Scott Hanselman

This was helpful today. I had a machine with the Aug CTP of SQL Express 2005 but I can't remember if I included an sa? I don't even remember if there was one. I think that it was a silent install and there's a strong password created for it then it's disabled, so I need to fix that. Anyway, I needed to enable mixed mode for my samples' existing connection strings to work, and I haven't got any SQL Client Tools lying around, I was on a VM.

I enabled mixed mode in the registry by chaning this key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL.1\MSSQLServer - LoginMode =2

Then I made a new user for my purposes

C:>SQLCMD -S.\SQLEXPRESS -E
sp_addLogin 'usernamepoo', 'passpoop'
GO
sp_addsrvrolemember 'usernamepoo', 'sysadmin'
GO

Back in business...seems to me that simply shipping a decide admin tool would obviate the need for this nonsense. Sure there's one to download, but it still seems like duplication of effort. And, for the CTPs, the current version of the Express Manager is June, which is less helpful for me in August.

Now playing: Counting Crows - Mrs. Potters Lullaby

About Scott

Scott Hanselman is a former professor, former Chief Architect in finance, now speaker, consultant, father, diabetic, and Microsoft employee. He is a failed stand-up comic, a cornrower, and a book author.

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I totally want to get this Free Mini Mac. You can see the advert on the top of my site. Basically the deal is that you give them your information and sign up with one of their affiliates. The assumption being that you'll start a business relationship with the affiliate. They are ones like BMG (free CDs) or Columbia House (free DVDs) or BlockBuster (ala Netflix) that you've heard of, and lots you haven't. You sign up and you get an ID, so you can refer people yourself. It's a scheme, but it's legal. My buddy Greg Hughes got one using this system.

If I have a Mac, I'll start running Mono on that Mac, and get DasBlog 1.8 running on it, and who know what could happen. (Yes, I know DasBlog 1.6 runs on Mono on Linux now, but I'm stretching here.) Regardless, the wife will never let me get a Mac unless it was free.

I've done a little analysis and the one that's the easiest and most useful is called InkBlvd. You have to spend at least $30 (which is easy when you're buying ink.) Anyway, if I can get 9 more people to click this link and sign up for a deal, I'll get a Mini Mac. Then, if you do the same, you get a Mac.

So, if you need printer ink or dvds or cds or want to sign up for blockbuster...:)

UPDATE: I've got 11 out of 10 so far, so that's rockin' sweet. I'll let you know how it goes when the new iMac shows up!

About Scott

Scott Hanselman is a former professor, former Chief Architect in finance, now speaker, consultant, father, diabetic, and Microsoft employee. He is a failed stand-up comic, a cornrower, and a book author.

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Wow, a tool I hadn't heard of. I've used RegClean and RegMaid and the like, but I'm totally impressed with (specifically) the Registry cleaning abilities of the Crap Cleaner. Recommended. (Use at your own risk. That means you, cousin Jack and my Dad. I'll run it on your system next time I'm over there.)

This is definitely on my list of "Things To Run When Visiting Relatives During The Holidays And They Ask You To Take A Look At Their Computer."

AdAware, SpyBot, Windows Disk Cleanup (with Shawn Van Ness' cleanup addons) and now Crap Cleaner.

About Scott

Scott Hanselman is a former professor, former Chief Architect in finance, now speaker, consultant, father, diabetic, and Microsoft employee. He is a failed stand-up comic, a cornrower, and a book author.

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Hey readers, I'm starting to get this exception ALL the time on my site, and my ISP is starting to complain. It's also affecting uptime:

 System.Threading.ThreadAbortException: Thread was being aborted. at newtelligence.DasBlog.Web.Core.TemplateProcessor.ProcessTemplate(SharedBasePage page, Entry entry, String templateString, Control contentPlaceHolder, Macros macros) in C:\dev\DasBlog CE\source\newtelligence.DasBlog.Web.Core\TemplateProcessor.cs:line 118 at newtelligence.DasBlog.Web.Core.TemplateProcessor.ProcessTemplate(SharedBasePage page, String templateString, Control contentPlaceHolder, Macros macros) in C:\dev\DasBlog CE\source\newtelligence.DasBlog.Web.Core\TemplateProcessor.cs:line 61 at newtelligence.DasBlog.Web.Core.SharedBasePage.ProcessDayTemplate(DateTime day, Control ContentPlaceHolder) in C:\dev\DasBlog CE\source\newtelligence.DasBlog.Web.Core\SharedBasePage.cs:line 743 at newtelligence.DasBlog.Web.Core.Macros.get_Bodytext() in C:\dev\DasBlog CE\source\newtelligence.DasBlog.Web.Core\Macros.cs:line 1231 --- End of inner exception stack trace --- at System.Reflection.RuntimeMethodInfo.InternalInvoke(Object obj, BindingFlags invokeAttr, Binder binder, Object[] parameters, CultureInfo culture, Boolean isBinderDefault, Assembly caller, Boolean verifyAccess) at System.Reflection.RuntimeMethodInfo.InternalInvoke(Object obj, BindingFlags invokeAttr, Binder binder, Object[] parameters, CultureInfo culture, Boolean verifyAccess) at System.Reflection.RuntimeMethodInfo.Invoke(Object obj, BindingFlags invokeAttr, Binder binder, Object[] parameters, CultureInfo culture) at System.Reflection.RuntimePropertyInfo.GetValue(Object obj, Object[] index) at newtelligence.DasBlog.Web.Core.TemplateProcessor.InvokeMacro(Object obj, String expression) in C:\dev\DasBlog CE\source\newtelligence.DasBlog.Web.Core\TemplateProcessor.cs:line 332 at newtelligence.DasBlog.Web.Core.TemplateProcessor.ProcessTemplate(SharedBasePage page, Entry entry, String templateString, Control contentPlaceHolder, Macros macros) in C:\dev\DasBlog CE\source\newtelligence.DasBlog.Web.Core\TemplateProcessor.cs:line 105
while processing .

I don't think it's dasBlog or the macro engine because:

A. Nothing has changed in this code in months
2. Most of what DasBlog does is in the Template Processor - like 90% - so if a thread were to abort, chances are it'd be happening in the code that runs 90% of the time.

That said, my ISP says that the site isn't recycling - they are basing this on the pid of w3wp.exe not changing. When ASP.NET "recycles" a site are they starting the AppDomain over or the whole process? I thought it was the process. Either way, you'd expect me to get another Application_Start event, and I'm not seeing that. I'm just seeing these Thread Aborts without app recycles.

Any ideas as I debug this?

About Scott

Scott Hanselman is a former professor, former Chief Architect in finance, now speaker, consultant, father, diabetic, and Microsoft employee. He is a failed stand-up comic, a cornrower, and a book author.

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I've been thinking about AJAX - not the Greek Hero, the technology - a lot lately. Of course, it's nothing new, blah blah Outlook Web Access blah blah DHTML blah blah IE 4.0. I totally hear you and I agree. It sucks that the folks that really conceived of DHTML aren't getting the props they deserve. But, that's the way of the 'net. That said, it's clear that folks are galvanized by the technology getting a sexy makeover (AJAX = sexy vs. DHTML = less so) but more that the technology really works. Sure Outlook Web Access is pretty, but it looks like crap in Firefox because it renders downlevel.  (Aside, it'll be interesting to see if there will be an ASP.NET 2.5 or something earth-shattering coming soon. From what I hear from contacts at public facing MS properties there's some amazing things coming that will melt our faces if we knew.)

Anyway, I've been collecting AJAX stuff in an attempt to grok what's coming and reconcile it with many years of JavaScript (née LiveScript) and these past years of ASP.NET. There a number of things happening all at the same time and the confluence of standards like XML, ECMAScript, the new data format JSON (pronounced "Jason" - The JavaScript Object Notation) along with specs to make the J and X in AJAX work better together plus broad browser support for XHTML and CSS is really bringing the promise of a Web that we were originally promised in 1996. The young people are calling it Web 2.0. Um, OK. If you lived through the BBS days, VT100, Lynx, Mosaic, AOL in DOS, CompuServe, Prodigy, and the pox that was Netscape 4, you realize it's Web 13.0.

Anil also makes a good point about the coming of dampening (another word for common sense + good design) as a design feature. Some folks may poo-poo the shiny and glare that is Windows Vista (and CodeRush for that matter) as eye-candy, but they will eventually die off and fade away. Well, they won't fade away, they will disappear instantly without a visual cue as to why they left. Regardless, let's put these Pentium 4s to work doing something more interesting than rebooting quickly.

Here's some AJAX useful links I've collected. Incidently, some were found during my recent GTD obsession/adoption.

• A Venture Forth » Blog Archive » Top 10 Ajax Applications
• ComponentArt Web.UI 3.0
• Backbase - Rich Internet Applications
• CodeTranslator: Free Code Translation From VB.NET <-> C#
• Emil’s Chronicle » DHTML Spell Checker
• Behaviour
• Sam Stephenson's "Prototype"
• script.aculo.us - web 2.0 javascript
• Rico - Home
• Ajax.NET
• góða nótt. » My Ajax.NET Library
• Num Sum: home index
• nextaction
• BackPackIt
• TiddlyWiki (runs http://www.hanselman.com now.)
• Aardvark (Firefox Extension)

Now playing: Musiq Soulchild - Just Friends

About Scott

Scott Hanselman is a former professor, former Chief Architect in finance, now speaker, consultant, father, diabetic, and Microsoft employee. He is a failed stand-up comic, a cornrower, and a book author.

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