After fighting with comments spam I took an hour to implement CAPTCHA on my blog. The implementation based on amazing FormShield control .FormShield control is free for both personal and commercial use.

Download

http://www.dotnetfreak.co.uk/controls/dotNetFreak.WebControls.FormShield.zip

Integrating with the .Text Blogging Engine

Quick guide on integrating FormShield with .Text to prevent spam on your blog by Davide Mauri.

http://www.dotnetfreak.co.uk/docs/FormShield-dotText.zip

FormShield Control Features:

• Generates BMP, GIF, JPEG, PNG or TIFF images.
• Choose the pixel format and smoothing mode used to render the image.
• Set the height, width and alignment of the image as well as the alternate text displayed.
• Image is built using 3 layers - Background, foreground and noise.
• Provides 6 fill styles, 4 gradient styles, 53 hatch styles and 2 colors for each layer.
• Set the length and case (lower, mixed or upper) of the automatically generated text.
• Choose the type of characters you want to use to generate the text (alpha, numeric, symbols or a combination).
• Choose the fonts you want to use to draw the text as well as the font style (4 combinable styles, 16 in total).
• Pick a text effect (5 combinable effects, 23 in total) and decrease the noise level to decrease readability.
• Draw a border on the image using one of 5 styles and your choice of color.
• Randomise the fill style, gradient style, hatch style, font style, text case, text style, text effect and border style.
• 6 Presets included; Default, Fire, Forest, Sand, Sea, ChessBoard.
• Supports 3 persistent methods; ViewState, SessionState or FormField (hidden input field) - ideal if ViewState and/or SessionState isn’t available to persist property values on postback.
• Values stored using any of the persistent methods are automatically encrypted for additional security.
• Image is rendered on demand (either inline or using an Image Provider), and not saved as a file.
• Encrypts the querystring to prevent deciphering by reading the HTML source.
• Works with existing ASP.NET validation controls as well as StringCompareValidator.
• Can be used on standalone WebForms as well as UserControls.
• Supports .Text Blogging Engine (no compile needed) to prevent spam on blogs.
• Full Visual Studio .NET designer integration, including optional rendering whilst in design mode.

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[ Via Oleg Tkachenko's Blog ]

The tool is a GUI wizard that can be run on any machine. You do not need to have Community Server installed on the same box. Your .Text and CS installations can be on the same or different SQL servers. However you will need to have the ability to connect directly to your SQL Server(s) over the Internet from the machine this utility is being run on.

It converts users, weblogs, posts, articles, comments, trackbacks, referrals, view counts, links, and categories. The only kind of .Text content it does NOT convert is .Text photo galleries.

Download

[ Via Kevin Harder's blog ]

Community Server 1.0 combines the functionality of forums(based on the ASP.NET forums engine created by Rob Howard), blogs(based on .Text engine created by Scott Watermasysk), and photo gallery(based on nGallery, created by Jason Alexander).

[ Via .net DElirium ]

CassiniEx is an enhanced version of the Cassini Personal Web Server developed by Microsoft.

Features

• Run multiple web sites and applications in a single instance of CassiniEx
• Each ApplicationHost is loaded only on demand
• CassiniEx loads in system tray
• Supports multiple host headers and ports per web site
• Supports multiple virtual folders
• Each web site has a log file in W3C extended log file format
• Each web site can allow or deny remote connections
• Custom default documents per virtual folder
• Now supports Keep-Alive connections
• Support If-Modified-Since and Last-Modified headers to reduce bandwidth
• Automatically unload AppDomain when Idle for user-defined time
• Each virtual folder can have custom deny/allow extensions
• Configuration changes are automatically loaded without having to restart the server

Download CassiniEx here or check out  Korner’s blog for more information.