Setting up FTP on Windows Server 2008 isn’t as easy as in previous versions and the steps you need to take vary depending on what version of IIS you have installed.

Unless you upgrade to IIS 7.5, FTP in IIS 7 is still managed with IIS 6 Manager!

Failed to Retrieve Directory Listing

The first hurdle I encountered when trying to connect using Filezilla was the error message “Failed to Retrieve Directory Listing”.  Filezilla was able to connect but couldn’t list the files in the remote folder.

A work around to this is to run Filezilla in active mode (Edit > Settings > Connection > FTP > Active), but some programs that use FTP such as Windows Live Writer can’t be set to use active and prefer passive FTP.  Read more about active and passive FTP.

Configuring Passive FTP on IIS

Configuring Passive FTP on IIS essentially involves configuring FTP port ranges in IIS for the passive connection and then opening up those ports in Windows Firewall on the server.

Depending on what version of IIS you have installed I can verify that both of these methods work.  Although the c:\Inetpub\adminiscripts folder didn’t exist on my server so I ended up getting them from a Windows Server 2003 machine.

My advice would be to upgrade to IIS 7.5.

• Configuring passive FTP on IIS 6
• Configuring passive FTP on IIS 7

I’ve recently upgraded my virtual server to a Windows Server 2008 box and to my annoyance noticed that Microsoft have removed the POP3 Service that shipped with Windows Server 2003.

I know that POP3 is old and a bit rubbish, but it was perfect for my purposes.

Rather than shell out for a commercial mail server I suggest you try the free hMailServer which is a doddle to install and configure and in my opinion far better than Microsoft’s POP3 Service.

I’m using it for my POP3 and SMTP server.

Read more about hMailServer’s features which include SPAM filter and virus scanner integration and pre-configured authentication and relaying security.

It seems HomePlug certified powerline networking components aren't as interoperable as it would first appear.  I've been using Devolo Homeplug dLAN 200 desk units for a number of years now and they have been trouble free and constantly out perform wireless networking in terms of speed.  I recently bought another Devolo dLAN 200 unit to expand my network to enable streaming video to a Windows Media Extender.

I assumed it would be a case of just connecting it to the mains and using the Devolo dLAN configuration wizard to set all the units up with a new encryped password.  I soon realised that this wasn't the case.
The dLAN configuration wizard didn't even detect the new unit on the mains network.  After looking through the manual for a while scatching my head searching for a non-existant troubleshooting guide, I spotted a paragraph that mentioned that older Devolo products using firmware 1.x need their firmware upgraded in order to work with newer models.

Upgrading the firmware has now made all my dLAN 200 HomePlug certified devices compatible!  Thank God for standards

Like a lot of Windows fans I pre-ordered Windows 7 and built a new PC ready to install it on; I chose a motherboard (MSI DKA790GX) that, like many on the market, has a hardware RAID controller on-board allowing you to take advantage of redundancy with RAID 1 and/or benefit from faster disk access with RAID 0.  Read more about RAID.

I had already installed Windows 7 before I remembered I wanted to set-up a RAID 1 array.  I tried to get the RAID array working with Windows already installed but soon realised I would have to set it up prior to installing Windows 7 because Windows kept hanging on boot-up because it was lacking the RAID controller drivers.

The supplied manual doesn’t explain how to get RAID up and running unfortunately.

RAID Controller Set-up

So here’s a quick guide to installing hardware RAID on a motherboard that features a RAID controller.  These steps assume you are performing a clean Windows 7 install rather than an upgrade, and they might differ depending on your system set-up, but the general principles should be the same.

1. Download the RAID drivers for your motherboard from the manufacturer’s website and save them to a memory stick.
2. Back up all your important data!
3. Turn your PC off and unplug it.
4. Install 2 hard disks preferably with identically capacity into your PC.
5. Turn on your PC, press the delete key or F2 key when prompted to get to the BIOS menu.
6. Find the option to select the RAID mode, save your settings and exit BIOS.
7. On reboot you should see a new menu option to enter the RAID controller settings.  Enter the key combination when prompted to get to the RAID controller menu.
8. Create a new RAID array selecting either RAID 0, or RAID 1.
9. Select the disks that will form the array, save the settings and exit.
10. On reboot press the delete key or F2 key when prompted to get to the BIOS menu.
11. Check the boot sequence of your PC and ensure your optical drive is top of the list.
12. Insert your Windows 7 disk into the optical drive and exit the BIOS.
13. On reboot press any key when prompted to boot from the optical drive.
14. Windows 7 should start installing.
15. Select your localisation settings and click next.
16. Click “repair your computer” and click the ”load drivers” button.
17. Insert your memory stick and browse to the correct driver and install.
18. Exit back to the Windows 7 install menu click “Install now” and on the next screen click “Custom (advanced)” to perform a clean install.
19. When you are asked where you want to install Windows 7 you should see that the 2 RAID hard disks are now visible as just 1 drive.
20. Add a partition to the new drive so Windows with be able to recognise it.
21. Continue installing Windows as normal.

There seems to be so much fuss surrounding support for aging Microsoft browser Internet Explorer 6 lately, both from the web developer community and big corporations such as Google and Facebook. There are many websites dedicated to eradicating the browser, a Twitter petition, a joke campaign to save IE6 and a whole lot more…

While I don’t particularly enjoy spending a considerable amount of time per project making sure websites I build are IE6 compatible, I do see the benefit of supporting the browser.

I was in Google Analytics recently and looked at my browser statistics for this site.  Visitors to my site are fairly IT literate but Internet Explorer 6 still has a larger user base than Safari, Chrome and Opera with almost 9% share. Looking on the W3C Schools browser statistics, 12.1% of their users browsed the web with IE6 in September 2009.

NikMakris.com Web browser market share Sept 2009

NikMakris.com Internet Explorer browser share Sept 2009

I could make the decision not to support IE6 for my personal site and about 9% of my visitors would be affected, but if I made that decision on a commercial website, I could end up losing out on business, especially since many of the people still actively using IE6 are businesses or public sector organisations who can’t easily upgrade or install an alternative web browser.
Many organisations also have legacy applications that do not work with new versions of Internet Explorer and during a recession many organisations will avoid spending money on upgrades and new software if they can afford not to.

Whilst it might be okay for Google and Facebook to block support for the browser when you visit their own web properties, would a client of yours be happy if you did the same with a website you built, potentially losing them business?

Internet Explorer 6 may be a dog of a browser in 2009, if you’re a web developer it probably causes you hours of pain creating dedicated style sheets and conditional statements.  You may even have had to make major template changes to deal with the many quirks of the browser rendering engine, but hopefully in the not too distant future it will become such a small percentage of the web browser market that we can all forget about it and start concentrating on new technologies such as HTML 5!