Dixon-Ratzlaff Family Blogs » Tech Tips http://norbysoft.com/blogs All our blogs in one place Sat, 15 Oct 2011 18:52:14 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.3 Why has Bing not caught up to Google? http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/NorbysTechTips/~3/OG7hEBNLFT8/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/NorbysTechTips/~3/OG7hEBNLFT8/#comments Mon, 18 Jul 2011 14:52:56 +0000 Dan http://techtips.norbysoft.com/?p=118 Bing took over Yahoo Search a while back, in order to compete with Google. Why then is Google still the big frontrunner in Internet search? From my perspective, because they’re responsive and accurate.

We recently redesigned our website. It really needed it, we still had a frame-based layout with almost no search engine optimization, and quite a bit of the information was outdated. After the redesign, all the pages had new URLs, and the old links were no longer good.

I set the web server to generate user-friendly 404 errors, and set up 301 redirects for our “domain.com” to point to our “www.domain.com”, and did all the standard SEO stuff. We have a sitemap XML file that generates dynamically from our website structure, and robots.txt mentions it. We also have a news page that generates an RSS feed that’s published through FeedBurner.

I submitted the new sitemap url to both Google and Bing (and also through the old Yahoo SiteExplorer) 10 days ago. So far, all of our new URLs are showing up in Google search results, including our news articles. But Bing still returns all of our old URLs, very few of the new ones, and none of the news articles.

When I check on Bing’s Webmaster tools page, it still says my sitemap submission is “pending”, and when I check my web server logs, Bing’s robot has never fetched our new sitemap, even though it has fetched our new robots.txt file several times.

After seeing the inaccurate results that Bing returns for our site (pages that have been dead for 10+ days), I certainly wouldn’t be using it for my searches anytime soon. In my opinion, Bing will need to me a lot more responsive to changes in the web and be more accurate before they can ever hope to compete with Google in search.

]]> http://techtips.norbysoft.com/2011/07/18/why-has-bing-not-caught-up-to-google/feed/ 0 NovaBACKUP Remote Workforce 12.1: Must-have upgrade http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/NorbysTechTips/~3/bqjHOozhqu4/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/NorbysTechTips/~3/bqjHOozhqu4/#comments Sun, 26 Jun 2011 16:41:56 +0000 Dan http://techtips.norbysoft.com/?p=115 First of all, when we first decided that Windows Backup was not going to be sufficient to back up our servers anymore, (specifically since 2008′s version doesn’t support tape drives anymore) we looked at several packages. Backup Exec (whoever owns it now) was the software I was most familiar with, but it’s almost the priciest package out there. Then we found NovaBACKUP from NovaStor.

NovaBACKUP did everything we needed – it backs up open files, SQL databases, and Exchange server. Then we learned about NovaStor’s storage server technology, which allows you to back up to a remote server in another location. Their Remote Workforce product incorporates all these features into a single solution. And it’s priced much lower than anything else I found.

So, we’ve been running this package for almost a year now. The “cloud” backups work using a technology NovaStor calls “FastBIT” which generates a patch file containing only the changes since the last backup, thereby minimizing the bandwidth required to perform the new backup. This worked great for us, as we wanted to locate our storage server in another location connected via T-1. The drawback to this technology is it requires quite a bit of free space to generate the patch files, and the process (especially for large files) is not exactly speedy. Backing up one of our large databases took just over an hour to complete.

With their new 12.1 version, they’ve included a new FastBIT algorithm which requires less disk space and works much more quickly. After performing the upgrade, that same database backup now only takes 20 minutes!

If you’re looking for a backup solution that supports local tape devices as well as several different online backup options, check out NovaStor.

]]> http://techtips.norbysoft.com/2011/06/26/novabackup-remote-workforce-12-1-must-have-upgrade/feed/ 0 Create PDF documents in .NET for free http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/NorbysTechTips/~3/pNgjvfccrFo/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/NorbysTechTips/~3/pNgjvfccrFo/#comments Fri, 18 Dec 2009 22:55:38 +0000 Dan http://techtips.norbysoft.com/?p=107 We’ve had an ASP application for some time now that generates PDF files from database data and outputs it to the browser. When we first wrote this app, we purchased the CutePDF Form SDK. It works very well, making it easy to enter values into our PDF forms programmatically and output the finished document as a stream to the browser. And it’s reasonably priced at around $250 for a single server.

Now that we’re converting our app over to ASP.NET, I decided to look around for other options. CutePDF’s Form SDK has a COM interface, and I wanted to see if I could find a library that was .NET native.

I found ABCpdf from WebSupergoo Software. It’s written in .NET, but it also has a COM interface for backwards compatibility with ASP. It does everything we were using CutePDF Forms SDK for and more. In addition, at least in my testing, the ABCpdf component runs slightly faster than CutePDF’s.

What really made this a clincher for us is WebSupergoo is giving away licenses of this component for free. All you have to do is link back to their website.

]]> http://techtips.norbysoft.com/2009/12/18/create-pdf-documents-in-net-for-free/feed/ 0 Create PDF documents in .NET for free http://norbysoft.com/blogs/2009/12/18/create-pdf-documents-in-net-for-free-2/ http://norbysoft.com/blogs/2009/12/18/create-pdf-documents-in-net-for-free-2/#comments Fri, 18 Dec 2009 22:55:38 +0000 Dan http://techtips.norbysoft.com/?p=107 We’ve had an ASP application for some time now that generates PDF files from database data and outputs it to the browser. When we first wrote this app, we purchased the CutePDF Form SDK. It works very well, making it easy to enter values into our PDF forms programmatically and output the finished document as a stream to the browser. And it’s reasonably priced at around $250 for a single server.

Now that we’re converting our app over to ASP.NET, I decided to look around for other options. CutePDF’s Form SDK has a COM interface, and I wanted to see if I could find a library that was .NET native.

I found ABCpdf from WebSupergoo Software. It’s written in .NET, but it also has a COM interface for backwards compatibility with ASP. It does everything we were using CutePDF Forms SDK for and more. In addition, at least in my testing, the ABCpdf component runs slightly faster than CutePDF’s.

What really made this a clincher for us is WebSupergoo is giving away licenses of this component for free. All you have to do is link back to their website.


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]]> http://norbysoft.com/blogs/2009/12/18/create-pdf-documents-in-net-for-free-2/feed/ 0 Create PDF documents in .NET for free http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/NorbysTechTips/~3/pNgjvfccrFo/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/NorbysTechTips/~3/pNgjvfccrFo/#comments Fri, 18 Dec 2009 22:55:38 +0000 Dan http://techtips.norbysoft.com/?p=107 We’ve had an ASP application for some time now that generates PDF files from database data and outputs it to the browser. When we first wrote this app, we purchased the CutePDF Form SDK. It works very well, making it easy to enter values into our PDF forms programmatically and output the finished document as a stream to the browser. And it’s reasonably priced at around $250 for a single server.

Now that we’re converting our app over to ASP.NET, I decided to look around for other options. CutePDF’s Form SDK has a COM interface, and I wanted to see if I could find a library that was .NET native.

I found ABCpdf from WebSupergoo Software. It’s written in .NET, but it also has a COM interface for backwards compatibility with ASP. It does everything we were using CutePDF Forms SDK for and more. In addition, at least in my testing, the ABCpdf component runs slightly faster than CutePDF’s.

What really made this a clincher for us is WebSupergoo is giving away licenses of this component for free. All you have to do is link back to their website.

[Slashdot] [Digg] [Reddit] [del.icio.us] [Facebook] [Technorati] [Google] [StumbleUpon] ]]> http://techtips.norbysoft.com/2009/12/18/create-pdf-documents-in-net-for-free/feed/ 0 Create PDF documents in .NET for free http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/NorbysTechTips/~3/pNgjvfccrFo/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/NorbysTechTips/~3/pNgjvfccrFo/#comments Fri, 18 Dec 2009 22:55:38 +0000 Dan http://techtips.norbysoft.com/?p=107 We’ve had an ASP application for some time now that generates PDF files from database data and outputs it to the browser. When we first wrote this app, we purchased the CutePDF Form SDK. It works very well, making it easy to enter values into our PDF forms programmatically and output the finished document as a stream to the browser. And it’s reasonably priced at around $250 for a single server.

Now that we’re converting our app over to ASP.NET, I decided to look around for other options. CutePDF’s Form SDK has a COM interface, and I wanted to see if I could find a library that was .NET native.

I found ABCpdf from WebSupergoo Software. It’s written in .NET, but it also has a COM interface for backwards compatibility with ASP. It does everything we were using CutePDF Forms SDK for and more. In addition, at least in my testing, the ABCpdf component runs slightly faster than CutePDF’s.

What really made this a clincher for us is WebSupergoo is giving away licenses of this component for free. All you have to do is link back to their website.

[Slashdot] [Digg] [Reddit] [del.icio.us] [Facebook] [Technorati] [Google] [StumbleUpon] ]]> http://techtips.norbysoft.com/2009/12/18/create-pdf-documents-in-net-for-free/feed/ 0 Create PDF documents in .NET for free http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/NorbysTechTips/~3/pNgjvfccrFo/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/NorbysTechTips/~3/pNgjvfccrFo/#comments Fri, 18 Dec 2009 22:55:38 +0000 Dan http://techtips.norbysoft.com/?p=107 We’ve had an ASP application for some time now that generates PDF files from database data and outputs it to the browser. When we first wrote this app, we purchased the CutePDF Form SDK. It works very well, making it easy to enter values into our PDF forms programmatically and output the finished document as a stream to the browser. And it’s reasonably priced at around $250 for a single server.

Now that we’re converting our app over to ASP.NET, I decided to look around for other options. CutePDF’s Form SDK has a COM interface, and I wanted to see if I could find a library that was .NET native.

I found ABCpdf from WebSupergoo Software. It’s written in .NET, but it also has a COM interface for backwards compatibility with ASP. It does everything we were using CutePDF Forms SDK for and more. In addition, at least in my testing, the ABCpdf component runs slightly faster than CutePDF’s.

What really made this a clincher for us is WebSupergoo is giving away licenses of this component for free. All you have to do is link back to their website.

[Slashdot] [Digg] [Reddit] [del.icio.us] [Facebook] [Technorati] [Google] [StumbleUpon] ]]> http://techtips.norbysoft.com/2009/12/18/create-pdf-documents-in-net-for-free/feed/ 0 Create PDF documents in .NET for free http://norbysoft.com/blogs/2009/12/18/create-pdf-documents-in-net-for-free-6/ http://norbysoft.com/blogs/2009/12/18/create-pdf-documents-in-net-for-free-6/#comments Fri, 18 Dec 2009 22:55:38 +0000 Dan http://techtips.norbysoft.com/?p=107 We’ve had an ASP application for some time now that generates PDF files from database data and outputs it to the browser. When we first wrote this app, we purchased the CutePDF Form SDK. It works very well, making it easy to enter values into our PDF forms programmatically and output the finished document as a stream to the browser. And it’s reasonably priced at around $250 for a single server.

Now that we’re converting our app over to ASP.NET, I decided to look around for other options. CutePDF’s Form SDK has a COM interface, and I wanted to see if I could find a library that was .NET native.

I found ABCpdf from WebSupergoo Software. It’s written in .NET, but it also has a COM interface for backwards compatibility with ASP. It does everything we were using CutePDF Forms SDK for and more. In addition, at least in my testing, the ABCpdf component runs slightly faster than CutePDF’s.

What really made this a clincher for us is WebSupergoo is giving away licenses of this component for free. All you have to do is link back to their website.


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]]> http://norbysoft.com/blogs/2009/12/18/create-pdf-documents-in-net-for-free-6/feed/ 0 Create PDF documents in .NET for free http://norbysoft.com/blogs/2009/12/18/create-pdf-documents-in-net-for-free-7/ http://norbysoft.com/blogs/2009/12/18/create-pdf-documents-in-net-for-free-7/#comments Fri, 18 Dec 2009 22:55:38 +0000 Dan http://techtips.norbysoft.com/?p=107 We’ve had an ASP application for some time now that generates PDF files from database data and outputs it to the browser. When we first wrote this app, we purchased the CutePDF Form SDK. It works very well, making it easy to enter values into our PDF forms programmatically and output the finished document as a stream to the browser. And it’s reasonably priced at around $250 for a single server.

Now that we’re converting our app over to ASP.NET, I decided to look around for other options. CutePDF’s Form SDK has a COM interface, and I wanted to see if I could find a library that was .NET native.

I found ABCpdf from WebSupergoo Software. It’s written in .NET, but it also has a COM interface for backwards compatibility with ASP. It does everything we were using CutePDF Forms SDK for and more. In addition, at least in my testing, the ABCpdf component runs slightly faster than CutePDF’s.

What really made this a clincher for us is WebSupergoo is giving away licenses of this component for free. All you have to do is link back to their website.


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]]> http://norbysoft.com/blogs/2009/12/18/create-pdf-documents-in-net-for-free-7/feed/ 0 Create PDF documents in .NET for free http://norbysoft.com/blogs/2009/12/18/create-pdf-documents-in-net-for-free-8/ http://norbysoft.com/blogs/2009/12/18/create-pdf-documents-in-net-for-free-8/#comments Fri, 18 Dec 2009 22:55:38 +0000 Dan http://techtips.norbysoft.com/?p=107 We’ve had an ASP application for some time now that generates PDF files from database data and outputs it to the browser. When we first wrote this app, we purchased the CutePDF Form SDK. It works very well, making it easy to enter values into our PDF forms programmatically and output the finished document as a stream to the browser. And it’s reasonably priced at around $250 for a single server.

Now that we’re converting our app over to ASP.NET, I decided to look around for other options. CutePDF’s Form SDK has a COM interface, and I wanted to see if I could find a library that was .NET native.

I found ABCpdf from WebSupergoo Software. It’s written in .NET, but it also has a COM interface for backwards compatibility with ASP. It does everything we were using CutePDF Forms SDK for and more. In addition, at least in my testing, the ABCpdf component runs slightly faster than CutePDF’s.

What really made this a clincher for us is WebSupergoo is giving away licenses of this component for free. All you have to do is link back to their website.


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]]> http://norbysoft.com/blogs/2009/12/18/create-pdf-documents-in-net-for-free-8/feed/ 0