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Check out SeeFusion 4, now available, with new Flash Interface

Note: This blog post is from 2006. Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily. Same with links and subsequent comments from myself or others. Corrections are welcome, in the comments. And I may revise the content as necessary.
Some of us have been hearing about or seen previews of SeeFusion 4, with its nifty new Flash-based interface. Well, it's now available in production. Check it out at http://www.seefusion.com/.

More on each of the following new features is available at the what's new page:

  • Flex 2 rich user interface, including real-time charting
  • Active monitoring rules
  • Enhanced database logging, including user-defined event logging
  • Stack trace filtering
  • Debug output filtering by IP Address
  • Streaming running requests
  • Improved trace() method

More important, check out the live demo at:

http://www.seefusion.com/index.cfm?do=c.livedemo

Note the comments about firewalls and then click the "live demo" icon to see the new Flash-based interface running against a live server at SeeFusion HQ.

Finally, I'll add that, yes, I'm well aware of FusionReactor, and the fact that it's had a Flash-based interface for a long time. Be that as it may, I've always had a soft spot for SeeFusion and the guys at WebApper.

I also really appreciate that they offer a free trial that does not expire after x days (FR stops after 10 days). Instead, an unlicensed edition of SF runs for the first two hours after CFMX (or BD/J2EE) has been started, and then is stops. Honestly, I fear that some use it that way and never pay. If is solves problems for you, I hope your conscience will lead you to do the right thing. :-)

I won't belabor here what all the tool can do for you. Check out the site and its many pages and screenshots (and that live demo) to learn more.

Need to manage an IIS 6 server from XP? Get MS snap-in "IIS 6 Manager for XP"

Note: This blog post is from 2006. Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily. Same with links and subsequent comments from myself or others. Corrections are welcome, in the comments. And I may revise the content as necessary.
If you need to access an IIS 6 server from XP and try "actoin>connect" to point to one, you'll get an error, "Remote administration of IIS 6.0 from IIS 5.1 is not supported. Please upgrade to IIS 6.0 Administration Pack". Yet if you head to the MS site you may have trouble finding a tool of that name.

If you look carefully though, a search for that there or on the web will find you "Internet Information Services (IIS) 6.0 Manager for Windows XP", and that's indeed what you want.

After installing, note that it still doesn't make it possible to access IIS 6.1 servers from IIS 5's manager. Instead, it creates a new separate instance of IIS Manager 6 in your Administrative Tools alongside your IIS 5 manager. (The download page warns that it will not appear in "Computer Manager" if you also have the IIS 5.1 manager, but I saw both there and they worked fine.)

Note as well that the IIS 6 manager has no trouble accessing IIS 5 servers, so you may well just choose to use the new manager in place of the old for all your IIS management needs. Of course, it won't let you do anything on your 5.1 IIS that you couldn't do before: still no support for multiple web sites, for instance. (Though see a blog entry I did in the past on ways to get around that.)

Really slick multi-file upload tool

Note: This blog post is from 2006. Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily. Same with links and subsequent comments from myself or others. Corrections are welcome, in the comments. And I may revise the content as necessary.
Some time back I was exchanging thoughts with some folks about the hassles of multiple file uploads in web pages. Of course, the good ol'
<input type="file">
tag can only load one at a time. It also offers no progress bars, nor much other feedback. Well the folks I was speaking (at Digital Crew) with just went and built a custom tag, CF_ProFlashUpload, to solve the problem.

Now, the bad news for some is that it's not free, but $50. Still, it seems very much worth the price if you really need what it solves.

Check out info, demos, an eval download, and more at http://www.cftagstore.com/tags/flashmultipleupload.cfm. Besides a flash progress bar, it also offers options for handling callbacks and much more.

For those who really want a free tool, I just saw today that Dave Shuck pointed to one as well:

http://www.daveshuck.com/index.cfm?commentID=112

Update: In case you come along and find this entry after it was written in July 2006, note that I now have a long list of alternative file upload tools, in a category of my CF411 list, File Upload Tools . Please check there for other alternatives in this and 125+ other categories.

MS Virtual PC (and Virtual Server) Now Free

Note: This blog post is from 2006. Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily. Same with links and subsequent comments from myself or others. Corrections are welcome, in the comments. And I may revise the content as necessary.
Many may know that MS had released Virtual Server for free, but this week they also released Virtual PC (VPC) for free. Wow. For those who don't know about virtualization, let me share a little more, including other alternatives.

First, for more on the release of VPC as free, see:

http://blogs.msdn.com/virtual_pc_guy/archive/2006/07/12/662535.aspx

About Virtualization

With virtualization you can run one "guest" OS (or Virtual Machine/VM) inside another "host" (your regular machine). That could be Linux inside Windows, or vice-versa. Or you could run Windows 2000 inside XP, etc.

Or you may choose simply to run multiple instances of a given OS on one box, perhaps using one guest to isolate changes to protect your main host. It's such a powerful solution for testing, development, and more.

Licensing the OS within the VM

To be clear: you still need to have licenses for whatever OS's you want to run in the VM/guest. VPC and other tools don't "come with a license" for any OS. You need to install one in your guest and you must own it.

I will note, however, that MS has revamped its licensing to recognize the use of OS's you DO own on virtual machines. I'll leave you to sort through the details to determine how it fits your situation:

http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/highlights/virtualization.mspx

Learning More about VM Products

Finally, to get VPC, visit:

http://www.microsoft.com/virtualpc

And for the server edition, see:

http://www.microsoft.com/virtualserver

FWIW, its major competitor (on Windows systems), VMWare, had also long ago released their server edition for free:

http://www.vmware.com/products/server/

The also released a free "virtual player". For more, see:

http://www.vmware.com/products/free_virtualization.html

For mac users, you probably already know that Parallels Desktop, while not free, is only $50.

Let the virtual reality begin. :-)

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