General Computing

40% off Microsoft Press Books at Books24x7

Colin Angus Mackay — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 20:10:31 GMT

If you are like me, then you spend hundreds of pounds per year on books, yet at the end I still don’t think I have access to all the books I’d like. I can’t go to my local library because they don’t stock the books I’m interested in. So for the past year I’ve been using Books 24x7 which gives me access to many more books than I’d ever be able to afford to buy for myself. I can search the books for the information I’m looking for on the web and if I want to take it off-line I can download a PDF.

At the moment they have an offer where by you can get 40% the subscription fee.

Follow these steps to receive a 40% discount to Books 24x7 E-Reference Library for Microsoft Press Titles, a virtual library that contains over 500 technology books that are published by Microsoft Press.

Go to http://www.microsoft.com/learning/books/ereference/default.mspx
Note: You can also watch a demo of E-Reference Library by clicking the "Watch an E-Reference demo" link on the page.

Click the "Subscribe to an E-Reference Library" link at the top of the page.

Click the link to the type of library that you would like to purchase. On the next page, you can review a description of the library.

Click the Add to Cart..

Type the discount code below that corresponds to the library type that you selected, and then click Apply.. The discounted price will be reflected.
Discount Codes:

Desktop Library: EREFDESKB

IT Professional Library: EREFPROB

Developer Library: EREFDEVB

Complete Library: EREFCOMPLETEB

Complete the checkout process to purchase the E-Reference Library at the discounted price.

Tip of the Day #9 (The Project Location Is Not Trusted)

Colin Angus Mackay — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 23:52:10 GMT

This tip is to get a tool called ZoneStripper by James Kovaks to stop the annoying "project location not trusted" dialog box, below, appearing when you open downloaded solutions in Visual Studio.

If you download zipped source code from the web, unzip it and then open the solution in Visual Studio 2008 (and apparently VS 2003 and VS 2005 as well) you may get a dialog that says "The project location is not trusted" ... "Running the application may result in security exceptions when it attempts to perform actions which require full trust." A bit like this:

What happens is that when you download something from the internet Windows (from Windows XP SP2 onwards) will add an alternate stream to the file called zone.identifier. If the file is a zip it will then add that alternate stream to each of the files as it unzips.

You can view this stream by typing something like the following at a command prompt:

notepad DevWeek2009_PreCon.zip:zone.identifier

You can then read the contents of the alternate stream:

What the ZoneStripper program does is delete the zone.identifier alternate stream from the file so that zone aware applications (and the OS) treat the file normally.

Note: If you unzip the files to a FAT based file system then you won't have a zone.identifier in the first place as the FAT file system does not support alternate file streams.

Showing progress in the Windows 7 Taskbar

Colin Angus Mackay — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 00:09:46 GMT

I just spotted something really cool in the Windows 7 taskbar. When you download something and minimise the download window in IE to the task bar, the button for the application will continue to show the progress and have a green bar make its way across the button.

Windows 7 has some pretty cool features.

Are people really this gullible

Colin Angus Mackay — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 08:03:55 GMT

I just got this in my email:

Let your email come to you.
With Yahoo! Mail Alerts, you'll know
the instant you get one.
Account Alert
Dear Valued Member,
Due to the congestion in all Yahoo users and removal of all unused Yahoo Accounts,Yahoo would be shutting down all unused accounts,You will have to confirm your E-mail by filling out your Login Info below after clicking the reply botton, or your account will be suspended within 24 hours for security reasons.

UserName: ....................................

Password:........................................

Date Of Birth: .........................................

Country Or Territory:..............................

After Following the instructions in the sheet,your account will not be interrupted and will continue as normal.Thanks for your attention to this request.We apologize for any inconvinience.

Are people really this gullible as to send their password unencrypted in a plain text email?! Not only that but in a manner that outwith the bounds of any previous interaction with the alleged company in question.

Well, I suppose if people are willing to hand over their passwords for £5 I shouldn't be surprised.

THIS EMAIL IS A FAKE!
DON'T RESPOND TO IT!
YOU ARE ONLY HURTING YOURSELF!

SQL Server / Visual Studio Install Order

Colin Angus Mackay — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 14:02:10 GMT

Yesterday I paved my laptop in order to upgrade to Windows Vista. I've now started to reinstall everything from scratch again. However, one thing that didn't work out was the installation of SQL Server 2005. No matter what I tried I could not seem to get it to install the SQL Server Management Studio - somehow it was convinced that it already existed. I eventually figured out why.

I'd installed Visual Studio 2008 first, and as part of that installation it installed SQL Server 2005 Express edition. The express edition does not come with SQL Server Management Studio. When I went to install SQL Server 2005 it refused to install the management studio saying that more up-to-date versions of the tools were already available on the machine. (Well, I suppose some of them were, at least the ones installed by Visual Studio 2008's installer). Running the Service Pack 2 upgrade did not help either. It concluded that the client tools were not valid as part of the upgrade and refused to install them.

Eventually I came to the conclusion that it would be quicker, given my recent wiping of my laptop to just start afresh again and install things in the correct order. I suppose I was lucky to have that option. I am also lucky that I don't activate Windows until I'm sure everything is installed correctly - after all I do have 30 days to activate Windows. I'd hate to have lost an activation of Windows because of a dodgy install.

So what is the installation order I've now used that works:

Windows Vista SP1
Windows Update (my install required 33 updates)
SQL Server 2005
SQL Server 2005 SP2
Visual Studio 2008

Technorati Tags: sql server,sql server 2005,visual studio,visual studio 2008,windows,vista,windows vista,sql server 2005 express,sql server express,installation,install

PLEASE NOTE: The above is what worked for me. I've also heard that it has worked for others too. It comes with no warranties of any kind.

If you are having difficulty installing your SQL Server you may like to ask a question on one of the many fine forums that are available for asking questions of that nature. I tend to hang out on Code Project and may be able to help there. If I'm not around then one of the many other great members can possibly help you on their database forum.

A Cautionary Tale

Colin Angus Mackay — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 09:17:54 GMT

XKCD can be variable in quality (or maybe I just don't understand all the jokes), but it has this cautionary tale about Linux:

Technorati Tags: xkcd,catroon,linux,caution

Tip of the Day #7 (SysInternals)

Colin Angus Mackay — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 14:47:33 GMT

I've visited the SysInternals site a few times over the course of my career because of some strange problem that I just couldn't track down. The amount of information about what is actually happening on your system that the SysInternals tools provide is phenomenal. The site was run by Mark Russinovich and Bryce Cogswell until they got hired by Microsoft. However, the tools are still available and being updated, only now they are hosted by Microsoft themselves.

So, today's tip is to visit the SysInternals page on Microsoft's TechNet site and familiarise yourself with what is available. You might find that one day it will save you hours of frustration.

Tip of the Day #6 (Keyboard Shortcuts in IE)

Colin Angus Mackay — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 07:56:57 GMT

If you prefer to use your keyboard more than your mouse then you may be interested in this set of keyboard shortcuts for Internet Explorer 6 and 7.

Technorati Tags: ie,internet explorer,keyboard,keyboard shortcut

Aggressive Spam Filters

Colin Angus Mackay — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 01:06:33 GMT

Today I discovered quite by accident that I have 9 genuine emails sitting in gmail's spam trap that were sent to me over the last 24 hours. The genuine emails were from Microsoft, Quest, Redgate and Scottish Developers! I hit the "not spam" button for each of them so hopefully gmail learns and I'll get them in future, but for the next few days I'll be watching my spam folder for potential genuine messages disappearing.

Technorati Tags: spam,gmail

Behave yourselves!

Colin Angus Mackay — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 19:42:11 GMT

Here is some advice on how to behave properly on internet forums:

How To Behave On An Internet Forum

Technorati Tags: behave,forum,internet,video