup on Network

Couple of weeks ago, I overcome situation where I need to restore SQL server database from network drive to my SQL server. An easy option was to copy the database to local drive on the SQL Server and do the normal restore operation; but that was costly in term of time and space as it was a huge database size.. by default MS SQL server doesn’t allow you to restore the database from network drive unless you enabled a couple of features in SQL Server; to do that you need to run the below SQL statement:

EXEC sp_configure 'XP_CMDSHELL' , 1
GO
EXEC xp_Cmdshell 'net use p: \\ServerName\SharedFolderName'
GO
EXEC xp_fixeddrives 1
GO

to make sure the above statements configured the network drive correctly, you should see the drive name and estimated size for it as a result of executing the last SP (xp_fixeddrives). if you didn’t see the list of drives available on the server, then there something went wrong and those steps didn’t completed successfully

Completing these steps will let a drive called P: showing on your normal restore window and you can explore and locate your backup file (.Bak). also I’ve overcome a situation where the drive isn’t showing on my restore window and I can’t explore neither to locate the .bak file; even after running the above statement, so I had to delete the P drive and re-define it again.. I deleted it using the below statement then rerun the above statement and things worked fine with me

EXEC XP_CMDSHELL 'net use P: /delete'
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How to Redirect non-www to www domains using Web.config

You can utilize the URL rewrite rules on web.config to redirect user’s requests that has no www to www for your domain name. below is an example of the rewrite rule that you need to inject into your web.config file (after enabling the URL Rewriting feature).

Note: Make sure to replace the domainname word in below XML with your actual site domain name

<rule name="Redirect to WWW" stopProcessing="true">
<match url=".*" />
<conditions>
<add input="{HTTP_HOST}" pattern="^http://domainname.com/$" />
</conditions>
<action type="Redirect" url="http://www.domainname.com/{R:0}"  redirectType="Permanent" />
</rule>