Tim

Native client cannot be found while installing SQL Server 64

2008-05-14T21:03:44.6651347+01:00

We're having fun and games with the new internal dev server. We've got for Windows Server 2008 x64 for a laugh and today was a corker, while trying to install SQL Server 2005 x64 onto the box we repeatedly got an error along the lines of "native client cannot be found sqlncli_x64.msi".

Searching around the install DVD/files didn't reveal anything useful, turns out (after a little Googeling) that Microsoft install the wrong version of the SQL Server Native client tools as part of the prerequisites -instead of the 64bit version you'd expect, they go and install the 32bit which then makes the rest of the installer complain...

Classic! Anyway, thanks to Eric Falsken for the heads up on that error...

The Site Doctor site is featured on CSS Mania

2008-05-09T17:10:02.204375+01:00

Perhaps not a big thing to shout about for some but our new company site has been featured on CSS Mania!

Check the site out and leave your rating :)

http://cssmania.com/galleries/2008/05/08/the-site-doctor.php

And if you've not already seen it, check out the updated website design process full of jQuery loveliness: http://www.thesitedoctor.co.uk/services/website-design-and-development

How to apply Heading Tags in Umbraco

2008-05-01T15:21:56.3311497+01:00

I've seen a couple of posts recently about how to apply headings to text within Umbraco and the main suggestion is that you apply them by hacking about with the StyleSheets that just doesn't sit right with me.

We use a different method -that is to enable the format drop down list. To me it just seems cleaner but I get the feeling I'm about to start a big debate. The method we use was originally discussed here but in short download this zip file with the updated DLLs in and instructions.

6291-leftinymce.zip (241KB)

The Site Doctor is hiring!

2008-04-30T16:18:00.203125+01:00

Despite all the doom and gloom surrounding the pending credit crunch, we're hiring as work is piling in and we need help :). So if you're a developer, designer, sales person, marketing guru -or you're just plain bored check out The Site Doctor's vacancies page for the great posts currently up for grabs!

Not sure why you should come and work with us? There are way too many reasons to list in one go but here are my top 5:

You'll have a great boss (ok I'm a touch biased)
We have 20% time (every Friday we down tools and do something cool -that doesn't relate to the main projects you're working on at the time -more about that another day)
We're committed to your development and will fund courses etc
There are bonuses to be had for referrals and working hard!
You get your Birthday as an additional bank holiday so you never need to worry about booking it off again!

Oh and there's free Tea and Coffee -so I guess that's 6 reasons to get in touch.

For more information about the posts available (more being added later this week) check out The Site Doctor vacancies page.

Another super logo design from another over priced design agency

2008-04-22T18:31:57.296875+01:00

Thanks to Gareth and The Register for this one, it had me laughing for a good long while.

After the last design debacle (the London Olympics 2012) logo, you would have thought someone would have thought carefully before making the image public but here's the latest logo for the UK's Office of Government Commerce (OGC):

Other than being just plain boring it's ok right? Yeah, I thought so too until I was told to rotate it 90 degrees clockwise...

Brilliant! I'm still laughing!

Just goes to show (once again) that going with a large digital agency to create your brand identity isn't necessarily a good idea...

Having just rebranded Avant Garde hair salons (see the new logo here), I'm now checking our design. Nope all looks good so it's "Big Guys" 2 - "Little Guys" 0

Can't wait to see what the next government logo is...

SQL Server Management Studio won't install over SQL Server Management Studio Express

2008-04-15T20:12:20.407625+01:00

Since re-installing my main development machine recently, I've had a real irritation -I had to resort to SQL Server Management Studio Express as I couldn't get the full version installed. This wasn't a problem until today when I had to re-create some full text catalogs (which is one of the things you can't do using the GUI in SQL Server Management Studio Express).

I did look into getting this working before giving up before due to time constraints but this time I had no choice but this time I must have done something differently.

Just to bring you up-to speed, whenever I tried to install SQL Server Management Studio using the SQL Server 2005 installer, I got an error message something along the lines of "Edition Version Conflict". The installer then suggests you uninstall the express tools (which you do) and you try again just to get the same error message.

Most people on Google are just resorting to a complete re-install of your machine but I've found that's because you're not uninstalling the right thing. First thing I did this time was remove Microsoft SQL Server 2005 completely but near the end of the installer it asks you if you want to remove or modify. This time, I chose modify and set all the components to "Entire Feature will be Unavailable". That then seems to uninstall it fully for you. Now uninstall SQL Server Management Studio Express and you're done :)

Hope that helps someone else (or me in a few months time...)

Site, Sight, Stacey, Stacie and all the other ways you can spell The Site Doctor wrong

2008-03-12T09:54:08.84125+00:00

One of the quandaries I've had for a while with The Site Doctor is our name, it sounds silly but I've lost count of the number of times I've had to spell out "site", it may not be too obvious why at first glance but there's two common spellings of "site" -one relates to websites, building etc, the other opticians (sight). Silly eh!

It has never really bothered me in the past but now that I have Stacey working with me we run into another issue -not only does she have a difficult to spell surname (Shapcott), people use so many inflections of "Stacey" it's comical. So this week I've taken it upon myself to sort this and have gone all out creating email aliases (we used to just have name@, name.lastname@, initiallastname@) but Stacey now has Stacie, Stace, Stacee and numerous other counterparts.

In an effort to make life easier for our clients, we've also got a few more domain names that point to our main domain name which include:

www.thesitedoc.co.uk

www.thesitedr.co.uk

www.sitedoc.co.uk

and my favourite:

www.thesightdoctor.co.uk

A little overkill perhaps but for the sake of £20 I thought it was worth it ;)

Moral of the story: Don't have a long winded name that has words that sound similar to others in it ;)

Another successful Multipack meet

2008-03-10T12:58:05.481875+00:00

So Saturday was another chance to meet up with all the Multipack guys in a recently restructured Multipack -same place (The Old Joint Stock in Birmingham), same time (second Saturday of the month). Personally I think it's a good move as the numbers were well up on normal with lots of lovely new Multipackers (I'm no longer the n00bie ;)) from all sorts of interesting backgrounds.

It's great that Multipack is slowly becoming more recognised; at Saturday's meet for example Underscore veteran Darren Beale trekked up from Worcester which was nice as I could finally put a face to the name. Hopefully over the next few months, with a little more self-publication and this easy to remember location/date we'll get more new members.

If you're not sure about coming along just yet, check out the website www.multipack.co.uk and get to know a few of the guys, alternatively there's a mailing list -http://groups.google.com/group/multipack and IRC channel: IRC : irc.freenode.net, 6667, #multipack so plenty of ways to join in.

Rackspace partners with The Site Doctor

2008-03-08T10:24:01.96625+00:00

There are a lot of changes afoot at The Site Doctor at the moment -not just the new company identity, site and top secret plan but we're partnering with industry leaders to ensure we're able to offer the very best service possible.

Today I'm going to introduce our hosting provider, Rackspace. The Site Doctor has partnered with Rackspace^®, Europe’s fastest growing and most successful IT hosting company, to provide our fully managed hosting solutions.

The Site Doctor has chosen Rackspace as our trusted hosting partner as they are completely focused and experienced in managed hosting. Every system and process at Rackspace was built exclusively for delivering a reliable and secure service, with support staff highly trained for supporting complex hosting environments. Rackspace supplies the necessary superstructure - web, application and database servers, network devices, bandwidth and managed services - needed to run any outsourced hosted solution. Solutions are hosted in state-of-the-art secure data centres, watched over by certified staff.

Another reason behind The Site Doctor's decision to partner with Rackspace was Rackspace's award winning and unbeatable level of customer service -nicknamed as "Fanatical Support^®". Rackspace employees are available 24/7/365 to meet and exceed your expectations, meaning fast responses to critical issues, unlimited (free) technical phone support, access to their huge online knowledgebase, guaranteed 100% network uptime and many other business-critical support features. By outsourcing to Rackspace, we get the peace of mind that our hosting environment is being looked after by the experts.

Rackspace's commitment to its customers has won them the Unisys/Management Today Customer Service Excellence Award for 2005, in addition to being named Microsoft's Gold Certified Hosting Solutions Partner of the Year and Red Hat's first Advanced Hosting Partner in Europe.

The Site Doctor highly recommends Rackspace because, like us, they hold the highest standards in service excellence and therefore are able to ensure that mission-critical applications will remain up and running in a secure environment.

The new "The Site Doctor" website finally gets online!

2008-03-06T15:26:31.625908+00:00

Somewhat behind the original schedule we've finally launched the new company website!

There's still more refining to be done to it and there are a few errors but it's far better than the old site :)

Visit the new The Site Doctor website at www.thesitedoctor.co.uk -new customer quotes and portfolio items coming soon!

We've got some wicked new branding designs to share shortly but until it's all published it's all very hush hush I'm afraid ;)