WhiteSites Blog

Generic Error Occurred in GDI with .Net and JPGs

Sep 29, 2015 by Paul White

Everyone who works on ASP.NET websites will eventually come accross this error.  A generic error occurred in GDI+.  This usually happens when trying to save a image file to disk.  Something normal like handling photo uploads then saving them.  In my case I was trying to lower the quality on 20,000 JPG images to about 75%.  The problem I ran into was it wouldn't let me overwrite my image to the original location.  There is a very easy solution to this.  


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Why Local Search Optimization Matters

Aug 28, 2015 by Paul White

Most small businesses don't care about being found on google on a national level, as long as their customers can find them locally.  Google places has taken that to the next level.  If you are one of the top 3 businsses in your niche you will be listed at the top of the page under the places guide.  Google places allows businesses to have profiles setup with their map, hours, photos, video, and other relavent information.  Unfortunately most local business niches have more than 3 businesses operating in them, which makes these top three spots very competitive.  Here is how you can improve your chances of showing up on these top 3 spots.


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How to protect your website from Bots and Hackers

Jun 14, 2015 by Paul White

With all the recent news coverage on companies and government agencies being hacked, I thought it might be time to write an article about how to protect your website and or server from hackers and bots.  So if your website is getting flooded with unrelated traffic and constantly being attacked here are a few tips.


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Forget SEO start working on LSO

May 14, 2015 by Paul White

Forever the focus has been on SEO (Search Engine Optimization), and even though we shouldn't forget it, we need to start to focus more on LSO (Local Search Optimization).  Here is why.


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Google Mobile Penalty Fixes

Apr 21, 2015 by Paul White

Today Google Rollled out their Mobile Penalty to any website that did not meet their new guidelines.  These guidelines meant your website must resize and mold itself to fit the screen on mobile devices, without having to use the pinch to zoom as a way to navigate around.  Many of us webmasters thought we were ahead of the curve and had our websites ready weeks before this penalty went into effect.  We anticipated April 21st as the day when our websites would jump to the top of google simply because every other website did not update to be mobile friendly.  So Today when all my sites didn't rock the top spot on google I had to do a little more digging into the cause.


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SEO like Matt Cutts at Google

Nov 16, 2014 by Paul White

Matt Cutts has been at google for over 15 years, he is one of the most respected voices in Search Optimization.  Mainly because unlike any other SEO guys out there he actually works for google.  So I decided to take some of his advice from past vidos and articles and combine them into a short guide for any website that wants to increase their search rankings.


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What IPs does Twilio use for Status Updates

What IPs does Twilio use for Status Updates

Oct 21, 2014 by Paul White

Twilio is a great service for developers who want to integrate SMS, MMS, and voice features to their websites and applications.  One of the great things that twilio does is provide status updates on the messages you send. Letting you know if they are Queued, Sending, Sent, or Delivered.  However these status updates come from a Proxy that is Cloud Hosted, and does not originate from any specific IP or block of IPs.  When I submitted a ticket to Twilio asking for the IP blocks they use, they said there are no set of IPs used, and that they are constantly changing.  However After a little digging through my Access Logs I have been able to compile a list of IPs that Twilio has used to access my server.  Hopefully these will help others who need at least something they can whitelist on their firewall for twilio.


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Tricks to getting into Yahoo and Gmail's Inbox

Aug 24, 2014 by Paul White

Gmail and Yahoo are not the most friendly to Email Marketers.  But there are a few tricks you can use to help get your messages into the Inboxes.  The key is to remember it is about user privacy.  


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ABCPDF error Failed to configure IE 9 or above for the MSHtml engine

Jul 6, 2014 by Paul White

I recently built a new server, and have been slowly migrating all my sites from my old box to the new one.  Some of the sites were built using third party components to do things like generate PDF documents.  ABCPDF by websupergoo, was one of the components I was using.  Unfortunately Version 6 of the component, does not play nice with Windows Server 2012 R2.  So I was forced to upgrade to the latest Version 9.1.  After installing the component I still was getting an error message.  Here is the fix.


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Why Cloud hosting is not the value it seems

Jun 22, 2014 by Paul White

These days hosting providers are pushing their cloud offerings.  To the average consumer cloud hosting seems perfect. You only pay for the hardware you need, and when you need to expand its just a matter of your hostin g provider reallocating resources to your node on the cloud.  Then you also have the high availability and fault tollerance.  But one place clouds fail is in performance.  


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