Vadivel's blog

1. 'Resource' Database is a new DB introduced in SQL Server 2005. Its shortly referred as 'RDB' . 2. Its an 'Hidden' and 'Read-only' DB. 3. You could find its 'mssqlsystemresource.mdf' file here -- C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL.1\MSSQL\Data (If you have SQL Server 2005 installed in your box) 4. This is the database where all 'System objects' which belongs to ' Sys. ' Schema physically reside. i.e., has definition of all System objects. These 'System objects' (like, sp_help) logically appear in every other DB in the server. Schema -- It is similar to namespaces in .NET, it helps in logical grouping. Sys -- Is newly created schema in SQL Server 2005. All System Objects resides here. 5. If you run this below script from any of your SQL Server 2005 database it would return 1741 rows. Those are 'definitions' of ALL the system objects which actually reside in RDB . Select [name], object_definition(ob...

Code Snippets are useful in situations where you frequently implement the same code blocks in multiple places within your project. One could find all existing snippets for C# in this folder: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\VC#\Snippets\1033\Visual C# If you want to create your own snippet which is not existing in the above path then do the following: 1. In Visual Studio.NET, Create a New Xml File. 2. Place the following XML code into that file: The root element for an code snippet is <CodeSnippet>. This would have two child elements <Header> and <Snippet> <?xml version= "1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?> <CodeSnippets xmlns = "http://schemas.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/2005/CodeSnippet"> <CodeSnippet Format ="1.0.0"> <Header > <Title> Title of the Code Snippet would come here </Title> <Author> Vadivel Mohanakrishnan </Author> <Description> Describe it in detail here </Des...

Though there are lots of articles on "SQL Server Configuration Manager" I thought I would put down few bulleted points on this topic for easy reference :) 1. In order to access SQL Server Configuration Manager do this: Start >> Programs >> Microsoft SQL Server 2005 >> Configuration Tools >> SQL Server Configuration Manager 2. Services pertaining to SQL Server would be available inside this tool under the heading "SQL Server 2005 Services". This is only for easy access, as these "Services" are still available (as it was all this days!) within Control Panel >> Administrative Tools >> Services . 3. This tool has Server and Client Network configuration services. Net libraries facilitate IPC (Interprocess Communication) exchange of information between Client and Server. In SQL 2005 we have four ways (Protocol names) by which IPC can take place. They are "Shared Memory", TCP/IP", "Named Pipes" and ...

Microsoft has released a diagram for the SQL Server 2005 System Views . It would be a very handy reference if you want to get into some of the details of SQL Server. FYI, its a PDF file of size 1.7 MB. Technorati tags: Microsoft , SQL Server 2005

Forbes updated their list of the 400 richest Americans , and Bill G has maintained his TOP spot for the 13th or 14th continuous year. Few other notables rankings are listed below for quick reference :) #1 - Bill Gates - Microsoft - 53.0 billions #4 - Larry Ellison - Oracle - 19.5 billions #5 - Paul Allen - Microsoft - 16.0 billions #7 - Michael Dell - Dell Computer - 15.5 billions #12 - Sergey Brin - Google - 14.1 billions #13 - Larry Page - Google - 14.0 billions #15 - Steve Ballmer - Microsoft - 13.6 billions #24 - Carl Icahn - Financier - 9.7 billions #32 - Rupert Murdoch - News Corp - 7.7 billions #32 - Pierre Omidyar - eBay - 7.7 billions #38 - Sumner Redstone - Viacom - 7.5 billions #45 - Eric Schmidt - Google - 5.2 billions #49 - Steve Jobs - Apple/Pixar/Disney - 4.9 billions Technorati tags: Bill Gates , Microsoft , Forbes

If you are a .NET developer then you should have a look at this eBOOK which talks about VS.NET tips and tricks. Visual Studio .NET Tips and Tricks explains how to use VS.NET efficiently. Organized into short and easy-to-grasp sections, and containing tips and tricks on everything from editing and compiling to debugging and navigating within the VS.NET IDE, this book is a must-read for all .NET developers, regardless of expertise and whether they program in C#, VB.NET, or any other .NET language. This book covers the Visual Studio .NET 2002, 2003, and 2005 Beta 1 releases. I got registered myself with the site and download the PDF for free. Its really worth our time. Technorati tags: Visual Studio .NET , Microsoft , InfoQ , Tips and Tricks

The original Suckerfish Dropdowns are pretty popular for implementing lightweight, accessible CSS-based dropdown menus that accommodated Internet Explorer by mimicking the :hover pseudo-class. Well now they're back and they're more accessible , even lighter in weight (just 12 lines of JavaScript), have greater compatibility (they now work in Opera and Safari without a hack in sight) and can have multiple-levels. It can be adapted to build menus dynamically. Technorati tags: Suckerfish , CSS , Javascript , Dynamic Menus

From a fellow MVP, I came to know about these links, "Indian state (Kerala) logs Microsoft out" and Kerala logs Microsoft out . I normally hate the talk of who is bigger "MS or others". As I always have a feeling that, depending upon the project, situation, budget etc., let the lead and management decide on the best software / platform to use. For developers, on layman's terms ... "Learn the technology which is going to feed you :) If C# seems to feed you better learn it. If tomorrow, Perl seems to come up hot again then it’s better to learn it else you would be left behind." Regarding this Kerala government’s move: If an organization decides that by moving to Linux we would save huge money and in many ways it would help our client as well then I have nothing to complain against. If a government says that all schools would be moving to Linux platform I am really worried for the next generation students. At least 80% to 90% of the software development ...

Today morning I happened to read this MSDN article . The last part of the article talks about "Selecting a view source editor" of your choice. In my laptop I don't HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE >> Software >> Microsoft >> Internet Explorer >> View Source Editor. Am I missing something? My OS is Windows XP Media Center with SP2 and I have IE 6.o in my box. Technorati tags: MSDN , Microsoft , IE

Today Morning I became pretty excited on seeing a mail from Pandu in x3a (ex-3rdagenda team) group. The reason being Pandurang V Nayak is going to join Microsoft India in the Developer and Platform Evangelism team as a Windows Live Developer Evangelist shortly. He is a hard-core fan of Microsoft and am sure he would be pretty excited himself when he got the offer from his dream company :) Hope to see him as a speaker in Microsoft Tech-ED 2007. I used to speak a lot about this guy to my colleagues and normally the talk would end something like, "he deserves to be working for MS and I donno why he is not applying for it" :) I have told that "Pandu is my mentor / role model in many ways" to many of my close friends (like, Siddharth, Senthil, Logu, Maruthiraja, Rameesh, Badri, Raja, Santhi etc.,). This guy is down to earth and technically really sound. Above all his attitude to help others is what I have really admired in him. CONGRATS PANDU. May the "Good God...

Check out Scott Guthrie's Blog on ASP.NET and .NET for more info on this subject. Technorati tags: ASP.NET 2.0 , ASP.NET

I created a new blog ( http://sailakshmi-vadivel.blogspot.com ) in order to test out the upgraded version of blogger.com List of features which I have noticed so far: 1. One feature which was there in my wish list for quite a long time is "Creating categories or Labels" for blog posts. That has been implemented in this new version. 2. They have implemented "Web parts" partially. i.e., the owner / admin of the blog can customize the look and feel of the site with ease. They can add new "Page elements" and/or rearrange existing items within the page layout with the help of a mouse itself. 3. No need to create a new username / password and remember it all the time. We can use our GMail account itself for managing our blogspace also. I came to know from http://buzz.blogger.com/2006/08/blogger-in-beta.html that, going forward all our existing blogs can also be migrated to this new engine. I would love to label all my posts ASAP. Since its in beta they would...

Microsoft seriously considered the idea of bundling Visual Studio Express with Windows Vista, according to a Microsoft official quoted on ArsTechnica. Microsoft is still considering including "a link in Vista's Programs menu which would reach out to the MSDN site and download an Express edition of Visual Studio, presumably whichever one the user prefers," ArsTechnica reports. Some developers may be disappointed by Microsoft's decision to scuttle the plan. But antitrust watchers and those who believe Vista is already too big and bloated aren't likely to shed any tears. Source: http://www.microsoft-watch.com/article2/0,1995,2002354,00.asp?kc=MWRSS02129TX1K0000535 Technorati tags: Microsoft , Vista , Visual studio express

Extending its support for scripting and dynamic languages, Microsoft is hosting a project on its CodePlex site to deliver a PHP language compiler for the .Net Framework. Known as Phalanger, the project reached Version 2.0 Beta 2 on July 30. The primary goal of the project, released under Microsoft Shared Source Permissive License, is to enable full functionality of existing PHP scripts on .Net without any modification, Microsoft said. Unlike the original PHP interpreter, Phalanger compiles scripts into MSIL (Microsoft Intermediate Language). Phalanger offers Web application developers the ability to leverage both the ease-of-use and effectiveness of the PHP language and the power and richness of the .Net platform, the company said. And the compiler developers can deploy and run existing PHP code on an ASP.Net Web server and develop cross-platform extensions to that code. Source: eWeek.com Technorati tags: Microsoft

Normally for finding whether an integer is divisible by another integer we would use Modulo function (%). But what if we have two decimal values? The below code snippet would help you in that case. Declare @decValueOne decimal (10,2), @decValueTwo decimal (10,2) Declare @tempResultCeiling int , @tempResultFloor int Set @decValueOne = 21.3 Set @decValueTwo = 7.1 --Normal method which would work for two integer values Select cast(@decValueOne as int ) % cast(@decValueTwo as int ) Select @tempResultCeiling = Ceiling(@decValueOne / @decValueTwo) Select @tempResultFloor = Floor(@decValueOne / @decValueTwo) Select Case When @tempResultCeiling = @tempResultFloor then 'Evenly Divisible' Else 'It''s NOT divisible' End as 'Result' If you run the above code snippet the result would be 'Evenly Divisible' as 21.3 is three times 7.1 Technorati tags: SQL , Databases , SQL Server

Brad Templeton has written an good article on 10 Big Myths about copyright explained . It's really interesting and is a "must read" type of article. Technorati tags: Copyright

There seems to be few interesting tools for take in Microsoft site. Check this for more info http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/ xppowertoys.mspx Technorati tags: Microsoft

For the first time, Microsoft has made their MSDN Library freely available for download from Microsoft Downloads. Previously, it was only available for download to MSDN subscribers. Starting May 2006 all future releases would be made free for public. Download details: MSDN Library May 2006 Edition Update: The above link seems to be obsolete. The latest URL for this is http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=94596af5-cc58-45af-a14b-df627a31e783&DisplayLang=en Technorati tags: Microsoft , MSDN

One of the very common activities a SQL developer face is to flush records from ALL the tables in their development database. Though “Delete” and “Truncate” commands can be used to flush records in a table the issue is we can’t use them directly if we have constraints attached to some of the tables. One of the solutions is to “Delete” records in the tables in an orderly fashion. Like, “Delete” the child table first and then the parent table. As long as there are limited number of tables in the Database this solution is more than enough. But for those databases where there are lots of tables with constraints this solution would be pretty tough to implement. In those cases, try out my solution which I have explained later in this article. Code snippet to reproduce the foreign key conflict error: Create Table TruncateTblDemo ( [Sno] int identity , [FirstName] varchar ( 50 ), [SalaryBandID] int ) Go Create T able TruncateTblDemo_SalaryBand ( [BandID] int identity primary key , [Ban...

Webcasts by Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals (MVPs) -- July 24, 2006 - July 28, 2006 Attend these LIVE Webcasts by experts from Microsoft and get on to the edge of the steep-learning curve. Participate in the Webcast Contest during the Webcast and 2 lucky winners will win a cool Orchid Music Player. Watch Microsoft Experts all this July & August – LIVE. Register Now! July 24, 2006 Data integration in Excel (includes Office 2007) and how to incorporate it into your applications Speaker: Nitin Paranjape (Chairman & MD, Maestros Mediline Sys Ltd ) July 25, 2006 All about WCF “Indigo” Contracts Speaker: Manoj Ganapathi (Cognizant Technology Solutions) July 26, 2006 Get the Power of Microsoft Atlas to your Web Application. Speaker: Saurabh Verma (Co-founder & Chief Software Architect of "The Perfect Future") July 27, 2006 Sharepoint Portal 2007 - Managing your portal with Site Content Types and Workflows Speaker: Saurabh Verma (Co-founder & Chief Software Arch...