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.

PS3 Media Server, an old Mac Mini and a bit of gimping

The PS3 is an absolute beast of a machine. It fully wazzes all over the XBOX 360 and the Wii. Not only does it play games, it plays Blu Ray video, outputs 1080P HD video, 7.1. HD sound, gets you online wirelessly, and, amongst other things, will play happily with DLNA servers, which, in short, is a protocol for streaming a variety of media, such as video, over a network.

To get streaming working, you need some sort of DLNA server, i.e., an interface between the actual video file and the PS3 – i.e., something which tells the PS3 what is available, the PS3 then does the rest. PS3 Media Server (PMS) is the best solution out there, apart from its unfortunate acronym. It’s free and multi-platform, which means that if you’ve got an old computer lying around (Linux, Mac or dare I say it, Windows) then you’ll be getting the most out of your PS3 before you know it. In my case I have an unused G4 PowerPC Mac Mini running 10.4.*. Installing the software is a cinch and then configuring it is a piece of piss. PMS literally spews out logging info, so you can usually find the problem if it won’t work. (Main thing is making sure UPnP is enabled.)
Read the rest of this entry »

Sharepoint BDC tips, hints and errors

A couple of tips/hints I’ve stumbled over whilst working with the Business Data Catalog Definition Editor to create line of business (LOB) application definition files for use in Sharepoint MOSS 2007.

1. By default, BDC DE doesn’t create a specificfinder method. You’ll need one for use in Sharepoint.
2. When creating a finder method (for use with e.g., a Wildcard search) make sure the wildcard character is defined – which is done in the very topmost node of the tree (i.e, the LOB node.) Why it’s there, I have no idea but without it you might find the query runs, you just get no results.
3. You can create multiple filters on a single finder method, just make sure you specify default values and update your e.g., SQL select statement so instead of e.g., where name like @name you change it to where name like @name and date_create > @date_create_gt… etc.
4. If you get this error “The provided stream is invalid (not of type IDataReader, IEnumerable or IEnumerator). Parameter name: rawAdapterEntityInstanceStream” first thing to check is that your return parameter is the last one specified.. i.e., you can have multiple in parameters, but the return one has to be last in the list. (Ridiculous I know, this is XML for chrissakes, but hey ho, it’s Microsoft…). The way to fix this is export your ADF to an XML file, then manually adjust the order of the parameters, then reimport to BDC DE
5. If you make manual changes to your ADF file and want to reimport to BDC DE, you have to delete the original definition from BDC DE first.

I might add to this as I find more. For reference, there’s a really good series of articles on basic BDC stuff, right about here.

How to access iTunes Store from restricted location

I recently posted about how it was impossible to access the iTunes Store if you were in one of the Channel Islands such as Guernsey or Jersey. Specifically, when you were updating your account details, it used to be possible to enter your postcode in lower case, or, enter a valid e.g., UK mainland postcode to get around it. This stopped working and all workarounds were essentially dead – the only explanation was that iTunes now uses some geographic IP address matching to check you were physically where you say you were. So it seemed like there was no way around it.

However, I’ve found a way around it.

Read the rest of this entry »

Guernsey iTunes store hack patched?

If you live in the Channel Islands – Jersey, Guernsey, Alderney, Sark, Herm – you are not allowed to use the iTunes store. Entering your postcode in the billing section simply gave you a message “the iTunes store is not available in your region”.

UPDATE 1: Friends of mine have said that if you enter a valid postcode in the mainland, then that worked for them in the past. In theory that should ruin any chance of people able to buy something (your CC shouldn’t authorise…).
UPDATE 2: I just tried the above and got an error message, asking to enter a valid postcode (despite entering a bunch of valid postcodes), so it seems likely that they’re doing an IP address check now as well. Bastards. I have a few ideas on how to get round this.
UPDATE 3: Please read my post on how to access the itunes store from a restricted location which has instructions on how to get around this problem.

iTunes Playlist Creator Applescript

Here’s an Applescript I wrote. Basically, select a playlist in the left menu (e.g., My Top Rated) run this script and it will create a playlist folder with a playlist for every album (and every track in that album) for each album in the playlist. Make sense!?

I wrote it because the way I keep track (so to speak) of tunes I like is by rating them as 4 or 5 stars – which makes them appear in the My Top Rated smart playlist. But I also hate having incomplete albums on my iPod, so this is a simple way of syncing your My Top Rated, and all tracks of the albums in it.

Probably needs iTunes 8 or greater (or whenever playlist folders were introduced) and if it destroys something, it’s not my fault! It will also delete an existing playlist folder, so you can regenerate the folders as required.

Download here.

Firefox tip and Google UK search add-on

I keep forgetting a nifty thing about Firefox. You have the quick search area at the top right corner of the browser. When you’re visiting a page that has a search box, if you click the icon to the left of the box, you might see the option to add that site to your quick search list.

The site will need to be implementing the Open Search kajiggers. For anyone wanting to do this, add the following line to your document:

and then create a file called Search.xml in the root of your site that looks like this.

replacing template=”" with the correct search URL for your site. Notice also the image is the base64 encoding of your 16 x 16 icon. Marvellous.

Anyway, it seems that Google UK doesn’t do this and I imagine, due to the availability of the above, Mozilla aren’t really maintaining the search extensions part of the Mozilla Org site, as searching for a Google UK quicksearch, isn’t helpful.

So here’s the XML you need. It will also make the default to use only UK pages.

In OSX, save the file in

YourUser > Library > Application Support > Firefox > searchplugins

In Windows XP:

C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\searchplugins

Enjoy.