We have started using xStarter to automate tasks, here are some notes on how we have set it up. These notes are for our own record but may be of some use.

To download a trial copy of the software visit: http://www.xstarter.com/

OS: Windows 2008 Server
Version of xStarter: 1.9.3.85

Pre-Requisites

We have found that unless UAC is disabled for the account that the xStarter Service account runs under that it's scheduled jobs will not start. Note to change this go to Control Panel > User Account > Turn UAC on or off. You should be aware for changes to take affect the server must be restarted so this should be done before the server is put into production if restarting will be an issue.

Installation

If you plan to run the xStarter Service under a domain account not your own windows login then log on to the server with the chosen account and install xStarter.
Select a large disk preferably not the OS drive, xstarter will use this drive during large FTP operations so plenty of space will be needed.
Select "Create Start Menu for All Users" during setup.
This final dialog should look similar to this:

After running the setup program go to Start > Programs and select 'Install xStarter NT Service'. Then create a shortcut to the xStarter Configuration utility on the quick launch.

Configuration

When you run xStarter for the first time complete the following tasks.
- Preferences > Run as NT Service
- Help > Registration - Enter the licence key

Trial Version

The trial version is functional for 30 days after installation but will remind you to register each time you start the configuration tool.

Veridict so Far

We really like the FTP Sync feature that allows a local folder to be sync'd with a remote FTP folder or the other way round, this saved us a lot of time and made our download processes more robust.

We are not particularly fond of the scheduler UI but it is functional and flexible.

Updates

I will post more as we become aware of the god the bad and the ugly.

If like me you listen to spotify at work on speakers and would like to allow your workmates to be able to select tracks then you can use the collaborative playlist feature.

One person in the office needs to create a new playlist, call it somthing like 'Office' then right click on the playlist and check 'Collaborative playlist'. Then right click again and select 'Copy Spotify URI' then simply paste the link into an email and send it to your work colleagues. They have to paste it into their spotify and they will be able to see the playlist, add to it and re-order it. They cannot pause or skip the track though. When the last track in the playlist has finished the music stops.

When we started using this feature we discovered some of the team had eclectic taste so you might want to be selective about who you send the link to. If you use this in conjunction with the spotify remote tool that I blogged about a few weeks ago, your colleagues can have complete control.

Here is a great tool for testing several versions of internet explorer at the same time on the same PC.

Currently it supports versions 5.5 - 8.0

http://www.my-debugbar.com/wiki/IETester/HomePage

This occurs when you use Response.Redirect inside of a Try / Catch block.
Your code will work and the browser will be redirected but you may wish to prevent the error if you are monitoring and getting lots of alerts.

You can prevent the error by overloading the method and passing false like this:

Response.Redirect ("nextpage.aspx", false);

The reason for this behaviour is interesting and is explained here:
http://www.c6software.com/articles/ThreadAbortException.aspx



Microsoft Article that explains the workaround.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/312629/EN-US/

We have recently started using IIS 7.0 in our test environment when we deployed our application that uses the BotDetect Captcha control the image stopped being displayed.

So far we have found one way of fixing this, we switched the default Integrated Application Pool Pipeline Mode over to Classic.

To do this simply go into the properties of the Application Pool in which your web application resides inside and change the setting, refresh your page and bingo you should see the Captcha image.

I was just looking at the technical FAQ on the Lanap software website and they suggest that you can make changes in the web.config to achieve the same result without moving to Classic mode. Below is there suggestion I have not tested this but expect is should work.

<system.webServer>
  <validation validateIntegratedModeConfiguration="false" />
  <handlers>
    <remove name="LanapCaptchaHandler"/>
    <add name="LanapCaptchaHandler" preCondition="integratedMode" 
      verb="*" path="LanapCaptcha.aspx" 
      type="Lanap.BotDetect.CaptchaHandler, Lanap.BotDetect" />
  </handlers>
</system.webServer>

This is a cool little app that allows you to control the next and pause buttons on your spotify client.

We have it running in our office.

http://degero.se/spotify/

First read this nServiceBus overview.

I'm recording my learning so I can refer to it later.

Messaging Concepts

Transport

For messaging to work you need to transport messages from one endpoint to another, once an application has created the message addressed it and put it into a queue it is up to the transport to attempt delivery. MSMQ is the default choice of nServiceBus.

Command Query Separation (CQS)

Wikipedia describes CQS as a pattern where "… every method should either be a command that performs an action, or a query that returns data to the caller, but not both. More formally, methods should return a value only if they are referentially transparent and hence possess no side effects." Udi Dahan's Blog Post on CQS

The Cost of Messaging

Using a messaging approach to building systems offers lots benefits that other approaches don't but you rarely get something for nothing, Ayende's article discusses the cost of messaging.

nServiceBus Concepts

Publish vs Send - Wiki Article

The Distributor

The distributor as it's name suggests distributes work to be done to worker services. This avoids the need for the service that decides what work is to be done from having to contact all workers or have logic that handles balancing the work load.
Worker services inform the distributor how many idle threads they have available and it dispatches the same number of jobs. When a thread completes the distributor is notified so that if any jobs are in the work queue one will be sent.
This means an administrator can monitor the work queue to see if there are enough workers to handle the load.

nService Bus Code Samples Articles

Synchronous Web Service Bridge - Udi Dahan

Pub / Sub Walkthrough - Erik Westermann

Installation and Config

Wiki Article on configuration

Getting started article on Art of Babel - Erik Westermann

Reviews of nServiceBus

Ayende Rahien's Review and his review of the distributor

nService Bus Info on the Web

Mailing List on Yahoo Groups

Udi's FAQ on the nServiceBus Website - Full of programming tips

Case Studies and Scenarios for Usage

Asynchronous High Performance Login Example - Udi Dahan

Update:

New packaging for NServiceBus 2.0

The link above is to Andreas Ohlund's blog post that explains the differences between the packaging for version 1.9 and 2.0
The main difference in the introduction of a nServicebus.core.dll and nServiceBus.Host.exe

One of the devs in our team here at Wonga came accross this useful tool.

If you find the need to install an SSL cert on your local machine for testing purposes, such is the requirement for testing the WongaAPI, you can download the IIS 6.0 Resource Kit Tools from Microsoft, which contains a tool called SelfSSL.

This is a simple command line utility which will install an ssl cert on localhost.

the tool kit can be downloaded from here:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=56FC92EE-A71A-4C73-B628-ADE629C89499&displaylang=en