Mitch Wheat - Treat the cause, not the symptoms!

Just so I remember where this useful page of SQL Server maximum values is: Maximum Capacity Specifications for SQL Server.

Join us at the Perth .NET User Group, Thurs July 2nd to hear Jeremy Thake answer a common question: Is SharePoint is the correct choice as a base platform for a solution? Jeremy Thake will present the advantages (and disadvantages) of leveraging the SharePoint Platform. Some lines in the sand will be drawn to make it easier to make the decision early on the project based on real world experience gathered by Jeremy from the SharePoint community.

TOPIC: When should ASP.NET Developers leverage the SharePoint Platform?
DATE: Thursday, July 2nd, 5:30pm
VENUE: Excom, Ground Floor, 23 Barrack Street, Perth
COST: Free. All welcome

More details here.

Ola Hallengren has updated his SQL Server maintenance scripts with several new features:

• Rebuild and reorganize partitioned indexes on the partition level in IndexOptimize. Just set the new parameter @PartitionLevel = 'Y'.
• Exclusion of indexes on read-only filegroups in IndexOptimize.
• Use LiteSpeed compression in DatabaseBackup. Just set the new parameter @BackupSoftware = 'LITESPEED'.
• New feature to run the stored procedures without executing the commands. Just use the parameter @Execute = 'N'.
• The solution now works on all builds and editions of SQL Server 2005 and SQL Server 2008

Well worth checking out.

Ever needed a HTML parser that is very tolerant of "real world" malformed HTML, builds a read/writable DOM and supports plain XPATH or XSLT? Sounds like the HTML Agility Pack .NET library. The object model is very similar to XmlDocument.

Among the myriad of possible applications, it can be used for page fixups, generating pages, web scrapers, etc.

Brad McGehee has posted a nice introduction to SQL Server 2008 indexes over at Simple-Talk: Brad's Sure Guide to Indexes including a description of the new Filtered Index in SQL Server 2008.

If you want a quick and easy way to check SQL Server connectivity, without resorting to the full blown functionality of WireShark (or similiar), you can use Microsoft's PortQryUI utility to troubleshoot TCP/IP connectivity problems. PortQryUI is a GUI on top of the PortQry command line tool, with predefined groups of ports to scan. One of the these groups targets SQL Server, which consists of UDP port 1434 and TCP port 1433. To check these ports, enter the IP address (or fully qualified domain name) of the target SQL Server instance, select SQL Service in the 'Service to Query' drop-down box and click the Query button.

If the ports are OK, the utility will list the ports as Listening. Otherwise, it will tell you the ports are being Filtered or are Not Listening.

You can download PortQryUI from here: PortQryUI - User Interface for the PortQry Command Line Port Scanner.

Microsoft have announced the Beta version of the IIS Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Toolkit, over at the official Microsoft IIS site (www.iis.net):

The IIS Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Toolkit helps Web developers, hosting
providers, and Web server administrators to improve their Web site’s relevance
in search results by recommending how to make the site content more search
engine-friendly. The IIS SEO Toolkit includes the Site Analysis module, the
Robots Exclusion module, and the Sitemaps and Site Indexes module, which let you
perform detailed analysis and offer recommendations and editing tools for
managing your Robots and Sitemaps.

A colleague, Piers Williams, mentioned the topic of disk partition alignment to me last week, and Microsoft have recently released a whitepaper on this "essential yet often overlooked" subject.

In Windows Vista as well as Windows Server 2008, partition alignment is usually performed by default. The default for disks larger than 4 GB is 1 MB; the setting is configurable in the registry.

On the other hand, partitions created on versions of Windows up to and including Windows Server 2003 by default are not aligned. Partition alignment must be explicitly performed.

There must be hundreds of thousands of systems out there incorrectly aligned, and consequently under-performing.

Join us at the Perth .NET Community of Practice, Thurs June 4th to hear Joe Albahari present on using your .NET skills to write a program to sell over the Internet. Sound hard? It's easier than you think! This presentation will cover what Joe learned in setting up a successful Micro-ISV (Independent Software Vendor).

TOPIC: .NET Micro-ISV
DATE: Thursday, June 4th, 5:30pm
VENUE: Excom, Ground Floor, 23 Barrack Street, Perth
COST: Free. All welcome

There will be door prizes of a 10-user team license for LINQPad Autocompletion (courtesy of Joe) and a ReSharper license (courtesy of JetBrains).

More details here: http://perthdotnet.org/blogs/events/archive/2009/05/13/net-micro-isv-or-get-rich-working-from-home.aspx

To celebrate turning 1, the Australian MS Press Online Bookstore is offering 50% off all books until 30th June 2009. To receive the discount, enter this code at checkout MSPRESS1

Also, MS Press has an Amazon Price Match Promise on all books. If you find a cheaper priced book on Amazon – MS Press will match it. For more details visit the website.

If you are running Vista and have Windows Update turned on (you do, don't you?), you will have no doubt noticed that Service Pack 2 has been released. More details here.

I meant to blog about Marcus Meli's time-saving FileHelpers .NET library some time ago. It's a free, open-source .NET library to read (write) delimited or fixed-length files to (from) strongly-typed arrays, or Excel, Access and SQL Server:

FileHelpers are a free and easy to use .NET library to import/export data from fixed length or delimited records in files, strings or streams.

After delaying for far too long, I’ve finally replaced my aging PC with a completely new one. It’s another DIY build (where’s the fun and love in buying one off-the-shelf?), and the really great thing about DIY builds is you get to choose premium components, rather than the generic cruft present in most boxes. It’s made a large hole in my budget, but a man’s got to have a hobby! :) I was originally going to take photographs at various stages in the build (ala Jeff Atwood’s article), but ultimately I just wanted to get the thing up and running.

Here’s the Spec:

• Intel i7 Quad Core 3.2GHz
• Noctua SE1366 CPU Heatsink and Dual Fans
• Asus P6T Mainboard
• OCZ Vertex 120GB Solid State Drive (Primary Drive)
• Western Digital 1TB hardware RAID 1 (Mirror)(Secondary Drive)
• 12GB of Corsair Tri-Channel 1333MHz RAM
• Asus EAH4870/HTDI/512MB Graphics Card (might buy another of these)
• Asus DVD RW 22x Drive
• Antec 183 Tower Case (with extra sound dampening)
• Corsair 620W 80+ Modular Power Supply
• Samsung 23” HD LCD

I’m running Windows 7 64bit Ultimate RC. The boot time is so fast it will make you weep as you wait 3 minutes for the PC you’re reading this on to boot up! ;)

I have to say that Windows 7 is a real joy to use. I’m really looking forward to this going RTM.

I was originally going to use one of the Western Digital 150GB 10K rpm drives as the primary hard drive (an excellent hard drive, and a firm favourite), but I decided to splash out on a Solid State Drive (SSD). These are still expensive, but over the next 18 months, the price of these will drop dramatically. [If you’ve just won the Lottery (and have $10,000+ lying around), check out the FusionIO monster SSDs].

This was a relatively expensive DIY build; to put that into context, the case plus power supply alone cost $450.00!! Despite being a great case (with great airflow, excellent sound dampening features, behind the back plane wiring etc.), the Antec 183 is very over-priced in my view. The 183 is practically identical to the previous 182 but they took out one of the very large but quiet fans, and then jacked the price up $50 (go figure)!

The only tricky bit was (as usual) installing the enormous (and I don’t use that term lightly!) heatsink with the dual push-pull fans. I don’t think there is another heatsink on the market that removes heat so effectively (great for over-clocking), but they don’t come cheaply.
The ATI chipset 4870 gave me a heart stopping moment when I booted the beast for the first time. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. I rechecked all connections, tried again. Still nothing. “Hmmm”, I thought. My nose hadn’t detected the escape of any essential “Magic Smoke”, which is always a good sign.

The Asus EAH4870, like most new PCI-Express x16 graphics cards, needs an extra 12V ATX power source due to its high current draw. Well this particular model requires not one but two extra 12V power rails! When I was installing the card, I couldn’t help notice that the 4870 had 2 6-pin 12V sockets on it. I plugged in one and thought “Surely it can’t require two...”, but it does.

(Note: one slightly odd feature of buying an expensive case is that you won’t get one of those 50 cent case speakers, which means if your motherboard does not have an onboard fault diagnostic LED display (the Asus P6T doesn’t), you won’t hear the tell tale beeps for problems with RAM, Video card etc)

All I need now is a bigger desk to accommodate a second Samsung 23” LCD monitor...

Somasegar's blog announcement: http://blogs.msdn.com/somasegar/archive/2009/05/18/visual-studio-2010-and-net-fx-4-beta-1-ships.aspx

MSDN subscribers can download from here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/subscriptions/downloads/default.aspx?pv=18:370

The SQL Server 2008 Feature Pack for April 2009, a collection of stand-alone install packages that provide additional value for SQL Server 2008 has been updated:

• Microsoft ADOMD.NET - ADOMD.NET is a Microsoft .NET Framework object model that enables developers to create client-side applications that browse metadata and query data stored in Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Analysis Services.
• Microsoft Analysis Management Objects - Analysis Management Objects (AMO) is a .NET Framework object model that enables developers to create client-side applications to manage and administer Analysis Services objects.
• Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Analysis Services 10.0 OLE DB Provider - The Analysis Services 10.0 OLE DB Provider is a COM component that software developers can use to create client-side applications that browse metadata and query data stored in Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Analysis Services.
• Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Backward Compatibility Components - The SQL Server Backward Compatibility package includes the latest versions of the Data Transformation Services 2000 runtime (DTS), SQL Distributed Management Objects (SQL-DMO), Decision Support Objects (DSO), and SQL Virtual Device Interface (SQLVDI).
• Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Command Line Utilities - The SQLCMD utility allows users to connect to, send Transact-SQL batches from, and output rowset information from SQL Server 7.0, SQL Server 2000, SQL Server 2005, and SQL Server 2008 instances.
• SQL Server Compact 3.5 SP1 - SQL Server Compact is a free, easy-to-use embedded database engine that lets developers build robust Microsoft Windows desktop and mobile applications that run on all Windows operating systems including Windows XP, Vista, Pocket PC, and Smartphone.
• Microsoft Connector 1.0 for SAP BI - The Microsoft Connector for SAP BI is a set of managed components for transferring data to or from an SAP NetWeaver BI version 7.0 system.
• Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Data Mining Add-ins for Microsoft Office 2007 - Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Data Mining Add-ins for Microsoft Office 2007 enables you to take advantage of SQL Server 2008 predictive analytics in Office Excel 2007 and Office Visio 2007.
• Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Datamining Viewer Controls - The Data Mining Web Controls Library is a set of Microsoft Windows Forms controls that enable developers to display data mining models created using Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Analysis Services in their client-side applications.
• Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Driver for PHP - The SQL Server 2005 Driver for PHP is a PHP 5 extension that allows for accessing data in all Editions of SQL Server 2005 and SQL Server 2008 (including Express Editions) from within PHP scripts.
• Microsoft Core XML Services (MSXML) 6.0 - Microsoft Core XML Services (MSXML) 6.0 is the latest version of the native XML processing stack.
• Microsoft SQL Server 2005 JDBC Driver 1.2 - Java Database Connectivity (JDBC) driver for SQL Server.
• Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Management Objects - The SQL Server Management Objects (SMO) is a .NET Framework object model that enables developers to create client-side applications to manage and administer SQL Server objects and services.
• Microsoft OLEDB Provider for DB2 - The Microsoft OLE DB Provider for DB2 version 2.0 is a COM component for integrating vital data stored in IBM DB2 databases with new solutions based on Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Enterprise Edition and Developer Edition.
• SQL Server Remote Blob Store - The SQL Server Remote Blob Store is a method for storing blobs of unstructured data in an external Content Addressable data store.
• Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Native Client - Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Native Client (SQL Server Native Client) is a single dynamic-link library (DLL) containing both the SQL OLE DB provider and SQL ODBC driver. It contains run-time support for applications using native-code APIs (ODBC, OLE DB and ADO) to connect to Microsoft SQL Server 2000, 2005, or 2008.
• Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Policies - Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Policies are examples of how you can take advantage of Policy Based Management. These policies will help you follow some of the SQL Server best practices and avoid common pitfalls.
• Microsoft Windows PowerShell Extensions for SQL Server - The Microsoft Windows PowerShell Extensions for SQL Server includes a provider and a set of cmdlets that enable administrators and developers to build PowerShell scripts for managing instances of SQL Server.
• Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Replication Management Objects - The Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Replication Management Objects package includes API for managing SQL Server 2008 replication objects programmatically.
• Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Report Builder 2.0 - Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Report Builder 2.0 provides an intuitive report authoring environment for business and power users with a Microsoft Office look and feel.
• Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services Add-in for Microsoft SharePoint Technologies - Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services Add-in for SharePoint Technologies allows you to take advantage of SQL Server 2008 report processing and management capabilities in SharePoint integrated mode.
• Microsoft SQL Service Broker External Activator - This an extension of the Internal Activation feature in SQL Server 2008 and lets you move the logic for receiving and processing Service Broker messages from the Database Engine service to an application executable that runs outside the Database Engine service.
• Microsoft SQL Server System CLR Types - The SQL Server System CLR Types package contains the components implementing the new geometry, geography, and hierarchyid types in SQL Server 2008.
• Microsoft SQLXML 4.0 SP1 - SQLXML enables XML support for your SQL Server Database. It allows developers to bridge the gap between XML and relational data.
• Microsoft Sync Framework - Microsoft Sync Framework is a comprehensive synchronization platform that enables collaboration and offline access for applications, services and devices. Using the Microsoft Sync Framework runtime, developers can build sync ecosystems that integrate any application, with any data from any store using any protocol over any network. Sync Services for ADO.NET is a part of the Microsoft Sync Framework. Sync Services for ADO.NET enables synchronization between ADO.NET enabled databases. For more information about the Microsoft Sync Framework, please go to Microsoft Sync Framework Developer Center.
• Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Upgrade Advisor - Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Upgrade Advisor analyzes instances of SQL Server 2000 and SQL Server 2005 in preparation for upgrading to SQL Server 2008.

The Data-mining add-ins for Excel 2007 and the Sync Framework are definitely worth a look if you haven’t seen them before.