Ramblings & Rants : Personal

DeployNow.com and "Smoke"

Michael — Fri, 13 May 2005 01:10:00 GMT

I’ve had a lot of people asking me lately what has become of the DeployNow.com site and more importantly, about Smoke – my Windows Installer validation tool.

As enthusiastic as I was about building a community site for installation developers, the idea just didn’t take off on it’s own, and I just don’t have the time to invest in it right now. The domain expired a while back and I just never bothered to renew it. I just paid the renewal fee a few minutes ago, so it should be back online in a day or two, but please don’t expect any updates or new content anytime soon.

In the meantime, you also fine Smoke here.

In Memory of Zach

Michael — Mon, 18 Apr 2005 14:19:00 GMT

Last Wedenesday, Amanda and I got the phone call that everyone dreads. The details were vague and sketchy, but in a shaky and uncertain voice, my Mother-In-Law informed us that my Brother-In-Law Zach had been in an accident and she needed to go with the police to identify his body.

Zach and two of his friends, Chance and Andy were speeding down a back road in Loganville when Zach lost control of the car and struck a tree. All three boys were killed instantly. The car was destroyed to the point that they were unable to determine the make and model of the car.

Friends and family converged on Loganville from all around the country over the next few days while the family fielded a non-stop stream of phone calls and visitors. The outpouring of support and love for our entire family is something I still cannot begin to describe.

All three of my kids loved Zach dearly and saw him almost daily. Breaking the news to them and helping them through the last 5 days has been really tough. Each accepted it in their own way, but the most heart-breaking was my youngest daughter Gabi who kept saying “It's ok. We won't forget Uncle Zach because we have pictures of him.“ She tried so hard to console everyone and try to make them feel better. It was really touching...

Zach’s funeral service was held on Saturday to a crowd of family and friends so large that some people could not even get in to the chapel and had to listen from the hallways outside. While Garth Brooks’ “The Dance” played, the overwhelming sound of sniffling and sobbing said more than anyone’s words possibly could have. After some touching words from his friends, I took the opportunity to speak about my first memories of Zach, walking hand-in-hand with him through Opryland when he was just a little kid. I spoke about how it was clear to me that while he had been robbed of so many things life has to offer it was clear to me that the one thing there was no shortage of in his life was the love of an enormous number of friends and family. I thanked everyone on behalf of the family for filling his short life with so much love.

Rest In Peace Zach, Andy and Chance

Guru.com & Dispute Resolution

Michael — Sat, 15 Jan 2005 14:30:00 GMT

If you’ve been following along, I am trying to recover some money that I paid for web design work that I ultimately learned had been stolen from http://www.creative.com by Shayna McCullough under the name of a non-existent company called Iconic Media.

Early on in the process, I went to guru.com which is where the transaction took place, hoping that they had some policies in place to protect me under these circumstances. I search ed all over the place and couldn’t really find anything, so I eventually ended up scouring their terms of service. I was disappointed to see how vigorously they position themselves as a provider of payment services. I guess I understand this in a way since they really don’t have any control over who does what when it comes to actually executing these projects, but it does seem that a basic tenant of their service is to provide some insulation and protection should thing go bad.

I did not get guru involved in this early enough, I guess because I just didn’t think they would offer any help. I was wrong to have made that assumption, and while this is not yet resolved, I think their actions thus far are commendable and I’d like to thank them for the effort they have already expended.

Within a couple of hours of filing my complaint on their website, I received a fairly lengthy reply that was organized and well thought out. This wasn’t the kind of template based reply you might expect, but a couple hundred words that dealt specifically with this case and the people involved. The message described exactly what they would do to try to resolve the matter, and what my options were if they were not successful. They asked for more information, which I supplied to them, and they followed up again to let me know exactly what they were planning to do.

I have not heard what the outcome of those efforts were yet, but I am really impressed by the sincerity with which they are pursuing this. I still don’t know if I’ll hire anyone off guru.com again or not, but I do feel a lot better knowing that they do care.

I think the lesson here is that it is always better to try to get someone to help you than to just conclude based on the their legal mumbo jumbo that you are all alone in these kinds of matters.

To the folks at guru, I thank you for your efforts, whatever the outcome may be!

Business Fraud Alert!

Michael — Fri, 14 Jan 2005 14:49:00 GMT

A few months agao, I contracted a “company” that goes by the name “Iconic Media” through http://www.guru.com to design a new site for an eCommerce project of mine which was to be launched at http://www.xambi.com. A woman named Shayna McCollough was the one and only person from this outfit with whom I have dealt with. After paying her $2000.00 and investing significant amounts of time in waiting for a design, she finally delivered what I initially believed to be a decent design. After having a few peers review the design, it was brought to my attention that the design was an exact rip-off of http://www.creative.com. When approached about this flagrant theft, Ms. McCollough mysteriously disappeared and has not been heard from since.

Please be aware that this work was contracted through Guru.com which portrays itself as a safe intermediary between companies and contractors, yet has done absolutely nothing to help us resolve this situation.

At all costs, please avoid using this company and if you are so inclined, drop Ms. McCollough an email of better yet, a phone call and let her know what you think of her dishonest, if not criminal acts. Here is all the info I have:

http://www.iconic.cc

Shayna McCollough
smccullough@iconic.cc
Phone: (727) 507-0424
Fax: (310) 388-5747

A whois search turned this up:

Registrant:
   Iconic, Inc.

   468 N. Camden Drive, Suite 200
   Beverly Hills, California 90210
   United States

   Registered through: GoDaddy.com (http://www.godaddy.com)
   Domain Name: ICONIC.CC
      Created on: 26-Oct-03
      Expires on: 26-Oct-05
      Last Updated on: 19-Oct-04

   Administrative Contact:
      Manager, Domain info@gmi.cc
      Iconic, Inc.
      468 N. Camden Drive, Suite 200
      Beverly Hills, California 90210
      United States
      8882888135      Fax -- 8882888135
   Technical Contact:
      Manager, Domain info@gmi.cc
      Iconic, Inc.
      468 N. Camden Drive, Suite 200
      Beverly Hills, California 90210
      United States
      8882888135      Fax -- 8882888135

   Domain servers in listed order:
      NS1.IDX.NET
      NS2.IDX.NET

A google search on that address revealed a plethora of businesses using the same address, which would seem to suggest that it is a mail drop of some sort.

A State of California Corporate Search turned this up:

Corporation
GEMINI MEDIA, INC.
Number: C2390033	Date Filed: 2/4/2002	Status: suspended
Jurisdiction: California
Address
6176 PERWINKLE WAY
WOODLAND HILLS, CA 91367
Agent for Service of Process
SCOTT C LONIS
6176 PERWINKLE WAY
WOODLAND HILLS, CA 91360

Lastly, if you are an attorney, know an attorney, or have contacts in law enforcement, please send their info on to me as I can use all the help I can get in working this out.

Thanks!

UPDATE:

Here are some image links:

A snaphot of each site:
http://msmvps.com/images/msmvps_com/michael/1069/o_Full1.png
http://msmvps.com/images/msmvps_com/michael/1069/o_Full2.png

The Header of each site up close:
http://msmvps.com/images/msmvps_com/michael/1069/o_Header.png

The footers:
http://msmvps.com/images/msmvps_com/michael/1069/o_Footers.gif

Left Nav:
http://msmvps.com/images/msmvps_com/michael/1069/o_LeftNav.png

Lower portion of left nav:
http://msmvps.com/images/msmvps_com/michael/1069/o_LeftNav2.png

Page Headers:
http://msmvps.com/images/msmvps_com/michael/1069/o_PageHeaders.png

Also, you should know that the differences you do see between these designs is in every case, a result of my feedback to them during the process. Of course at that time, I had no idea the design had been stolen from Creative...

Washing my hands...

Michael — Tue, 11 Jan 2005 02:19:00 GMT

So, after all that ruckus with Rob Mensching about COM Advertising from before Christmas, and my sincere gesture to clear the air, it seems that nothing is really resolved after all.

Just before I posted my very nice attempt at clearing the air, I put together a little sample that exactly duplicated the scenario Rob gave me under which COM Advertising had the alleged ‘bugs’ or ‘wonky’ behavior. Of course, no matter how hard I tried, I could not break COM Advertising or even come close to reproducing the behavior Rob described. It worked perfectly every time in every scenario I threw at it. I wanted to clear the air between Rob and I, but wasn’t and never have been willing to concede that there was a bug there unless Rob could tell me what the bug was. Of course he never did, so I very thoroughly documented my test rig and the scenarios I threw at it, and emailed it to him for him to comment on. I told him I wanted to clear the air and would be posting an apology to that end, and asked that he either show me the alleged bug(s) or concede (publicly) that there are no bugs in COM Advertising. It’s been almost three weeks now, and I’ve never heard from him again. At first, I thought he was working like a mad-man trying to create some bizarre scenario in which it would break, but eventually I concluded that when faced with irrefutable evidence against his position, he just decides he’s too busy to back up his allegations. This is not the first time, but actually the second time. The first was over some bogus comments he made about using INSTALLDIR instead of TARGETDIR, but that’s a story for another day…

So, while I wish him and the WiX project well, I am done with him. He lost my respect through this episode, and in my opinion is a poor reflection on Microsoft’s integrity.

I’ll be working on an update to smoke sometime this week, then be posting the source code for anyone who is interested in using it.

Doh! - My Secret Agenda Revealed...

Michael — Wed, 22 Dec 2004 22:56:00 GMT

Ha! Ha! Thanks for the laugh Justin!

Seriously now. How anyone can come to the conclusion I have a secret agenda to promote some other product when I am in the process of contributing smoke, and fighting hard to keep features working with WiX Toolkit is a mystery to me, but I guess stranger things have happened…

For the Record:
I have NO AFFILIATION with any company anywhere. I am NOT pimpin’ any commercial product, and frankly, even if someone wanted to pay me to evangelize their product, I don’t think they could afford me (but they are welcome to try!). I’ve got big plans for the future and a great relationship with industry leaders like Wise and InstallShield. I may do work for them from time to time, but the only agenda I am pushing is my own, and there is certainly nothing sinister about that...

Provider Model WebCast Fun!

Michael — Wed, 27 Oct 2004 23:41:00 GMT

Wow! Robert McLaws and Jeff Julian just wrapped up their WebCast: “Provider Model: The Flexible Design Pattern of ASP.NET 2.0”.

Not only was it a great presentation, but two really cool new things also were announced:

Robert announced that InterScape is releasing a Provider Model framework for .NET 1.1. This is awesome because it will allow us to start building Providers today. When .NET 2.0 is released, all we’ll have to do is modify our classes to inherit from the 2.0 Provider Model instead of the Interscape framework. Way Cool!
Robert has a great vision for the Provider Model and really wants to see people adopt it. To support this, he has announced the launch of http://www.providermodel.com. This site is a community resource where you can collaborate with others, browse a gallery of providers, and read provider-related blogs. Again – Way Cool!

Robert & Julian – Great Job!

P.S. Watch the WebCast replay when it is available. If you can figure out what I did to Robert to heckle him during the demo, I’ll send you a ThinkGeek gift certificate! First person to post specific details in my comments wins!

MSN Music Customer Service

Michael — Tue, 26 Oct 2004 01:22:00 GMT

So – I was searching out some new music on MSN Music today with WMP10. I did a quick search for Smile Empty Soul, and of course found the album right away. The problem is that what I got was sort of like some search results. It had two albums displayed near the bottom with identical images and I (incorrectly) assumed that it was a duplicate search result. I quickly clicked the first one, skimmed over the album details to ensure it was what I wanted and clicked the “Buy Album” button.

The problem is that the one I bought is the edited version. I realize now that the first one I saw which I thought was a duplicate was the one with the explicit lyrics.

While I was really irritated with myself for failing to notice the difference, I was also iriitated with MSN Music for not marking the album more clearly as being an edited version. I’m not one who usually has great luck with customer service, but I figured it was at least worth filing my complaint. On clicking around for a minute or two, I found an option to chat with the MSN Music support folks. Feeling brave, I gave it a shot.

I filled out a short form explaining my problem and click the “Chat” button. In about 4 seconds, I was connected with a support rep named Sha-Sha. She echoed my beef back to me to be sure she understood. Once I confirmed that she had it right, she had me wait while she updated the support ticket with my issue and sent to their content team. To my utter amazement, she then told me she had credited my account the 8.91 the album had cost me so I could go buy the new one.

The whole process took less than 5 minutes! Maybe I should not be so surprised. Maybe all support and customer service should all be this good, but the fact of the matter is that it’s not. In my opinion, MSN Music’s support is top notch!

Congrats on doing a fantastic job MSN!

BTW, Breaking Benjamin just showed up on MSN in the last few days. If you like Good Charlotte and Three Days Grace, definitely check these guys out!

Implementing a Windows Installer Validation Engine in VB6

Michael — Wed, 20 Oct 2004 15:10:00 GMT

A recent topic in the msi newsgroups has focused around implementing a Windows Installer debugger or validation engine in VB6. Conceptually, this isn't all that tough. The concept focus around a successful implementation of the MsiSetExternalUI method and the companion callback. Basically, the steps would go something like this:

Figure out exactly which messages you want to get from Windows Installer and calculate the corresponding bitfield
Implement the callback handler method
Call MsiSetInternalUI to ensure that no UI will be displayed by Windows Installer
Call MsiSetExternalUI passing a pointer to the callback method, and the bitfield describing which messages you want to recieve
Invoke an Installer action by running msiexec with the appropriate options, or using the API/Automation methods
Handle messages in the callback
Call MsiSetExternalUI to restore the old handler.

Not so tough, right? Well -- We have to bear in mind that the API's needed to do this were written for C++ programmers and not for VB Programmers. While that is indeed a bummer, it does not stopping us from getting the job done. Instead, it just creates an extra challenge of getting the API declares just right in VB.

To accomplish this, we first need to create a Module in which to implement the MsiCallback.

Option Explicit

Private m_Val As MSIValidator
Private m_OldHandler As Long
'
Const INSTALLLOGMODE_USER = 8
Private Declare Function MsiSetExternalUI Lib "msi.dll" Alias "MsiSetExternalUIA" (ByVal puiHandler As Long, ByVal dwMessageFilter As Long, ByVal pvContext As Long) As Long
Private Declare Function SysAllocStringByteLen Lib "oleaut32" (ByVal lpString As Long, ByVal lLen As Long) As String
Private Declare Function lstrlen Lib "kernel32" Alias "lstrlenA" (ByVal lpString As Long) As Long

Public Function SetExtUI(val As MSIValidator)
    Set m_Val = val
    m_OldHandler = MsiSetExternalUI(ByVal GetAddress(AddressOf MSICallBack), INSTALLLOGMODE_USER, 99999)
End Function

'Simple function to return a long pointer
Private Function GetAddress(ByVal Addr As Long) As Long
    GetAddress = Addr
End Function

Public Function UnSetExtUI() As Long
    UnSetExtUI = MsiSetExternalUI(m_OldHandler, 0, 0)
End Function

'This is the callback function.
'All wee do is call into the MSIValidator class and let it do what it wants
'NOTE: This should always return 1
Public Function MSICallBack(ByVal pvContext As Long, ByVal iMessageType As Long, ByVal szMessage As Long) As Integer
    MSICallBack = m_Val.HandleMessage(ByVal iMessageType, ByVal PtrToVBString(szMessage))
End Function

'Convert a string pointer to a VB string
Public Function PtrToVBString(ByVal lPointer As Long) As String
    PtrToVBString = SysAllocStringByteLen(lPointer, lstrlen(lPointer))
End Function

As you can see the Module above is nothing fancy. It holds a member variable which is a reference to our MSIValidator class. When you call SetExtUI, you have to pass a reference to a MSIValidator class which is then stored for later use when messages are recieved.

Next, we need to create the MSIValidator class. This class will be where most of the work is done.

Option Explicit

Public Event OnInfo(iceNumber As Integer, Info As String)
Public Event OnWarning(iceNumber As Integer, Warning As String)
Public Event OnError(iceNumber As Integer, Error As String)
'
Const INSTALLUILEVEL_NONE = 2
'
Private Declare Function MsiSetInternalUI Lib "msi.dll" (ByVal dwUILevel As Long, hwnd As Long) As Long
Private Declare Function MsiOpenPackage Lib "msi.dll" Alias "MsiOpenPackageA" (ByVal szDatabasePath As String, phDatabase As Long) As Integer
Private Declare Function MsiSequence Lib "msi.dll" Alias "MsiSequenceA" (ByVal hDatabase As Long, ByVal szTable As String, ByVal iSequenceMode As Long) As Integer
Private Declare Function MsiCloseHandle Lib "msi.dll" (ByVal hAny As Long) As Integer

'
Public Sub ValidateMSI(MSIFilePath As String, CUBFilePath As String)
    '
    'Create two Installer instances (might be able to get by with one...)
    Dim oWI As Installer
    Set oWI = CreateObject("WindowsInstaller.Installer")
    Dim oWI2 As Installer
    Set oWI2 = CreateObject("WindowsInstaller.Installer")
    '
    'We need to make a temp copy of the msi to avoid mucking up the original
    Dim oFS As New Scripting.FileSystemObject
    oFS.CopyFile MSIFilePath, App.Path & "\temp.msi", True
    '
    'Open both databases
    Dim oDB As Database
    Set oDB = oWI.OpenDatabase(App.Path & "\temp.msi", 1)
    Dim oDB2 As Database
    Set oDB2 = oWI2.OpenDatabase(CUBFilePath, 1)
    '
    'Merge the cub file into our databse and save the changes
    oDB.Merge oDB2
    oDB.Commit
    '
    'Now we are going to switch to using the API, so let's clean up first
    Set oDB = Nothing
    Set oDB2 = Nothing
    Set oWI = Nothing
    Set oWI2 = Nothing
    '
    'Ok, let's set the external UI
    MSICallBack.SetExtUI Me
    '

    Dim lRet As Long
    Dim lHandle As Long
    'Make sure no visible UI appears
    lRet = MsiSetInternalUI(INSTALLUILEVEL_NONE, 0)
    'Open the package and get a handle
    lRet = MsiOpenPackage(App.Path & "\temp.msi", lHandle)
    'Run the _ICESequence Table
    '****All the magic will happen as soon as we call this method
    lRet = MsiSequence(lHandle, "_ICESequence", 0)

    'Ok, we are done now. Let's clean up
    MsiCloseHandle lHandle
    MSICallBack.UnSetExtUI
End Sub

Public Function HandleMessage(ByVal lMsgType As Long, ByVal sMsg As String) As Long
    Debug.Print sMsg
    '
    Dim sData() As String 'Array to hold the tab delimited data
    Dim iType As Integer 'The type of message
    Dim iICE As Integer 'The ICE which is sending the message
    Dim sDesc As String 'The message text
    '
    Dim i As Long
    '
    'We really don't want any errors being raised here
    On Error Resume Next
    'Split the data on the tabs
    sData = Split(sMsg, vbTab)

    'Grab the data from the array
    iType = CInt(sData(1))
    iICE = Right(sData(0), 2)
    sDesc = sData(2)
    '
    'Raise our events
    Select Case iType
        Case 1
            RaiseEvent OnError(iICE, sDesc)
        Case 2
            RaiseEvent OnWarning(iICE, sDesc)
        Case 3
            RaiseEvent OnInfo(iICE, sDesc)
    End Select
    'Always return 1
    HandleMessage = 1
End Function

Hopefully, the code above is pretty self-explantory. Basically, we make a temp copy of the msi file, merge the .cub file into it, then run the "_ICESequence" table.

Let me close this post with a word of caution. Anytime you are mucking around with API calls from VB, or implementing callback functions, you are treading in dangerous territory. Mistakes are common. Crashes are common. Please don't blame me if you screw up your system or lose some data as a result of toying with this code.

Announcing DeployNow.com!!!

Michael — Fri, 01 Oct 2004 20:08:00 GMT

I’m really happy to formally announce the launch of my new deployment related community site!

http://www.deploynow.com

Basically, the site is a place for me to post articles on deployment technologies, write about tools and technologies, and to host a forum in which I can help others in the community to achieve success with their deployment challenges!

There are some great sites out there already, run by some folks that I consider to be my friends (Stefan, Bob, Darwin…), and I am not launching this site in an effort to compete with them, but instead, to focus on a more specific goal of providing very specific advice on how to solve common challenges developers face when deploying sophisticated applications today. I hope to provide information that user’s of all commercial tools like InstallAnywhere.NET, InstallShield, and Wise, as well as user’s of the Platform SDK will find of value.

Help me make this a valuable resource for the community by spreading the word! Link to it! Blog about it! Post your questions!

Lastly, I have tons of ideas for articles, but hope that you’ll help me prioritize that list by letting me know what YOU want to read about! Post a comment and let me know!

Rob Mensching on Open Source???

Michael — Mon, 27 Sep 2004 10:47:00 GMT

Rob Mensching put up another post on Open Source stuff today. While I’m sure it is all very interesting, I find myself becoming really disappointed in Rob and his blog. Don’t get me wrong, Rob’s commentary on Open Source is certainly interesting (in moderation), but I don’t subscribe to Rob to hear about Open Source stuff. I want to hear about WIX. I want to hear about deployment technologies. Didn’t he rant about fighting the good fight for “setup” a while back??? Is he still fighting that good fight, or has he found a new fight???

.Text Help Please???

Michael — Wed, 22 Sep 2004 15:02:00 GMT

Can anyone point me to a reference guide explaining what the options under the “Advanced” section of the New Post page do?

Entry Name?

- ???

Excerpt?

- I'm guessing that you can put an excerpt from your post here and have it sent in your feed instead of the full text. Is that correct?

Title URL?

- ???

Source Name?

- Is this the text displayed for the link/url below?

Source URL?

- Is this for linking to someone else's blog entry?

Telligent is Hiring

Michael — Wed, 22 Sep 2004 14:53:00 GMT

So, I just noticed that Rob Howard posted a couple of cool sounding positions at Telligent that they are looking to fill.

http://blogs.msdn.com/rhoward/archive/2004/09/21/232682.aspx

Too bad that the timeframe is 6-8 weeks…

Who the heck is Michael Sanford?

Michael — Fri, 13 Aug 2004 12:10:00 GMT

As a first post, I think it would be appropriate to provide some background on who I am.

About Me

My name is Michael Sanford. If your familiar with Microsoft lingo, I am a MCP, MCSE, and MCSD. I am also a second year MVP with a specialty in Windows Installer (a part of the Windows Server – SDK). Currently I am an unemployed programming junkie. Why am I unemployed? Well – that’s a good question with a long answer. I’ll surely provide more info on this later!

I’ve been a developer for about 10 years, and have worked for some great companies like RDA Consultants, Andersen Consulting (now called Accenture), CMD Group and more…

About 3 years ago I left my job (Software Development Manager) at CMD Group to embark on an amazing journey. I had a vision of creating an Installation Authoring tool that would compete with Wise and InstallShield. I had a lot of idealistic visions of how to do a better job of implementing the tool, and supporting customers. ActiveInstall 1.0 was released in 2001 after more than 18 months of heads-down design development 16 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Users really liked what I was doing with ActiveInstall and it received some great reviews. Unfortunately, such a long development cycle had depleted all the capital I had available and left me with a really exciting product, but no money to market it with. None the less, I did what I could and was prepared to stick with my grass-roots marketing efforts for as long as it took to make my baby a huge success.

After having been approached twice by other companies interested in acquiring the product, I was approached by Eric Shapiro, CEO of Zero G Software. Eric really impressed me with his visions and easily convinced me that this was the right move for my product. In November of last year, ActiveInstall was acquired by Zero G Software and is now sold by Zero G under the name “InstallAnywhere.NET”.

About My Family

I have the tremendous fortune of having an incredible family that I often wonder if I really deserve:

Amanda – My amazing wife who puts up with an unbelievable amount of crap from me. Amanda is an accomplished artist who creates amazing lampwork. Lampwork is a form of art where one takes rods of colored glass and forms them into glass beads or other designs and shapes. She runs a website called FlameOfMind. Please take a moment and check out her amazing work.

Miranda – My oldest daughter. Miranda is 7 years old and is a brilliant 2^nd grader. She loves Pokemon and creating books.

Payton – My son. Need I say more? ;-) Actually Payton is such a reflection of myself, it is really scary! He is 5 years old and just started Kindergarten last week. He came home on his second day of school with a note from his teacher saying he would not stop talking during his classes. Go figure…

Gabriella – My 4 year old daughter. If you don’t have kids, or think you don’t want kids, an afternoon with Gabi is guaranteed to change your mind. She is the sweetest, cutest and funniest little kid I’ve ever seen. (I’m not biased or anything…)