Major (and a month late) congratulations goes to Andrew Grant (no relation) and his add-in Whiist, David Wright and his Jungle Disk and Prakash Gautam with Community Feeds for Windows Home Server for winning the Microsoft Windows Home Server Code2Fame Challenge.

It's truly wonderful to see so many great add-ins being created for this new platform and look forward to seeing in the coming months what ideas couldn't make it in to the competition.

On the plus side it looks like my entry did receive an honorable mention (scroll to the bottom).

Q: How can I make a more WHS style Message Box like what the Home Server Console uses?

Example:

A: The Windows Home Server team already beat you to it and created the QMessageBox class (Microsoft.HomeServer.Controls, HomeServerControls.dll) which provides a very similar experience to the tried and true MessageBox class... only with a few improvements such as...

Size and Color

One of the first things a programmer testing out QMessageBox will notice is that the dialog is far larger than a regular MessageBox and is formatted to look more WHS like in terms of icons and color and is probably the biggest reason to consider using it (over making ones own dialog from scratch).

Icons

Keeping the future in mind, the developer(s) behind QMessageBox actually changes its appearance in another key way by replacing the default system icons (as based on the MessageBoxIcon enumeration) with those that ship today with Windows Vista instead of the ones that would ordinarily be displayed by Windows Server 2003.

For comparison, the following image (click for larger) shows the difference between MessageBox and QMessageBox being used on Windows XP, 2003, Vista and Home Server:

(Note: The above Windows 2003 MessageBox examples were run on a Windows Home Server machine.)

An unfortunate limitation of QMessageBox is that internally something is wrong with it's handling of the MessageBoxIcon.Question value because use of it will raise an ArgumentException, so be sure to stick with one of the other 4 working values (None, Asterisk, Hand, Question & Warning).

If all of this wasn't enough, one of the biggest (and least obvious) features of QMessageBox is that it allows you to specify an arbitrary image in place (in some overloads) of a MessageBoxIcon:

Multi-line

A major pet peeve of mine about MessageBox was that it only had two text areas that you could use, the text argument displayed in the body of the window while the caption argument was displayed in the title bar. For any more advanced formatting you had to make your own dialog or add new line characters to separate certain areas... QMessageBox takes this idea and extends it by allowing a third argument named title which appears as a bold area of text that appears above where the text is.

Note: The information in this post is based on undocumented and at times deduced information on Windows Home Server and is not officially supported or endorsed by Microsoft and could very easily be wrong or subject to change in future, so please take it and everything else said on this blog with a grain of salt and use with caution.

I'm pleased to announce the kick off a series of semi-regular Windows Home Server Developer Tips posts aimed at both add-in and standalone application developers that will cover some of the neat and undocumented features of Windows Home Server that programmers can take advantage of, as well use of some of the documented methods that are buried away in the official documentation.

So let's kick things off with the first tip... determining the web site status.

Q: How can I programmable determine if the WHS Remote Access Web Site(s) are enabled or not?

A: When a user first enables the WHS Web Sites through the Home Server Console, the HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows Home Server\Website Manager registry key is created and contains a single value named Connectivity which is set to 1 when the sites are enabled and 0 if the sites are disabled.

A slightly more programmatic method is to check the value of RemoteAccessConfig.IsAppPoolEnabled (located in the Microsoft.HomeServer.RemoteAccess.Utilities namespace and the WHSCommon.dll assembly).

True if the sites are enabled, false if not.

Note: The information in this post is based on undocumented and at times deduced information on Windows Home Server and is not officially supported or endorsed by Microsoft and could very easily be wrong or subject to change in future, so please take it and everything else said on this blog with a grain of salt and use with caution.

Not hearing anything from HD#2's offices nor from the Mayo Clinic regarding my last visit, I gave HD#2 a call last week... and again yesterday to see if everything had been sent out, if the required letter of medical necessity had been written and sent to my insurance company and when/if I should begin to worry about not yet hearing anything from the Mayo Clinic.

At long last I got my answer... despite being told it would only take a few days to collect my info and mail it off... they are still trying to collect everything... which means (from my prospective) NOTHING has gotten done over the last three weeks.

Damn it.

Despite how bad this crap is... I do need to keep reminding myself that even under the state run/paid for systems that some presidential candidates are pushing... what I am seeing (and have experienced) in past is likely faster and better than what would be achieved under a single payer health plan.

Despite intending on being more logical in my coding and perfecting one set of API calls before moving on to another... over the weekend it was a fairly chaotic process as I ran back and forth between different pieces to make my ugly form with a dozen text boxes and two dozen different buttons to let me test out every little thing including installing Windows components using an answer file.

After much work it's all done... well mostly.

Early yesterday I began cleaning up the code a bit and moving it in into an actual add-in which works great (despite being ugly as heck) and squashed the last remaining bug in my add-in (that I'm aware of)... now I just need to figure out why IIS no longer wants to serve pages over HTTPS to the directory I created.

When one launches an administrative tool locally... one has good cause to expect it to list local resources automatically that the tool cares about right?

Not so it seems with the DFS (Distributed File System) MMC applet.

Over the weekend when working on my new add-in I was making use of NetDfsAddStdRoot() as well as a couple of other DFS calls and ran into an oddity... when I create a DFS root in the MMC applet... it shows up, however when I create one with NetDfsAddStdRoot() it doesn't, nor does it show up if you right click in the list and choose refresh.

Granted, this may not sound like a huge issue... only Windows limits you to a single DFS root, which means if I create one programmatically and then the user tries to create their own manually in the MMC... they are going to get an error and there will be no obvious way to get around it.

Sounds like a bug doesn't it? Possibly (and likely unrelated to this one), and there is a way around it... you just have to be explicit and add the root or server to the DFS MMC which is a nice thing to know which means I can remove the notice from my add-in about how you shouldn't uninstall it without first using it’s build in 'remove configuration' button.

I don't have a (VPC) Windows Server 2008 server handy but will see if this behavior is the same under it, if so I'll bug it on connect and see what they say as call me crazy... but a management tool when run locally should display local resources in cases when standalone authentication is not necessary (ie SQL) and enumeration of the resources are not prohibitively expensive.

Despite my earlier estimate... I'm now expecting that my new WHS add-in will take significantly longer than first expected... largely because of the fights with the Win32 API.

Currently (first of 3 separate API sets I need to work with) I'm implementing support for the Windows Distributed File System which requires 7 (for my purposes) or so API calls and while all are documented on MSDN, only a handful are on PInvoke.net or blog posts (yes once I'm done I'll share some of what I've come up with)... so I get to spend plenty of time writing my own definitions and plugging away at them, making sure I understand exactly what it is expecting when the MSDN docs are less than clear.

I dunno about you... but I really am no fan of marshalling pointers to arrays of structures.

I'm happy to say though that despite all of this, I've implemented and got working 5 of the 7 API calls I need, think I've identified #6 and have yet to figure out how to accomplish the 7th task.

After a brief discussion over on the Windows Home Server forums and a longer talk with a Windows Server admin sort of guy... a brilliant idea for a WHS Add-in came to mind... one so mind bogglingly simple (to the user) that requires a dozen or two Win32 API calls to various Windows Server 2003 DLL's and just 2 calls to WHS APIs.

Unfortunately I think it such a neat idea (although not very novel) that I've got to do it myself... despite my hand problems which are considerably worse this week due to teaching MOC 4994.

As I type this my students work on an exercise on XML Web Services and I track down all of the different API's I think I'm going to need to call to make my add-in work.

The question now becomes how long will I last this weekend (shouldn't take more than a couple of hours to wire things up (once I get the APIs working)) after this week and after a day or two of heavy coding and testing.

One of the most hilarious and obviously futile moves (amongst so many) from our friends at Dozier Internet Law with it's to portray itself as a respectable and knowledgeable firm has been their user agreement that denies browsers permission to view the source code of their web site.

What happens when you tell a group of geeks not to do something? Look! And look they have... reviewing the heck out of the code and posting it all over the place on sites like Slashdot, the Something Awful forums, DSLReports, and the Empty Rhetoric blog.

In that spirit, today I've got two pieces of satire on this issue, one by me and one I found over in the comments of a blog post discussing this very same issue.

Click to zoom:

#2 comes courtesy of Miss Cellania of misscellania.com and is in the style of LOLCATS.com, a site that makes me hate cats (I'm very allergic) a bit less), while the first is in the same theme that I've been using for the last two (1) (2)(just because it's so darn easy).

At first glance one might actually believe them that their source code is their own 'intellectual property'... but then this is the same firm that has previously tried to use copyright to prevent people from reading or speaking... perhaps they are horribly ashamed that their site doesn't validate properly according to the W3C specs.

You'd think that a firm that claims to protect 'the Reputations and the Intellectual Property of Businesses on the Web' would care a wet slap about their own reputation, but then I guess John Dozier and the rest there have never heard the the rule about being in a hole...

When you are in a hole... STOP DIGGING!

Stop digging John, now it's just getting pathetic.

Previously I'd discussed my opinion that Dozier Internet Law appeared to be running an extortion racket in sending at least one C&D and demanding payment without any proof from the intended target or semblance of legal process, and in that spirit I present my second of many parodies of their business practices and unprofessional views:

(Edit: Given the poor (nearly stock) layout of this blog, it's best to click on the above image to see it fully)

While I've got a few more ideas for other page headers and a couple of other things, anyone have any other ideas they'd care to share or make up themselves?

It's now been nearly 2 weeks since I demanded that Dozier Internet Law file suit against me for my alleged copyright infringement in republishing part of the full text of their C&D letter directed to Infomercial Scams.

I'd hope that the week deadline I gave them would be enough. It came and went. So I gave them almost another week... and still nothing, this all despite telling them when I was out of town and how they could find me.

I can only assume that given neither I, nor Infomercial Scams have been sued with... the threats of Dozier Internet Law are without merit.

Given the continued irrationality on the part of Dozier Internet Law and it's now claiming that browsers are unable to view their page source and that US law would not govern if these issues ever came to court... there is only one place to escalate this to (short of suit from our side)... parodies!

I present the first of many parody images I have created (from scratch (unless Dozier claims copyright of the colors that are used)) that discuss some of the views of Dozier Internet Law:

I know, it doesn't fit well on my blog)

Rather than hide behind their web site and make such laughable comments in blog comments... they should better advertise what they believe in on their web site and let potential clients have a better idea of what they are getting into if they were to hire them.

Please note that the above image is copyrighted and as such may not be copied or used without my permission. All readers of this blog however may use the above image and all later Dozier Internet Law related ones on their own blogs, and web sites and print media in a manor consistent with its intent.

All other uses, especially that by Dozier Internet Law or any of its agents, actors or other thugs is expressly prohibited.

This permission does not include any commercial use of the above parody however. In a week or two after I've made and published another dozen or so, the most popular designs will be made available on T-shirts and other such wares (with all profits going to charity) so as to better spread the word and humor regarding our friends at Dozier Internet Law.

Note: This web site is in no way officially associated with or sanctioned by Dozier Internet Law, it's managing partner John Dozier or any other person working for the firm in question.

Previously I've written about Dozier's representation of a fraudulent spyware maker as well as the managing partner previously claiming that sites like Infomercial Scams were legal and immune. Both were discovered with a quick Google search for their name and a small bit of reading.

I'm sad to say though that that is becoming less and less useful as the actions of Dozier now that the Streisand effect is in full effect which has lead to countless new links in the search results that make it harder and harder to find other information on them.

As of this post, it appears that a full 15 of the top 30 hits on Google for 'Dozier Internet Law' are links to pages critical of them.

As upset as John Dozier and the others at Dozier Internet Law must be, I too am rather upset as it means I have to work that much harder to do legitimate Google based research on them and their past dealings.

One hopes that the folks over at Dozier Internet Lawsuits, a blog dedicated to 'Keeping an eye on the "Cyber Trial Lawyer"' will be able to do a better job of wading through all of it than me.

While doing a little more research on our friend John Dozier, managing partner of the now infamously thuggish Dozier Internet Law (yes I know there are far better things I could be doing on a Saturday night) I ran across an interview with him where this question and answer came up (answer truncated for length):

Ted Murphy:

 

A lot of the things that we're talking about there, are things that – that are specific to an employee or specific to the company in – in regards to blogs, but what about the legal issues surrounding consumer posts on a – on a blog? You know, if – if I post something about a new product that I'm releasing and I allow comments back from the – the public, what do I need to look for there? Do I – you know, is that opening me up for – for potential liability based on those public comments back on my blog?

 

John Dozier:

 

Yes, it is very high risk. Fundamentally, we in the U.S. determined, you know, back in the late 90's that this was a potential problem and could impact the free expression of ideas of the internet. So Congress passed immunity for the owners of blogs as long as they are not involved directly in managing content and really changing, potentially editing and changing what is being said.

 

If you're editing and changing what's being said, making judgment calls that could impact the – the message that's being sent out, then you – then you have absolute liability as a publisher for what third-parties are saying.

So according to Mr. Dozier... so long as a blog or site does not directly edit or change what is being said... then the site owner is largely immune.

Funny, Infomercial Scams.com says this on their submission form:

Scams are posted uncensored!

Something that the original C&D letter noted... and called it "willfully false and misleading" and "defamatory".

So on one hand... Mr. Dozier claims that statements on sites like Infomercial Scams are legal and that such site owners are not liable... while on the other hand his firm insists that they are and amongst other things... seemingly engages in racketeering in demanding that the publisher, not the originator of the controversial comments pay up without any semblance of legal process.

This seems rather contradictory... and when I think of such things I think of a quote from Atlas Shrugged:

I'll give you a hint. Contradictions do not exist. Whenever you think that you are facing a contradiction, check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong.

So which is it John?

When thinking about the ongoing dispute over the unprofessional actions of Dozier Internet Law... I think back to an old Monty Python episode and the the army protection racket sketch:

Dino: Oh see my brother's clumsy colonel, and when he gets unhappy he breaks things. Like say, he don't feel the army's playing fair by him, he may start breaking things, colonel.

 

Colonel: What is all this about?

 

Luigi: How many men you got here, colonel?

 

Colonel: Oh, er ... seven thousand infantry, six hundred artillery, and er, two divisions of paratroops.

 

Luigi: Paratroops, Dino.

 

Dino: Be a shame if someone was to set fire to them.

 

Colonel: Set fire to them?

 

Luigi: Fires happen, colonel.

 

Dino: Things burn.

Aside from a horrible impression by British actors portraying Italian mobsters, it's an entertaining sketch about a couple of guys trying to get protection money out of the an Army Colonel who just wants to do his job and be left alone.

As I'd discussed previously... I was rather shocked to see the third of their itemized demands in their horribly unprofessional letter that:

3. Compensate our client for its attorney fees and costs

Is it just me or does that stink of an attempt to extort funds (ultimately for themselves in the end) from a third party without any semblance of legal process?

In the case of most C&D's (cease and desist letters) simply the threat of suit is enough to get many parties to fold and give in to the demands of the complainant so as to avoid any further legal issues... in this case though, the folks at Dozier Internet Law seem to be saying: "pay us money... or we'll sue you for more:... something that isn't to far off from "pay me money... or beat you up and steal your wallet."

Sure sounds like extortion to me... but then, I'm not a lawyer nor an expert in the subject... just a guy who uses common sense and thinks things through before I act... and one who is fully aware of the Strisand effect which has lead to a great deal of new happenings including allegations of copyright infringement on the part of Dozier Internet Law.

Despite all of this I'm forced to wonder... how much of this is the fault of DirectBuy... and how much is that of Dozier Internet Law? I can understand DirectBuy calling their lawyer at Dozier Internet Law and saying "any chance you could get these negative reviews removed from this site?" with a genuine desire to look good and it was solely Dozier Internet Law who went off the wall with this wholly unprofessional original C&D letter, not to mention later events.

At the same time I am left to wonder if this could be part of the way DirectBuy operates as well... after all, they made the choice to sic Dozier Internet Law on the web site in question... for all we know DirectBuy is just as guilty of gross unprofessionalism (in my opinion) as Dozier Internet Law and approves wholly of their actions.

I don't know... and lord do I wish I did.

I guess in the end this will only be resolved one of two ways... either Dozier Internet Law files suit against me and everyone else who has stated their opinion of them (even if negative in nature) and/or violated their copyright... or they AND DirectBuy apologize publicly for all that has transgressed since (and including) the initial sending of the C&D letter that caused this all to begin.

Ultimately the second option is the best for all parties involved as the only way for this issue to be resolved amicably is for the seemingly unprofessional folks at Dozier Internet Law to admit they were wrong, apologize and drop the issue... because if they do not and were to sue... they'll simply cause the MSM as well as even more bloggers to see what is going on and cause their name to be dragged through the mud even more, not through our actions, but through their own.

Frankly... I'd much rather have em go on a lawsuit binge as I'm always a fan of letting people shoot themselves in the foot... over and over and over and over again and from the sounds of it... this isn't Dozier Internet Law's first time.

Our friend John Dozier, managing partner at Dozier Internet Law had this to say about a suit against a client he was/is defending:

A lot of these allegations of this advertising ... they have nothing to do with us

This regarding a virtually worthless piece of anti-spyware software that was being hawked by a company called Secure Computer who was being sued by both the state of Washington, but also by Microsoft for false advertising and trademark infringement respectively.

Despite the claims of innocence, the case with the state was eventually settled while the federal case from Microsoft is still pending.

Personally I'm always a fan when a lawyer comes out touting the innocence of their client... only to have them be found guilty or just as damning (PR wise) is having their client settle wether they admit fault or not (they did not in this case).

Way to go John!