Category Archives: Computers

SQL Triggers

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A fact which seems buried to me is that an after trigger actually does still have access to both the inserted and deleted virtual tables.

So if you have been struggling to re-implement a simple insert, update, or delete because you feel you must use an instead of trigger in order to access the values in inserted or deleted, relax.  You’re doing it wrong.

I can beef this up with some code, and I suppose I will, but the code is not the issue–it’s the concept, and once I learned to rely on the inserted and deleted tables persisting until my trigger itself goes out of scope, my life got much simpler.

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O Glorious Workaround!

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This blog seems to be up and running again!  Links are working!  Everything is working.

One of the valuable things I am taking from ITIL training is the confidence to STOP tinkering with things.  I have developed a workaround for this issue: category links were not working, and now they are.  Now it has cost me my preferred URL style, but that;s fine.  That;s not my problem, although “problem” is the key word.

In ITIL, Incident Management is exclusively focused on restoring a service, whereas Problem Management is focused on understanding root causes and preventing repeated or similar occurrences through permanent changes (or deciding that the changes are not worth it).

I have done the Incident Management portion of this, and I figure that the problem management portion … Continue reading →

Been Busy up in Heah!

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Man, I’m tired.  I’ve been clipping along at work, back to wa-a-ay long days on a project I like a lot, and whacked a test on Tuesday.  Only missed one question on the ITIL V3 Foundation exam.  I resisted the urge to stomp and glower while muttering and swearing about having missed a question, as the other guy finished and failed, and the third guy was visibly agitated as he kept plugging away.  So I’m good for ITIL something or other.  Thanks Knikki!

I also took the ITIL Service Operations class offered by HP a few weeks ago, and have the test for that coming up soon.  The place I work is implementing improvements along the ITIL lines, and running us through these courses.  So it feels darned … Continue reading →

SQL Tip of the Day

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COLLATE DATABASE_DEFAULT

This is a work-around, and a dangerous one, but it works in a pinch. If you are getting collation errors such as “Cannot resolve collation conflict for equal to operation” bubbling up from SQL Server through your application, you are likely trying to JOIN two datasets of incompatible collations.

The quick and dirty workaround is to COLLATE on the fly just as you would CAST a variable for a read but not a write. So you’ll do it in a SELECT statement, which I am happy to report works just fine.

Sample problem:

SELECT Trusty.Age, Shifty.Height FROM MyGoodDataSource AS Trusty INNER JOIN SketchyDataSource AS Shifty ON Trusty.LastName = Shifty.LastName

ERROR! “Cannot resolve collation conflict for equal to operation”

So we’re going to CHOOSE TO INTERPRET THE … Continue reading →

Best Spam Ever

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Somebody has taken blog comment spam to the next level.  Somehow, this comment made it past Akismet (the Cloverfield monster of blog spam defenders):

Whenever I read one of your posts, my balls get even bigger.

Naturally, the comment was accompanied by a link to a commercial site, in this case a page on the highly suspect site “Evaporative Humidifier Reviews“, which I am going to simply link here and wish the guy good luck.  If all spam were this funny, the web would be a different place.  I hope you get lot of hits, dude.

MacBook Air to Kick Ass, Chew Gum

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Apple has dropped the aging and sturdy line of just plain Macbook laptops. You can buy the mobile powerhouse MacBook Pro, or you can buy a MacBook Air. So with the new OS 10.7 “Lion” standard, the addition of the new thunderbolt port, and upgraded processor and RAM, the featherweight MacBook Air is all out of bubble gum.

These changes seem incremental and individually they are. After all, SSDs are not new, low-volt processors and thermal controls are not new, and one can hardly argue that leaving off the optical drive is some sort of improvement. Taken together, they represent most of a revolution in mobile computing. The MacBook Air, once the parlor-trick publicity stunt by an otherwise serious computer maker, has just become the standard laptop offering, … Continue reading →

2011: Year of the Open Source Meltdown

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Increasingly, the development model for Open Source software seems to be (excuse me) “Hope & Force”.  Perhaps you have read of my discontent with PulseAudio due to their unrealistic and abusive treatment of users, and now FireFox is also telling users to blow goats.

Asa Dotzler, director of Firefox, has made it clear he doesn’t consider the enterprise users worth supporting.

In several comments added to a follow-up post by Kaply, Dotzler did not mince words.

“Enterprise has never been (and I’ll argue, shouldn’t be) a focus of ours,” Dotzler said. “I can’t imagine why we’d focus at all on the kinds of environments you care so much about.”

Later Thursday, Dotzler essentially said it was a return-on-investment decision.

… Continue reading →

New Apple Technology Stops iPhones From Filming Live Events – FoxNews.com

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Well, Apple, I certainly hope that the purpose of this patent is to lock away the technology.  Hint, hint.

A patent application filed by Apple, and obtained by the Times, reveals how the software would work. If a person were to hold up their iPhone, the device would trigger the attention of infra-red sensors installed at the venue. These sensors would then instruct the iPhone to disable its camera.

via New Apple Technology Stops iPhones From Filming Live Events – FoxNews.com.

Stunning and obvious potential for abuse.  Why not surreptitiously install the infrared things wherever a well-connected entity feels like ensuring no evidence exists?  And don’t bother me about the whole world not being exclusively on iPhones.  Once something like this is functioning and legal, it’s everywhere.

… Continue reading →

FUbuntu

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The PulseAudio death-march is killing off the Linux base.

I have been using Linux off and on since 1997. I would still like to know what typeface was used in the early Slackware config screens, where I had to select video modes, add modules for an ATI busmouse, and in general describe by hand the hardware environment to the software. Back in the days when licensing was still in the future for the most part, and pico was not yet nano.

And I am done. For years, sound issues in Linux have been due to the all-consuming drive to accomplish a direct network-packet-audio whatnot that I DO NOT CARE ABOUT. Meanwhile, this effort has meant that the very successful solutions for just plain listening to things on your … Continue reading →