Steve Sharrock

OrcsWeb.com Rocks for ASP.NET Hosting

I've been with OrcsWeb.com for my hosting since I started with .NET over 3 years ago. There support is fantastic--and I'm compelled to mention it here for anyone looking for ASP.NET hosting.

I've had several small low band-with sites running under the same account using my own 3rd party DNS, and then redirecting from the root to the appropriate application root folder based on the incoming URL. The only problem is that since each application was not really in a Virtual Application folder, I needed to use a common /bin folder in the root and depend on many of the root's web.config values that could not be overridden in the “sub” applications.

Now, OrcsWeb has allowed me to make any sub folder a Virtual Application folder. This makes everything so much cleaner. And, a side benefit--my production sites now have the same folder structure as my localhost web server.

Thanks, OrcsWeb

ASP.NET FTP Deployment (AND+FTP) Release Version Available

After a long and successful beta program, the release version of the ASP.NET FTP Deployment tool (AND+FTP ™) is now available on the download site:

http://www.dotnetftp.com.

This tool is designed specifically to deploy ASP.NET Visual Studio projects from a local workstation to a remote server using FTP. The same options to copy files offered from within Visual Studio using FrontPage extensions or File share are also available with this tool. Like Visual Studio, you can choose to deploy only files needed to run the application, all files in the project, or all files in the project's folders. Timestamps of previously deployed files are used to determine exactly which files in the project need to be deployed.

A fully functional 30 day EVALUATION download is available on the site. The PURCHASE version will be available within the next few days as we are doing final testing of the secure Credit Card processes. The special introductory purchase price is only $28

Members of the Beta Test Team who downloaded the product before 1/26/2004 are eligible for a free upgrade. Simple go to the site and follow the “Beta Upgrade” link on the home page.

I want to personally thank the almost 200 individuals who participated in the Beta program. I hope the tool is helpful, and becomes more feature rich and easy to use with your feedback.

Run a Long Process from an ASP.NET Web Page

I've always wanted a simple method to start a long process from a web page, and return to the client before the process completes. Once again, XML web services came to my rescue--requiring only that I insert a one-line attribute in then web service defination.

There is a full article with details of this at ASPAlliance.com...

http://aspalliance.com/329