Ramblings

It's Reigning Cats and Dogs!

Ged Mead — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 14:46:00 GMT

Or at least it looks as though the animals definitely rule on the new site Pet-Files.

It looks like a kind of Facebook for Pets - maybe that should be Facebark - where you can post up pictures of your pets and have a chat with other pet owners, swapping stores, getting advice, etc.

Long time friend of vbCity, Marco Bellinaso who - when not writing top class books - likes to spend quality time with his pets, is the man behind the site. So if you have a pooch, pussy, pigeon or parrot and you want somewhere to show them off to like-minded pet lovers then maybe Pet-Files will be the place to go.

Knowing Marco's web application background, I'm guessing there'll be a few asp devotees around the site too.

New Service For Selling Shareware

Ged Mead — Sun, 15 Apr 2007 16:52:00 GMT

Marco Bellinaso, a long time friend of VBCity and highly regarded author, has just launched a new service that seems to offer an unusually fair and greed-free service for anyone who wants to sell "digital goods". These are things such as shareware applications, eBooks, videos; in fact any kind of downloadable files. Most of the service providers in this field seem to charge a higher fee than the one offered here - basically it's 5% of sales, but Marco's idea has a nice touch. Nothing to pay up front, no waiting for your sales income, no setup or monthly fees - you just agree to let byteCommerce have the income from every 20th sale you make through the service.

I think this is a really neat idea for anyone who is unsure of finding their way in this sometimes complicated market. Effectively it costs you nothing until you have sold at least your first 19 items and, if you have a successful product and a steady stream of income, it's coming directly to you as soon as a buyer makes a payment.

More info on the service here a useful FAQ page here and a full feature list here.

How To Install the AdventureWorks Database in SQL Server 2005 Developer Edition

Ged Mead — Mon, 15 Jan 2007 20:40:00 GMT

It may be entirely a matter of my own stupidity - let's face it, it often is - but I found myself getting very, very frustrated when I installed SQL Server 2005 Developer Edition and then couldn't find the AdventureWorks Database.

"Aha!", I hear you say, "You need to select the right choices when you first install SQL Server 2005, young Mead.".

(OK, so I made up the "young" bit.)

"Aha back at you!", I say. I was on to that one, having done a bit of research first. I *did* scroll down to the end and I certainly thought that I selected the option to install the OLAP AdventureWorks DB on to the hard drive.

But of course after the grinding and clunking that forms the fairly lengthy installation process of SQL Server finally ended, when I went to check out the list of databases in the Management Studio, there was nary a sign of AdventureWorks . Ah well, you know the old saying - "No pain, No SQL Server".

So, I assumed that maybe I hadn't made the right selection after all, but no problemo, sez I. I'll just go into Control Panel and select the Change button for SQL server, find that pesky database and have it installed in a jiffy.

Or several million jiffys. But at least I'd get the darn thing installed.

Or not.

Did that a couple of times but without success. I checked, double-checked and scoured the Program Files/SQL server folders looking for that elusive msi file or the databases themselves.

OK then, time to move on to Plan C:- Get the installation DVD and reinstall/repair, this time making sure I do select the Samples (or, if I'm feeling argumentative, select the Samples again).

No can do. The installer refuses to link to the page needed and simply gives me an "Error on Page" message. As I have an MSDN subscription, I had the luxury of a second copy of the installation disc, so I swapped discs and gave that a try. The disc may have been different , but the result was exactly the same.

A bit more searching on the web and I find someone has pointed out the exact file I need to home in on - I think it was SQLRun_Tools.msi, but don't quote me and don't try this at home because (a) I may not have remembered the exact file name and (b) it didn't solve the problem anyway.

If you're still hanging in there with me (what an incredibly patient person you are!) you may be thrilled to hear that I did eventually find a sequence of actions that got the job done. And so, if you're in the same fix and you've slogged through my moaning and groaning in the hope that I can set you back on the road to sanity, you're patience is just about to be rewarded.

First go to
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=E719ECF7-9F46-4312-AF89-6AD8702E4E6E&displaylang=en

and download the msi file.
The msi file, did I say? Actually there's quite a list of them; the differences between some of them more obvious than others.

Anyway I decided that AdventureWorksDB.msi (for x86 system in my case) looked the best bet, and so it turned out to be.

You can either Run it or Save it. Personally I saved it somewhere safe in case, Heaven Forbid, I have to do this all over again at some miserable time in the future.

In either case you will end up running it, either straight away or after you've saved it to your hard drive.

Let it install the files to the default path, which is <drive>:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\90\Tools\Samples\AdventureWorks OLTP .

The MSDN pages offer various ways of proceeding from here on in. Having just been introduced to the SQL Server Management Studio layout the day before all this excitement happened, I decided to go the SSMS route. That is, I opened a New Query and then pasted in this code (which you can find on the Microsoft Download site -
http://download.microsoft.com/download/d/8/6/d865cf0c-c44b-401b-b426-b3bf5c628112/SQLServerDatabasesAndSamplesOverview.htm

should you need to get at it or want more instructions):

exec sp_attach_db @dbname=N'AdventureWorks', @filename1=N'C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL.1\MSSQL\Data\AdventureWorks_Data.mdf', @filename2=N'C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL.1\MSSQL\Data\AdventureWorks_log.ldf'

With fingers crossed and eyes shut, I then hit the Execute Query button.

And was rewarded with the wonderfully welcome Successful Query Execution message. Still no AdventureWorks database in the list, but I wasn't fazed by that because I'd already learned where the Refresh menu item is.

In the Management Studio Object Explorer pane, Right click on "Databases" in the list and select 'Refresh' from the context menu.

Finally! AdventureWorks database sits there smiling back at me.

Of course - as every DB expert and his brother seem to want to slag off AW as too complex, poorly constructed, yada yada yada - you may wonder why I wanted it installed in the first place. Because I'm stubborn, that's why. It's supposed to be there; it wasn't being there; I wanted it to be there.

Now that it is there, I suppose I'd better try and find something meaningful to do with it.

But at least it is there now!

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Afterthought: I noticed during my various searches later this note on MSDN: "The OLAP database (Adventure Works DW) cannot be installed unless the data warehouse (AdventureWorksDW) database is selected for installation." Now, I'm fairly sure I didn't select the data warehouse installation on the basis that it was way too heavyweight for my needs. Maybe this was the cause of my problems - but I certainly didn't get any kind of "Cannot install A unless B is selected" at the original time of installation, so that has to remain as one more unsolved mystery.

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Comments: Although I would welcome your comments, suggestions, war stories, invitations to your SQL Server birthday party, etc, unfortunately I've had to turn off the Comments element for my Blog. Several of those mindless, hopefully-soon-to-be-put-up-against-a-wall-and-shot porn site purveyors have taken to spamming our comments pages with their unwanted links. Having become tired of combing through and deleting them several times a week, I've taken the easier option of just turning off comments.

Nothing personal - at least not to anyone who isn't a pathetic, spamming, scamming moron who thinks it's clever to plaster our blogs with their tacky porn links, that is.

If you really need to feedback anything to me on this blog item, please make a post in one of the VBCity Forums and I'll try and catch up with you there.

Espousing A Cause

Ged Mead — Wed, 22 Mar 2006 05:57:00 GMT

Explicit content warning! Wow! That got your attention, I bet!

Actually I just wanted to warn you explicitly that this blog item contains nothing that is the slightest bit VB.NET related. So if you were hoping for some meaningful insight into a nagging technical VB problem, you’ll probably be disappointed.

Then again, if you’ve read my other blog items that are VB.NET related, you’ll be no stranger to disappointment.

Anyhow, moving quickly on, I was browsing a newsgroup recently where somebody came up with the tongue in cheek question; “What’s the plural of spouse – is it spice?” As in variety … of life.
I know, I know I don’t have to explain it for a switched on cookie like you , but it’s the others, you know …..

That post kind of got me thinking about things like that. You know, questions like:
“What’s the singular of spouse - is it divorcee?”

Or is the past participle of spouse: girlfriend?

And one for the mathematicians; “Is the negative of spouse: space?” - something my wife would attest to as she mutters her way round the house picking up my computer clutter.

Which made me wonder - if you attest twice, have you passed the whole examination, or is that just two tests?

And is the future tense of “Marriage” having to meet the father in law? Or "true love" the definite article?

Words and grammar is lots very confusing, innit?

I mean, for example what’s the definition of definition?
Or what’s the opposite of apposite? (And is it appropriate to ask?)

   And is the plural of opera: Winfreys ?   Or the plural of Song: a Korean couple?

    Questions, questions, questions.     Luckily, I’m not going to ramble on with answers, answers, answers.     Enough of this nonsense - back to the coding board and get some real work done.     Er, that’s me I’m talking to, not you.   You obviously have nothing to do if you’re still sat there reading this drivel .

DesignIT - UK IT Competition

Ged Mead — Fri, 24 Feb 2006 10:32:00 GMT

Microsoft UK are running a competition with the aim of showcasing the vision, creativity and dedication of the IT community in the UK.   This competition is split into two distinct categories:

Category 1:

IT professionals are invited to submit a deployed or aspirational system design, appropriate for any size of organisation, either in the commercial or not for profit sectors. The system design submitted should not only display the integration of different technologies, but also demonstrate clear business benefits and return on investment. IT professionals can enter anything from a picture perfect Visio diagram to a sketch from a whiteboard.

* NB. The system designs should include more than just Microsoft technology.

The winner of this category will receive a weekend for two at the Ice Hotel in Sweden.

Category 2:

   Many IT Professionals in the UK dedicate their time to a charity, either officially or on a voluntary basis, and this category offers them the opportunity to submit a proposed system design that will benefit the charity further. In keeping with the often-limited resources of a charity, the budget for this system design must not exceed £15,000, and must demonstrate ingenuity together with cost savings.

The winner for the DesignIT for a charity category will work with a team of MS specialists to deploy their system design in their chosen charity

Dates and Timings

The competition will run from 22 February to 3 May 2006 and the public will choose the winners in both categories. The public vote will run from 17 May to 24 May 2006.

   You can find more details of this competition at the Microsoft UK website here

SnagIt Without Snags

Ged Mead — Thu, 09 Feb 2006 10:05:00 GMT

I’ve always admired utility apps that do just one thing, but do it particularly well. Going back into the mists of time, I remember that the first app in this category was XTree, way back in my computing youth. Remember XTree? (Best not admit it, you’ll be giving your age away!).

I also have a spiffy little image optimizer utility which as they say in the advert in the UK “Does what it says on the tin” – it optimises images by compressing them with minimum quality loss.

But just recently I came upon one of the best examples of this category that I’ve seen for a while. Snagit from TechSmith.com. This utility’s main purpose in life is to enable you to take screen shots and save them to file. Doesn’t sound too exciting, I know, but over the years I’ve struggled to make use of some truly awful, non-intuitive “helper” applications in this speciality field (naming no names).

The folks at Techsmith have devised just about every option you could think of (and a few that I hadn’t!) when it comes to grabbing bits of screen real estate and saving them. It does all the usual stuff you would expect: grabbing a screen, an object, a window, a rectangle, a freehand region, and (very impressive, I thought) was the ability to grab a complete image of a scrolling window.

And it will also pull all text from a screen, all images from a web page and even make an AVI Video from a screen . Global hot keys make using it too easy to be true.

Editing facilities are included to make it easy to add callouts, arrows and so on. What I really appreciate though is that they haven’t fallen into the trap of making bloat ware. They know what Snagit is meant to do and they stuck to that specialisation.

It’s a really good utility that falls straight into my "how did I ever manage without this?" category.

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* Not expecting to get many hits, I thought I'd Google for Xtree. I should have known better - 115,000 hits, including an Xtree Fan Site (!) and lots of Xtree 21st Century update wannabes.

** I should maybe explain the title. I guess it reflects something about the differences in international English. In my part of the UK, the meaning of a "snag" is "problem" or "difficulty", so "Snagit Without Snags" is ..... oh I'm sure you don't need me to explain :-}

Failing To Succeed

Ged Mead — Wed, 03 Aug 2005 04:47:00 GMT

I’m developing this theory that says “You have to fail in order to succeed”.

I’ve come to realise that a lot of modern programming requires a comprehensive grasp of such a massive range of skills and knowledge that it’s impossible to get a handle on it all at the first pass. So many different concepts, so much detail, so many ways to get it wrong that failure the first couple of times through is just about inevitable.

I was going to finish that sentence with the words “for anyone under the age of 17”.

However, experience tells me that I’ve answered enough programming questions for totally confused VBCity members in the under-21s age bracket to know that the popular conception that it “all just comes naturally to kids” isn’t true. Not all of them, anyway.

I find that thought oddly reassuring when I’ve reached that point late at night when I’m ready to hurl keyboard, mouse and computer books at the wall.

I’ll give you a good example of my theory in action. I’ve struggled several times to get to grips with web page development. The word “struggle” doesn’t even begin to describe the pitch black depths of frustration, anger and despair I’ve suffered at the hands of web development in general and ASP.Net in particular. No sooner do I manage to crack one barrier than another equally totally incomprehensible one leaps into the gap to take its place.

If I wasn’t so pig headed, this story wouldn’t be here for the telling. I’d have just done the sensible thing, given up on web programming and taken up something much less painful – barefoot marathon running, prize fighting with psychotic murderers or self-mutilation, perhaps.

But I do keep on going back to it. And keep on failing. And keep on giving up.

However, I do find that each time I approached it from a different angle, maybe via a different tutorial or a different book, then some of the terms that I’d only hazily understood previously do begin to make a kind of sense. And so I’d be able to move a little further forward. Often just a very little.

I’d like to announce the grand opening of my fabulous new web site www.ivecrackedit.net where I’m able to show off my vast range of web programming skills to an eagerly waiting world.

I’d like to. Sadly, I’d like to be handsome, rich, under 30 and universally popular too .

Oh well, one out of five ain’t bad, I suppose.

The good news is that it’s getting easier. Each new pitfall gets logged into the skills bank as it gets cracked. Step by painstaking step - strike that; make it “step by painful step” - I’m getting there.

Is there a moral, a point or a message to this story? Well, if there is then it has to be “Don’t give up!”. If a whole bunch of people who aren’t wearing capes and a T-shirt with a big “S” on it can make their livelihood out of producing fully working web applications (plus all the under-17’s who don’t post up questions), then there’s got to be hope for the rest of us mere mortals.

So, if - like me – you’re a frustrated but determined wannabe web developer then maybe at this point we should all stand, join hands and belt out our best rendering of “High Hopes”. I can really empathise with that ol’ ram bashing his head on that big old dam. C’mon then, all together now …….

.. and when we’ve done that, let’s pick up another book, do another advanced search on VBCity and – who knows – another dam wall may get broken as we break through yet another knowledge barrier.

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(Adapted from "Diary of a .NET Newbie", devCity Newsletter December 2004. )