Springboard Pillow

The Attitude Is The Problem

2012-02-01T00:46:00.000-08:00

Angry Birds in 30 Mins or Less

2012-01-31T01:40:00.000-08:00

As posted here on Ansca Mobile's blog:

http://blog.anscamobile.com/2012/01/from-zero-to-angry-birds-in-30-minutes/

Here is how to code an Angry Birds style game basis in less than 30 minutes using the awesome Corona SDK...

Part Two

2012-01-06T01:27:00.000-08:00

Interesting And Social API In Corona SDK

2012-01-05T02:47:00.000-08:00

Here is a list of blog posts documenting how to use the most interesting and useful parts of the Corona SDK API by Ansca Mobile...

Many of these can be found on this root page: http://blog.anscamobile.com/category/tutorials/

Firstly, the social API's:

Facebook Single Sign On
http://blog.anscamobile.com/2012/01/implementing-facebook-single-sign-on/
Native email and SMS
http://blog.anscamobile.com/2012/01/composing-email-and-sms-in-corona/
App URL schemes
http://blog.anscamobile.com/2011/12/using-app-url-schemes-in-ios/
Push notifications
http://blog.anscamobile.com/2011/12/push-notifications-for-ios-in-corona-sdk/
Local notifications
http://blog.anscamobile.com/2011/09/local-notifications-now-in-daily-builds/
Uploading photos to facebook
http://blog.anscamobile.com/2011/12/uploading-photos-to-facebook-in-corona/
Kindle Fire apps
http://blog.anscamobile.com/2011/11/building-and-publishing-kindle-fire-apps/

And second, the deeper API's:

Storyboard API
http://blog.anscamobile.com/2011/11/introducing-the-storyboard-api/
http://blog.anscamobile.com/2011/11/common-storyboard-api-questions/
JSON
http://blog.anscamobile.com/2011/08/tutorial-exploring-json-usage-in-corona/
Custom fonts
http://blog.anscamobile.com/2011/07/custom-fonts-corona/
Web popups
http://blog.anscamobile.com/2011/08/getting-creative-with-web-popups/
XML files
http://blog.anscamobile.com/2011/07/how-to-use-xml-files-in-corona/
Content scaling and Dynamic image resolution
http://blog.anscamobile.com/2010/11/content-scaling-made-easy/
http://blog.anscamobile.com/2011/01/dynamic-image-resolution-made-easy/
Closures
http://blog.anscamobile.com/2011/02/using-closures-in-lua-to-avoid-global-variables-for-callbacks/

Project Management

2012-01-04T01:33:00.000-08:00

The Never Ending...

2012-01-03T01:20:00.001-08:00

Appleish

2011-12-13T01:11:00.000-08:00

Wisdom

2011-12-13T01:08:00.001-08:00

Calculating Trajectories

2011-12-06T01:11:00.001-08:00

When plotting the course of a (lets say) ball thrown in a simulated physics environment it is advantageous to be able to draw the course the ball will follow. Doing some "internet research" brought up this little gem of a site:

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/traj.html

From which I was able (yes, it's cheating, but hey) to refactor the javascript and produce the code for a Corona implementation here:

http://developer.anscamobile.com/code/calculating-trajectory

The root of the above site is quite amazing and hopefully can teach everyone (certainly me) about all manner of interesting physics concepts and maths:

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/hframe.html

Some, Er, Projects...

2011-12-02T00:51:00.001-08:00

Some Projects...

2011-11-29T00:31:00.001-08:00

Hey, I Know That Feeling

2011-11-23T01:28:00.001-08:00

Getting Some Perspective

2011-11-22T01:30:00.001-08:00

iOS 5 Accessibility Features For Everyone

2011-11-10T05:00:00.000-08:00

Playing around under the Settings->General->Accessibility section and found some absolute gems - nice and useful for everyone...

General

Accessibility

Vision

Zoom
Allows 3-finger zoom and pan of any screen, including the lock screen. Controls work as expected.
Good for when photo zoom doesn't quite do it for you or you need to check pixel-specific placement on a web page.
Speak Selection
Separate from VoiceOver, this allows any selectable text - web pages and such - to be spoken. The usual popup menu gains a "Speak/Pause" item. Speech speed can also be adjusted.
Good for when you just can't be bothered to read the page.

Hearing

Custom Vibrations
When editing a contact this adds a 'Vibration' option immediately beneath the 'Ringtone' option. Vibrations come with 5 pre-set patterns and custom patterns can be very easily recorded, named and re-used.
Good for when you need to know who is calling you without taking the phone out your pocket.
LED Flash for Alerts
Simply flashes the camera flash LED when an alert, like an incoming call, occurs.
Good for truly silent but noticeable alerts.

Physical & Motor

Triple-click Home
Set this to 'Ask' and it will pop up a menu whenever the Home button is triple-pressed - even when locked.
Good for easy access to some of the above options.
From there you've got options to turn On/Off the:

VoiceOver
Not the same as 'Speak Select' - reads anything tapped with a single tap.
Zoom
See above.
White on Black
Inverts the whole screen colour.

It's Just Bad, OK?

2011-11-04T03:36:00.000-07:00

Doing iOS in CSS3 and HTML5 - iPad Popover Menu

2011-11-01T01:28:00.000-07:00

This is really great... Peter Viszt has created an iPad popover menu in CSS, using the design by Morgan Knutson as a basis. It looks really good and he links to a customisability tool:

CSS Popover: https://forrst.com/posts/CSS3_iPad_style_popover_menu-PJv
CSS tool: http://jsfiddle.net/XYubE/
Original designs: http://dribbble.com/shots/289926-Free-download-of-my-iOS-style-popover

Corona Roadmap Poll

2011-10-19T00:31:00.000-07:00

T-SQL Tree Into XML

2011-10-13T02:57:00.000-07:00

My previous post contained a link to a Microsoft article detailing how to get well structured XML directly from T-SQL. This post is about getting a tree of data from T-SQL into XML. FOR XML EXPLICIT cannot be used (without major headaches) but a simple recursive function and a SELECT can be used. Here's where I poached my solution from:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2409228/generate-structured-xml-document-from-hierarchical-table-data-t-sql/2425180#2425180

In short, my code is something like this (generic code for a wider audience):

CREATE function [dbo].[SelectCategoryChild](@categoryid as int)
returns xml
begin
return (
select
categoryid as "@id",
parentcategoryid as "@parentcategoryid",
title as "@title",
dbo.SelectCategoryChild(categoryid)
from category
where parentcategoryid = @categoryid
for xml path('category'), type
)
end
GO
SELECT
categoryid AS "@categoryid",
'' AS "@parentcategoryid",
title as "@title",
dbo.SelectCategoryChild(categoryid)
FROM category
WHERE parentcategoryid is null and siteid = 1
FOR XML PATH ('category'), root('categories')

The code above works for a single table created from the statement (references and indices omitted for clarity):

CREATE TABLE [dbo].[Category](
[CategoryID] [int] IDENTITY(1,1) NOT NULL,
[ParentCategoryID] [int] NULL,
[Title] [varchar](150)
)

CategoryID is the primary key,

ParentCategoryID references the CategoryID and provides theone-to-many tree structure, a NULL value indicates the node is a root node (top-level) in the tree,

Title is simply some data (in this case the name) of the node.

T-SQL FOR XML EXPLICIT

2011-10-13T02:49:00.000-07:00

An excellent example of producing well formatted and structured XML direct from SQL where a non-tree structure is in use. I have used this to get a complex series of document information out in a specific format.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms189068.aspx

More Often Than You Think

2011-10-13T02:32:00.000-07:00

IT Vs. Productivity

2011-09-05T07:34:00.001-07:00

Sometimes It's Just One Of Those Days

2011-08-25T01:09:00.001-07:00

Because We Don't Know Them

2011-08-11T01:40:00.000-07:00

Keeping Them Busy

2011-07-12T06:40:00.001-07:00

My HST Programme

2011-07-04T07:12:00.000-07:00

Actually, this was donated by a colleague who has used it previously.

2 sets, 8 reps of each

Wks 1 - 4

Chest Dumbell press - Flat

Back Lat pulldown

Shoulders Upright Row

Triceps Kick back

Biceps Dumbell curl

Legs Squat

Abs Your choice

Wks 5-8

Chest Dumbell press - Incline

Back Reverse fly

Shoulders Dumbell military press

Triceps EZ Bar (supine)

Biceps Hammer curl

Legs Lunge

Abs Your choice

Wks 9-12

Chest Dumbell press - Decline

Back Seated Row

Shoulders Single arm side lift

Triceps Close press up

Biceps Reverse curl

Legs Dead lift

Abs Your choice

Pumping Iron Links

2011-06-30T01:31:00.000-07:00

Fat loss:

Food:

Articles:

Training Patterns:

http://www.t-nation.com/free_online_article/most_recent/antiab_training

Hypertrophic Training (HST):

Biochemical:

Sites:

It's Not By Magic

2011-05-16T01:19:00.000-07:00

Bad Idea

2011-04-14T02:46:00.000-07:00

Tiltopolis

2011-03-28T13:14:00.000-07:00

So the latest Corona-built iPhone/iPad game is here: Tiltopolis.

It's a twist on the old classic, Blocks. The twist is that the falling blocks land on a balance bar, seesaw, tilting beam - whatever you call it, it's a challenge as you've not just gotta stop the blocks from reaching the top, but reaching the bottom!

The game features Physics Mode (the seesaw reacts to being hit by the blocks) and Arcade Mode (the angle of the seesaw reflects number of blocks on either side) as well as 4 awesome tracks by new Brit band Run Toto Run!

Check it out:

Apps at AppStoreHQ

That Time Of Year

2011-03-25T02:32:00.001-07:00

Worth Jailbreaking?

2011-03-04T01:30:00.000-08:00

A recent post on El Reg (www.theregister.co.uk) points out that due to the hoops regular (ie: non-techy or can't-be-bothered-techy) mobile users (read: mobile phone and tablet users) have to jump through to get free apps or banned apps (those denied from stores like Apple's iOS App Store) most users are content with paying the low fee of US$0.99 or GB99p for an app on their phone or tablet.

Their article focuses on Open Source software, that of the wind of "Free". However, as a mobile developer myself, spending months working on an app and giving it away for free (especially the prospect that it would be installed via jailbreaking without charge) is rather underwelming.

Quote from El Reg:

"if an app is close enough to free and immediately available, with the added benefit of potentially being higher quality than open-source alternatives (because of the paid investment in developing and polishing the app), will there be any reason to bother downloading an open-source app?

Freedom matters a great deal to some, but arguably not to the consumers flocking to Apple's devices. And perhaps not even to the bulk of developers writing for those consumers."

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/03/04/open_source_in_mobile/

Interesting View

2011-02-24T01:54:00.000-08:00

[Via: Engadget]

Watch out for the end of 2009 and 2010; The rest is fairly quiet.

You're Not Going To Win

2011-02-21T00:58:00.000-08:00

Useful AnscaMobile Corona Links

2011-02-17T02:03:00.000-08:00

Btw, you should pay attention to and watch these...

Death Spiral

2011-02-15T03:27:00.000-08:00

Corona SDK Goes Windows

2011-01-28T09:34:00.000-08:00

Corona SDK, the multi-platform development kit for iOS and Android had a major update this week. There is now a Windows SDK allowing the same lua language apps which can be compiled into iOS and Android Java apps on the Mac to be developed for Android on Windows.

To accompany this Ansca have included a slew of new features, all announced on their blog:

Windows SDK:
http://blog.anscamobile.com/2011/01/corona-sdk-is-now-on-windows/
Masking, In-App Purchase and Asynchronous HTTP:
http://blog.anscamobile.com/2011/01/but-wait-theres-more/

This is a really big step and one I believe will lead to some very interesting developments. Personally, I'm hoping for a lot of developer interest, to help bolster the Corona community and Ansca Mobile themselves, as well as WP7 builds.

I Hate Windows Server 2008

2011-01-28T02:34:00.000-08:00

I really do.

But besides that, here's an article written to do justice (if not, comedy) to the annoying 'features' of the server OS. His other articles are about the useful, productive and more positive aspects, so please feel free to find out lots about the system.

Consider this article, however, the warning/watch out/snafu guide:

http://searchwindowsserver.techtarget.com/tip/Whats-there-to-hate-about-Windows-Server-2008

Slightly More Invasive

2011-01-28T01:30:00.000-08:00

Why Don't We?

2011-01-17T04:29:00.000-08:00

Say It, Say It!

2011-01-17T04:21:00.001-08:00

Dilbert: Pon Farr

2011-01-11T01:38:00.000-08:00

Corona Collision Filters

2011-01-05T05:50:00.000-08:00

Ansca Mobile (www.anscamobile.com) have created a truly brilliant multi-mobile-platform SDK (iOS, Android) called Corona, which includes a Box2D (www.box2d.org) physics engine. There are many implementations in many languages for Box2D and one of the things which Ansca have got right is collision filters, one of the trickier things to implement in an physics API.

Brent Sorrentino of IgnisDesign has produced and posted a helper chart for working out which collision filters various objects should be assigned when building physics-based games using Corona:

http://developer.anscamobile.com/forum/2010/10/25/collision-filters-helper-chart

Carl Sagan: Pale Blue Dot

2010-12-23T04:32:00.000-08:00

Finally Developing For iOS

2010-11-19T09:11:00.000-08:00

Here's a little post I made a while ago (which languished in draft for some time):

http://springboardpillow.blogspot.com/2010/06/developing-for-iphone.html

And here's some links I've found recently, now that I've chosen a development platform for iOS - having decided that, essentially, re-learning ANSI C++ with a new IDE (that I can't find any straightforward videos for [the latest version of XCode works slightly - but importantly - differently to that demonstrated in all the online tutorials]) is not my cup of tea...

GameSalad - no-code game builder:
http://gamesalad.com/
Appcelerator - javascript/HTML based apps for utilities, not games:
http://www.appcelerator.com/
Corona - 'lua' based 2D development, for 2D games and utilities. My weapon of choice:
http://anscamobile.com/
Cocos2D - Objective-C games framework for 2D games:
http://www.cocos2d-iphone.org/about
Unity3D - full 3D gaming development system, producing some awesome results:
http://unity3d.com/
Rhodes - for a mix of things, closest to Corona, I think. Ruby on Rails:
http://rhomobile.com/products/rhodes/
Sparrow - open source development for those who know a little Objective-C:
http://www.sparrow-framework.org/
Some very useful links if you're looking for a broad range of programming info:
http://iphonedevdepot.com/tiki-index.php

I've found that for ease of learning the new language and a solid output, Ansca Mobile's Corona platform is performing well, has plenty of good tutorials and material and after the Apple iPhone Developer 1 year license ($99 in the USA, £59 in the UK), the Corona or Corona game license isn't too pricey. Though that might change soon...

Javascript Everyone Should Know - Iterating URL Args

2010-10-22T09:10:00.000-07:00

Here's some javascript I'm often looking for, because I can't remember it off the cuff after 3 months of LINQ coding and I've started writing something where JQuery isn't available...

It iterates through all the parameters and their arguments passed in the URL...

var url = window.location.toString();
var query_string = url.split('?')[1];
var params = query_string.split("&");
for (var i = 0; i < params.length; i++)
{
var name = params[i].split("=")[0];
var arg = params[i].split("=")[1];
alert(i+': '+name+' = '+unescape(arg));
}

Simple Category Tree Walking In T-SQL

2010-10-21T04:08:00.000-07:00

I needed, as many have done before me, to create a snippet of SQL which was short and fast and returned a flattened table of tree nodes. In short, if you have a tree of nodes, get all the nodes below a specified node. The result is surprisingly simple and straightforward. Here it is, both as a snippet and a stored procedure. Assume the tree is stored in a table called Category, with CategoryID being the primary key and ParentCategoryID being the foreign key, to the same table, but nullable...

--------------------

declare @collect table ( catid int, tlevel int )

insert into @collect values (3,1)

declare @count int

set @count = 2

declare @maxlevel int

set @maxlevel = 2

while ((select count(1) from @collect where tlevel = @count-1) > 0 and @count <= @maxlevel)

begin

insert into @collect

select c.categoryid, @count

from category c inner join @collect b on c.parentcategoryid = b.catid and b.tlevel = @count-1

set @count = @count + 1

end

select * from @collect order by tlevel

--------------------

CREATE PROCEDURE [dbo].[GetCategoryTree]

-- Add the parameters for the stored procedure here

@ParentCategoryID int

BEGIN

-- the category id's to be output

declare @collect table ( catid int, tlevel int )

insert into @collect values (3,1)

-- a loop counter used to limit the depth we go to

declare @count int

set @count = 2

-- the deepest level to go to

declare @maxlevel int

set @maxlevel = 2

-- the loop to collect category id's

while

(

(select count(1) from @collect where tlevel = @count-1) > 0 -- keep going while we have categories

and @count <= @maxlevel -- keep going until the max level depth is reached

)

begin

-- insert the categories where the previous level contains the parent ids of the current level

insert into @collect

select c.categoryid, @count

from category c inner join @collect b on c.parentcategoryid = b.catid and b.tlevel = @count-1

-- increment the level being collected

set @count = @count + 1

end

-- return the found category id's

select * from @collect order by tlevel

END

--------------------

Writing Windows Services

2010-10-12T23:59:00.000-07:00

Just found a really neat (as in compact) post on writing Windows Services in C#:

http://industriousone.com/blog/writing-windows-services-c

And here's some Windows Services resources for doing different things in a service:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/vcsharp/aa336739.aspx

Present!

2010-10-01T04:21:00.000-07:00

Get Rid.

2010-09-27T00:50:00.000-07:00

Wisdom.

2010-09-20T02:18:00.000-07:00

DateDiff

2010-09-15T04:57:00.000-07:00

Recently, I had to work out the number of months between two arbitrary dates. In C# this is a bit of a challenge, simply because DateTime.Subtract(DateTime) returns a TimeSpan, which does not have a Months property.

This is because TimeSpan doesn't know which months it would be referring to. Specifically, to know how many months there are in a date range you need to count each month index from date A to date B. Problem being, if you don't know those arbitrary dates - you only have a count of days - how many months does that range cover?

Example: How many months does 30 days represent? Answer: 1.

Wrong.

Why?... Because if we are talking about February, it's two months. If we're talking about August it's not a whole month.

The solution is to take into account the specific dates being used in the subtraction and count their months, unfortunately. Yeah, I don't want to write that code either.

However, for the C#'ers among us, there is a solution. VB has a DateDiff class which can do this for you. Just use the Microsoft.VisualBasic namespace and the static DateDiff method, as I found out here:

http://valcsgal.blogspot.com/2005/01/datediff-in-c.html

Here's a post about writing your own:

http://aspcode.net/c-datediff

DataView, DataTable, Unique, Select And Filters

2010-09-10T03:04:00.000-07:00

Found this awesome little cheat/info page on DataView et al:

http://www.csharp-examples.net/dataview-rowfilter/

You Had Me At Brains And Squeegees

2010-09-08T00:58:00.000-07:00

The Register: iPad Apps Galore

2010-09-07T05:56:00.000-07:00

The Register has pulled together a collection of iPad apps for geeks, techies and web pros...

LINQ2SQL Transaction

2010-09-06T07:13:00.000-07:00

A good thread to read on LINQ to SQL transactions, centred on commits and rollbacks:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/542525/transactionscope-vs-transaction-in-linq2sql

Your Anonymous Survey Said...

2010-09-02T01:24:00.000-07:00

You Don't Trust... Oh.

2010-09-02T01:22:00.000-07:00

Why Not? "Wave-Enabled" Google Email Server

2010-09-01T03:52:00.000-07:00

I was thinking that it's a shame that Google didn’t take the Wave, build it into their email server and have just an option that let you “email in real time”, ie: any email on their system could be seen to be edited in real time (as wave showed) but in the gmail editor.

The major work would be in the server, so that it is still an email system, exchange compatible and all, but also makes this new function available. Hopefully, people would use it more and more as rapid email repliers discover they are responding quickly.

Perhaps Google could then market their own email server as “Wave-enabled, MS Exchange-compatible”.

So simple really – read this:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/08/20/google_wave_lessons_learned/

ImageButton Without A SRC Value Causes GET Request!

2010-08-31T03:54:00.000-07:00

Situation:

Click submit on a submit button.

Page posts back with IsPostBack == true.

Browser shows page render.

Problem:

Server (in debug mode) shows another request perform, this time a GET, so IsPostBack == false.

Evidence:

An ImageButton was on the page with no SRC attribute at all. This caused the browser (so far happening in (Windows...) Chrome, Firefox and (MAC...) Safari to resolve the URL of the image, for the image button, to be the same as the page the button is sitting on. The request for this then causes a standard GET request to the page and IsPostBack becomes false again.

Solution:

Remove the image button or give it a valid src attribute url.

Result:

Happy developer.

Javascript: Finding All The Properties Of A JScript Object

2010-08-20T00:01:00.000-07:00

Just a little function to dump out into an alert all the properties, methods, etc of any javascript object...

function listout(obj) {

var keys;

for (var key in obj) {

keys += key + ' , ';

}

alert(keys);

}

I Found The Google

2010-08-18T02:29:00.000-07:00

LINQ2SQL Exception: The query contains references to items defined on a different data context

2010-08-13T08:33:00.000-07:00

When getting the exception

The query contains references to items defined on a different data context.

Check that the context object being used for each 'from' and 'join', etc, within LINQ statements is not a new object but the same one being re-used!

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3478148/two-linq-data-contexts-proving-a-problem

JQuery

2010-08-13T01:24:00.000-07:00

A few JQuery links:

JQuery site:
http://jquery.com/
JQuery UI building:
http://jqueryui.com/
20 Advanced JQuery effects:
http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2010/07/20-demos-showing-advanced-jquery-effects/
Setting cookies with JQuery:
http://www.electrictoolbox.com/jquery-cookies/

Reset The Primary Key Of A Table

2010-08-11T23:42:00.000-07:00

Lets say you've got 28 rows in your table but because you've been doing a lot of inserts and rollbacks the next key to be inserted is much higher than your highest primary key. This would be a problem if you've done a lot of inserts and have maybe reached the maximum value of the int type being used as the primary key field type.

You would want to reset the index (as all primary keys are special indices) like this:

DBCC CHECKIDENT ({tablename}, reseed, {number})

Don't make my initial mistake and think that the 'reseed' in the middle there is a place holder for a value - it isn't. Just leave it as is; it's a command. The operation is called reseeding, not resetting - but that will be all academic to most of us.

References:

LINQ: NOT IN / NOT EXISTS

2010-08-11T05:22:00.000-07:00

So, while trying to get a fairly straight forward (I thought) select ... from ... where ... not in (...) I found that there is not really an equivalent in LINQ, or so I thought...

Read the solution here:

http://programminglinq.com/blogs/marcorusso/archive/2008/01/14/the-not-in-clause-in-linq-to-sql.aspx

A quick sample from me:

var orphans = (from c in context.Instances

orderby c.Title

where !(from o in context.CategoryInstances

select o.InstanceID)

.Contains(c.InstanceID)

select c).Skip(PageIndex * PageSize).Take(PageSize);

Essentially, the query does the same thing in C# - that is, to get the list of IDs to check within and then check within it for the ID which is hoping to be not found. Because the whole thing is compiled into SQL before before executed, LINQ generates a NOT EXISTS statement in the WHERE clause, rather than the slower NOT IN.

Concept Car Designs

2010-08-11T01:07:00.001-07:00

Found this the other day and thought these were all really cool designs, possibly inspired by the forth-coming Tron movie...

Interesting gallery of personal designs - http://www.mr-shojaie.com/
Concept gallery - http://www.carbodydesign.com/gallery/2009/04/30-iran-car-design-exhibition/
Favourite 1 - http://www.carbodydesign.com/gallery/2009/04/30-iran-car-design-exhibition/14/
Favourite 2 - http://www.carbodydesign.com/gallery/2009/04/30-iran-car-design-exhibition/16/

Elite For The iPhone And iPad

2010-07-21T03:09:00.000-07:00

Unfortunately, I cannot post a link to the game here - I do want to bung down as much as I can and hopefully one day link to it...

I would love to see the Archimedes version of Elite - in my opinion the best version, because it had solid 3D graphics and very smooth controls - ported to the iPhone and iPad, possibly with the iPhone being able to act as a remote control for the iPad running the game.

However, first, a link to nostalgia:

http://www.iconbar.com/forums/viewthread.php?newsid=879

The company Frontier, started by David Braben which now continues the Elite legacy:

http://elite.frontier.co.uk/

Ian Bell's Elite FAQ:

http://www.iancgbell.clara.net/elite/faq.htm

For emulating the Acorn:

http://arcem.sourceforge.net/

Server Error With Virtual Directory

2010-07-21T00:29:00.000-07:00

Trying to put a virtual directory under a web site in WinSrv2003, I hit this problem:

Server Error in '/TestSubSite' Application.

Configuration Error

Description: An error occurred during the processing of a configuration file required to service this request. Please review the specific error details below and modify your configuration file appropriately.

Parser Error Message: Could not load file or assembly 'SControls' or one of its dependencies. The system cannot find the file specified. (D:\web\testsite\web.config line 211)

Source Error:

Line 209: Line 210: Line 211: Line 212: Line 213:

Source File: D:\web\testsite\web.config Line: 211

Fortunately, the answer is to wrap the system.web element in a location element, with the attributes path="." and inheritInChildApplications="false".

I've documented this fun on stackoverflow.com:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3297190/iis6-virtual-directory-not-accessible-as-an-app/3297257#3297257

Useful links:

http://forums.asp.net/t/1164283.aspx

http://dotnetslackers.com/Security/re-55457_Stopping_ASP_NET_web_config_inheritance.aspx

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms178685.aspx

How To Get DateTime In XSLT

2010-07-15T04:29:00.000-07:00

It's actually quite easy, though definately not obvious, to perform a fairly standard =DateTime.Now operation in XSLT, even when using C# (the default Microsoft XSL parser is only on version 1.)

Here's the XSLT:

<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0"
xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"
xmlns:msxsl="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:xslt"
xmlns:my="urn:sample" extension-element-prefixes="msxml">

<msxsl:script language="JScript" implements-prefix="my">
function today()
{
return new Date();
}
</msxsl:script>
<xsl:template match="/">

Today = <xsl:value-of select="my:today()"/>

</xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>

Here's the C#:

/// <summary>
/// Takes a string containing XML to be parsed and a string containing the the XSLT to do the parsing.
/// </summary>
public static string XSLTransformation(string xml, string xsl)
{
// create the readers for the xml and xsl
XmlReader reader = XmlReader.Create(new StringReader(xsl));
XmlReader input = XmlReader.Create(new StringReader(xml));

// create the xsl transformer
XslCompiledTransform t = new XslCompiledTransform(true);
XsltSettings settings = new XsltSettings(false, true);
t.Load(reader, settings, null);

// create the writer which will output the transformed xml
StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
XmlWriterSettings tt = new XmlWriterSettings();
//tt.Encoding = new UTF8Encoding(false);
XmlWriter results = XmlWriter.Create(new StringWriter(sb)); //, tt);

// write the transformed xml out to a stringbuilder
t.Transform(input, null, results);

// return the transformed xml
return sb.ToString();
}

References:

Every Project Fails

2010-07-15T02:39:00.001-07:00

Every project fails - you and I both know it - in two places: the Beginning and the End. Both of these, as Douglas Adams put it, are due to sloppy thinking. The first is because the full scope of the thing is not realised. The second is because the full scope of the thing is realised. The are known, in order, as "not writing the spec properly" and "feature creep". Often, the spec is not written properly because it is perceived to have been written properly or that it is someone else's job to write it out more, read: "flesh it out", also read: "passing the buck". Further, the feature creep happens not because due diligence is not done, but because discipline is not employed in keeping the extra features out. Even further, those features only come about because it's easier to think of new things when you've had time to think about the existing things. Give a project 3 months to progress and I guarantee that everyone on that project will have thought about some feature that wasn't in the original (even aged-) concept, simply because they've had more time to think.

What can be done about these? Some would say agile development is one (of many) approach, providing the time to define a concept but with development time allotted for later to deliberately increase the feature set as time, or units of the project, get completed. This is fine, as long as the wider scope of the project is realised at the start.

Google

2010-07-14T00:13:00.000-07:00

How does Google work?...

How Google works: http://www.ppcblog.com/how-google-works/
How Google ranks search results: http://www.google.com/technology/pigeonrank.html

SQL Knowledge Base

2010-07-13T03:33:00.000-07:00

A collection of links to useful and oft-forgotten SQL info:

Getting the last inserted key (identity):
http://blog.sqlauthority.com/2007/03/25/sql-server-identity-vs-scope_identity-vs-ident_current-retrieve-last-inserted-identity-of-record/
T-SQL FOR XML Basics:
http://blah.winsmarts.com/2007-2-Bak2Basics__Learn_T-SQL_-_FOR_XML.aspx
T-SQL XML Crib-sheet:
http://www.simple-talk.com/sql/learn-sql-server/sql-server-xml-cribsheet/#fourth
Robyn Page's SQL Articles:
http://www.simple-talk.com/author/robyn-page/
Never do this- Validating a URL in SQL:
http://sqlblog.com/blogs/adam_machanic/archive/2006/07/12/validate-a-url-from-sql-server.aspx
Reading XML files into table fields:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3245301/using-t-sql-to-read-an-xml-feed-directly-into-an-xml-field-in-a-table
SSIS XML Import tutorial video:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc952927(SQL.100).aspx
Processing XSLT in SQL Server:
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/mrorke/archive/2005/06/28/433471.aspx
Numbering Rows:
http://blogs.x2line.com/al/archive/2005/11/18/1323.aspx
Rollbacks:
http://www.geekinterview.com/question_details/33247
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa175920(SQL.80).aspx

Parsing XML Into T-SQL Tables

2010-07-08T00:46:00.000-07:00

Ok, some heavy SQLXML work here...

The aim was to make a query which would take any XML and list, in one table, all the elements, their attributes and their element and attribute values of the immediate child nodes of the root node. On top of that, each immediate child of the root had to be enumerated so it could be referenced properly when being inserted into another table/s.

Example input:

Example output:

ElementIndex	ParentElement	FieldName	NodeType	FieldValue
1	m	Time	element	10:22
1	m	Ask	element	1943.25
1	m	Open	element	1940.00
1	m	code	attribute	AL
2	m	Time	element	14:42
2	m	Ask	element	143.05
2	m	Open	element	230.50
2	m	code	attribute	AA

And finally, the SQL...

declare @xml XML
set @xml = 'YOUR XML HERE'

create table #t
(
rownum int,
xmlextract xml
)

-- populate the table with the child nodes of the root, if they have their own sub nodes
insert into #t
SELECT
row_number() over(order by getdate()) as 'RowNum',
pref.query('.') as XmlExtract
FROM
@xml.nodes('/*/*') AS extract(pref)
WHERE
pref.value('./*[1]', 'nvarchar(50)') IS NOT NULL

SELECT distinct rownum 'ElementIndex', ParentName 'ParentElement', FieldName, NodeType, FieldValue FROM
(
-- selects the attributes and their values from the xml
SELECT DISTINCT
rownum,
SubEl.SubElem.value('local-name(..)', 'nvarchar(50)') AS ParentName,
SubEl.SubElem.value('local-name(.)', 'nvarchar(50)') AS FieldName,
'attribute' as NodeType,
SubEl.SubElem.value('.', 'nvarchar(150)') AS FieldValue
FROM
#t
CROSS APPLY
xmlextract.nodes('//@*') AS SubEl(SubElem)
UNION
-- selects the inner element and their values from the xml
SELECT
rownum,
SubEl.SubElem.value('local-name(..)', 'nvarchar(50)') AS ParentName,
SubEl.SubElem.value('local-name(.)', 'nvarchar(50)') AS FieldName,
'element' as NodeType,
SubEl.SubElem.value('.', 'nvarchar(150)') AS FieldValue
FROM
#t
CROSS APPLY
xmlextract.nodes('/*/*') AS SubEl(SubElem)
) as tmp
ORDER BY ElementIndex, ParentElement, FieldName

drop table #t

However, for performance and tidy-up reasons, when using this code in a stored procedure, you may want to use a table variable. Here's the modified version:

declare @xml XML
set @xml = 'YOUR XML HERE'

declare @t table
(
rownum int,
xmlextract xml
)

-- populate the table with the child nodes of the root, if they have their own sub nodes
insert into @t
SELECT
row_number() over(order by getdate()) as 'RowNum',
pref.query('.') as XmlExtract
FROM
@xml.nodes('/*/*') AS extract(pref)
WHERE
pref.value('./*[1]', 'nvarchar(50)') IS NOT NULL

SELECT distinct rownum 'ElementIndex', ParentName 'ParentElement', FieldName, NodeType, FieldValue FROM
(
-- selects the attributes and their values from the xml
SELECT DISTINCT
rownum,
SubEl.SubElem.value('local-name(..)', 'nvarchar(50)') AS ParentName,
SubEl.SubElem.value('local-name(.)', 'nvarchar(50)') AS FieldName,
'attribute' as NodeType,
SubEl.SubElem.value('.', 'nvarchar(150)') AS FieldValue
FROM
@t
CROSS APPLY
xmlextract.nodes('//@*') AS SubEl(SubElem)
UNION
-- selects the inner element and their values from the xml
SELECT
rownum,
SubEl.SubElem.value('local-name(..)', 'nvarchar(50)') AS ParentName,
SubEl.SubElem.value('local-name(.)', 'nvarchar(50)') AS FieldName,
'element' as NodeType,
SubEl.SubElem.value('.', 'nvarchar(150)') AS FieldValue
FROM
@t
CROSS APPLY
xmlextract.nodes('/*/*') AS SubEl(SubElem)
) as tmp
ORDER BY ElementIndex, ParentElement, FieldName

References:

Flattening XML:
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/simonince/archive/2009/04/24/flattening-xml-data-in-sql-server.aspx
Table variables:
http://odetocode.com/code/365.aspx

N00BS

2010-07-06T00:18:00.001-07:00

SQLXML Gymnastics

2010-07-06T00:14:00.001-07:00

Producing well-formed XML from SQL:

SELECT
ID,
Name as 'Names/FirstName',
Surname as 'Names/LastName'
FROM
Names
FOR XML PATH('person'), ROOT('people')

Converting XML into a table:

Input:

<Elements>
<Element>
<Index>1</Index>
<Type>3M</Type>
<Code>AL</Code>
<Time>1900-01-01T10:22:00</Time>
</Element>
<Element>
<Index>2</Index>
<Type>3M</Type>
<Code>AA</Code>
<Time>1900-01-01T19:00:00</Time>
</Element>
</Elements>

SQL:

SELECT
r.value('Index[1]', 'int') [Index],
r.value('Type[1]', 'nvarchar(50)') [Type],
r.value('Code[1]', 'nvarchar(50)') [Code],
r.value('Time[1]', 'datetime') [Time]
FROM
@content.nodes('/Elements/*') AS records(r)

Converting XML into a pivot table:

Input:

<Elements>
<Element>
<Index>1</Index>
<Type>3M</Type>
<Code>AL</Code>
<Time>1900-01-01T10:22:00</Time>
</Element>
<Element>
<Index>2</Index>
<Type>3M</Type>
<Code>AA</Code>
<Time>1900-01-01T19:00:00</Time>
</Element>
</Elements>

SQL:

SELECT
El.Elem.value('(Index)[1]', 'int') [Index],
SubEl.SubElem.value('local-name(.)', 'varchar(100)') AS 'Field Name',
SubEl.SubElem.value('.', 'varchar(100)') AS 'Field Value'
FROM
@content.nodes('/Elements/Element') AS El(elem)
CROSS APPLY
El.Elem.nodes('*') AS SubEl(SubElem)
WHERE
SubEl.SubElem.value('local-name(.)', 'varchar(100)') <> 'Index'

Produces:

Index	Field Name	Field Value
1	Type	3M
1	Code	AL
1	Time	1900-01-01T10:22:00
2	Type	3M
2	Code	AA
2	Time	1900-01-01T19:00:00

Extracting attribute names (plus parent element name of each attribute):

SELECT
elem.value('local-name(..)', 'nvarchar(10)') AS 'Parent Name',
elem.value('local-name(.)', 'nvarchar(10)') AS 'Attribute Name',
elem.value('.', 'nvarchar(10)') AS 'Attribute Value'
FROM
@content.nodes('//@*') AS El(elem)

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3193956/how-to-get-every-attributes-name-value-and-parent-element-name-in-sqlxml

Extracting field names:

SELECT DISTINCT r.value('fn:local-name(.)', 'nvarchar(50)') FieldName
FROM @xml.nodes('/*/*') AS records(r)

Extracting nodes as XML:

SELECT
pref.query('.') as SomeXml,
FROM
@xml.nodes('/*/*') AS Content(pref)

Extracting nodes as XML with indices only if they have child nodes:

SELECT
row_number() over(order by cast(pref.query('.') as nvarchar(max))) as 'RowNum',
pref.query('.') as XmlExtract
FROM
@xml.nodes('/*/*') AS extract(pref)
WHERE
pref.value('./*[1]', 'nvarchar(10)') IS NOT NULL

Various extractions:

Given:

DECLARE @content XML
SET @content =
'<people>
<person id="1" bimble="1">
<firstname bobble="gomble">John</firstname>
<surname>Doe</surname>
</person>
<person id="2" bimble="11">
<firstname bobble="zoom">Mary</firstname>
<surname>Jane</surname>
</person>
<person id="4" bimble="10">
<firstname bobble="womble">Matt</firstname>
<surname>Spanner</surname>
</person>
</people>'

Return:

-- All attributes with parent element name
SELECT
elem.value('local-name(..)', 'nvarchar(10)') AS 'Parent Name',
elem.value('local-name(.)', 'nvarchar(10)') AS 'Attribute Name',
elem.value('.', 'nvarchar(10)') AS 'Attribute Value'
FROM
@content.nodes('//@*') AS El(elem)

-- Inner element values (with index attribute)
SELECT
El.Elem.value('(@*)[1]', 'int') [Index],
SubEl.SubElem.value('local-name(.)', 'nvarchar(10)') AS 'Field Name',
SubEl.SubElem.value('.', 'nvarchar(10)') AS 'Field Value'
FROM
@content.nodes('/*/*') AS El(elem)
CROSS APPLY
El.Elem.nodes('*') AS SubEl(SubElem)

-- Second level element attributes (with index attribute)
SELECT
El.Elem.value('(@*)[1]', 'int') [Index],
SubEl.SubElem.value('local-name(.)', 'nvarchar(10)') AS 'Field Name',
SubEl.SubElem.value('.', 'nvarchar(10)') AS 'Field Value'
FROM
@content.nodes('/*/*') AS El(elem)
CROSS APPLY
El.Elem.nodes('@*') AS SubEl(SubElem)

-- Third level element attributes (with index attribute)
SELECT
El.Elem.value('(@*)[1]', 'int') [Index],
SubEl.SubElem.value('local-name(.)', 'nvarchar(10)') AS 'Field Name',
SubEl.SubElem.value('.', 'nvarchar(10)') AS 'Field Value'
FROM
@content.nodes('/*/*') AS El(elem)
CROSS APPLY
El.Elem.nodes('*/@*') AS SubEl(SubElem)

-- All element attributes and parent element name (with index attribute)
SELECT DISTINCT
El.Elem.value('(@*)[1]', 'int') [Index],
SubEl.SubElem.value('local-name(..)', 'nvarchar(10)') AS 'Parent Name',
SubEl.SubElem.value('local-name(.)', 'nvarchar(10)') AS 'Field Name',
SubEl.SubElem.value('.', 'nvarchar(10)') AS 'Field Value'
FROM
@content.nodes('/*/*') AS El(elem)
CROSS APPLY
El.Elem.nodes('//@*') AS SubEl(SubElem)
ORDER BY [Index]

External references:

One last thing...

I got the XML to paste properly by using this link to encode the XML into HTML:

http://centricle.com/tools/html-entities/

Some Tech Stuff I Really Must Read

2010-07-05T01:22:00.000-07:00

Just links found today:

Server Application Unavailable

2010-07-02T07:38:00.000-07:00

I'm hoping that this post will one day come under the tag heading "problem solved" but for now it's going to be "problems."

This damn thing seems to crop up whenever you least expect it. There's multiple solutions, none guaranteed.

Essentially, the initial problem with be a message in big red letter which says "Server Application Unavailable"

This is basically a message from IIS saying you don't have permissions to see the proper error.

In my particular case, giving the directory hosting the web app full security permissions to the ASPNET user identity and dropping the IIS Virtual Directory (tab) Application Protection to Low allowed the true error to be seen.

This was: Could not load file or assembly 'System.Web.Extensions, Version=2.0.....' etc.

At the same time, the Event Viewer also started showing: Failed to execute the request because the ASP.NET process identity does not have read permissions to the global assembly cache

I have also tried referencing the correct DLLs in the project references as I had tried to correct these links to the up-to-date DLLs, however they should have been pointing at a very specific location, brought in by SVN.

Ok, so the secret to this particular mess seems to have been "Make sure you're referencing the right DLLs."

Now the only problem is to solve the code issues in the controls!

Resources looked at so far include:

Adding And Subtracting Dates In T-SQL

2010-07-02T04:13:00.000-07:00

This code will add 10 days to the current date:

@declare myDate datetime
set @myDate = (select dateadd(dd,10,getdate()))
select @myDate

This code will subtract one month from the passed in date:

@declare myDate datetime
set @myDate = (select dateadd(mm,-1,@dateArg))
select @myDate

Found at:

http://www.java2s.com/Code/SQLServer/Date-Timezone/DATEADDaddorsubtractanumberofdaysmonthsoryearsfromaspecificdate.htm

Splitting Strings in T-SQL Using XML

2010-07-01T06:33:00.001-07:00

Having this post:

http://springboardpillow.blogspot.com/2009/04/splitting-strings-in-t-sql.html

And later finding this forum entry:

http://www.devnewsgroups.net/group/microsoft.public.sqlserver.xml/topic64815.aspx

I have come up with my own SQL which does not require a function in order to take a series of pairs of integers and split them into a two-field result set:

Which when run on it's own, will output this:

The effect here is that a string passed in as a parameter can contain pairs (rows) of integers; each column in the rows being separated by ':' and each row being separated by ','.

This is aggregated into a single XML element, which can then be parsed into specific types in a result set (table) format.

Note: Sorry for the images, but blogger.com's online editor would not let me paste the XML source.

Event Firing Delegate Handlers For Basic Use Controls

2010-07-01T02:57:00.000-07:00

Sometimes it's nice and tidy and simply easy to create a small user control which can listen fire events when it does something. This requires the use of delegates, the format of which escapes me every single time. Argh!

Anyway, here's an example:

public delegate void ChartSelected(int chartId);
public ChartSelected onChartSelected = null;

So the parent control or page would assign a method to the onChartSelected delegate to be fired when, in this case, a chart is selected:

selector.onChartSelected = MyEventMethod;

And the method fired when called would look like the delegate identifier:

private void ChartSelected(int chartId)
{
// do something
}

Of course, the control declaring the delegate has to fire the event at some point:

if (onChartSelected != null)
onChartSelected(someSelectedValue);

More SQL XML, Making It Easier...

2010-06-28T02:56:00.000-07:00

Well, I've previously used stored procedures to execute SQLXML queries, pulling the XML out using a standard SqlDataAdapter and concatenate the returned rows via a StringBuilder.

There is, however, a different mechanism to use:

Microsoft.Data.SqlXml.SqlXmlCommand:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=51d4a154-8e23-47d2-a033-764259cfb53b&displaylang=en

Some concerns:

It does throw a large number of exceptions, so your code needs to be clean.
You will need to remove System.Data.SqlClient because the new DLL replaces the namespaces found in the original DLL.

Example code:

using Microsoft.Data.SqlXml;

string connectionString = ConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings["connStr"].ConnectionString;
SqlXmlCommand queryCommand = new SqlXmlCommand(connectionString);
queryCommand.CommandText = @"SQL * FROM something FOR XML";

SqlXmlParameter queryParameter = queryCommand.CreateParameter();
queryParameter.Value = 2860;
queryCommand.RootTag = "root";

queryCommand.XslPath = Server.MapPath("~/XSLT/formatter.xslt");

queryCommand.ClientSideXml = true;

XmlDocument xmlChartData = new XmlDocument();
xmlChartData.Load(queryCommand.ExecuteXmlReader());

Listing Table Column Names On One Line

2010-06-25T03:56:00.000-07:00

I wanted to list out all the names of a table on one line, separated by tab characters, so that I could do a simple copy-paste from the SQL Server Management Studio into an Excel sheet - having each column name place itself conveniently into the next Excel column.

The code I came up with is a slight modification of a previous post:

http://springboardpillow.blogspot.com/2010/05/concatenating-string-fields-in-t-sql.html

select STUFF(
(SELECT char(9) + name FROM
(SELECT c.name
FROM syscolumns c inner join sysobjects o on c.id = o.id
where o.name = 'your-table-name') AS Y
--ORDER BY names -- optional sorting of the column names
FOR XML PATH('')),
1, 1, N'')

Developing For iPhone

2010-06-23T01:33:00.000-07:00

There's plenty of info out there about writing for iOS (as it's now called) the operating system which runs on iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad, so here's my list of stuff for writing Objective-C and non-Objective-C code for iOS:

Objective-C:

Non-Objective-C:

Useful blog pages et al:

Relevant Stackoverflow.com posts:

Prince Of Persia For iPhone And iPad Is Awesomely 8 Bit

2010-06-21T00:56:00.000-07:00

Having run across the re-release of the original Prince Of Persia on the iPhone App Store (under Featured) I found that it can be sync'd across to the iPad and then uses a whole other set of higher resolution graphics - making it perfect for full size retro gaming.

One post I found, after search for the age old "can't pick up sword!!!" problem was this:

http://www.theiphoneguru.net/2010/05/28/prince-of-persia-retro-so-good/

However, click the "Controls" option on the main menu shows that the "action" button is in fact anywhere on the screen, that isn't already one of the four Up, Down, Left or Right buttons.

Here's some visual goodness for you to rest your eyes on - and remember, the one PoP app works on both iPhone and iPad, with improved graphics on the iPad!...

Prince Of Persia on iPhone...

Prince Of Persia on iPad...

L2B 2010 - It's Over!

2010-06-20T11:25:00.001-07:00

It was long and it was kinda cold, actually, but it warmed up once we got to Brighton - yeah, afterwards!

Pictures from the day...

Here's the route we eventually took...

View L2B 2010 in a larger map

London To Brighton 2010

2010-06-20T04:33:00.000-07:00

This Father’s Day, Sunday 20^th June, I am doing (again) the BHF London to Brighton 58 mile bike ride in a Morph Suit! It’s a grueling challenge filled with blood, sweat, tears, burgers, beer, steep hills and numb-bum-syndrome.

It really is a worthy cause – and I will look a complete prat - so please, if you can, follow this link and donate just a little towards my target for the British Heart Foundation…

http://original.justgiving.com/matthewwebster

Click here to see the estimated route!

View L2B2010 in a larger map

Footnote: Yes, numb-bum-syndrome is real: http://nutritionfitnesslife.com/numb-bum-syndrome/

Calculate XML Element Depth

2010-06-18T01:55:00.000-07:00

In XPath (from the excellent D.Pawson site):

```
select="count(ancestor::*)"
```
http://www.dpawson.co.uk/xsl/sect2/N2193.html

In LINQ:

int depth = element.Ancestors().Count();

Direct SQLXML Access And XSLt Using ADO.NET

2010-06-17T06:16:00.000-07:00

If you want a quick and easy way to directly access a SQL 2005 DB, read the content in XML and render it from your website, here's how:

ADO.NET access to the SQL:
http://www.sharpdeveloper.net/content/archive/2007/06/09/how-to-use-sqldatareader-plus-source-code.aspx
XSL Transformation:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms345117(SQL.90).aspx
Filling DataSets:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bh8kx08z.aspx
The 'using' statement used appropriately with SqlConnection and SqlCommand:
http://davidhayden.com/blog/dave/archive/2005/01/13/773.aspx

Please see other links on my blog for how to do more specific things; this is tech I use occasionally, but sometimes in detail.

Performing Queries With T-SQL DBs With Illegal Characters In Their Name

2010-06-16T05:40:00.000-07:00

I've been trying to connect to a DB on a completely different server, using Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio, and discovering a big problem. The SQL Server I'm trying to query has a '-' character in it's name.

This is overcome using two methods:

Add the SQL Server to the local (on my development machine) SQL Server linked servers list.

This is done by:

Using the Object Explorer and opening "Server Objects -> Linked Servers", right clicking and selecting "New Linked Server".

The important next step is that the "Linked server" field is filled out with the SQL Server name only, eg: SOMELIVEBOX-SQL5 and then the "SQL Server" radio button is selected.

Next, on the left, select "Security" and choose "Be made using this security context:" and fill out the SQL Server login details.
Then the query, and this is only relevant if the SQL Server name has an illegal character (like '-') in it.

Lets say the table is called "MyTable", is in a database called "MyDB", is in the server mentioned in point 1 and we want all the records from it...

Open a new query window from inside the local database and type:

SELECT * FROM [SOMELIVEBOX-SQL5].MyDB.dbo.MyTable

My Favourite Chrome Extensions

2010-06-15T06:09:00.000-07:00

Yep, cos I keep forgetting, each time set up a new PC....

Can't Connect To Local SQLEXPRESS

2010-06-10T07:35:00.000-07:00

This started occurring the other day and I was confused as to why the local database would not let me connect via standard Windows Authentication.

The answer turned out to be simply that the database had not been started as a Windows Service. This was because the Log On account it was trying to use did not have appropriate permissions. Not having another machine to check the correct settings, I decided that in the Services snap-in (Start -> Run -> services.msc -> SQL Server (MSSQLSERVER) & SQL Server (SQLEXPRESS)) I went to the Log On tab, selected "Local System account", hit "Apply" and then "Start" under the General tab.

For those two services, on my machine at least, this got everything working again. I was only able to discover this solution after googling and ending up here:

http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/forums/en-US/sqlsetupandupgrade/thread/4d2ed764-e196-404c-a610-e10322b002cb/

In case the post with the answer disappears, here it is in full:

I encountered the exact same error. My work around to get the server back up and running is as follows. This applies to both the engine and the agent. The bug in this patch didn't affect the other SQL related services.

I changed the service account from the normal one to one that is local administrator to the server (me).
I was then able to start the services.
I went into the SQL Server 2005 Surface Area Configuration tool and changed Database Engine -> Remote Connections to use Local connections only.
I restarted the engine service.
I then changed it back to using Local and remote connections Using TCP/IP only.
I restarted the engine service.
I then changed both services back to their normal service account and all is well.

I could not get the patch to apply under any circumstances or configuration that I tried and have given up on it in hopes that MS releases a new one for this real quick.

Google Proxy Setting

2010-06-08T05:37:00.000-07:00

If you are having trouble accessing the internet via Google's Chrome, try the solution suggested here:

http://www.google.co.uk/support/forum/p/Chrome/thread?tid=68af55240f3a69e7&hl=en

Basically, (for Windows) make your Chrome shortcut look like this:

Target: "C:\Documents and Settings\\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe" --proxy-server=

Load Balanced Session State Partitioning

2010-06-06T02:43:00.000-07:00

Recently doing some research into getting session state management faster and more stable in an enterprise, load balanced environment. Not claiming to be any more knowledgeable than I was before, but definately more read...

Products:

Tutorials:

Discussions:

Of course, once you have your caching up and running you'll want to test it before sticking it in the wild:

And some further reading, which may get bolstered the longer this post stays alive:

What a 'Cache' is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cache
"Caching in the distributed environment": http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd129907.aspx
Memcached Vs Velocity Showdown: http://www.briandrought.com/blog/?p=29

And for those who want to know, my own comparison (please be aware that I have not exhaustively tested all options, this is based on research and some usage):

NCache

Distributed
Partitioaned
Replicated
Remote clients available
Expensive
Failover
Clustered
Free developer edition not appropriate for live environments

Memcached

Free
Open source
Distributed
Not partitioned
Not replicated
Servers unaware of each other
Not clustered
Least recently used model

Velocity

Sparsely documented

ScaleOut

Rediscovering A Blog Entry On The Button Element

2010-06-04T01:40:00.000-07:00

Just seen this and though it warranted some attention - the Button HTML element looks rather more powerful than the input submit element, but "requires a little love":

http://particletree.com/features/rediscovering-the-button-element/

Get Notified About Public Holidays

2010-06-03T03:52:00.000-07:00

So, using Outlook (in this case, 2007) you can add lots of public holidays to your calendar very easily:

Tools -> Options -> Calendar Options -> Add Holidays

Easy...

T-SQL IsNullOrEmpty

2010-06-03T03:42:00.001-07:00

Just needed to do the T-SQL equivalent of String.IsNullOrEmpty(), so went looking and found these:

How To List The Columns In Your Table

2010-06-02T08:03:00.000-07:00

I wanted to inspect, in T-SQL code, the list of columns in a table I had created. This is how I did it:

select c.* from sysobjects o inner join syscolumns c on o.id = c.id
where o.xtype = 'U' and o.name = 'myTableName'

And for reference, a handy page on the T-SQL system tables:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa260604(v=SQL.80).aspx

Concatenating String Fields In T-SQL

2010-05-28T04:30:00.000-07:00

Lets say you've got a table called 'metaproperty' with an NVARCHAR(50) field called 'names'. How do you get all the values of the 'names' field concatenated into one string, separated by commas?

Like this:

select STUFF(

(SELECT N',' + names

FROM (SELECT * FROM metaproperty) AS Y

--ORDER BY names

FOR XML PATH('')),

1, 1, N'')

The ORDER BY is optional, as are any DISTINCTs you might want to shove in...

PIVOT

2010-05-27T09:18:00.000-07:00

Found these pages quite interesting but not managed to make use of it yet:

It's about how to use PIVOT. Have a look round his site and look for the UNPIVOT pages, much geeky fun to be had within a T-SQL server (2005 onwards.)

[UPDATE] The key thing I've found (as highlighted in the first link) is that the PIVOT statement operates upon the fields returned in the FROM clause, NOT the SELECT clause. This is important because it means, if you have a JOIN or two, you probably have a lot more fields to quote in your clause than you think. The solution, I found, is to nest the original query inside the FROM( ) AS virtualtable thereby reducing the pivot to only the fields you're concerned with.

eg:

select *
from
(
select
distinct top 100
v.pointid, v.doublevalue, p.displayname
from [property] p
inner join pointvalue v on p.propertyid = v.propertyid
inner join point pt on v.pointid = pt.pointid
where v.pointid in (select top 5 p.pointid from point p where p.instanceid = 36132)
) virtualtable
pivot
(
sum(doublevalue)
for [displayname] in ([Low Price], [High Price])
) as alias

Virtual Machines

2010-05-21T04:53:00.000-07:00

My foray into the Mac world continues, though this post isn't specifically a Mac oriented thing. I have been looking for virtual machine applications...

Firstly, what Wikipedia has to say on the subject:

And the virtual PC applications I have used, or rather, had closer experience of than the vast array of virtualisation software out there:

And finally, my personal opine on the subject:

VirtualPC - Quite good, does what it says on the tin but hogs a lot of system resources. Will run non-Windows OS's, but probably is better running Windows. Discontinued, I understand, in deference to Hyper-V.
Parallels - Not the same kind of virtual machine as VirtualPC, in that it's expressly designed to run Windows on a Mac, but it does this beautifully. It can startup Windows which has been installed into Parallels or BootCamp and run them side by side.
BootCamp - Runs Windows on a Mac as a stand-alone OS, in that Mac OS X is not running at the same time. Allows the Mac to operate as a Windows PC and does it pretty much better than a regular PC can IMHO.
VMWare - Basically just like VirtualPC, but many would have it as being more stable and not Microsoft.