While many IT shops deal with the issues related to hundreds or thousands of users, Google regularly manages, administers and upgrades software and systems for millions of users. How do they do it? I found this article with an excellent overview of the Google file system and its unique capabilities.

http://storagemojo.com/?page_id=152

I've seen a lot of people have problems getting their image, css and js paths setup correctly in ASP.NET 2.0. In 2.0, every site runs on its own port just off the localhost, but the "virtual directory" name is still in the path...so you can't force everything down to the root. If you do any type of URL Rewriting or use Master Pages in pages in different level subfolders, this is going to be an issue. Prefixing paths with '~/' works sometime, but not for all cases.

In 1.1, I would often set the webinfo file contents to point to http://localhost. Why not do the same in 2.0? To do so, open your web project Property Pages, click into the 'Start Options' area, select 'Use custom server' and enter in 'http://localhost'. This will set your environment up as if it were running on your server as a website. Only pain is changing the IIS default directory when working on another site...but that only takes a couple of seconds.

I was working on a project where I needed to get the current page's HTML. I searched all over the Internet and could not find anything. Then I thought about the Page's built-in methods...Render! Here's how you get it:

1sw = new StringWriter();
2htmltw = new HtmlTextWriter(sw);
3base.Render(htmltw);
4StringBuilder html = sw.GetStringBuilder();

And be sure to drop this code in the "OnPreRenderComplete" method (you'll need to create an override in your code-behind).

Well that was easy enough, huh?

For the past 2 weeks, I have been giving out free licenses for the Google Sitemap Generator. Each day, I'd send out between 30 and 40 licenses. Yesterday, I released version 2.1 and stated "Last day to get a free license is 6/14/2006.". Well that have some effect.

Today's stats:
Unique visitors: 624 (normally 230-250)
Free licenses: 141 (normally 30-40).

And I am still allowing up to 11:59 PM CST.

I guess when you set a deadline for something free, people finally get off their butts and ask. And I'm sure solme of these people told their friends.

As of tomorrrow, it'll cost $49.99. So for all of you who want to thank me for the great software and free license, tell you friends about it and tell them to buy a copy. Friendly message: I track all usage of the application, so don't try to give your friends your license or you'll lose it!

Has anyone seen this yet? http://local.live.com/

Google Maps has some competiton.

Last week, a friend told me about this new product available for free from Red Gate Software, SQL Prompt. Since then, I've seen several blogs talking about it.

What is it?
Basically, it's Intellisense for SQL Server. So when you start typing "SELECT * FROM", it automatically pops up a window with the available tables, fields, functions, etc. It also reacts just like Visual Studio (Ctrl-Space opens the window, Tab places the selected entry, etc.) and has a ton of options (just open the Options window from the System Tray).

I thought it would only work in Query Analyzer, but nope, it works in Enterprise Manager, Management Studio, Visual Studio and even some 3rd party apps. I downloaded it myself and installed it. I've tested it with SQL Server 2000 and 2005 and it's great. Check it out and get it while it's free (until Sept 1st)!

Website: Red Gate Software, SQL Prompt