eUKhost's Official Web Hosting Forum

Michael B is a diamond

Welshy — Tue, 15 May 2012 21:24:27 GMT

would like to pass my thanks to Michael B this evening... I was stuck on something, and although outside of his support scope Michael chipped away at my issue ( I guess on the back burner whilst assisting proper support requests)... He did though fix our issue.... so would like to pass our thanks via here too....

Thanks again Michael B...

Welshy

Wrong version of Rails error

Maggot — Tue, 15 May 2012 20:18:12 GMT

Hello.

I'm a beginner at Rails. I've a shared server with Ruby etc, & Rails is installed. When I go to cpanel > RoR > create, I get:

Quote:

Your app is NOT installed because there was a problem. Try again or contact our support team.

Show Details
Rails version 0.6.0 is installed. However, version 2.3.14 is required. Please contact your web hosting provider to have Rails updated.

This is very odd - the Rails gem is 2.3.12. I've reinstalled it, to no effect. I'm tempted to uninstall it & reinstall, but "first do no harm", so I haven't.

What does this error mean? I haven't raised a ticket 'cos I'm pretty sure it's something obvious I haven't done, and, well, I got my pride. Any ideas, anyone?

Robert

How to connect to an external SQL server database in ASP.NET / VB.NET / .NET

Ben Stones — Tue, 15 May 2012 06:01:28 GMT

Connecting to databases in .NET is different if you are coming from other languages such as PHP. To connect to a database in ASP.NET / .NET in general, you use "Connection Strings" that essentially is the connection information to the database.

First and foremost, in your code behind file within an ASP.NET application (or simply the .vb or .cs file of your .NET desktop application), you will need to first import the namespace that has the relevant database-related classes and methods, etc.

Note: All examples use the Visual Basic language, but the concept is the same for both Visual Basic and C#, for example.

Code:

Imports System.Data.SqlClient

For ASP.NET applications, you have a Web.config file with every project or application you create, which is the main configuration file of an ASP.NET application (see this). The file itself is simply made up of recognised XML markup. You can have the connection string in the Web.config file if you wish, and then reference that in your appliction code:

Web.config:

Code:



  

    
         connectionString="Server=example.com;Initial Catalog=the_database;UID=the_user_of_db;Password=pw_here"

         providerName="System.Data.SqlClient" />

In the application code, I made a class-level variable which gets the connection string from the Web.config file:

Code:

Dim ConnectionStringReference = ConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings("ApplicationServices").ConnectionString

Note: "ApplicationServices" is my specific ConnectionString name, but you can actually call it whatever you like.

Now, in whatever method you wish to execute queries, etc., you first connect to the database and then execute the query:

Code:

 Try

            Dim FetchSubRows As New SqlConnection(ConnectionStringReference) 'the class-level variable ConnectionString



            FetchSubRows.Open() 'opens the connection



            Dim FetchQuery As String = "SELECT Submission_ID, Submission_Title, Submission_Body, Submission_IP, Submission_Date FROM Submissions ORDER BY Submission_ID DESC" 'the SQL string

            Dim ExecuteCommand As New SqlCommand(FetchQuery, FetchSubRows) 'execute the query

            Dim DataReader As SqlDataReader = ExecuteCommand.ExecuteReader() 'we want to "read" the information, since it is a SELECT statement above



            While DataReader.Read() 'the Read() method advances to the next applicable record of fetched data...so it will continue looping until all has been returned, essentially

                Return DataReader

            End While



            If DataReader.HasRows = False Then 'has it got any actual rows?

                FetchSubmissionsError = 0

            End If

        Catch ex As SqlException 'if there was an error, perhaps with the SQL statement itself, catch this error and put it in a variable to be displayed elsewhere

            FetchSubmissionsError = -1

            FetchSubmissionsErrorMessage = ex.Message

        End Try

I just want to point out the Try...Catch block is actually optional. It's simply a way in which you can handle unexpected errors that may occur in that code. In that code, the most obvious error that could occur is an error caused by the SQL query, hence it will catch all SqlException errors (SqlException being a class) and put that object in the ex variable. More information can be found on Exception Handlers here: http://forums.eukhost.com/f50/what-o...se-them-16964/ (this examples uses the PHP programming language as an example, but conceptually applies the same). You can also read the MSDN resource on Try...Catch...Finally statements on the MSDN (Microsoft Developer Network): Try...Catch...Finally Statement (Visual Basic)

Regarding the connection string

Yes, you will need a connection string obviously. If you want to include this directly in your code, here is an example:

Code:

 Try

            Dim FetchSubRows As New SqlConnection("Server=example.com;Initial Catalog=the_database;UID=the_user_of_db;Password=pw_here") ' << visible change is this

            FetchSubRows.Open() 'opens the connection



            Dim FetchQuery As String = "SELECT Submission_ID, Submission_Title, Submission_Body, Submission_IP, Submission_Date FROM Submissions ORDER BY Submission_ID DESC" 'the SQL string

            Dim ExecuteCommand As New SqlCommand(FetchQuery, FetchSubRows) 'execute the query

            Dim DataReader As SqlDataReader = ExecuteCommand.ExecuteReader() 'we want to "read" the information, since it is a SELECT statement above



            While DataReader.Read() 'the Read() method advances to the next applicable record of fetched data...so it will continue looping until all has been returned, essentially

                Return DataReader

            End While



            If DataReader.HasRows = False Then 'has it got any actual rows?

                FetchSubmissionsError = 0

            End If

        Catch ex As SqlException 'if there was an error, perhaps with the SQL statement itself, catch this error and put it in a variable to be displayed elsewhere

            FetchSubmissionsError = -1

            FetchSubmissionsErrorMessage = ex.Message

        End Try

So now you understand how to connect to external databases, this means when you are creating a local project on your machine, you can connect to an external database that may be hosted on your external Windows Server or Windows Hosting environment. You do not need to rely on a local database on your machine.

Useful websites and resources:
http://www.connectionstrings.com/
http://www.asp.net/web-forms/videos
http://www.asp.net/web-forms/tutorials
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb400852
ConnectionString Keyword Reference

Hosted DNS

OneApplications — Mon, 14 May 2012 15:27:53 GMT

Hi,

Does euk provide any sort of hosted DNS system? One that would allow users to access and manage their own DNS zones? I'm in the process of setting up a new VPS and although I can obviously install BIND and create my own nameservers etc, in some ways I'd rather DNS was hosted separately.

Any comments greatly appreciated.

Chris.

php mailer problem

r3gsm — Mon, 14 May 2012 01:12:12 GMT

Hi,

I am setting up a new website and have added a customer quotation form so customers can email quote request. I keep getting the same error but I dont think there is anything wrong with my script, so my guess is that the mailer.php script has been disabled from use on the server???

Here is what I keep getting:

Quote:

Warning: mail() has been disabled for security reasons in /home/mobilewa/public_html/mailer.php on line 33

Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/mobilewa/public_html/mailer.php:33) in /home/mobilewa/public_html/mailer.php on line 35

Can anyone advise the problem and how do I get a solution for this please? I have added image verification to stop spam programmes from sending email through it so any further help would be appreciated.......

Regards

Daz

What is the constructor method in Visual Basic?

Ben Stones — Sat, 12 May 2012 23:06:17 GMT

Visual Basic is a programming language from Microsoft used with the .NET framework, commonly to create desktop and web applications (web applications using ASP.NET (Visual Basic and the .NET framework)).

Just quickly, what is the .NET framework?
A programming framework provides a pre-created set of libraries and tools to make it easier to create applications for whatever the specific purpose of that framework. There are many frameworks for different programming languages, such as CodeIgniter for PHP, Rails for the Ruby language (Ruby on Rails), and so on.

The .NET framework is incredibly extensive, so you can't possibly remember and learn everything the .NET framework has to offer. Essentially, the most important thing is to learn parts of the .NET framework you'll be using. For example, if you want to connect to and use databases in an ASP.NET application, you'll be wanting to look at the SqlClient class that is found in the System.Data namespace (namespaces are merely conceptual - they organise different kinds of classes, essentially).

What is a class constructor?
A constructor in the context of a class in object oriented programming, is a kind of method that is executed as soon as an object is created from a class (an instance of a class is created - "instantiation"). For example:

Code:

Imports Microsoft.VisualBasic

Imports System.Data.SqlClient



Public Class Database



    Public connString As String = GetConnectionString()

    Public connection As New SqlConnection(connString)



    Public Sub New() 'This is the constructor

        connection.Open()

    End Sub



    Public Function GetConnectionString() As String

        Return "Persist Security Info=False;Integrated Security=false;User ID=example_uid;Password=pw_here;Database=example_db;server=example.com"

    End Function



End Class

The New() method is the constructor. This method is executed as soon as an instance of the Database class (above) is created. However, with the GetConnectionString() method, that would otherwise need to be called after class instantiation.

What is "instantiation"? (in-stan-shee-ation)
"to provide an instance of or concrete evidence in support of (a theory, concept, claim, or the like). " (dictionary.com)

In context, it means "creating an instance of a class" (or creating an object). Essentially, creating an instance is allocating the class to memory to use.

From a relevancy perspective, do you think Bing is something to take into account?

Ben Stones — Sat, 12 May 2012 14:43:14 GMT

Bing is becoming increasingly popular (at the very least, it is doing well from a market share perspective), and I do think Bing brings pretty relevant results - Microsoft are innovating a lot with Bing, for example the new "social Bing" which incorporates social aspects to search results and provides integration with Facebook (but not Google+ as far as I know ;)).

I'm interested to know whether you, as a web developer, also focus on the search engine listings of your site with Bing, and also focus on the importance of being listed well on Bing?

Share your thoughts :). I do have to say my site (search for "Personal Tech Blog") is listed pretty high in Bing. But it is indexed faster with Google than Bing. I'd have to check the logs to see how much traffic comes from Bing to my site; obviously more traffic is likely to come from Google, but I wouldn't completely disregard Bing. I am definitely sure a lot of people use it, not just Google.

DDOS on Server Luton

euk-status — Sat, 12 May 2012 11:49:35 GMT

Dear Customers , We are currently facing DDOS*on the shared server Luton. Our senior admins are looking into it*and we will post further updates on this shortly. Meanwhile your patience and understanding is appreciated. Regards, Linux Support Department.

Read Follow Up...

Crons - Emails ?

_Chris_ — Sat, 12 May 2012 08:13:16 GMT

Is there any way of getting an email if a cron hasn't worked? So, if it has worked, no email would be sent.

Windows HyperV-4 under Emergency Maintenance

euk-status — Sat, 12 May 2012 05:54:12 GMT

Dear Customers, Windows HyperV-4 Node is under emergency maintenance. We regret any inconvenience this may cause. This is being implemented in order to ensure better security and performance. We shall update the post once done. Regards, EUK � Support Team

Read Follow Up...

Linux server northampton.theukhost.net timeout

euk-status — Fri, 11 May 2012 01:10:15 GMT

Dear Customers. We have noticed some timeout issues with the server northampton.theukhost.net so one of the senior admin is looking into this. We will post here once the issue is sorted out. Your patience is appreciated. Thank You. Regards, Support Team.

Read Follow Up...

Sites down for several hours again today - time for a new host

twisted-pixe — Thu, 10 May 2012 23:11:46 GMT

My sites have been down almost more than they have been up for the last 6 weeks or so. Today's excuse seemed to be a raid failure....surely the whole point of RAID is that if a drive fails then there is a back up in place?

Getting totally fed up of having sites unavailable time and time again

HP introduces new thin and light Ultrabook laptop

Ben Stones — Wed, 09 May 2012 12:36:37 GMT

Intel are absolutely pushing Ultrabooks to an even lower price point (or are encouraging the industry to do so). HP has introduced some new Ultrabooks starting as low as $599 up to $999.

Quote:

The flagship of the bunch, the Envy Spectre XT (pictured above), will cost $999 and comes in at only .97 inches thick, weighing 3.07 pounds. The entry-level configuration gives consumers a 13.3" screen (featuring a 1366 x 768 resolution), 128GB SSD drive, 4GB of 1600MHz DDR3 RAM and an Intel Ivy Bridge CPU of a currently unknown speed. While the Envy Spectre XT shares its nomenclature with the Envy 14 Spectre, released earlier this year, it sports a complete redesign of its predecessor.

Read more: HP reveals new Envy Ultrabooks - Neowin

So...will your next computer be an Ultrabook? ;)

Change in cron format

WildStar — Wed, 09 May 2012 10:56:01 GMT

Hi

Have just had a problem rectified by support (thanks Silvester J) where my crons weren't working. Turns out the cron job command was now in error.

I would appreciate it if someone could explain why this command has been fine for more than two years but a few weeks ago stopped working for the following reason:

Previous command:

Code:

/usr/bin/curl h**p://mydomain.com/admin/includes/cronrefresh.php?fd_refresh=50

New command required:

Code:

/usr/bin/curl -O h**p://mydomain.com/admin/includes/cronrefresh.php?fd_refresh=50

Note the addition of the -O after the

Code:

/usr/bin/curl

(please note that just for this post I had to substitute the http bit with h**p as the forum thought I was trying to post a link with insufficient privileges )

Thanks

Mod Security

WildStar — Wed, 09 May 2012 08:52:42 GMT

Getting really hacked off with this now....

A number of my clients have complained that their sites have stopped working properly. When looking into this it turns out that this is a new mod security issue resulting in 406 Not Acceptable errors.

Support have been good in re-enabling this when requested but this is only for the sites I know have stopped working and I have to contact support. What about the sites where no-one has complained/spotted the problems. Now I have to trawl through each and every site testing everything to see if there are problems.

Not happy :bashing:

Eukhost - please stop tweaking stuff and breaking my sites. OK, you'll say that it's a security issue, fine, then deal with it but make sure your tweaks don't break sites or at least go in and fix them! It's no use blocking these 'holes' just so the sites don't even work anymore - what's the point of that?

What does this latest mod security tweak affect on my sites? So far I seem to have mainly had databases failing to update, either through php script or when making wordpress changes and cron jobs have stopped. What else do I now need to check?