Dusting off the running shoes

July 1st, 2009 by Don No comments »

Thanks to a co-worker I’ve been slowly getting back into running lately.  For some reason (maybe having the kids?) I went from running a decent amount a few years ago to not running at all.  Not that having kids is a good reason to stop running and exercising, I guess I just let it become an excuse.  Either way, I’ve been much more active this year and for a good while now have been playing racquetball 4+ times a week.  Luckily now that I’ve gotten back into running I’m realizing that all that racquetball has gotten me in decent condition to get back into running starting out with 3+ mile runs without much trouble.

Along with dusting off my running shoes I’ve dusted off and charged back up the Garmin Forerunner.  What the heck is that you ask?  It’s a wrist-mounted GPS fitness computer!  Come on, you didn’t think I’d have a gadget for running?  You must not read this site or know me.  Actually, if you’re into running or thinking of getting into running you may want to consider picking up this or one of their other models.  It’s great when you’re trying to train for a race (5-k, 10-k, half or full marathon, etc) or just want to track your routs/progress and allows you to download your data for free to the Garmin Connect website.

Two things to note if you already have one of these devices or consider buying this model.  1, they have a firmware (software) update for the unit.  Since I hadn’t used mine in a few years mine was a few versions behind.  All you need for this is to download their web updater software and it’s pretty much automatic from there.  2, this unit only has a serial (RS-232) interface to the computer.  If you don’t know what that means all you need to know is that most new laptops and Macs don’t have serial interfaces.  You can solve this problem by picking up a USB to Serial cable adapter.  This will make working with any modern computers (laptops and Macs) much easier and faster.

Hopefully I can stick with the running now and build back up to doing some races.  My co-worker is doing the Virginia Beach Half-Marathon this Labor Day weekend.  I would love to go with him but we have so much else going on this summer that I really just can’t take another weekend away.  I may be able to convince him to do the Baltimore Half-Marathon this October.  We’ll have to see how that works out I guess.

Either way I plan on getting in at least 2 runs a week for now as I ease back into things.30

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Posted in gadgets, running

Google or Bing? Why not both?

June 30th, 2009 by Don 1 comment »

Bing is definitely nice on the eyes.  But I can’t bring myself to stray from “old faithful“.  Now, you can have the best of both worlds…

www.google-vs-bing.com

1 comment »

Posted in web

Got the DSLR, a Cannon EOS Rebel XSi

June 26th, 2009 by Don No comments »

To follow up on a previous post about evaluating Digital SLR cameras, I picked up one a few weeks ago before Alex and Avery’s 3rd birthday party.  As stated in the title, I ended up going with the Canon EOS Rebel XSi.  I ended up picking up a kit bundled with the standard 18-55mm lens and a telephoto lens (50-250mm).

There are definitely a ton of options, most of which I don’t understand.  I do feel like so far just using the auto-mode the photos have been awesome.  The best feature that I’ve been loving is the quick recovery time between shooting pictures.  I hope to learn more about the advanced features in the future when I have more time.  For now I’ll rely on the auto and scene modes.

One thing that I did do was update the camera’s firmware this week.  In case you’re not aware, it’s always a good idea when purchasing any kind of camera, camcorder, etc. to check to see if there are firmware upgrades.  Typically they fix bugs or ad support for new accessories that may have come out since the product was initially released.

If you’re a fellow Rebel XSi owner you can get the latest firmware and upgrade instructions here.  The process is very easy and only requires that you have a card reader for your SD card.

By the way, speaking of SD cards, I highly suggest that if you’re in the market for a DSLR camera that you pickup a good quality SD memory card.  Going with a cheap generic card, which cheap, will not allow you to fully take advantage of the speed that your camera can most likely write to the card.  Generic and cheap cards are slow, and you’ll wait for the images to be written to your card between pictures.  In order to eliminate this bottleneck I went with the SanDisk 16gb Extreme III 30MB/s Edition SDHC High Performance Card.

They key here is the 30MB/s speed.  That’s where this card stands out above others (the 16GB of storage doesn’t hurt either). I had picked one up at Best Buy the day before the kid’s birthday party for almost $80 more and ended up ordering the one linked above from Amazon because it was much cheaper.  Once the Amazon.com one came I simply took that box back and returned it to Best Buy.

All in all I’ve taken a few hundred pictures with the new camera and love it.  It’s definitely bulky and not as convenient as carrying around the old point and shoot, but the end result is worth it as far as I’m concerned.

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Posted in gadgets, photography

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Google Chrome for Mac

June 9th, 2009 by Don No comments »

You can get an early build of Google Chrome for Mac here.  Use at your own risk!

I’ll let you know if it blows up my Mac in my next post…

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Posted in mac, software

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Considering a Digital SLR camera

May 30th, 2009 by Don 4 comments »

After years of dealing with crummy point and shoot digital cameras with what seems like 30+ seconds wait time between shots we’re considering purchasing a SLR camera.  And with the latest Consumer Reports doing a rundown on 20+ SLRs it really has me close to making a decision now.  (It’s funny how Consumer Reports always seems to sense things that I’m considering purchasing and drops a review in the next issue.  It’s almost like they’re reading my minds…. scary.)

While I don’t think the Digital SLR will completely fill all of our photography needs I think it will slowly become the better option as the kids (two of which will be 3 here in June) get into more activities which will require their own personal sports illustrated (or whatever they do) photographer.  I still see us throwing the crappy old battery hungry point and shoot into the van for occasional use where we may not feel like lugging around a bigger camera.

The one model I’m seriously considering is a basic/entry level SLR from Canon.  Consumer Reports recommended it and my main dilemma now is to decide if I should get a kit where they bundle in a basic lens or get the body and my own lens separately.  For simplicity sake here’s a link to the Canon EOS Rebel XSi from Amazon.

As you can see from that link you can buy the camera body only or the standard bundle with the EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS (Image Stabilization) Lens.  If you go by Amazon you’ll see that there’s about a $100 difference between the two models.  And while not a big deal, the standard lens is only about the same as a 3x magnification range and is about what I’d have with my standard point and shoot. While I realize the quality difference would be massive when compared to the point and shoot I feel like not having the ability for distance shots may just have me reaching for the smaller one a lot of the time.

I wonder if it would just be better to get the body by itself and find a full range lens (18-200mm) and carry around 1 lens vs. having two in the bag.  I guess I’ll really have to consider what the majority of the shots will be.  Maybe having standard zoom (the one you get with the bundle) will be what I use most of the time and I could pickup a telephoto lens (50-250mm) for when the kids start soccer or whatever.  Or, you can find other places like B&H Photo that sell kits with both the standard zoom and telephoto bundled together.

Hmmm… decisions, decisions.  If any of you guys have any suggestions I’d love to hear them.  With two vacations coming up in the next few months I think pulling the trigger soon will result in lots of nice pictures when we’re on the beach in the Outer Banks this summer and down in Florida conquering Disney this fall.

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Posted in gadgets

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MS Reporting Services Report Viewer Control printing errors with IE8 and Vista

May 29th, 2009 by Don 11 comments »

We use SQL Server 2008′s Reporting Services for all of our site’s reports here at work.  Along with that we also use Microsoft’s Report Viewer control which gives you the ability to serve up the RDL files that are stored in SQL Server.  One of the features that the control offers is the ability to print your reports.  To accomplsih this it uses Active-X, which we all know can be funky and a hassle to troubleshoot when it’s not working properly.

When we released our new system back in February we got most of our users printing with minimal support.  We encouraged all of them to upgrade to IE 7 (many were still using IE6) which did fine with the control.  Shortly after our launch Microsoft started rolling out IE8 and our users slowly started upgrading.

That’s when we found many of them having issues printing.  As you’ll see in this screen shot, they would simply get a generic error when clicking the print button, even after successfully installing the print control.  As a work around we were having folks export to PDF and then print from there.  Obviously this wasn’t an ideal solution and we started troubleshooting to figure out what the problem was.

rs-report-error

After doing some testing on our end on virtual machines we were able to reproduce the problem and narrowed it down to Windows Vista running IE8.  Since we weren’t able to resolve the problem on our virtual machine configuration with anything we tried we eventually opened a support ticket with Microsoft.

After some support calls with Microsoft they informed us that in order for this to work properly you have to add the site that’s using the report viewer control as a trusted site if you’re using Internet Explorer 8 and Windows Vista. We thought this was odd because we definitely had tried this on our virtual machine setup and didn’t have any luck.

What we found out on our own later was that as that this solution does not seem to help if you originally started out with a Beta or RC (Release Candidate) copy of IE8 that had been upgraded to the final release.  That was the scenario we had on our virtual machine that we were using to test IE8 and even the trusted site fix didn’t help in that scenario.

So, if you are having this problem and you’re using a clean install of IE8 or an upgrade to the final release of IE8 from a previous version adding the trusted site to fix this problem is easy.

Just open up IE and click Tools > Internet Options and follow the steps shown here in the screen shot to add your site as a trusted site:

trusted-sites

Restart your browser and you’re in business.

Now if they could only get away from Active-X so our users that decide not to use IE can print.

11 comments »

Posted in programming, sql server, windows

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Why can’t the Gmail notifier launch the Chrome browser?

May 29th, 2009 by Don 3 comments »

Google’s Gmail Notifier system tray application for Windows can’t launch Google Chrome when it’s not setup as your system default browser.  Uh, hello?  Both of these are Google applications, you think they would have updated the notifier to support this by now.  As you can see here from my screen shots the Gmail Notifier options show every other browser I have installed EXCEPT Google Chrome.

notifier-main-window

notifier-browser-options

There must be some way to hack this.  I even made sure that I had the latest version of the notifier and I do.  Anybody have any idea on how to accomplish this?

3 comments »

Posted in software

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Save $5 on $50 from Home Depot Online

April 23rd, 2009 by Don No comments »

To get $5 OFF your next online purchase of $50, use promotion code 5OFF50 upon checkout.

Hurry, offer ends 4/27/09.

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Posted in Deals

Baltimore SQL Server Users Group 5/4

April 23rd, 2009 by Don No comments »

Last night at the Frederick .NET user group Jeremy Kadlec of Edgewood Solutions (one of the founders of the Baltimore SQL Server Users group, was a speaker.  I didn’t realize that this group met so close to where I work here in Columbia.  After checking out the website I was excited to learn that they met on the first Monday of the month.  Tuesdays and Thursdays, which seem to be popular days for most of the other user groups in the area are not an option for me since I handle the kids those nights while my wife tutors.

So, I’ll be checking out the group for the first time on Monday May 4th.

Presenter: Jack Richins of Microsoft

Title – SQL Server 2008 Security

Abstract – SQL Server 2008 introduced three new security features – Transparent Data Encryption, Enterprise Key Management, and SQL Audit. With increased concerns about privacy and data thefts, security remains a “must have” business feature even with constrained budgets. Come learn how to use these features to better secure your database applications and met business compliance regulations.

Learn how to:
* Protect your data at rest
* Use 3rd party key management systems to encrypt data in SQL Server with keys stored outside of SQL Server
* Keep an audit record of access to sensitive data without tanking your performance

Learn more about their meeting schedule here.  If you’re in the area and are interested in the topic, stop by!

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Posted in user groups

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Going for MCTS certification on Visual Studio 2008

April 23rd, 2009 by Don No comments »

I have been dragging my feet for the past few years in regards to finishing up my Microsoft development certification.  Actually, the last test I took was 70-229 Designing and Implementing Databases with Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Enterprise Edition back on Dec 08, 2003.  WOW, I had no idea it was that long until I just looked it up.

Anyway, what finally got me to get moving was a great voucer/coupon I got via email from Prometric, the testing company I used last time.  Not sure if it’s specific to me because I’m already a MCP (yes, I passed that test from years ago) or not but I’ll share it just in case it does work for others…

…Improving and validating your technical skills can help.

That is why Prometric is providing a limited offer to the first 4,000 individuals to help get your Microsoft Certified Professional status current or achieve an additional certification.

Offer available for customers who have taken their last certification exam prior to January 1, 2007.

Use this promo code ‘MCPBACK’ and get a $25 USD Certification (Normally priced at $125 USD). This offer is valid for any exam in the MCTS/MCPD/MCITP track. Does not include Microsoft Office or Windows end-user (non-IT) focused exams.

Go to: www.Prometric.com/microsoft to sign-up for your next exam.

But you better hurry!
You must take your exam by June 30, 2009.

Offer valid in US and Canada only.

My plan is to obtain the MCTS: .NET Framework 3.5, ASP.NET Applications certification related to Visual Studio 2008.  What I’m going to do is take the C# test rather than VB.NET, which is what I mainly use here at work.  I can work in C# and have written a few things in it, but my main language since I’ve been working in .NET has been VB.NET.

I figure this will be a good way to become more familiar with C# and will force me to learn the language.  Once you’ve been working with .NET for a while and looking through code samples on Google you’ll quickly realize that the majority of the code samples out there are done in C#.  So, as you can imagine, converting those to VB.NET can be frustrating after a while.

So, we’ll see how it goes.  I only spent $25 to book the test and another $44 to upgrade my copy of MCTS Self-Paced Training Kit (Exam 70-536): Microsoft® .NET Framework Application Development Foundation to the second edition.  I picked up the first edition a year or two ago when I first decided I wanted to get the MCTS and only got about 1/2 way through it.

My test is set for June 17, wish me luck!

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Posted in .net, Certification, programming

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