musings, mumblings, and murmurs

SQL 2008 R2: Agent XPS component is turned off as part of the security configuration of this server.

2011-07-08T06:24:00.000-07:00

To correct this
Open a new query and paste the following:

In the query window type the following:

sp_configure 'show advanced options', 1;
GO
RECONFIGURE;
GO
sp_configure 'Agent XPs', 1;
GO
RECONFIGURE
GO

After you run it you should expect to see the following in the message window.

Configuration option 'show advanced options' changed from 0 to 1. Run the RECONFIGURE statement to install.
Configuration option 'Agent XPs' changed from 0 to 1. Run the RECONFIGURE statement to install.

If you want to disable either just replace the 1 with a 0.

IE10 Preview

2011-06-29T17:36:00.000-07:00

Microsoft today has announced the availability of the second platform preview for its upcoming browser, Internet Explorer 10. The first platform preview was released in April. This new platform preview contains the same HTML5 engine seen in the recent public Windows 8 demos!

"IE10 continues IE9's precedent of enabling Web applications to do more in the browser without plug-ins. It also continues the pattern of offloading work to the parts of a PC that are best suited for them, like the GPU for graphics, and different processor cores for background compilation of JavaScript. Microsoft has been working on tying together Internet Explorer 10's Trident rendering engine with Windows 8. Microsoft is expecting developers to use HTML5, Javascript, and CSS to build new immersive apps for Windows 8 and this new browser is yet another tool in doing so. Keep in mind that this platform preview has no toolbar, no address bar, and none of the regular menus."

You can read the full change list in the IE10 developer guide: here

Download Internet Explorer 10 Platform Preview 2: Internet Explorer 10 Platform Preview 2

SharePoint 2010 and JQuery

2011-06-29T08:59:00.000-07:00

Recently somebody wanted to know how they could streamline activity on a site starting with reducing the overall page refresh count. Put simply, jQuery really is a lifesaver for this stuff. Combined with SharePoints web services and SPServices there is a huge amount that you can do without having to resort to writing any C#. The challenge, as with most things, is how to get started. Below are some simple examples of functional code that will work if you copy and paste correctly.

Example 1: Getting items from a list, in this case called "TestList1", and output the raw response into a div tag called "demodiv1"
$(document).ready(function() {
$().SPServices({
debug: true,
operation: "GetList",
listName: "TestList1",
completefunc: function (xData, Status) {
var out = $().SPServices.SPDebugXMLHttpResult({
node: xData.responseXML
});
$("#demodiv1").html("").append("This is the output from the GetList operation:" + out);
}
});
});

Example 2: Getting all sub sites from a URL, in this case called "http://testserver/webapp1", and output the raw response into a div tag called "demodiv2"
NOTE: The URL for the site can be defined in two ways, both shown. The one that is not commented is persistent - therefore rather useful!

$(document).ready(function() {
$().SPServices.defaults.webURL = "http://testserver/webapp1";
$().SPServices({
debug: true,
operation: "GetWebCollection",
//webUrl: "http://testserver/webapp1",
completefunc: function (xData, Status) {
var out = $().SPServices.SPDebugXMLHttpResult({
node: xData.responseXML
});
$("#demodiv2").html("").append("This is the output from the GetList operation:" + out);
}
});
});

Example 3: What kind of data exactly is being returned? Okay so if you have tried the first two examples you will have noted that the data really is kind of raw. Let's see it in a popup. In this case the same code as above with a difference... Instead of updating a DIV tag we just populate a popup by using an alert.
Note: Play around with alert("XML=" + xData.responseXML.xml); and alert("xData: " + xData.responseText);

$(document).ready(function() {

$().SPServices.defaults.webURL = "http://testserver/webapp1";

$().SPServices({

debug: true,

operation: "GetWebCollection",

completefunc: function (xData, Status) {

alert("Status=" + Status + " XML=" + xData.responseXML.xml);

});

}

});

Example 4: Okay, so now lets take the same data and wrap the title of each returned site in its respective URL inside of a DIV called tasksUL.

$(document).ready(function() {
$().SPServices.defaults.webURL = "http://testserver/webapp1";
$().SPServices({
debug: true,
operation: "GetWebCollection",
completefunc: function(xData, Status) {
// now iterate through the results
$(xData.responseXML).find("[nodeName=Web]").each(function () {
// for each one found get the title and wrap it with the respective Url
$("" + $(this).attr("Title") + "").appendTo("#tasksUL");
});
}
});
});

Windows 7 Remote Desktop shutdown command

2011-06-18T07:20:00.000-07:00

So you're connected to a remote machine and you have no shutdown or restart option? No problem just run the command from the command line as follow:

Restart and force close all open apps: shutdown -t 0 -r -f

Something old...

2011-06-16T11:00:00.000-07:00

This is not new but it's oft forgotten...

Every now and then when working with SharePoint you’ll notice that you do not have access to the “Edit Page” function via the “Site Actions” button.

Simply add “&ToolPaneView=2″ to the querystring of the URL (/Forms/DispForm.aspx?ID=1&ToolPaneView=2).

FreeBSD: Ports and Disk Space

2011-06-16T10:52:00.000-07:00

Using the Ports Collection within FreeBSD will use up disk space over time. After building and installing software from the ports, you should always remember to clean up the temporary work directories using the make clean command. You can sweep the whole Ports Collection with the following command:

# portsclean -C

You will accumulate a lot of old source distribution files in the distfiles directory over time. You can remove them by hand, or you can use the following command to delete all the distfiles that are no longer referenced by any ports:

# portsclean -D

Or to remove all distfiles not referenced by any port currently installed on your system:

# portsclean -DD

Finding Telnet within Windows 7

2011-05-05T05:53:00.000-07:00

If you happen to have a need for some bidirectional, interactive text-oriented communications using a virtual terminal connection when using Windows 7 you may be out of luck... But only briefly. You can quickly re-enable Telnet by following these steps:

--> Start
--> Control Panel
--> Programs And Features
--> Turn Windows features on or off
--> Check Telnet Client
--> OK

After those steps, you can start Telnet via Command Prompt.

What firmware is your Samsung Windows Mobile 7 phone running?

2011-02-23T06:34:00.000-08:00

With the current batch of Samsung Windows Mobile 7 phones figuring out which firmware version you have is a unnecessarily complicated process. Especially if you're looking to see if your update is going to work or not...

To get to it do the following:

From the phone's dialer, type "##634#", then press call.
This probably will start up the Samsung Diagnosis application but even if it does not it will create an icon for it in the phone's programs list called "".
From the Diagnosis application, type "*#1234#". This will show a screen of detailed version information.
For checking to see if your phone will upgrade it is the first three version numbers (for "PDA", "Phone", and "CSC") that are relevant. If the firmware versions are older (JIx, JJx) then the update probably will not work; if they are more recent (JKx) it probably will.

Creating a site tour with jQuery

2011-01-21T01:23:00.000-08:00

Sometimes when you build a custom solution end users need a little bit of help, or time, in order to determine where everything is. Grounding them within the actual environment rather than within help pages is the fastest way in my opinion to get them up to speed. A great option is jQuery site tour.

Working either manually or in a timed fashion it highlights predetermined classes with text and images. Tooltips on steroids in a way... To use it, you simply have to add certain class to any elements that you want to describe in the walk-through. E.g. “tour_1″, “tour_2″ would look like:

`1`	`<``div` `class="box left">`

`2`	`<``h2` `class="tour_1">Create a tour>`

`3`	`<``p``>Far far away, behind the word mountains, ...p>`

4 >

The following parameters can be set:

name: the class given to the element where you want the tooltip to appear
bgcolor: the background color of the tooltip
color: the color of the tooltip text
text: the text inside of the tooltip
time: if automatic tour, then this is the time in ms for this step
position: the position of the tip

Resources
There is a full article with a functional demo here: http://tympanus.net/codrops/2010/12/21/website-tour/

Dynamics CRM 2011 got to cloud customers first...

2011-01-18T10:22:00.000-08:00

Users of the cloud-hosted version of customer relationship management software from Microsoft, aka Dynamics CRM, will be first in line to get the latest version. Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 will be available for on-premises deployment from February 28, but cloud customers can start using it today in 40 countries and 41 languages...

Clearly gunning for Salesforce.com and Oracle CRM customers, Microsoft is trying to undercut its competitors with a promotional price of $34 per user per month, and as an added incentive is offering $200 per user transferred from a competing product to Dynamics CRM for a limited period, to help cover any migration costs. Which are not really that bad speaking from an implementers perspective.

Resources
https://offers.crmchoice.com/Cloud-CRM-For-Less/?locale=en-us
http://crm.dynamics.com/en-us/

Browser detection: solving the quandary with a bit of PHP

2011-01-17T10:04:00.000-08:00

The browser and its specific version can tell you a lot about your visitors. Not just that they are running OpenSolaris, Windows 7, or Chrome OS but much, much more. It also can help you enable, or more likely disable, certain features of your site, content, or application. Therefore it is more than critical to determine it correctly. It is/should be mandatory.

So what are your options. Precisely three.

Do nothing
Go client side
Go server side

1 is not worth mentioning, 2 is typically performed by JavaScript which leaves 3.

Now leaving aside the potential impact on your caching mechanism/plans/shenanigans option 3 can bring some great benefits without sending the client browser any payload. But if you have to do it yourself it can be a royal pain as browser versions and new products are like beer. Everybody will try a new one but usually not for long. (that may need work.) So what to do? Cue Browser.php

Browser.php is a PHP class that helps this process by collecting data about a visitor's browser such as:

platform used
browser
browser version

It is very easy to implement.

Typical usage

$browser = new Browser();
if( $browser->getBrowser() == Browser::BROWSER_FIREFOX && $browser->getVersion() >= 2 ) {
 echo 'You have FireFox version 2 or greater';
}

Needless to say you must do the usual beforehand such as:
require_once('Browser.php');
and
$browser = new Browser();

Resources: http://chrisschuld.com/projects/browser-php-detecting-a-users-browser-from-php/

Open source projects for PST file access

2011-01-14T05:44:00.000-08:00

This goes back a while and I just plain forgot to post about it.

Back in February of 2010, Microsoft released a public specifications for PST files, the databases used by Outlook for storing and archiving e-mail. To these specifications, Microsoft also added a pair of developer-oriented open source projects:

PST Data Structure View Tool for cracking open PSTs and browsing inside of them
PST File Format SDK, a cross-platform C++ library for programmatically working with PST files.

Though the core Office document formats are now XML-based open standards, alleviating such lock-in issues, Outlook has continued to use a complex database format for storing mail, making interoperability difficult. With the documentation and these software projects, the days of being locked into Outlook could be coming to an end.

The SDK project is still not finished; seemingly it still only provides read-only access to PST data, though write support is purportedly planned. Both tools are released using under the Apache License 2.0. This means that they can be incorporated into proprietary, closed-source projects, as well as other open source projects.

Overall the information available at the Microsoft Interoperability site is very, very useful and I would strongly recommend a visit.

Resources
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/interoperability/

EC2 now has FreeBSD

2011-01-11T04:39:00.000-08:00

Good news. EC2 now has FreeBSD. Though with some quirks...In order to work with EC2, the FreeBSD AMIs are slightly modified from what you would have immediately after installing FreeBSD from a release CD:

The network is configured and the sshd daemon is enabled, for obvious reasons.
SSH logins as root are enabled, but root's password is starred out (i.e., password logins as root will fail until a password is set).
The first time an AMI is booted, a script fetches the public half of an SSH keypair from EC2 and arranges for root logins using that key.
Every time the the AMI boots, it prints the SSH host keys to the console in the same format as Amazon Linux AMIs do.
The FreeBSD kernel is located on an ext2 filesystem, in order to allow Amazon's user provided kernel functionality to work. (Everything else is on a single UFS2 filesystem.)
AMIs published from 2010-12-29 onwards have /etc/motd text with some comments about FreeBSD/EC2 and a link to this page.
AMIs published from 2010-12-29 onwards by default report kernel panics (including backtraces) to the FreeBSD/EC2 maintainer to assist him in identifying and fixing bugs.

At the present time, FreeBSD/EC2 should be considered an experimental platform not yet ready for production use.

The following AMIs are available (though there are additional obsolete AMIs...):

FreeBSD version us-east-1 us-west-1 eu-west-1 ap-southeast-1
FreeBSD 9.0-CURRENT @ 2011-01-04
For t1.micro instances only! ami-8cce3fe5 ami-61683824 ami-e388bd97 ami-36bdc364
FreeBSD 8.2-RC @ 2011-01-08
For t1.micro instances only! ami-4a15e423 ami-376e3e72 ami-f77e4a83 ami-3eb6c86c

Note: Apparently FreeBSD will only currently work on t1.micro instances..

Resources
http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/
http://www.freebsd.org/
http://forums.freebsd.org/showthread.php?t=254

PHP: Finding the binary

2011-01-10T09:59:00.000-08:00

The other day I was stumped, albeit rather briefly, by something I should not have been. I was scripting out some CRON jobs for a CRM system when I found out I could not locate where the hosting company had put the PHP binary. Now that is something you usually do not have to think about so it can easily fall into the 'been a while' category.

So if you ever find yourself asking, where is the PHP binary? or just where is PHP? Here are some steps to follow.

Telnet/Shell
If you have shell access via telnet, log in, and type "which php" and you should be given the location to use.

If you don't have shell, try one of the following:

Create a php page with just the following: and then call the page, this should tell you the location of PHP.

echo system('which php');

If that does not work, though it should, try checking one of the paths listed under path in the ENVIRONMENT section of the output with this.Take note though that this will give you the environment path so you will still need to add /php to it...

echo phpinfo();

Smartupdater: A JQuery periodical updating mechanism

2011-01-04T06:31:00.000-08:00

I often need to implement some kind of periodical updating functionality from client to server and vice versa. Aka a classic polling mechanism. Smartupdater is a jQuery plugin which simplifies the process of sending regular requests to a server (polling) and handling the responses. I have found it very useful, and easy to work with. It can be started or stopped on any event and the interval of the polling periods can be redefined as well as controlled remotely.

A simple example would be how to display the remote time on a server with a polling interval of 5 seconds. Note that the remote script is returning a JSON format like this: "{"servertime":"hh:mm:ss"}"

$("#example1").smartupdater({
  url : 'gettime_json.php',
  dataType:'json',
  minTimeout: 5000 // 5 seconds
  }, function (data) {
    $("#example1").html(data.servertime);
  }
);

The returned results can then be displayed in a div tag...

Time on server: hh:mm:ss

Download link: https://code.google.com/p/smartupdater/

SharePoint 2010: Who has what checked out...

2010-11-11T05:42:00.000-08:00

It's a simple quandry not always so easily solved if you are new to it. Just run, with some obvious prior editing, this query where CONTENTDB is your content database:

use CONTENTDB;
Select d.DirName, d.LeafName, u.tp_Login
From dbo.AllDocs as d, dbo.UserInfo as u
Where d.CheckoutUserId = u.tp_ID
And tp_Login = 'DOMAIN\username'

JS Library For Image & Vector-Tiled Maps

2010-08-25T13:04:00.000-07:00

Polymaps is a free JavaScript library for making dynamic, interactive maps in modern web browsers.

Polymaps provides speedy display of multi-zoom datasets over maps, and supports a variety of visual presentations for tiled vector data, in addition to the usual cartography from OpenStreetMap, CloudMade, Bing, and other providers of image-based web maps.

"Because Polymaps can load data at a full range of scales, it’s ideal for showing information from country level on down to states, cities, neighborhoods, and individual streets.

Because Polymaps uses SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) to display information, you can use familiar, comfortable CSS rules to define the design of your data.

And because Polymaps uses the well known spherical mercator tile format for its imagery and its data, publishing information is a snap."

References
PolyMaps: http://polymaps.org/
QuadTiles: http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/QuadTiles

Exceptions when installing SharePoint 2010 on Windows 7

2010-08-25T05:46:00.000-07:00

If you're a SharePoint developer you probably sway between using VMs and real hardware. Installing SharePoint 2010 on Windows 7 is actually a pretty easy thing to do so long as you follow the steps methodically. That said it is not always perfect and there are two commonly found bumps when installing on a clean machine. Fortunately their fixes are as easy as one could hope for.

When you run the configuration wizrd you may get the following exceptions. Their resolution is pretty simple.

If you get:

An exception of type System.IO.FileNotFoundException was thrown. Additional exception information: Could not load file or assembly ‘Microsoft.IdentityModel, Version 3.5.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35′ or one of its dependencies. The system cannot find the file specified.

Download and install the Windows Identity Foundation Pack from here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=eb9c345f-e830-40b8-a5fe-ae7a864c4d76&displaylang=en

If you get:

An exception oftype Microsoft.SharePoint.Upgrade.SPUpgradeException was thrown. Additional exception information: Failed to call GetTypes on assembly Microsoft.Office.Server.Search, Version=14.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c. Could not load file or assembly ‘System.Web.DataVisualition, Version=3.5.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35’ or one of its dependencies. The system cannot find thefile specified.

Download and install Chart Controls from here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=130F7986-BF49-4FE5-9CA8-910AE6EA442C&displaylang=en

You can get more details here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee554869(office.14).aspx

SharePoint: Multiple databases for 1 Web Application

2010-08-23T05:59:00.000-07:00

This process makes assumptions that the SharePoint environment is in a very exact state. Specifically that:
• All databases other the one currently being used for new MySites are in an offline state and that there is only ever one Web Application available.
• There is a defined business need for a series of smaller databases rather than one large and potentially unwieldy one.

When a database in SharePoint is in an offline state it is not in an inaccessible mode but rather it is not viewed as a tenable location by the process that creates new site collections. Instead SharePoint will look at the delta on the current number of sites value versus the set maximum in any and all other open Content Databases and select the one with the greatest value.

To set a content database status to offline:
1. Go to "Central Administration > Application Management > Content Databases"
2. Then click on the database of your choice set it to “Offline”

To create a new database for every new site collection the following steps need be followed.
1. Create a new content database.
a. Start the SharePoint Central Administration Web site.
b. On the Application Management page, in the SharePoint Web Application Management section, click Content databases.
c. On the Manage Content Databases page, click Add a content database.
d. On the Add Content Database page:
e. Select a Web application for the new database.
f. Select a database server to host the new database.
g. Specify the authentication method the new database will use and supply an account name and password if necessary.
h. Specify both the total number of top-level sites that can be created in the database and the number at which a warning will be issued.
i. Click OK.
2. Create the new Site Collection.
3. Set the newly created content database status to Offline.
4. View the contents of the new content database to confirm that it only contains what it should. (In theory a new My Site could be in there.)

It is important to confirm that this new database is appropriately accounted for by backup and DBA maintenance routines.

If a site collection was errantly created during the period that the new content database was online it can be moved as follows:

1. Run the following stsadm command, to get a list of all the sites in the web application

Stsadm -o enumsites -url <URL> > <path/file name>.xml

Where:
• <URL> is the address of the Web application that contains the site collection that you want to move,and
• <path/file name> is the name of the XML file that you want to create with the site collection data.

(Example: stsadm -o enumsites -url http://localhost > c:\Sites.XML)

Open the XML file that you created in a text editing application. If there are any URLs for site collections that you do not want to move, be sure to delete them from the file. The only URLs that should remain in the XML file should be for the site collections that you want to move.

Note: There is no need to change the site count or any of the other site collection information in the file. Only the URLs are relevant to this procedure.

2. Run the following stsadm command:
Stsadm -o mergecontentdbs -url <URL> -sourcedatabasename <database name> -destinationdatabasename <destination database name> -operation 3 -filename <file name>

Where:
• <URL> is the address of the Web application that contains the site collection that you want;
• <database name> is the name of the database that you want to move the site collection from; and
• <destination database name> is the name of the database that you want to move the site collection to;
• operation 3 is the “Read from file” operation; and
• <file name> is the name of the file that you created in step 4.

(Example: stsadm -o mergecontentdbs -url http://localhost -sourcedatabasename WSS_Content -destinationdatabasename WSS_Content2 -operation 3 -filename c:\Sites.xml)

Note: This step assumes that all of the sites in the Sites.xml file where in the source database name. If the sites are located in multiple databases you may need to repeat these steps for each source Content Database.

3. Restart IIS by typing the following command, and then pressing ENTER: iisreset /noforce.

FreeBSD How to check the size of a folder

2010-08-06T10:28:00.000-07:00

Command line interaction can be a challenge for some as I noted recently and the simplest of things can be elusive. You can check the size of a folder running this command:

# du -hs /folder/

Getting Apache22 on FreeBSD 8.1 to work with DHCP

2010-07-30T05:49:00.000-07:00

Apache likes to have a static IP address to work with and that is not always something you can guarantee to have. An easy way to get around this is to add the following two files to /etc

Firstly add a file called "dhclient-exit-hooks" with the following

#!/bin/sh

APINCDIR=/usr/local/etc/apache22/Includes
APPIDFILE=/var/run/httpd.pid

if [ ! -z "$new_ip_address" ]; then
   # First, configure the /etc/hosts file so Apache can start
   HOSTNAME=`grep ^hostname= /etc/rc.conf | awk -F = '{ print $2 }' | sed -e 's/"//g;'`
   if [ ! -z "$HOSTNAME" ]; then
   echo "$new_ip_address $HOSTNAME" > /etc/hosts.dynamic
   cat /etc/hosts.boilerplate /etc/hosts.dynamic > /etc/hosts
   fi

   # Next, we'll configure the Apache web server, if it has been installed
   if [ -d $APINCDIR ]; then
   echo "ServerName $new_ip_address" > $APINCDIR/server-name.conf

   if [ -f $APPIDFILE ]; then
   kill -HUP `cat $APPIDFILE`
   fi
   fi
fi

Secondly add a file as referenced above called "hosts.boilerplate" with the following content:

# $FreeBSD: src/etc/hosts,v 1.16 2003/01/28 21:29:23 dbaker Exp $

# Host Database

# This file should contain the addresses and aliases for local hosts that

# share this file. Replace 'my.domain' below with the domainname of your

# machine.

# In the presence of the domain name service or NIS, this file may

# not be consulted at all; see /etc/nsswitch.conf for the resolution order.

::1 localhost localhost.my.domain

127.0.0.1 localhost localhost.my.domain

# Imaginary network.

#10.0.0.2 myname.my.domain myname

#10.0.0.3 myfriend.my.domain myfriend

# According to RFC 1918, you can use the following IP networks for

# private nets which will never be connected to the Internet:

# 10.0.0.0 - 10.255.255.255

# 172.16.0.0 - 172.31.255.255

# 192.168.0.0 - 192.168.255.255

# In case you want to be able to connect to the Internet, you need

# real official assigned numbers. Do not try to invent your own network

# numbers but instead get one from your network provider (if any) or

# from your regional registry (ARIN, APNIC, LACNIC, RIPE NCC, or AfriNIC.)

Then reboot, restart service, whatever your preference is, and test it out.

Creating symbolic links in FreeBSD

2010-07-28T09:20:00.000-07:00

Sometimes when you FTP into a FreeBSD environment you need to bounce around to directories acroos the file system. One way to simply this process when working in a FTP client is to create a symbolic link as a file. It is really easy.

To go from point A to point B where point A is a click able file and B is a target folder just run:

ln -s /path/to/folder/B /where/you/want/the/file/to/exist/B

Still developing for IE6? Get significant CSS3 compatibility with PIE

2010-07-15T07:14:00.000-07:00

Seriously? Well you're sadly, and probably dangerously for your or worse other peoples data, not alone.

Coming to the rescue for the presentation layer at least as security was thrown out the window with the bathwater AND the baby when you decided to stay with 6 - is PIE.

PIE stands for Progressive Internet Explorer. It is an IE attached behavior which, when applied to an element, allows IE to recognize and display a number of CSS3 properties. It is simply attached to an element in the CSS file like: behavior: url(PIE.htc); and adds support (full or partial) for the following CSS3 features:

border-radius
box-shadow
border-image
multiple background images
linear-gradient as background image

Note that the missing CSS3 properties are under development...

For more info and the actual PIE itself go here: http://css3pie.com/

How to install MemCached with Apache, PHP, and MySQL on FreeBSD

2010-07-14T13:07:00.000-07:00

memcached is a high-performance, distributed memory object caching system, generic in nature, but intended for use in speeding up dynamic web applications by alleviating database load.

Danga Interactive developed memcached to enhance the speed of LiveJournal.com, a site which was already doing 20 million+ dynamic page views per day for 1 million users with a bunch of webservers and a bunch of database servers. memcached dropped the database load to almost nothing, yielding faster page load times for users, better resource utilization, and faster access to the databases on a memcache miss.

Notes

There are definitely steps in this that can be changed, extended, other, but these will get you what you want in a good learning fashion. And learning is key!
You can just as easily install memcached on an IIS server.
Yes you can download binaries with pkg_add etc. but building will help you literally see what is going where. One just has to make sure that some housekeeping is performed during the build process. This is done with the clean parameter in the make command.

To Start

First off build a FreeBSD box. It's easy, fast, and best of all free once you have the hardware - real or virtualized. Don't forget to install the ports. You're going to need them going forward.

For dependency issues we're going to install all the items in this order:

MySQL Server 5.x
Apache 2.x
PHP5
PDF-Lite
PHP Extensions
MemCached

1: MySQL

Move to the ports folder, specify some build parameters that will helps speed things up a tad.

cd /usr/ports/databases/mysql51-server

make BUILD_OPTIMIZED=yes BUILD_STATIC=yes

make install clean

Edit /etc/rc.conf and add mysql_enable="YES"

Apply the configuration file: cp /usr/local/share/mysql/my-medium.cnf /etc/my.cnf

Assign the master password: /usr/local/bin/mysqladmin -u root password 'new-password'

Start MySQL: /usr/local/etc/rc.d/mysql-server start

2: Apache

cd /usr/ports/www/apache22

make install clean

Edit /etc/rc.conf and add apache22_enable="YES"

Edit /boot/loader.conf and add accf_http_load=YES

3: PHP

cd /usr/ports/lang/php5

make install clean !!In the popup at the least check off "Build Apache Module"

4: PDF Lite

fetch ftp://ftp.swin.edu.au/gentoo/distfiles/PDFlib-Lite-7.0.2.tar.gz

sudo mv PDFlib-Lite-7.0.2.tar.gz /usr/ports/distfiles/

5: PHP Extensions

cd /usr/ports/lang/php5-extension

make install clean !!Confirm that sockets is selected.

Apply the configuration file: cp /usr/local/etc/php.ini-dist /usr/local/etc/php.ini

Enabling Apache to run PHP

Edit the Apache configuration file /usr/local/etc/apache22/httpd.conf and add

AddType application/x-httpd-php .php

AddType application/x-httpd-php-source .phps

Change DirectoryIndex index.html to DirectoryIndex index.php index.html

Start Apache /usr/local/etc/rc.d/apache22 start

6: MemCached

cd /usr/ports/databases/pecl-memcache

make install clean

cd /usr/ports/databases/memcached

make install clean

Edit /etc/rc.conf and add memcached_enable="YES"

Start MemCached with /usr/local/bin/memcached -d -u nobody

Confirming MemCached is running
Run netstat -an to confirm that a process is listening on TCP 11211
It may also be useful to run /usr/local/bin/php -i | grep -i 'memcache'

Troubleshooting problems encountered with the SharePoint 2010 Configuration Wizard

2010-07-14T10:36:00.000-07:00

For something with so few options the SharePoint 2010 Configuration Wizard should just work. Sadly it does not always do what it is supposed to do. When it does not your options are pretty much limited to common sense, event logs, and the Configuration Wizards logs themselves which found in the LOGS folder in C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared \Web Server Extensions\14\

They're not perfect but they normally are sufficent enough to get started down the right path if you have a really obscure issue.

For example, lets say that you are having some kind of connectivity issues at the specify configuration server and database screen after opting to create a new farm. Inside this file you can find the parameters being set such as the user in the standard DOMAIN\UN format and their password as a series of ***** followed by mention of the functions as they are being stepped through by the installer. Very helpful if you are trying to figure out where the break is occurring!

A point to take away is that knowing the local time that you are running through the steps can be very helpful.

MongoDB: installing on windows as a service and your first database

2010-07-14T04:01:00.000-07:00

MongoDB is an document-oriented DBMS. Think of it as MySQL but JSON (actually, BSON ) as the data model, not relational. There are no joins. If you have used object-relational mapping layers before in your programs, you will find the Mongo interface similar to use, but faster, more powerful, and less work to set up. In fact it is so easy to get running that I'm going to show you how to get it up and running as a Windows service in a few minutes.

But first, why would you ever want to use MongoDB?

The goal of MongoDB is to bridge the gap between key-value stores (which are fast and highly scalable) and traditional RDBMS systems (which provide rich queries and deep functionality). MongoDB is designed for problems that aren't easily solved by traditional RDBMSs, including problems that require databases to span many servers.

MongoDB is a document-oriented database. This means that unlike a relational database management system, MongoDB manages collections of JSON-like documents. This allows many applications to model data in a more natural way, as data can be nested in complex hierarchies and still be query-able and indexable.

MongoDB supports an automated sharding architecture, enabling horizontal scaling across multiple nodes. For applications that outgrow the resources of a single database server, MongoDB can convert to a sharded cluster, automatically managing failover and balancing of nodes, with few or no changes to the original application code.

Moving on...

1: Getting the binaries...
Download the windows version here and be sure to get the 64bit version. The 32bit version has a limit of about 2.5Gb whereas the 64bit version has almost none... The reason for this is that the MongoDB storage engine uses memory-mapped files for performance and the goal for the engines code was to keep it as uncluttered as possible.

2: Create some folders
Before opening the downloaded archive you have to create a folder with content at the root of C:\ called "data". Inside that create a folder called "db" Note that from now on I'm going to be giving the equivalent of shell commands highlighted and as you continue to read you will see why.

Start -> Run -> CMD
C:
cd C:\
mkdir data
mkdir \data\db
mkdir \data\logs

At this point you should now have this structure on your file system.

3: Extract the downloaded files
You should have downloaded something named like this "mongodb-win32-x86_64-1.4.4.zip"

Extract the archive and move its contents to C:\ so you should see this type of structure:

4: Set MongoDB as a Windows Service
Looking inside of "bin" we can see a few .exe files. Our focus for now is going to be on "mongod.exe"

Setting it up as a service requires a couple of decisions. At a minimum:

Where shall the logs go? In this example c:\mongo\logs\
Where shall the data go? In this example c:\mongo\data\
What port do want to run the web service on? In this example 1001.

With that decided creating the service is as easy as running the below from the command line.

mongod --bind_ip 127.0.0.1 --logpath c:\data\logs --logappend --dbpath c:\data --directoryperdb -port 1 --install

! If you wish to remove it just use: mongod --remove

So now Mongo should be visible in Services

Note the path to the executable and the fact that the service is not yet started...

Start the service and go here: http://127.0.0.1:1001/ where you should see the following information.

5: Accessing database
Accessing the database is done via mongo.exe found in \bin\
Run
C:
cd \mongodb\bin
mongo

and you should now be in the administrative shell like this.

! If you get an error like below just remove the service and redo without the port definition.

MongoDB shell version: 1.4.4
url: test
connecting to: test
Tue Jul 13 14:44:59 JS Error: Error: couldn't connect: couldn't connect to server 127.0.0.1 127.0.0.1:27017 (anon):952
Tue Jul 13 14:44:59 User Exception 12513:connect failed

Saving and retrieving is as easy as below.
db.foo.insert( { a : 1 } )
db.foo.find()

I have also included what the file systems should look like as well for this example.

And that's it. You now have a working MongoDB service on your Windows machine!
Things to note

A performance environment would not have everything on C:\
Run \bin\mongd -h for more options, there are not that many...
Defining the port rather than running it on the default 27017 requires some extras. Expect errors if you do not read up a bit more on MongoDB.
Did you notice that the administrative shell is a JavaScript interface..?

Resources

Linus Torvalds on git: 70 minutes of video about Linux kernel source control

2010-07-13T09:26:00.000-07:00

If you use Vault, CVS, or anything else you should watch this.

Javascript transition effects with Blockster

2010-07-13T09:03:00.000-07:00

Highlighting your featured content can be quite the challenge. Getting the aesthetics right by pulling the eye in without stabbing it is a valuable skill. A nice tool that you can use when appropriate is Blockster.

Blockster is a Javascript transition effect designed for 'featured content' rotators or slideshows. Its underlying concept is to transition between one element to the next block by block. It is highly customisable in terms of how many blocks are involved, whether they fade in or simply appear, whether they appear in order or randomly, and more.

The script gives you full control over how the script behaves, giving you scope to create some pretty varying effects. You can set the number of rows and cols in the block grid, whether the blocks should fade in or simply appear, whether they should appear randomly, in order, etc.

Mitya likes jQuery

Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah - read more

Mitya likes GD

Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah - read more

Lorem Ipsum!

Examples, as always, make more sense than words...so go here for more: http://www.mitya.co.uk/scripts/Blockster-transition-effect-122

Another easy way to perform instant and/or automated backups of MySQL

2010-07-13T06:07:00.000-07:00

PhpMyAdmin is great for what it does but it does not excel everywhere. If you're looking to create instant or automated backups of MySQL databases consider Sypex Dumper 2.x

Built with PHP, it has an Ajaxed interface and can run database restores as well. Handily it can avoid PHP script timeouts by pausing the jobs. And being licensed under the BSD license, it is absolutely free. Interestingly supposedly it can also be integrated into third-party products... Something I have not done or tried. What impressed me mostly about it was how easy interacting with databases via the browser became with it.

http://sypex.net/en/

Getting started with HTML5: Three steps

2010-07-12T10:19:00.000-07:00

Even though it is unfinished standard you can and should get started with HTML5 and it is more easy than you may think...

The new Doctype
Is as easy as it can get. Just replace

 < !DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
< html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">

with
< !DOCTYPE html>
< html>
and you're done. Simple.

Video
The format wars are being fought rather publicly these days and the best part is that it should have little to no effect on you. The < video> tag is able to hold more than one SRC. So your browser can roll down through the options until it finds what will work. Again, simple. The best place to learn more is here: http://camendesign.com/code/video_for_everybody where they have loads of samples such as:

< !-- Video for Everybody, Kroc Camen of Camen Design -->
< video width="640" height="360" controls preload="none">
< source src="__VIDEO__.MP4" type="video/mp4" />
< source src="__VIDEO__.OGV" type="video/ogg" />
< object width="640" height="384" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" data="__FLASH__.SWF">
< param name="movie" value="__FLASH__.SWF" />
< param name="flashvars" value="image=__POSTER__.JPG&file=__VIDEO__.MP4" />
< img src="__VIDEO__.JPG" width="640" height="360" alt="__TITLE__"
title="No video playback capabilities, please download the video below" />
< /object>
< /video>
< p> < strong>Download Video:
Closed Format: < a href="__VIDEO__.MP4">"MP4"
Open Format: < a href="__VIDEO__.OGV">"OGG"
< /p>

Next up, smarter forms.
Weary of validating if that really is an email address or proper URL in that field? Well now the effort is in the lap of the browser. Again, they are really easy to implement. Examples would be

Email: < input type="email">
URL: < input type="url">
Number: < input type="number">
Phone: < input type="tel">
Color picker: < input type="color">

Slider: < input type="range" min="0" max="10" step="2" value="5">

etc.

Simple, no? Failure is graceful too as the fall back is to text.

Placeholder text for any of these is just as easy!

< input type="email" placeholder="Your email address">

And again, the browser does the work by responding to the cursor by clearing the field automatically.

And even better! If you need to make it a required field just add "required."

< input type="email" placeholder="Your email address" required>

What if your requirements are not listed? You can build / define your own. For example if you need a credit card field - which would consist of a string of numbers ranging from 13 to 16. Your field would contain this:

pattern="[0-9]{13,16}">

Needless to say there is an awful lot more such as the canvas tag and all of its potential badness and goodness but this should get you started! If you are interested in the Canvas tag there is a good cheat sheet here: http://blog.nihilogic.dk/2009/02/html5-canvas-cheat-sheet.html

Windows MultiPoint Server 2010

2010-07-12T09:35:00.000-07:00

Built on top of Windows Server 2008 R2 Windows MultiPoint Server 2010 seems to be bring back the days of the mainframe.

The general goal of MultiPoint Server is to reduce costs for certain types of businesses and schools . The solution works by having one server feeding multiple mice, keyboards, speakers and monitors. Each session provides a user with a unique Remote Desktop to the MultiPoint Server. In other words, the dumb terminal once again makes a return. (Needless to say MultiPoint faces stiff competition from the likes of Userful Corporation, the world leader in multiseat Linux desktop virtualization.)

When I looked at it I immediately thought about how this would work at home and at the office. Wireless keyboards, and mice complimented with wireless monitor adapters (that can support audio!) connected to your television? That would make my life very easy and very much cheaper at home.

It also could be very useful for development shops with small budgets.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/multipoint/default.aspx

http://www2.userful.com/

SharePoint 2010 Optimization: Start with SQL

2010-07-08T11:20:00.000-07:00

If you need more than 4Gb of storage for your SharePoint 2010 environment and blob linking is not for you, working with SQL Server is on your plate. 2010 has a lot of databases, each and every one of which has a role and performance profile. Knowing these can help you squeeze out that extra bit out of your environment.

A typical, or maybe not so depending on your individual needs/budget/etc, SharePoint 2010 environment has the potential to look like this. If yours does not, and almost certainly it does not :) , I'm sure you can see similarities.

Viewing this in a compartmentalized fashion skewed towards where you can gain literal and alluded performance improvements you have roughly three major sections.

A: The database
B: The WFEs
C: The UI / General payload

I'm going to focus on the databases, what they are, and what they do. With knowledge comes power as they say.

So starting with the basics...

System
A normal installation of SQL drops a couple of databases on the disk.
Expect to see:

MASTER: Records all system level information for a SQL Server instance. E.g. logins, configuration, and other databases.
MSDB: Records operators and is used by SQL Server Agent to schedule jobs and alerts.
MODEL: Is used as the template for all the databases created in the instance.
TEMPDB: All temporary tables, temporary stored procedures, and anything else that is 'temporary' is stored here. Like a cache this is recreated every time the SQL Server instance is started.

Notes:

Of these four, only the last one TEMPDB really should be a candidate for its own spindle.
Size wise, TEMPDB is the only one that you should expect any type of growth from.
All four scale vertically, as in you can only allow them to grow in size rather than add in extra databases.

Reporting Services

Reporting Services are often used with SharePoint 2010s Excel, Visio, and PerformacePoint Services but are not required. Access Services does require them, specifically the SQL Server 2008 R2 Reporting Services Add-in.

Expect to see:

ReportServer: This stores all the metadata for reports such as definitions, history, scheduling, and snapshots. When ReportServer is actually in use the report documents are stored in SharePoint Content databases.
ReportServerTempDB: When reports are running temporary snapshots are found here.

Notes:

Both of these databases must coexist on the same database server.
They have a heavy read load.
The ReportServerTempDB can grow if there is heavy use of cached snapshots. Just like with the System databases, all four scale vertically, as in you can only allow them to grow in size rather than add in extra databases.

Overview 1

Okay, so now we have a bunch of databases sitting on our server making it look a tad like this:

Now Lets start to add in SharePoint 2010...

Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010
Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010 drops a number of databases to your disks. (If you install Search Server 2010 Express you will see some of these databases. I have put a * next to the name if it is a factor in play for that kind of scenario.)
Expect to see:

Configuration*: As inferred by its name, this is where information about the environment is stored. Databases, IIS sites, Web Applications, Trusted Solutions, Wb Part Packages, site templates, blocked file types, quotas, they're all in here. There can only be one configuration database per farm and you can expect it to remain relatively small.
Central Administration Content*: Just like the configuration database, there can only be one, it does really grow much, and as its name infers it stores the Central Administration sites content.
Content*: All site content is stored in these guys. Site pages, documents, lists, web part properties, audit logs, user names and rights, they're all in here. Office Web Application data is also stored in here.
Usage*: The Usage and Health Data Collection Service Application uses this database. This write heavy database is unique in that it is the only database that can be (and should be) queried directly by external applications. There can only be one per farm. Health monitoring and usage data used for reporting and diagnostics is in here.
Business Data Connectivity*: External Content Types and related objects are in here. It is typically a read heavy yet small sized database.
Application Registry*: You really only see this if backward compatibility with the BDC API is needed. Typically this can be deleted AFTER upgrading is complete.
Subscription Settings: Features and settings for hosted customers gets put in here. It is not something you normally see as it has to be manually created using Powershell or SQL Server. If it is present you can expect it to remain small and busy only from reads.

Note:

Content databases can hold multiple site collections and their content.
They can get BIG. Their size is dependent on size and count of both content and users.
200GB should be your ceiling. Odds are you will see a performance hit as you pass that number. 1TB or more are an option but for Record Centers and the like. I.e. non collaborative usage and data retrieval (read only.) Add more content databases as you reach that 200GB level.
Due to its nature it is wise to move the Usage database to a separate spindle.

Overview 2

Okay, so now we have Foundation running with a bunch more databases sitting on our server making it look a tad like this:

Right so now lets move on to the Standard edition.

Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 Standard

Compared directly to Foundation, Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 Standard drops a number of extra databases to your disks. (If you install Search Server 2010 Express you will see some of these databases. I have put a * next to the name if it is a factor in play for that kind of scenario.)

Expect to see:

Search Administration*: Used by the Search application the ACL and configuration information is in here. Growth can be vertical or horizontal - if you create new instances of the service application.
Crawl*: Again used by the Search application, the state of the crawled content/data and the historical crawl records are in here. This database can get a bit big and if you are crawling LARGE amounts of data it is a good idea to not have it on the same server as the next database, Property. It is also a good idea to be using the Enterprise version of SQL so that you can leverage the data compression functionality. This is a read heavy database.
Property*: Again used by the Search application associated data to the crawls is stored in here such as history, crawl queues, and general properties. If you have large volumes of data, move this to its own server and you will see performance improvements with regard to search query result returns. This is a write heavy database.
Web Analytics Reporting*: Used by the Web Analytics application, aggregated report tables, fact data grouped by site - date - asset, diagnostic information can be found in here. Depending on your policies this database can get massive. As it grows scale out by adding more databases.
Web Analytics Staging*: Temporary data (unaggregated) is in here.
State*: Used by the State Service application, InfoPath Forms Services, and Visio Services. Temporary state information for Exchange is also in here. More State databases can be added via PowerShell.
Profile: Used by the User Profile service application, users and their information is found and managed in here. Additional databases can be created if you create additional service instances. Expect lots of reads and medium growth.
Synchronization: Again, used by the User Profile service application. It contains configuration and staging data for use when a directory service such as AD is being synched with. Scaling up or out is the same as with Profile. Its size can be influenced by not just the number of users and groups but their ratios as well. Expect fairly balanced read vs write activity.
Social Tagging: Again, used by the User Profile service application. As users create social tags and notes they are stored, along with their URLs in here. Expect growth to be representative of how much your community embraces the functionality of social tagging. Scaling up or out is the same as with Profile. This is definitely more read than write heavy.
Managed Metadata Service: Syndicated content types and managed metadata is stored in here. Growth can be vertical or horizontal - if you create new instances of the Managed Metadata service application.
Secure Store*: Account names, passwords, and their mappings are stored in here. This is where you may have to collaborate with other internal groups as it is suggested that this database be hosted on a seperate database instane with limited access. Growth can be vertical or horizontal - if you create new instances of the service application.

Note:

Watch the Web Analytics Reporting database. It can get very big.
Use compression for Crawl if you have the Enterprise version of SQL.

Overview 3

Okay, so now we have SharePoint Server 2010 Standard edition running with a bunch more databases sitting on our server making it look a tad like this:

Right so now lets move on to the Enterprise edition...

Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 Enterprise

Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 Enterprise drops extra databases on top of the Standard list to handle Word and PerformancePoint.

Expect to see:

Word Automation Services: Used by the Word Automation service application information about impending and completed document conversions is to be found in here. This database can be expected to remain relatively small.
PerformancePoint: Used by the PerformancePoint service application settings, persisted user comments, and temporary objects are stored in here. It can be expected to be read heavy and can be scaled up or out.

Overview 4

Okay, so now we have SharePoint Server 2010 Enterprise edition running on our server making it look a tad like this:

Where else can we go from here? Well there's always Project Server , PowerPivot, and FAST... All are complicated products that require SharePoint Server 2010 Enterprise.

Microsoft Project Server 2010

Expect to see:

Draft: Not accessible to end users this is used to store data used by the project queue. There can only be one as far as I know.
Published: When a project is published this is where it lives. Timesheets, resources, custom fields, and all the other metadata is stored in here. This database can get large.
Archive: Backup data of projects, resources, calendars, etc. is in here. Growth can be limited, if it is not and is used it will get large.
Reporting: This is the repository of the entire project portfolio. When you publish a project plan, a copy will be put in here. Read heavy and large...

Microsoft FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint

Expect to see:

Search Administration: Stores and manages search setting groups, keywords, synonyms, promotion/demotions, best bets, and search schema metadata. It should stay on the small side and remain read heavy.

Microsoft SQL Server PowerPivot for SharePoint

Expect to see:

PowerPivot Service Application: Cached and loaded PowerPivot files are in here along with usage data and schedules. You can expect this database to remain small.
Note:
PowerPivot files can be rather big and PowerPivot stores data in content databases as well as the central administration database.
So where does that leave us? If you have everything above installed you should expect to see something like this...

Looking at these databases and what could / should be
candidates for having their own platters you should start to see something like this:

Note that the Secure Store should be moved primarily for security purposes.

It has to be mentioned as well that each and every environment can prove to be unique so you may not see value in moving anything other than your content databases to another platter.

So what does this look like in the wild? Viewing a screenshot of, an admittedly deliberately slightly duplicated environment, you can see these databases as they would appear in real life...

Their file system looks like this:

Clearly there is job security for DBAs going forward :). There is also a level of complexity that merits caution and planning when considering SharePoint 2010. The phrase a stitch in time continues to hold value...

Improving the user experience with password entry

2010-07-07T07:43:00.000-07:00

Sometimes deploying a forms based registration / login solution for SharePoint, or anything else, makes me somewhat weary. Specifically, creating the system that enforces, for sometimes tens or hundreds of thousands of people, the mundane action of having to add a password no less than twice after panning ones brain for a username when registering for an account just seems so old schoolish and tedious...

Adding a bit of colour, literally, here is a good thing. Not to much, not too little and you can add the equivalent of a breath of fresh air. One great tool for this job is Chroma-Hash.

Chroma-Hash is a jQuery plugin that aims to offer a better password input experience with a standard password field replaces the entered characters with "●" characters. The problem is "we never know if we made a typo or not until the form is submitted & a reply is received from the server". Chroma-Hash, "converts the values entered" into a colored visualization.

A user filling the password field can easily recognize that if the colors are the usual equivalents of the password or not. And, anyone who sees the colors won't have any idea what the actual password is.

The script can also be used to visualize password confirmations (password & confirm password fields).

A detailed info on the method & security concerns can be found at thedeveloper's related post.

http://mattt.github.com/Chroma-Hash/

http://mattt.me/2009/11/chroma-hash-revisited/

Data Visualization: The Quest for Patterns

2010-07-01T07:02:00.000-07:00

Recently I was trying to present a way for individuals to find patterns in large amounts of data. The end result was considered successful and I thought I would share at a high level what was done.

Firstly, the data looked a tad liked this...

Note 1: this is NOT the actual data.

Note 2: C1 and C2 are where I wish to draw interest to in this example. I.e. the final outcome should be a clean visual of the all data with an intuitive focus where C1 and C2 get and send their data.

Certainly not terribly daunting, interesting, nor unfamiliar for the average office/information worker/victim :)

Running this through Excel Services really did not produce anything useful. It hinted at associations between the data points but that was it. See for yourself...

Not the best presentation of data I'm sure you'd agree... (Even forgiving the quality of the image.)

So I ran the data around a different set of axis with a bit of custom code and got a dramatically clearer view of the columns and their content associations. At least I think it is.

Colour coding C1 and C2 made things even more clear.

A successful solution!

Moving large numbers of records with SqlBulkCopy

2010-06-30T07:37:00.000-07:00

Sometimes you have to move large amounts of data in, out, or around SQL. There are plenty of ways to do that but few are as fast as using SqlBulkCopy. It is not fast. It is blazingly fast. As with anything else it has its place and limitations but it is well worth understanding at the least.

It is pretty easy to work with as the below example shows...

static void CopyData(DataTable sourceTable, SqlConnection destConnection)

{

// new method: SQLBulkCopy:

using (SqlBulkCopy s = new SqlBulkCopy(destConnection))

{

s.DestinationTableName = "SalesCopy";

s.NotifyAfter = 10000;

s.SqlRowsCopied += new SqlRowsCopiedEventHandler(s_SqlRowsCopied);

s.WriteToServer(sourceTable);

s.Close();

}

When used properly it can make seemingly large data volume transactions trivial.

Useful links

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.data.sqlclient.sqlbulkcopy.aspx

http://www.sqlteam.com/article/use-sqlbulkcopy-to-quickly-load-data-from-your-client-to-sql-server

http://www.codeproject.com/KB/database/SqlBulkCopy.aspx

Euler's identity: a mental segue

2010-06-29T05:30:00.000-07:00

Working with code as a creator, configuror (is this really a word?), or troubleshooter has rewards and costs. One of the rewards is seeing / discovering crisp and novel logical patterns used to translate business processes from physical to digital.

Recently I was discussing with somebody how best to present large amounts of somewhat abstract data related to individuals with a goal of 'perceiving' subject matter experts in as fluid a fashion as possible. (Clearly I struggled with this sentence.) Musing for a few days on the topic I started to visualize a way to map each persons data points onto a sphere and what the values of those data points could, and should, do to the sphere and its surroundings. Then I remembered something I had not thought or heard anybody mention in a long long time. Euler's identity.

Euler's identity is not something most people think or even know about. Considered by many to be exceptionally remarkable for its mathematical beauty. It is often mentioned as the literal pinnacle of mathematical elegance and beauty. And it looks like this:

It comprises of three basic arithmetic operations that occur exactly once each:

addition
multiplication
exponentiation.

The identity also links five fundamental mathematical constants:

The number 0.
The number 1.
The number ''π'', which is ubiquitous in trigonometry, geometry of Euclidean space, and mathematical analysis (π ≈ 3.14159).
The number ''e'', the base of natural logarithms, which also occurs widely in mathematical analysis (e ≈ 2.71828).
The number ''i'', imaginary unit of the complex numbers, which contain the roots of all nonconstant polynomials and lead to deeper insight into many operators, such as integration.

So what does that mean? Euler's formula demonstrates, albeit for still not terribly clearly known reasons, that there is an intrinsic connection between complex exponential functions and trigonometric transformations.

So... what does that really mean? Sometimes other people put it best. "The true beauty of Euler's Identity comes from the fact that, while the true nature of several of these constants continues to remain a mystery to mathematicians (though it is clear that they possess many real-world manifestations), within the confines of this equation they all work together in such a way that they interlock like pieces of a mathematical jigsaw puzzle, the end result of which has the mathematical traveler ending up right back where he began - at the journey's origin.

Okay...

If it does not 'make sense' don't worry. The mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss supposedly said that if this formula was not immediately apparent to a student upon being shown it, that student would never become a first-class mathematician. Few people are. I know I'm not. But that still does not help if you cannot "see" it, so here's a picture. A moving one that hopefully will act to shed some light on what Euler's identity tells us. (I got the picture and the text below straight from Wikipedia.)

The exponential function e^z can be defined as the limit of(1 + z/N)^N, as N approaches infinity, and thus e^iπ is the limit of (1 + iπ/N)^N. In this animation N takes various increasing values from 1 to 100. The computation of (1 + iπ/N)^N is displayed as the combined effect of N repeated multiplications in the complex plane, with the final point being the actual value of (1 + iπ/N)^N. It can be seen that as N gets larger (1 + iπ/N)^N approaches a limit of −1.

If you're still not sure what it is, Midnight tutor has a good video here: http://www.midnighttutor.com/EulerFormula.html

In case you were wondering. No, it did not help solve the original business need. But it did help to continue to keep alive the awareness that everyday people I work with produce clever, and sometimes stunning, solutions with logical blocks. It's like working with artists who craft in ether.

Visual Studio 2010 problem with Vault

2010-06-23T08:47:00.000-07:00

Working with Visual Studio 2010 and SQL 2008 I got this message out of the blue:

'System.__ComObject' to interface type 'Microsoft.VisualStudio.OLE.Interop.IServiceProvider'. This operation failed because the QueryInterface call on the COM component for the interface with IID '{6D5140C1-7436-11CE-8034-00AA006009FA}' failed due to the following error: No such interface supported (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80004002 (E_NOINTERFACE)).

Whoah... After a reboot, some thought, a few more attempts to build, and a bit of luck, I deduced with reasonable certainty that Vault, which I use for version control, was the culprit.

So I closed Studio 2010 and removed Vault. Then I opened the same solution and did a build with no problems. Next step is to figure out what to do about getting Vault back into play. Or not.

Search Server Express 2010: Trial period for this product is about to expire

2010-06-21T07:41:00.000-07:00

Recently I did a Search Server 2010 Express deployment. Everything went without a hitch. Preflight, Installation, configuration, and first few crawls all worked the first time. (As they should!)

After 48 hours I cycled back to check the status of the system and found an issue. Specifically in Central Administration > Review Problems and Solutions > All Reports I found under the Configuration Category "Trial period for this product is about to expire."

Diving in for further detail I saw that the actual source of the error was that "The licensing information not available." After a little bit of further researching I confirmed that to fix it all you have to do is:

Go to "Central Admin" => Monitoring => "Review Rule Definitions"
Click on "Trial period for this product is about to expire" rule under configuration
Edit it
Uncheck the "Enabled" checkbox.
Save

Useful links

http://www.microsoft.com/enterprisesearch/en/us/search-server-express.aspx

IIS Media Services 4.0 Beta is now available

2010-06-16T08:02:00.000-07:00

There's a new download available for IIS Media Services. Though still in Beta, real Beta not "Google Beta", some new key features are:

One Encoding Format, One Server, Many Devices – including iPhone
Easy Content Conversio
Content Creation
Rich Player Options
New Live Smooth Streaming Features

If you are not already familiar with it, IIS Media Services is an integrated HTTP-based media delivery platform, that delivers true HD (720p+) live and on-demand streaming, DVR functionality, and real-time analytics support to computers, TVs, and mobile devices. By offering a complete multi-format media delivery platform and a proven Web server, highly immersive websites can now be managed from a single Web platform: IIS.

Download links

32bit: http://download.microsoft.com/download/F/D/D/FDDB1FDD-E299-4BD5-924B-F97434AA66AA/IISMedia32.msi

64bit: http://download.microsoft.com/download/D/3/5/D3575D5B-2091-40E7-AD88-27F8B87BA9EA/IISMedia64.msi

SharePoint 2010 Reference: Software Development Kit

2010-06-16T05:18:00.000-07:00

The Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Software Development Kit (SDK) includes documentation and code samples for Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010 and for Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010, which builds upon the SharePoint Foundation 2010 infrastructure. The documentation includes detailed descriptions of the technologies that SharePoint Server 2010 and SharePoint Foundation 2010 provide for developers, reference documentation for the server and client object models, and step-by-step procedures for using these technologies and object models and programming with them.

This SDK also includes best practices and setup guidance to help you get started with your own custom applications that build and extend upon the SharePoint Foundation 2010 and SharePoint Server 2010 platforms.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=f0c9daf3-4c54-45ed-9bde-7b4d83a8f26f&displaylang=en&displaylang=en

Silverlight: Getting Started

2010-06-15T08:54:00.000-07:00

Silverlight is not the easiest thing to get good at. In fact even if you are a seasoned .NET developer I would still call it a non trivial venture. Over at http://jesseliberty.com/2010/06/03/getting-started-with-silverlight-a-path-through-the-learning-material/ there's a good short list on what to do if you want / or have to get into Silverlight development. Essentially he, Jesse Liberty, says:

"1. Go to the GetStarted page and download the components you need

2. Work your way through #1-5 in the “Start Learning Silverlight” section on that same page

3. Take a look at my Key Topic on Starting Silverlight (see the sidebar on the right)

4. Take a look at the Silverlight How-Do-I videos, picking subjects that seem interesting to you.

5. Join the forums, especially the Getting Started forum. They are the very best place to get fast answers. See my Note On Posting Questions On Forums."

UI Dragging : Dragdealer JS

2010-06-13T10:58:00.000-07:00

Dragdealer is a drag-based JavaScript component that embraces endless front-end solutions. Elegantly crafted for JavaScript-aware coders.

The script is pretty flexible with options like:

working horizontally or vertically
defining the initial positions of the slider (x/y)
setting the number of steps for the slider
snapping to the steps
and much more.

Dragdelaer JS has callbacks on both release and move events which makes any type of interactions possible.

http://code.ovidiu.ch/dragdealer/

Speed up your PHP like Facebook does with HipHop for PHP

2010-06-10T09:40:00.000-07:00

It's a fact that script based languages and frameworks slow you down. PHP and its huge amount of frameworks is no exception to that rule. Until you realize that it is used on the busiest site out there - Facebook.

Scripted languages typically are embraced as they have advantages in being simple to learn, code, and debug while counterbalanced with a definite sacrificing of speed. On the other side of the spectrum, compiled languages usually have a steeper learning curve and are much more strict; counter balanced with the clear fact that they are considerably faster and better optimized for handling memory. Facebook seems to have found a balance between both worlds with HipHop for PHP.

Facebook developers write lots of their core services in other languages, and then PHP is used as the glue that queries those services and builds the actual pages itself. Still, they have found that that really isn't fast enough for what they want, so they went and wrote their own compiler, or rather an optimizer, called HipHop, which compiles PHP down to C++ which can then be compiled by G++.

You can download HipHop from here: http://github.com/facebook/hiphop-php

Learn more here: http://developers.facebook.com/blog/post/358 and here: http://therumpus.net/2010/01/conversations-about-the-internet-5-anonymous-facebook-employee/4/

If you're interested in using/trying some PHP frameworks you can start by looking at:

http://kohanaframework.org/

http://cakephp.org/

http://codeigniter.com/

Data Visualization: Earthquakes

2010-06-08T09:01:00.000-07:00

Visualization of data is a topic I have a more than passing interest in. It's a fundamental part of my daily routine as I help people understand what they have and show them new methods and tools with which they can discern patterns that may be hidden.

Sometimes I find things that are interesting or just well done. Such as this earthquake data from the USGS. Looking at the image below you can see data points (location) with value (seismic strength) and recency (date/time) clearly and concisely.

For more on the topic look here:

Global: http://earthquake.usgs.gov/

USA: http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsus/index.gif

LA: http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqscanv/FaultMaps/118-34.gif

2010-06-07T04:22:00.000-07:00

After The Deadline is a project of Automattic (the creator of Wordpress) which checks:

spelling
grammar
styles (finds complex phrases, cliches, bias-language & suggests simple ones)
and detects misused words (has a database of 1500 most misused words & suggestions)

The software used to come as a plugin for several projects (like Wordpress, RoundCube, PHP List) but it is now open source and anybody can embed it to their own code.

Besides the artificial intelligence it already has, it is possible to add new rules & improve the application.

The project also has libraries for jQuery, Ruby & Python to make developing new plugins easier.

Demo: http://www.polishmywriting.com/

Project site: http://www.afterthedeadline.com/

Searching an entire database for a Guid or Unique Identifier

2010-06-02T06:45:00.000-07:00

Searching an entire database for a Guid or Unique Identifier can be a bit of a tricky proposition. However a little bit of T-SQL can help...

DECLARE @GUIDHunted nvarchar(60)
SET @GUIDHunted = '0A24EC0C-65EE-4519-89DF-ABD3DD24F7EF'

SELECT *, 'UNION ALL SELECT ''' + s.name + '.' + ao.name + ''', count(*) FROM '
+ s.name +'.[' + ao.name + '] WHERE ' + ac.name + ' = ''' + @GuidHunted + ''''
FROM sys.all_columns ac
JOIN sys.all_objects ao
ON ac.[object_id] = ao.[object_id]
JOIN sys.schemas s
ON ao.[schema_id] = s.[schema_id]
where user_type_id = 36 -- UniqueIdentifier
and s.name != 'sys'

Here is the output result for a fictional database (just copy the results into a new query window, delete the first UNION ALL and execute).

UNION ALL SELECT 'myschema.Objects' , count(*) FROM myschema.Objects WHERE ObjectID = '0A24EC0C-65EE-4519-89DF-ABD3DD24F7EF'

UNION ALL SELECT 'myschema.Objects2' , count(*) FROM myschema.Objects2 WHERE ObjectID = '0A24EC0C-65EE-4519-89DF-ABD3DD24F7EF'

This assumes that programmers weren’t storing guids in nvarchar types or that the programmers didn’t create other user types using unique identifiers.

FreeBSD 8.1-BETA1 released

2010-06-02T06:24:00.000-07:00

The first of the test builds for the FreeBSD 8.1 release cycle is now available for several architectures.

If you are updating an already running machine the CVS branch tag is RELENG_8, or if you prefer SVN use "stable/8". Updates done that way will result in a machine that says it is running "8.1-PRERELEASE".

The freebsd-update(8) utility supports binary upgrades of i386 and amd64 systems running earlier FreeBSD releases. Systems running 8.0-RELEASE can upgrade as follows:

# freebsd-update upgrade -r 8.1-BETA1

During this process, FreeBSD Update may ask the user to help by merging some configuration files or by confirming that the automatically performed merging was done correctly.

# freebsd-update install

The system must be rebooted with the newly installed kernel before continuing.

# shutdown -r now

After rebooting, freebsd-update needs to be run again to install the new userland components, and the system needs to be rebooted again:

# freebsd-update install
# shutdown -r now

Users of earlier FreeBSD releases (FreeBSD 7.x) can also use freebsd-update to upgrade to FreeBSD 8.1-BETA1, but will be prompted to rebuild all third-party applications (e.g., anything installed from the ports tree) after the second invocation of "freebsd-update install", in order to handle differences in the system libraries between FreeBSD 7.x and FreeBSD 8.x.

Mockup tool: Balsamiq Mockups

2010-06-02T06:14:00.000-07:00

A very, very useful tool and worth the cost, $79 USD is Balsamiq Mockups. It works because Balsamiq Mockups intentionally uses hand-drawn UI elements, so that people don't get attached to “that pretty color gradient” or think that your mockup has actual code behind it and is “practically done”...

Main site: http://www.balsamiq.com/products/mockups

Browser based demo: http://www.balsamiq.com/builds/mockups-web-demo/

AeroWindow 2.0 - Cool Windows 7 style modal popups

2010-06-02T05:59:00.000-07:00

AeroWindow is a jQuery plugin for creating Windows 7-like aero style modal pop-ups complete with the minimize, zoom, maximize and close functions. There can be multiple pop-ups in one page where the active one is highlighted visually. All on the screen can be resized, drag'n dropped and maximized with double-clicks.

Demo: http://www.soyos.net/tl_files/demos/aero-window/

SharePoint 2010: User Profile Synchronization Service Woes

2010-06-01T13:59:00.000-07:00

I will continue to update this post with the solution. As/if I/Microsoft support find it...

Having a terrible time getting FIM to start. It just won't start. Logs provide tiny little tidbits such as

The Execute method of job definition Microsoft.Office.Server.UserProfiles.UserProfileImportJob threw an exception. More information is included below. User profile import is in progress!Import could not be started. Please start import later or stop import now for new import to start.

but nothing substantial... So it was time to get more detail by using ULS Viewer.

Using ULS Viewer

1: You can get from here: http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/ULSViewer

2: Looks like:

3: And is easy to start using with SharePoint 2010 by running it and doing

"File"
"Open From"
"ULS" which should reference C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\14\LOGS\

ULSViewer allows users with access to ULS log files to view their logs in a more user friendly interface instead of using standard log file viewers. Logs opened can be filtered, sorted, highlighted, appended, etc in order to single out the data that is important to the user. This information can be used to diagnose problems with machines running ULS services, or to monitor machines and the events they create.

The ULSViewer tool runs on either 32 or 64 bit architectures of Microsoft Windows 2003 Server, Windows 2008 Server, Windows 2008 Server R2, Windows 7, Windows Vista, and Windows XP.

Features
The ULSViewer tool performs various actions against the data from ULS log files in order to better analyze it. ULSViewer allows the user to:

Highlight data of importance to the user on the fly
Bookmark log entries
Append logs to other logs in order to track trends
Hide unimportant data
Only view critical log entries by sorting data by severity
Write rules to prompt the user when certain events occur
View your data in a spreadsheet instead of the text file ULS generates
Monitor remote machines logs that are running ULS services
Open multiple logs at the same time in order to compare log files.
Open logs files from multiple machines at the same time.

I found the following:

"UserProfileApplication.SynchronizeMIIS: Failed to configure ILM, will attempt during next rerun. Exception: System.Security.SecurityException: There are currently no logon servers available to service the logon request. at System.Security.Principal.WindowsIdentity.KerbS4ULogon(String upn) at System.Security.Principal.WindowsIdentity..ctor(String sUserPrincipalName, String type) at System.Security.Principal.WindowsIdentity..ctor(String sUserPrincipalName) at Microsoft.IdentityManagement.SetupUtils.IlmWSSetup.GetDomainAccountSIDHexString(String domainName, String accountName) at Microsoft.IdentityManagement.SetupUtils.IlmWSSetup.GrantSQLRightsToServiceAccount() at Microsoft.IdentityManagement.SetupUtils.IlmWSSetup.IlmBuildDatabase() at Microsoft.Office.Server.Us..."

and

"56:05.2 OWSTIMER.EXE (0x0E00) 0x087C SharePoint Portal Server User Profiles 9q1h Medium ILM Configuration: Configuring certificate. 460c3158-2024-4635-8a85-011823d0caa2"

So is it a certificate issue?

I will continue to update this post with the solution. As/if I/Microsoft support find it...

Smokescreen: real time SWF to JS aka "hello iPad/iPhone"

2010-06-01T10:08:00.000-07:00

Now this is "interesting". Smokescreen, written by Chris Smoak, is a "Flash player written in JavaScript" in that it takes Flash objects and then actually converts them to JavaScript in real time... Whoah you say. Hello iPad/iPhone/whatever...

The goodness: it runs entirely in the browser, reads in SWF binaries, unzips them (in native JS), extracts all images and any embedded audio and then turns them into base64 encoded data:uris. Post all that prework it then stitches the vector graphics back together as an animated SVG. And rather nicely at that.

The badness: 8k lines of JS translates to ~175kb and some serious slowness on mobile devices...

The potential nss nss: supposedly it will be fully opensourced in the not too distant future. Allowing for sorts of optimization potential.

http://smokescreen.us/

Quick Website Sketching With Paper Browser

2010-05-31T06:55:00.000-07:00

Paper Browser is a set of PDF files that look like a browser which can be used for sketching easily once they are printed.

There are 2 different sets:

Quick sketch: proportionally scaled to 1024×768px and subdivided into width sections (800, 960, 1024)
Browser sketch: canvas is 1024×768px minus the height of the browser toolbar and status bar with 32*32px grids.

They both come with landscape and portrait versions.

Paper Browser

SharePoint 2010 Service GUIDs: How to get them!

2010-05-24T08:18:00.001-07:00

Easy to get, and save in a text file, with the following Powershell command:

"get-spserviceinstance > C:\services.txt"

Cause and Effect: An example of DR strategy

2010-05-19T05:30:00.000-07:00

Voyager 2 left Earth on Aug. 20, 1977 to explore Jupiter and Saturn. It successfully finished that mission, then proceeded to fly on by Uranus and Neptune before heading into interstellar space.

It is currently traveling through heliopause -- a region of space where the sun's influence ebbs and interstellar forces begin to dominate. A rather interesting, and commonly unknown by the general public, portion of our solar system. Think of it a bit like a bow wave from a ship except the material replacing the sea is space/time and the ships hull is the bubble of our solar system.

Voyager 2 and its twin, Voyager 1, are both expected to enter interstellar space -- the first human-made objects to do so -- in the next five years which means scientists are very excited about what may be discovered in the next five years as both Voyagers push their way through the heliopause. So you can imagine their consternation when it started acting a bit like VGER from Star Trek The Motion Picture

The 33 year old piece of hardware starting speaking in tongues from 8.6 billion miles away preventing mission control from decoding any of its data. Over the course of two weeks with 26 hour round trip communication cycles and replication with exact hardware copies on Earth, the root cause of the problem was discovered to be a single memory bit that had flipped from 0 to 1. A single bit of memory caused the whole system to fail. A simple cause. The effect was catastrophic in impact but NASA did what they do best and implemented predefined processes which included troubleshooting on hardware duplicates and predefined steps through what if scenarios. They were successful. They intend to reset Voyagers memory tomorrow ~ May 20 2010.

The point to take from all of this is - no matter what system you implement you have to have a strategy for handling situations when 'it' does not work properly. SharePoint is a difficult product to work in depth with, and when things go wrong they are either minor or very major. But even if you're working with something other than SharePoint have your DR strategy and related documents ready. Know, comment, and if appropriate visualize with UML, your processes and make sure that others can and will be able to understand what they say. If you do it right, even after 33 years, you can look like a superstar...

If you are interested in more information about the two Voyagers NASA has a weekly update here where you can see detail down to how much propellant the two craft have recently used and left.

PROPELLANT/POWER CONSUMABLES STATUS AS OF THIS REPORT

Spacecraft
Consumption
One Week (Gm)
Propellant
Remaining (Kg)
Output
(Watts)
Margin
(Watts)
1
4.84
26.22
274.2
30
2
4.25
27.90
275.5
29

RANGE, VELOCITY AND ROUND TRIP LIGHT TIME AS OF THIS REPORT

Voyager 1
Voyager 2
Distance from the Sun (Km)
16,915,000,000
13,737,000,000
Distance from the Sun (Mi)
10,510,000,000
8,536,000,000
Distance from the Earth (Km)
16,858,000,000
13,753,000,000
Distance from the Earth (Mi)
10,475,000,000
8,456,000,000
Total Distance Traveled Since Launch (Km)
21,833,000,000
20,860,000,000
Total Distance Traveled Since Launch (Mi)
113,566,000,000
12,962,000,000
Velocity Relative to Sun (Km/sec)
17.071
15.487
Velocity Relative to Sun (Mi/hr)
38,185
34,643
Velocity Relative to Earth (Km/sec)
19.977
22.862
Velocity Relative to Earth (Mi/hr)
44,689
51,139
Round Trip Light Time (hh:mm:ss)
31:13:28
25:28:58

Linux 2.6.34 has been released...

2010-05-17T07:31:00.000-07:00

Linux 2.6.34 has been released. This version adds two new filesystem, the distributed filesystem Ceph and LogFS, a filesystem for flash devices. Other features are a driver for almost-native KVM network performance, the VMware balloon driver, the 'kprobes jump' optimization for dynamic probes, new perf features (the 'perf lock' tool, cross-platform analysis support), several Btrfs improvements, RCU lockdep, Generalized TTL Security Mechanism (RFC 5082) and private VLAN proxy arp (RFC 3069) support, asynchronous suspend/resume, several new drivers and many other small improvements. See the full changelog here."

SQL Server 2008 R2 released to manufacturing

2010-04-22T07:46:00.000-07:00

Microsoft's flagship database SQL Server 2008 R2 refresh was completed and released to manufacturing today. With improved scalability, support for up to 256 logical processors, and simplified centralized management of multiserver deployments it should be a boon to many. The BI aspect of it alone should make its embracement rate outrace that of previous versions. Master Data, richer reports, and improved analysis features all combine together to make a solid product even better.

Personally I look forward to testing out StreamInsight with real time log analysis from SharePoint 2010 farms and RFID deployments.

Quantum Cryptography Now Fast Enough For Video...

2010-04-20T06:55:00.000-07:00

Researchers at the Cambridge Lab of Toshiba Research Europe have solved the problem of transferring highly sensitive data at high speed across a long distance network. The team were able to demonstrate the continuous operation of quantum key distribution (QKD) — a system that allows the communicating users to detect if a third party is trying to eavesdrop on the data communication — at a speed greater than one megabit/sec over a 50 km fibre optic network, thanks to the use of a light detector for high bit rates and a feedback system which maintains the high bit rates during data transfer. ... The faster one megabit/sec data handling will allow the one-time pad to be used for the encryption of video — a vast step forward over the current ability to only encrypt voice data.

It's a different type of Flash...

2010-04-15T07:38:00.000-07:00

Sencha (previously known as Ext JS) has released Sencha Touch, a HTML5 Mobile Application Framework. which allows you to develop web applications that look and feel native on Apple iOS and Google Android touchscreen devices.
It makes use of HTML5 for delivering audio/video or localStorage and CSS3 for maximum styling like rounded corners, background gradients, and shadows.
The code created is resolution independent. It uses a method which allows developers to change the overall scale of their interfaces on the fly with no pixellation.

Sencha Touch has a powerful animation system that makes flexible animations between screens and views possible.

Slide, pop, and fade animations are included with the library, each with a robust set of options to change attributes like direction and masking style.
And, as they are created with CSS, building custom animations is a joy.

Also, it includes a set of common icons for using them in toolbars and tab bars.

Compatibility: Apple iOS and Google Android
Website: http://www.sencha.com/products/touch/
Demo: http://www.sencha.com/products/touch/demos.php

DragonFly BSD: updated to version 2.6.1

2010-04-13T13:00:00.002-07:00

DragonFly BSD, the FreeBSD fork, has been updated to version 2.6.1 with a number of new features whilst updating the components of the clustering oriented operating system.

A new swapcache has been incorporated which allows the swap space to also retain clean filesystem data and meta-data rather than just memory. Swapcache has "an enormously positive effect on system performance". As an example, the developers say a 40GB SSD drive can cache around 80 million inodes for fast directory operations "almost acting like extended memory".
The HAMMER filesystem has been updated to version 4 and now supports a REDO capability for fast, crash-recoverable fsync operations and the developers have ported NetBSD's implementations of memory efficient tmpfs and POSIX message queues to DragonFly BSD.
An updated Linuxlator for i386 which now runs java and flash with a new, but compatible, watchdog framework.
Hardware support has also been improved with the incorporation of drivers for the Atheros AR8131/AR8132 and Intel Pro/1000 network cards.

Full details of the changes are in the release notes.

http://www.dragonflybsd.org/

HumbleFinance: Dynamic Charts with HTML5, Canvas, and Flotr for Prototype

2010-04-13T13:00:00.001-07:00

HumbleFinance is an HTML5 data visualization tool written as a demonstration of interactive graphing in HTML5. It is similar to the Flash tool on http://finance.google.com/. The tool itself is written entirely in JavaScript, using the Prototype and Flotr libraries. It can be used to display any two 2-D data sets of real numerical data which share an axis.

http://www.humblesoftware.com/finance/index

Custom Images for SharePoint profile page view

2010-04-08T08:08:00.001-07:00

Sometimes you need to tightly control profile pictures in MOSS / SharePoint 2007. An easy way to do this if your pictures have the right naming convention is as follow.

Looking at the URL of the profile we can see that the data is clearly sent "/Person.aspx?accountname=DOMAIN%5JohnDoe" In this case we are looking at the domain user JDoe aka John Doe on the domain DOMAIN.

Edit person.aspx and at about line 39 comment out ""

And replace it with the following JavaScript...

< type="text/javascript">
var str1="< propertyname="FirstName" runat="server" preview="FirstName" values="<P N='PropertyName' T='FirstName' /><P N='ControlStyle'><P N='Font' ID='1' /></P><P N='Font' R='1' /><P N='ID' ID='2' T='ctl02' /><P N='Page' ID='3' /><P N='TemplateControl' R='3' /><P N='AppRelativeTemplateSourceDirectory' R='-1' />">";
var str2="< propertyname="LastName" runat="server" preview="LastName" values="<P N='PropertyName' T='LastName' /><P N='ControlStyle'><P N='Font' ID='1' /></P><P N='Font' R='1' /><P N='ID' ID='2' T='ctl03' /><P N='Page' ID='3' /><P N='TemplateControl' R='3' /><P N='AppRelativeTemplateSourceDirectory' R='-1' />">";
str1 = str1.replace("<>", "");
str1 = str1.replace("< /span>", "");
str2 = str2.replace("<>", "");
str2 = str2.replace("< /span>", "");
document.write("< src="'http://people/FirmDirectory/FacebookPictures/" alt="'" width="'72'"> <>");
< /script>

(In this case our images have the following naming convention FirstLast.gif.)

As usual HTML tags have been changed in the following way:

"<" is now "< ".

Javascript Image Rotator/Presenter

2010-04-04T06:26:00.001-07:00

Cycle is a script that supports image presentations to easily display multiple images. This script supports a lot of effects and the cycling of html elements.

Presentation Cycle is a variation on the functionality of Cycle. Instead of generating a list of numbers that are clickable. Presentation Cycle generates a progress bar that shows when the new slide will appear.

http://www.gayadesign.com/diy/presentation-cycle-cycle-with-a-progressbar

Photoshop CS5 Upcoming Feature : Puppet Warp

2010-04-04T06:15:00.000-07:00

Stunning new features are appearing in CS5. IF this particular one applies to real people as well as it does to the demo puppet it will be very useful.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nAklIkMy4g

OpenSSL 1.0.0 Released

2010-03-29T13:35:00.000-07:00

After over 11 years of development since the start of the OpenSSL Project (1998-12-23), OpenSSL version 1.0.0 has finally hit the shelves of the free-for-all store.

http://www.openssl.org/news/

iPad GUI Kit in PSD Format

2010-03-26T04:48:00.000-07:00

RawApps, a blog focused on mobile application development, is sharing a detailed and free iPad GUI Kit.

The kit is in PSD format, its canvas size is parallel to the iPad's 768×1024px and includes layers like the keyboard, sliders, icons, the canvas, etc.

http://www.rawapps.com/blog/03/ipad-gui-kit-in-psd-format-is-here/

SQL 2008 error The version of SQL Server instance MSSQLSERVER does not match the version expected by the SQL Server update. The installed SQL Server p

2010-03-17T12:25:00.000-07:00

If you get the error:

"The version of SQL Server instance MSSQLSERVER does not match the version expected by the SQL Server update. The installed SQL Server product version is 10.0.1600.22, and the expected SQL Server version is 10.1.2531.0."

Run the SP and then the CU.

Test Drive IE9 With The Preview Release

2010-03-17T08:10:00.002-07:00

Microsoft has announced the "Preview Release" of Internet Explorer 9 which seems to be a milestone for the IE family considering that it now actually seems to realistically get closer to the standards everybody else uses. Unsurprisingly IE9 has a new JavaScript engine which performs much better than IE8s. It also, unsurprisingly, supports HTML5, CSS3 & SVG 'almost completely.'

The website includes speed, HTML5 and graphical demos alongside comparisons to the features on other browsers.

This new release requires Windows Vista SP2 or Windows 7. A good thing as XP is not included. A bad thing because XP is like something from a horror film and will take a long, long, long time to die.

http://ie.microsoft.com/testdrive/

End of the road for Essential Business Server

2010-03-09T11:08:00.000-08:00

Microsoft's mid-market server bundle, EBS aka Essential Business Server, is being discontinued, with no further development as of June 30. EBS started shipped in 2008, and was aimed at organizations in the 250 to 300 desktop range. The bundle included a range of Microsoft server products, including Windows Server 2008, Exchange Server 2007, Forefront Security, and ISA Server. The discontinuation was announced on the EBS blog. This will not have any impact on SBS.

http://blogs.technet.com/essentialbusinessserver/archive/2010/03/05/new-it-trends-bring-change-to-mid-market-product-line.aspx

How to install Macports on 10.6 Snow Leopard

2010-02-14T19:51:00.000-08:00

Open up the Terminal
svn co http://svn.macports.org/repository/macports/trunk/base/ (Wait for it to finish checking out files)
cd base
./configure
make
sudo make install
sudo /opt/local/bin/port -v selfupdate

Internet Driver's License

2010-02-05T05:31:00.000-08:00

"Craig Mundie, Microsoft's Chief Research and Strategy Officer, recently called for the creation of an 'Internet Driver's License' at the World Economic Forum in Davos, saying, 'If you want to drive a car you have to have a license to say that you are capable of driving a car, the car has to pass a test to say it is fit to drive and you have to have insurance.' Really? It's been a while since I've seen something so:

Brilliant: As it will serve to start some VERY heated discussion
Dumb: Do you need a license to use your phone, access a public space, enter a public library
Sycophantic: such obvious fawning obsequiousness towards special interests shows real colour.

Over the years I have heard many people chime in on a general "right" to access that which we call the internet. Some have even gone as far as to question the general right/ability to post anonymously. Posing that nobody really needs it. Really? Seriously? Maybe we should require people to register all their activity with their local government office as well? Check. Or perhaps give them general access to your (perceived) private communications. Oh... wait that's already happening. Imagine if somebody with a uniform and badge walked up to you and "required" you to provide identification and then noted

what you were reading at the library
who you were calling from your phone/a pay phone (do they still even exist?)
what you were looking for at the visitor center
etc.

Those examples seem ridiculous but so is the idea of an "internet license."

Look, it's like this. Not everybody is bad, and not everybody is perfect. If you try and implement something like this, though highly improbable, it's not inconceivable that one day some internet storm troopers are gonna be looking to ask you a few questions down the road. So hide the clown porn...

Maybe somebody should propose that a license be required if you want to be allowed to create your own standards, operating systems, and applications?

Installing OS X Snow Leopard From a USB Drive

2010-02-02T10:45:00.000-08:00

Just like with most other versions of OS X, 10.6 Snow Leopard can be installed from a USB drive which is especially beneficial if you're a Macbook Air user...

Before you start make sure that you have enough space , Leopard is just a shy over 6.2Gigs, and that your USB drive is bootable.

Using DiskUtility select the USB drive
Format it as Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Give it a sensible name in case you need it later
Still in Disk Utility, use the restore option with source = DVD and destination = USB drive
Start the restore and wait. Should be less than 15 minutes
Connect the USB drive to the MAC and reboot / boot it holding the option/alt key down until you see a list of available volumes.
Select the USB volume and install.

Content Query Web Part - Field Types

2010-02-02T06:52:00.001-08:00

Display Column Type	Internal Column Type
Single line of text	Text
Multiple lines of text	Note
Choice	Choice
Number	Number
Currency	Currency
Date and Time	DateTime
Lookup	Lookup
Yes/No	Boolean
Person or Group	User
Hyperlink or Picture	URL
Calculated	Calculated

Download the COMPLETE Development Environment for SharePoint Server 2010 Farm

2010-01-27T17:29:00.000-08:00

Microsoft has released two Virtual Machine for demonstrating SharePoint 2010:

These virtual machines contain:

Windows Server 2008 SP2 Standard Edition x64, running as an Active Directory Domain Controller for the "CONTOSO.COM" domain with DNS and WINS
Microsoft SQL Server 2008 SP2 Enterprise Edition with Analysis, Notification, and Reporting Services
Microsoft Office Communication Server 2007 R2
Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 Ultimate Edition
Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 Enterprise Edition Beta 2
Microsoft Office Web Applications Beta 2
FAST Search for SharePoint 2010 Beta 2
Microsoft Project Server 2010 Beta 2
Microsoft Office 2010 Beta 2
Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 R2 Virtual machine
Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard Evaluation Edition x64, joined to the "CONTOSO.COM" domain
Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 Active directory has been preconfigured over 200 "demo" users with metadata in an organizational structure.

In order to run this demo you will need the following:

Windows Server 2008 R2 with the Hyper-V role enabled
Drive Formatting: NTFS
Processor: Intel VT or AMD-V capable
RAM: 8 GB or more recommended
Hard disk space required for install: 50 GB

Download here

SharePoint 2010: PowerShell New-SPConfigurationDatabase : The user does not exist or is not unique.

2010-01-20T06:56:00.000-08:00

When running a PowerShell workaround to get SP2010 installed on a standalone Server 2008 R2 machine [here.] I came across a new error.

New-SPConfigurationDatabase : The user does not exist or is not unique. At line:1 char:28 + New-SPConfigurationDatabase <<<< + CategoryInfo : InvalidData: (Microsoft.Share...urationDatabase: SPCmdletNewSPConfigurationDatabase) [New-SPConfigurationDatabase], SPCmdle tException + FullyQualifiedErrorId : Microsoft.SharePoint.PowerShell.SPCmdletNewSPCon figurationDatabase New-SPConfigurationDatabase : The user does not exist or is not unique. At line:1 char:28 + New-SPConfigurationDatabase <<<< + CategoryInfo : InvalidData: (Microsoft.Share...urationDatabase: SPCmdletNewSPConfigurationDatabase) [New-SPConfigurationDatabase], COMExce ption + FullyQualifiedErrorId : Microsoft.SharePoint.PowerShell.SPCmdletNewSPCon figurationDatabase

A fewposts I found out there seemed to be focused on the particular version of the Geneva Framework installed. That was not the root cause for me. The solution I got to work was to:

Create a new local user "svc_sharepoint"
Add it to the Administrators group
Delete the Config and AdminContent databases via SQL Server Management Studio
Reopen PowerShell and run New-SPConfigurationDatabase with the following

DatabaseName: SharePoint2010_Config
DatabaseServer: [SERVERNAME]
FarmCredentials [SERVERNAME\ACCOUNT]
PassPhrase: [PASSWORD]

Notes:

If anything fails close and reopen PowerShell
Use your servername in the FarmCrendtials section

jqPlot: jQuery plotting and charting

2010-01-18T21:36:00.000-08:00

jqPlot is a plotting and charting plugin for the jQuery Javascript framework. jqPlot produces beautiful line, bar and pie charts with many features:
Numerous chart style options.
Date axes with customizable formatting.
Up to 9 Y axes.
Rotated axis text.
Automatic trend line computation.
Tooltips and data point highlighting.
Sensible defaults for ease of use.

http://www.jqplot.com/

Using PowerShell to see how many features are enabled in SharePoint 2010

2010-01-18T17:36:00.000-08:00

Pretty simple...

$features = Get-SPFeatures -limit All | where-object {$_.Scope -eq 'Farm'}
$features.Count

Creating new SharePoint 2010 sites from templates with Powershell

2010-01-18T17:19:00.000-08:00

Now that STSADM is gone it's time to get one's PowerShell skill(z) up to date...

Site templates in SharePoint 2010 are slightly different. To get a full listing of what you have access to use try the following:

Get-SPWebTemplate | select Name, Title

Note the name of each template...

Name	Title
ACCSRV#0	Access Server Site
ACCSRV#2	Bugs
ACCSRV#3	Charitable Contributions
ACCSRV#5	Projects
BDR#0	Document Center
BLANKINTERNET#0	Publishing Site
BLANKINTERNET#1	Press Releases Site
BLANKINTERNET#2	Publishing Site with Workflow
BLANKINTERNETCONTAINER#0	Publishing Portal
BLOG#0	Blog
CENTRALADMIN#0	Central Admin Site
CMSPUBLISHING#0	Publishing Site
ENTERWIKI#0	Enterprise Wiki
GLOBAL#0	Global template
MPS#0	Basic Meeting Workspace
MPS#1	Blank Meeting Workspace
MPS#2	Decision Meeting Workspace
MPS#3	Social Meeting Workspace
MPS#4	Multipage Meeting Workspace
OFFILE#0	(obsolete) Records Center
OFFILE#1	Records Center
OSRV#0	Shared Services Administration Site
PROFILES#0	Profiles
SGS#0	GroupBoard Workspace
SPS#0	SharePoint Portal Server Site
SPSCOMMU#0	Community area template
SPSMSITE#0	Personalization Site
SPSMSITEHOST#0	My Site Host
SPSNEWS#0	News Site
SPSNHOME#0	News Site
SPSPERS#0	SharePoint Portal Server Personal Space
SPSPORTAL#0	Collaboration Portal
SPSREPORTCENTER#0	Report Center
SPSSITES#0	Site Directory
SPSTOC#0	Contents area Template
SPSTOPIC#0	Topic area template
SRCHCEN#0	Enterprise Search Center
SRCHCENTERFAST#0	FAST Search Center
SRCHCENTERLITE#0	Basic Search Center
SRCHCENTERLITE#1	Basic Search Center
STS#0	Team Site
STS#1	Blank Site
STS#2	Document Workspace
TENANTADMIN#0	Tenant Admin Site
vispr#0	Visio Process Repository
WIKI#0	Wiki Site

So with this knowledge you can do quite a bit. E.g. the below shows how to create a new site from template STS#0 which is a Team Site...

Write-Host
$SiteTitle = "My TeamSite (via PowerShell)"
$SiteUrl = "http://siteurl"
$SiteTemplate = "STS#0"
# make sure Microsoft.SharePoint.PowerShell is loaded
$snapin = Get-PSSnapin | Where-Object {$_.Name -eq 'Microsoft.SharePoint.Powershell'}
if ($snapin -eq $null) {
Write-Host "SharePoint SnapIn was not present. Loading..."
Add-PSSnapin "Microsoft.SharePoint.Powershell"
}
# create new site at target URL
Write-Host "Creating new site at" $SiteUrl
$NewSite = New-SPSite -URL $SiteUrl -OwnerAlias Administrator -Template $SiteTemplate -Name $SiteTitle
$RootWeb = $NewSite.RootWeb
# display site info to user
Write-Host "-------------------------------------"
Write-Host "Site created successfully"
Write-Host "Title:" $RootWeb.Title -foregroundcolor Green
Write-Host "URL:" $RootWeb.Url -foregroundcolor Red
Write-Host "ID:" $RootWeb.Id.ToString() -foregroundcolor Blue
Write-Host "-------------------------------------"

365PSD: free quality PSD files

2010-01-15T11:22:00.001-08:00

365psd is a website which publishes one quality PSD file every day that can be used in your designs for free.

PSDs are created by different designers & they can be browsed simply with prev-next buttons.

http://365psd.com/

Enabling anonymous access for a Web application in SharePoint Server 2010

2010-01-15T11:20:00.000-08:00

Here's how to enable anonymous access for a Web application in SharePoint Server 2010.

In Central Administration, go to the Security section.
Under Anonymous Access, select Enable Anonymous.
Click Save.
Go to the site for the Web application you are working with.
Select Site Actions.
Select Site Permissions.
On the ribbon, select Anonymous Access.
Select either Entire Web Site or Lists and Libraries, depending on how you want to scope anonymous access for this site.

SharePoint 2010 Installation Error - The specified user is a local account. Local accounts should only be used in stand alone mode.

2010-01-15T10:50:00.001-08:00

So, you're installing the beta (thanks for redefining that one Google...) and you're trying to do a complete installation on a single server using a non-domain account. (As most have done because we're using VirtualBox local VMs which are not connected to any domain...) All of a sudden, something most of us can do in our sleep with 2007 now suddenly gets complicated as it requires the use of domain accounts instead of local machine accounts.

The specified user NNNNN is a local account.

Local accounts should only be used in stand alone mode.

Well don't fret as Windows PowerShell is your savior here, as New-SPConfigurationDatabase allows you to specify non domain credentials for the farm.

To execute this command launch the SharePoint 2010 management shell (in the same location as the central admin link), type the New-SPConfigurationDatabase and press enter. It will ask you for stuff such as the database name e.g. "SharePoint2010_Config", user, password etc. but overall is easy and interactive.

After it has completed you will find your brand new configuration database sitting next to an admin content database. (The fact that the GUID is existent almost feels like punishment.)

Just make sure you have SQL 2008 updated to at least CU2...

Note that often no matter how many CUs you apply to the RTM, if 2010 says it needs SP1, then it will continue to fail. You simply have to install up to SP1 (10.00.2531) and then install the SP1 CUs to roll forward the version to 10.00.2714. So you're really going to be looking to run SQLServer2008-KB975977-x64.exe

Build numbers are structured like:

1xxx is RTM
2xxx is SP1
3xxx will be SP2

and so on.

Useful reading: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee554869%28office.14%29.aspx

"plumb" elements of a web UI together with jsPlumb

2010-01-14T09:24:00.001-08:00

The jsPlumb jQuery plugin provides a way to "plumb" elements of a UI together.

It uses a HTML5 canvas element when supported and Google's ExplorerCanvas script to support older browsers.

The styles, shapes of the wires and "the position of the connection" can be customized easily.

http://morrisonpitt.com/jsPlumb/html/demo.html

http://code.google.com/p/jsplumb/

Virtualbox: the 'correct' way to clone machines.

2010-01-14T08:00:00.000-08:00

I recently had to clone a virtual machine and did my usual copy and paste. Not the best idea. Virtualbox, my preferred virtualization solution, definitely did not like that approach as each machine image has its own uuid which is stored in the actual image... The right way to do it is with the clonehd tool. That said, if the uuid is 'in' the file in theory it should be editable and when I have time I intend to test that theory out.

The actual steps to clone a machine on a windows (concept is the same for FreeBSD and OS X) host are as follows.

Open a Command Prompt window on the host machine.
Change to the VirtualBox VDI directory (you do know where your images are...? and you know what spindle contention is...?)
Run the VBoxManage command with clonevdi command option. The following example shows the creation of a copy of Server_2008.vdi named Server_2008_Base.vdi.

"C:\Program Files\Sun\xVM VirtualBox\VBoxManage.exe" clonevdi "Server_2008.vdi"
"Server_2008_Base.vdi"

Which then produces a not very informative dialogue box...

VirtualBox Command Line Management Interface Version 2.0.4 (C) 2005-2008 Sun Microsystems, Inc. All rights reserved.

0%...10%...20%...30%...40%...50%...60%...70%...80%...90%...100%

And that's it.

SP2010 seeing more than "An unexpected error has occurred"

2010-01-06T10:59:00.001-08:00

Anybody who works with SharePoint has seen the following "Awesome" message...

An unexpected error has occurred

There's more detail to be had with a simple tweak of the web.config in both MOSS SharePoint 2007 and SP2010.

Navigate to your virtualdirectory, typically here: c:\inetpub\wwwroot\wss\VirtualDirectories and then to the folder for your web application.

Opening the web.config in Notepad++ or any other editor and search for the following tags (there is only one of each):

CustomErrors
CallStack

Note: change them to the below:

CustomErrors="Off"
CallStack="true"

Free SEO Toolkit From Microsoft

2010-01-05T19:56:00.000-08:00

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Toolkit is a free tool from Microsoft forimproving a website’s relevance in search results.

Features:

full-featured crawler engine
query builder interface that allows you to build custom reports
display of detailed information for each UR
ability to manage robots.txt file
ability to manage sitemap.xml file
It requires an IIS7 enabled computer to run which is basically Vista, Windows 7 or Server 2008. After that it can analyze any local or remote website.

SEO Toolkit can be installed easily using the Microsoft Web Platform.

http://www.iis.net/expand/SEOToolkit

There's a great post on it here: http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2009/12/15/search-engine-optimization-seo-toolkit.aspx

SharePoint 2010 Developer Dashboard Visualizer

2010-01-04T12:05:00.000-08:00

I just posted about the Developer Dashboard in SharePoint 2010. A very handy addition is the Visualizer for it which is available here: SharePoint 2010 Developer Dashboard Visualizer

SharePoint 2010 Developer Dashboard

2010-01-04T11:54:00.000-08:00

SharePoint 2010 can now provide additional performance and tracing information which is really really helpful if you are trying to debug and troubleshoot issues with page rendering time. It's called the Developer Dashboard and is pretty easy to enable.

Using the object model:
SPWebService cs = SPWebService.ContentService;
cs.DeveloperDashboardSettings.DisplayLevel = SPDeveloperDashboardLevel.On;
cs.DeveloperDashboardSettings.Update();

Performance information into this Dashboard using the new SPMonitoredScope class

Using STSADM
There are 3 states: on, off or ondemand:
stsadm -o setproperty -pn developer-dashboard -pv ondemand
stsadm -o setproperty -pn developer-dashboard -pv on
stsadm -o setproperty -pn developer-dashboard -pv off

Off = Always off, normal state for production.

On = Always On, best for development only.

OnDemand = The user has the possibility to turn it on or off as needed using the small icon to the upper right hand corner of the page; you click the icon to toggle the dashboard on and off.

Note that this should be one of your first best practices for developing code for SharePoint 2010 – use SPMonitoredScope! This can only serve to help you better understand and manage the performance of your components as you deploy them.

More detail here: http://blogs.technet.com/speschka/archive/2009/10/28/using-the-developer-dashboard-in-sharepoint-2010.aspx

iPhone OS X development course on iTunes University from Stanford

2009-12-31T16:06:00.001-08:00

Stanford University has posted another complete lecture and presentation slide series for the Winter 2010 term's iPhone Application Development course.

Downloaded from iTunes more than 4.4 million times last year this latest series of closed-captioned! lectures are now updated to include APIs from the latest iPhone OS 3.1 SDK OS X etc.

There's no support available so don't even try to ask them (Stanford ) for help.

bada: Samsungs new phone OS

2009-12-10T05:13:00.000-08:00

Just when I thought I had a handle on what was out there Samsung announced the bada operating system.

Apparently "bada" means ocean in Korean and is supposedly representative of the near boundless limits of the OS. Right, now that sounds familiar. Based on Linux and Enlightenment the general idea is that bada will take on Android and the iPhone. Competition is always good so this should get interesting. Especially if there's a new spin by implementing features core to Enlightenment such as window grouping, virtual desktops, etc.

Smamsung expects that the first mobile phone handsets based on bada will be on display in the first half of 2010, and to go on sale in the second half of 2010. There's certainly executive clout behind it, as up to a possible 50 million units are expected to be shipped in 2010.

Samsung also plans to open a bada application store. Now that's a surprise... Hopefully there are no plans to integrate it with Bing services and give it a name like 'bada - bing'

http://www.bada.com/developer/challenge/

Maemo: Useful links

2009-12-10T05:12:00.000-08:00

Some useful links for Maemo.

Google Gears goes the way of the Dodo

2009-12-01T13:21:00.001-08:00

HTML5-supported offline access handles basically the same functionality as Google's Gears browser plugin and that's a problem. Problems are best handled with quick and simple fixes and it looks like Google has opted for just that by "letting go" of Gears.

Of course now we just need to wait for the interim for the HTML5 spec to get out and running.

How to: Hide the "View All Site Content" link in MOSS

2009-12-01T12:15:00.000-08:00

You can hide this particular link from all but those users with full control over a WSS site rather easily.

Open the site master page in SharePoint Designer and find the SPSecurityTrimmedControl element.
The PermissionsString attribute of the SPSecurityTrimmedControl element determines what users can view this content. Change the value of this attribute to ManageWeb and only those users with rights to perform all admin tasks on the site will then be able to see the link on all pages in the site.
Save and reload!

VirtualBox 3.1

2009-12-01T06:52:00.000-08:00

Monday was a good day for VirtuaBox. With the 3.1 release, live migration and radically improved snapshot abilities amongst others confirm my confidence in this solution to which I migrated all my virtual machines to this year. I chose VirtualBox as my new preferred standard as it was simple, unbloated, and multiplatform.

Live Migration aka Teleportation in VirtualBox allows one to move virtualized guest environments from one physical computer to another while the guest environment is still running. Minor for desktop users, major for data centers as it allows on the fly physical resource workload management. Right now it is limited as:

It is only invokable via the command line
Disk images must reside on shared storage
Identical VM configurations must exist at source and destination
Intel to AMD chipset moves are a bad idea

Snapshots now supports branching. A massive convenience indeed...

Download the latest versionhere: http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads

Handbrake goes 64bit with a 0.0.1 release

2009-12-01T06:35:00.000-08:00

A minor thing for most but for those who care after a year without any updates, the developers responsible for the "mighty fine" video transcoder Handbrake have released version 0.9.4 of the open-source software. With such a small change in the version number, it would be easy to assume that there are not very many new things included, but that assumption really couldn't be further from the truth. In total, there have been over 1,000 changes since 0.9.3 and, while they might not all be life-changing, many of them make for a better user experience though the removal of the presets is a blessing/curse at times. The 64bit update apparently increases overall speed by 10%.

As with version 0.9.3, you still need to have VLC installed to rip video from a DVD

SharePoint 2007: How to show and link to an attachment in a list

2009-11-23T13:07:00.000-08:00

Get to the field in the view and put this in. Should work without a hitch... The usual change from "<" to "< " has been made.

< name="SharePoint:AttachmentsField">
< name="runat">server< /xsl:attribute>
< name="ListId">
{LIST GUID HERE}
< /xsl:attribute>
< name="FieldName">Attachments< /xsl:attribute>
< name="ControlMode">Display< /xsl:attribute>
< name="Visible">true< /xsl:attribute>
< name="ItemId">
< select="@ID">
< /xsl:attribute>
< /xsl:element>

Consulting: It's just Common sense

2009-11-23T06:32:00.000-08:00

Consulting is difficult. You have to know a couple of things to get it all to work properly.

You have to know your "stuff"
You have to know how to read peoples expectations
You have to know how to communicate your stuff to people
You have to know in what way you can trust those around you
You have to know your own limitations
You have to know when to call it a day on a "bad" project

The last one can be the toughest... Typically you get to this juncture from one of three paths

You can’t get them, the client, to their goal.
Focus is on cost rather than net results.
Nobody can see anything other than failure.

Seeing those points written down starts to make it all seem easy but real life really does make the water much more murky. It is no coincidence that each sentence starts with "You have to know". It is also no coincidence that these points apply equally to real life...

Success is measured as equally by inward as outward focus.

So, it is not easy but when any, or all, of these stars start to align it is best to bring the issue to front, acknowledge the possible mismatch, and if appropriate refer them to somebody else.

How to rename your iPhone application in Xcode...

2009-11-22T19:22:00.000-08:00

To rename your application, modify the "Product Name" build setting, which is part of the Packaging build settings collection.

Follow these steps for changing an application's name in Xcode:

In Xcode, double-click the target's name under "Targets" in the Project window.
Choose the Build pane from the ensuing Info window.
Select "All Configurations," "Debug," or "Release" from the Configuration popup menu.
Note that the application's name will only be changed for the configuration you selected.
Select the Packaging collection and assign a new name to "Project Name."

using Microsoft.Office.Workflow.Utility; problems in Visual Studio

2009-11-17T10:36:00.001-08:00

In Visual Studio:

right click on References and click "Add Reference"
Click on the Browse tab of the Add Reference dialog box
Browse to: C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\12\ISAPI\
Select microsoft.office.workflow.tasks.dll

How to Eat a Pomegranate Without Going B@tsh!t

2009-11-17T10:34:00.000-08:00

This is something that routinely irks me. And you too if you eat these singularly awesome pieces of fruit! The solution is unbelievably simple.

Look for the roundest, deepest red pomegranates you can find.
Rinse it in water, as usual, and cut an X in the top down to about halfway down the fruit.
Set the pomegranate in a large bowl of water, and using your thumbs pry the peel apart from the center of the X outward.
Keeping the fuit submerged, use your fingertips to gently brush away the seeds from the white membrane. These seeds will sink to the bottom of the bowl and the resulting empty membrane will float.
Strain and enjoy!

	Voyager 1	Voyager 2
Distance from the Sun (Km)	16,915,000,000	13,737,000,000
Distance from the Sun (Mi)	10,510,000,000	8,536,000,000
Distance from the Earth (Km)	16,858,000,000	13,753,000,000
Distance from the Earth (Mi)	10,475,000,000	8,456,000,000
Total Distance Traveled Since Launch (Km)	21,833,000,000	20,860,000,000
Total Distance Traveled Since Launch (Mi)	113,566,000,000	12,962,000,000
Velocity Relative to Sun (Km/sec)	17.071	15.487
Velocity Relative to Sun (Mi/hr)	38,185	34,643
Velocity Relative to Earth (Km/sec)	19.977	22.862
Velocity Relative to Earth (Mi/hr)	44,689	51,139
Round Trip Light Time (hh:mm:ss)	31:13:28	25:28:58