Latest News from Jayaram Krishnaswamy

How to Synchronize with a Cloud Database

Sun, 06 Dec 2009 12:30:00 EST

In fortifying and solidifying its relational cloud database service-SQL Azure, Microsoft has come up with a new tool, the Microsoft Sync Framework Power Pack for SQL Azure November CTP. All that you need to do is to click and presto, you are in sync. This tool [SQL Azure Data Sync Tool for SQL Server] makes synchronizing SQL Azure with a local server that much more efficient (compared to force fitting ADO.NET) and that much more reliable.This power pack provides the SqlAzureSyncProvider that automates much of the synchronizing task, that is, a wizard will step in, and take charge. However you may need to keep your SQL Server Agent up and running and happy.

Microsoft vs Salesforce: Rivalry in the Clouds

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 04:45:00 EST

With deep pockets Microsoft is able to fight it out on multiple fronts. With Azure, in the coming months, it will take on SalesForce.com as a formidable cloud platform provider. It's no more just software as service; it will be framework as a service at the finishing line. Read up this article to get a picture of what is brewing.

Here is Microsoft market place positioned to start any time soon:

Here is the opponent with a big repertoire:

Using SQL Server Integration Services

Sun, 29 Nov 2009 00:45:00 EST

Integrating data into applications or reports is one of the most important, expensive and exacting activities in building enterprise data warehousing and reporting applications. SQL Server Integration Services which first appeared in MS SQL Server 2005 and continued into MS SQL Server 2008 provides a one-stop solution to the ETL Process. The ETL Process consists of extracting data from a data source, transforming the data so that it can get in cleanly into the destination followed by loading the transformed data to the destination. Enterprise data can be of very different kinds ranging from flat files to data stored in relational databases. Recently storing and exchanging data in XML has become common as exchanging data in XML format has many advantages.

This article describes how you may extract data in XML from your database using a stored procedure and persist it to the file system in either XML or text formats using Microsoft SQL Server Integration Services.

Writing XML data to the File System with SSIS

You may also want to read these recent articles on SSIS:

MySQL Data Transfer using SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS)

Ground to SQL Azure migration using MS SQL Server Integration Services

Read my book and get a handle on many other package tasks:

SQL Server 2008 R2 Nov CTP Installs Easily on Windows 7

Fri, 27 Nov 2009 10:45:00 EST

I had problems installing on Windows XP SP3 but it was very easy on Windows 7 Ultimate Evaluation copy (build 7100). If you have Visual Studio 2008 you may need to apply SP1 before you complete installation on Windows 7. I installed a named instance Hodentek\KUMORI (ver 10.50.1352) which is a minor upgrade to SQL Server 2008 RTM. If you want to work with a database in the cloud (SQL Azure) you need SQL Server 2008 R2 Nov-CTP.

Connecting to SQL server Compact from SQL Server 2008 R2 Nov_CTP

Thu, 26 Nov 2009 11:24:00 EST

The database file is in the installation directory but you need to modify permissions. You can work on it in SSMS once you connect to it.

Review the following blog post:

http://hodentekhelp.blogspot.com/2009/11/how-do-i-connect-to-sql-server-compact.html

On Installing/Upgrading SQL Server 2008 R2 Nov_CTP

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 10:00:00 EST

On a Windows XP Professional with XP3 attempts to upgrade/install SQL Server 2008 failed. The correct authentication was not recognized and only a few files were created.

Conclusions:

First attempt: To upgrade an existing SQL Server 2008 Enterprise (evaluation) [Mysorian] failed in the last step of the upgrade. However the following files were added to the SQL Server folder on the machine. It appears that the upgrade process created not only Upgrade files but also install files as shown here.

Second attempt: Tried to install a new server[Ganga]: failed.

Later in the maintenance mode, the repair option to repair the failed fresh install worked but cannot connect to the named instance of SQL Server 2008 R2 Nov CTP.

Named instance Ganga of the fresh install

Error Message:

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

A network-related or instance-specific error occurred while establishing a connection to SQL Server. The server was not found or was not accessible. Verify that the instance name is correct and that SQL Server is configured to allow remote connections. (provider: SQL Network Interfaces, error: 26 - Error Locating Server/Instance Specified) (Microsoft SQL Server, Error: -1)

For help, click: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink?ProdName=Microsoft+SQL+Server&EvtSrc=MSSQ...

The splash screen of the SQL Server 2008 in Management Studio appears to belong to R2 November CTP as well as the short cut for the CTP programs. However the following files were added to the SQL Server folder [MSSQL10_50.GANGA] on the machine.

IE 8.0 going over to IE 9.0

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 08:04:00 EST

I thought IE 8.0 was work in progress!

It looks like Microsoft will be talking about IE 9.0 soon. If that is the case, what about IE 8.0? The frequent hanging of the browser driving you crazy is one of the most exasperating experiences I have ever had. The funny thing is, if you click on a new tab and go back to the one that stalled it refreshes faster. But wait, Google Chrome is no better either. It hangs, and after a while the screens refresh, crawling from top to bottom soooooo slow that you wish you had clicked open IE 8 instead. Also several of the videos I have recently viewed have pushed Chrome to crash.
May be Firefox is the sure thing.

Retrieving data on New York Times and Twitter

Sat, 14 Nov 2009 17:07:00 EST

There is a wealth of information (tons of it) in New York Times and the micro-blogging leader Twitter and it will be very useful and could be even remunerative to access data on them.

In this article, I look at two APIs, the Twitter API and the New York Times API and see how we can access data on them using the JavaScript libraries available on the Microsoft Edge Content Network also know as Microsoft Content Delivery Network (CDN). While jQuery is used to access API retrieved data on the intranet web server, the Microsoft AJAX client templates are used in displaying them.

Data in JSON objects are retrieved from New York Times and Twitter using jQuery and pushed into Microsoft AJAX templates.

Read this article brought to you from Packt Publishing company at
Hacking New York Times and Twitter with Microsoft AJAX and jQuery

Printing to Canon MP 210 printer using Windows 7 Ultimate

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 14:45:00 EST

The printer driver to print a document from a Windows 7 Ultimate computer to Canon MP 210 must be upgraded with a new driver before you can print. After installing the new driver whose download details given here it is easy to print from a computer running Windows 7 Ultimate RC.

However to print to a Canon Printer MP 210 connected to a Windows 7 computer from a WiFi networked computer you may face some problems. This notes describes in detail how you may successfully print from the networked computer.

Computer network details

Acer Laptop computer running Windows 7 Ultimate RC. The MP210 Canon printer is connected to this computer.
The Toshiba Laptop (Satellite P105-S6134) is WIFI networked with the Acer as well as several other desktops.

Follow these steps:

Verify that you can print from the Acer computer to the connected Canon MP 210.
When you Add a printer on the Windows XP the program prompts that a suitabe driver will be downloaded to the machine. If you go ahead it will indeed discover the MP 210 on Acer after some time as in Figure 1. However you will not be able to print.
Use the Canon diagnostic tool and enter into Troubleshooting window and choose the option to download a new driver. It will take you to Canon site where you can download the driver. After downloading and installing the driver restart your computer so that the changes can take effect.
First of all the discovered printer in step 2 would have disappeared and you need to browse for a printer again. This time it will discover the printer (make sure that Acer computer is on and running). Now you will be able to print from the Windows XP.

Here are some screen shots of the various steps above.

Figure 1: Shared Printers

Figure 2: OS Compatibility of printer

Figure 3: Downloading the driver

Figure 4: Installing the driver

Opera browser upgrades from 9.1 to 10.01

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 17:13:00 EST

It has a nice look and easy to install or upgrade. I did a fairly easy install. The file size is small around 6.8MB. It has quite a few new features that includes a bunch of gestures: Window, mouse, navigation, link, and wheel which allows various kinds of movements. I suppose if one is using this browsers daily one will get used to it. If you are like me who is whimsical then you may get confused. SpeedDial gets you the page you want with one click. It is turbo-charged and getting to there should be super fast. Here is a screen shot of the speed dial. It worked quite well with several web sites but when it came to showing my intranet it did slow down a bit for some of the pages. Perhaps there is some more configuration involved. What I did was an out-of-the box experiment.

Here is a screen shot of a new window in Opera10.

Here there are 9 place holders. Five of them are taken up. Click on the sixth and you get a drop-down pick list of various web sites previously visited. Pick the one you want and you are done.

Open Source Surge (Google Closure Tool)

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 18:17:00 EST

Javascript has suddenly matured and perhaps these are its best of times. There is a large number of JavaScript libraries vying for your attention and capture your heart. Review the article describing the various libraries on Wikipedia.

It all really started with the introduction of Dynamic HTML[DHTML] when Javascript provided the scripting ability to interact with the web page which had remained mostly static till that time. With the support of CSS and Javascript the stage was set for the web pages to take the users to the next level. The next big push came in with the introduction of AJAX. The concurrent effort by developers to somehow address the display disparity with the existing browsers and make the user experience uniform across different existing browsers and versions resulted in packaging the various libraries. Of course Microsoft Visual Studio also worked hard on making this uniform user experience across browsers a priority and the applications developed using this IDE fulfilled this wish mostly.

Most recently Google made available its toolset, the Closure Compiler. It is supposed to make Javascript to download and run faster according to Google. It is more like a refactoring tool for Javascript. It also checks for script coding errors etc. Moreover it is integrated with Firefox's PageSpeed and you can see for yourselves the gain in performance using the Google Tool. The tool can be used from command line as well as a simple web application.

The above Google URL also has links to examples of the tool's usage. One such example shows optimizing code by removing white spaces. Review this example here.
In the above example, it took in the script shown here:
---------
function hello(name){
//Greets the user
alert('Hello, ' + name);
}
hello('New User');
------------------------
and the Closure Tool optimized it to the following after removing white spaces (as well as the comments) :
-----------
function hello(name){alert"Hello, "+name)}hello("New User");
------------------------------------------------

Parse errors with line number and character position are provided by the tool but you will have to go and count those on your input code. Also there is no color coding or error position highlighting.

How to access the Closure compiler?

Click on this URL and you are ready, set and go.
.

Regarding IE 8.0 and jQuery

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 11:00:00 EST

Microsoft has chosen jQuery from among the different javascript libraries and has been giving increasing attention to it in its programming software regardless of this IE 8.0 still does not render all of jQueries selectors.

I read on the internet about other IE 8 problems vis-a-vis jQuery. The following figures show how different IE 8.0 renders the same content (I threw in a lot of selectors) when compared to other browsers. It appears that IE 8 can render the ID tag selector well but none of the others. I tried it out in the latest issue of Microsoft Blend Super Preview but it appears that rendering (interpretation) has remained the same from IE 6.0 to IE 8.0.

This is in IE 8.0

This one in Firefox

This one in Opera

This one in the latest issue of Super Preview. The left one is IE 6.0 and the right one is IE 8. I am not sure if the Super View is supposed to render css styles.

Installing Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate Was a Breeze

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 10:00:00 EDT

VS2010 comes in three flavors with increasing capabilities, Professional, Premium and Ultimate. Ultimate can do everything the others can and much more.

With the gathering of stuff in the clouds VS 2010 is built-in with capabilities to master the clouds by supporting Windows Azure.

It's only a short hop from now to launch time (March 2010) but it is worth trying it out.

Although it was a marathon installation experience (some 4 hours are so with two or three boots), it went on well on my Windows XP with Sp3 without a hitch except for the fact that Silverlight 3(one of the many programs in the installation package) failed to install. Yes, there was one more thing. The last message screen had a button which would take me to some documentation that failed as well. Anyway this time around the experience may be even termed pleasurable.

Here is a screen shot of the latest of the Visual Studio products.

Download Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Professional here.

Download Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Premium Beta 2 – Web Bootstrapper here

Download Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate Beta 2 Web Bootstrapper here

Competition in the Clouds for Microsoft - Amazon RDS

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 11:00:00 EDT

Microsoft cannot sleep comfortably. There is assault from all flanks- be it mobile, be it OS, be it the venerable Office, almost anything one can think of. Now SQL Azure has a competitor. Amazon Web Services is out with a relational database service, the Amazon RDS. It is still in beta and seems to do everything that SQL Azure will and can do: infrastructure provisioning, software maintenance, etc. What's more MySQL 5.1 database, the darling of open source gang will get stronger as it takes up center stage for Amazon RDS.
Also it is not 1GB or 10GB database, you can start up with 20GB if you want. It's going to cost money. Looks like it can range from 11c/hr to $3.10/hour depending on the size of the database you want to take to the clouds.

Sign up here for Amazon RDS

When you sign up you will be agreeing to use the following:

Amazon RDS
Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud
Amazon Simple Storage Service

Even if you don't use the latter two, you may have to pay for ECC since RDS uses ECC for CloudWatch Metrics.

After this you will be allowed to explore Amazon RDS

What about the tool to use to work with Amazon RDS?

You can use the MySQL tools to work with the RDS. For monitoring the usage, you use CloudWatch.

Oct 2009 Philly.net CodeCamp a grand success

Sun, 18 Oct 2009 11:51:00 EDT

This was my second attendance at Philly.net Code Camp at DeVry in Fort Washington (Oct 17) and I found it extremely interesting.The joie de vivre was contagious and all pervasive; the attendance was massive; the tracks were plenty and plenty of tracks covering most of everything about Microsoft products. The organizers must be congratulated for their excellent work.

I attended and sampled the various talks and the impression I carry is very positive. There were tracks for the beginners as well as for those who were already adept with many years of field experience.

I attended the following talks:

In Joshua Lynn's, ‘Advanced Workflow Process in T-SQL', he discussed the subtle differences between Exec and sp_executesql; executing dynamic strings; inversion of control, DQSM etc.

Miguel Castro did an excellent job of uncovering the innards of ASP.NET in his 'Understanding ASP.NET Under the covers'. He had seriously prepared and the talk (mostly on HTTP) was very informative and detailed.

John Angelini in his 'XAML Animation' did a good job of explaining Xaml animation both using Code and Expression Studio. I wish I were nearer to the screen. The code is too crowded to see from a distance.

Tim Dodd's 'Case Study: Clouds Demystified' was very informative. This was mostly infrastructure related and would have been more interesting if a portion of the talk was spent on laying the ground work for the general audience.

Chris Rolon's 'Introduction to SQL Azure' was very informative as he described his own experience in working with this product which is still in CTP. His presentation was clear and concise.

Well, I plan to attend the Code Camp coming April and if any of you are near Philly or South Jersy, I urge you to register with Philly.net.

Do you want to create a web page with Microsoft CDN?

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 14:02:00 EDT

Recently Microsoft placed javascript files that can be used to create web pages a la ASP.NET AJAX on their CDN. You can use them for free and create web pages. This article shows you how with an example and some background information. You can also access jQuery from the CDN.

Read this article [brought to you by eggheadcafe.com].

Microsoft ASP.NET AJAX on Microsoft CDN

Web page on IE 8.0

Web Page on other browsers

EnterpriseDB ratchet up its Postgres Plus Standard Server one more rung

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 16:24:00 EDT

With the release of v8.4 today this open source database is moving ahead full steam. The new release is reported to include many new features such as,

Parallel Database Restore
Per-column permissions
Per-database collation
ANSI SQL 2003 windowing functions
Provide pre-integrated and pre-installed enterprise add-on modules
Value integrated testing of add ons
and many, many more...

Download page for Postgres Plus Standard Server 8.x is
here.

For getting one-up on working with EnterpriseDB read my comprehensive earlier articles on this product at:
http://hodentek.blogspot.com/2009/05/here-are-my-recent-articles-on.html

You Want to Chart XML Data?

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 03:30:00 EDT

You can use Microsoft's Chart Control in ASP.NET 3.5 and craft your chart with ease. The following article brought to you from Packt Publishing shows you how. You can chart both attribute-centric as well as element-centric data with this chart control. The article also shows the code you need to write to add title and configure the axes.

Microsoft Chart with XML Data

Finally SVG in Visual Studio

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 10:01:00 EDT

I really liked SVG from the time it surfaced. Few tags are all that is needed for stunning graphics and amazing animations that can be scaled up and down. It's cute. Previously (even now, perhaps) all kinds of plug-ins were needed for visualizing, but now it appears that VS studio supports SVG files and what is more you can get even intellisense support.

According to the referenced link the author extrapolates that it would work in VS 2010. With the VS 2010 on my Windows 7 RC, it could not be repeated. However, the browser (internal as well as IE 8.0) seems to recognize the svg canvas. The intellisense also seems to work (so,so) but perhaps the SVG.xsd file may still have some cleaning up remaining.

Migrating a table from SQL Server 2008 to SQL Azure

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 09:30:00 EDT

With the popularity that SQL Azure is gaining [over 2 mega hits on Google today], one of the first things you may want to do is get your hands on to the product and get some experience creating databases, creating tables, populating tables, etc. Various tools have emerged, briefly summarized here and available in detail elsewhere on the internet and the MSDN forums. One such option is to use the SQL Server BI' s Integration Services [built for the specific purpose of integrating enterprise database resources]. This article brought to you from Packt Publishing shows the details of taking a table from SQL Server 2008 to SQL Azure using the Integration Services template in Visual Studio 2008.

Ground to SQL Azure migration using MS SQL Server Integration Services

Slice and dice with Pivot Tables and Pivot Charts

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 09:11:00 EDT

You want to visualize your data and make business decisions using your data on the backend server, but you are not an experienced BI developer using Microsoft SQLServer's BIDS or Visual Studio. Well, you can do nearly the same thing using your Excel product. You can look up data on an ad-hoc basis using Pivot Table and Pivot Charts using Microsoft Excel. If you want to know the mechanics of doing it, read the detailed article brought to you by DotNetSlackers.com.

Creating Pivot Table and Pivot Chart with data from SQL Server 2008

Start using immediately the Oracle SQL Developer Tool 1.5.4

Sun, 04 Oct 2009 20:43:06 EDT

Download Oracle SQL Developer Tool 1.5.4 from Oracle's web site: http://www.oracle.com/technology/software/products/sql/index.html Immediately after unzipping you are ready to start developing. Read this article before you start off so that you know what to do. http://www.sswug.org/articles/guestarticle.aspx?id=44384 If you want some help with the previous versions of this tool you may want to read this in my blog. here

Microsoft ASP.NET AJAX debut on CDN

Sun, 04 Oct 2009 11:18:00 EDT

Microsoft's ASP.NET launched a new Microsoft AJAX CDN service that provides caching support for AJAX libraries (ASP.NET AJAX and jquery) recently.

Google, Yahoo and AOL have been doing the same for quite sometime. The idea of hosting these files on CDN is to distribute your javascript and css libraries on several servers around the world and serve the user with requested information from a location nearest to the user. This is the main advantage of a CDN, delivering content from a location closest to the user to reduce delay. The CDN's are a combination of software and hardware.This is mostly used for content that does not chage over time significantly. The content servers are provided by such companies as Akamai, Mirror Image Internet, Limelight etc. It was rumored that Microsoft has an interest in Limelight but it appears many more are interested.

Google hosts several popular ajax libraries at the Google site. These libraries hosted on Google CDN can be used for animations, easier DOM navigation, Gadgets, etc.

Dojo Toolkit organization hosts its javascript and style related files on the AOL CDN. If you need to use Dojo this may be easiest place to start with. These are also on Google CDN.

Read my article where I used javascript hosted on AOL CDN and the style sheets from my intranet to demo jQuery inside a DOJO accordion.

Yahoo's YUI (Yahoo User Interface) library hosts its Javascript and CSS on Yahoo CDN. Read more about Yahoo CDN here..

Mahatma Gandhi - Champion of the under dogs

Fri, 02 Oct 2009 14:54:00 EDT

To day is the day we should remember Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948). He was the root cause for India coming out of the occupation by the British Empire and find itself once again as one nation under the sun. He was a straight shooter and did not mince words. He has to his credit many quotes, the one I like is this,

Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.

India has entered a new era of prosperity but we should always keep in mind how Gandhi overcame the odds against him, and the nation. We should remember that he did it in a manner that is gentlemanly, unique and original.

Read his autobiography on Amazon.com:
http://www.amazon.com/Gandhi-Autobiography-Story-Experiments-Truth/dp/0807059099/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1254509552&sr=1-1

Read my Cold Fusion articles

Fri, 02 Oct 2009 09:17:00 EDT

Not the low-temperature nuclear fusion articles but the down to earth Adobe's Cold Fusion. Presently it is version 9.0 but the articles I wrote a couple of years ago are still useful. In fact I am planning to revisit Cold Fusion 9 to savor the enhancements.

I hear there is even a <cfspreadsheet> tag to interact with all kinds of data. This and the <cfchart> tag should be a very interesting combination. To get the latest on Cold Fusion and find out what's new read this article by Ben Forta.

In the mean time brush up your skill set reveiwing the following articles.

Installing the ColdFusion MX Server

My First Applcaition on ColdFusion MX_Server

Everything You Must Know About ColdFusion Variables

What You Must Know About Operators in ColdFusion!

What You Must Know About ColdFusion Flow-Controls

Querying SQL 2000 Server with ColdFusion

CFAjax What it is and how to use it?

Creating a web service with ColdFusion: the basics

CFXML: Probing XMLDOM in ColdFusion

How to Access a SQL Anywhere Database with ColdFusion

SQL Azure and MS SQL Server Integration Services

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 19:15:00 EDT

Enterprise data can be of very different kinds ranging from flat files to data stored in relational databases and XML datasources. The extraordinary number of database related products, and their historic evolution, makes this task exacting. The entry of cloud computing has brought area into the forefront as SSIS has been one of the methods indicated for bringing ground based data to cloud storage in SQL Azure, the next milestone in Microsoft Data Management. Presently the following methods are indicated:

Run Insert statements SQL Manager to populate tables schema created using SQL Azure MW*
Configure SSIS to bring in data
BCP [perhaps in next CTP of SQL Azure]

The first method works and can be very fast (only a small table was tested )

It may be noted that SSIS is another tool to bring in tables (so far only tried this object in the initial tests) to SQL Azure although only table schema is migrated and not the data. If the table were to have a clustered index, data porting may also be possible. In the test conducted the table did not even have a primary key column.

* It appears that the recent tweaking of SQL Azure MW can bring in the entire database according to a posting on the Oakleaf Systems blog site.

Designing a data access page with EnterpriseDB Data

Sat, 26 Sep 2009 16:34:00 EDT

Microsoft Data Access Pages (DAP) was a great hit when suddenly data could be web enabled dynamically and user could say good bye to static HTML. There are still many DAPs fans who continue to use DAPs. With Office 2007 that ability was lost and Microsoft showed that ability was available in MS SharePoint Services. However, there are many who cannot move over to Office 2007 as they have their resources (programs) tied to older technologies.

The following article brought to you by EggHeadCafe.com is addressed to those folks and DAC aficionados and shows step by step how you may develop a DAP with data on a Postgres Database.

Please review the article at eggheadcafe.com

Web access to EnterpriseDB with Data Access Pages

Two Great Tools to Work with SQL Azure

Sat, 26 Sep 2009 15:15:00 EDT

SQL Azure Migration Wizard is a nice tool. It can connect to (local)Server as well as it supports running scripts. I tried running a script to create 'pubs' on SQL Azure. It did manage to bring in some tables and not all. It does not like 'USE' in SQL statements(to know what is allowed and what is not you must go to MSDN). For running the script I need to be in Master(but how?, I could not fathom). I went through lots of "encountered some problem, searching for a solution" messages. On the whole it is very easy to use tool.

Getting Started with SQL Azure

Wed, 23 Sep 2009 08:30:00 EDT

It was quite easy to connect to SQL Azure using IIS 7 Database Manager in my Windows 7 machine. Given the fact that the products are still in initial stages this is very reassuring. The messages that comes from SQL Azure to IIS 7 Database Server's interface are at best confusing but if you can sweat it out (Keep trying!!!) you will see some light. Other featrures(!) of the connectivity are slow response |No Response etc.

My experience connecting to an SQL Azure database

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 17:19:00 EDT

I got my invitation code to a space on the SQL Azure. After accepting and validating the same, a master was created for me. I created my first cloud based database HodentekModa.

I tried connecting to my database using SQLCMD but got a strange syntax error.

Pursued another avenue. Created a UDL file to test the connection. This was a success. Here are the steps if you want to test.

Step 1: Create a text file and change its name and extension to create a UDL file. Herein it was named: AzureSQL.UDL

Step2: Double click the file to open the Data Link Properties page

Step3: Fill the details as detailed here:

Provider: SQL Server Native Client 10.0

Select or enter servername: tcp:xxxx.ctp.database.windows.net

Use a specific user name and passord:

User Name: yourUserName@xxxx

Password: Your Password (1 number, 1 special character and few letters)

Select Database : Type in the name of database you created in SQL Azure

Your test connection should be successful with the above settings.

SQL Azure Will Dominate the Cloud

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 05:00:00 EDT

With SQL Azure Microsoft's SQL Server enters the AZURE environment providing similar services as its ground based product. The Community Technology Preview is available for download on registering but I am yet to get mine. For details of why and how, access the team blog at http://blogs.msdn.com/ssds/. SQL CTP's main technical features: Relational data model supporting many features of T

Twitter and Pornography

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 08:40:00 EDT

Recently I have noticed a number of people trying to follow me (http://twitter/subbagiri). I was naturally flattered. My elation subsided when I clicked on the URLs to find they just had Pornographic content.

My articles on Data Access Pages

Sat, 19 Sep 2009 17:58:00 EDT

Dynamic content is at the heart of successful presentation of enterprise information on the Internet. Without the ability to present data with user interaction, Internet based commerce will be ineffective. It is possible to create dynamic web pages with data from the enterprise by using several technologies, including MS Access. Why MS Access in these days and times? Well, many businesses still use them.

Data Access Pages, a client side technology, depends on DynamicHTML. It is DHTML data binding with ADO that makes Data Access Pages possible. If you are using MS Access and attempting to place your data on the web do yourself a favor by reviewing the following articles:

Data Access Pages: What they are and how to create one ?

Using Microsoft Script Editor for Data Access Pages

Scripting a Data Access Page: a Simple Example

Creating Data Access Pages from Scratch

Creating Data Access Pages with Charts using Office Web Components

[compare these charts to those created by MS Chart Control in ASP.NET 3.5]

Teacher's Day (September 5) in India

Sat, 05 Sep 2009 06:17:00 EDT

"The aim of education is not the acquisition of information, although important, or acquistion of technical skills, though essential in modern society, but the development of that bent of mind, that attitude of reason, that spirit of democracy which will make us responsible citizens"
Dr. S. RadhaKrishnan

President and philosopher who figured in the early years of India whose birthday is celebrated as Teacher's day

On USING SSIS to transfer data between SQL Server 2008 and MySQL

Fri, 04 Sep 2009 07:36:00 EDT

There are a large number of posts on various difficulties experienced while transferring data from MySQL using Microsoft SQL Server Integration Services. While the transfer of data from MySQL to Microsoft SQL Server 2008 is not fraught with any blocking issues, transfer of data from SQL Server 2008 to MySQL has presented various problems.

For data interchange with MySQL there are two options one of which can be accessed in the connection wizards of SQL Server Integration Services assuming you have installed the programs. The other can be used to set up a ODBC DSN as described further down. The two connection options are:

MySQL Connector/ODBC 5.1
Connector/Net 5.2 New versions 6.0 & 6.1

In this article we will be using the ODBC connector for MySQL which can be downloaded from the MySQL Site. The connector will be used to create an ODBC DSN. The article describes in detail how the transfer is carried out. Read on ....
this article brought to you by PACKT PUBLISHING.

MySQL Data Transfer using Sql Server Integration Services (SSIS)

Pick up the mechanics of working with SQL Server Integration 2005 under 10 days reading my no brainer book on SQL Server Integration Serivces.

Do you want to generate a Microsoft Chart chart from your Linq Data?

Fri, 04 Sep 2009 07:21:00 EDT

LINQ, short for Language Integrated Query, provides an object oriented approach to not only querying relational databases but also any kind of source such as XML, Collection of objects, etc. LINQ to SQL provides (O/R) object-relational mapping and Visual Studio 2008 IDE provides a (O/R) designer. Visual Studio 2008 also has a web server control called LinqDataSource control. This control requires a DataContext which is provided by the LINQ-to-SQL classes, a class generator that maps SQL objects to the model. Without this control one may have to generate the classes from scratch or by using the SQLMetal.exe utility which generates tables and columns.

This article brought to you by PACKT PUBLISHING shows how a table on your SQL Server 2008 can be bound to a LinqDataSource Control and then use it as the source of data for the chart. Read on...

Binding MS Chart Control to LINQ Data Source Control

Things I did not know about India

Tue, 25 Aug 2009 09:12:00 EDT

Visiting Bengaluru in India I found there were things I did not know about India. I found India is tougher (more frequent) on emission standards than USA. Here are some I did not know about. I may add to this list......

I did not know that they do emission testing for cars every six months
I did not know that they do emission testing every 3 months for two wheelers and three wheelers
I did not know that consttuoonally you have a choice of not casting your vote to any candidate if you so wish as, "I do not want to vote for anyone on this poll as no one in my opinion is good" is one of the choices.
I did not now that gas prices can be set as odd as Rs 15.32 per liter. [While Rs 0.3 is worthless what good is there in going to the next decimal place].
I did not know that selection of students to top technical / medical colleges has become very transparent (no influence peddling)
I did not know that there is a constitution backed PCPNDT act in India which makes it illegal to determine the sex in prenatal diagnostics.
I did not know that most traffic signals derive their power from Solar panels.
I did not know...

A New Video Tutorial on Microsoft SQL Services Integration Services

Mon, 24 Aug 2009 14:15:00 EDT

I confess this is my first video tutorial and it is made possible by an evaluation
copy of Adobe's Captivate. Adobe Captivate is an easy to use programme.

The video describes fully, in a matter of 10 mintues the SSIS 2005 IDE. SSIS 2008
is almost similar to SSIS 2005 in most respects. The IDE is described in even fuller detail
in my book on integration services, 'Beginners guide to Microsoft SQL Server Integration Services 2005'
published by Packt Publishers in UK.

Video: Visual Studio 2005 IDE for SQL Server Integration Services

Watch this video and update your knowledge about this important product from Microsoft. You
may watch this video for free by regstering as a guest.

Extremely promising High performance 'Lithium Air Battery' Development in Japan

Wed, 19 Aug 2009 11:13:00 EDT

A February 2009 report by the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) describes a new type of Lithium Air battery, the salient features of which are as follows:

The lithium air battery uses a combination of aqueous and organic based electrolytes

Has achieved a capacity of 50000mAh/g based on an air electrode

The lithium fuel battery is comprised of using lithium metal in the form of cassettes or other forms

Here is a schematic of the battery from their publication and a chart showing its performance.

Figure 1: Schematic of the battery

Figure 2: Performance of the battery being developed

The author of this blog is responsible for the translation of figure details and is grateful to the public relations department of The Naional Institute of Advnaced Industrial Science and Technology for the use of the notes and figures (Figures 1 and 2).

SQL Anywhere Server and AJAX

Wed, 19 Aug 2009 09:45:00 EDT

AJAX has dominated the web space so extensively that it needs no introduction. Connecting to a server via XMLHttpRequest and making a partial page refresh is what makes this technique so attractive. However, use of these AJAX requests, although very attractive, can pose dangers as well. JavaScript acts as a vector to infect websites with worms, such as SAMY, using cross-site scripting, also known as CSS or XSS.

Rich Content with a Database Server

Mon, 17 Aug 2009 22:00:00 EDT

Enterprises are increasingly being called upon to provide a high level of user experience with compelling and interactive content. Serving enterprise content and data securely to internet / intranet has become a very common necessity and is routinely handled by web servers. Web services technology, on the other hand, addresses the application-to-application transparent interaction over the web using industry standards. Delivery of web services can also be handled by databases which are responsive to HTTP requests. In this article a simple example of serving a static web page containing dynamic content from a SQL Anywhere 11 database server is described. The web page has examples of jQuery, DOJO, as well as an embedded ADOBE flash file.

My problem with VS2010 Beta turned out to be a bug

Tue, 11 Aug 2009 19:10:00 EDT

Microsoft recently provided a link to fix the problem in response to my Connect feedback:

https://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/ViewFeedback.aspx?FeedbackID=481884&wa=wsignin1.0

This appears to be a bug which will be corrected in Visual Studio Beta2 (date tbd).

The following preventative measure is provided in this KB article from Microsoft. Thank you Microsoft for following up the connect feedback.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2001109

The problem is summarized here:

http://hodentek.blogspot.com/2009/08/problems-installing-microsoft-visual.html

You should give credit to the web site or the article author

Sun, 09 Aug 2009 15:05:00 EDT

Information is available in plenty on the Internet, but it does not mean that you
can copy and reproduce without giving credit to the web site or the
author of the article. This amounts to plagiarism.

I have given enough notice and warned the web site of the following
article to give credit where it is due or take it off. A few of the sites
which violated were warned and they took immediate action. The following
site has refused to take action even though it was warned twice.

Well, I would consdier removing this post if the web master contacts me regarding this post at his / her site.

Microsoft Jet or MSDASQL for Linked Servers?

Fri, 07 Aug 2009 10:05:00 EDT

In SQL Server 2008 you can create linked servers with a variety of data sources as seen in this figure. Linked Servers are created using OLE DB technology and there are two possible ways that
you can connect to MS Access, using Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0 or MSDASQL.

The connection strings for these are:

[oledb]
; Everything after this line is an OLE DB initstring
Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0;Data Source=C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\OFFICE11\SAMPLES\Northwind.mdb;Persist Security Info=False

[oledb]
; Everything after this line is an OLE DB initstring
Provider=MSDASQL.1;Persist Security Info=False;Data Source=FromAccess

Now which is better for a linked server? You will find the answer to this in the following article brought to you by SSWUG.ORG. This is site where you subscribe, but you can register as a guest to view this article.

Microsoft Access 2003 Linked Server on SQL Server 2008 using the JET and MSDASQL Providers

Problems Installing Microsoft Visual Studio Team System 2010

Thu, 06 Aug 2009 10:00:00 EDT

Installing this software (humongous) has been very challenging. Take for example the following which I removed completly from my Windows 7 RC by restoring the system to the earliest date (When windows 7 RC was installed for the first time) since it did not work. The installation program might have sent what went wrong to Microsoft perhaps a dozen times. I have posted the problems to the appropriate forums after each such trial, but no positive answers so far. Well, Windows 7 itself is in RC and on top of this another beta. It is really getting out of hand. Looks like I am not the only with the problems,

Fortifying Microsoft SQL Server Integration Services

Wed, 05 Aug 2009 13:15:00 EDT

Change Data Capture is the most recent important change in the way the ETL Process is perceived for a dynamic business environment. In a generic sense CDC may be understood as, "What did change since the last time I looked it up?" In an image recognition situation this may mean what has changed in the scenery from the previous frame (it could be a few pixels or, a major part of a scene). In a database with huge amount of data one may want to know what has changed in the last ten days? ten minutes? ten seconds? to make a intelligent business decision.

MySQL Linked Server

Tue, 04 Aug 2009 17:16:00 EDT

Linking servers provides an easy solution when you are faced with running queries against databases on distributed servers or looking at your distributed assets on disparate databases.

This article (brought to you by Packt Publishing Inc.) explains how to set up a MySQL linked server on SQL Server 2008 Enterprise. Configuring a linked MySQL server as well as querying a table on the MySQL linked server is described. The reader would benefit reviewing the first article on this series on MySQL Servers.

MySQL Linked Server on SQL Server 2008

Web enabling MySQL Data

Mon, 03 Aug 2009 11:49:00 EDT

Web enabling business data is one of the key devices used to advertise and market products. This can be done with various technologies such as VB, ASP, JSP, ASP.Net and many others. This article shows how you may view data from a table in a database on a MySQL database server on a web page.

This article is brought to you by Packt Publishing Inc.

Displaying MySQL data on an ASP.NET Web Page

Am I missing an Indian Language here?

Mon, 03 Aug 2009 10:55:00 EDT

Microsoft has a big stake in India. Microsoft has lotsa software workers of Indian origin. How come I cannot see any Indian Language here?

Improved calculator application on Windows 7

Thu, 30 Jul 2009 14:28:00 EDT

Some new features have been added to the calculator (calc.exe). Even programmers and statisticians may want to use this tool.

All 4 calculator types can be accessed from the view menu. Here are the four different types.
Standard

Scientific

Programmer

Statistics