ARCHIVE: September, 2007

Outside of "work", things are going great too! I've started a new photography class on Monday: Photographing People. It's my 5th photography course at George Brown College this year. The last of my compulsary courses required for a certificate of digital photography. Also going on outside of "work", Jen & I went to see Cirque du Soleil: Kooza on Sunday. It was awesome! Oh ya, and I had a great surprise party last weekend... thanks to everyone who came!!! What else? Yes, Wednesday I got together with my "Warrior Group" from the James Ray weekend and we had a great, energizing conference call and set some new goals to be accomplished by next week's call. What else? Killed a virus on my buddy Blake's computer.... that was a lot of fun! Unfortunately, when you've got your system too well protected, you don't get viruses. You're scratching your head thinking "That's a good thing, isn't it?". It is... unless you enjoy the challenge of manually detecting and destroying viruses. So that was fun :) Anyway, the main message here is things are crazy-busy and I'm lovin' every minute of it :)

[----GEEK ALERT----]
OK, most of you can stop reading here. I had a problem at work that was a lot of fun to troubleshoot and diagnose. I feel responsible to blog about it, on a mostly high level, being sure to drop the appropriate terms in (no, not like a spamdex!) so that anyone else with the same problem can hopefully find a quick solution to their problem when they google it. Yes, I google for help.... but what about when there's nothing out there? That's when things get manual. But remember, everytime you find help online, someone took the time to write it. And more often then not, they didn't get paid to do it. So, as a responsible geek, it's my duty to give back.

NOTE: THE STAFF AT ROBGIRARD.COM CAN NOT BE HELD RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY OF THE SUGGESTIONS ON THIS PAGE. YOU ARE FOLLOWING THESE AT YOUR OWN RISK. Without being too confusing, keep in mind this is fairly high-level. For starters, we were using webORB on an IIS server running Windows 2003 (x64). When the client would hit the site via the browser, the weborb.aspx page would time-out and fail with a cryptic error 500: failed to send. However, if someone with admin privledges hit the site, it would work. And confusingly, every subsequent hit would work, even by those without admin privledges (using integrated security model) that previously got the errors. Now, as long as someone keeps hitting the page, things seem fine. After 20 minutes, however, the "worker processes" get recycled and in order to get the webORB.aspx back into memory, somoene with admin privledges needed to hit it again.

Now, there are different ways to get around this, however when you need your client to be who they are, impersonating the site (anonymous) with an elevated account is not an option. After lots of digging, poking and prodding, I was able to find out that it is the licensing file (weborblicense.config) that was failing to load. Interestingly, after looking deeper at it using process monitor as my main tool (with advanced options turned on!), I could see there were strange calls into WMI. Remember... this is the nutshell version of the story, believe it or not! Anyway, the license process checks the machine name and some other information to make sure the license is running on the right machine.

How does it check the machine name? With a call to WMI using CIMV2, it gets the info. This call is an administrative function! So, what you need to do is give the rights to the user group that will hit your site. Go into WMI (Windows Management Instrumentation) from Computer Management | Services and Applications | WMI Control. Chose properties and find you should be at the root. Expand it, and go into Security of the CIMV2 node. Add your group, and make sure the following rights are permitted (3 of these are inherited by Everyone inclusion, but you can add them anyway to be sure it will work in case you had removed a lot of the Everyone rights to harden your box).

1. Execute Methods (already available based on Everyone)
2. Provider Write (already available based on Everyone)
3. Enable Account (already available based on Everyone)
4. Remote Enable

Ta Da! That should do it! Trust me, finding that single check box was A LOT of fun :)
If this solution worked for you, please send me a quick email. This reinforces to me that I am not wasting time to post things like this. I usually only post these once I've exhausted my searching for an answer and having to come up with something that is unique. PLEASE DO NOT WRITE ME FOR SUPPORT. I WILL NOT BE HELD RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY OF THE SUGGESTIONS ON THIS PAGE. YOU ARE FOLLOWING THESE AT YOUR OWN RISK.

Well folks, that's all for now. Have an awesome weekend!

----- 09.15.2007 --------
OK, although finding the time wasn't easy, I did manage to get a gallery of pictures from San Diego ready for you. Since I have to run, I'll keep this update very brief and just post the pics. More later when I have more time to write. Click here for the pics.

----- 09.12.2007 --------
I was in such a rush last week, I'm not even sure if I remembered to mention that Jen & I were going to San Diego. Anyway, we went, and now we're back. We went for James Ray's "Harmonic Wealth Weekend". It was awesome! 2 very long days that felt short. We'd start our day around 6:30am, lining up to get into the conference room, and then it would run all the way through until after 1 AM the first day, and almost midnight the 2nd. Very long hours, but they flew by and kept my interest. I picked up a ton of great isights and knowledge and look forward into applying these in my life. If you're interested in hearing more, write me and I can elaborate.

As well as attending the conference, we met some great people from all over (mostly the US). There's a few that we met that I really hope to visit someday.... an excuse to see more of the US :) And of course, if any of you are reading this, you are more then welcome to come visit Jen & I in Toronto. We've got a spare bedroom with you name on it... and our location is hard to beat! ALso in San Diego, we went to the zoo, boarded an aircraft carrier (USS Midway), and toured around. I'm working on getting some pictures up.... gimme a few days... there are a TON to go through!!!

And last but not least, I celebrated my birthday, which was September 8th. I hit the big 3-0 over the weekend. Someone said "30's the new 20...." I like that! :) After listening to James Ray, I've decided I will live to 115 years old. Don't believe me? Stick around so I can prove it! Nothing better then a motivational, life-path-setting weekend to spend my 30th! :) Well... I gotta hit the sack... work will come mighty early tomorrow, especially since I haven't had much sleep and have 3 potential hours of jet lag to get over. Later! OH.... and come back soon for some new pics... I got some great ones at the San Diego Zoo!

----- 09.04.2007 --------
I haven't updated for awhile because I haven't really haven't had the courage to do so. One of my best friends, Chris Mansey, passed away on Friday, August 31st. He has been fighting cancer for the past 4 years or so and cancer eventually won. As much as I want to fill you in on all the details of our amazing friendship, to do so would be to recognize that he's no longer with us.... something I have not yet been able to do. It was 10 years ago this exact weekend that just passed that I met Chris, when I moved to Toronto. He's the first and longest-standing friend I've had here. Wait a sec... I thought I wasn't going to get into it? Another time... I can't just yet... things are too painfully fresh for me to think about it and write. I'm a little in denial right now and it's easier this way, atleast for now. His memorial will be Sept 15th, in Cobourg (his hometown). My heart goes out to all of those who have known and loved Chris over the years. A really amazing, remarkable man/friend/human, and I'm going to miss him greatly. He is by far the strongest person I've ever met, and his battle against cancer was inspiring to all, the way he held his head high and rolled with the punches.

On a much lighter note... here are some pics to look at from the Ex this weekend. I enjoyed the distractions of the planes.... so much in fact that I went 2 days in a row. And also because I was fortunate enough to meet a man by the name of Knox M. Henry... the President of the CNE. I met him Friday night @ the bar in the Radisson and he gave my friend & I free passes to the Ex. Bonus! Anyway, here are the pics.... Enjoy!

-------------------------
SEE THE ARCHIVE FOR PAST MUMBLINGS

© 2000, Rob Girard dot com