How to podcast?

The NxtGenUG have just released an excellent podcast on how to do a podcast. This was recorded at the Microsoft Community Leaders Day last week. If you are interested in doing your own podcast then this contains some excellent information about how to go about it.

Also mentioned is a SQL Server Community Day along the same lines as Developer Day (DDD) that is going to happen on the 6th October at Microsoft’s campus in Reading.

Some of the tips include using audacity for editing, and Kevin MacLeod‘s work for the music.

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RTFM on SQL Server 2008 (Spatial)

As a software developer I obviously have great difficulty in actually reading the fine manual before plundering onwards. It is only when I can’t get things to work or see what I’m supposed to do that I begin to think that perhaps there might be some useful nugget of information hidden away somewhere.

And so it was with the SQL Server 2008 (Katmai) June CTP. I’d heard that there was going to be spatial querying available in the next version of SQL Server, and so there is. It just won’t be available in the June CTP (CTP3). Nor will it be available in the next CTP (4) either. SQL Server 2008 Spatial will hopefully be available after that.

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Installing SQL Server 2008 (Katmai)

I’m just installing SQL Server 2008 (Codenamed Katmai) June 2007 CTP. The installation isn’t without its problems – which is fine for the moment. It is a CTP after all.

The main problem is with the prerequisits. The installer will try an install them for you, but it fails to get as far as installing even the .NET Framework. It would seem that these things have to be installed manually in advance at the moment.

If installing the full thing SQL Server 2008 does require access to IIS. I don’t think I’ll by using any of those features so I’m not going to bother – we’ll see how that works out. It will be interesting to see if it is easy to go back and add features or if it will require a complete reinstall. I’d imagine that most people will install just the minimum they need and go back and install more as they need it. This helps keep the attack surface minimised.

So, other than the installation of the prerequisits being a bit a bit dodgy everything else seems to have gone very smoothly. Hopefully, I’ll be playing with all the new spatial stuff. That’s what I’m really looking forward to.

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Aye! Right!

I just got this email purporting to be from PayPal. I don’t believe the email.

Dear valued PayPal member:

It has come to our attention that your PayPal account information needs to be
updated as part of our continuing commitment to protect your account and to reduce
the instance of fraud on our website.  If you could please take 5-10 minutes out
of your online experience and update your personal records you will not run into
any future problems with the online service.


However, failure to update your records will result in account suspension.
Please update your records on or before July 06, 2007.

Once you have updated your account records, your PayPal session will not be
interrupted and will continue as normal.

To update your PayPal records click on the following link:
http://72.189.180.57/updateusersonlinesecurity.html



Thank You.
PayPal UPDATE TEAM

What makes me think it is a fake? The URL does not contain PayPal’s domain name. It is a simple IP address.

So, who owns the IP Address?

OrgName:    Road Runner HoldCo LLC
OrgID:      RRSW
Address:    13241 Woodland Park Road
City:       HerndonState
Prov:       VA
PostalCode: 20171
Country:    US

And what about the real PayPal. Their IP Address is 216.113.188.64.

Also, the email didn’t have my address in the “TO” box (So I’m guessing all the recipients were BCC’d into the list) and the reply address is no-reply@google.com.

I have sent an appropriate email to Road Runner letting them know that someone is using their servers to host phishing sites. Hopefully it can be taken down promptly to prevent any less savvy people falling victim to this really quite amaturish attempt at a phishing scam.

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Useless Error Message

Exception Processing Message 0xc0000013 Parameters 0x75BE023C 0x8343FCBC 0x75BE023C 0x75BE023C

Pointless error message

Well here’s a pointless error message from Microsoft Powerpoint 2007 running on Windows Vista.

What actually happened is that I picked from the list of recently opened files a presentation that was saved to a USB key which is no longer present. While the dialog title bar does give useful information to the user, the main message is filled with useless rubbish as far as a user is concerned.

Pressing cancel doesn’t immediately help – It just repeats the message. You have to click cancel a fair few times before it eventually tells you something useful – Such as it can’t actually find the file with the given path name.

Why wasn’t the user told immediately that it couldn’t locate the file instead of being presented with a bunch of hex?

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It happens every time!

Every time I go to Microsoft at TVP something goes wrong with my travel plans. This time it was for DDD5 (Developer Day 5)

The previous time it was because the M6 was shut, the time before that I got as far as the South Lakes before I realised I’d forgotten my medication. This time I was held up at Heathrow because the doors on the aircraft got jammed shut at the had to get an engineer to “look” at it for 40 minutes.

Now I’m just about to check out of my hotel and take fly back to Glasgow only to find that some nutter has driven their flaming car into the Main Terminal at Glasgow airport and the airport it shut and now my flight is cancelled as a result. I’m furious!

DDD5 – quick report

Well, DDD5 was earlier today. It was a great day with lots of really interesting talks. So far this has been by far my favourite DDD. The first session was my own. I did a presentation on an Introduction to Unit Testing with Mock Objects.

By far the best speaker of the sessions that I attended was Gary Short who talked about Agile in ISV Vs Enterprise. It was informative, funny and entertaining. In short (no pun intended) Gary brought humour to an otherwise dry subject. This was especially needed as his audience would otherwise have been dozing off after their lunch. I am definitely going to try and get him to repeat that talk in Glasgow sometime.

Afterwards was the Geek Dinner. This was held in a restaurant at the side of the River Thames. The location was wonderful, the company brilliant. The weather wasn’t either – it was bucketting down. Also disappointing was the food, or lack thereof. What I got was in no way worth £16 per head, both myself and John had to go to McDonald’s afterwards to “top up”. It was fantastic to try a different venue after going to Pizza Express the last few times, but this one didn’t work out in my opinion.

Over all a great day made better by a fantastic community