Reporting a product bug to Microsoft. Good one.

I needed to update our installation of SQL Server 2008 to include Integration Services so that maintenance plans would run. I have local admin privilege on the machine, but as with most Microsoft related installation tasks, you routinely get so far through the process and you’re hit with the SeSecurityPrivilege error – that is, you don’t have some permission or other. The installation process goes wrong and you have to cancel out of the whole process in order to restart it with an account that has the privilege.

Except in this case, that doesn’t actually work – there’s a bug in the SQL Server 2008 installation mechanise.

SQL Server 2008 installation error

Clicking Retry fails again because you don’t have the privilege.
Clicking Cancel fails… because you don’t have the privilege.

OK granted, it’s a fairly obscure bug, but it’s a bug nonetheless. My only option is to physically kill a process, and I really don’t like doing that sort of operation on production machines which are half way through trying to update the configuration of a live SQL server*.

I figured I’d report the issue to someone at Microsoft. Long story short, after a bit of hunting around, the endeavour was futile (as per this guy and this guy) and I can’t find a single way to report a bug to Microsoft about their arsing software (that doesn’t involve going through direct support channels, paying fees, checking license blah blah blah. I care about this a bit… but not that much.)

I’m sure someone somewhere in Microsoft’s vast array of tech support type people could monitor a “bugs@microsoft.com” email address and actually help to listen to its customers. I love my Mac.. I don’t know if a bug reporting mechanism exists as above… but then I’ve never had to do it. [CueFlame] “They just work” ! [/Flame]

* As it turns out, this is actually a serious issue. Manually killing the installation process halfway through means the installation files that it creates aren’t rolled back/destroyed. So when you then go run the installation again… SQL Server thinks you’ve already installed the thing you’re trying to install. So you’re then faced with “repair”-ing an instance which is absolutely fine.

How to remove a Datatool System 3 from a Honda CBR600FX

Way back when, I thought an alarm on my motorbike was a good idea. I got it shortly after it had been vandalised by a drunk and I had got a bit paranoid. And, in fairness, since having it, my bike has never been stolen. Admittedly, I’m not certain there were actually any attempts to steal it, though. The times that the alarm did get triggered was always me (or an ant looking at it and setting off the motion detector) and even on those occasions, any passers-by in the vicinity barely gave it a glance before moving on and ignoring the apparent attempted theft of my bike. Had I been trying to steal my bike, then I doubt the alarm would have done much to prevent it. Seems to me that alarms arepretty ineffective nowadays. Moreover, I can think of at least one easy way to completely disable it with very little fuss.

So when I recently had to replace my battery again due to its inability to maintain a charge – no doubt caused by the permanent drain that the alarm system puts on it – enough was enough, the thing was coming out. It was surprisingly easy to do, which made me wonder about its status as Thatcam approved and all that. It took the installer quite a few hours to put in – he did do a proper job – but I’d say it took me around 20 minutes to get it out. Not something you’d do on the side of a road in order to nick it, but still, surprisngly easy. And to think I paid around £400 at the time.

This isn’t supposed to be step by step instructions and I won’t describe how to dismantle your bike or get at the particular pieces – if you can’t work out that much on your own, you probably shouldn’t be doing this. And needless to say, but it needs to be said, this is what I had to do to my own CBR600… no guarantees it’ll work for your bike or be the same or anything. And I’m by no means an electrician. So if you permanently immobilise your bike – it ain’t my fault! And note that my alarm was functional but I had taken a rather unconventional route to completely disable the bike before I did this (took out the main fuse for the bike) – so the alarm actually wasn’t alive.
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Oh sweet mercy

Short and sweet – when Apple released Snow Leopard, they updated mail to Mail 4.2. This broke the only two plugins I used with it: Letterbox and GrowlMail. Letterbox adjusts the display of Mail so it’s, well Letterbox shape. GrowlMail gives handy Growl notifications when new mail arrives.

After re-investigating, both have been updated to work with 10.6.2 and Mail 4.2.

Letterbox
GrowlMail

Enjoy!

Sharepoint – force comment entry when editing a list item

Quick Sharepoint tip: at work recently, a request was made so that when an item in one of our Sharepoint lists was edited, the person making the edit was forced to add some of comment to the item, explaining what change they had made. We were already using a simple “Notes” field but there was no compulsion to update it when making an edit – which was making auditing the trail of changes a little more difficult.

It’s easy to enable this basic functionality.

1. On your List, enable Versioning. Optionally set how many versions should be kept – this will also limit the number of comments you see in the list.
2. Create a new field called “Comments” of type “multi-line text”, select “Require that this column contains information” and finally the kicker “Append changes to existing text” should be set to Yes.
3. Save and go back to your list and create and edit a new item.

You’ll see that when you now edit an item, any previous comments have been automatically removed from the Comments box – and you are forced to enter a comment before you can save it. You can see comments about a specific version by going to the version history.

Job done.

An observation about geeks

I was reading a blog today where a geek rather nicely explained the mechanism for getting a Lexmark printer driver to work under Ubuntu. It was quite a techy sounding answer and in the comments on the blog was the question (allegedly from the chap’s father), “How do you KNOW this stuff!!?”

The blog owner’s answer: I know how to use Google.

Which is such a valid point. The vast majority of “geeks”, aren’t, in fact, true geeks at all. People call me a geek, and yes, on the face of it I probably look like a geek. I have a whole raft of computers and whirry buzzy things in my house doing seemingly cool (and pointless) things. And let’s face it, I’m writing a blog, about techy/geek things. But in the same manner as the guy above, I only worked out how to do that stuff by pretty much copying / adapting what someone else has already done before by hunting it out on Google. And no doubt that guy copied / adapted it from someone who copied / adapted it from who copied / adapted it who, maybe, just maybe, got it from the person who actually figured it out in the first place. Those guys are the true geeks… and without them the world would be a pretty sorry looking place.

Canon IP5200R wireless printing + OSX 10.6.* Snow Leopard

If like me you found that your previously perfectly working Canon IP5200R wireless printer is broken after upgrading to Snow Leopard – don’t worry, there’s (now) an easy fix. The long and the short of it is – in 10.6 they included an old version of the Canon printer driver. Useful, huh?

These tips are for UK based people – if you’re elsewhere, you should find the appropriate place on the Canon website to get the updates.

If you don’t have it, get a copy of the Canon IJ network tool v2.6.* from here.

Now, get yourself a copy of the latest printer driver, currently 10.26.1

If printer previously working fine

Install network tool (if you don’t already have it)
Restart machine.
Install printer driver.
Go to System Preferences > Printers. If your Canon printed is listed, but as USB, then remove it by cliking the – icon in the pane.
Next click the + to go to the Add Printer screen. Make sure the Default panel is selected.
Wait for about 30 seconds – your Canon printer should appear in the pane – you can then add it – and after that, all should be right in the world.

If you’ve never installed the printer

As above except that you’ll need to configure the network settings before trying to add the printer.
Plug the printer in to your Mac via USB (if you have Growl installed, you’ll hopefully see a notification)
Navigate to Macintosh HD > Library > Printers > Canon > Utilities > IJ Printer tool
Run that – it should find your printer on USB
Use the Network Setup to set your wireless settings. I won’t go in to the details, but by far the most reliable method I’ve found is to give your printer a static IP rather than DHCP.
Once you’ve done that OK the dialog to commit the settings to the printer. If all goes well, the above advice should work for you.

Hope that helps. Hands down, the first I’ve ever had to install a printer during my Mac career!

Hawking HNC290G wireless webcam, info and hints

I’ve read a lot of reviews of people hating this product, and generally I think they’re a little unjustified. It’s a perfectly reasonable wireless webcam – it does what it says it will do and it does an OK job. What you get in the box is quite impressive – the camera, power supply, ethernet cable and the camera has standard tripod mount sized holes on top and bottom and a mountable bracket with tilt/swivel so you can mount this anywhere you want. A few notes:

1) There are two versions of this – the original and the “Rev-R”. If at all possible get the original version. The original used Java to stream the video, whereas in the Rev-R for some completely unknown reason, they moved to ActiveX to serve it – this means Internet Explorer only (ish – see later).
2) You don’t need any software at all to set this up – you can do it all from the web interface. By default the IP address is set at 192.168.1.200 for the Rev-R devices.
3) If you do have the Rev-R version you can watch the video on OSX/Linux, Safari/Firefox etc. by going to /mjpg/video.mjpg. Unfortunately you do have to use its built in web server, but you can change the port that it dishes the video out on.
4) It’s simple to get it set up for viewing over the web, it has Dynamic DNS service built in, although you are limited to a single provider, which I think is chargeable after an introductory period. But most modern routers do this for you nowadays so you don’t really need it.

The device is a little flaky, though, and does tend to lock up now and then. This is usually fixed by cycling the power, but that’s obviously not ideal if you’re trying to view it remotely. There’s apparently a firmware upgrade available – but every time I try it informs me I’ve not got the correct type of file, despite downloading it from their website.

All in all, it’s OK and does what it says and is simple to set up, but it’s not worth the £90 that Amazon are trying to sell it for. I got one off eBay for £25 which is probably worth a punt, considering what else is out there. I’ve got it as one of three cameras running in my Ubuntu/Motion setup, and it all works pretty well (except when it locks up).

If only it had telnet/SSH access, it would be ideal – if anyone can point me in the direction of that, I’d be very grateful!