So, you want to get certified? I did today and got a 981 out of 1000. I think I missed just one question 🙂

I used the same modus operandi as when I got my SQL Server 2008 Technology Specialist

Caveat: No specific book but you can get other similar ones from Amazon

Suggestion: Read the measured skills table and determine what you know and what you don’t know

So I am faced with my next challenge, getting certified on SharePoint 2010. I’ve been involved with SharePoint for more than 6 years, actually deploying a site for Microsoft SMSP back in 2006 when I lived in Seattle.  At the time it was just a CTE, then migrated from Tech Refresh to RTM.  Bit of a pain one must say!

Well, so now I going to attack head on this next test

Exam 70-576:

PRO: Designing and Developing Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Applications

All about it can be found here http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/exam.aspx?ID=70-576

Funny to mention, this test counts against the Search competency for Microsoft Gold Partner

At home I have a decently sized server that pretty much covers every role that I need.  It is a hyper v server, active domain, file server and if you are a geek like me you know what else it has.  What is really annoying is that every time I turn it on it has local connectivity only and I have to “Diagnose and Repair” and then “Get new IP settings for Local Area Connection”.

Well, here is a workaround to fix this issue, simply disable and reenable the connection via command line.  I actually created a batch that is executed at startup so that I don’t have to go through the tedious step of doing it myself.  (You could solve it once and for all doing a netsh to reinstall TCP, but I didn’t try it):

Open a command line and run the following two commands

To disable:
netsh interface set interface “Local Area Connection” disabled
To enable:
netsh interface set interface “Local Area Connection” enabled

I did not find this on my own, I read it from a post from RobWill in experts-exchange, which is only for subscribers.  But here is the link to the guy just to say thanks.

http://www.experts-exchange.com/M_877631.html

I wasted today some time while studying for the Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Development (70-433) exam because every time I attached the AdventureWorks database to test, it was marked as “suspect” so I was unable to use it.

I found a very easy way to avoid the “Suspect” issue for adventure works.  I was a bit annoyed by it but then I decided to read the error message.

It is complaining about the file placeholder.txt being corrupted.  Simply delete that file and reattach.  Problem solved!

70-433\Databases\AdventureWorks2008\Documents

You can read one of the posts regarding this issue here:

http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/pl-PL/sqlserversamples/thread/7abfc1f6-fb74-4a41-8272-c44c34f060d3?prof=required

Ayer tuve un intercambio de correos con una gente que yo les instale el correo para el dominio de ellos sobre Google Apps(GA) y ahora me contactaron que la persona que se los esta desarrollando quiere quitarle el correo de GA y ponerle un POP regular, si no me equivoco en Godaddy.com.

Veamos lo que estoy significa, primero con Google Apps:
– Ahora tienen 7GB de espacio por cada usuario.
– No tienen que borrar NUNCA un correo
– Como GA usa IMAP, pueden tener sincronizado su correo(como yo) en el iphone, ipad, laptop, compu de la casa y acceso web.
– Pueden organizar todos sus correos por medio de labels, digamos que un label para cada cliente, y mantener su inbox limpio con el feature de Archive
– Y lo mas importante de todo. NUNCA se les va a perder un correo por que como no tienen que borrar y GA usa el mismo search de google entonces siempre van a encontrar el correo que quieran de la persona que se lo haya mandado cuando sea y donde sea. Esto por si solo vale oro.
– Y como bono adicional pueden usar Google Spreadsheets & documents, archivos en la “nube” ademas de un calendario compartido para la organizacion. Por que uno va a dejar de usar herramientas que lo ayudan a simplificarse la vida?

Imaginense q un cliente les dice que uds no hicieron algo que tenian que hacer y uds revisan (encontrando facilmente el correo usando el search del inbox). Con eso se finaliza la disputa. Se tiene prueba escrita de lo que el cliente dijo en primera instancia. La gente se aprovecha de que a los seres humanos se nos olvida las cosas, pero cuando algo esta por escrito no hay discusion adicional.

Si cambian a pop es ir como el cangrejo, para atras… GA es POP y mucho mas. Con solo pop van a perder correos, no van a tener el search tan eficiente, no van a poder sincronizar devices, la archivacion va a ser complicada y demas.

A mi criterio una persona que escoja pop sobre Gmail lo haria por:
– desconocimiento pues no sabe como funciona GA o como configurarlo
– por que en el hosting en el que lo tiene instalado no puede usar otro servidor de correo, i.e. Godaddy que te fuerza a que compres el servicio de mail de ellos
– No le interesa ofrecerle algo superior a un cliente

Estos son mis $0.02. Nadie quiere pelear ni insultar, es solo que no me gusta cuando a un amigo cercano le ofrecen algo que le va a complicar la vida cuando ya tiene algo que se la simplifica.

Why is it that if you study something that has “computer” somewhere in your job title then you automatically become a power point/word/picasa/save hard drives/excel and everything-else-computer-related expert?

Here is a funny graph I found that pretty much describes what I am saying

How to solve or troubleshoot computer problems

I’ve been feeling my internet connection kind of shaky lately so I decide to give it a shot and run a bandwidth test. You have no idea how much I hate the idea of doing this, given that I pay around $65 a month for a 2048/768 connection. God! for that much money other countries can get 12 mbps!

Well, here is what I am getting…

speedtest in costa rica

That means the down speed seems decent. But the up speed!!! It is close to dial up 🙁

You know what the problem is? That even though we have multiple companies providing internet service, it all goes down to the government at the end of the day. My cable company is Amnet, although they depend on Racsa for the service. How can we expect a decent service if internet is a monopoly just like a lot of other services?

Come on Costa Rica, grow up!!!! Competition is sane. And ICE, I think it is time you start selling IPhones, and for a decent price!

Well, for now let’s keep living with this horrible service. I see my country evolving, but not as fast as I would like it to.

I was this close to paying Amnet (one of Costa Rica’s useless ISP) for a public IP to be able to use my nice server which is set up (or in the process of) with a lot of tools that I use for my next enterprise, setting up my own company. We already achieved our first little baby steps milestone. Will it be custom dev? SEO? marketing? a tool? a product? a service? I will tell soon 🙂

Well, let’s go back to the story, I had to have access from anywhere to my files while I am developing (and also my Music – 70 GB don’t fit in an iphone).

So, what is the solution? Use Hamachi. Hamachi is a vpn emulator that’s free for non commercial use and as little as $4 for commercial use.

Hamachi
VPN Evolved
LogMeIn Hamachi: Instant, Zero Configuration VPN

Try it, it works wonderfully. I am listening to my itunes library from across town and logged into my Microsoft Windows 2008 server via terminal server.
Find Hamachi here
https://secure.logmein.com/products/hamachi/vpn.asp

I recently opened an account in Mosso (www.mosso.com, part ofwww. rackspace.com) to host my sites.  Indeed it is more expensive than other options.  I pay $100 a month, and in similar services I could get something similar for $10 a month. (Similar services at least offer roughly same amount of space, unlimited sites, many GB of bandwidth)

So why I am paying 10x more.  Well, for starters I am in the process of creating an app that I hope/dream will grow and I need the stability, scalability and performance of Mosso.  That is one reason, the other is that they offer a customer service like I haven’t seen anywhere else.  Email, knowledge base, forum you can get anywhere.  But with Mosso I have a problem, I log in, click on live help and in snap I have someone helping me.  Maybe not worth the full 10x difference, however it definitively pays.  

They offer more services that no one else does, like billing your customers, and best of all you get 50 GB space (which is a lot for asp net sites) and 500GB of transfer.  Quite a bit and enough for what I need now. And you pay more for what you need.

Of course you always look for a catch, and in this case I thought it is the compute cycle.  They offer 10,000 compute cycles. Of course I have no idea of what that is, and was afraid of ending up paying a lot more for them.  So here is what they say a compute cycle is.

Compute cycle: Compute cycles measure how much processing time your applications require on the Cloud Sites. Using 10,000 compute cycles in a month is roughly equivalent to running a server with a 2.8 GHz modern processor for the same period of time.

You can read it here http://help.mosso.com/article.php?id=268

And then, how much is that?  They also have an estimate.

Mosso says the following:

http://help.mosso.com/article.php?id=269

Well, hope that helps

I decided today to give it a shot installing SQL Server 2008 Express. http://www.microsoft.com/express/sql/default.aspx

One note, I am doing so in Windows Server 2003 R2.  Why? It is a VM and I had the license for an Enterprise so I decided to use it.

For starters, I needed to install .Net Framework 3.5 SP1

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=ab99342f-5d1a-413d-8319-81da479ab0d7&displaylang=en

Guess what…. reboot! (I really hope that the day comes when it is not required to reboot every single time I change something in Windows….

Another step more

“Setup requires Windows Installer 4.5 or higher”….

So http://www.microsoft.com/downloadS/details.aspx?familyid=5A58B56F-60B6-4412-95B9-54D056D6F9F4&displaylang=en

Installed.  Reboot…again….

Now what else? 

Lot of tests passed, however Windows Power Shell missing

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=10EE29AF-7C3A-4057-8367-C9C1DAB6E2BF&displaylang=en

Installed, re-run tests.  Pass.

Select what to install.  Personally selected Database Engine and Management Tools.  Next, next, next….

Added myself as admin and use my user.  I just need to install a test db.  However, long process!

Finally, installing!

Wait quite a bit, and you are ready to roll.  Looks pretty nice, however installing should be a bit easier.  Especially since it is Express.