If you are developing on windows, the following .bat file will take care of creating such a tag for you and pushing it to your remote repository (i.e. Github):

call git tag %date:~12,2%.%date:~4,2%.%date:~7,2%.%time:~0,2%.%time:~3,2%
call git push --tags
cmd

The next step in the deployment is to pull down the tag in QA:

git fetch
git checkout YY.MM.DD.HH.mm (referring to your previously named tag)

This process can be repeated in production, but if it fails QA testing we delete the tag with the following commands and start over.

git tag -d YY.MM.DD.HH.mm (to delete your local tag)
git push origin :YY.MM.DD.HH.mm (to delete the remote tag)
on QA: git tag -d YY.MM.DD.HH.mm (to delete the QA local tag)

If you’re not immediately creating a fixed release, update QA to the prior tag using

git checkout YY.MM.DD.HH.mm

As an alternative workflow, you could create your tags in QA after QA testing has passed, in which case you could create this bash file

tag=`date +"%y.%m.%d.%H.%M"`
git tag $tag
git checkout $tag
git push --tags

If you use IIS you can setup a new website to do such a permanent redirect, but that solution doesn’t scale well. For example, we run 42 websites using one install of umbraco, and consequently one IIS website. We’d need 42 new websites in IIS to use the built-in redirect feature.

One example site is http://en.culturalcare.com, and I want to make sure that if someone types in http://www.en.culturalcare.com they get redirected properly. The solution is to write a little generic URL re-writer yourself using the global.asax file.

< %@ Application Language="C#" %>
<script runat="server">
protected void Application_BeginRequest(Object sender, EventArgs e)
		{
			string domainName = Request.Url.Host.Replace("www.", "").ToLower();
			string sOldPath = HttpContext.Current.Request.Path.ToLower();
			string sPage = "http://" + domainName + sOldPath;
			Response.Clear();
			Response.Status = "301 Moved Permanently";
			Response.AddHeader("Location",sPage);
			Response.End();
		}
</script>

As you can see the code removes “www.” from the url and 301 redirects to the non-www version. It also passes the full path.

You could modify the code slightly to add www’s instead of removing them if that’s the desired effect:

< %@ Application Language="C#" %>
<script runat="server">
protected void Application_BeginRequest(Object sender, EventArgs e)
		{
			string domainName = Request.Url.Host.ToLower();
			string sOldPath = HttpContext.Current.Request.Path.ToLower();
			string sPage = "http://www." + domainName + sOldPath;
			Response.Clear();
			Response.Status = "301 Moved Permanently";
			Response.AddHeader("Location",sPage);
			Response.End();
		}
</script>

Download a full example for use with IIS.

To implement:

• create a new site in IIS and add host headers for all of the domains you would like to redirect
• extract the zip above to the directory setup in IIS
• setup wildcard application mapping in IIS to let the global.asax file handle all requests (not just ones that end in .aspx, etc). On windows server 2003 just go to Home Directory -> Configuration and paste in the aspnet_isapi.dll location in the wildcard application maps section. By default the path is C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\aspnet_isapi.dll (uncheck “Verify that file exists”)

• 152 lines of HTML
• 165 lines of CSS
• 159 lines of JavaScript
• 147 lines of PHP
• 88 lines of SQL

If only everything could be so simple.

A small problem though is the potential to block content underneath the ribbon transparency area. For example, that “About Us” link is obscured by the large square ribbon image.

A simple workaround is to split the ribbon image in two (or more) pieces as I’ve highlighted below and stitch them together in CSS. Now the “About Us” link can be clicked just fine.

#ribbon-top {
    position:absolute;
    top:0;
    left:20px;
}
 
#ribbon-bottom {
    position:absolute;
    top:75px;
    left:0;
}

Here’s a simple yahoo pipes example: lets say that you have a blog that you want to syndicate differently to different audiences (for example we have a Tumblr blog and we want to exclude some of the content from the rss feed for use with facebook pages). The solution is simple; add a tag to posts that you want to exclude on tumblr and then use yahoo pipes to filter out those posts and generate a new RSS feed.

You can try it with your own Tumblr blog and tag.

Our setup involves a wildcard GoDaddy SSL certificate hosted on IIS6. The renewal process goes something like this:

1. You then have to go to “Manage Certificate” in Godaddy and request a renewal.
2. Generate the CSR in IIS:
   • Go to the “Directory Security” tab for SSL site in IIS.
   • Click the “Server Certificate.” button (located in the “Secure communications” area)
   • Click “Next” in the Welcome to the “Web Server Certificate Wizard” window.
   • Select “Renew”; then click “Next.”
   • Select “Prepare the request now, but send it later” and click “Next.”
   • Paste the CSR into the Godaddy form.
3. Godaddy will issue the new certificate (you should get an email instantaneously)
4. Process the pending request in IIS using the .crt file sent by GoDaddy.
5. Select “replace the current certificate” and select the certificate with the new expiration date.
6. If you’re using a wildcard certificate and want to use it with other sites select “export the current certificate to a .pfx file”
7. To use the exported wildcard certificate on a different website you will first need to remove the current certificate on that website and then import the one from the .pfx (there will be momentary downtime while you do this).

<!--[if IE]>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="patches-ie.css" type="text/css" media="all" />
< ![endif]-->

The trouble is that IE8 will still read that patches-ie.css file and apply some styles that may no longer be needed because the bugs they address have since been fixed. Microsoft recommends that you update your pages to do more precise version detection. That’s probably the best solution, but let’s say that you don’t want to update all of your web applications.

The quick and dirty solution for you is the * hack. IE8 no longer supports the * hack, so you can edit your patches-ie.css file to make it look like this:

*margin-top: 30px; /* for versions prior to IE8 */

Of course you can also reverse this to target IE8:

float: right;  /* all browsers (including IE8) */
*float: none; /* override for IE7 and prior*/

Be sure to use Xenocode to test various version of Internet Explorer side by side and make sure the hack worked.

I needed to transfer several production domains from yahoo to godaddy and avoid downtime. Domain transfers are notoriously lengthy and painful; domain unlocking, transfer initiation, secret codes, and waiting, waiting, and more waiting.

Here’s a little tip to avoid downtime:

When you are transferring your domain, select to keep the existing DNS servers. This means that you don’t need to worry about re-configuring the DNS entries right away. First, your transfer will take place, and then, when you are good and ready you can change the name servers to godaddy (or your new registrar), and add all the appropriate entries in one sitting.