July 2010 ~ bench3

Changing The Default Or General Development Settings In Visual Studio 2010

Labels: Microsoft , Programming , VisualStudio

When you install Visual Studio, it asks you what kind of development settings you want to use. The most obvious choice for a Visual Basic developer is Visual Basic Development Settings. This choice customizes Visual Studio to work more easily with Visual Basic, and is a good selection if you will focus on Visual Basic development.

Another reasonable choice is General Development Settings. This option makes Visual Studio behave more like Visual Studio 2003. It ’ s a good choice if you ’ re used to Visual Studio 2003, or if you expect to use other Visual Studio languages, such as C#, somewhat regularly because these settings are fairly effective for C# development as well as Visual Basic development.

Switch Visual Studio 2010 General Development Settings [Configuration]:

If you later decide that you want to switch configurations,

Open the Tools menu
Select Import and Export Settings to display the Import and Export Settings Wizard.
Select the “ Reset all settings” option button and click Next.
On the second page, tell the wizard whether to save your current settings and click Next.
On the wizard ’ s final page, select the type of configuration you want and click Finish.
When the wizard is done, click Close.

Haja is currently working in a multi-disciplinary role that combines programming including, SAP Administration, Network Management, and System Administration. He is passionate about Technology and this blog is his platform for sharing his ideas. If you like this post, Please leave a comment. And if you have any queries, mail to help @ bench3 . com

How To Determine Whether Service Pack Is Installed

Labels: Microsoft , ServicePack , Updates , Windows Tips

Aside from simply looking for new enhancements to the interface (such as the Security

Center), you can determine whether Service Pack 3 (or any Service Pack, for that matter)

is installed in one of two ways:

From the Start menu, right-click My Computer and click Properties. The General tab of the System Properties dialog box (in the System section) allows you to know which version of Windows and which Service Pack is installed.
From the Start menu, click Run. In the Run dialog box, type winver.exe and click OK. The About Windows dialog box shows you the exact version of Windows (including Service Pack), down to the build number.

Note: This section presents an overview of the most important and obvious features of Windows XP Service Pack. The procedures and discussions in this book assume that you have Windows XP Service Pack installed. You can learn more about Windows XP Service Pack at http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/winxppro/maintain/winxpsp2.mspx.

You can download and install Service Pack from the Windows Update site at http://www.windowsupdate.com.

What Is The Blue Screen Of Death | Troubleshooting BSOD

Labels: Device Driver , ErrorMessage , Hardware , Windows Tips

The most infamous error message is the Blue Screen Of Death. The phenomenon is also known by its acronym, BSOD.

The conditions that cause a blue screen have changed since the days of Windows 95/98, as has what it means.

In either case, chances are pretty good that, if you get bluescreened, any unsaved work will be lost, as either Windows (in NT/2000/XP/VISTA/7) or your application has been shut down.

The BSOD is perhaps the most despised error not only because it has wiped away countless hours of work over the years, but because of the obtuse way in which it does so. The messages delivered in the typical blue screen are meant for developers more than end users. For example, a blue screen delivered by Windows may deliver a message such as the following: “0x0000001E, KMODE_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED.”

Also Read: Blue Screen Of Death And Green Ribbon of Death On Windows

And if you don’t find that sufficiently informative, you’ll see four variables in parentheses to help developers figure out what’s happening. Again, none of this will mean much to most of us, but a support rep or developer can often learn a great deal from such cryptic messages.

Fortunately, blue screens are rare in recent versions of Windows and may disappear after a reboot. But if the problem recurs, you could have a real problem.

Here are some troubleshooting steps to follow if you encounter a BSOD:

While your system is booting, press F8 and select Safe Boot Mode, which loads a subset of Windows with minimal drivers.
If things run smoothly in Safe Mode, you likely have a software problem with a recently installed application.
Try to decipher the error message to see if you can trace it to a specific program.
If all else fails, uninstall your most recently- installed application.
If you still see blue screen errors in Safe Mode, restart again and use F8 to get to the advanced options.
This time, choose Restore Last Known Good Configuration, which is a snapshot of your system as it existed before you last installed any drivers or other software.
You will lose any system changes you’ve made since that point, but your documents will normally remain untouched by this process.
If you’re still having problems, you are likely suffering from a hardware problem or a corruption of vital system files.
Again, any hints that you can glean from the error message could help you (or a tech
support rep) trace the source of the problem.
Remove any recently installed hardware and try booting again.
In the worst case, it’s not uncommon to have to resort to reinstalling device drivers or even the whole operating system.

Ultimately, the best cure for the BSOD is prevention:

Save often, create frequent backups, and burn a little incense to curry favor with capricious PC spirits.

Consider Before Starting Your Own Website

Labels: SEO , Web Design , WebHosting

With millions of Web sites competing for viewers, how do you get the results you’re looking for? When asked if they are marketing on the Internet, many people say, “Yes, we have a Web site.” However, having a Web site and marketing on the Internet are two very different things.

Yes, usually you need a Web site to market on the Internet. However, a Web site is simply a collection of documents, images, and other electronic files that are publicly accessible across the Internet.

Your site should be designed to meet your online objectives and should be developed with your target market in mind. Internet marketing encompasses all the steps you take to reach your target market online, attract visitors to your Web site, encourage them to buy your products or services, and make them want to come back for more.

Having a Web site is great, but it is meaningless if nobody knows about it. Just like having a brilliantly designed product brochure does you little good if it sits in your sales manager’s desk drawer, a Web site does you little good if your target market isn’t visiting it.

Other Things to Consider Up Front

Although setting your primary objectives is vital, it is just as important to identify your secondary objectives. By setting appropriate secondary objectives, you will be more prepared to achieve all your online goals.

Many companies identify only primary objectives for their Web site and completely neglect secondary objectives that can help them succeed online. Following are some common secondary objectives for online businesses to consider:

The site should be designed to be search engine friendly.
The site should be designed to encourage repeat traffic.
The site should have viral marketing elements that encourage visitors to recommend your products or services to others.
The site should include elements to leverage its sales force.
The site should incorporate permission marketing, where visitors are encouraged to give you permission to send them e-mail on a regular basis.
The site should be designed to encourage customer loyalty.
The site should incorporate stickiness, encouraging visitors to stay a while and visit many areas of the site.

Interpreters And Compilers

Labels: Programming

An interpreter translates and executes a program as it reads it, turning the program instructions, or source code, directly into actions. A compiler translates source code into an intermediary form. This step is called compiling, and it produces an object file. A linking application called a linker runs after the compiler and combines the object file into an executable program containing machine code that can directly be run on the processor.

Because interpreters read the source code as it is written and execute the code on the spot, interpreters can be easier for the programmer to work with. Today, most interpreted programs are referred to as scripts, and the interpreter itself is often called a script engine.

Compilers introduce the extra steps of compiling the source code (which is readable by humans) into object code (which is readable by machines). This extra step might seem inconvenient, but compiled programs run very fast because the time-consuming task of translating the source code into machine language has already been done once, at compile time. Because the translation is already done, it is not required when you execute the program.

Another advantage of compiled languages such as C++ is that you can distribute the executable program to people who don’t have the compiler. With an interpreted language, you must have the interpreter installed to run the program on any computer.

Some high-level languages, such as Visual Basic 6, call the interpreter the runtime library. Other languages, such as C#, Visual Basic .NET, and Java have another component, referred to as a virtual machine (VM) or a runtime. The VM is also an interpreter.

However, it is not a source code interpreter that translates human-readable language into computer-dependent machine code. Rather, it interprets and executes a compiled computer-independent virtual machine language or intermediary language. These languages, therefore, still feature a compiler or a compilation step during which the source code written by a programmer is first translated; that is, compiled into content that can be interpreted by the virtual machine or runtime library.

Distinction Between OLTP And OLAP Databases

Labels: Database , Microsoft , SQL , Windows Server

Another important distinction is that between online transaction processing (OLTP) and online analytical processing (OLAP) databases. The distinction is not as clear-cut as that the standard distinction between file-server and client-server. In fact, most databases will be used as both OLTP and OLAP products during their lifetime.

OLTP refers to a usage pattern involving rapid insertion, deletion, and updating of data. This is typical of many applications. For example, suppose you’re running a travel agency and have 20 agents all updating a database of customer trip information.

This would be a typical OLTP application. The ability to quickly locate and change data is of paramount importance to avoid the database becoming a bottleneck for the entire operation.

On the other hand, suppose you’re the manager of the travel agency. You might be interested in seeing summary information from many bookings. Perhaps there’s a pattern where women travel more to Greece and men more to Spain; knowing this could enable you to better target your advertising to appropriate periodicals. Such analysis, involving summaries of all or most of the data in a database, is the hallmark of OLAP applications.

It’s very difficult for a server to be efficient for both OLTP and OLAP applications.

The data structures that are appropriate for fast updating are suboptimal for aggregate querying. Microsoft solves this problem by shipping two servers together. The first, Microsoft SQL Server, is mainly an OLTP server. It can perform summary queries, but it’s not optimized for them. That’s the job of the second program, Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services. This second program ships with every copy of SQL Server and is designed to build efficient structures for OLAP applications to use.

Connecting Access To SQL Server

Labels: Database , Microsoft , SQL , Windows Server

Although Query Analyzer is a useful tool, it’s not all that user-friendly. You need to understand SQL to do much of anything with Query Analyzer. Wouldn’t it be nice to just view your SQL Server data through a more friendly interface? Well, if you’re familiar with Microsoft Access and you have Access 2000 or new , you can do just that.

Tested With Access 2000 And SQL Server 2000

Since Access 2000, Access includes a new type of database called an Access project. An Access project includes all of the familiar Access user-interface tools such as forms and reports. However, instead of storing its data in a Jet database, it stores its data in a Microsoft SQL Server database. In fact, Access even comes with a desktop version of SQL Server, the Microsoft Database Engine (MSDE).

You can also create an Access project that shows data from an existing SQL Server database. To do so, follow these steps:

Launch Access.
Choose Create a New Database Using Access Database Wizards, Pages and Projects from the opening dialog box.
Choose the General tab in the New dialog box.
Choose the icon for Project (Existing Database) and click OK.
Assign a name to your project and click Create.
Enter your SQL Server name, authentication information, and database name in the Data Link Properties dialog box, and click OK.

That’s all there is to it.

Most Common Flavors Of RAID | RAID Levels

Labels: HardDisk , Hardware , RAID , Softwares

With the advent of massive databases and online storage needs measured in terabytes, RAID has become the standard way to create and manage the huge disk farms required to store all that data.

RAID comes in many flavors; we've covered the most common:

RAID 0

This version of RAID storage concatenates multiple physical disks together to create a single virtual drive. Data may be striped across the disks to improve performance. This form of RAID is great for managing large virtual storage areas with some performance improvement, but offers no additional reliability.

RAID 1

RAID 1 is another name for mirroring, or creating a realtime copy of every physical device. Data written to the mirrored pair is copied to both physical devices. If one of the devices fails, the other picks up the slack so that the host system is never aware that a drive has gone bad. In its pure form, RAID 1 provides the ultimate in redundancy, but offers no performance improvements or virtual device management.

RAID 0+1

Combining RAID 0 and RAID 1 yields the best of both worlds: complete mirroring for redundancy with striping and concatenation for large volume management and performance improvement. The only down side is cost, since RAID 0+1 (like RAID 1) needs two bytes of raw storage for every byte of data stored.

RAID 3

RAID 3 reduces the cost of redundant storage by using parity instead of mirroring to protect against disk failure. Drives are grouped into sets; one drive is designated the parity drive for the set and contains parity data computed from the other drives. If any single drive fails, the data stored on it can be recreated from the parity data. Costs are reduced, since fewer drives are needed to implement redundant storage, but performance is hindered by the parity computation and the bottlenecks caused by a single dedicated parity drive.

RAID 5

RAID 5 is a refinement of RAID 3 that uses the concept of parity but distributes the parity data across all the drives in the RAID set. Bottlenecks induced by the parity drive are eliminated and costs are still reduced, but performance can still be a problem.

In exploring these different RAID models, we gave little consideration to the physical implementation of the storage subsystem. Now that we understand how these different RAID types work in theory, we need to drill down one layer into our storage subsystem and see how to implement RAID in the real world.

What Is JBOD In RAID Concept

Labels: HardDisk , Hardware , RAID

One way to create a large storage subsystem is to not use RAID at all. Such systems often go by the moniker of "just a bunch of disks," or JBOD.

JBOD is the way we used to do things back in the olden days, when normal systems maintenance included loading coal into the machine hopper and adjusting the processor drive belts. To create a JBOD storage subsystem, you take a bunch of disks and attach them to your system, usually via one or more SCSI controllers. Individual drives may have some smarts, including an on-drive cache, but there is little other hardware support for your storage subsystem.

Drive management in a JBOD environment occurs at the system level. You use conventional tools to format, partition, and mount the physical drives. Users then take advantage of the file systems you've mounted.

For any sort of realistic performance management, users, especially database administrators, will need to know exactly where every file system is created and mounted, so that they don't create applications that saturate one drive or SCSI controller.

For large installations, JBOD is simply not an option. If you work in a small shop on a shoestring budget, however, JBOD can help meet some of your disk storage needs. In these cases, you'll be relying on your applications and databases to provide redundancy and recovery tools, along with robust backups to help you through serious drive failures.

The one advantage of a JBOD installation is that it forces you to become intimately familiar with your drives, controllers, and disk performance. Once you have fully grasped the inner workings of disk storage, a later transition to a more sophisticated RAID subsystem will be much easier, since you will understand how to balance loads across multiple controllers, detect disk hot spots, and recognize application usage patterns among your disk drives.

In addition, a JBOD architecture is the basis on which software RAID solutions are constructed. Learning how to make JBOD work effectively will help you make a software-based RAID configuration work better as well.

Level of Competence Required For Any Manager To Be Effective

Labels: Education , Management , MBA

As a manager you are there to get things done through people. You are engaged in a purposeful activity involving others. But you are concerned with defining ends as well as gaining them. You decide what to do and then ensure that it gets done with the help of the members of your team.

You deal with programmes, processes, events and eventualities. All this is done through the exercise of leadership.

People are the most important resource available to you as a manager. It is through this resource that other resources are managed. However, you are ultimately accountable for the management of all resources, including your own.

When dealing with immediate issues, anticipating problems, responding to demands or even a crisis, and developing new ways of doing things, you are personally involved. You manage yourself as well as other people.

You cannot delegate everything. You frequently have to rely on your own resources to get things done. These resources include skill, know-how, competencies, time, and reserves of resilience and determination.

You will get support, advice and assistance from your own staff and specialists, but in the last analysis you are on your own.

As a manager and a leader you will be judged not only on the results you have achieved but the level of competence you have attained and applied in getting those results. Competence is about knowledge and skills – what people need to know and be able to do to carry out their work well.

The following is an example of a competence framework:

Achievement orientation. The desire to get things done well and the ability to set and meet challenging goals, create own measures of excellence and constantly seek ways of improving performance.
Business awareness. The capacity continually to identify and explore business opportunities, to understand the business priorities of the organization and constantly to seek methods of ensuring that the organization becomes more business-like.
Communication. The ability to communicate clearly and persuasively, orally or in writing.
Customer focus. The exercise of unceasing care in looking after the interests of external and internal customers to ensure that their wants, needs and expectations are met or exceeded.
Developing others. The desire and capacity to foster the development of members of his or her team, providing feedback, support, encouragement and coaching.
Flexibility. The ability to adapt to and work effectively in different situations and to carry out a variety of tasks.
Leadership. The capacity to inspire individuals to give of their best to achieve a desired result and to maintain effective relationships with individuals and the team as a whole.
Planning. The ability to decide on courses of action, ensuring that the resources required to implement the action will be available and scheduling the programme of work required to achieve a defined end-result.
Problem solving. The capacity to analyse situations, diagnose problems, identify the key issues, establish and evaluate alternative courses of action and produce a logical, practical and acceptable solution.
Teamwork. The ability to work cooperatively and flexibly with other members of the team with a full understanding of the role to be played as a team member.

Supported Operating Systems For 64-Bit Office 2010

Labels: 64Bit , Microsoft , Office , Office2010 , Windows Tips

Supported Windows operating systems:

The supported Windows operating system editions for 64-bit Office 2010 client include the following:

64-bit editions of Windows Vista with SP1
64-bit editions of Windows Server 2008 with Service Pack 1
Windows 7
Windows Server 2008 R2

The following statements apply:

The 64-bit Office client can be installed only on 64-bit editions of Windows Vista with SP1, 64-bit editions of Windows Server 2008 with Service Pack 1, Windows 7, and Windows Server 2008 R2.
The 32-bit Office client is supported as a WOW64 installation. This is the default installation on 64-bit Windows operating systems. The 32-bit Windows-based applications run on 64-bit Windows, which allows for compatibility with 32-bit Office applications and add-ins.
Office 2010 server products (Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010, Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010, and Microsoft Project Server 2010) support the 64-bit edition of Windows Server 2008 with Service Pack 2, and Windows Server 2008 R2.
For click-to-run scenarios, the supported version is Office 2010 32-bit (WOW64) on computers that run the supported 64-bit editions of Windows operating systems.

64-Bit Editions Of Office 2010

Labels: 64Bit , Microsoft , Office2010 , Windows Tips

Processors that are 64-bit are becoming the standard for systems that range from servers to desktop computers. The 64-bit systems can use more virtual and physical memory than 32-bit systems. This lets users work with much larger data sets than they could previously, and to analyze and solve large computational problems.

Microsoft Office 2010 introduces native 64-bit versions of Microsoft Office products to take advantage of this larger capacity. For example, this additional capacity is needed only by those Microsoft Excel users who require Excel spreadsheets that are larger than 2 gigabytes (GB). The 32-bit version of Office 2010 provides the same functionality and is also compatible with 32-bit add-ins. Therefore, the 32-bit version of Office 2010 is installed by default.

Office 2010 also provides support for 32-bit Office 2010 applications that run on 64-bit Windows operating systems by using Windows-32-on-Windows-64 (WOW64). WOW64 is the x86 emulator that enables 32-bit Windows-based applications to run seamlessly on 64-bit Windows systems.

Office 2010 lets users continue to use existing Microsoft ActiveX Controls, Component Object Model (COM) add-ins, and Visual Basic for Applications (VBA), which are primarily 32-bit because no 64-bit versions are available yet for many add-ins. Supporting 32-bit Office 2010 applications that run on 64-bit operating systems allows for better compatibility with controls, add-ins, and VBA.

The recommendations for which edition of Office 2010 to install are as follows:

If users in your organization depend on existing extensions to Office, such as ActiveX controls, third-party add-ins, in-house solutions built on previous versions of Office, or 32-bit versions of programs that interface directly with Office, we recommend that you install 32-bit Office 2010 (the default installation) on computers that are running both 32-bit and 64-bit supported Windows operating systems.
If some users in your organization are Excel expert users who work with Excel spreadsheets that are larger than 2 gigabytes (GB), they can install the 64-bit edition of Office 2010. In addition, if you have in-house solution developers, we recommend that those developers have access to the 64-bit edition of Office 2010 so that they can test and update your in-house solutions on the 64-bit edition of Office 2010.

This article applies to the current release of Office 2010. For a visual representation of this information, see 64-bit Client Installation of Microsoft Office 2010 (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=168620), which includes supported scenarios, deployment considerations, and an overview of the Setup process.

Administrative Activities That Are Required For SQL Server

Labels: Database , Microsoft , SQL , Windows Server

The practical behavior and acceptability of an application based on SQL Server depends on several administrative activities:

Backing up your data regularly to minimize the possibility of losing important business data. You need to consider issues such as hardware failure (for example, a hard drive that fails) or external events such as a fire in the building that houses your database server(s).
Verifying that data has backed up successfully. Storing backups in a remote location (or locations) ensures that no single disaster can destroy your business while you attempt to get SQL Server up and running again.
Ensuring that you can restore backed up data.
Replicating data between business sites if it’s important that both sites have access to synchronized data.
Selecting hardware that supports scalability or high performance; for example, hard-drive size and configuration, and clustering of SQL Server machines.
Using database mirroring (introduced from SQL Server 2005) to allow rapid failover from a failing SQL Server machine to another SQL Server machine that has the database in the same state. That allows your application to continue on the other machine with little or no appearance of a problem to users or customers.

The database engine in SQL Server is designed to support robust, reliable processing of data. In addition, it’s designed to support configurations that ensure high availability and scalability.

If you’re going to design database applications that support your business’s interaction with its customers, the database must be accessible when customers need it. It’s bad business to lose orders simply because the database isn’t available when your customer wants to place an order.

Changing The Default Or General Development Settings In Visual Studio 2010

How To Determine Whether Service Pack Is Installed

What Is The Blue Screen Of Death | Troubleshooting BSOD

Also Read: Blue Screen Of Death And Green Ribbon of Death On Windows

Consider Before Starting Your Own Website

Interpreters And Compilers

Distinction Between OLTP And OLAP Databases

Connecting Access To SQL Server

Most Common Flavors Of RAID | RAID Levels

What Is JBOD In RAID Concept

Level of Competence Required For Any Manager To Be Effective

Supported Operating Systems For 64-Bit Office 2010

64-Bit Editions Of Office 2010

Administrative Activities That Are Required For SQL Server

Translator

Popular Posts

Subscribe By Email

Choose By Category

Microsoft Press

Free Ebooks Download

Recent Posts