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Closed 10 years ago.
Simply trying to publish a web service through Visual Studio 2012 like I always do, and everything locks up. You see a quick flash of a publish dialog, then it disappears - nothing can be done but to kill the process. My Azure publish works fine, but other projects like MVC do the same locking behavior. I can't alt-tab to anything, I have found no other solution then to kill it. Any ideas? Attached is the error I get if I try to restart.
P.S. I have tried restarting and no add-ins are installed.
Actually turned out to be the first signs of a hardware failure... Apple... never again.
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Closed 11 years ago.
I have several backup files in a location, say C:\backup_folder\...
Now I need a batch script (.bat), so that all files under C:\backup_folder\*.zip will be moved to a particular FTP location (ftp.mysite.com).
Also, if the file already exists on the FTP site, they must be overwritten with the new file... Can anyone show me a script that performs these backups?
The trick with automated file xfer with Windows (for me at least) has always been using the correct commandline upload tool. For ME, when I've wanted a shell-scriptable tool, that usually ends up being rsync from cygwin. But since you asked about Windows batch with FTP (as opposed to a safer, more reliable solution, you might want to try using a Windows build of wput
Since you want to overwrite the file each time, you would use the -u (re-upload) option. I found wput supported most of the FTP options I wanted, and should handle this job. Although I absolutely agree with your desire to always re-upload the entire file, you CAN set it for a few optimizations that you might find handy if you're uploading over a slow link, like using a timestamp comparison to decide if you don't need to upload (-N). Another option backup scripts MAY want is to remove your source file after a successful upload (-R option).
I just feel it's wise to point out that FTP isn't nearly as reliable a protocol as I would want in a backup script ... but your desire to always re-upload the file(s) is a good one.
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Closed 7 years ago.
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I'm trying to get an idea of how often my software is being installed. I was thinking about just including a simple URL call in the background the very first time the software is started. I am not trying to gather a lot of information. I really just want to get the date and time the software was installed. Is this unethical or commonly done by other developers?
You could always just have the installer open up a "Thank you for installing our product" page that's hosted on your web server. Since this page would normally only be hit after an install it should give you a decent indicator without being evil.
P.s. Before anyone hounds me on this please note that Firefox does this directly after an install.
In my opinion, yes, sending any data back that isn't authorized is unethical. Most software will prompt you to ask if it's OK to send back anonymous usage data. You could also track downloads and guestimate how many of them are actually installed.
There are a number of software products that gather data from the user but they all get the user's consent before sending any information. I suggest you do the following:
Ask the users to register, this way you will know some basic information like (roughly) when the software was installed.
If you need more complex/interesting usage statistics then make this a feature that users can easily turn off. Some people are not comfortable sending any data to you, Eclipse does this very well, the first time it wants to gather some usage statistics it allows the user to turn off the feature right away.
Finally , which ever way you implement this feature ensure that the users can see exactly what data you are collecting and sending and can choose to not do so.
If you do this in this correctly way you will gather some data in a way that does annoy your users or intrude on their privacy.
Just popup before installation:
"If you click Yes, the date and time the software was installed will be sent to us via your Internet connection. We would appreciate it a lot."
Let "Yes" be the default option and avoid the popup if there is no Internet connection available.
Doing it behind the scenes is unethical in my opinion.
you will always have to ask before calling home with anything, no matter how harmless you think it is.
kind of like you should always ask permission before putting a shortcut on a desktop.
If you want to do that — ask user permission.
Some companies just have automatic check for updates feature.
Only do this if your application uses the network as a primary function, otherwise a user will get weirded out by their standalone application asking to get internet access through their firewall.
Also: If you add in-line updates to your software, or ask to check for software updates periodically, you can easily log this information.
this is kind of tricky, if u are getting the information about the software only; without identifying the user, perhaps it might be passed as alright.
just think of google, i know it never gets installed on your system, but chrome again is a google product, which i believe probes ur google searches to give relevant advertisements. what is reading a cookie, is it any different from reading information from your computer.
also i have seen relevant advertising poping up in yahoo mail when i search for shopping stuff on google. they for sure are reading some info on your computer or browser session.
I think its ok to send the info from software, as long as u have no way to identify from what user it is coming from.
I don't see any particular areas of unethical or illegality except for this: My software, my computer, none of your business if I want to install it or just have it sitting in an installer.
Although I think a convincing argument could be made that it literally is your business to know about your software's installs.
Best route is simply to request to send 'anonymous usage information'.
How many of you windows users tell windows its OK to phone home and verify that your copy is genuine?
0.
There are a lot of high and mighty my-computer-is-my-domain answers here, and the bottom line is while its rude, its not against the law. Rather, its commonplace. Stick a disclosure in the EULA and you're good to go.
It is unethical to hide your collection of usage statistics.
That said, almost every website has a TON of personally identifiable information in the form of web logs that are almost never used to their "fullest potential for evil"
To ethically collect your install count just ask the users to activate the product on first usage or ....
Provide something useful! Prompt the user to check for updates on first use.
This approach IS ethical, can get you better and more relevant data (you can put voluntary forms together) and allows you to make a value exchange.
I think the circumstances also play a part.
If the app is a free app and the developers find that knowing each time an app is installed then as long as the user is told then most users wouldn't have an issue with that.
If the app contains sensitivie data (i.e. financial or credentials) and you notice the app calling home then that would freak most users out and wonder what else is being sent.
Also another point is having it call home each time the app is installed doesn't really tell the developers much, what if a user reinstalls the app or the operating system? What if the call home is denied by security software or their computer isn't even connected?
In my opinion if you can't collect meaningful useful stats then is it really worth collecting them to analyze them?
It’s unethical.
In the case the URL is opened in the default browser: A user might have explictly set beforehand that your tool should not be allowed to connect to the Internet. If your tool just calls the browser, you are circumventing this.
In some countries, users may face oppression or punishment for using specific tools. While they might manage to get the tool via sneakernet, your phoning home would be detectable by authorities.
You might lose/change your domain. If Malice registers it, she’ll have access to the incoming data from installations of your tool.
When your software wants to phone home, inform your users beforehand and allow them to cancel it.
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Closed 11 years ago.
Hey Y'all - I'm using the ~/Library/PDF Services directory to inject an item into the PDF Workflow sub-menu (Print dialog box) in OS-X/Leopard.
I got an indication that the PDF Services directory is gone in Snow Leopard. Does anyone know the correct way to hook into the Print dialog's PDF Workflow going forward?
Thanks!
[Note: I got some time on an S-Leo system the other day. find made it pretty clear that the user ~/Library/PDF Services is not to be found someplace else. The system /Library/PDF Services is still in place. I changed my app to just make the directory if it is missing, and the S-Leo print dialog box finds it just fine. So the soln is to just make the directory if it is not already there.]
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Applications often have registration keys.
It can arguably be placed in a file or in the registry.
Sometimes, an application is deactivated by entry of another key,
or the passing of a date, etc. Where can one safely
store such information about an application be deactivated?
A file isn't the answer; a backup copy can be restored to
defeat this. The registry is a weak answer, only because
most people don't know its there, and don't think to restore it,
and if they do they restore the whole thing which usually
has other discouraging side effects.
It seems to me that storing deactivation information is
hopelessly unsafe, as old copies can always be restored.
At best one can hide this data by obfuscation under
cryptically named files or registry keys.
Is there a standard trick I don't know, or a standard
scheme supported by Windows, that helps with this problem?
Round 2: I've seen a number of answers. None of them
specifically say "you can't do this" but several imply
that phoning home is the only good choice (for "deactivation").
Let's assume phoning home and dongles are NOT the answer,
and one has to leave something on the machine. What do
typical licensing schemes actually do in this case?
In contrast to the IPhone and other closed environments on an open platform like windows/linux you always run a very high risk that the protection is easily circumventable (local serial protection) or will be cracked by reversing and patching your code. Virtually every modern single player game has this problem. Additionally it is very hard to find a solution that does not annoy the user too much. We all remember the Sony-CD-Rootkit disaster and in the game industry its the always the newest DVD-protection that doesn't work on all drives the way its supposed to. But what can you do? You can try the usual serial, call-home option and ban certain serials in newer updates (Adobe, FlashFXP, Windows). If you have a very low consumer base, this probably is enough for you. If - for whatever reason - that is not an option, what about an USB-Dongle that is needed to use your software. Heard of quite some CAD-programs using this. One last thing you can look into, what about watermarking your application? If it shows up on certain p2p networks you will maybe be able to see where the leak is. Basically nothing will give you a 100% guarantee, but there are options to make it more difficult for the average user... Please keep in mind that most of your money should be spend on creating a great product not in buying mostly useless protection!
Create and sign a license file on a server. If you use public key cryptography, the license file can't be faked easily. Your application can be of course cracked to not need the license, but that's a different thing.
Here is a short but pretty good overview of different options.
http://www.developer-resource.com/how-to-protect-software.htm
Ya,you could encrypt things,that's what they do!.Check the net for various licensing schemes.Even microsoft has one...Microsoft Software Licensing and Protection
You can use the Microsoft Cryptographic API to develop you code.Plus obscure you assemblies or dlls.Force user activation.
All protection schemes are vulnerable to some type of attack. Encryption of information does help prevent attacks because the information is stored in an obfuscated way, but even this isn't unbreakable.
Another possible option is to store the actual activation state information remotely and leave a reference to this information on the machine, possibly encrypted. There are many ways to do this but one that comes to mind is to store a GUID of some kind that you could then look up in your database
One downfall of this is the requirement of an internet connection, I don't know if that is prohibitive or not but the general idea is to remove the activation state from a machine you don't control and put it on one that you do