Doug Seven's Blog

Introduction to Project H

We were recnetly task to build an online image library (Project H). We'll reveal the details of the deployment later, but its fairly big.

Currently we're designing the physical and logical architecture.The idea right now is to build the system using 1-3 SQL Servers and 5-10 Web servers (running Windows Server 2003 of course). All of the image data will be stored in, and served from the database server(s).

The image library will have Passport integration. Users wanting to put images into the image library will have to have signed in with Passport and registered with The Hive. Users who are simply downloading images do not have to be registered. There will be several other features that will require registration, but that is the basic functionality.

We will be developing the system using a logical 3-tier approach. The Presentation layer will be built with ASP.NET server controls, and a collection of custom controls. The Business layer will consist of objects that represernt the data and enforce the business rules. The Data Access layer will be soley responsible for moving data using the SQL data provider.

As we architect and develop this I'll be posting more, but be aware that we have only 4-weeks to build this system.

Servers and Cell Phones

As you may have heard (via Donny's blog) the DNJ server was running poorly because all the new features, which added a lot of CPU hit and DB traffic. Donny and I chatted about how to solve the problem, and tried a few things before deciding we needed more servers. Up to this date DNJ has been running off of a single, dual-proc server (actually we used to run off a single 500 MHz server).

Daisy Cutter (our existing server) is a dual 1.2 GHz CPU with 1 GB RAM. We just added The Beast, a server Donny was using for dev testing, that is a dual AMD XP1600+ machine with 2 GB RAM (I believe).

We just ordered another server to replace Daisy Cutter, which will also be a dual AMD XP1600+ machine with 2 GB RAM. The new machine will be our Web Server, and will be running Windows Server 2003 (with IIS6.0). Daisy Cutter will not be retired, but rather it will be turned into a staging and source control server.

I'll keep you posted on how I like the new phone.

The new servers will be set up this week sometime.

On a side note, I lost my Samsung I-330 PalmOS phone last night, so today I went and replaced it with the SCP 5300 phone. Its not a PalmOS phone, but it is a PCS Vision phone (with a built-in camera, not an attachement). I didn't like the fact that the I300 phone had a touch screen- I can't feel the buttons while dialing and driving.

Finally Registered the Porsche

Erika was getting on me for always taking the car (Lexus IS300) and leaving her stranded at home, so after letting it sit in front of my house for three months, I finally got off my ass and took my 1983 Porsche 944 to the emissions testing center. Passed the test (although it was idling about 100 RPM high - the testers helped me on that one a bit). Then I went and got new plates and got it legal.

Erika thought it was strange that the Dept. of Licensing in Ballard had plates onsite and just handed them over (didn't need to wait three weeks to go pick them up). She's a SoCal girl though - I gues they do it different there.

Now all it needs is a paint job and tinted windows (and a few other things).

Server Out of Control

This evening I spent most of my time (and some of Russ's time) trying to isolate the reason why the DNJ server was performing so poorly. It seems that something was causing the aspnet_wp.exe processes (2 of them, one for each processor) to restart every 3-5 mintues. Each one kept growing in memory until they reached 75% of available memory, then BLAM! process restart.

After a bit of poking around, chating and perf monitoring I decided it was directly related to the ASP.NET Cache growing out of control. Further investigation showed that Output Cache was under control, but the Cache API entries would grow by 100 entries every 5-8 seconds until they reached around 5,000-6,000 and then the processes would restart.

In the hijacked forums code we use (the ASP.NET Forums) we had to alter some code to integrate with our existing security (authentication/authorization) model. In doing this we were putting the forum name for the users in cache. I decided to do some code reworking to see if this was the problem. After altering 7 or 8 classes in the forums codebase and recompiling we saw a perf increase. We still have an issue, but now the processes are restarting every 30 minutes instead of every 3 minutes.

Donny and I are going to run some tools on our dev machines over the next week or so to try and isolate the problems. I'll keep ya posted.

TechEd 2003 Day 3

Ah, Day 3 - Wednesday. I am actually posting this several days later but here's my recap.

I spent a little time in the Exhibit Hall - I was suposed to be at the INETA Ask the Experts booth, but Stacey G. pulled me out for a focus group meeting. Bumped into Tim Huckaby on the way to the meeting. He has managed to get everyone callinng me "Señor Siette."

Our evening was booked up - first, the Developers Party at Eddie Deens Ranch (a theme restaurant), which we were at long enough to get an INETA group photo. We left there in 6 taxis to the CoDe Magazine party at the Dallas Aquarium.

Kudos to Malcom, Michelle and the CoDe Magazine group for throwing an excellent party. We mingled with all our good friends for a couple hours then we gathered a group of people and headed for The Bone, where the MSDN Party was going on. This time it took 13 taxis to get there.

The MSDN Party at The Bone was the hot spot of the night. We were there until the wee hours drinking, dancing and having fun with all sorts of people. We have some great photos of Stephen F. and Brian R. slam dancing to Def Leppard's "Pour Some Sugar on Me." (I'll post some of the photo's soon, I promise).

TechEd 2003 Day 2

Well today was interesting; I managed to go to only one session - a SQL XML over HTTP session by Asli Bilgin. I had originally planned for more, but caught up meeting with people.

I chatted with lots of poeple - Brian Randell, Matt Nunn, Ken Getz, Kieth Pleas, etc. DotNetJunkies hosted an after-party party at the Velvet Houka. It was a bit ad hoc -  we went to a .NET Academia party followed by a desire expressed by several people to drink more. So of course the DNJ's had to step-up. Pictures will be addeded soon. It was great time - lots of friends-of-DNJ were there, including Paul Litwin, Mike Admunsen, Bill Evjen, Kristin McGuire, etc. I'll put some of the photos up as soon as I have a few minutes.

TechEd 2003 Day 1

Day 1 was interesting. In usual form I didn't make it to the Keynote or the first session of the day. I did make it to the Exhibit Hall in time, though. We gave away 40 t-shirts and 20 dotnetjunkies shot glasses in record time. After that it was pretty boring. Most people we interested in what crap they could get (a ball with a logo, a t-shirt, etc). We are giving away 8-hours of .NET Consulting from Atomic Consulting - it is amazing to me how many poeple say "No" when asked, "Would you like 8-hours of free .NET consulting?" Sheesh! We're hoping on Day 2 poeple are over the swag and more interested.

The Exhibitor's Reception was from 6-9pm. Donny Mack brought Littles (a mini Chihuahua), which drew lots of attention. Lots of beer was consumed, and a ggod round of mingling. Erika and I went to the AMD booth (E works for Intel ya know). We didn't tell them where she worked, and asked what they had to compete with Centrino. Basically they talked in circles and when confronted they admitted that Intel processors were faster and that their model number scheme (1700+, etc.) was a way to appear to be more like Intel.

Late night was mellow - drinks and dinner with Amy Sorokas from Sams Publishing. Mostly catching up on old times.

Title Fix 06.02.03

I just uploaded the fixes for the Title Bar bug. All Tutorials and How To's now have their title in the browser Title Bar as opposed to the URL.

We have a custom server control that renders the Head element including the Title element. I never wired the articles up to set the Head.Title property when the article is rendered. So, the fix was to add:

Head1.Title = Content1.Title;

...in the Tutorial.ShowContent.aspx.cs and the HowTo/ShowContnet.aspx.cs files.

Corrected the Title in a few other random files.

Posted the fix from the TechEd Wireless lounge, so that's all I'm adding now.

TechEd 2003 Day 0

Erika and I arrived in Dallas for TechEd 2003 yesterday (6/1/03). We got checked into out hotel, then went and registered at TechEd. We took a look around the Exhibit Hall as they were setting it up. Will checking e-mail we bumped into Stacey G. so we got the finall confirmation on the "Community Influencer" party.

We headed back to the hotel, got cleaned up and got ahold of Donny Mack, who had just arrived in Dallas. E and I headed back to the convention center where we met dropped into the Software Legends panel to say "Hi" to Eric Ewing, Billy Hollis, Yassuer, Juval, Don Box and Kieth Pleas.

We caught a bus to the Hyatt Hotel where we met up with Paul D. Sheriff, Jonathan Goodyear, Dene Welsch, and a host of others, including the overly energetic Steve Forte. From there we headed to the Circle R Ranch for a real live Texas BBQ.

Post BBQ we headed to a hotel for a bash. The hotel suite was packed with poeple, champagne, wine and beer - and we felt right at home :).

Made it back to our Hotel around 2:00 AM (other went to the Dragon Fly bar). Now its off to the first "real" day of TechEd.