After some evaluating openHAB (Vers. 2.2.0) on my NAS I wanted to do it right and started with this  (German) article to use openHABian together with a Raspberry Pi.My primary goal was to integrate my AVM smart home devices  to control them with HomeKit . To get started I used the following items: Raspberry PI SD Card 16 GB And the following software (I used a Mac, so you might need to replace some tools if you use another OS): Download the latest openHABian image here . This is a dedicated linux distribution to provide an openHAB server. Download SD Formatter here . Needed to format your SD card. Download Etcher here . Needed to install the openHABian image on the SD card. Installation openHABian Insert the SD card Connect the Raspberry Pi via LAN with your network Plugin the Raspberry Pi Wait about 45 minutes until all updates were installed When everything went well you should be able to connect to http://openhabianpi:8080 Connect via ssh: ssh openh...

This is nothing new, but to free up some space on my MacBook I decided to move my iTunes library to a network drive on my NAS. I got some inspiration from this old German video. I tried to collect all relevant information for doing so. I did it by following this steps  I closed iTunes I mounted a network drive with AFP I copied my iTunes library folder to a folder on the network drive (it is important to keep the folder name "iTunes"!) I opened iTunes while pressing the "alt" key. Now you can create a library or choose one from another location I set the new iTunes folder I deleted the local iTunes library My iTunes settings look like this now, iTunes took over the selected folder: Keep in mind the following You cannot open the iTunes library with two accounts at the same time. When you choose to set "Keep iTunes Media folder organized" iTunes will set your folder structure for artists an albums and also the file pattern for your s...

When I was trying to delete an Azure Active-irectory by using the management portal I have received the error message “Directory contains one or more applications that were added by a user or administrator” and I was really confused. Then I found out this is a common issue. The solution was even more confusing, some PowerShell cmdlets are needed. Unfortunately I was not able to proceed, it was not possible to login with my Microsoft-ID to execute the needed commands. Here I found out I have to install the correct version of the tools. These are located here .

A week ago I started to learn about HttpModules and HttpHandlers watching a pluralsight course by Robert Boedigheimer . First of all I want to really recommend this course, I learned a lot of stuff which I could not find in any other course, book or blog post. As I already did in the past with another course , I want to add some comments and extend the HttpModule part. I refer to the course example with the serverMaskModuleGAC. I walked into some trap doors and thereby I found another approach to simplify the installation process of the module to GAC a little bit. With this approach I am able to verify my custom config sections and module registration is correct. Here is my approach: 1. When you have finished your implementation for serverMaskModule, install it in the GAC as usual by using the gacutil tool. By the way, there are some traps when you need to install it on Windows Server 2012 . Here I am using Windows 8.1 64 Bit. I created my HttpModule with .NET 2.0 because it se...

Currently I am collecting interesting links about it . Is there a better solution?

When I started to use the Get-CacheStatistics cmdlet to monitor caching activities more intensivley I was often confused. Here an example: Should not be ReadCount+WriteCount = RequestCount? Why is WriteRequestCount increasing +2 although I just send one put request? By talking to Microsoft support I figured out how AppFabric cache calculates its numbers (Thanks to Gayathri from Distributed Service Team). Number calculation behavior depends on your configuration, high availability and local cache have a major impact on it. Activity RequestCount  ReadRequestCount  WriteRequestCount  MissCount  DataCacheFactory is initialized and Named Cache is up  +1 - - - Put item, not yet in local and server cache +1 - +1 (+2 with HA) +1 Get item from local cache - - - - Get item from server cache, local cache has expired +1 +1 - - Get item, local and server cache has expired +1 +1 - +1 I hope this is helpful for you when you are analyzing the caching behavior f...

In Part one I have already described how to remove phantom apps here on more supplement. These phantom apps could also remain in the AppFabric Monitoring db: Just delete no longer needed entries in this table. Duplicate collection entry When you receive this kind of issue, like "[...] Cannot add duplicate collection entry [...]" you have defined the a configuration section twice in two different Web.config files in different places in your file system. Clear One easy solution is to use a clear statement . Searching for the inherited element There is a post in Microsoft's documentation which is explaining how to do it. Visual Studio in debug mode When you are working with Visual Studio in debug mode, which means you are just pressing F5 to run it on your local IIS instead of publishing it to a web server, you should keep in mind that e.g. your obj folder might contain more copies of your Web.config file. This could lead into this duplicate collectio...

While you are working with IIS installing and uninstalling web applications you might run into this issue on AppFabric Dashboard: Another example is this error message: There are two steps necessary to get a cleaned AppFabric Dashboard. Delete old virtual paths Old virtual paths might remain in %windir%\system32\inetsrv\config\ApplicationHost.config. To get rid of these crappy virtual paths switch to command line tool and use the following script: C:\Windows\System32\inetsrv>appcmd.exe list vdir VDIR "Default Web Site/" (physicalPath:%SystemDrive%\inetpub\wwwroot) VDIR "Default Web Site/Service/App1/" (physicalPath:C:\Service\App1) VDIR "Default Web Site/Service/App2" (physicalPath:C:\Service\App2) VDIR "Team Foundation Server/" (physicalPath:C:\Program Files\Microsoft Team Foundation Server 12.0\Tools\Templates) VDIR "Team Foundation Server/tfs/" (physicalPath:C:\Program Files\Microsoft Team Foundation Serve...

In my daily work I am always stumbling on two annoying features in Visual Studio, and I think it could be improved easily. Here is what I am complaining about. WCF Test Client WCF Test Client might be a nice tiny tool for small WCF tests, especially when you are testing smaller scenarios or when you are starting to learn how to implement web services with .NET. But it can be very annoying when you are working on more advanced stuff and your are testing with your local IIS. WCF Test Client always(!) starts automatically when you press F5 for debugging and your opened .svc.cs file has the focus: When I have configured local IIS is the target for debugging, then I expect my application will start with local IIS and not with WCF Test Client. Always. Here is my first urgent request: Please give me an option to disable WCF Test Client completely! Update 03.03.2014: Workaround for WCF Test Client Issue Select project file -> Right click -> Properties -> Web -> Sele...

To get started with ETW I highly recommend this pluralsight course by Kathleen Dollard. It gives you a really good introduction, including background and some examples. It will be much harder to succeed just by googling or reading books. I will not spoil anything from this course. Here I will just give a few more hints and annotations to show where I struggled with ETW, to help you not doing the same mistakes. After finishing the pluralsight course I was really eager to get going with my own implementation but I ran into some annoying trapped doors. Nuget package for EventSource The current nuget package for EventSource (Vers. 1.0.16) will create the manifest file automatically (it validates your implementation upfront, only when validation succeeds manifest file will be created. Otherwise there will be no updated or no new manifest file in your bin folder!). Therefore there is no need to create it by hand. wevtutil.exe Running wevtutil.exe without parameters to see its help,...

In my opinion it is really hard to get started with Windows Server AppFabric. There is good material, but it is shuffled around in different sources. A good intro can you find here: this all-in-one intro by Scott Hanslmann  this caching intro by Wade Wegener  Additional helpful resources are Microsoft's Introduction Part 1 and Microsoft's Introduction Part 2 by Jon Flanders  Pluralsight's Hosting Fundamentals   Pluralsight's Caching Introduction   Microsoft's Caching Documentation   Good books are Microsoft Windows Server AppFabric Cookbook   and Pro Windows Server: AppFabric Please also watch out for software updates, currently there is CU 4 . To keep yourself updated subscribe to Distributed Services News Feed . Updated my list on 11.03.2014 with one more Download the Windows Server AppFabric Samples

Windows Server AppFabric is a great enhancement for IIS and its caching capabilities are great for .NET applications. But currently there is a very annoying bug regarding its monitoring UI, so called “Dashboard”. Especially for me as a non WF guy (I am actually just working with WCF) it was really hard to figure it out. Hence, many thanks to Gianluca from Distributed Services at Microsoft! Windows Server AppFabric Dashboard does not work on Windows Server 2012 / Windows 8. You will receive this error message "Unable to cast object of type 'System.Management.Automation.PSCustomObject' to type 'Microsoft.ApplicationServer.Management.Data.GroupByInfo'." This error will cause that you cannot see any request statistics neither WF nor for WCF: The reason is, I quote Microsoft here: "[...] the root cause is a powershell script embedded in AF code that returns different results when ran on Windows 2012. This script is about statistics for Idle & per...

My feeling is that two-step verification is still not very common, although a lot of services are listing this feature. Here you will find them: Facebook Google Microsoft Twitter Evernote Dropbox Apple (currently just available in U.S., UK, Australia, Ireland, and New Zealand)  Helpful apps are e.g. Google Authenticator or Authy . Updated my list on 27.02.2014 with some more services Buffer Yahoo! Apple added, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain Updated my list on 10.03.2014 with one more Hootsuite Updated my list on 26.03.2014 tumblr Updated my list on 02.04.2014 APP.NET LinkedIn

Castro is still pretty fresh in the iOS App Store (currently version 1.0.6, first release came in late 2013) but has already beaten the competitors in my opinion. Here is why: Castro is winning by simplicity. Focusing on features and using using the fresh iOS 7 design. Great simple feed search engine (worked perfect for my favorite German podcasts). Push notification works. It is stable. Once again, I like the simple intuitive design.   Other settled podcast player in iOS market help Castro to succeed by not fixing their issues. I am coming from Instacast and this is why I think it does not fit anymore: When I open Instacast by sliding push messages on my lock screen it crashes nearly up to 50%. Up Next Feature does not work for me. Lists are useless, everything works just through Up Next. Sync feature with its OS X app is a mess, similar to Apple’s Podcast app. This is why Apple’s Podcast app does not work either: Sync with other iOS and OS X devices is a mes...

Why should I reconsider my iPhone security policy? I have my iPhone four digit pass code and Find my iPhone feature feature is activated. So how should abuse be possible? What could a thief be doing with my stolen iPhone? Well, possibly quite a lot. At least the bold print bullets in this article should be mandatory for everyone. Of course this is no guarantee for invulnerability but it will improve your security. After watching this video you should consider the following actions: Change your Apple ID rescue mail address and do not add this mail account to your iPhone. Consider to use a proper and usable password policy for your Apple ID like this or this (German article) . Consider a complex pass code for your iPhone. As you can see in the video four digit pass codes can be hacked in no time on iPhone 4. For newer iPhone a leak is not yet known but it is properly there. Definitely do not use these pass codes . Alternative to point three: activate delete iPhone after 10 wrong...