Windows Hosting Suggestions [closed] - hosting

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I've been developing a Silverlight-c# client-server game that has now gotten to the point that it should be hosted for a small amount of people can test it out. The problem is that I've never looked at windows hosting before an am thus a total noob. I'm looking for a place that allows me to run a c# command line program (the game server), and allows me to open non-standard ports for communication. Since this is only for testing, I'm going for min specs etc.

Just spin up an Amazon EC2 or Rackspace Cloud instance, easiest way by-far to do this.

If you want raw hosting as you described, Amazon cloud, as Paul said, is probably your best bet. However... given that you are doing a C#/Silverlight application, I would suggest that you highly consider Azure for your hosting, as it scales rather nicely and the free trial is a great way to test.
You will likely have to refactor aspects of your server to do this. But you would have had to do that anyway, since hosting of servers in a console is an unstable choice -- at a minimum you would have wanted to use a Windows Service for your game server if only for the auto-start option.

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How do you "show off" your web development work? [closed]

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I have searched quite a bit and haven't found an answer yet. I am learning to develop websites and am ready to put together a portfolio of everything that I have been building. My question is, what is the best/most cost effective way to display my work? I have bought several domain names and hosting for them but it's getting expensive. I want to be able to make a portfolio of my work without buying a domain name/hosting for each of them. I know I can take screes shots but this doesn't show many details of the site. Maybe host them on my own computer since they won't have much traffic? I'm sure I'm missing something obvious. Thanks for the help!
Having a personal website/portfolio is great, and you only have to pay for your own domain, which is usually about $10/year. A great free option -- that also has the benefit of showing off all your code -- is hosting projects on GitHub Pages.
I think what you are looking for is something like DigitalOcean. Digital Ocean offers very cheap and reliable server hosting so that you can do exactly what you want with your hosting. Also, with a click of a button you can install something like LAMP (Apache, MySQL, PHP). This can show your full completed projects and all of your code, unlike GitHub Pages. Also, I know 512MB of RAM my not seem like much, but it is plenty for a basic web server. And 20GB Should be good unless you also are looking for a filesystem.
Good Luck!

What does a cloud application look like? [closed]

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There are many applications that are called Cloud applications. As an example, those companies who deliver a web-based application for lots of customers (e.g. Salesforce) over the web call their application a Cloud App. On the other hand, many people know Cloud-based Apps as the ones built on top of Hadoop or similar technologies that could scale-up to many computing resources.
Now the Q is, is there an exact definition of a Cloud App? Is there any good resources on Cloud Apps? There is a nice link here, but it is a little bit old.
As far as I can tell, there's no clear definition.
The loosest is simply any application that does most of the work on a server, not on the local client's device.
The strictest definition I've heard is an application that runs almost entirely on a cluster of virtualized servers that are provided as a service, not hosted on-site. And the client device does almost nothing; probably just a simple web browser with minimal scripting.
Any definition in between could make sense in context.
I wouldn't get too caught-up by it. "Cloud" is mostly just a marketing buzz-word with no serious technical definition.

Managing laptops and desktops in the organization and pushing windows updates to them [closed]

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Here are the couple of things we are trying to achieve
Our staff currently uses a bunch of desktops and laptops. Around 30-5o of the staff, most of them are laptops (mix of HP and Lenovo). Most using Win 7 professional , a minority using XP. What is the best way to
Manage pushing the windows updates to everyone's computer since not every one installs the updates by themselves.
Managing inventory through a software so that we know how many computers are there, who is using which one, which are currently being used and which ones are in repair.
Good to have feature would also be able to install software remotely and perfom maintenance remotely.
I am fine with a solution that may not solve all the above so would love to know which one can help with most of these issues.
Thank you.
You need a Software Management Solution, and Microsoft provides just such a server/client infrastructure.
http://www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/configurationmanager/en/us/sms.aspx
Google also launched an open source effort last year to reduce the cost of software licenses by allowing employees to visit the tool, and uninstall apps. Not quite what your looking for, but you could likely extend their offering to get some use.
http://code.google.com/p/appreduce/

How do you prevent access to the 'calculator' interface on a particular OS [closed]

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How do you prevent access to the 'calculator' interface on a particular OS (say Windows). We would want to avoid usage of calculators while taking an online quiz at the site. Is this even possible?
If you're talking about through a purely web interface, then no. In order to do this, you would have to be able to monitor running processes, which is something a web app can't do. It would be too big a security risk.
If you control the machines (they're on your network, in a classroom where you can load and restrict the software, etc), you could write a program to monitor and shut down the processes. For example, a .NET application could use the System.Diagnostocs.Process object to monitor for instances of calc.exe.
A standard executable could do it, but not a web app.
Edit Added
There may be other alternatives if you control the PCs in question. Most corporate IT shops use some sort of monitoring software that will detect the use of "Unauthorized" programs. (I got busted for launching Solitaire once.) That would be more of a question for ServerFault.com, however.
Do you think it would be a good idea if websites were able to stop executable running on remote computers? Think about this seriously for a second, the security/privacy implications this would have.

Running SQL Server on EC2 [closed]

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I'm considering using Amazon EC2 for a web app with a SQL Server back end. Amazon charges extra for running an AMI with SQL Server pre-installed. I already own a copy of SQL Server Enterprise Edition. Is there anything stopping me from getting a standard Windows AMI and installing SQL Server on that?
Taking it one step further, what about creating my own Windows AMI with SQL Server?
The main issue is that I'm in the Microsoft BizSpark program and I get all the Microsoft software I can eat for 3 years as my company grows. If I have to pay for Windows Server, SQL Server, etc. through Amazon, then it kind of defeats the purpose of why I worked hard to get into the program.
All of that said, I buy into the cloud computing model, so I'm more than happy to pay for the cloud services I use. I just have a deal where the software is free for me for a period of time, so I'm trying to avoid paying twice so-to-speak.
Thanks!
I can tell you technicaly it can work, and very well.
The devil is in the details with MS licence use. If you carry licenses through BizSpark you should probably just outline your use for the app to an MS rep to make sure your planned use is covered.
Big thing to keep in mind if you roll your own AWS images. You will want to make sure not to spin up more than you can fairly use under your license at one time.
I do like the fact that when you work with MS in their developer programs or go through certification they do seem to keep you stocked with software.

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