The way I ultimately want to do this would be to pass the model in as a parameter and have it deserialized by Json.Net automatically, which by the looks of it is done with a MediaFormatter (presumably that is what I'll end up doing once I've looked into it further).

Public Sub Post(model As MyModelView) As String
    'Do what you need to store the data
    Return "OK"
End Sub

The following solution isn't quite as pretty, but is a simple way to deserialize incoming data to WebApi methods, using Json.Net:

1. Create an Extension method within a Module

Module Extensions

    ' Deserializes the specified Request content from Json to the specified type
    Function FromJson(Of T)(ByVal Request As System.Net.Http.HttpRequestMessage) As T
        Dim data As String = Request.Content.ReadAsStringAsync().Result
        Return Newtonsoft.Json.JsonConvert.DeserializeObject(Of T)(data)
    End Function

End Module

2. Deserialise instead of using parameters

Use the simple extension above instead of having a method parameter:

Public Sub Post() As String
    Dim model As MyModelView = Request.FromJson(Of MyModelView)()
    'Do what you need to store the data
    Return "OK"
End Sub

This, the 22nd annual Puzzle that Gordon Gray has set, has a theme designed to help completion and will appeal to people who enjoy doing Crossword puzzles, such as in the Daily Telegraph (though it is not a Crossword puzzle). Puzzlers have plenty of time to find the answers and Puzzles should be returned, with donation, by 27 January 2013.

All the money you donate, except for the prize-money, will go to charity.

Four winners will each receive a £30 prize.
Everyone who enters will qualify for a prize draw.

So what are you waiting for, give it a go and download the Christmas Puzzle now.

Problem

When opening TS Gateway Manager, you get the following unhandled exception appear:

Unhandled Exception in Managed Code Snap-in
FX:{4a5cf35e-7944-4869-9407-de1cbe40a268}
Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
ExceptionType:
   System.NullReferenceException
Exception Stack Trace:
   at Microsoft.TerminalServices.Proxy.SnapIn.BackEnd.WmiTerminalServicesGatewayStore.AddServer(String serverName, Boolean getData)
   at Microsoft.TerminalServices.Proxy.SnapIn.TsProxyServer.ConnectToServer(IProgressDisplay progress)
   at Microsoft.TerminalServices.Proxy.SnapIn.SnapInStartPage.SnapInStartPageNode.ConnectToServer(String serverName, Boolean silent)
   at Microsoft.TerminalServices.Proxy.SnapIn.TSProxySnapIn.OnLoadCustomData(AsyncStatus status, Byte[] persistenceData)
   at Microsoft.ManagementConsole.SnapIn.ProcessRequest(Request request)
   at Microsoft.ManagementConsole.Internal.SnapInClient.Microsoft.ManagementConsole.Internal.IMessageClient.ProcessRequest(Request request)
   at Microsoft.ManagementConsole.Internal.IMessageClient.ProcessRequest(Request request)
   at Microsoft.ManagementConsole.Executive.RequestStatus.BeginRequest(IMessageClient messageClient, RequestInfo requestInfo)
   at Microsoft.ManagementConsole.Executive.SnapInRequestOperation.ProcessRequest()
   at Microsoft.ManagementConsole.Executive.Operation.OnThreadTransfer(SimpleOperationCallback callback)

Solution

Make sure you have a website called "Default Web Site" in IIS... It doesn't matter what you do with any other properties of the website, just make sure the name on the IIS tree is "Default Web Site"!

You would have thought this sort of exception should be picked up with a nice friendly error message, but there you go.

This, the 21st annual Puzzle that Gordon Gray has set, has a theme designed to help completion and will appeal to people who enjoy doing Crossword puzzles, such as in the Daily Telegraph (though it is not a Crossword puzzle). Puzzlers have plenty of time to find the answers and Puzzles should be returned, with donation, by 22nd January 2012.

Four winners will each receive a £30 prize.
Everyone who enters will qualify for a £30 prize draw.

So what are you waiting for, give it a go and download the Christmas Puzzle now.

Problem

While logging into Terminal/Remote Desktop Services (TS/RDS) on Windows Server 2008 R2, both the "Securing remote connection..." and "Applying User Settings..." phases take a very long time (45 to 90 seconds in some cases) to complete.

Solution

Ensure that the IPv6 address assigned to the 6TO4 Tunnel (as well as the IPv4 address) of the Terminal Server is allowed on the domain controller for the following:

• All Active Directory rules
• All Kerberos rules
• Core Networking - IPv6 (IPv6-In) for just the IPv4 address.

During the case with Microsoft, many logs were taken from various machines, but it was the Netmon traces that showed that multiple Kerberos packets were being sent by the TS server and not being acknowledged by the DC.

Checking the firewall logs for dropped packets on the domain controller showed that the Terminal Server was trying to connect to port 88 (Kerberos) using protocol 41 (used by the 6TO4 tunnel) from the IPv4 address and having the packets dropped. Once that had been opened, further packets from the 6TO4 tunnel IPv6 address were then being dropped for LDAP requests.

This was on Server 2008 R2, but there's no reason to think this wouldn't also solve similar issues on previous versions of Windows Server.

This, the 20th annual Puzzle that Gordon Gray has set, has a theme designed to help completion and will appeal to people who enjoy doing Crossword puzzles, such as in the Daily Telegraph (though it is not a Crossword puzzle). Puzzlers have plenty of time to find the answers and Puzzles should be returned, with donation, by 23rd January 2011.

Four winners will each receive a £30 prize.
Everyone who enters will qualify for a £30 prize draw.

So what are you waiting for, give it a go and download the Christmas Puzzle now.

Automated ways to distinguish humans and computer bots when submitting data via a web page are relatively easy once you figure out the ways each interact with web servers.

The basic thing that almost all spambots have in common is that they

1. Don't support session cookies,
2. Don't run Javascript code, and
3. Try to submit hyperlinks in one form or another

Unfortunately, to implement a website form that requires both session cookies and Javascript to submit correctly requires a little more code than a basic <form> tag, but it shouldn't be difficult to make this code generic and manipulate the browser DOM to make the developer implementation very simple. On top of that, requiring moderation for anything that includes a hyperlink means that even the human spammers don't get through.

After very close to three years of running such a system on various websites that I look after, it is still yet to be cracked by any automated bots and also has not had any false-positives (apart from requiring moderation for a very small number of posts where people are submitting legitimate URLs). The only human (non-automated) spammer that has made it through to be moderated is from one IP address in Russia that regularly tries to include a link to a fake finance blog, so again something that's very easy to block with the right back end in place.

Apparently he had my phone number because my IP address was creating all this traffic and so he wanted to show me how to cleanup my machine. I thought it could be fun to find out how he was going to try to scam me, so let him continue...

• Me: "So what's my IP address?"
• IG: "I don't have that in front of me at the moment"
• Me: "riigggt... so what would you like me to do to stop all this traffic blocking up the International Routings Systems?"
• IG: "Please press the flag key and R on your keyboard"
• Me: "OK"
• IG: "type the letters 'i', 'n', 'f' - it stands for 'infection'"
• Me: "OK, I've done that"
• IG: "Now click OK"
• Me: "Uh huh"
• IG: "What do you see?"
• Me: "A list of all the drivers installed on my computer"
• IG: "You're wasting my time and your time, now bugger off"... beeeeeeeeeeeep

Unfortunately caller ID only showed he was calling from an "International" number so I couldn't call him back to find out more about his wonderful International Routing System or what other things he was going to get me to do to my computer.

The International Routing System does not exist, and if you receive a call they will try to convince you to install virus-infected software, and probably to give them your credit card details. Either put the phone down immediately, or else laugh at every statement they make as it is pure fiction.

Anyone worried that they have already let these people do something to your computer should run F-Secure's free online scanner and if you don't already have any antivirus software installed on your machine, you should get something like Microsoft Security Essentials which is a free antivirus package directly from Microsoft.

Read all his entries from 2002 to 2004, plus links to the latest entries in The Secret Diary of Michael Schumacher.

Luckily if you really want to tag someone in text in some of these other places (I've only made it work in photo descriptions so far) then you can do so. In addition you can manually tag people within status updates giving them whatever name you want.

All you have to do is include the following format in your text and Facebook will automatically display tag links:

Tagging @[USERID:blah] in a comment

Where USERID is the numeric Facebook ID of the user you want to tag, and blah can be any string.

So, for example:
Tagging @[721981740:Theo] in a comment

is displayed in Facebook as:
Tagging Theo in a comment

And yesterday I managed to buy it off the current owner, so finally the Eaton Bray website is available via www.ourvillage.co.uk.

And if you hadn't heard yet, the Christmas Puzzle is now available to download!