Typically you don’t really need to bother, since this stuff is taken care of by the Deployment Center. But if something goes wrong you may need to apply database upgrade scripts by hand, and then you really need to know the correct numbers.

• CMS 6 R2: 6103
• CMS 6.0: 6004
• CMS 5 R2 SP2: 5205
• CMS 5 R2 SP1: 5202
• CMS 5 R2: 5200
• CMS 5 R1 SP3: 5102

If you are unsure of your current version, there is a stored procedure called sp_DatabaseVersion which will return the correct version.

If you need the upgrade scripts, they can be found here:
C:\Program Files (x86)\EPiServer\CMS\[version]\Upgrade\Database\sql (or similar).

The folder contains a lot of scripts which need to be run in correct order. The naming can seem a bit scary at first (e.g. 0005_0001_0422_0004to0005_0001_0422_0122.sql), but if you look closely they actually match the assembly versions.

Example:

The first file upgrades from 5.1.422.4 (just skip the zeros) to 5.1.422.122, where 5.1.422.4 is the assembly version of CMS 5 R1. The scripts continue in order all the way up to the latest version of CMS 6.

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• EPiServer version list

Sure, most of the blog writers are certainly not Shakespeare, nor are the moviemakers Spielberg, but at least they are doing creative stuff. It’s hard to believe that 99% of these things were simply not there at all only ten years ago.

The web is a unique and revolutionary platform for sharing and communication, bringing together all the earlier elements of radio, television and telephone.

20 years ago I got my first cellphone. It was large as a brick and could only be used as a telephone (doh). Today most people run around with a device in their pocket equipped with more processing power than the computers which placed Armstrong on the moon.

That same device is also a portable music player (which was amazing ten years ago), digital camera, video recorder, web browser, communication device, game station, compass, map, GPS and much more. Some decades ago such a device was considered science fiction.

It’s no wonder that Encyclopedia Britannia recently announced that they will stop doing their printed edition. A publication that has been on the shelves since 1768, the oldest encyclopedia in the English-speaking world.

The iPad slightly shifted user focus from creator to consumer, due to lack of a mouse, precision marking, good keyboard and so on. But I don’t think it will make a difference in the long run. The creative process is here to stay. Al Gore recently spoke at SXSW in Austin about the enormous possibilities of internet and I think its importance just cannot be stated enough.

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When Steve Jobs introduced the first iMac in 1998, the boldest move was not the colorful futuristic casing but rather the lack of a floppy disk drive. Floppy disks had been the premier storage media for a decade and even though the CDR was gaining ground, floppys were still the dominant distribution media for backward compatibility purposes.

I remember that I also reacted strongly when I first heard about the announcement. But in the end, he was right. Steve was, as usual, a bit ahead of his time, but eventually all computers removed the floppy drive.

It takes courage to be the first to step up and go in a different direction than everyone else. Be strong and follow your own convictions.

Orhan Pamuk won the Nobel Prize in 2006. He has lived in Istanbul for almost his entire life and this book is the tale of him growing up there, as well as an attempt to describe the mentality of the citizens in the ever-changing city.

At the heart of it all is “hüzün”, an emotion which can be described as melancholy. It seems to emanate from all kinds of culture coming from the city. I suppose its hard to match the splendors of both Ottoman Empire and Byzantine Empire, and also impossible to forget with all the magnificent buildings scattered across the seven hills around Bosphorus.

It has often been described as the ultimate book on Istanbul which really captures the soul of the city. And I suppose I can’t argue on that, since the man has lived there for his entire life, even living in the same house where he once grew up 50 years ago. He vividly describes the discolored facades of buildings, fishermen on the Galata bridge and boats passing on the Bosphorus.

But I would prefer to have a bit more history gems inserted between the lengthy descriptions of the interiors in his house. The chapters contains small fragments of history, somewhat carelessly piled up instead of forming a coherent story. The sudden leaps back and forth in time unfortunately makes it a bit difficult to piece it all together.

Last time I was in Turkey the lira was at a very low point due to inflation. It was even noted in the Guinness Book of Records as the world’s least valuable currency. I remember buying a cup of turkish coffee a decade ago for approximately one million lira. It was a strange feeling to give away a six-digit note in exchange for a bucket of brown liquid.

Today Turkey seems to feel a lot better, but there is a melancholy over Istanbul that never fades. They call it hüzün, inevitable but yet central to culture, music and writing for several decades. It supposedly began after the fall of the Ottoman Empire, as the citizens of modern Istanbul are surrounded by displays of former power and glory. One of these is the Topkapi Palace, built by Sultan Mehmed II in 1459 on the hill which once held the old Byzantine acropolis of Constantinople. Topkapi contains Muhammad’s sword, the world’s fifth-largest diamond and other cool stuff. And its harem is also interesting *ahem*.

Constantinople itself was the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire, once the largest European city of the Middle Ages. But today the country struggles even to get accepted into the European Union. No wonder that such a twist of fate may give a bit of hüzün.

Many of the old streets are paved with cobblestones. As I roamed along their winding paths yesterday it really felt like an old city. The city has a skyline of famous buildings, including the great church of Hagia Sophia which has awed its visitors since AD 360. Inside the church there are still traces of rune inscriptions made during the Viking age by Varangians, an elite guard made up of Scandinavian immigrant warriors.

All in all, the city is a perfect place to get lost in and swept away by the winds of time.

Maiden’s Tower in the Bosphorus.

One thing I like about the older movies is the lack of green screen. The actors were actually there, not just speaking in front of a giant green wall in a boring studio on a different continent.

Left images are from the actual films and to the right are my visits to the spots.

Lost in Translation (2003)

Lost in Translation: Park Hyatt, Tokyo

Ah yes, here we go. Lost in Translation is quite special to me for several reasons and the bar at 52nd floor of Park Hyatt is the most well-known location in the film. Left picture is Bill Murray in 2003 and the right is the same spot in 2008.

Lost in Translation: Kyoto station

Scarlett Johansson went on a lonely trip from Tokyo to Kyoto by Shinkansen. Urban alienation has never been sweeter.

Lost in Translation: Shinjuku, Tokyo

During the first scene we see Bill Murray stare with sleepy eyes on the neon billboards of eastern Shinjuku.

French Connection (1971)

French Connection: Le Panier, Marseille

The left scene was shot 40 years ago, where an unnamed character is making his way home through the stairs of Le Panier, the oldest part of Marseille.

French Connection: Chateau d’If, Marseille

Charnier and Devereaux made their sinister plans at a castle outside Marseille. It was also the setting for Dumas’ novel The Count of Monte Cristo.

Lord of the Rings (2001)

Lord of the Rings: Mount Victoria, New Zealand

This was the place where Frodo and the hobbits first encountered the nazgul. It was also the site for the very first shooting of the trilogy, catching the press off guard. The area was also used for the scenes at Weathertop, Dunharrow, Hobbiton Woods and Outer Shire.

Lord of the Rings: Mount Ngauruhoe, New Zealand

This volcano on the north island of New Zealand was used as Mount Doom for a few scenes in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings, but since the local population didn’t allow filming there for religious reasons the crew had to make a digital replica of it.

Lord of the Rings: Mount Ruapehu, New Zealand

A lot of Lord of the Rings scenes were shot in this area, including the prologue battle. The mountain was also used as Mount Doom in a few scenes.

Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1974)

Monty Python and the Holy Grail: Castle Stalker in Loch Laich, Scotland

This picturesque castle was used as Castle Aaargh and the place for the final confrontation with the insulting French.

Monty Python and the Holy Grail: Doune Castle, Scotland

This is where John Cleese insulted King Arthur in French accent and later goes on a killing spree at a wedding. Also the site of the wooden rabbit trick and “fetchez la vache”, as well as home to the very friendly girls of Castle Anthrax.

Le fabuleux destin d’Amélie Poulain (2001)

Amelie: Bar des Deux Moulins, Paris

The infamous bar in Montmartre where the main characters worked.

La Dolce Vita (1960)

La Dolce Vita: Fontana di Trevi, Rome

Anita Ekberg and Marcello Mastroianni goes for a late night stroll through the fountain. Even though it was shot at night, Anita endured the cold for hours in her wet dress. But Marcello wore a wetsuit and had an entire bottle of vodka, making him drunk during the shooting.

Highlander (1986)

Highlander: Eilean Donan Castle, Scotland

Highlander: Eilean Donan Castle, Scotland

The castle was used as the home of Clan MacLeod.

Talented Mr Ripley (1999)

Talented Mr Ripley: Forum Romanum, Rome

Matt Damon went for a walk in the sunset to explore the city.

Talented Mr Ripley: Piazza Navone, Rome

Philip Seymour Hoffman made an eye-catching entrance in the film.

Interview with the Vampire (1994)

Interview with the Vampire: Oak Alley, Louisiana

This was the home of Louis in the movie Interview With The Vampire. It took days for production crew to put moss on every branch of the trees and paint the house in an eerie green color. The owners were quite disturbed at Brad Pitt kicking the beautiful cypress front door over 25 times until he got it right. The house was also used for the opening scene of Gone With The Wind.

The Beach (2000)

The Beach: Maya Bay, Phi Phi Islands

While the book by Alex Garland may be a fan favorite for backpackers, the film is not nearly there but the first half is quite good at invoking the ups and downs of mass tourism in Thailand. The place where the movie The Beach was shot can be quite crowded these days, but the water provides fine snorkeling and the surrounding limestone cliffs are nothing short of spectacular. However, Alex Garland’s book was actually inspired by the lagoon El Nido at island Palawan in the Philippines, and the book was also written there according to the legend.

Rendition (2007)

Rendition: Djemaa el Fna, Marrakech

Jake Gyllenhaal seeks comfort in the bottle while overlooking the big square Djemaa el Fna from a balcony. I managed to find a spot a few meters away from that balcony.

Mission Impossible (1996)

Mission Impossible: Lichtenstein Palace, Prague

Tom Cruise and Kristin Scott Thomas escape from the cellar.

Mission Impossible: Lichtenstein Palace, Prague

This is the riverside alley featured prominently in the beginning of the film where Tom Cruise had all sorts of problems with his mission.

Mission Impossible: Kampa Island, Prague

The wooden fence where the bad guy was hiding and where Tom Cruise escape from the police.

Moulin Rouge (2001)

Moulin Rouge: Moulin Rouge exterior, Paris

I like the view from Ewan McGregors room, even though it’s done with green screen. And no, there is no elephant in there – I’ve checked.

Friends with Benefits (2011)

Friends with Benefits: Bethesda Fountain, New York

Silly movie with great locations. The name of this famous fountain comes from the story of an angel giving healing powers to the pool of Bethesda in ancient Jerusalem. The statue on top, Angel of the waters, is a neoclassical winged female figure symbolizing the opening of the Croton Aqueduct in 1842 that brought fresh water to the citizens. This is also the site of the final scene in the graphic novel 'Death – the high cost of living' by Neil Gaiman.

If you’re curious about any locations, I recommend the database Movie Locations. But don’t believe that everything you see is actually there, since a lot is made with green screen these days.

Related posts

• Marseille 40 years later
• The magic of green screen
• Visual misconceptions in movies

New York:

London:

Dublin:

What are you listening to right now?

This created heated responses from industry veterans such as Remy Sharp, Christian Heilmann, Bruce Lawson, Eric Meyer and many more. To quote Remy Sharp, “this is bat shit crazy”.

More than a decade ago the main browsers were Internet Explorer and Netscape. Someone got the idea to implement proprietary stuff in their browser due to competition and innovation, which unfortunately fueled the problem of “this site needs X to run”. The vendors continued to add proprietary features which made interoperability jump out the window. Fortunately this got addressed with the rise of web standards after the Browser Wars.

But here we are again. The reason this time for implementing such a non-standard feature in the specification is the popularity of the webkit prefix, to some degree thanks to the rise in mobile browser usage. It seems to be increasingly common among mobile developers to use webkit properties only, which would hurt the users of non-webkit browsers.

I see no miracle fix to the problem on the horizon, but I’m sure the bright people will figure something out. Perhaps some vendors will remove support for the prefixed variants in the near future, but browser vendors are traditionally very reluctant to remove such things once they are being frequently used by the community.

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Exactly one year later, I visited @media conference in London where some of the best web developers had gathered. Sometimes media queries were mentioned, but not to any great extent.

New ideas spread fast and a few months later even some clients were starting to mention it. At the end of the year it felt more like a natural ingredient in all web projects. That’s how fast things happen in the web industry.

Responsive design is the concept of developing a design so it may adapt nicely to the user’s screen resolution. This is very important since mobile visitors have skyrocketed during the last years, thanks to smart-phones and pads. Mobile browsing was up to 8 % during December 2011 and it will of course continue to increase.

However, it’s not just flipping a switch to make a design “responsive”. First the designers must be able to see beyond fixed-width design, which often is a significant psychological obstacle. A completely different layout may be a greater user experience for a small handheld device. It also requires careful consideration of scaling images for best results. Remember that mobile web users have much less patience than desktop users, and mobile internet connections are often considerably slower. This makes loading time an even more major contributing factor to page abandonment, so every second counts.

Using CSS media queries to handle images is often a great idea, but remember that even images with display:none will be downloaded to a mobile device unless you use a clever workaround. Media queries are good at hiding things but not as good at removing them. Some mobile devices are also bad at handling media queries, so try to test your design on several devices.

If the concept seems overwhelming, a step on the way could be to start with what some call “adaptive design”, where you have a set of fixed resolutions. It adheres to a responsive feeling but without the scaling.

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In 2004 the actors went on a four-month trip from London to New York. But to make things interesting they decided to go eastward. On motorbikes. At first things went pretty smooth and they reached the borders of Eastern Europe as planned.

Then things started to get a bit more complicated with bureaucracy and corruption, where they often got saved by Ewan pulling the “Obi-Wan” card. Another obstacle was the publicity, since they were often met by welcoming committees and interviewed for television. The duo would rather just be two guys on bikes, enjoying their vacation, but sometimes they had to play along.

The roads got worse in Mongolia and their mood quickly evaporated, but the worst roads were yet to come. Some parts of Siberia were inaccessible so they had to sneak aboard a freight train, and on the infamous Road of Bones they had to hitch a ride with large trucks to cross deep rivers.

It’s a entertaining story about friendship and enduring hard times together. One might be tempted to think that the trip was a walk in the park with their hi-tech gear and expensive BMW bikes, but it looked like a lot of hard work to get through it all.

I’ve been to several of the places they describe, and it’s always interesting to read other people’s impressions about things, or even more so their descriptions of the things I missed. The first thing Ewan noticed in Ulaanbaatar was the same as me – the ugly power station close to the center, drowning the town in dark smoke.

The whole thing is also available on DVD. It’s nothing out of the ordinary, but it’s nice as a reading companion to see the people and environments that are mentioned in the book. There is also a sequel, Long Way Down, where they travel from Scotland to South Africa, but this one is much better in my opinion.