It has been a year from not blogging at all, due to a hectic professional schedule. I’ve been busy dealing with BizTalk 2010, WCF services and all things SOA. One thing I’ve learnt is I’m not a hardcore developer. I’m much better at implementing technical solutions and server sysadmin. I think I’ll stick to that. In the meantime my knowledge and skill level with BizTalk has gone up now having almost 2 years experience developing, deploying and maintaining an ESB based around BizTalk 2010 and WCF services.

It’s been a long time since I’ve posted anything, so here goes. I’m currently working for a client who wants BizTalk installed as an ESB. They don’t know why they want it, they just know that they want it. Since they are a Microsoft shop it’s an assumption on their behalf, but a good one in this case. They are dealing with external agencies who will submit data on a daily basis to be consumed within the organisation.

I’ve setup MAMP to do some local web development on my MacBookPro, and the XDebug plugin is awesome for stepping through PHP code. However, I had a problem with MAMP and a vhost I setup for local development. The wordpress front page and /wp-admin/ worked but any sub pages, etc. failed to load. When trying to access a WordPress page at url http://site.local/music/ The error in the apache logs was:

Download and try the following OS, and give it a go. OpenBSD v4.7 OpenBSD is a multi-platform 4.4BSD-based UNIX-like operating system, and is fast, simple to install and secure “out of the box”. Download installation files Read the Installation guide Read the Frequently Asked Questions A good introductory book for OpenBSD is the “OpenBSD Command Line Companion” by Jacek Artymiak. It walks you through an install and an intro to OpenBSD.

Someone sent me an email which asked what to do since: one of my external hard drives, the one with EVERYTHING I REALLY, REALLY WANT on it has died

This has been bugging me for ages, but the fix is so simple. I use OpenBSD for my router, and have PF (Packet Filter) running the firewall and NAT rules. I have previously setup the port forwarding, etc. according to Apple, but never could get a successful connection using video or audio (or screen sharing). After reading a post on the OpenBSD misc mailing list I went back and read the OpenBSD 4.

Thanks for your patience whilst I’ve been offline, and stick around! I’ve moved off a vm infrastructure back to a real server that I’m in control of.

About 24 months ago I purchased a version of KavaSoft’s Translation Service application for the Mac. With the recent move from my old Powerbook to my new MacBookPro the application stopped working. Apparently the licence is tied not just to your purchase but to the computer you installed it on. As I had used the Apple migration tool to move everything across to the new laptop, Translation Service stopped working. I dropped an email to the developer and literally got an email response 60 minutes later with an updated licence.

I’ve had an on/off outage for most of the past 4 days, so to avoid hassles I put the site into maintenance mode. I’ve actually had to decommission my 19″ server rack and the multiple servers I had for Tech Debug. There was a DNS server, kerberos, Database and web server. All the separate functions are now hosted on one OpenBSD VM that I’ve built recently. It’s running on the only remaining “non-laptop” left in my residence, which runs 24×7.

I’m not posting much these days since I’m currently heavily involved in a current development and build effort for a Client. (Solaris platform with Oracle 10g) All other hours are either commuting, sleeping or playing WoW. Look forward to a number of upcoming posts on Dansguardian SQL logging, OpenBSD and of course Apple and the iPhone. Zug Zug…. you WC3 fans will know what I mean.