How Fiddler works

The proxy bascially sits between the Windows WinINET interface and the internet. WinInet is high level API to work with HTTP, FTP, and Gopher protocols.

Installing Fiddler

Fiddler is an HTTP Proxy running on port 8888 on your local PC. You can configure any application which accepts a HTTP Proxy to run through Fiddler so you can debug the particular applications traffic. WinINET-based applications (E.g. Microsoft Office, Internet Explorer, etc) should automatically use Fiddler while it’s running and the “Capture Traffic” box is checked on the Fiddler File menu.

Current versions of Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Apple Safari, and Opera all automatically use Fiddler when Fiddler is configured to Capture Traffic.

If your browser does not automatically use a proxy then you can configure it to point to address: 127.0.0.1, port: 8888.

Logging with Fiddler

You can easily log HTTP traffic using Fiddler to track down bugs from your browser or website and save it to a file. This can be quite handy if you need to send the logs to the testing team.

Transfer timelines

Like many other browser addons, Fiddler also supports transfer timelines.

Extending Fiddler Using Rules

Fiddler lets you modify its HTTP request or response by using the JScript.NET scripting language. You can also write your own plugins to change Fiddlers behavior in any .NET language. Sadly being from the php camp I do not have much experience there.

Text Encode/Decode Wizard

I specially like the ‘Text Wizard’ which lets you process text in a variety of formats. You can encode/decode data using: Base64, URLEncode, HexEncode, JS string, HTML Encode, UTF-7, Deflated SAML.

HTTP Performance tuning

The author of Fiddler, Eric Lawrence, has an excellent article that goes into the details on HTTP performance tuning.

Fiddler in a Nutshell

Fiddler is an excellent tool for both troubleshooting client/server applications and tweaking the performance of web applications. There are many more things you can do with Fiddler for which this post cannot do justice. Fiddler gives you an inside view into the mechanics of HTTP requests and responses, allowing you to understand what your application is doing. With that knowledge under your belt, you can write better, faster, and lighter applications.

The URLScan.ini file is located at : %windir%\System32\Inetsrv\Urlscan. And all you have to do is add the POST verb in the allowed verbs section.

[AllowVerbs]
 
;
; The verbs (aka HTTP methods) listed here are those commonly
; processed by a typical IIS server.
;
; Note that these entries are effective if "UseAllowVerbs=1"
; is set in the [Options] section above.
;
 
GET
HEAD
POST

With the help of WebSlices you can keep your users connected to your site. Any content on your site that regularly changes can be tagged as a WebSlice. For e.g products, horoscopes, weather, stocks, news, photos.

For example ebay has a search page for ie8 that supports WebSlice. Lets say I have to track a particular product on eBay for bid amount and other details. Whenever you navigate to a website that supports WebSlice a discovery button highlights as show below for the following url: http://ie8.ebay.com/

Now whenever you hover over a portion of a WebSlice, a icon pops up which you can click so as to add the WebSlice to your favorites bar.

Shown below is the WebSlice for the above link.

Whenever the content for this particular portion changes, the corresponding WebSlice is automatically updated. Now I don’t have to visit eBay to see the latest update on the product I’m interested in. I get to see the updates on the particular WebSlice. Whenever the slice content is updated the title of the slice on the favorites bar turns to bold.

The HTML that is displayed in the WebSlices details view comes from the description property of a WebSlice, which is set by the developer during design. The preview window has limited ability though; for example, the window allows no scripting or form controls.

Creating your own WebSlices:
You just have to wrap whatever content that you want to become a WebSlice in a div tag, and set the class name for the div as ‘hslice’.

There are a few sub elements that you can use to further define the WebSlice: ‘entry-title’, ‘entry-content’ and ‘ttl’ … among others.

<div id="1" class="hslice">
<p class="entry-title">Item - $80.00</p>
 
<div class="entry-content">high bidder: buyer9 …</div>
</div>

Conclusion:
At first it looked a little unremarkable but after trying some examples myself I think it could be a neat feature to add to your web pages.

Microsoft Live Mesh is a “software-plus-services” platform that enables PCs, mobiles and other devices to work with each other through the Internet, enabling individuals and organizations to manage, access, share and sync their files, data and applications seamlessly on the Web and across their world of devices. Live Mesh is a Software + Services platform rather then an application.

Main design goals:
1. To make various devices work together.
2. Your data and applications available from anywhere
3. Make sharing and collaborating with people easier.
4. The information you need to stay up-to-date is always available and in sync with other devices.

While many existing web solutions may appear similar in that they utilize hosted services for storage, sharing files, or peer-to-peer connections between PCs, most of those products fulfill only one specific need. What makes Live Mesh different is that it brings all this disparate technologies together seamlessly.

So what are the benefits for the end user?

Devices Working Together: You can share and synchronize your applications and documents across the web and devices.

Anywhere Access: The information you put in your mesh is available from any of your other devices, including your own personal Live Desktop that resides on the Web. The Live Desktop comes with a 5GB space when you signup. The Mesh also provides you with a remote desktop functionality in case you need to take full control of a PC remotely.

Simple to Share: With Live Mesh, you can simply invite a friend or colleague to share a folder, giving them access to view or edit only the files you put in the folder. Live Mesh keeps track of and synchronizes the changes across your mesh.

Stay Informed: Live Mesh has a feed system that allows you to keep track of all the activities you care about, including the online status of your friends or colleagues, comments they make, changes to files and folders in your mesh, and the status of your devices.

Where do developers fit in?

As said above, Live Mesh is a platform. So developers will be able to build applications using the Live Mesh SDK. For example you could create a Facebook application that syncs your photos with the mesh. The application thus build will be available on the users mesh, so the user could view it on their PCs, mobile devices, web or any future device that Microsoft adds support for. You can learn more about the Live Mesh architecture here and mesh application demo here.

Will it work?
In my humble opinion Microsoft is on the right path in making “cloud computing” a reality. Mesh is at present only in a preview mode, so expect more changes in the future as Microsoft gets user feedbacks. As a developer I’am waiting to get my hands on the SDK.