Custom software developer. IT consultant. Geek.
Blog
How to reset Offline Files in Windows Vista
Nov 26, 2007
The Offline Files feature in Windows Vista is fantastic! It truly solves the problems that Offline Files had in Windows XP. I have run across one problem though. Twice now, I’ve had to move all of my files to another server, necessitating clearing out my old offline files and enabling them at the new location. This tends to be an issue when you’re toting 25GB of Offline Files. So what I’ve found is that it’s easier to just completely reset Offline Files and have Windows Vista build it up from scratch. I’ve had a lot of trouble finding this procedure, More >
Visual Studio 2008 has RTM’ed
Nov 19, 2007
Hooray! Visual Studio 2008 is out and available for download.
If you’re trying to find it on the MSDN downloads, note that you may not see it in the main download section yet. Instead, you have to go to: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/subscriptions/default.aspx and log in, then you’ll find the download in the "Top Downloads" block. Microsoft is trying to balance the downloads a bit.
The Visual Studio 2008 Professional download is a whopping 3.31GB ISO. I’m downloading it now at a solid 3.5Mbps, but it’s still going to be a while. I can only imagine how much Internet traffic is dealing with this download right More >
Windows Essential Business Server
Nov 7, 2007
Windows codename "Centro" now has a name — Windows Essential Business Server. If you haven’t heard of "Centro", it’s Microsoft’s upcoming server solution for "mid-sized businesses."
More info is at this blog post: http://blogs.msdn.com/mssmallbiz/archive/2007/11/07/5955270.aspx
The surprising part is that this is not just one server running a bunch of software, it is "an integrated server infrastructure solution."
Windows EBS Standard consist of three servers:
- Management Server (Windows Server 2008 with Active Directory Services and Systems Center Essentials)
- Messaging Server (Active Directory Services, Exchange Server 2007, and Forefront Security for Exchange)
- Security Server (Exchange Server 2007 and ISA Server vNext).
Windows EBS Premium adds a Database server running More >
Scheduling backups, reindexing, and CheckDB in SQL Server Express 2005
Nov 6, 2007
One of the things that I really missed with the move from SQL Server 2000 Desktop Edition to SQL Server Express 2005 was the removal of the SQL Server Agent and the Database Maintenance Plans.
I’ve gotten over the removal of SQL Server Agent by simply using Scheduled Tasks. You can simply save what your TSQL script into a file, then create a Scheduled Task in Windows in teh format:
"C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\90\Tools\Bin\SQLCMD.EXE" -S .\SQLEXPRESS -i"C:\myscript.sql"
What I really missed, though, was the Database Maintenance Plans. Recently, I found the answer — a great project created by Jasper Smith (sqldbatips.com) called ExpressMaint. The More >
Info et Cetera Consulting Recognized Again as Microsoft Gold Certified Partner
Nov 3, 2007
We are very excited to announce that Info et Cetera Consulting has again this year been recognized as a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner. This is the highest level that a company can achieve in the Microsoft Partner Program. Our certification takes into our account customer satisfaction, skills, and achievements.
What we’re particularly proud of is that we’ve been able to achieve this high level of achievement even though we are a relatively small consulting firm. This demonstrates our absolute dedication to being experts on the subject matters that are important to our customers!
Double clicking on a VHD to mount it
Oct 18, 2007
I found a really handy blog entry today with a short registry modification you can make so you can double-click on a VHD file to mount it as a drive on your system.
http://blogs.msdn.com/virtual_pc_guy/archive/2006/09/01/734435.aspx
This is really great news for data recovery. I’m currently researching the potential synergy between Microsoft Virtual Server and the image-based backup functionality in Windows Vista, which apparently saves files in the same format as Virtual PC uses (VHD). It would be so neat to be able to spin up a virtual machine from a Windows Vista backup in a pinch, but it seems there are some complications. More >
Using a USB KVM switch and the mouse and keyboard stop working
Oct 17, 2007
I ran into a bit of a problem with my new Keyboard Video Monitor (KVM) switch this week, with an interesting solution. First, a bit of background. When I’m not working in my office in downtown Worcester or at a client site, I work from my home office. I like to vary where I work throughout the week, as I feel it stimulates new ideas and keeps my mind fresh. In my office at home, I have a desktop computer with a nice LCD monitor. My work computer, however, is a laptop. So I had the thought last week of More >
Handy DNS/domain tools
Aug 9, 2007
Here are two great tools that I use on a regular basis for managing/troubleshooting domains and DNS issues:
http://www.domaintools.com Wonderful WHOIS tool that gives you a lot more information as well. This site can even tell you how many other sites are running on an IP address.
http://www.dnsstuff.com Scroll down on the main page for tools like looking up MX records, verify email configuration, etc.
Umbraco – Content Management System based on ASP.NET
Aug 9, 2007
Joe Stagner at Microsoft has a link today to a Content Management System based on ASP.NET that I’ve never heard of. It’s called Umbraco, and it looks pretty promising. It’s an open source project and looks to have a lot of the content management features that the average web site operator looks for. but more importantly for developers, it claims to allow you to easily integrate any .NET user controls or custom controls. That has some really great potential! One of these days, when I have some time, I’ll give it a try. Maybe it will be a viable option More >
Google Reader – Using it and loving it
Aug 8, 2007
Yet another of the tasks I generally do using a Windows application has been replaced by a web application. I’ve bounced between Windows-based feed readers for a while now, try out the free ones, pay ones, etc. But I never really found one I love because I use a number of machines, as well as my Smartphone, and I want to be able to read my feeds in all of these devices using one unified (and preferrably free) mechanism.
A while ago, I tried Google Reader, and found it clunky and difficult to use. I revisited it this week, and it’s much better More >