Data storage and retrieval for geospatial data in SQL Server 2008

I have a need to use geospatial data which will assist plotting the trainees available by region and compare wtih the sales staff region in our company. Here is a link from myssqltips that I found as part of that project.

Why Powershell?

Did you also have this question when you first heard about Powershell? I did indeed and googled the why........ Here are a couple of links that answer this question.

Windows Powershell: Why developers should care?
Why Powershell?

Have you heard about Dropbox?

Dropbox is the easiest way to store, sync, and, share files online. There's no complicated interface to learn. Dropbox works seamlessly with your operating system. Here is the link to it.

Common DBA tasks

Any idea what a common DBA tasks are?

• Adding users in SQL Server is one of the most funtamental tasks you'll perform. This article describes in great detail the different steps you have to take to establish a new user in SQL Server.
• Have you ever needed moving the database from one location to another? In SQL Server, you will need functionality to detach and attach your database in order to move it from one location to another. Here you will find a thorough description of what you'll need to do.
• As a DBA, you will very likely need to move bulks of data from one database to another, or make a copy of your data. This article provides a step-by-step tutorial on Import and Export in SQL Server
• Today's database systems need mechanisms to increase performance. One of the most important things you can do, is adding SQL Server indexes
• Scheduling jobs is a very useful functionality of the SQL Server database. There are several uses of this feature. Read more in this article on SQL Server jobs
• Preparing a maintenance plan is an important task, but SQL Server provides you with a wisard for such a plan. Read this tutorial on how to set up a SQL Server Maintenance Plan
• Every database needs a backup copy. Hopefully, you will never need it, but all practice has learnt us that a backup can come in very handy. Read this tutorial on how to produce a SQL Server backup
• When disaster happens, you have of course a disaster plan and a backup of the database?. If so, it is easy to perform a SQL Server Restore Database operation.
• Sooner or later, you will most likely have to search for performance bottlenecks, or perform other monitoring tasks. This article is a simple tutorial on how to use SQL Server Profiler
• If your database should go down, you need to bring it back to as current state as possible. In case of a system failure, the SQL Server Transaction Log will prove invaluable.

What is Windows Azure?

The Windows Azure platform offers a flexible, familiar environment for developers to create cloud applications and services. With Windows Azure, you can shorten your time to market and adapt as demand for your service grows.


The Windows Azure platform gives you:

• A familiar development experience
• On-demand scalability
• Reduced time-to-market for your applications

Windows Azure offers a platform that is easily implemented alongside your current environment.

• Windows Azure: operating system as an online service
• Microsoft SQL Azure: fully relational cloud database solution
• Windows Azure platform AppFabric: makes it simpler to connect cloud services and on-premises applications

Unsubscribe from alerts in Sharepoint 2007

Today I had a need to remove alerts from a sharepoint site for a group of users. I did not want to login as each user and then unsubscribe. It took me a while to figure the following.

To unsubscribe users for a sharepoint alert Click on Site Actions ---> site Settings -----> User alerts.

Now select each user and click on Update. The alerts are shown which can then be selected and deleted.

Add a line break in an Excel cell

Sometimes you might have a need to add a line break (press enter so that a new paragraph is created). To do this the key combination is Alt + Enter

SQL Azure

Microsoft now offers a “cloud” version of SQL Server called SQL Azure. Cloud in this context means SQL Server lives out on the internet, on equipment managed by Microsoft. We access SQL Azure as a service over the internet either programmatically with Dot Net, or through the command line using SQLCMD. SQL Azure is very similar to traditional SQL Server and now supports many standard TSQL commands. This article will demonstrate the use of TSQL commands to create SQL Azure objects.

Installing SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services 32-bit on a 64-bit Windows Server system

We have a Windows 64-bit server and need to install the 32-bit version of SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services on this machine since there are other applications where we are using IIS on the 32-bit version. This article from MSSQLtips outlines the steps you need to take for this installation....

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AJAX Guestbook

Unobtrusive AJAX Guestbook.XML is easy to use ajax and php guestbook application. Guestbook.XML is crossbrower, skinnable guestbook and web 2.0 script Read More

SharePoint 2010 Videos Reveal Development Experience

If you are curious what the development experience will be in SharePoint 2010, there are now 10 modules with multiple videos per module that go through the details of using Visual Studio 2010 to customize your SharePoint solution.

Read More

Log on to Internet explorer as a different user

Here is a script that you can use to logon to Internet Explorer as a user that is not the same as the logged in user.

This script is a dos command --
runas /noprofile /user:domain\user "c:\program files\internet explorer\iexplore.exe"

This is particularly useful when you have limited user licences on a web based application.

Making speedometers in Excel

I was wanting to create a speedometer gauge in excel and started researching on the internet. Here are the links that I came with...

Interesting article titled Make Excel Charts interactive with sliders, gauge, dials and more by Ashish Mohta

There are several add-ins available that can be used to create speedometers in excel. The one that I liked the most was at Mrexcel.com

The link that I most found useful was this -- Hack together a Gauge Chart in Excel without sweat

Project Gemini gets a new Name........

Microsoft has now given a new name for Project Gemini. It is called Power Pivot.

The official blurb about it is: "PowerPivot provides business users with BI at their fingertips while enabling organizations to efficiently monitor and manage collaboration using Microsoft SharePoint 2010 and SQL Server 2008 based management tools"

You can find more information at the powerpivot site.

Getting rid of overtype mode in word 2007

I had a very annoying 10 min. with Word 2007 today where the Insert key did not disable the insert mode.

Here are the steps I followed to get it back to working.


Click the Microsoft Office button
click Word Options.
Select Advanced.
Click the option to Use Insert key to control overtype mode.
Make sure the Use Overtyp mode is unticked.
Click OK.

Flade (Flash Dynamics Engine) is an open source actionscript 2.0 library for simulating 2D physics using Verlet integration. It currently features rectangular, circular, & wheel primitives, spring & angular constraints, and surfaces composed of line segments, circles, & rectangles. Read More

Creating a scorecard using Performance Point Server 2007

Microsoft is offering Performance Point SErver as part of its Sharepoint Enterprise edition 2007.

This is a very handy application to create some nice dashboards and scorecards for a company.

Here is a link from mssqltips.com that provides a step by step guide to create a scorecard using Performance Point Server 2007.

Scrum 101

Yesterday I attended the Girl Geeks Dinner in Auckland. There were 2 presenters Carolyn Sanders and Sarah both on Agile Development.

Presentation 1:
Carolyn Sanders. The core of the practice of Agile is the delivery of individual projects; it's where most practitioners start out and it fundamentally changes the way a project team works together and works with their stakeholders. Scrum is one of the most popular Agile delivery approaches at the moment. In this presentation, Carolyn Sanders uses one of her recent projects as a way to illustrate each facet of Scrum and how it panned out in real life, from start to finish. This talk is directed at developers, testers, project managers, PMO managers and CIOs - who are relatively new to Scrum and want to explore the practical detail at the day-to-day level of a single project. The session will end with a Q&A to allow you to explore how Scrum integrates with other parts of the practice of Agile, or dig deeper into how it worked for one team.

Presentation 2:
Sarah Fairbairn. Sarah is a senior developer who has worked on Agile projects in the past and is currently working on an Agile project. Sarah will give a presentation about development in an Agile environment, the pros & cons and pitfalls to look out for based upon real world examples.


I have embeded the link of Carolyn's presentation here

APN Auckland Event 9 - Scrum 101, Unleashing the Theory

View more presentations from Carolyn Sanders.

Some interesting Sharepoint web parts

Here is a good link I found today while surfing for sharepoint web parts.

Delete all data from a database

I had a requirement today to delete all data from a sqlser ver database. This database has about 350 tables with a lot constraints. I manually started identifying the order of deletion absed on the constraints and realsied that this can't be done in a day. So I hit the good old google for help.

Here I found a very detailed explanation of how to easily achieve this by Susan Sales Harkins. Read More