I was tagged on facebook and couldn’t figure out how to post a note there so I’m posting here anyways.

1. What is your name: May
2. A four Letter Word: Moon
3. A boy’s Name: Michael
4. A girl’s Name: Marilyn
5. An occupation: Manager
6. A color: Magenta
7. Something you’ll wear : Marc Jacobs + Maybelline
8. A food: Mutton + Mashed Potatoes (Moon Cake + M&Ms for dessert)
9. Something found in the bathroom: Mat + Medicine cabinet
10. A place: Melbourne
11. A reason for being late: Malaria or Mad cow disease
12. Something you’d shout: Mwahahaha!
13. A movie title: Me, Myself & Irene
14. Something you drink: Mocha
15. A musical group: Muse
16. An animal: Mongoose
17. A street name: Maunicau Rd (ok not exactly a street)
18. A type of car: Mini Cooper (Mr. Bean’s car) or Mini Bus
19. The title of a song: My Life Would Suck Without You, My Heart Will Go On
20. A verb: Motivate

Saw this over at “In search of simplicity, quality and tranquility in software engineering“; a series of posts on SDLC – Software Development Lifecycle. Thought a good series to follow and read it over the weekend. Love the graphics on each post!

1. SDLC – Software Development Lifecycle … what’s the point? (part 1 of many)
2. SDLC – Software Development Lifecycle … closer look at basics (part 2 of many)
3. SDLC – Software Development Lifecycle … exploring common models (part 3 of many)
4. SDLC – Software Development Lifecycle … agility strikes back with energy (part 4 of many)
5. SDLC – Software Development Lifecycle … is prototyping  part of the good, the bad and/or the evil? (part 5 of many)
6. SDLC – Software Development Lifecycle … analyzing the battle ahead (part 6 of many)
7. SDLC – Software Development Lifecycle … designing the blueprint (part 7 of many)
8. SDLC – Software Development Lifecycle … testing, the moment of truth (part 8 of many)
9. SDLC – Software Development Lifecycle … flashback, component-level design principles (part 9 of many)
10. SDLC – Software Development Lifecycle … Visual Process & Estimating (Guessing) Software Deliverables
11. To scrum or to Run … that is the agile question? (new)
12. —
    

Back in 2007 I posted a study notes post where I was planning to post about DotLucene and have forgotten about it. The other day I found these notes in my Google Notebook. Instead of lost and forgotten in my Google Notebook, it’s better to share here so someone can make a good use of it. These are just links and notes dump that I found over various sites. I hope I didn’t forget to add the link back references for all the notes.

What is Lucene.Net?

[ # ] Lucene.Net is a source code, class-per-class, API-per-API and algorithmatic port of the Java Lucene search engine to the C# and .NET platform utilizing Microsoft .NET Framework.

Lucene.Net sticks to the APIs and classes used in the original Java implementation of Lucene. The API names as well as class names are preserved with the intention of giving Lucene.Net the look and feel of the C# language and the .NET Framework. For example, the method Hits.length() in the Java implementation now reads Hits.Length() in the C# port.

In addition to the APIs and classes port to C#, the algorithm of Java Lucene is ported to C# Lucene. This means an index created with Java Lucene is back-and-forth compatible with the C# Lucene; both at reading, writing and updating. In fact a Lucene index can be concurrently searched and updated using Java Lucene and C# Lucene processes.

(more…)

When I install LLBLGen Pro 2.0 on Windows Vista, I got the following error and the installer rolled back itself.

Error:
The installer has encountered an unexpected error installing this package. This may indicate a problem with this package. The error code is 2869.

So I dig around the forum and found this solution from Otis.

• Create a new .bat file in the same folder as the one the LLBLGenPro20.msi file is in.
• Add the following text ‘msiexec /i LLBLGenPro20.msi’ and save the file.
• Right click the .bat file and select ‘Run as Administrator’.

I tried doing as mentioned in the steps but I got the following message and couldn’t able to install it.

So I changed the Otis’s command to ‘msiexec /a LLBLGenPro20.msi‘ and run it directly from command line instead of right-click – run as administrator on the .bat file and it works!

If it still doesn’t work for you after following the above steps, I guess you better do these, disable UAC and enable XP compatibility mode as mentioned here.

This was a humongous pain for me and took quite a lot of my time so just noting down a few points for self reference. Previously, I have Visual Studio 2005 and SQL Server 2005 installed on my Vista machine and they worked just fine. Now we are upgrading to VS2008, I uninstalled everything related to VS2005 then reinstall SQL Server 2005 and things got screwed up. Check out the failure list that I got – pretty much everything failed.

The worst thing about this installation is that, it takes ages to install till the end, then shows up the error message box.

Program Versions:

# SQL Server 2005 – Developer Edition
# Windows Vista Ultimate
# Visual Studio Team Suite 2008

Make sure you cross check Hardware and Software Requirements for Installing SQL Server 2005 before installation.

The first error/warning I tried to fixed was about IIS requirement. I’m sure I have IIS7 enabled on my Vista and also enabled IIS6 compatiblity mode but that is not enough and have to enable some more features.

System Configuration Check: IIS Feature Requirement
Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) is either not installed or is disabled. IIS is required by some SQL Server features. Without IIS, some SQL Server features will not be available for installation. To install all SQL Server features, install IIS from Add or Remove programs in Control Panel or enable the IIS server through the Control Panel if it is already installed, and then run SQL Server Setup again. For a list of features that depend on IIS, see Features Supported by Editions of SQL Server in Books Online.

I think it is to do with Installing SQL Server 2005 Reporting Service on Vista, untill or unless you enable all those features the Reporting services cannot be installed.

Solution:
The main features to turn on are as mentioned here but I turned on almost everything just to make sure.

More info links:
# How to install SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services on a Windows Vista-based computer
# Installation of SQL Server 2005 in Windows Vista – warning message on IIS feature requirement during System Configuration Check
# Tip for Installing SQL Server 2005 Reporting Service on Vista

Ok, this one is the weirdest error and solution I got. Don’t even ask why in the world do I need to install Office 2003 Web Component add-in while I have Office 2007 installed on my machine. I have no clue, but that’s the only solution I found which works for me. It solves the “OWC11 Setup failed error and the following error message.

ERROR 1706 Setup cannot find the required files. Check your connection to the network, or CD ROM! For other potential solutions to this problem, see c:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office11\1033\Setup.chm

Solution
You have to download and install “Office 2003 web components” first and install SQL Server 2005 again; which then in my case cleared the error and installed successfully.
# Download: Office 2003 Add-in: Office Web Components – owc11.exe [ 17.6MB ]

After everything is done, remember to install Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 2. Pheewww! That’s it!

I’ve been moving around files and programs from the old XP to a new Vista machine and Infragistics is one of the problems I get while installing on Vista. Just posting it here for my own future reference.

Program Version:

# Infragistics NetAdvantage 2005 Volume2 + hotfixes
# Windows Vista Ultimate

Problem:

The installer runs almost to the end then throws up some compatibility issues errors and didn’t get install properly. The dll library files get loaded in the GAC but cannot load the form design views and also there is no infragistics folder in C:\inetpub\wwwroot\aspnet_client.

Solution:
Need to follow these 4 steps properly.

1. Disable User Account Control (UAC)
2. Restart your machine
3. Edit the System Registry for Internet Information Services (IIS)
4. Enable IIS 6.0 Compatibility

Reference Links:

# FAQ:Installing NetAdvantage for .NET on Windows Vista
# Tip/Trick: Using IIS7 on Vista with VS 2005

Just for my own note since I keep forgetting the code and also testing out the new SyntaxHighlighter plugin that I just installed. Look great isn’t it?

Information schema views provide an internal, system table-independent view of the SQL Server metadata. Information schema views enable applications to work correctly although significant changes have been made to the underlying system tables. (#)

Select a List of all Tables in a Database

SELECT *
FROM [DB-Name].information_schema.tables
WHERE table_type = 'Base Table'

Note:

• The columns returns are ‘Table_Catalog’, ‘Table_Schema’, ‘Table_Name’ and ‘Table_Type’
• The result includes dtproperties table in the list as well. To remove it add another condition in the WHERE statement.
  eg. WHERE table_type = ‘Base Table’ AND table_name != ‘dtproperties’
• Use square brackets [] if the DB name includes a dash ‘-’.

Select a list of all Tables and Columns in a Database

SELECT *
FROM FIBS.information_schema.columns

23 columns resulted by the above query. To refine more, try the query below.

SELECT table_name, column_name, data_type, character_maximum_length, is_nullable
FROM Information_Schema.columns
WHERE table_name IN (Select name
		                  FROM sysobjects
		                  WHERE xtype = 'U')
ORDER BY table_name

Note:

• xtype has two values – ‘U’ or ‘S’
• U = User generated tables
• S = System generated tables

More info: SQL Server 2005 System Tables and Views
This page includes a good list of all the How-To that you might want to check out: Querying the SQL Server System Catalog FAQ