Notes From My Basement

Free SQL Tools

guillermo — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 18:00:00 -0600

A quick list of relevant [to me] tools as they relate to working on or around SQL Server for maintenance and development.

The folks at xSQL Software produce great tools that work without too much flash, although some DO have “all the bells and whistles”. Go ahead and download their free offerings here.
SSMS Tool Pack. Dude, dude, dude… what can I say… phenomenal (and after a month of using them, indispensable) add on to SSMS 2005 on… There is some code gen goodness there, some “refactoring”, snippets, debugging capability, etc... I can’t see how you wouldn’t be able to find a good use for this add on if you are a somewhat “daily” SQL Server and SSMS user.
SQLMonitoring Tool. Available on Codeplex.
SSIS Community Tasks and Components. Available on Codeplex.
SQL Search from RedGate software. I’ve blogged about it before here. It has to make this list though… I use it pretty much “daily”.
[UPDATE] The MEGA Guide to Free SQL Tools

An additional not on the offerings from xSQL Software: For those that are not free, the cost of their software is WAY less that their value. You can’t go wrong. I am a user of their tools, more specifically their Script Executor Community Edition which has saved me hours of frustrating, repetitive and manual work. (Review to follow soon).

How to determine if you processor is supported by Hyper-V

Guillermo — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 15:00:00 -0600

Use CPUID to get some processor details. If you have an Intel processor, you could look for support to the VT-x instruction.

Your first step however should be to check against the list Intel maintains to with details for all processors that support virtualization, here.

If you have an AMD processor, this AMD tool should help you determine whether your processor supports hardware virtualization or not.

May Agenda

Guillermo — Sun, 02 May 2010 00:00:00 -0600

Want to use this short post as sort of planning slate for some things I want to do, loosely defined as goals, for the current month of May 2010 in the realm of training (in diverse formats) and some posts I want to write which in themselves would imply some training and thought organization exercise.

I recently completed the process of deploying TFS 2010. Used mainly as a production SCM but also leveraging some basic ALM features. This included conversion from Visual Source Safe, bug & issue item tracking and sprint tasks planning & reporting. I want to “document” that process and highlight some of the gotchas that I went through, and the dos and don’t that I gathered from my experience. I think they’d add value to anyone else looking to do just that: Deploy TFS 2010 as a source control repository, migrate projects and get the groove going to plan and track your development projects. I think a critical part of this process is indeed the planning phase, as the execution is pretty straight forward once you have a good solid base plan.

Sometime in the next 2 weeks, i will be rebuilding my ESXi box, because the PS took a crapper and I was just waiting for an excuse to upgrade the iron anyways. As it was this is 3.5 environment because the proc was an oldie but goodie 32bit. Looking to migrate to ESXi 4. I am running 2 instances of Server 2003, 2 of Server 2008 and I will now look to add 2008 R2. Here I ran my labs, and most recently had my TFS environment. Great excuse to do it all over again if I wanted to, but for now it is just a host box swap keeping the VMs as they are.

Videos, podcasts, screencasts, MIX10 content I haven’t assimilated, and hopefully get suckered into it enough to justify a yearly subscription to tekpub.

I will attend the 2 day WebCamp event in Chicago over June 11th and 12th. Suffice it to say, this is a great chance to learn from others including industry and technology leaders at Microsoft. Topics include ASP.NET MVC, EF, JQuery, IIS, etc. Great stuff.

Somewhere in the middle of all that I am considering, and haven’t yet decided, working on a worthy submission to Thomson Reuter’s mobile app contest, which they named The StreepApps Challenge . I think I can convince my buddy Benny to go in with me on this project and if so, we are half way there.

All of this while I embrace the search and quest for a new full time role. This time I am not looking for a job, I am looking for a home amongst those that are “my peeps”, those that appreciate what I bring to the table, people whom I can actually learn from… an environment that generates “good” stress.

On the path to my new “8 to 6” home, I am hoping to get my hands filthy dirty with some good code, good problems to solve, great challenges that push my limits and all nighters that leave you with a smile on your face.

So ok, slight inaccuracy in the post tile, because May…be some of the things that are listed here I’ll be doing in June.

Don’t tell me what doesn’t work, tell me how you can make it work

guillermo — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 06:00:00 -0600

The following was extracted from a post I recently read, that is totally and completely off topic. But the principles in the idea is what I focused on.

Don't tell me what you're against; tell me what you're for.
Don't tell me who to blame; tell me what you're working on.
Don't tell me what's wrong with "them"; tell me what's going to work.
Tell me the kind of change you're championing and the commitment you're ready to make to make it happen.

The concepts illustrate the positions I wish I saw people, my peers, my teams take rather than what has been my pet peeve with the common communication style that I have observed as prevalent amongst most of my recent work environments.

People complaint, they rehash the past, they blame and they pout, but seldom do they solve the problem on their own… it takes so much effort to guide them to that point.

What am I doing about it? (I won’t fall prey of the same trap) I am nipping whiners and complaints in the bud. I have to ask sometimes more than a few times, for actionable initiatives, doable items, far from pipe dreams (which also tend to be used as excuses).

Yes, I have gotten results, most good. Getting small wins tend to give people the boost of confidence and positive reinforcement they need to mold behavior and drop bad habits.

Search SQL Server Schemas. Free Tool from RedGate

guillermo — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 18:00:00 -0600

I demoed this small, simple and free tool to the team today. SQL Search from redgate

This is an add on for SQL Server Management Studio. It supports/works with SQL Server 2005 & 2008 instances. I won’t index or search databases under a SQL Server 2000 instance. We migrated a SQL Server 2000 database and ran it under a 2008 instance in compatibility mode and SQL Search worked on it ok.

Once the install is complete, you’ll notice a new toolbar button:

Select your database within your object explorer and the click on the button and SQL Search will open up in a tab with the database selected on the left as the default selected database. Of course you can select a different database to search within using the SQL Search interface.

Within the search box, type the name of the object (table, column, constraint, variable… whatever) you want to search for, and SQL Search does an immediate search on matches to partial names displaying the results in the grid below the search & selection criteria section.

Once you find what you are looking for you can “double-click” on it and it will find and select the object within the object explorer for you (mine is on the left).

An even more productive feature is that within the results grid itself there is a preview, read-only pane that displays the body of stored procedures as you select them on the grid above. Want to mess around with it? Double click it and navigate directly to the object from where you can proceed as you would within SSMS to “Modify” it.

Instant sensation with my team of developers & DBA.

Did I mention it is free?

Get it here. And while you are there, watch the 3min video on where and how they went about building this tool. Pretty neat. “Coded by the sea”.

I’m not a gamer, but still 67% geek

guillermo — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 12:30:00 -0600

Who shot first? (that one got me… no clue). How embarrassed should I be?

67% Geek

Created by OnePlusYou - Geek Test

Mouse Not Working in Office 2007 on Lenovo running Windows 7 x64

Guillermo — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 18:45:00 -0600

After weeks of pain, dealing with the fact that my mouse (external, trackpad or pointer) stopped working in Word 2007 and Outlook 2007 after a random amount of time after launching, and having have tried a myriad of “solutions”, I finally came across the relevant and final solution to the problem.

While performing my research into this issue, it struck me as interesting and odd that a great number of posts made mention of the hardware where this issue occurred and it was consistently a Lenovo Laptop. Different models, but all Lenovo. Guess what my hardware make is where these sweet problems where occurring? Yeah, my new Lenovo W500.

If you own a Lenovo laptop running Windows 7 (any version, any platform), the problem is most likely NOT one of the common ones you may have already run across, that include:

Delete the “Data” key from the registry key
Reinstall Office/Change the Key
Disable add-ons
Launch the app by going the “Run as Administrator” route.

I tried all of the above, mostly in haste after running quick searches and implementing “quick fixes” in what I perceived to be the right way to approach the problem/solution given my limited amount of available time during my very busy and hectic schedule… wrong… I should have dug deeper, I should have persisted and I would have found the solution that ended being the relevant one that applied to my situation.

The real culprit: Lenovo’s Password Manager Utility.

Solutions:

Drastic: Remove, Uninstall, Wipe, Annihilate.
Less Drastic:

Open the “Password Vault” utility. Either search for it, or click on the appropriate shortcut if available.
Click “Set Preferences”
Under “General” tab, uncheck “Enable Hot Keys”
Click “Ok”
Close
Reboot

That is the summary, for all the thread’s details and other noise, if you feel like it, go to the Microsoft Communities post itself.

Upgraded to Windows 7 Ultimate x64

Guillermo — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 08:43:00 -0600

I just got done with running the upgrade to Windows 7 Ultimate x64 on my previous Vista Ultimate x64 system.

Kudos, two thumbs up, hooray and well done!

Painless, quick, efficient, transparent. System is performing like a charm. The only one visible change was that it swapped my wallpaper.

ASUS Technical Service FAIL.

guillermo — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 01:00:00 -0600

After having pre ordered it from Amazon (sorry, no links… not making it easier for anyone to give ASUS business they don’t deserve) and paying a hefty $375 for it (in comparison to the competition), the unit shipped on February 7th of this year 2009 and I received it a few days later.

I was motivated to pre order, because as I had read somewhere in the “interwebs”, that the ASUS 1000HE was the first one to offer the (back then) new Atom N280 processor. Sparing anyone the details of what the benefits of the N280 processor are over its brother the N270 processor (yes, to me processors are MALE because they do all the hard work and the heavy lifting, plus they can multitask!), but suffice it to say it was not because of the clock speed difference: 1.60ghz for the N270 in contrast to the whopping 1.66ghz of its big brother the N280.

3 months after, the unit’s integrated wireless card sadly died. I called, got on their phone with their tech support, explained my case and after running a series of unnecessary tests to satisfy their need to prove the customer is not an idiot, it was determined (you don’t say?) that the wireless card was indeed kaput! As if I didn’t know already, but oh well… the RMA was issued and the unit went out the door and unto little machine hospital care.

Little did I know, “little machine hospital” care turned out to be the worst HMO anyone would ever want to put their selves into their hands.

About a month later I received the unit back, and promptly turned it back on making my first order of business to test that the wireless card was indeed in working order. Oh jolly, yeay! it was.

Don’t ask me why, I can’t tell you, and maybe its part of my stupid OCD habits, but I decided to check on the hardware specs by “right clicking” on my computer and selecting properties (you know these . Oh, I remember, I wanted to confirm it had 1GB of memory and not 2GB, because my ultimate plan was (and quite honestly probably still is) to install Windows 7 on it. I wanted to set out to buy extra RAM for it.

This is what I saw:

<<eepcWithn270.png>>

Surprise and darn! WTF??? 1.6Ghz Atom N270… not Atom N280… hmm… am I going crazy? So I go and check Amazon’s receipts and sure enough, It says right there I bought a unit with an N280 processor.

<<eepcOrderFromAmazon.png>>

I then went and check the box in which the unit originally shipped, the same one I used to ship it back to repair the wireless card (yes, I keep that sort of stuff laying around. I told you I have annoying OCD habits).

<<eeepc100heboxlabel.jpg>>

Sure enough, you can see the serial number AND that it is an EEEPC 1000HE, even the color is listed so thank God they didn’t send me back a pink one! can you imagine the post I’d write?

There it is: INTEL ATOM280.

I quickly call them up, state the case and … surprise #2: with what sounded to me at the time, a very condescending forcibly polite little tone of voice, the tech proceeds to tell me that “it is all ok, because right here in my system it says that the serial number for your machine indicates the unit shipped from factory with a N270 processor” I literally felt my head flush with the fluids of irrational anger and almost had to run and put it under the bathroom sink faucet to cool it off. 10 minutes later, after futile attempts to use logic to explain that “it must be an error”, I concluded with the statement “I don’t give a fuck what your system says, my unit was purchased as, was shipped from Amazon as, and I used it for 2 months as configured with an N280 processor” and followed it up with “what do I need to do to prove to you guys you are verging on committing retail fraud or at the very least deception by assumption of stupidity?”.

Long story short (yeah right, but believe me when I say this is the abridged version) I had to write an essay about 5 times lengthier and angrier than this post is turning to be, and included every picture possible to prove to those idiots that I am not an idiot and that indeed my EeePC was originally equipped with an N280 and they shipped it back after repair with a lesser processor, the N270.

Blah, blah, blah, yada-yada-yada… about 2 weeks later I finally got a new RMA, and after my strong position that I wasn’t going to pay for shipping so that they can correct their blatant mistake, they included a pre-paid shipping label. So I shipped it out and readied myself to let the waiting begin.

Yesterday after approximately 3 or 4 weeks, I received my EeePc 1000HE back from ASUS technical service (well technically speaking, I picked it up).

Got it home, power it up and of course the first thing I do is go into the BIOS to check the processor… surprise, surprise, or should I be surprised? You guessed it… same shit. N270 Processor… this is even AFTER their order slip reads and says they actually replaced it AGAIN with the N280 (see the picture of the body of the repair slip included in the box back from the repair center):

<< eeepcrepairslip2fixed.jpg >>

Breath in Guillermo, Breath in… on the phone again, calmly explain the situation to the rep on the other side and guess what line they tried to feed me yet once again? “sir, the serial number for your machine shows that…” I said “STOP… STOP it right there and get me the highest ranking someone that I can talk to right now that is not going to insult my intelligence”. She did, and I got Irish on the line, and she listened and did not try the “the serial number says” line again on me, although in all fairness i did warn her about it.

I am still waiting for yet another RMA, yet another pre paid shipping label and will send it out again. This unit has spend more time in transit and in repair than it has on my lap and in my house. I am not hopeful, but I have no recourse so I’ll try to make myself a believer.

Maybe I am not helping my case, but I felt compelled to and so I did… and wrote a note to the poor soul who is fortunate enough to be dealt the card of opening this box when it comes into ASUS’s technical black hole.

Here it is in all its glory. Tell me what you think.

<<pleasetest.jpg>>

IT Manager’s Top 10 Reading List

Guillermo — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 07:00:00 -0600

According to Baseline Magazine, you should make room on your bookshelf for the following books:

Managing the Human Factor in Information Security: How to win over staff and influence business managers by David Lacey
Information Nation: Seven Keys to Information Management Compliance by Randolph Kahn, Barclay Blair
The Truth About Middle Managers: Who They Are, How They Work, Why They Matter by Paul Osterman
Strategic Project Management Made Simple: Practical Tools for Leaders and Teams by Terry Schmidt
Growing Software: Proven Strategies for Managing Software Engineers by Louis Testa
Identifying and Managing Project Risk: Essential Tools for Failure-Proofing Your Project by Tom Kendrick PMP
The Greening of IT: How Companies Can Make a Difference for the Environment by John Lamb
Winning the Hardware-Software Game: Using Game Theory to Optimize the Pace of New Technology Adoption by Ruth D. Fisher
The Deciding Factor: The Power of Analytics to Make Every Decision a Winner by Larry E. Rosenberger
Manage Your Project Portfolio: Increase Your Capacity and Finish More Projects (Pragmatic Programmers) by Johanna Rothman

Once I stumble across a list like this, I’ll likely read a couple… already ordered one of them.

Physical to Virtual (P2V) Tool from Sysinternals

Guillermo — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 19:00:00 -0600

Fresh off the production line, a P2V tool by Mark Russinovich and Bryce Cogswell, formerly of Sysinternals.

The tool is called Disk2Vhd and this is the 1.0 offering, and is now part of the Sysinternals Suite.

Disk2vhd is a utility that creates VHD (Virtual Hard Disk - Microsoft’s Virtual Machine disk format) versions of physical disks for use in Microsoft Virtual PC or Microsoft Hyper-V virtual machines (VMs). The difference between Disk2vhd and other physical-to-virtual tools is that you can run Disk2vhd on a system that’s online.

This assumes “other” tools require you to power down the system you wish to create an image of. I guess this sounds reasonable to expect, and since I haven’t used either tool yet, I am not one to make a judgment call.

I am turning my old Dell 600SC server into a virtual host exclusively and in doing so I need to P2V it and store that image on my new NAS and then host it virtually amongst other environments I plan to add. These tools are now a critical component of that plan and my plan is to write a post about the process and results once I get to doing it.

Who’s the man?

guillermo — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 18:00:00 -0600

This has simplified my Christmas shopping for all my married friends.

Me? Naahhh, I don’t need that! Right honey?

I realized this has been around for a while, it is so dead on though, I couldn’t help but share it.

Who monitors the monitor?

guillermo — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 13:39:24 -0600

I just signed up for a 24/7 Web Monitoring service, and granted it is probably a startup and probably going through growing pains, I still couldn’t help but chuckle at the irony.

Download XP and Vista VHD Ready to Use

guillermo — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 10:01:46 -0600

I needed a virtual machine to test an application in isolation and realized I didn’t have any of my .vhd images on hand.

I looked around and came across this collection of downloadable VHDs directly from Microsoft, pre-activated, for both Vista and XP with different versions of IE including IE6 (XP only), IE7 & IE8.

The OSes are trial versions (of course) and expire January 1st for the XP installs and 120 days after first use for the Vista images.

Images require at least 1.5GB of HD space once expanded, so make sure you have some room available for it.

Refactor that spellchecker

guillermo — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 08:15:00 -0600

It appears the word/verb “Refactor” is absent “out of the box” from all if not most of the environments that provide a spell checker service or feature. At least the ones I’ve used lately and since I started to notice. From (this) Live Writer to Word to within the browser on the update textbox of twitter, you name it, I keep having to “right click, Add to Dictionary”.

Wikipedia does have an article for the term “Refactoring”, and so does Dictionary.com but the “verb” Refactor is not on either (Wikipedia redirects to Refactoring) and Merriam-Webster comes up empty when searching for either.

Is there a way to carry around one’s dictionary from environment to environment and use it on all if not most of the aforementioned tools?

I guess I have to do a little bit of research, and no I won’t hold the post until I do. I’d rather note my observation and I *should* then later do the legwork and update with my findings. I reserve the right to slack on such task, do nothing and instead keep “right clicking, Adding to Dictionary” as I go.

Image by hisks