If you have developed a mobile application you know the hassle it is to create icons. I have recently used the Quirco icon generator : www.quirco.com/iPhoneIcon

Give it a try. A very easy way to generate a nice looking logo for an iOS device.

I just updated my online accounts thanks to Gawker’s recent news regarding their user database being compromised.  I did have a gawker account, I’m a reader and subscriber to lifehacker.com.

You can check to see if you need to change passwords by looking if your account was compromised here (http://www.slate.com/id/2277768) the widget looks up your email or username.

At the time I created my lifehacker account (that is compromised) I was using my primary email address and a common password that I used everywhere.  I have since created a better method for using online sites and also passwords.  My method is based off the common password variation method.   I use a similar password phrase to create the password.

Example:   J1MB3cH3r – this uses numbers and capitols to re-create my common used phrase (no I don’t actually use that as my common password) .  Then depending on the site I append some type of element to merry the username and password together.

facebook.com – J1MB3cH3r@fb (notice I added the ‘@’ sign)  I use this to separate my common password with the site specific attribute ’fb’.

So make sure that you change your password info and keep strong passwords.

There is a new site over at iisreporter.com. Check out the new look and feel and leave some comments or suggestions.

IISreporter is an application that shows you connections and information regarding IIS in real-time. It allows administrators to see how many people are currently connected to the server. It is available for free and can be downloaded at iisreporter.com/download

A new version is in the works that will list sites and the number of connections to each specific site. There is also a web based version that allows you to remotely view information and connections.

Today I had the need to go to MSDN and look up some information. I have not directly gone to MSDN for a while. when I opened up the site I got this banner bar across the top

It offered me the advise that I should use IE8 instead of my current browser (Firefox). The reason is that IE is Faster, Safer, and easier. I was amazed, I did not know IE8 was safer.

Then when I went to the root of MSDN I got this advertisement (POP over)

I find it hard to believe that IE is better than firefox, but I guess Microsoft thinks so.

— Update —
I just got another site with a different advertisement for ie8. This time I was using chrome.

I have been a little behind on my releases of iisreporter. I had a commander edition ready to go before some technical issues and source control issues slowed it down.
Currently a alpha build is in works for a IIS7 version of iisreporter. I want to roll in the commander features into this release.

What will those features be.
1. Multiple server monitoring (non free version)
2. Remote server monitoring (non free version)
3. IIS 7 and II6 support (free)
4. Widget / Sidbar integration (from a client)
5. Web based version.

Please email and watch here for more information

Well I have many ideas on how to update and modify the IIS reporter application I have written. I have finally got VS2005 up and running on my machine and will try to migrate IIS reporter over to 2.0.

I have a few releases I need to get up to the source server. I also have a web service version that I need to make public to allow others who are more gifted in programming to take a look and modify. More to come….

There is a fantastic document over at Microsoft about the updated security features of IIS 6.0 vs IIS 5.0. It is a very good read and has some great information. You can find the document here (www.microsoft.com).

I admin many IIS boxes at work and frequent many IIS user lists and sites to add information about security and hardening. This document does not show you how to harden your IIS installation but it does explain the reasons to use the new IIS 6.0 server

I have finally completed the move from gotdotnet.com to sourceforge.net.

You can get to the sourceforge page at this link: http://sourceforge.net/projects/iisreporter/
So far I have been really happy with the sourceforge location. I ended up udating my CVS to use sourceforge. I am currently using both SourceSafe and TortoiseCVS.

Just to let you know how much I am enjoying sourceforge. I had an issue with the creation of the folder that contains the source information for the project. I sent a support message at about 1 AM on Saturday morning and the guys at SF (sourceforge) fixed the issue a few hours later.

To date it looks like IIS Reporter has been downloaded 1,903 times (as of today). That is a lot of people for a simple app. Please keep the updates and ideas flowing.

Thank you to everyone for their great ideas and suggestions. I have cleaned up a few memory issues (performance) and also added a few monitoring features.

I added a system tray icon and menu info for real time info
Updated the system uptime clock – it was polling the sum and not the real info.
I also updated the xml write feature, that if it is set to on it will write info on each refresh.

Screen shot

System Tray

As always send me comments, suggestions, and ideas.

Here is a screen shot from v1.6