Posts from June 2009

Updates and Changes to the Blog

Richard Green on

I made myself useful this morning and made some more changes to the blog.

I started using Twitter recently and wanted to make it easier on myself to keep everything consistent, so thanks to a Facebook Application, I can now update my Facebook status which automatically when I update Twitter, which  which then should appear on Windows Live also.

Posts I make to the blog already appear on my Facebook wall, so that’s not a problem.

What I have done now though is added a Twitter plug-in to the blog which means you will be able to see my Twitter tweets on the right.

I’ve also added a Save/Share plug-in which appears at the bottom of every post or page on the blog. This means that you can Digg, Tweet or share entries here to your favourite social media / networking sites.

For any mobile users, I’ve replaced the existing WordPress mobile plug-in with a new one which according to the author and screenshots loads faster on mobile browsers and will look much better on devices like the iPhone and other devices with high resolution displays (like my HTC Touch HD for example). It also includes a mobile version of the Admin Center so I should be able to blog from my mobile device (if I wanted to that is).

In addition to the new features, I’ve made a fix to the comments system. Nicky showed me last night a problem whereby if you type a long sentence in the comments box it overflowed into the sidebar. That’s fixed now.

I know that there are still problems with the header and I am working to get those issues fixed. When I do manage to fix the header I will be changing the Live Search element at the same time so that it uses the new Bing Search styling.

Office 2010 Technical Preview

Richard Green on

Office 2010 Technical Preview is the latest version of the Office suite. Currently in Technical Preview and scheduled for a public Beta release in July, some sneaky people have posted some builds of it to a torrent site in particular.

 I’m not going to name the site, but most people will be able to work out from the screenshot the site I’m talking about. There are various different torrents for it on the site, however some of them have comments to suggest that there is malicious content included, as described by Microsoft themselves here:

http://blogs.technet.com/office2010/archive/2009/05/19/leaked-build-and-staying-safe.aspxRead more…

Things that Make You Go

Richard Green on

Ping

By itself, it’s a word. By itself it means to test the network card of a computer or as a speed test according to Wikipedia. By itself I like ping’s – They are useful and helpful.

But upon what day did someone decide it was acceptable to use the word ping in the following example sentences:

I just pinged Steve about that product.

or

Ping me when you get into the office tomorrow.

I know I’m hardly one to talk about people melding with machines and the two becoming one – I may as well have a dozen electronic devices integrated into my body and get it over and done with but it really bugs me.

What is wrong with just saying “I emailed Steve about that product” or “Send me an IM when you get into the office tomorrow”?

Virgin Media and the Advert of Untruths

Richard Green on

I’m uploading a file to our FTP server as I type this. And I’m doing so at about 90 KB/s which I am pretty happy with. Especially being that our connection supposedly has a 768 Kb/s upload speed.

NOTE: Pay attention to the uppercase and lowercase KB and Kb here. KB refers to Kilobytes and Kb refers to Kilobits.

I decided to take a look at Virgin Media’s website in-case as a friendly gesture they increased all 20 Mb customers to 1 Mb upload speed, but they haven’t therefore I guess it’s just my lucky day huh, but I digress. While on their site, I saw the advertising for 50 Mb and I would love to be able to have a 50 Mb pipe in my house I must admit, so I was looking at the details – 1.5 Mb upload is very nice I must say, but then I saw this:

Read more…

O2 Blank Reply to Femtocells

Richard Green on

I emailed O2 UK a day or so back asking about Femtocells after reading an article online about O2 and Ubiquisys working together back in 2008 testing the idea in partnership with NEC, hopefully trying to find out if they where still working on the trial and where possibly (long shot) accepting pilot users or anything.

It’s not that I have a coverage problem at home, it’s just that Femtocell sounds kind of cool and I love to try out new things.

I got a reply from O2 this evening, and I have to say it was one of the plainest, shortest to the point emails I have ever read.

I wish to tell you that we no longer work with Ubiquisys to test Femtocells.

That’s all I get? The companies registered address and legal junk at the bottom of the email took up more space than this.

Well it is a shame, but I can’t say I surprised. The money they threw into the iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS and the Joggler probably is what was supposed to be spent on Femtocells.

PS: If you don’t know what a Femtocell is, then I suggest looking it up on Wikipedia because my answer just wouldn’t do it justice.

WWDC 2009 Apple Vs. Microsoft Showdown

Richard Green on

Today’s Apple’s WWDC show, where they launch there best yet. Now that the big announcements are out and all the Mac boys have oohed and aahed at them, how to they really stack up against Windows?

I’m not going to cover everything as I’m not going to get into hardware etc. All of the quotes are taken from Engadget on this thread: http://www.engadget.com/2009/06/08/phil-schiller-keynote-live-from-wwdc-2009/

Read more…

The Case of the Failed SQL Login

Richard Green on

I was asked to investigate a problem with SQL Server 2005, whereby Administrators logging on to the SQL Server couldn’t login to the SQL Server Management Studio. An attempt to login to the Management Studio (or connect by SQLCMD for that matter) would get an Error 4064: Cannot Open Default User Database.

I Bing Searched the Error 4064 and found lots of information on it, but nothing really pointed to a cause or resolution to the problem, however I knew that the problem was related to the master system database.

The vast majority of sites suggested things but none of these worked for me. Being that my skill with SQLCMD is somewhat slim, I decided to aim for the Management Studio.

I knew that there was a problem with the master system database, and being that the master database is the database used to generate user connections, I thought I would try to login with a different database.

SQLLogin1

As per the image above, expanding the available options in SQL Server 2005 gives you the Connect to Database option. I set this to model being that I knew the system database model would exist and I didn’t know the names of any other databases on the server.

Excellent, it got me in. So the first place I looked was to make sure that the the master database was present. I figured it would be pretty difficult for SQL to start without a master database attached but anything is possible I guess.

Sure enough the database was there, but upon trying to view it’s properties, I got the same Error 4064.

I then tried to take a look at the server properties and I got the same Error 4064 again.

So I was poking around MSDN when I found the sp_defaultdb command, and I ran the following:

use master
go
sp_defaultdb [DOMAINUSER], master
go

 

I logged out of the Management Studio and back in, but this time without the Connect to Database statement selected. I was able to login correctly to he normal master database because I had set my own.

This works for one user, but you don’t want to be going around setting the master as the default database for every user in the company otherwise your going to end up with a very long and complicated SQL configuration on your hands.

With the master database now correctly loaded for my user, I was able to view the server and database properties. First up was the master database and everything here looked good, so I moved on to the server. Whilst browsing through the server permissions, I saw this:

SQLLogin2

Notice how the default database location fields are blank? This is all under the Configured Values mode, so I switched to Running Values and they where blank too.

I entered the correct values into these paths (the SQL Server defaults in this case) and it’s working perfectly – Users are able to login (permission granted of course) without needing to specify a default database.

And that closes the case of the failed SQL Server login.

Windows Server Becomes iSCSI

Richard Green on

iSCSI is kind of the holy grail is storage these days.

Everyone wants it, a lot of people can’t afford it and then there’s also a lot of people who want it, can afford it but don’t understand it, and then lastly there’s cool people who give you it for nothing.

So whilst aboard the USS Richard Green on it’s travels across the Internet, I discovered this site:
http://www.starwindsoftware.com/free

Their current software, StarWind Free 4.1 for Windows allows you to take any box running Windows and turn it into an iSCSI Software Target and for free.

It’s not without it’s limitations I may add. You are limited to 2TB of data storage, but that’s it.

Whilst you may not want to run this in a live environment, for lab and testing environments it’s great because it means you don’t need to go out and buy dedicated hardware for running iSCSI.

Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 Release Dates

Richard Green on

So it’s all official now, as Microsoft have confirmed 22nd October 2009 as the Release to Market date for both Windows 7 Client and Windows 7 Server (Windows Server 2008 R2).

If your thinking of a Vista deployment, I’d hold off. As if features like the new taskbar, touch support, new usability control features, Problem Steps Recorder, DirectAccess and more weren’t enough to tempt you.