Roborapter for your Inner Geek

Ok, I don't typically blog about products, but this one is pretty cool. A company called Wow Wee has produced a second generation robot called Roboraptor (Robosapien being the first). This one appears to be pretty impressive even though the commercial for it is pretty sad. Too bad I can't get my hands on one. If I didn't have kids that would thrash it, I might even shell out the $120 for it. At any rate, a review for Roboraptor is currently up on PCMagazine's website.

How to Update SQL Server Beta 2 with the June CTP

I thought I might as well as jot down my experience with this update as I need to do this three times and others might find some assurance here as well.

1. The very first thing I did was to run a backup job on my user databases. It turns out this was just a precautionary measure as I didn't need to restore from backup.


2. Next, I tried to run the Upgrade Advisor from the Redist/Upgrade Advisor directory on the DVD. It promptly told me that it needed the .Net Framework 2.0 before it could do anything. Since I had an older version of the framework installed, I guess it wants a specific version of the .Net Framework 2.0. In short, I didn't run this tool again.


3. sqlbuw.exe, the Build Uninstall Wizard, was next on my list and I ran it from the \Setup Tools\Build Uninstall Wizard directory. This rarely happens, but the tool worked like a champ. I included the uninstall of the .Net Framework 2.0 beta and the Client Network Utilities.


4. Reboot.


5. Parts of this next step are not required. The uninstall utility does not delete the directories nor the .mdf files for the system databases. I elected to only delete the master, temp, model, etc .mdf and .ldf files instead of deleting the entire directory tree. Hypothetically, if you move your .mdf and .ldf files for your user databases, the entire tree could be deleted before running setup. Then those moved files would then need to be placed back in your data and log directories after setup. Again, I didn't use that method, so I'm not sure if it works (it should in theory).


6. Next, run setup from the root of the DVD. This step is pretty much what you would expect as it runs through the options for authentication type, collation, etc.


7. After installation completed, I rebooted even though "you don't need to."


8. Once my system was back up, I attached the user databases.


9. Since I didn't do any sort of archiving/restoring of my master db, I had to recreate any security accounts I had setup. If you have a ton of security settings in place, look to do some backup and restoring of master using the documented methods. Oh, and good luck finding those documented methods.

Visual Studio and SQL Server Beta Madness

As most are aware that the new releases of Visual Studio Beta 2 (and CTP's) do not work with the original SQL Server Beta 2. In fact, things continue to get more confusing when you try to mix and match SQL Server CTP's with Visual Studio CTP's. I asked a colleague of mine, Peter O'Kelly to make some inquirys to his contacts at Microsoft to answer the question, "what works with what?" As it turns out, my official (or unofficial depending on how you look at it) is yet to be returned.

However, Peter was able to dig up an answer by Eric Nelson (who I believe works at Microsoft). Basically, it looks like I can safely install the June CTP of SQL Server with Visual Studio 2005 Beta 2. Consequently, this is exactly what I wanted to hear since I wanted to avoid SQL Server Express and the Developer editions which were the only April CTP options.

Say Goodbye to Sql Server 2005 Beta 3

According to Microsoft in this press release, SQL Server 2005 (or Yukon) will not undergo a Beta 3 release. In it's place, Community Technical Previews (CTP's) will continue. To quote them exactly:

With the availability of the SQL Server 2005 April CTP, Microsoft also announced that it would adopt CTPs for the remainder of the SQL Server 2005 development cycle.

Not that I am completely excited about this change of events, but I will be ok with it as long as updates to SQL Server manage not to break interoperability with Visual Studio 2005 Beta 2. Hmmm, in that statement I might as well be saying "I'll be happy as long as the sun doesn't set tonight."

XML Serializer Fix for Visual Studio 2005 Beta 2

For those interested, Microsoft introduced a bug with beta 2 which results in the following error:

"If one class in the class hierarchy uses explicit sequencing feature (Order), then its base class and all derived classes have to do the same."

As it turns out, the bug is fixed in the July CTP, but there is no "go live" license support for the CTP. The interim fix was stated at: http://forums.microsoft.com/msdn/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=55034. Using that post as a guideline, I added System.Xml.Serialization to the using commands, then added the [XmlElement] entry to every property in my object model.

/// <summary>

/// Sets/Gets Test

/// </summary>

/// <value></value>

[XmlElement(ElementName = "Test", Order = 1)]

public int Test

{

    set { _test = value; }

    get { return _test; }

}

This fix hasn't solved all my beta 2 problems, but it is a very major step in the right direction. Good luck for those others out there doing the same.

XML Data Management Tutorial

Yesterday I attended a tutorial titled "XML Data Management" by Peter Lacey. Mr. Lacey did a great job filling in the gaps of my knowledge as it relates to XML Schema (xsd) and XQuery. The course focused on XML data as opposed to XML text. Although XML text has more relation to my uses, the course definitely improved my understanding and future implementations.

Even though it may be considered a side-issue related to the tutorial, I learned that my use of Visual Studio and web service creation was not only wrong, but dreadfully wrong. My implementations worked, but lacked foresight and planning.

I started with a logical data model to outline and map my data. My next step should have been to work on a taxonomy and namespace generation. Follow that up with xsd creation and WSDL definitions then I would finally be ready to write my webservices. Instead, I jumped directly from my Logical Data Structure (LDS model) to my web service creation.

In short, my shortcomings were due to ignorance about the tools I am using. It will be an interesting adjustment and some require some additional education, but I'm up for the challenge.