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What to do when the SA account password is lost in SQL Server 2005 and you can not find anyone in the sysadmin role

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I hasten to add that this has not happened to me (so far), but I wanted to record for future reference. Raul Garcia‘s blog post Disaster Recovery: What to do when the SA account password is lost in SQL Server 2005 lists a step by step procedure for disaster recovery in such a situation.(Note: Raul’s blog has moved to the SQL Server Security blog).

Occasionally Connected Systems with SQL Server CE and SQL Server Express: Greg Low

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Join us at the Perth .NET Community of Practice, May 8th to hear Dr Greg Low talk about occasionally connected systems using SQL Server Compact and Express editions. These two editions of SQL Server are of great interest to developers. In this session Greg will cover the appropriate uses of each edition and describe the benefits and limitations of each in some detail. He will focus on building and deploying applications with each edition.

TOPIC: Occasionally Connected Systems with Greg Low
DATE: Thursday May 8th, 5:30pm
VENUE: Excom, Level 2, 23 Barrack Street, Perth
COST: Free. All welcome.

Please Note: this session is a week later than our usual first Thursday of the month slot.

Greg Low is an internationally recognised consultant, developer and trainer. He has been working in development since 1978, holds a PhD in Computer Science and a host of Microsoft certifications. Greg is the country lead for Solid Quality, a SQL Server MVP and one of only three Microsoft MSDN Regional Directors for Australia. Greg also hosts the SQL Down Under podcast (www.sqldownunder.com), organises the SQL Down Under Code Camp and co-organises CodeCampOz.

Greg will also be presenting at the SQL Server user group on Weds, 7th May at Change Corporation’s offices on one of my current favourite topics: dynamic management views and custom reports.

I’m organising going out for dinner after Thursday’s talk. If you would like to come along, please RSVP to me by email, otherwise I can not guarantee you a place.

Is the iPhone as good as the hype would have you believe?

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Nope. It’s actually better! I can honestly say, hand on heart, the iPhone is the coolest, sexiest bit of technology I have owned. The design is amazing, ease of use is phenomenal, it is very intuitive across many applications. In short, it’s a design classic. To quote that lynchpin of style, “It’s Groovy, Baby!”.

The Nokia classic model that I’ve had for several years (it’s another design classic, in my opinion) was starting to look a bit battered and outdated, though it still works fine. I’ve been thinking about getting a replacement since last year, and kept putting it off because none of the models I looked at were that compelling; each seemed to be missing something, that certain ‘je ne sais quoi’. A while back I was considering a HTC Dual but got put off by the display model which seemed to be falling apart after only a short time on display in the shop.
Recently, I had pretty much decided I would like an iPhone but found myself wavering. Rick Strahl’s post Justifying an iPhone, tipped the balance and I took the plunge. The iPhone is not officially released yet here in Australia (apparently, a 3G model is due to be released towards the end of 2008), but that does not mean you can’t use one right now. Despite the fact that Apple seem to favour the ‘lock in business model’ (and I definitely echo Rick’s negative feelings about this shortcoming), I predict these will sell like hot cakes when they are released here.

Rick’s follow up post, Custom iPhone Ringtone Installation, mentions how you can unlock your iPhone using Ziphone and use your existing SIM card and provider.

I know it’s a cliche, but I can’t imagine Microsoft ever designing something so sexy. I only wish they would! Really I do. Whatever happened to the “Microsoft: Change the world or go home” mantra (late 2006), or the ‘user experience’ push (early 2007)? User Experience does not mean rounded corners and ‘aeroglass’ fades! I mean come on, fess up: was Vista really such a technological leap forward?

Remember this?

Frank Arrigo has a post over at his blog, Did someone mention Win2K??, where he admits surprise that more than 50% of his readers are still running XP. There’s probably a good reason for that, Frank! [On the subject of Vista, what maniacs dreamt up that awful bloody Vista retail box? The one that required extra sticky-tape additions to give clues how to open it!]
Don’t get me wrong. Microsoft has significantly changed the software development landscape (among other things), and will continue to do so. I just feel they are not achieving their full potential.
Since I’ve taken the Apple plunge, I think I might buy a MacBook Air next (although I really would like that Intel Quad core)!! I feel sorry for those Microsofties, who secretly want to buy an iPhone! 😉

Perth .NET User Group: April Meeting

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April’s .NET user group meeting, ‘Delivering on the Promise of SOA’ with Bill Poole, was another success with a great turnout (49 people).

After a quick introduction, Dave Gardner gave an overview of the library that we have put together, which now contains around 90 books. It’s free for members use, and includes some great learning resources.

As you can see, it was standing room only. [The empty chair was Stephen Liedig’s who took these photos!]

Bill did a great job of covering a huge amount of material in the one hour session; I walked away with several ideas to consider and think over; I particularly liked his section on anti-patterns. If you were not able to make this session, Bill has kindly posted his slide deck here. We will hopefully get Bill back for another session to cover more of this important topic.

Thank you to Bill for presenting this session and thanks to everyone who attended, and to everyone who helped make the evening a success.

GTA IV Trailers

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Not much longer to wait for GTA IV, unless of course you’re hanging out for the PC version (as I am). There are a bunch of trailers here. Love the last one, which is done ala ‘koyanasqatsi ‘ (if you’ve never seen that film, go and get it. It’s amazing.).

Mole and PowerCommands for Visual Studio

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Yesterday, 2 colleagues pointed me to two very useful tools for Visual Studio.

Mole is a data visualiser that has been tested on WPF, WCF, WF, WinForms and ASP.NET projects on VS2005 and VS2008, C# and VB.NET. Not only do you get a nice bit of software (for free!) but in addition, the creators have put together tutorial videos and a manual. You can download it here.

The other tool that was mentioned was PowerCommands for Visual Studio 2008 which seems to be an updated replacement for CoolCommands 3.0 (for Visual Studio 2005). Definitely worth a look.

Last but not least, I have not been keeping up with the latest developments in Mocking, namely Moq. This looks like an interesting library.

Thanks to John Barrett and Adrien Brown for the heads up.

Team Foundation Sidekicks 2.0

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I must have missed the announcement of Team Foundation Sidekicks version 2.0 back in January. This version introduces a number of bug fixes, new Code Review Sidekick and a Visual Studio integration package. It also supports both Team Foundation Server 2005 and 2008. If you’re not already using it, it’s a great add-on for TFS:

“Team Foundation Sidekicks is a suite of tools for Microsoft Team Foundation Server Administrators and advanced users providing Graphic User Interface for administrative and advanced version control tasks in multi-user TFS environments.”