Idea Excursion
Technology Musings
Common Table Expressions were a new feature added to SQL Server 2005 and provide an efficient way to recursively query relationships stored in a normalized table. We’re going to build on that essential functionality to flatten a typical corporate structure so that all children, grand children, great grand children, etc. roll up into a single, flattened parent, regardless of depth. To graphically visualize this, take a look at the actual relationship we’ll be querying against:
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- Tags: SQL, SQL Server, SQL Server 2005, SQL Server 2008, T-SQL
Review: mophie Juice Pack air
In: iPhone
29 Apr 2009The mophie Juice Pack air is a combination battery extender and hard case for the Apple iPhone 3G. Currently, as to not risk being stranded with no battery, I resort to turning off non-essential services and praying to the almighty iPhone gods for just a few more minutes of power. Despite not occurring every single day, the situation happens just often enough to be annoying. I needed a solution and because I was already in the market for a new case and annoyed at the abysmal battery life while on 3G, I decided to stroll down to the nearest Apple store and check out this new gadget. Read the rest of this entry »
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- Tags: iPhone, Review
Control Startup Program Order with PowerShell
In: Windows
14 Apr 2009If you’re like me and need multiple programs to start upon login, your hard drive is likely inundated with requests, causing a major slowdown as the OS seeks to fill each and every request simultaneously. Furthermore, I have some programs that are dependent upon others, so when they load out of order, I have to shutdown and restart the applications or perform some extra steps to reconfigure the program. An example of this is synchronizing DropBox and ZumoDrive. If DropBox starts before ZumoDrive, it never syncs and hangs in an “Indexing…” state. This matter is complicated by storing my KeePass database on my ZumoDrive. Because KeePass loads before ZumoDrive, it can’t find the Z: location and I have to re-locate the KDB file for it to load.
One solution to this problem is to start the programs manually, which is monotonous. A much better solution is to control the exact startup sequence, giving each program a small delay to fully load before starting the next program. A solution I used in the past for Windows was a batch file. This suffers from a couple of problems:
- By default, there is no “sleep” command. You can install the Windows 2003 Administrator Toolkit for the functionality, or resort to a ping delay trick. Both of these are less-than-ideal.
- This is 2009. Batch files aren’t exactly cool.
To overcome these issues, I took a gander at my latest favorite scripting language, PowerShell; it handily solves both issues. This is a very easy hack and to accomplish it, there are only a few steps. The only considerations for this project is to ensure that PowerShell v1 or v2 is installed and configured to run scripts locally. With those assumptions, let’s get started:
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- Tags: HOWTO, PowerShell
Overview: VirtualBox 2.2.0
In: VirtualBox
9 Apr 2009Sun released an update to their cross-platform virtualization software, VirtualBox. 2.2.0 introduces some evolutionary changes that, while worthwhile, are not quite as exciting as the 2.1.0 release.
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- Tags: Review
Review: Chicago Rapid Transit for iPhone/iPod Touch
In: iPhone
31 Mar 2009At the behest of @redeyechicago, I tested Chicago Rapid Transit by Presselite from the App Store. It boasts an impressive list of features for a scant half-megabyte, several of which are not available in other CTA rail applications. However, not everything is peaches and cream, as it lacks fit and finish in many respects.
In general, the application is small and quick, loading in a reasonable 3 seconds and the map displaying only a single second later. I paid an “introductory” price of only $0.99, which – based on application notes – will increase to $4.99. iTrans CTA also started out at 5 bucks, but has since dropped to only a single greenback. Is CRT worthy of a higher price?
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- Tags: iPhone, Review
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- HOWTO: Sync Google Calendar on iPhone OS 3.0
- HOWTO: Setup SQL Server Linked Server to MySQL
- Windows 7 in VirtualBox: Shared Folders workaround
- Connecting to Oracle from SQL Server
- Installing Windows 7 Beta 1 in VirtualBox 2.1.0
- HOWTO: Synchronize Dropbox and ZumoDrive on Windows
- Efficiently query the DATE in DATETIME
- All About Linux Swap Part 2: Management
- All About Linux Swap Part 3: Analysis
- Fixing "passwd: Authentication token manipulation error" when changing passwords
- Cache multiple values in a Map Container for fast in-memory lookup
- Ubuntu VirtualBox Server Redux Addendum
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- Accessing Custom .NET Assemblies in SSIS 2008 Script Tasks
- shiva ramani: good instruction. How to push data to MySQL from SQL 2005 [...]
- Winkey: I've created a linked server for mysql successfully, and also can do Insert, Select. But when I try [...]
- RaghuRam: Thanks a lot buddy it helped me to change the root password when I got the error trying to c [...]
- Taylor Gerring: If you're on a 64-bit OS, did you run the 32-bit version of ODBC applet? Run: odbcad32 [...]
- Taylor Gerring: If the issue is the guest sync'ing to the host, can't you just force time sync the host if you can't [...]