Wow, another Windows 2008 post. 🙂
Was having to FTP some stuff today, and I use FileZilla, which was working fine. I wanted to do a Beyond Compare with a folder and the FTP and it was erroring out. WTF. So I try Windows FTP (Start->Run: cmd, ftp)
I could connect, but couldn’t list anything, it would just hang. The fix: turn off Windows built in firewall.
The iPhone doesn’t do anything with Windows 2008 by default. Usually when you plug it in, it will charge it, and it will show up as a digital camera in your My Computer. Windows 2008 , it just sits there, fails driver install, and does nothing.
If you install iTunes (ugh) , then at least you can charge your iPhone in Windows 2008, still the camera doesn’t work. I wonder if the Desktop Experience add on needs to be installed in Windows, not sure yet. For now though, at least it will charge 🙂
Ugh. Found this one out the hard way. Usually when you change underlying object id’s in SQL Server Analysis Services, it shouldn’t cause any harm. You might have some XMLA to process dim’s and measure groups, if so you would have to change those, etc. But all reporting services reports and excel 2007 pivot tables, and MDX should keep working. What breaks? Report Builder reports.
You can build reports with Report Builder (the link is in Reporting Services to open Report Builder) off a cube model. They are paired down reports, you can’t do as much as you can with SSRS, but for advanced end users, they do the trick.
Thing is, the use SemanticQuery XML behind the scenes for the query and data source is to the model, and the XML is build off the object id’s of the cube. Ugh again. Even worse is that all parameters that were set as drop down lists (in this list) type are converted to IN formulas, and all the other params are converted to formulas. Graphs break. Matrix Reports break. Tabular Reports break. It just sucks. They shouldn’t build the query off the underlying id’s of objects, they should build them off the displayed names, like everything else does. Whew 🙂
I have been pretty busy lately. I have some posts that I want to write up, but it seems they are getting bigger and bigger, longer. More stuff 🙂
Just a highlight, this weekend I decided to do a full drive backup and create a restore cd, I followed this process. http://www.darkchip.com/DriveImageXML/Complete%20System%20Recovery%20Process.html
I just didn’t stumble upon that. I did some research on drive backups, etc and found Drive Image XML. From there I did a backup to USB. But then I needed a way to restore, so I followed the BartPE tutorial for Drive Image XML and got that all set up. Just gives you a sense of confidence, knowing you have a full backup. Why did I decide to do this? Because I wanted to try Windows 2008 Server on my laptop, as a workstation, so next I did that.
Installed Windows 2008, set it all up. I am liking it, but there are some caveats so far. Wifi is off by default, you need to install some extra stuff. Turn on audio services, etc.
IE is totally locked down, but I installed Firefox right away anyways. Windows Live Writer won’t install, but yea you can get it to work – you need to get the MSI – http://on10.net/blogs/sarahintampa/20879/Default.aspx
The OS doesn’t find the iPhone, so I will have to figure that out. I haven’t installed the "Desktop Experience" yet, I want to try not installing it for as long as I can. Win2k8 flys with everything turned off by default.
Also have been working on some side projects, web site and other blogs/projects. Getting deep into VS2008 and .NET 3.5, which is fun. Ran into some debacles with the ProfileBase auto generation stuff, probably another post.
Also, so cool stuff in SSIS that I probably could write up, we will see.
I am all over the board right now, I know, but it is fun, doing Programming, Database, Web 2.0 blog stuff, System Admin, the whole gamut. I love it.
Another mobile related post. Has anyone taken a look at the HTC Shift? Wow. This thing looks awesome. It is a UMPC, but can boot up Vista Business OR Windows Mobile 6. So you can use it as a cell phone, or a laptop. This thing looks like it would be .. better than the iPhone? One downside is it is a tad big to fit into your pocket. But this could replace your phone/laptop. Looks pretty much money to me.
Found this out this weekend, my Google Maps was continuously crashing. I was at the hotel, and the wi-fi for the hotel had the screen where it asks you to accept the ToS, or whatever. I never accepted, but was trying Google Maps on my phone, and it kept crashing. I just had to turn off wi-fi and it worked fine again.
I have been doing some thinking lately, and more about a "Homebrew Mobile Phone". I look at the iPhone and Windows Mobile Devices, and I wonder how much it would take to get all the parts needed to make a mobile phone and load some software on it. Basically I think the hardest part is getting the Wireless Antenna to work with the Carrier Towers. It would be nice to have a SIM card reader or something for a laptop, or a small USB device that you could plug into your laptop (with SIM card in the USB) and turn your laptop into a cell phone. Or even just build your own cell phone like you can build your own computer right now, load whatever software you want, and have it work with the carriers you choose.
I know Google has Android that they are working on, open source OS for mobiles, but what about hardware. Some quick Google searches brings up a few results, but after digging into it some, it doesn’t look like the projects are actively getting worked on. The one problem is, when you try to get some open homebrew mobile, all the hardcores just want to use Linux. Well, I want to put whatever I want on it, not just Linux.
A cell phone is just hardware, software, and some extra stuff to get it to communicate with the towers, I wonder why it isn’t more widespread that there are homebrew projects going on. If you listen to Walt Mossbergs video on how we should have a more open phone hardware to carrier relationship, it is spot on. I do wish I had more hardware experience, beyond basic soldering, maybe I would go ahead and start this project.
C# 3.0 and .NET 3.5 are out and ready for consumption, and I have been using some of the new features. One of the new features, Extension Methods, is really cool and can help you consolidate and reuse your code in a logical manner. Take for example, System.Data.DataSet – there is always something I do when getting a DataSet back. Check if it isnull and check if the table in the [0] index has more than zero rows.
Now, you end up having all these if statements to check this every time you get a DataSet back. Something like this:
DataSet myDataset;
myDataset= _database.ExecuteDataSet(dbCommand);
if(myDataset != null && myDataset.Tables[0].Rows.Count > 0)
{
…
}
Now, in previous versions of .NET, you could make a method in a Core library you have, or whatever and pass in the dataset and pass back a bool if that dataset met that condition. What you can do now is this:
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Data;
namespace SteveNovoselac.MyCoreLib.Common.Extensions
{
public static class DataExtensions
{
public static bool IsEmpty(this DataSet d)
{
if (d != null && d.Tables[0].Rows.Count > 0)
{
return false;
}
else
{
return true;
}
}
}
}
You can see, I created a class called DataExtensions. I have a method "IsEmpty()" that takes "this DataSet d" (this makes it an extension method for DataSet)
Now, in my code I can do this:
if(myDataset.IsEmpty())
{
…
}
Awesome! Next time I will go over Automatic Properties and the pros/cons in them.
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