I am the webmaster at our company and we are in the process of picking a new web hosting company. The old company sold us a hosting package years ago and has since left us on the hardware we were given back then: Pentium 3 box, 1GB RAM, Windows 2000 server. They told us that we would have to pick a new hosting package and pay more money to get newer hardware. I only found out about this because Microsoft's site server which we use to replicate our site from dev to prod now givs us trouble because it uses an unsigned java app, which is soon to be no longer supported. all this and the company pays over $300 a month. Ouch.
The problem I am having is this: On the windows 2000 server machine there is an indexing service that is leveraged to generate a catalog of the site that is used as part of a site search feature. I've contacted several web hosting companies and when I ask about the indexing service am told that they can't provide me the same catalog. Some hosts tell me I can get the service if I purchase a vps account as opposed to the cheaper sharred service.
What I'd like to know is if there is a different way to go about developing a search feature for my site. Is there a way to create a search feature that does not us e the indexing service?
If your website content comes from a database then it would be possible to develop your own search facility in ASP and SQL.
If your content is static pages then there are external website services available to index and search these too, similar to what you are using now but external services. A Google search for "search your website" will bring up many products similar in functionality to what you are using now.
Another similar option is you could create a Google Custom Search (paid and free options available) which will index your site and it is easy to add a form to your pages to add this search function.
I imagine you are referring to the Microsoft indexing service which has actually been a built in component since the release of Windows Server 2003. Referred to as Microsoft Windows Search Service, it is installed by default on some versions of Windows Server and is an optional component on others (optional just like IIS is considered an optional component of Windows Server at installation). Previous to Windows Server 2003, it was a separate download on microsoft.com as Windows Search Server. Once installed, depending on the size and number of documents on the server it may takes several hours before an initial search index is built. Before the index is finished building, the search feature will not return all or any expected results.
I mention all this as I have actually found that this is installed by default on hosts we have used in the past without asking. So I am assuming the hosts you may have inquired with may not be realizing you are referring to this built in component of Windows Server and you might want to clarify that with your preferred host(s).
I looked into several alternative methods for developing the search function but none of them would work for sharred hosting that integrates with the site the way it is hosted now. I've decided to focus on VPS hosting as I can install the indexing service and have the page function as it does now on my old host that is running my site on a win 2k server machine. To test the indexing service's functionality, I installed the service on my win 7 PC. After installing indexing service on my windows 7 dev machine, I learned 2 things:
The search page only functions in a 64 bit environment. This means that I have to move the search page to a new folder and use a 64 bit application Pool to get that page to run.
In 64 bit mode, the code line "Set rstResults = objQuery.CreateRecordset("nonsequential")" was returning an error, "No such interface supported". Googling this returned the fact that a windows update breaks functionality and that a hotfix was provided to fix this error. The hotfix, #2740317, is located here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2740317
Now my search function works and I get results. The only problem though is that the results point to file:///c:/Inetpub/... instead of website/path/page.html I had to extract the path field from the recordset and use the replace function to remove the physical path up to the folder containing my site. I now get a relative link that points to the correct files on the site.
Related
I am BA and want to know what things a developer needs to have to build a website in Microsoft (it will be fully customized / partially customized online service selling a website, have price calculator based on N no. of various option user select and lot of other things around it and the admin panel to change rate, tax, etc. in it)
The website will have automated email, payment, forms, reporting, role & access, a different type of end users & a lot of calculation logic as well.
I am listing the thing we need to install as i can find the cost (especially hidden cost to develop a website).
I am representing Non-IT company (not in India), then do we need to buy the licence for all the Microsoft tools developer needs? If yes please mention tools we need to buy a licence for along with the tools list
Thanks in advance for replying.
This is a pretty broad question, but for the functionality that you are describing, here is a very basic web development setup:
Windows server to host the website (x2 for dev)
Database server and software (SQL goes well with .net) (x2 for dev)
Microsoft Visual Studio to install on a desktop device to build the actual website, assuming you are building in C#.NET or VB.NET
Of course, your second paragraph lists additional functionality that may require more hardware, software, and integrations(email servers, payment systems, etc.) depending on what you have or don't have.
All of this can be hosted in a cloud platform like azure, aws, or it can be done internally
Our customer uses an SSO module so that sets the current user ID into HTTP_IV_USER server variable. I have inherited code from an application that was patched to allow automatic login and I have done many modifications to it in the past year, making it work fine for customers with a standard setup.
Now I am asked to deploy the application at customer site with SSO plugin, so I need to test whether the patch still works. Unfortunately, the customer won't allow us to access their systems for testing (they will install our package to QA and do their QA independently from us). Neither they will provide us details on the SSO (e.g. SiteMinder version xxxx) because "you [us] have already the code".
I just need to perform a few login tests with my development version to assure that it will work in their environment, nothing more.
I am simply asking how can I emulate Request.ServerVariables.GetValues("HTTP_IV_USER")[0]? How does IIS (which is going to be upgraded to 7.5 as part of the software upgrade process) set that variable?
I have tried to do my homework and found that HTTP_IV_USER is not a request header (that could be set using Firebug or other tricks) but an environment variable.
Answering for posterity.
The trick is that HTTP_IV_USER is really an HTTP header, exactly like Request.Headers["IV_USER"]
Being able to emulate IV_USER header opens the gate to emulating HTTP_IV_USER.
This is because IIS translates all HTTP headers to HTTP_ prefixed server variables
I am wondering if there exists a web analytics product that meets these criteria:
Can be installed on private server, not using anything cloud-based
Can be installed on IIS/.Net and does not require PHP, or any server side language beyond ASP.NET
Can use a local SQL Server as its datastore (not MySQL or any kind of cloud storage)
Can work with an internal intranet web application without a fully qualified domain name
Can track page views and button clicks using simple JavaScript and/or C# APIs
Is free or at least cheap
I am trying to avoid installing PHP on IIS to run Piwik or something similar, and this is a last ditch effort. My searches are turning up nothing.
The answer to this question is no.
Until a few years ago Webtrends (www.webtrends.com) was providing exactly what you are looking for (even if it is not for free).
I am not sure, though, if the On Premise version of their software is still available.
Hope this helps!
I have just started playing with Google cloud. I used to work on normal servers so I need advice.
I created my first instance and deployed Wordpress. I installed woocommerce plugin. The shop is quite fast and I am happy (with the lowest settings) but now:
I wanted edit function.php but I can't. The attributes are read only so How can I change it?
How to get access to my all files I can't see them in storage cloud. How to set up ftp?
What about database for my shop? I understand I can create new data base but where to access to current data base of my wordpress.
What should I deploy more to work comfortable with my wordpress?
About ssl
SNI SSL certificate slots are offered for no additional charge for
accounts that have billing activated. Free accounts are limited to 5
certificates.
I have no experience with ssl but I plan run shop so what it means. Free certificates for 5 instances or 5 deployement ? How many certificates do I need to run one shop?
I know there are many questions but I wanted to go further and all advise on internet is outdated because are for older versions of google cloud. Please help me to understand this all.
I assume you're attempting to use WordPress on Google App Engine.
GAE has no real filesystem, so you cannot write to it (unless you juggle with the API GAE offers). Editing happens locally using the GAE SDK development server and you deploy your changes to the App Engine ecosystem using the SDK interface (GUI or CLI). All application writes should go to Google Cloud Storage (which is similar to Amazon S3 and the like).
I'm not certain whether the Google Cloud Storage can be accessed via traditional FTP. There might be some middleware required. You can see and browse the contents of your buckets in the developer project console (https://console.developers.google.com/).
The databases are on a separate "server" when using GAE. MySQL instances are spawned into the Google Cloud SQL ecosystem, which are available for App Engine and Compute Engine instances (and why not other places too). You can define the GCSQL address and port to wp-config.php like normally. You need to create a local MySQL database for your local installation. More: https://cloud.google.com/appengine/docs/php/cloud-sql/
When working with Google App Engine you should deploy the whole WordPress installation (wp-config.php, wp-includes/, wp-admin/, wp-content/, etc.) in order for it to work in the GAE system. For a "better" deployment system you should do some searching or ask a new question dedicated for that issue.
The certificates themselves on GAE are not free, but the "slots" you put the certificates into are. Free projects (no billing enabled) offer 5 free slots where you can put your purchased certificates. SSL SNI means that you can use multiple different domain/host certificates under a single listening IP address (which some years back was not that simple to do). What this all means that GCP offers a way to use certificates with their services, but you still need to get the certificates themselves elsewhere.
Have you seen the GAE starter project offered by Google: https://googlecloudplatform.github.io/appengine-php-wordpress-starter-project/ ? It makes your live a bit easier when developing WP sites for Google App Engine.
If you're working with Google Compute Engine instances, then they should operate just like regular VPS machines, with some Google restrictions applied. I have not used them so I do not know the specifics.
We're moving a legacy .ASP application to a new hosting provider that doesn't support Microsoft Index Server, on which one portion of the site depended. The application has a directory tree containing around 10,000 documents (text, MS Word and PDF) whose contents need to be indexed and to be searchable.
The application is staying classic .ASP for now but the search portion could be written in anything. We tried a tool called SiteSearchASP.Net but that number of documents was outside its reach.
A Google appliance is outside the client's budget, and these documents need to stay private so Google search isn't an option.
Anyone have experience with anything that might work?
Microsoft Search Server 2008 Express is free, much like the other great express products. Easy to configure, powerful and definitely within your budget ($0).
Try Lucene.NET Lucene.Net and SQL Server
I have been investigating the same question for my own line-of-business application that uses Index server, since it has been dropped from Windows Server 2012
Alas Windows search is not really the successor to Index Server, lacking interfaces for configuring multiple catalogs, amongst other things. The interface provided is oriented toward searching all the content on a workstation, rather than a platform for content searching on a line of business app.
MS Search Server is more complex to set up than Index server, and oriented toward URL crawling rather than file searching. The versions I looked at did not seem to provide the flexible API of Index Server.
The Lucene.Net toolkit is attractive, but you have to write a lot of infrastructure around it to make it work. It is not an out-of-the-box tool in the way Index Server was. It does offer the potential of a much better integrated solution than you could achieve with index server if you have the time to invest.
dtSearch is quite close to the concept of Index Server, but costs significant money. This is probably the easiest option if it is cost-effective.
Index Server was the unsung hero the original Cairo project. Perhaps some of the underlying engine lives on in the 'successor' products, but it is sad to lose it from Windows Server 2012. Microsoft have been very effective in recent years in monetizing their server business. I feel this may be one of the causalities of that strategy.
Perhaps "Windows Search"? It's the successor to Indexing Service.
You want the Windows Search Service, which is the current incarnation of Index Server. Search Service is available on Win 2008 and Win 2012, however it is not installed by default.
Note that Search Service is distinct from Search Server. Search Server is a different animal, with different api's (but a similar overall product goal).
Search Service details:
https://stackoverflow.com/a/23742911/147637