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