Software
Software
I started off my career supporting MS all the way......basically am still in the same team. But apparently, and again....most of the big service companies(eg.insurance, healthcare,etc) turn in a sad face when they are told that their data will be hosted on SQL Server 2000. For some reason, they still think that only DB2 or Oracle are qualified enough to even think of hosting so much data. Honestly, I am not biased, I don't know too much of Oracle....and know nothing in DB2....but know a decent length in SQL server 2k.
And just when I started to read up on SQL server 2005, and try to convince my boss to implement it as soon as it releases, the management decides that all data from now on will be hosted on Oracle (hosted in a linux environment). damn...i hate linux soo much from a developer's perspective.
Ah well...stole a PL/SQL book from my collegue, got to start reading up on it now.
Was considering tools like Refactor, CodeRush, etc...until I decided to develop all those add-in's myself. After a few weeks of frustration, and scanning the google radar for some tutorials, examples, I bumped into this.Free Add-In suite from USystWare. Nifty tools.....and obviously cannot beat FREE....
 It's a new interesting feature of the Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0 called 'Favicon'. Associate an icon with your homepage now. If somebody adds your page to his favorites, IE will access the file favicon.ico in the root folder of your domain and a small icon appears in his favorites list. The same icon is used, if you drag and drop the URL to your desktop. Example: You have a Geocities Page. Then you'll need a Windows Icon File, just name it favicon.ico and place it in your Homepage directory. Then add a line like
<LINK REL="SHORTCUT ICON" href="/Area51/Home/6512/favicon.ico">
in the <head> ... </head> section of your Homepage. It's very important to include the whole directory relative to the root of the webserver. If you don't use the LINK REL method, IE will automatically use the file: http://www.yourdomain.com/favicon.ico - Read the MS documentation here. Some people reported me, there are a few bugs in the IE 5, in some cases the icons dissapear from their favourites list (see next question). More infos on Favicons on favicon.com or favicon.de. |
(via http://www.iconarchive.com/html/faq.html )
Did not check this to work yet...but am certain to put it up on my site.
Ok...that title was a bit misleading....however....I am not alone when I say that I have had trouble integrating my web-applications successfully with E.Lib 1.0 and deploying them on a win 2003 server. Each time, they just give me errors of the weirdest nature. Most of my googling led to making some registry settings and using the “Install Services“ feature.
While there is no “switch” or “config” element that i cud change to enable or disable the performance counters....there certainly is an alternate way....just dont have them at all in ur EntLib. That would mean... No more instrumentation options..... No more perfomance logging....etc.In a way, I think it speeds up your application....
Cutting to the chase.....we need to recompile the whole Enterprise library with these options disabled. So..herez what I managed to do...went through the source code of the libraries....and found a few parameters set up in the build config that when changed could dothe trick just fine.
1. Open Start->programs->MS Patterns and Practices -> Ent Lib -> App Blocks -> Ent Lib.Sln.
2. Take your own sweet time to minimize all the folder(s) in ur solution window.
3. Rt Clk on the “Common” project and go to “Properties”
4. In the “Configuration Properties” go to the “Build” option.
5. In the Conditional Build section of the property grid, remove everything except “DEBUG;TRACE”
6. Close everything and recompile.
Remember...on compilation nothing will go to your common bin folder. I just plainly used the “Copy Assemblies to bin directory” option in my Start->programs->MS Patterns and Practices -> Ent Lib part of my menu.
Now...just to be sure....de-reference your existing references to the entlib and add references again.....and woala.....you are done.
I tried installing the recompiled version on windows 2003 server and ran my web apps from there...(using mostly the data access block and the config block) and so far it works like a charm.
Not the first time to be noticing this......but whenever I install Yahoo Messenger on any computer.....it brings out this wizard screen and all of us geeks use the "custom" installation hoping that we can install only the stuff we need...typically the messenger only and ignore all the other stuff (yahoo internet mail, explorer bar, etc) and click on "Next"....and if the wizard took our input properly, then we would have seen only the messenger installed and nothing else....and technically....we live happily ever after.
But NO....yahoo does not do that....though I UN-CHECK the checkboxes against everything else except messenger, they still get installed....so much so...that it is not even covert....it does it right infront of ur eyes. The progress bar boldly says that it is installing the explorer bar, internet mail, etc...... too much honesty.
Giving it a benefit of the doubt, I go ahead and check the "Add/Remove Programs section "... just to be sure......and ya....they are there too.... Everytime I have to uninstall the explorer bar and the yahoo mail from my system....does anyone @ yahoo messenger team even know that their "step-by-step wizard" has not been properly programmed?
Anyone else experiencing the same problem?
My universe consists of 4 million+ records. If I were to compare one record against the universe, how much time would I take using SQL Server 2000?
Every other time I start making my fingertips dance over my chin and look towards the ceiling wondering...how much is too much?
Well...obviously in the context of software developement. School projects...atleast there were time constraints...so...it was basically to write the least possible amount of code to meet the requirements and then ... thats it...
Then came a project that I did to automate book-keeiping stuff at one of the departments at the university....and there was my coursework pressure to keep up with and then the amount of time I was allowed to spend on the on-campus job....so...yet again...meet the requirements and keep your employer happy....thats it.
Now... I am given a responsibility to write requirements for an exisiting system. Ok...rephrasing it....there is an "awesome" system in COBOL which managed to stand the turbulence of time for a looooong time...and now the company from whom they bought all the room-filling equipment does not support the OS or COBOL anymore.....niiiice.
So...I step in....I am to analyze the system, understand how it works and talk to a bunch of users of the system...and come up with a better system to be implemented using .NET. Not hard....well...atleast technically.
So, I break my head reading COBOL code....interact with whoever sane person I could find, and understand the system. All set and done, I start writing out what I expect the new system to provide (basically overcome the difficulties of the old system plus more) as features.
As I start documenting features, use cases and requirements, one thing starts leading to another...towards the end of the day, I have a bunch of whiteboards filled up with requirements. Every new feature seemed to impress atleast one person...but ... for the least, I am unable to decide when to draw the line.
An immediate concern would be time, $$$ and resources. I am not yet told the whole thing yet. As of right now, my assignment is to understand the system and gather up features and requirements.....
Its like....walking with a carrot over a donkey's head.......as long as there is a carrot...the donkey keeps moving...and god knows how far the donkey has travelled eventually....
First there was a citibank email scam .... asking users for their passwords...and now there is an ebay email scam. By the looks of it, this scammer looks kinda funny. Either he/she is working with ebay or just playing around...i am still unable to figure out. I got a bunch of mails from “The ebay team“ asking me to update my info...because “someone apparently tried to log in with my account too many times“....and again....I never registered this mail acct with ebay.
First, i get mail from ebay to an account that i never gave to ebay....well..lets say our guy used a standard email broadcast technique...
Secondly....instead of taking me to a login (or similar looking) page, i am directed to a “Register” page.
Well...did not go beyond that...but....come on....is that the best they've got...asking you to register???
Had this on my list of things to check out for a reeeaaalllllly long time...and last nite on the flight to MN from Chicago, I saw this on the in-flight TV's relay of some tech-tv episode. Seems kinda a nice way to google out stuff. And unlike others (except Firefox), who tie you to a certain search engine, this allows you to use a bunch of search engines...(something like Firefox). I just downloaded it...and it is AWEsome so far. I am yet to figure out the parameters by which it categorizes stuff. So....I grokked my name.....and as expected.......a major search result in google was dotnetjunkies....and it grouped all of them under one category. I am still researching into it.
Well....since the product does a lot of visual rendering, it kinda tends to get slow once in a while....but is certainly visually appealing....and allows one to search information quicker from a result-set. Though I am not too sure if the slowing down is generic to my machine...coz this machine wont even load IE quick enuf.
You can download grokker here.
Windows Update Client gives problems if you shut down the machine whilst it is downloading the updates. So, I change the settings for the updater to download and notify me of the updates and not to install them. The issue here being that for some reason, the update client keeps trying to download something that has already been downloaded. Remember that this happens when you shut down the system when the updater is downloading something in the background. Like that was not enough, it hogs the system resources so much that even a regular copy operations takes ages. Obvious course of action was to kill the update client process...but NO...it wont allow me to kill the process either. Access Denied...even for admin.
Turns out my roomie also encountered this same issue a while ago...and he ended up formatting his system. That time I blamed it on his system being slow....but it was not to be the same case for me.
Well...Norton Ghost to the rescue. Made an intial back up of my system..when I first installed it....and it came to about 20G...ya ya...it is almost all the software a developer would ever need...well..most of it atleast. Using my breaks from TV to backup my MyDocuments and my favorites, (which literally took 5-6hrs on a machine with 1.5G RAM)... I tried for the first time ever to load my backup image from Norton Ghost 9.0....and wolla....15 mins....my machine was back up and running. Well...turned off the automatic updates this time....and everything seems to be working like a charm again.
Moral of the story:
Allowing Windows to automatically manage updates.....3-4hrs of torture.
Trying to back up while the update client is running in the background.....5hrs.
Using Norton Ghost to restore your system in 15mins....PRICELESS.
I worked on the Updater Block before ... and by the looks of the symptoms, it sure looks like a polished implementation of the UAB. Looking forward to it being implemented properly with ClickOnce.
So..I installed Sauce Reader a couple of weeks back...took a week's vacation...and finally am back to using SauceReader...and I finally decided to un-install it. It takes too much memory...which is highly annoying. OmeaReader works just fine for the reader part. I guess I have to develop my own writer for my blogs.
For what its worth...I would prefer Tomato Sauce anyday over Sauce Reader...lol
So...I took a brave step ...and installed SauceReader. Kinda cool...nice interface and free. And YES !..... it hogs memory.
Now to the real problem. I am unable to configure this blog to come onto SauceReader. No no no...not to read...but to edit as well.
So.....anyone who has configured this before or have a write-up somewhere which tells me how to do this.....please....
Thanks.
-S