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  • SMTP POP3 & PST. Acronyms from Hades.

    - by mikef
    A busy SysAdmin will occasionally have reason to curse SMTP. It is, certainly, one of the strangest events in the history of IT that such a deeply flawed system, designed originally purely for campus use, should have reached its current dominant position. The explanation was that it was the first open-standard email system, so SMTP/POP3 became the internet standard. We are, in consequence, dogged with a system with security weaknesses so extreme that messages are sent in plain text and you have no real assurance as to who the message came from anyway (SMTP-AUTH hasn't really caught on). Even without the security issues, the use of SMTP in an office environment provides a management nightmare to all commercial users responsible for complying with all regulations that control the conduct of business: such as tracking, retaining, and recording company documents. SMTP mail developed from various Unix-based systems designed for campus use that took the mail analogy so literally that mail messages were actually delivered to the users, using a 'store and forward' mechanism. This meant that, from the start, the end user had to store, manage and delete messages. This is a problem that has passed through all the releases of MS Outlook: It has to be able to manage mail locally in the dreaded PST file. As a stand-alone system, Outlook is flawed by its neglect of any means of automatic backup. Previous Outlook PST files actually blew up without warning when they reached the 2 Gig limit and became corrupted and inaccessible, leading to a thriving industry of 3rd party tools to clear up the mess. Microsoft Exchange is, of course, a server-based system. Emails are less likely to be lost in such a system if it is properly run. However, there is nothing to stop users from using local PSTs as well. There is the additional temptation to load emails into mobile devices, or USB keys for off-line working. The result is that the System Administrator is faced by a complex hybrid system where backups have to be taken from Servers, and PCs scattered around the network, where duplication of emails causes storage issues, and document retention policies become impossible to manage. If one adds to that the complexity of mobile phone email readers and mail synchronization, the problem is daunting. It is hardly surprising that the mood darkens when SysAdmins meet and discuss PST Hell. If you were promoted to the task of tormenting the souls of the damned in Hades, what aspects of the management of Outlook would you find most useful for your task? I'd love to hear from you. Cheers, Michael

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  • SharePoint 2010 HierarchicalConfig Caching Problem

    - by Damon
    We've started using the Application Foundations for SharePoint 2010 in some of our projects at work, and I came across a nasty issue with the hierarchical configuration settings.  I have some settings that I am storing at the Farm level, and as I was testing my code it seemed like the settings were not being saved - at least that is what it appeared was the case at first.  However, I happened to reset IIS and the settings suddenly appeared.  Immediately, I figured that it must be a caching issue and dug into the code base.  I found that there was a 10 second caching mechanism in the SPFarmPropertyBag and the SPWebAppPropertyBag classes.  So I ran another test where I waited 10 seconds to make sure that enough time had passed to force the caching mechanism to reset the data.  After 10 minutes the cache had still not cleared.  After digging a bit further, I found a double lock check that looked a bit off in the GetSettingsStore() method of the SPFarmPropertyBag class: if (_settingStore == null || (DateTime.Now.Subtract(lastLoad).TotalSeconds) > cacheInterval)) { //Need to exist so don't deadlock. rrLock.EnterWriteLock(); try { //make sure first another thread didn't already load... if (_settingStore == null) { _settingStore = WebAppSettingStore.Load(this.webApplication); lastLoad = DateTime.Now; } } finally { rrLock.ExitWriteLock(); } } What ends up happening here is the outer check determines if the _settingStore is null or the cache has expired, but the inner check is just checking if the _settingStore is null (which is never the case after the first time it's been loaded).  Ergo, the cached settings are never reset.  The fix is really easy, just add the cache checking back into the inner if statement. //make sure first another thread didn't already load... if (_settingStore == null || (DateTime.Now.Subtract(lastLoad).TotalSeconds) > cacheInterval) { _settingStore = WebAppSettingStore.Load(this.webApplication); lastLoad = DateTime.Now; } And then it starts working just fine. as long as you wait at least 10 seconds for the cache to clear.

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  • No Significant Fragmentation? Look Closer…

    If you are relying on using 'best-practice' percentage-based thresholds when you are creating an index maintenance plan for a SQL Server that checks the fragmentation in your pages, you may miss occasional 'edge' conditions on larger tables that will cause severe degradation in performance. It is worth being aware of patterns of data access in particular tables when judging the best threshold figure to use.

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  • IsNumeric() Broken? Only up to a point.

    - by Phil Factor
    In SQL Server, probably the best-known 'broken' function is poor ISNUMERIC() . The documentation says 'ISNUMERIC returns 1 when the input expression evaluates to a valid numeric data type; otherwise it returns 0. ISNUMERIC returns 1 for some characters that are not numbers, such as plus (+), minus (-), and valid currency symbols such as the dollar sign ($).'Although it will take numeric data types (No, I don't understand why either), its main use is supposed to be to test strings to make sure that you can convert them to whatever numeric datatype you are using (int, numeric, bigint, money, smallint, smallmoney, tinyint, float, decimal, or real). It wouldn't actually be of much use anyway, since each datatype has different rules. You actually need a RegEx to do a reasonably safe check. The other snag is that the IsNumeric() function  is a bit broken. SELECT ISNUMERIC(',')This cheerfully returns 1, since it believes that a comma is a currency symbol (not a thousands-separator) and you meant to say 0, in this strange currency.  However, SELECT ISNUMERIC(N'£')isn't recognized as currency.  '+' and  '-' is seen to be numeric, which is stretching it a bit. You'll see that what it allows isn't really broken except that it doesn't recognize Unicode currency symbols: It just tells you that one numeric type is likely to accept the string if you do an explicit conversion to it using the string. Both these work fine, so poor IsNumeric has to follow suit. SELECT  CAST('0E0' AS FLOAT)SELECT  CAST (',' AS MONEY) but it is harder to predict which data type will accept a '+' sign. SELECT  CAST ('+' AS money) --0.00SELECT  CAST ('+' AS INT)   --0SELECT  CAST ('+' AS numeric)/* Msg 8115, Level 16, State 6, Line 4 Arithmetic overflow error converting varchar to data type numeric.*/SELECT  CAST ('+' AS FLOAT)/*Msg 8114, Level 16, State 5, Line 5Error converting data type varchar to float.*/> So we can begin to say that the maybe IsNumeric isn't really broken, but is answering a silly question 'Is there some numeric datatype to which i can convert this string? Almost, but not quite. The bug is that it doesn't understand Unicode currency characters such as the euro or franc which are actually valid when used in the CAST function. (perhaps they're delaying fixing the euro bug just in case it isn't necessary).SELECT ISNUMERIC (N'?23.67') --0SELECT  CAST (N'?23.67' AS money) --23.67SELECT ISNUMERIC (N'£100.20') --1SELECT  CAST (N'£100.20' AS money) --100.20 Also the CAST function itself is quirky in that it cannot convert perfectly reasonable string-representations of integers into integersSELECT ISNUMERIC('200,000')       --1SELECT  CAST ('200,000' AS INT)   --0/*Msg 245, Level 16, State 1, Line 2Conversion failed when converting the varchar value '200,000' to data type int.*/  A more sensible question is 'Is this an integer or decimal number'. This cuts out a lot of the apparent quirkiness. We do this by the '+E0' trick. If we want to include floats in the check, we'll need to make it a bit more complicated. Here is a small test-rig. SELECT  PossibleNumber,         ISNUMERIC(CAST(PossibleNumber AS NVARCHAR(20)) + 'E+00') AS Hack,        ISNUMERIC (PossibleNumber + CASE WHEN PossibleNumber LIKE '%E%'                                          THEN '' ELSE 'E+00' END) AS Hackier,        ISNUMERIC(PossibleNumber) AS RawIsNumericFROM    (SELECT CAST(',' AS NVARCHAR(10)) AS PossibleNumber          UNION SELECT '£' UNION SELECT '.'         UNION SELECT '56' UNION SELECT '456.67890'         UNION SELECT '0E0' UNION SELECT '-'         UNION SELECT '-' UNION SELECT '.'         UNION  SELECT N'?' UNION SELECT N'¢'        UNION  SELECT N'?' UNION SELECT N'?34.56'         UNION SELECT '-345' UNION SELECT '3.332228E+09') AS examples Which gives the result ... PossibleNumber Hack Hackier RawIsNumeric-------------- ----------- ----------- ------------? 0 0 0- 0 0 1, 0 0 1. 0 0 1¢ 0 0 1£ 0 0 1? 0 0 0?34.56 0 0 00E0 0 1 13.332228E+09 0 1 1-345 1 1 1456.67890 1 1 156 1 1 1 I suspect that this is as far as you'll get before you abandon IsNumeric in favour of a regex. You can only get part of the way with the LIKE wildcards, because you cannot specify quantifiers. You'll need full-blown Regex strings like these ..[-+]?\b[0-9]+(\.[0-9]+)?\b #INT or REAL[-+]?\b[0-9]{1,3}\b #TINYINT[-+]?\b[0-9]{1,5}\b #SMALLINT.. but you'll get even these to fail to catch numbers out of range.So is IsNumeric() an out and out rogue function? Not really, I'd say, but then it would need a damned good lawyer.

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  • Auditing DDL Changes in SQL Server databases

    Even where Source Control isn't being used by developers, it is still possible to automate the process of tracking the changes being made to a database and put those into Source Control, in order to track what changed and when. You can even get an email alert when it happens. With suitable scripting, you can even do it if you don't have direct access to the live database. Grant shows how easy this is with SQL Compare.

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  • Offsite Backup

    - by Grant Fritchey
    There was a recent weather event in the United States that seriously impacted our power grid and our physical well being. Lots of businesses found that they couldn’t get to their building or that their building was gone. Many of them got to do a full test of their disaster recovery processes. A big part of DR is having the ability to get yourself back online in a different location. Now, most of us are not going to be paying for multiple sites, but, we need the ability to move to one if needed. The best thing you can to start to set this up is have an off-site backup. Want an easy way to automate that? I mean, yeah, you can go to tape or to a portable drive (much more likely these days) and then carry that home, but we’ve all got access to offsite storage these days, SkyDrive, DropBox, S3, etc. How about just backing up to there? I agree. Great idea. That’s why Red Gate is setting up some methods around it. Want to take part in the early access program? Go here and try it out.

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  • My book is released – Async in C# 5

    - by Alex Davies
    I’m pleased to announce that my book “Async in C# 5″ has been published by O’Reilly! http://oreil.ly/QQBjO3 If you want to know about how to use async, and whether it’s important for your code, I thoroughly recommend reading it. It’s the best book about the subject I’ve ever written. In fact it’s probably the best book I’ve written full stop. I may have only written one book. It also has a very fetching parrot on the cover, which would make a very good addition to your bookshelf.

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  • Active Directory Management with PowerShell in Windows Server 2008 R2

    One of the first things you notice with Windows Server 2008 R2 is that PowerShell 2.0 has become central to the admin function There is a powerful Active Directory module for Powershell that contains a provider and cmdlets that are designed to allow you to manage Active Directory from the command line. Now, you can also use versions for previous versions of Windows Server.

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  • Browser Item Caching and URLs

    - by Damon
    Ultimately you want the browser to cache things like Flash components, Silverlight XAP files, and images to avoid users having to download them each time they hit a page.  But during development it's very useful to NOT have things cached so you are always looking at the most up-to-date file.  You can always turn off caching on your browser, but if you use your browser for daily browsing then its not the greatest option.  To avoid caching we would always just slap a randomly generated GUID to the back of the URL of any items we didn't want to cache (e.g. http://someserver.com/images/image.png?15f073f5-45fc-47b2-993b-fbaa781b926d).  It worked well, but you had to remember to remove the random GUID when it went to production. However, on a GimmalSoft project we recently implemented someone showed me a better way that didn't need to be removed from production code - just slap the last modified date of the file on the end of the URL (or something generated from the modification date).  This was kind of genius approach because it gives you the best of both world.  If you modify the file, the browser goes out and gets the newest version.  If you don't modify the file, it has the cached copy.  Very helpful!  The only down side is that you do have to read the modification date from the file, which does technically take some time.

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  • Browser Item Caching and URLs

    - by Damon Armstrong
    Ultimately you want the browser to cache things like Flash components, Silverlight XAP files, and images to avoid users having to download them each time they hit a page.  But during development it’s very useful to NOT have things cached so you are always looking at the most up-to-date file.  You can always turn off caching on your browser, but if you use your browser for daily browsing then its not the greatest option.  To avoid caching we would always just slap a randomly generated GUID to the back of the URL of any items we didn’t want to cache (e.g. http://someserver.com/images/image.png?15f073f5-45fc-47b2-993b-fbaa781b926d).  It worked well, but you had to remember to remove the random GUID when it went to production. However, on a GimmalSoft project we recently implemented someone showed me a better way that didn’t need to be removed from production code – just slap the last modified date of the file on the end of the URL (or something generated from the modification date).  This was kind of genius approach because it gives you the best of both world.  If you modify the file, the browser goes out and gets the newest version.  If you don’t modify the file, it has the cached copy.  Very helpful!  The only down side is that you do have to read the modification date from the file, which does technically take some time.

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  • SharePoint Scenario Framework

    - by Damon
    I've worked with SharePoint for some time now, and I like to think that I know all there is to know about it.  Deep down I know that's not true, but it's a fun delusion.  However, I found out yesterday that there is a mechanism in SharePoint called the Scenario Framework that has been around for a while but that I had no idea ever existed.  It is used to maintain state between multi-page web forms and helps manage the navigation between those pages.  If building out multiple-page forms in SharePoint is in your plans, you can find more information about the Scenario Framework on Waldek Mastykarz blog entry on the subject.

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  • Optionally Running SPSecurity.RunWithElevatedPrivileges with Delgates

    - by Damon Armstrong
    I was writing some SharePoint code today where I needed to give people the option of running some code with elevated permission.  When you run code in an elevated fashion it normally looks like this: SPSecurity.RunWithElevatedPrivileges(()=> {     //Code to run }); It wasn’t a lot of code so I was initially inclined to do something horrible like this: public void SomeMethod(bool runElevated) {     if(runElevated)     {         SPSecurity.RunWithElevatedPrivileges(()=>         {             //Code to run         });     }     else     {         //Copy of code to run     } } Easy enough, but I did not want to draw the ire of my coworkers for employing the CTRL+C CTRL+V design pattern.  Extracting the code into a whole new method would have been overkill because it was a pretty brief piece of code.  But then I thought, hey, wait, I’m basically just running a delegate, so why not define the delegate once and run it either in an elevated context or stand alone, which resulted in this version which I think is much cleaner because the code is only defined once and it didn’t require a bunch of extra lines of code to define a method: public void SomeMethod(bool runElevated) {     var code = new SPSecurity.CodeToRunElevated(()=>     {         //Code to run     });     if(runElevated)     {         SPSecurity.RunWithElevatedPermissions(code);         }     else     {         Code();     } }

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  • A quick look at: sys.dm_os_buffer_descriptors

    - by fatherjack
    SQL Server places data into cache as it reads it from disk so as to speed up future queries. This dmv lets you see how much data is cached at any given time and knowing how this changes over time can help you ensure your servers run smoothly and are adequately resourced to run your systems. This dmv gives the number of cached pages in the buffer pool along with the database id that they relate to: USE [tempdb] GO SELECT COUNT(*) AS cached_pages_count , CASE database_id ...(read more)

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  • Window Functions in SQL Server

    When SQL Server introduced Window Functions in SQL Server 2005, it was done in a rather tentative way, with only a handful of functions being introduced. This was frustrating, as they remove the last excuse for cursor-based operations by providing aggregations over a partition of the result set, and imposing an ordered sequence over a partition. Now, with SQL Server 2012, we are soon to enjoy a full range of Window Functions. They are going to make for some much simpler SQL queries.

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  • State Transition Constraints

    Data Validation in a database is a lot more complex than seeing if a string parameter really is an integer. A commercial world is full of complex rules for sequences of procedures, of fixed or variable lifespans, Warranties, commercial offers and bids. All this requires considerable subtlety to prevent bad data getting in, and if it does, locating and fixing the problem. Joe Celko shows how useful a State transition graph can be, and how essential it can become with the time aspect added.

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  • Developing a Custom SSIS Source Component

    SSIS was designed to be extensible. Although you can create tasks that will take data from a wide variety of sources, transform the data is a number of ways and write the results a wide choice of destinations, using the components provided, there will always be occasions when you need to customise your own SSIS component. Yes, it is time to hone up your C# skills and cut some code, as Saurabh explains.

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  • Oracle to SQL Server: Crossing the Great Divide, Part 2

    A well-known Oracle expert records faithfully his struggles with the unfamiliar : SQL Server. He now sets himself the task of creating a table with a million rows of random data. As one might expect, it is the lack of familiarity with the workarounds and tricks of SQL Server that trips him up. His journey brings us fresh insights, and a glimpse at the alternative-universe of Oracle.

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  • Reliable Storage Systems for SQL Server

    By validating the IO path before commissioning the production database system, and performing ongoing validation through page checksums and DBCC checks, you can hopefully avoid data corruption altogether, or at least nip it in the bud. If corruption occurs, then you have to take the right decisions fast to deal with it. Rod Colledge explains how a pessimistic mindset can be an advantage

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  • Different Approaches of Entity Framework

    Entity Framework provides three different approaches to deal with the model, and each one has its own pros and cons. Ambily Kavumkal Kamalasanan discusses the advantages of the Model, Database, and Code First approaches to modeling in Entity Framework 5.0. Entity Framework still has its share of issues and is not widely accepted yet - but through contributing to its ongoing development the community can make it more stable and increase its adoption.

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  • Preventing Problems in SQL Server

    It is never a good idea to let your users be the ones to tell you of database server outages. It is far better to be able to spot potential problems by being alerted for the most relevant conditions on your servers at the best threshold. This will take time and patience, but the reward will be an alerting system which allows you to deal more effectively with issues before they involve system down-time

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  • How to stop Office 2010 changing " and ' to smart quotes

    - by fatherjack
    I have recently upgraded to Office 2010 at work and there are a few things that are a real problem for me. As a T-SQL developer and SQL Server DBA I copy and paste code to and from various applications and if Word gets involved it can has disastrous consequences. There is an option that appears to be defaulted to "on" that changes a straight quote to what Word describes as a smart quote - see the image below. Note - the single quote suffers from the same effect. Now, getting to the point that...(read more)

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  • .NET Developer Basics – Recursive Algorithms

    Recursion can be a powerful programming technique when used wisely. Some data structures such as tree structures lend themselves far more easily to manipulation by recursive techniques. As it is also a classic Computer Science problem, it is often used in technical interviews to probe a candidate's grounding in basic programming techniques. Whatever the reason, it is well worth brushing up one's understanding with Damon's introduction to Recursion.

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  • Managing Printers with Group Policy, PowerShell, and Print Management

    Just because it is possible to do many configuration jobs 'click by bleeding click', doesn't mean that it is a good idea. It is better to step back, plan, and use the advanced resources provided for managing large network. Printer configuration is the perfect illustration of this, and Joseph demonstrates how the use of Group Policy, PowerShell, and Print Management can turn a time-consuming chore into a pleasure.

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