admin

If you want a quick and easy way to check SQL Server connectivity, without resorting to the full blown functionality of WireShark (or similiar), you can use Microsoft’s PortQryUI utility to troubleshoot TCP/IP connectivity problems. PortQryUI is a GUI on top of the PortQry command line tool, with predefined groups of ports to scan. One of the these groups targets SQL Server, which consists of UDP port 1434 and TCP port 1433. To check these ports, enter the IP address (or fully qualified domain name) of the target SQL Server instance, select SQL Service in the ‘Service to Query’ drop-down box and click the Query button.

If the ports are OK, the utility will list the ports as Listening. Otherwise, it will tell you the ports are being Filtered or are Not Listening.

You can download PortQryUI from here: PortQryUI – User Interface for the PortQry Command Line Port Scanner.

Microsoft have announced the Beta version of the IIS Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Toolkit, over at the official Microsoft IIS site (www.iis.net):

The IIS Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Toolkit helps Web developers, hosting
providers, and Web server administrators to improve their Web site’s relevance
in search results by recommending how to make the site content more search
engine-friendly. The IIS SEO Toolkit includes the Site Analysis module, the
Robots Exclusion module, and the Sitemaps and Site Indexes module, which let you
perform detailed analysis and offer recommendations and editing tools for
managing your Robots and Sitemaps.

A colleague, Piers Williams, mentioned the topic of disk partition alignment to me last week, and Microsoft have recently released a whitepaper on this “essential yet often overlooked” subject.

In Windows Vista as well as Windows Server 2008, partition alignment is usually performed by default. The default for disks larger than 4 GB is 1 MB; the setting is configurable in the registry.

On the other hand, partitions created on versions of Windows up to and including Windows Server 2003 by default are not aligned. Partition alignment must be explicitly performed.

There must be hundreds of thousands of systems out there incorrectly aligned, and consequently under-performing.

Join us at the Perth .NET Community of Practice, Thurs June 4th to hear Joe Albahari present on using your .NET skills to write a program to sell over the Internet. Sound hard? It’s easier than you think! This presentation will cover what Joe learned in setting up a successful Micro-ISV (Independent Software Vendor).

TOPIC: .NET Micro-ISV
DATE: Thursday, June 4th, 5:30pm
VENUE: Excom, Ground Floor, 23 Barrack Street, Perth
COST: Free. All welcome

There will be door prizes of a 10-user team license for LINQPad Autocompletion (courtesy of Joe) and a ReSharper license (courtesy of JetBrains).

More details here: http://perthdotnet.org/blogs/events/archive/2009/05/13/net-micro-isv-or-get-rich-working-from-home.aspx

To celebrate turning 1, the Australian MS Press Online Bookstore is offering 50% off all books until 30th June 2009. To receive the discount, enter this code at checkout MSPRESS1

Also, MS Press has an Amazon Price Match Promise on all books. If you find a cheaper priced book on Amazon – MS Press will match it. For more details visit the website.

If you are running Vista and have Windows Update turned on (you do, don’t you?), you will have no doubt noticed that Service Pack 2 has been released. More details here.

I meant to blog about Marcus Meli’s time-saving FileHelpers .NET library some time ago. It’s a free, open-source .NET library to read (write) delimited or fixed-length files to (from) strongly-typed arrays, or Excel, Access and SQL Server:

FileHelpers are a free and easy to use .NET library to import/export data from fixed length or delimited records in files, strings or streams.

After delaying for far too long, I’ve finally replaced my aging PC with a completely new one. It’s another DIY build (where’s the fun and love in buying one off-the-shelf?), and the really great thing about DIY builds is you get to choose premium components, rather than the generic cruft present in most boxes. It’s made a large hole in my budget, but a man’s got to have a hobby! 🙂 I was originally going to take photographs at various stages in the build (ala Jeff Atwood’s article), but ultimately I just wanted to get the thing up and running.

Here’s the Spec:

• Intel i7 Quad Core 3.2GHz
• Noctua SE1366 CPU Heatsink and Dual Fans
• Asus P6T Mainboard
• OCZ Vertex 120GB Solid State Drive (Primary Drive)
• Western Digital 1TB hardware RAID 1 (Mirror)(Secondary Drive)
• 12GB of Corsair Tri-Channel 1333MHz RAM
• Asus EAH4870/HTDI/512MB Graphics Card (might buy another of these)
• Asus DVD RW 22x Drive
• Antec 183 Tower Case (with extra sound dampening)
• Corsair 620W 80+ Modular Power Supply
• Samsung 23” HD LCD

I’m running Windows 7 64bit Ultimate RC. The boot time is so fast it will make you weep as you wait 3 minutes for the PC you’re reading this on to boot up! 😉

I have to say that Windows 7 is a real joy to use. I’m really looking forward to this going RTM.

I was originally going to use one of the Western Digital 150GB 10K rpm drives as the primary hard drive (an excellent hard drive, and a firm favourite), but I decided to splash out on a Solid State Drive (SSD). These are still expensive, but over the next 18 months, the price of these will drop dramatically. [If you’ve just won the Lottery (and have 450.00!! Despite being a great case (with great airflow, excellent sound dampening features, behind the back plane wiring etc.), the Antec 183 is very over-priced in my view. The 183 is practically identical to the previous 182 but they took out one of the very large but quiet fans, and then jacked the price up $50 (go figure)!

The only tricky bit was (as usual) installing the enormous (and I don’t use that term lightly!) heatsink with the dual push-pull fans. I don’t think there is another heatsink on the market that removes heat so effectively (great for over-clocking), but they don’t come cheaply.
The ATI chipset 4870 gave me a heart stopping moment when I booted the beast for the first time. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. I rechecked all connections, tried again. Still nothing. “Hmmm”, I thought. My nose hadn’t detected the escape of any essential “Magic Smoke”, which is always a good sign.

The Asus EAH4870, like most new PCI-Express x16 graphics cards, needs an extra 12V ATX power source due to its high current draw. Well this particular model requires not one but two extra 12V power rails! When I was installing the card, I couldn’t help notice that the 4870 had 2 6-pin 12V sockets on it. I plugged in one and thought “Surely it can’t require two…”, but it does.

(Note: one slightly odd feature of buying an expensive case is that you won’t get one of those 50 cent case speakers, which means if your motherboard does not have an onboard fault diagnostic LED display (the Asus P6T doesn’t), you won’t hear the tell tale beeps for problems with RAM, Video card etc)

All I need now is a bigger desk to accommodate a second Samsung 23” LCD monitor…

Somasegar’s blog announcement: http://blogs.msdn.com/somasegar/archive/2009/05/18/visual-studio-2010-and-net-fx-4-beta-1-ships.aspx

MSDN subscribers can download from here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/subscriptions/downloads/default.aspx?pv=18:370