IIS Log file splitter

Yesterday a client phoned me about a problem where a franchise would sue the main company since the company website was apparently offline. I know that it wasn't and the main company knew that it wasn't. What a lot of people didn't know was that one of the major ISPs had a connecitivity problem due to bad weather. This ISP rents out bandwidth to smaller ISPs, which I suspect was the problem for the franchise.

Since our usual website traffic reporting tool doesn't work anymore since the latest Windows updtes have been done (W2K Server SP4), I had to resort back to using the older method to analyse the log files.

The client wanted daily information for a specific domain. Since the log file contained information of multiple domains, and the lite edition of my emergency log file analyser doesn't support multiple domains, I wrote my own IIS Log file splitting tool. This tool does split IIS log files if they contain a domain name and then creates a new file with the information for that name, and whatever comment rows were found.

Tenant problems

The tenants here were finally told to either pay or move out. Since they can't actually pay and have missed several months, they are most likely moving at the end of this month.

Looking for a new place to stay

As a direct result of my parents divorcing a couple of years ago, I have to move in one to two months from now. The exact moment is not quite certain yet. Looking around for flats or apartments to rent in Cape Town, showed either broken websites or old information. The prices are also a bit too high in most cases so that is also not affordable. I can afford accommodatino of 1500 Rand (ZAR) per month, anything higher is going to be extremely tight on my already tight budget, due to monthly debit orders. If you have any information where I could rent something (preferably close to Cape Town central), please let me know.

Another interesting day...

Today came and went fast. For a change, I was a bit earlier at the train station than the train, instead of a couple of seconds before the time. I am amazed, that I haven't actually missed it for a long time. The daily jogging also helps.

The morning at the office I spent time on fixing some bugs and upgrading some sections of a highly customised website. The afternoon was hectic chaos, during the late afternoon, somebody showed up to run some SQL server performance tests, while I was busy making a website accessible to search enige spiders, since JavaScript menus just don't work so well. The not much used noscript tag does wonders... :)

One important thing I found out about the new MSN Desktopn search: Do not use the tabbed browsing function. Internet Exploiter (Explorer) is tricked into showing different websites in the same area, and the entire browser goes totally unstable after a while and freezes. This is hopefully only because the tabs are add-ons. This kind of unstable software is what Microsoft is so well known for. On the topic, here is a joke:
How many Microsoft Programmers are required to screw in a new light bulb?
None, darkness is declared as the new standard.

I have also read in the IE Blog that the select statement is finally going to get the CSS sections that everything else had. This is years overdue and was already well know in IE4 (1998!!!).

After returning home by train, a client of my home business came. She took quite a while to pick what she wanted. Since I am renting out costumes, there is always a size issue or some people don't like certain things. After trying on many costumes, she decided on one and rented that for several days. Reminder to self: Update website prices to indicate multiple day rates.

The rest of the evening so far has continued with cooking and playing Total Annihilation. I cannot wait until the inofficial sequel is available called Supreme Commander.

Link Centre Internet Directory and Search Engine

In my usual search for new and existing directories and search engines that have free submission, I have found the Link Centre Internet Directory. The submission is quite straightforward and not as painful as some of the other submissions from various other directories. The home page is also clearly organised since a lot of immediate sub categories can be easily accessed and identified. This makes it easy for anybody trying to submit a site. The sponsored link part is also not aggressivley pushed into view like what can be usually seen. This is part of making the submission less painful. :)

Read more at linkcentre.com/