I’ve been around application packaging and SOE development for a while now, but I still found this blog post interesting as it covers off the following points:

• What is a Driver Package?
• How do I know what needs to be in the package?
• Driver Signing

If you’re working on driver installations, Bob Kjelgaard’s post is worth 5 minutes of your time.

In my current job, I get to write data extracts.
eg. extract data from an SQL database, using Microsoft Access as the front-end. Not my preferred tool, but it’s what I’ve got.

Thought it would be useful to brush up on my T-SQL, so I purchased the book on the right.

Best darn little book I’ve found on Transaction SQL. The 10 minutes refers to each lesson. And there are 30 lessons all up. This will be a book which I’d going to end up using as a quick reference.

Now if you want to teach yourself T-SQL, I’d suggest the following:

1. Sams Teach Yourself Microsoft SQL Server T-SQL
2. SQL Server 2005 Express Edition with Advanced Services
3. .Net Framework version 2
   (if you don’t already have it)
4. Membership of SqlServerCentral.com (it’s free), the question of the day is worth it for knowledge reinforcement.

Update August 2009:
Writing SQL Queries: Let’s Start with the Basics, by Microsoft is worth reading as well.

W2K3 to W2K8 Active Directory Upgrade Considerations

I have collected some upgrade considerations from a couple colleagues of mine and have been sharing them on our internal technical DLs as the question comes up.  I have gotten positive feedback on the notes and have been encouraged to post them.  So, here they are.  Though, the real thanks go out to my colleages Tom and Arren.

Here are some of the problems customers run into when upgrading W2K3 DCs to W2K8

A very comprehensive list of solutions to problems people run into when upgrading from a Windows 2003 domain to a Windows 2008 domain.  Thank you Glenn LeCheminant.

Nikki is back from surgery to remove the rest of the mast cell tumours, and has been sleeping most of the day.  The Vet said that she didn’t react well to the anaesthetic, and needed a tranquilizer to settle her down.

Had the chance to take the Peugeot 308 for a spin the other day.

A basic no-frills bottom-of-the-range XS Peugeot 308.

And it wasn’t bad at all. 

At $26,990 list price, was it $8,000 better than a Nissan Tiida?

Well, no.

My biggest gripe was that the seat in this model doesn’t have any lumber adjustment, so it was like an S&M session, but without any of the pleasure.  A set of Recaro seats would fix that.  Or an upgrade to the XSE version, but that is $34,500 list.

My second gripe was the front screen pillar obscures your view going around right-hand bends.  It’s an annoyance when you are trying to proceed along at speed.

My final gripe is that the clutch pedal is far too close to the transmission tunnel.  And it leaves no place for your size 10-4E shoe to rest.

Things I liked were that performance and handling was good/great for a luxury shopping trolley (well that’s what it’ would be used for) and the gearbox was smooth.

On price alone, I wouldn’t buy a Peugeot 308.  And if I had $26,990 to spare, I’d probably buy a Subaru Impreza 5 door hatch (new) or a MGB V8 GT (used), instead.

Let me know if anything broke …

Use of HP UPD is in my experience counter productive.

If you need to print to HP use the CLJ 9500MFP PS driver (or PCL6 or PCL5c if you must).
This driver works on HP LaserJets.
This driver is cluster compliant comes in 64bit and 32bit flavours and works with Novell/Iprint Citrix – the lot.

Some care needs to be taken with configuration to ensure best performance.
- Within advanced disabled "advanced features"
- Ensure font substitution is set to "down load soft font"
- Set print processor to "winprint" & "raw"
- Stop PDF pass thru
- Stop PDF error handler

Although this driver only supports 4 trays max it will work with any number of trays, just use paper type when sending job.

If this does not work for you, or you want to print faster use Adobe’s Universal Print Driver – it’s easy to modify the PPD to add duplex and colour – it took me about 30 mins to sort and test.

- wapicho commenting on I’m not the only one annoyed with HP’s UPD print driver.

Use of any Universal Print Printer is counter productive, is what I think too.
I’ve discussed before why printer vendors like to use UPDs (hint: they’re a pack of cheap bastards), and why I loath them.

Wapicho’s advice is good, and should work very well.  Particularly with Citrix environments, which can be fussy.

Reminds me what I used to do in the past to get troublesome laser printers to work.  Use the HP LaserJet 4 driver.
The HP LaserJet 4 Postscript driver is a handy “works with almost everything” driver, particularly Citrix.  But it has it’s limitations (lack of more than 2 trays, for example).

In the far far past, LaserJet 2 drivers were a good substitute for just about any Postscript printer.

The problem was described to me like this:

When you print to the network printer, and want to use the “URGENT” watermark setting, it does not work.
When you print to a locally installed printer, it works.

The answer?
When I install the printer driver on the Windows Server I specify WinPrint / RAW as the print processor.
When you install it yourself, on your PC, the driver picks its’ default (in this case LMABT54C), and the Watermarks feature works.

So why do we use WinPrint / RAW on servers?
It’s a known quantity.  In other words, I know it works (mostly), and more importantly, as it’s a user-mode DLL, it is stable.
I don’t want some crappily written HP or Lexmark DLL* crashing my print server, or Citrix server, thank you.

Further reading:
Basic Printing Architecture (Ask The Microsoft EPS Windows Server Performance Team)
Disabling Advanced Printing Features (Ask The Microsoft EPS Windows Server Performance Team)

* – in this instance, it was a Lexmark Universal print driver causing the problem.  Given the build quality of the Lexmark printers I’ve seen, I wouldn’t trust their software drivers.

On Friday, I blogged about opening the Seagate FreeAgent external drive.

The reason I had to open the drive up, was that I dropped it on the floor, and it had been behaving strangely since.
Not “broken”, just slow.  That might indicate some drive damage.

So, there is only one thing to do in a case like this, and that is SpinRite.

SpinRite is the industry standard system for hard and floppy disk care, maintenance, and data recovery.  SpinRite utilizes deep analysis technology to recover loss and unreadable data to locate and lock unsafe areas from use, to move endangered data to safety, and to repair areas of the drive which have become damaged or bad through use.  SpinRite should be reused periodically to aid in the prevention of hard disk loss.

I’ve been using SpinRite to repair hard drives, since before the Internet.

Now if you take your faulty hard drive to a good PC repair shop, they’ll use SpinRite.  So $89US is cheap, compared to a PC shop doing the same thing, and charging you hundreds of dollars.

When SpinRite is running, it looks like this:
(more…)

(very carefully)

Step 0
– read all these instructions before trying this yourself.
In particular, you can probably get away with removing the top cover only.

Step 1
– using a BLUNT object, such as a thin screwdriver, slide it along the gap between the “metal” top and white case “filler”.

(the observant amongst you lot will have noticed the bottom is already removed.  With the benefit of hindsight, I probably didn’t need to do that.)

Step 2
– Pry the case apart.

(more…)