Medge

Another issue with SQLServer 2005

2007-01-18T11:18:00.000+10:30

Remote servers.

Our main database is an Ingres database, the web database is now SQLServer 2005. Occasionally we need to link data from both(for checks etc). Unfortunately Ingres cannot do cross catalog queries(no idea why, but as Postgres can't either, I blame the designer). Fortunately if you link in a remote server in SQLServer you can perform cross catalog selects. Simply set up a remote server for each Ingres catalog and use :

select *

from ingresdb1..owner.table_name

union all

from ingresdb2..owner.table_name

making sure you have set ansi_null and ansi_warnings to on.

However after I set up an ODBC connection to Ingres on the SQLServer 2005 database(which is no fun either as you need to set up IngresNet first and log in using the admin password) and then set up a remote server to Ingres in the SQLServer manager I ran a test query, it brought the whole server down.

Now MySQL cannot link to remote servers(that I know of), but I have yet to ask it to do something I know it can do and have it crash completely, I used to be able to say that was mostly true of SQLServer, but the 2005 server has been online for two weeks and crashed more than a dozen times in that period.

DON'T USE IT! EVER!

SQL Server 2005

2007-01-17T15:10:00.000+10:30

Stick with me on this one:
I've just installed the client tools for SQLServer 2005. I have a small C: drive and needed to install it on my E: drive.

I tell the installer to install to e:\program files\Microsoft...
It tells me there isn't enough room
I check drive e: to see that there is enough room, restart the installer and try again
It still fails!
I notice there is a button on the installer that will tell me how much disk space it needs
- it needs 150mb on e:
- 1.4GB on c:
- It will install .net 2.0, visual studio developer and a whole lot more on the c: drive and I cannot change it
I uninstall a couple of applications and move them to the e: drive
I get enough room on my c: drive(just)
It installs

All I want to do is set up a regular backup on the database. It's is simple on the previous versions of SQLServer, but on 2005 it isn't.
I end up using the maintenance wizard to build a job that will back up the database. At the end it tells me that 1) The T-SQL isn't the real T-SQL that it will run as I have asked for weird configurations and 2) It cannot save the job as their is an error. It's a fucking wizard, I typed and selected nothing, just clicked 'next' a lot.
I think I have got it running but I've used a large number of versions of SQLServer and one of the good things about it is the minimal time it takes to dump a large database. In this version it is taking forever.

In summary SQLServer adds very little to the database engine, server, whatever, just a lot of added crap to the extras and uses a hugh amount of disc space to achieve it.
I really hate Microsoft; SQLServer was their only worthwhile product but it now appears the SQLServer development team has been infiltrated by the marketing code bloaters.

Word to the wise, a database server serves data! Add tools to make backup easier and you are away.
MySQL must be very happy with SQLServer 2005 as it's just another good reason to migrate to MySQL.

PS: The JTDS JDBC driver still talks to it, which is one thing.

Open Office 2.1

2006-12-14T08:52:00.000+10:30

I've written a mail merge for OOo documents. Originally targeting OOo 1.x (now removed) with extensive rewrites to cover 2.0(OOo became 100% standards compliant). With the release of OOo 2.1 I checked to ensure it still functioned as expected, as it is still complying to the same standards this should be a no-brainer. It was, my mail merge runs against OOo 2.1 just as it did against OOo 2.0.

Take some notes here Microsoft - no wait, you do understand standards, but if you conform to a standard then you will sell less crap. The power of open source, open standards.

Lessons to be learnt

2006-11-07T16:30:00.000+10:30

If your name is Gene and you are attending a Guy Fawkes party at a friends house do not let either myself or Neil anywhere near the blue touch paper. Sometime, however, this is unavoidable.

Things to remember

2006-10-31T10:42:00.000+10:30

1) Never try to put lazy loader into daomedge. Honestly! I've tried three times now and each time I come across another section that will be compromised if I did. I should remember that I wrote it to be simple and for the user to handle the persistence. I don't want the value objects to know about the DAO. The DAO is transient.

2) The company that we get our system from hasn't got a clue! I have spent a large amount of my time trying to find the link between a data table and a reference table. It doesn't seem to exist, anywhere. Reference information on a data table. Important information used in calculations stored in a FREE TEXT FIELD! What the hell are they thinking? They haven't heard of normalization or any other data design concept.

I need a drink.

As a footnote: I am loving the inline spell checker in Firefox 2.0!

This site is the funniest yet.

2006-09-01T09:19:00.000+09:30

Again I thought this was a good religious parody site but then I realised it was true (despite this).

So funny...

Then there is this...

2006-08-26T10:44:00.000+09:30

...which isn't funny at all. http://www.human-rights-and-christian-persecution.org/coptic.html.

And it keeps getting funnier...

2006-08-26T10:32:00.000+09:30

... every single time I see this type of thing.

Firstly this :

Willisee : "Please god don't let the plane crash.".

[Plane crashes]

Willisee : "Ah, god must exist!".

is, well, just plain weird.

Secondly

Christ, like all those crucifed by the romans, died of asphyxiation. To do this they needed to be tied or nailed up for sometime. Nails through the palms of the hands won't do it which is why the romans et al nailed the victims through the wrists any stimgata wounds in the palms is wrong, totally and utterly wrong. One of the earliest sects, the coptics, gets it right.

And this one is funnier

2006-08-21T17:06:00.000+09:30

Funny, funny stuff

Madonna and Kabbalah.
Here's a thought, put Madonna in a room of very toxic and high grade nuclear waste and let her clean it up with a jar of her kabbalah fluid.

She would get points (from me at least)for actually attempting it. I doubt she has that kind of faith in it.
If she actually succeeds in cleaning it up Mr Randi has a million dollars to give her(or her favourite charity).

A brilliant joke!

2006-08-20T16:21:00.000+09:30

This is a wonderful joke.
That is until you follow this link at the bottom.

Home Again

2006-07-07T15:01:00.000+09:30

This puts a lie to the holiday blog, could be bothered really.

However, some observations about the latest trip:

We were told, on the flight to the US, that it is against the law to gather in groups of more than two while queuing for the toilets. It is part of the US security arrangements, I presume because terrorists first get on the plane and then work out what they are going to do.

I can see that security has been tightened up in Japan and the US, in Japan the security guards are conspicuous and your photo is taken unobtrusively going through the airport. In the US we are photographed, finger printed, interogated and at every check point my shoes where x-rayed.

In Japan the extended security measures where noticable, but didn't get in the way, in the US they created delays. Remember we weren't going to the US, but were transit to Canada. After the initial bullshit that went on, Bean insisted we get some buffalo wings at LA airport so I could remind myself that there are some really great things about the US, stuff we genuinely like. It worked; real buffalo wings whose sauce clawed your eyes out as they approached, and were so hot I nearly didn't finish them!

Yeah Sony

2005-12-02T21:38:00.000+10:30

Mirrormask is to get an Australian release, yeah.

Well, when I say Australian, I mean Sydney and Melbourne

Sony are complete bastards

You cannot copy the film, you cannot get the film from the US(wrong zone) and we sure as hell ain't going to let you see it at the cinema.

Good thing de-zoned DVD players are all over the place and are here to stay, if the ACCC has anything to do with it, otherwise I'd never get to see it.

Human Rights

2005-12-02T21:12:00.000+10:30

Mandatory death sentences are a violation of human rights. A death sentence does not deter anything. 14 Years, 420 people in Singapore, and people still smuggle drugs into the country. 29 years 1000 people in the US and people are still murdered.

The population of Singapore seems to be behind the mandatory death sentence and Howard seems to think that it will affect the people to people relationship between the two countries. Nothing official though. Australia and the world have imposed trade sanctions against countries for less.

If anything is to come from Nguyen Tuong Van's execution is that the Singapore government and people will learn that they cannot violate human rights like that and not, as our moronic Prime Minister suggests, that the youth of Australia will now avoid taking drugs.

There was an article in the local paper(The Advertiser) where a woman said they Nguyen should hang as her 21 year old daughter died from a heroin overdose. I wouldn't blame the drug smuggler, I'd blame the pusher who put her on to the drug(neither of them where Nguyen), but mostly I'd blame the person mostly responsible for her daughter's death, her daughter.

Remember, all of you remember, a drug addict is a drug addict by choice. Take responsibility for your own actions people.

ACCC And DVD zones, final post (until something happens)

2005-11-30T15:58:00.000+10:30

I have just got a phone call from an nice guy called Jon at the ACCC. He said that as manufacturers are releasing de-zoned players and have no plans to stop, the ACCC feel that it is not an issue: but if one of them do (like Sony did with their Playstations) then they will be willing to step in.

So, as the situation now stands, dezoned players in Australia are going to easily available, don't listen to any retail outlets about plans to legislate against dezoning of players and if they do then the ACCC will be willing to intervene.

Jon mentioned that the issue might involve the Australian Copyright Council, but this isn't really a copyright issue, other than the parallel importing of DVD's being explicitly exempt from the parallel importing of other media, which I suspect is because the DVD's are zoned. The argument that it is all about release dates is hardly relevant as

It won't be a parallel import if it isn't available here yet

Release dates of DVD's are usually a long time after the cinema releases world wide

If the cinema release date in Australia is post the US DVD release date then that serves them right for leaving us out of the loop

When it comes to TV shows, then the people to blame are the Australian networks (usually channel nine), so again it serves them right

unfortunately the Australian Copyright Council is unhelpful when it comes to asking about issues re copyright law or justification behind decisions.

It boils down to this: The ACCC doesn't want to spend the money to fix something that isn't broken, yet. Particularly as the fallout will be global.

So the answer to the question "Will the ACCC do something about zoned DVD players if the manufacturers(eg Sony) start insisting their players must be zoned?" is "Yes".

The answer to the question "Aren't manufacturers insisting that all players be zoned in Australia now?" is "No, not that we know, and we would know! Don't listen to retail outlets anywhere, they don't know. But if it did happen we'll be there."

Alright that was paraphrased, but it was quite a simple answer to a simple question, woner why it took so long to get it.

ACCC Still behind the times...

2005-11-25T13:16:00.000+10:30

The Australian High Court has ruled that the use of Mod Chips to play games from other zones was legally protected by our copyright rules; CNET article.
This should also apply to DVD players, but it currently has not been explicitly stated. The ACCC is in a good position to try again, if they could be bothered.

I'll check.

Syd Barrett

2005-09-12T14:20:00.000+09:30

After a very vivid dream last night where I was visited by Syd Barrett and we discussed his health and well being. I also had trouble finding my copy of Crazy Diamond for him to sign.

I mentioned this to Helen and she pointed out that this is just the kind of thing that Syd is likely to do, but that I hadn't pointed out anywhere on my site that I was Pink Floyd fan.

So here I am, just in case Syd is browsing and stumbles across my site; I am a Pink Floyd fan!.
That ought to do it.

As a foot note we made great strides towards both of our mental well being.

What do Beavis and Butt-head and James Bond have to do with each other?

2005-08-18T15:44:00.000+09:30

Over on Poppy Z Brite's blog she mentions the idea of substituting a word in a book title with the word "butt". Apparently a Beavis and Butt-head special.

I have come across this before, only it was the word "dog" and movie titles, the best series of titles being the Bond films.

On Her Majesty' Secret Dog

Dogs Are Forever

The Dog Who Loved Me

From Russia With Dog

But after a bit of this we started to use the word "beaver", but "butt" works just as well.

CBLDF and First amendment Protection

2005-08-11T11:45:00.000+09:30

These two organisations are there to stop censorship, a worthwhile endeavour in anyones language.
To this end ebay has some nice auctions up.

Lots of neat places to turn up...

MirrorMask

2005-08-07T17:31:00.000+09:30

It is possible that MirrorMask is not getting a theatrical release in Australia and it should.

A single letter sent to Sony Pictures Austrlia will translate in their mind as a hundred people wanting to see it. A good form letter is here (rtf).
DOwnload, change the dates and names, print, sign, post. It's a crazy idea but it might just work!

What Am I? [with fixed link]

2005-08-03T17:22:00.000+09:30

From www.whatiam.net:

"In today's America, ask a growing number of high school and college students; their teachers and professors; the self-anointed media elite and/or hard working men and women of all ethnicities, the question, 'What is a Republican?', and you'll be told ' ... a rich, greedy, egotistical individual, motivated only by money and the desire to accumulate more and more of it, at the expense of the environment ... the working poor ... and all whom they exploit...'

"I am a Republican ... I am none of those things ... and I don't know any Republicans who are."

And then there is a list of what he is. You might want to read that first.

Firstly this ad cost him $US104,655.60 to run. It would take me four years to earn that much after tax, assuming I don't eat, live etc. So far from being "none of those things" he is rich.

From his list, he is definitely egotistical.

He knows his God is the one true God. So he is amazingly arrogant. He doesn't claim not to be though, so that is one thing.

He claims to be a loving husband and father; then spends up to 80 hours per week away from his family giving them a "better life". So he is motivated by money. Ideally earn enough to be comfortable, and enjoy your family and your life.

He says he know all about the depression, and yet strives to reproduce it by using the stock market.

He claims that he understands about free speech, but decries anyone who actually uses it and disagrees with him.

He condemns those who claim there is racism in the US. I'll bet he will say "some of my friends are black!", but it would never occur to him to say that some of his friends are white.

He says he is proud that his president uses his belief in God, despite the constitution. So he is proud his president acts illegally.

He is also proud that his president doesn't confirm to the political whims of foreign governments. Is he also proud that his president insists those foreign governments conform to the political whims of his president?

All in all, I would agree with the premise of this advert. If I am asked what is a republican in the future, I will not reply '... a rich, greedy, egotistical individual, motivated only by money and the desire to accumulate more and more of it, at the expense of the environment ... the working poor ... and all whom they exploit...', instead it will be the more succinct '... they a wanker!'

SourceForge

2005-07-29T16:45:00.000+09:30

I've got a couple of java projects on sourceforge(daomedge and mailmerge). Today I released a new version of daomedge. Sourceforge is insisting each version has a unique name(ideally the version number is attached), this is probably a good time, but I'm not totally sold.

It would also have been nice if they told us this was happening.

Then again, they might have and I'd not read it.

The practical upshot of all this is futire releases of daomedge will be daomedge-x.x.x.jar etc.

Continuum 3

2005-07-20T08:52:00.000+09:30

Ever had one of those days where you have been so busy that we don't notice you are really enjoying yourself? We've just had two of them, although Bean was a bit slack on the Saturday as she was reading Harry Potter (She finished it as well).

I have to say that looking after Neil Gaiman was, again, a lovely experience. He is one of mother natures genuine sweet hearts. The only real complaint I could made about the whole con, was that, as Neil's minders, we didn't get to see much of the other guests. Richard Harland was enthusiastic and fun, Robin Hobb came across as being lovely, although a bit quiet. We "pulled rank" a little to get into the closing ceremony early and see Poppy Z Brite who is a sweet person with a lovely smile.

All in all the weekend was a success; people enjoyed themselves, we caught up with old friends and made new ones.

I was talking to Jocko, the fan guest of honour, about whether or not he was giving the con value for money, he was unsure and I remember that we were unsure when we were FGoH. Bean and I were Fan Guests before at Constantinople, if you can cast you mind back that far. Fan Guests are not, usually, chosen for what the convention can get from on the day but for what they have done for fandom over the years, in that respect Jocko was real value for money.
He didn't turn up to be on the panel he was meant to be on with me, he had been distracted by another one, but that was OK as the panel went well and you cannot get annoyed with Jocko, about anything, ever.

Just feel the need to name drop now (what do you mean NOW?). Other people we caught up with:
Trudi Canavan, Sean Williams (Why do we only catch up with Sean in Melbourne or Perth), Sean McMullen (With his delightful daughter Catherine in tow), Bean has a lovely photo of Sean and Catherine, looks odd as it seems to depict Sean strangling his daughter but is, in fact, Sean with Catherine's head on his shoulder and his hand wrapped around her head, a spontaneous, loving moment. Jack Dann was there, as well, being Jack Dann.

The maskobello was really good; lovely goth outfits attached to beautiful goth people abound, some really good and eerie costumes. I went as Jack Sparrow and won a signed MirrorMask book. Neil wrote "To Captain Jack Sparrow. Where's the rum?" in it. I was chuffed.

Am I getting through to people?

2005-07-01T20:28:00.000+09:30

Today, whilst walking to the pub, I was passing a man in the street, on the outside.

I am a fast walker and tend to overtake a lot of people, I usually do this on the outside so as to make it consistent with the driving style.

All of a sudden this guy needed to cross the road and made little "I'm turning left signs". He then checked his blind spot, saw me and apologized for cutting me off. He hadn't, but only because he checked first.

Most of the time I find myself dodging around people who don't look and usually don't care, this guy did both. It's those nice, little, social things that put a smile on your face.

Are we having fun yet...

2005-06-21T14:05:00.000+09:30

Lack of choice, lack of competition, precedent and the like are not enough.

There is no legal recourse based on refusal to supply an item.

Unless that refusal is illegal. The ACCC has some examples that cover this, but it boils down to "If it is not illegal to refuse supply, then the supplier can refuse supply". My point is, and always has been, is that it should be illegal to supply zoned DVD players in Australia.

Consider parallel importing of CD's. The ACCC fought for and got that through, and it will stay. What makes DVD's different?

Hollywood, that's all.

If zoning wasn't introduced in the first place, we would be allowed to parallel import DVD's. Hollywood created the zoning idea, and we accepted it. The ACCC doesn't seem to fully understand the situation, they just keep telling me that that's the way it is.

And it boils down to copyright, zoning does nothing to prevent pirating, nothing at all.

DVD Zoning should be illegal in Australia

2005-06-16T14:36:00.000+09:30

Did you know that the Trade Practices Act (TPA) prevent practices that restrict consumer choice? Did you know that DVD's are exempt from the parallel importing copyright amendment?

Why?

The TPA allows you to select the DVD release you want, regardless of region because different regions get different versions (and different titles in some cases). Check out DVD Compare for the full details. Add to that the PAL/NTSC differences
(PAL Speed up ) and we get a very good reason to allow parallel importing and protection against zoning in the TPA.

So I fire off a query to the ACCC about this to see if they are doing anything about it.

They aren't!

I got a message back explaining the regioning system (which, oddly enough, I know all about) with a single paragraph explaining why they are doing nothing (There is no real difference between regions). I cannot reproduce the entire thing here as they have a copyright notice on the base of all their emails.

The question remains; Why are the ACCC scared of Hollywood?

They are also scared of the banks.

Come back Allan Fels, please. The ACCC has lost it's teeth, we need a champion.

Twenty minutes of research on the web and you can get enough ammunition for the TPA to remove zoning permanently, provided you have the authority. The ACCC has the authority, but it doesn't have the johnstons!