Microsoft’s Identity Management Framework (2015)

2015 . 07 . 252015 . 07 . 25 azarc3ASP.NET MVC, Identity Management Framework, microsoft, windows azureLeave a comment

You know, I really love a LOT of the things that Microsoft is doing in just about every space that they operate in. However, one thing that consistently disappoints me is that the people writing most of their technical documentation have a VERY BAD habit of leaving crucial bits out of their “how-tos”. Once such victim is how to integrate the Identity Management Framework with SendGrid in Windows Azure.

Thankfully someone else has had to deal with this issue (I simply knew I couldn’t be the first person) and they wrote up a good tutorial on how to deal with this little diddy. Of course some things have changed since it was originally written on 9/28/2014… but it’s still about 95% accurate. Special thanks to Max Vasilyev for his hard work — which saved my Saturday afternoon.

Cheers!

THIS.

2014 . 11 . 122014 . 11 . 12 azarc3Comcast, misdirection, Net Neutrality, politics, POTUSLeave a comment

I rarely agree* with bloggers that “legitimate” news sources peddle as “journalists”, but this time one of them got it right.

READ.

Comcast Just Trolled Us All on Net Neutrality
(via Time, by Alex Fitzpatrick)

* Author’s Note: I rarely agree because news, even if slanted, should not be biased; it should simply be reported.

American Journalism, oh how far you’ve fallen

2014 . 05 . 242014 . 05 . 24 azarc3disgust, journalism, mediaLeave a comment

It’s amazing (and very sad) to watch the downfall of American “journalism”. #smh.

I’m calling it “journalism” because that’s what they insist on calling it. I mentioned “American” because I don’t regularly visit other countries so I can’t speak on the quality of their news. What I do know is that the major purveyors of news in this country have apparently sold their journalistic integrity in order to ATTEMPT to stay relevant to NEW readers.

You know, “generation ‘N'” and the like. The same kids who aren’t reading the news anyway.

For a while now I’ve been becoming more and more jaded with the landscape and priority of retorted news. If it isn’t death, murder, destruction, sports, politics or the weather then it probably won’t be reported. The prattling that the New York Times peddles as “journalism” gives me hives and makes me itch to the point where I want to pour bleach into my brain and scratch my eyeballs out. We won’t even talk about CNN.

This is getting long-in-the-tooth, so let me finish up by saying that I really hope the people who SELL NEWS will go back to the glory days of true investigation, caring about the intellectual impact of their product and making a difference in our lives… Rather than focusing on how many retweets they can get on Twitter.

The scariest thing I’ve heard in a long time…

2014 . 05 . 182014 . 05 . 18 azarc3doggone companies, marketers, Pet peeves, we're all good dieLeave a comment

… Especially since it is an article about how Target Stores figures out how to market to you.

“Habits aren’t destiny — they can be ignored, changed or replaced. But it’s also true that once the loop is established and a habit emerges, your brain stops fully participating in decision-making. So unless you deliberately fight a habit — unless you find new cues and rewards — the old pattern will unfold automatically.

“We’ve done experiments where we trained rats to run down a maze until it was a habit, and then we extinguished the habit by changing the placement of the reward,” Graybiel told me. “Then one day, we’ll put the reward in the old place and put in the rat and, by golly, the old habit will re-emerge right away. Habits never really disappear.”

The rest of the article is here.

A Primer for those remedial “I can’t (insert complaint here) on my Surface” people

2014 . 04 . 202014 . 04 . 20 azarc3rant, Surface, WindowsLeave a comment

Ok. This is going to be short because it’s a really easy concept. In the Microsoft Surface family, the ones intended to be laptop/desktop replacements are the “Pro” devices.

You can install whatever apps you like from the Windows Store on anything in the Surface family. However, if it doesn’t say “Pro” in the name then it won’t allow you to install any DESKTOP software except for an exclusive handful of things in the Microsoft Office suite.

If you want to install desktop software (like alternative web browsers) then you should select a Surface Pro.

Simple.

Take notice, however, that this is BETTER than what you get with either iPads or Android tablets; you can’t install ANY desktop software at all. PERIOD. You can’t install the desktop version of ANY browser. AT ALL.

Simply put, the non-Pro Surface devices are meant to compete directly with their iOS and Android counterparts. They all offer about the same physical specifications.

If you want to get mad at someone do it at Google as they have been actively hostile towards any competing Microsoft product since day one. Ask them why they don’t create an RT version of Chrome. The same can be said of Apple and Safari.

Stop posting ignorantly because you are cheap and also didn’t take time to do your research or read the product card in the store. Like the person in the attachment. The only possible argument that *MIGHT* (and I stress might) keep this person from being a complete ID10T is if the salesperson told him/her the wrong thing. And I doubt that happened.

var rant = Status.Complete;

Android really ISN’T your friend

2014 . 03 . 312014 . 03 . 31 azarc3android, greed, malware, security, storeLeave a comment

It is simply amazing to me that people don’t pay more attention. Case in point, I wonder how many of the devout (yes, that is the word) Android (and in the first case iOS) users know about the following two articles that I saw today…

How Fandango and Credit Karma exposed millions of smartphone users’ data

Apps with millions of Google Play downloads covertly mine cryptocurrency

The first is a clear example of an utterly-reputation-damaging-yet-probably-survivable breach of trust that we’ve seen in the media recently (Target anyone?). Even though the situation and circumstances are different the outcome is the same: they blew it when it came to relatively easy security practices and it’s up to the consumer to make them pay for it.

The second is much more malicious in that someone is willing to most certainly shorten the life of your smartphone to make themselves richer. The onus of this one is on the greed of the app author… but the blame is needs to be shared with Google and anyone else who provided the app because of their very-much flawed application certification processes. Although comfortably couched in legalese and corporate rhetoric in their TOS and statements to the media about those apps, at the end of the day they pulled apps that should’ve never been published in the first place.

And let’s not forget this little ditty where Google tries to say that Android is “more secure because it’s open”… if that isn’t round-robin logic I don’t know what is.

Logic Fail #1: Google assumes “people” will review and contribute fixes to the OS. Hmm…. that’s like assuming your neighbors will willingly mow your lawn for you while you’re sitting by the pool drinking lemonade and working on your tan.

Logic Fail #2: Google says that hackers will go where most people are. Hmm… No, it’s been my experience that hackers go where the low-hanging fruit is. I’m not talking about the hacking elite that are trying to change the world; I seriously doubt they even care about this stuff. I’m talking about the script-kiddies and malware cartels that are intent on using you to make them money.

Logic Fail #3: Google says their app certification process is state of the art and that every submitted app is checked for malware. Really? Then how did the two Google summarily pulled from the Play Store get there in the first place. And let’s not forget that this ISN’T the first time Google has been to this particular dance… (http://www.bing.com/search?q=google+pulls+malware+apps)

Anyway, I think I’ve ranted long enough.

Please pay more attention to what is real and not the bull the marketers push on you.

Vote with your wallets, people.

Problems creating databases in SQL Server?

2012 . 09 . 292012 . 09 . 29 azarc3microsoft sql server, troubleshootingLeave a comment

“CREATE DATABASE permission denied in database ‘master’. (.Net SqlClient Data Provider)”
Oh SQL Server Express, how I hate you sometimes. Not only did you not let me specify an sa password when I installed you, but you didn’t take the time to make me a sysadmin either.

The worst part was that I got this when I was trying to get to a geek party an hour away from my house. Oh well. Part of the problem was that there was no clear answer (with example!) of how to get around this issue… so… here you go. 😉

Prerequisites for this technique:

You have to be a local administrator on the box that has the SQL Server instance you’re trying add a database to.
You have to be able to change the settings on Services on that box.
You have to be able to start and stop Services on that box.

The technique:

Go to Services and Stop the service that is the target SQL Server instance. Also stop any SQL Server Agent service which are tied to that SQL Server instance service.
Go to the Properties of the target SQL Server Instance service.
In the Start Parameters field, add “;-m” to the *end* of whatever is already there. DON’T put in spaces OR include the quotes, and if nothing’s already there then you don’t need the semi-colon.
Click OK and start the target SQL Service Instance service.
Do a Windows Search for sqlcmd.exe … don’t be alarmed if there are several. You should use the one in the path that matches the SQL Server version that the target SQL Server Instance.
Open an elevated command prompt.
Path to the folder that has the sqlcmd executable in it. In my case, this was C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\110\Tools\Binn>.
Run the following, with the appropriate user info, and DO include the quotes:
sqlcmd -S MachineName\SQLServerInstance -e -Q “EXEC sp_addsrvrolemember ‘UserDomain\UserName‘, ‘sysadmin’;”
Go back to the service, remove the “;-m” you added, then restart the service.
Verify that the user now has the sysadmin Server Role (via SSMS or however you want to do this).
Don’t forget to restart any SQL Server Agent services that were stopped in #1 above.
Enjoy. 🙂

Special thanks to Raul Garcia for putting me on the right path. You can see his original post here: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/raulga/archive/2007/07/12/disaster-recovery-what-to-do-when-the-sa-account-password-is-lost-in-sql-server-2005.aspx

Having trouble adding a Developer or Administrator to your Facebook App?

2012 . 08 . 222012 . 08 . 22 azarc3Facebook, Programming1 Comment

… GRRRRRRR! Sometimes I really, really, really don’t like how other people make things so hard.

I recently needed to add a colleague as an Administrator on a FB App. Until then he didn’t even have a Facebook account and only created one for this purpose. So, once he verified that he was a real person we thought it would be straight forward to add him.

It wasn’t. Not. No. Never. Not by a long shot.

I’m going to spare you all the gory details (like his account getting deactivated twice and FB constantly logging him out), as well as some lost hair by simply saying this: Make sure that anyone you want to add as a Developer or Administrator to a FB App goes to http://developers.facebook.com and creates an app. All you need to do is click the button, provide a bogus name that it will accept, click “Next” and wait for these screen to finish downloading.

Takes about 15 seconds. Not several hours and choice curse words.

For more information, see here: http://facebook.stackoverflow.com/questions/8595181/when-adding-an-admin-to-the-application-i-get-the-error-message-name-is-not-a-v

Plagued by the Garmin Forerunner 610 charging problem? You’re gonna be pissed…

2011 . 12 . 042012 . 09 . 25 azarc3charger, forerunner 610, garmin25 Comments

… because I just figured out what the actual problem is. And if your problem is the same as mine then you don’t need to send the watch back or exchange it for another one.

Let’s run down what we know:

Customers have complained that the 610 won’t keep or take a charge, and in some cases actually actively discharges while plugged in.
Customers have also complained that the 610 sometimes will charge and sometimes it won’t, or that it wasn’t charging before and now it does.

My situation went from being #1 to #2 after about 2 weeks of me owning the watch. Then, 2 weeks ago (I’ve had mine for about a month now), it all of a sudden started working. What did I do differently? (This is the part where being pissed comes in…) It seems that Garmin, in their infinite wisdom, decided to save money by developing a charging block that can accept various terminals. I’m sure this is to facilitate charging your watch while you travel internationally since we all do that so often. Well, have you ever noticed how that interchangeable terminal doesn’t always sit flush in the block, in fact it rarely does? Yep, you see where this is going.

Long story short, you’ll have to figure out a way to keep the terminal in good contact with the two pins on the charging block. My proving solution was to get an extension cord (for computers, not the brown one at the grocery store) so I could rest the block vertically on the floor. With enough patience I was able to get the watch to start charging, consistently. You can tell because it will go through that “beep! buzz… beep! buzz…” cycle that drove us all crazy when we first got the watches, but it will settle down and stay on the charging screen once you’ve got the contact just right.

My solution:

Make sure you’ve got the charging stand in the right position. Yes, I said charging stand. check out the photos to see what I mean.
Make sure you’ve got good contact with the watch in the charging stand.
Make sure you’ve got good contact between the interchangeable terminal and the pins on the charging head.

My next test will be plugging the block into the wall directly, but upside down. Hopefully this block doesn’t need specific polarity.

Interchangeable Terminal Contact Points — Contact Points

Thoughts from "him"

Stuff that makes me go "Hmmmm…"

Pet Peeves

Microsoft’s Identity Management Framework (2015)

THIS.

American Journalism, oh how far you’ve fallen

The scariest thing I’ve heard in a long time…

A Primer for those remedial “I can’t (insert complaint here) on my Surface” people

Android really ISN’T your friend

Problems creating databases in SQL Server?

Having trouble adding a Developer or Administrator to your Facebook App?

Plagued by the Garmin Forerunner 610 charging problem? You’re gonna be pissed…

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