August 2007 Blog Posts
If you browse to http://learning.microsoft.com/Manager/Catalog.aspx?view=free you will find a number of free courses that Microsoft is offering via its inline learning centre.
Most are two hour courses and cover topics such as:
Microsoft Security Guidance Training
Getting Started with Microsoft Windows Server 2003 R2
Inside Look at Building and Developing Solutions with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007
Introducing Enterprise Telephony Using Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007
Introduction to Developing with Windows Presentation Foundation and Visual Studio 2005
Understanding the...
I have been using this product for about 10 months now and find that it is great for me to find and view object level details in our Active Directory.
I like to write my own applications to update active directory but this tool is great for just browsing and navigating around AD and other LDAP directories.
Softerra LDAP Browser is a lightweight version of Softerra LDAP Administrator with limited functionality and is absolutely FREE for all kinds of use including commercial! Unlike Softerra LDAP Administrator, the Browser does not allow its users to modify LDAP directories.
This is version 2.6 which...
I see that there is now offical talk of a Code Camp in Christchurch, New Zealand in November 2007 which is good to see. I hope for some confirmed dates soon.
This is great news as the Mainland as we call it (the South Island of New Zealand) has never had a Code Camp before.
For pre-registrations and more details see http://dot.net.nz/Default.aspx?tabid=108
The theme of the code camp is Next generation, back to basics.
New releases of C#, VB, .Net, ASP and SQL are iminent. This code camp will focus on getting up to speed with all of this, plus cover migration stratigies...
How many of you who have forked out the extra bucks for the Windows Vista Ultimate version of Windows have got very use to seeing the following image?
I thought that I have only seen this message for ages so I took a look and this is the last ultimate extra I got:
Checkout that date - March 21, 2007
Well today is August 25, 2007 so that is only 5 months with no updates.
What a complete and utter waste of time Microsoft for wasting everyones time with this package of nothing!
When are you going to realise that people get pissed this...
I am working on some Active Directory tools for work so we can automate account creation, home directories, exchange mailboxes and other things.
As part of this I needed to create Exchange Mail boxes.
Now Microsoft has this article http://support.microsoft.com/kb/313114 that is titled "How to create a mailbox-enabled recipient by using Visual C#" perfect, exactly what I needed.
But the article is a bit old but in general it is OK, the requirement is that the following must be installed.
Microsoft Exchange 2000 System Management Tools on the computer on which this code runs
We can assume that this also can mean the Microsoft Exchange 2003...
Below is a simple c# console application that shows how you can set the NTFS ACLs for a directory.
You are probably aware of the DirectoryInfo object which you can use to get details on a folder, but there is also the ability to get and set the NTFS file ACLs (Access Control List Entries)
No special reference need to be made in order to use the code.
using System.IO;
using System.Security.AccessControl;
namespace DirectoryPermissions
{
internal class Program
{
private static void Main(string[] args)
...
Well I went to TechEd in Auckland about 10 days ago and I am still getting this in my VS.NET Start Page
Maybe they just want to get some real early bird reservations.
I found an interesting post from a work colleague "Simeon Pilgrim" at http://simeonpilgrim.com/blog/2007/08/23/how-to-rewriter-systemconfigurationcommadelimitedstringcollection-wrong/ that shows that in the System.Configuration namespace there is a very simple class that will create a comma seperated string for you.
The class is called CommaDelimitedStringCollection and you must add a reference to System.Configuration in order to use it.
There is a simple example of how to use it.
using System;
using System.Collections;
using System.Configuration;
namespace Commas
{
internal class Program
{
private static void Main(string[] args)
...
While working on IIS 7 this morning I got the following error while trying to save some configuration settings to my Default Web Site
"
There was an error while performing this operation.
Details:
Access is denied. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80070005 (E_ACCESSDENIED))
"
The error message displayed was not that friendly but I got a general idea - unable to save my changes!
There are a couple of clues :
Only occurs while saving - so sounds permissions related
The line in the status bar says "Configuration: 'Default Web Site' web.config". What this means is that the UI...
I had a request last week for the following:
I'm trying to do the following:
Stop a IIS website
...
I met up with Eric Woersching (who is a Technical Program Manager for IIS) while at TechEd in Auckland this last week and found that he had a great post on how the Microsoft.com Ops team installed IIS 7 and Windows Server 2008 into their environment .
There is a 38 Minute video available on his blog site that is well worth a look if you are interested in this type of migration which I assume we all are as we will all have to do this at some point.
For more details see http://blogs.iis.net/ewoersch/archive/2007/06/27/video-microsoft-com-operations-team-opens-up-on-deploying-iis7-early.aspx
To learn more about how the Ops Team for MSCom...
Carlos Quintero (MVP) has just released MZ-Tools 6.0 for VS.NET (http://www.mztools.com/v6/mztools6.aspx).
MZ-Tools is a productivity add-in for Visual Studio .NET that supports VB.NET, C#, Visual J# and C++ (partial support) and adds 40+ features to the IDE to locate code faster, to code faster, to design faster, to generate documentation and to enhance your IDE experience. This new version targets VS.NET 2002, 2003, 2005 and 2008 (aka "Orcas") in a single version."
MZ-Tools will allow you to enjoy the following benefits during the development of your applications:
To write code faster: There are features that will allow you...
I was talking with Eric Deily today at TechEd New Zealand in Auckland and he was discussing the size of the IIS product team.
Te team basically consists of :
8 or 9 Product Managers
18 Testers
16 Developers
I would have assumed that there would be more than this but I always knew it was a small team.
If you are interested in SQL Server there is a great set of podcasts available at http://www.sqldownunder.com/
Greg Low MVP and Microsoft Regional Director has setup this pod cast site especially for SQL Server related pod casts.
Currently there are 23 pod casts available for download as .WMA or .MP3 files.
Here is a list of the podcasts to date,
Show 23 with SQL Server author James Luetkehoelter
Show 22 with guest Kevin Kline
Show 21 with guest Joe Celko
Show 20 with guest Richard Waymire
...
We have two functions below which are basically identical except the actual method of stripping off the time portion of the datetime variable.
CREATE FUNCTION [dbo].[DateTimeToDate](@DateTime datetime)
RETURNS DateTime
AS
BEGIN
return CONVERT(VARCHAR(10),@DateTime,111)
END
CREATE FUNCTION [dbo].[DateTimeToDate](@DateTime datetime)
RETURNS DateTime
AS
BEGIN
return cast(cast(@DateTime as integer) as DateTime)
END
declare @StartDateTime datetime
declare @EndDatetime datetime
declare @dt datetime
declare @Count int
set @StartDateTime = getdate()
set @Count = 0
while (@Count < 10000000)
begin
set @dt = dbo.DateTimeToDate('2007-10-1 1:45pm')
set @Count = @Count+1
end
set @EndDateTime = getdate()
select @EndDateTime - @StartDateTime
We run the script above which calls the function 10 million times and the results are quite close
...
I have been given a task of updating our SQL Server Infrastructure from SQL 2000 to SQL 2005 and I found this table that I thought may be of use to a lot of people. If you are running SQL 2005 on a 32BIt CPU this table shows which is supported and which is not.
Enterprise Edition1
...
Here is something that I have known about for ages but have not thought about posting before but since we all buy books it is a useful tip.
Borders in New Zealand has a book club, you need to sign up in store and they will then send you emails basically every week with deals for the next few days. It looks like you can now sign up at www.borders.co.nz as well.
Last week there was 40% off any book, the biggest I have seen is 50% off any book.
There are limitation such as products on special are not included etc.
Now here...
I have started to look into the VOIP (Voice over IP) service, well not really VOIP, well it sort of is, but it is called VoBB
Voice over Broadband (VoBB) Xnet VFX (Virtual Fone Xchange) will revolutionise the way you use your phone by merging it with your Broadband connection and putting your phone line under your control for the first time. Removing the need to have a standard telephone provider.
Using the My VFX account management portal, you now have the power to control features such as call forwarding, voice mail notification to your email at home or work, three way calling...
I took a look around the IIS MVP list today and noticed that there is 23 listed now.
We come from a lot of different backgrounds and countries as broken down below:
USA (6)
Australia(3)
China (2)
Poland (2)
France
Honduras
Korea
Malaysia
Netherlands
New Zealand
Sweden
Switzerland
Turkey
Unknown
https://mvp.support.microsoft.com/communities/mvp.aspx?product=1&competency=Windows+Server+-+IIS
I have noticed lately that I am unable to connect to www.iis-resources.com any more.
It just times out when making a connection.
I noticed the site owner Jeffrey Tindillier posted this comment to his MVP profile.
"
I recently returned to the IIS PSS Team in Dallas but was given an opportunity to work with the SharePoint Dev Team.
"
I assume that means he looses his MVP status as I beleive you can not be a MVP and work for Microsoft.
I have not found any other comments about his IIS site, but maybe there is no place for independant IIS sites now that www.iis.net covers...
The book gives you a short introduction with many exercises about the interactive part of Windows PowerShell as well as some hints how to use other objects like WMI, .NET or COM objects like Excel or Internet Explorer.
The book is available for free and you can share it with all your colleagues or friends if you leave it as it is. The books can be used with or without the demo files available.