Deploying to Azure WebApp From An Organizations GitHub Account

I've spent a good part of the last two days working on our deployment methodology. We have started the slow migration of our sites from our current hosting provider to Azure. To date I have been using the FTPS deployment. I wanted to experiment deploying from GitHub. I setup the...

Using PowerShell to Check a File Full of URLs

I had to write a quick and dirty script to read URLs out of a file and test to make sure they were working correctly. Seemed like a pretty straightforward and simple problem. Here is the script version that I started with: function TestSite($url) { $HTTP_Status = (invoke-webrequest -method head...

Podcast Roll 2016

With my commute shorter now that we have moved offices, I find I've had to take a critical look at the podcasts that I listen to. I had to drop some very good podcasts, but I tried to be ruthless. Hanselminutes - I love this podcast and still listen to...

The Times They Are A Changin'

After listening to episode 1379 of DOTNETROCKS titled "SQL Choices with Tony Petrossian", I was gobsmacked to hear that Microsoft has delivered a public preview of MS SQL Server 2016 that runs on Linux. I had heard the hype but assumed that it was going to be a few years...

Fake SMTP Server

Almost every web application we develop has functionality to email our client when someone submits a form. It is usually the form on the Contact Us page, but it could also be a notification when a new order is submitted, or someone submits a new FAQ. Either way, part of...

Force HTTPS with IIS URLRewrite and X-Is-SSL Header

Recently we had reason to force all page connections to use SSL for one of our clients. We have done this in the past with code, but I wanted to see if this was possible to do with the URL Rewrite module. We utilize an SSL load balancer so all...

Blocking VPN Access on Free Wi-Fi Networks

F-Secure had a great blog post entitled An Open Letter to Businesses that Block VPNs on their Free Wi-Fi. I've run into this on a number of open access points in Kitchener. The worst offender is Tim Hortons. I cannot access our work VPN which uses SSL nor my OpenVPN...

HooTooHT-TM05 Titan Travel Router

While attending the O'Reilly Security Conference in New York Dashboard, I had the opportunity to test out my latest purchase the HooToo Titan Travel Router. I first read about this router on Jeff Atwood's Blog post - Your Own Personal WiFi Router. While Jeff's primary use of the router was...