December 2008 - Posts
Last Post: My November 2008 Photos
If you regularly drop by my blog then you’ll of noticed I post a selection of my photos at the end of each month, just to brighten things up!
December – for most, it’s a pretty crazy chaotic month where places of work throw the annual Christmas party, groups of friends unite to celebrate the year (fuelled by alcohol?!), and the time to see all those family members you don’t get to see all that often…
I’ve been out and about and as usual have a selection of photos… Some taken on my mobile phone, a Samsung Omnia which has a 5MP camera, some taken on my Digital SLR, a Canon EOS 400D (Digital Rebel XTi), and some taken on my compact digital camera, a Canon Digital IXUS 750.
Early December Moon
I love a bit of moon, and if you do, I’d recommend having a look at the original (3888 x 2592).
Out of Focus Lights
I was messing about with my focus when I realised this looked pretty cool. Flickr has a huge amount of photos like this under bokeh. I’m not too sure whether I can count mine as bokeh, some people seem to be very specific about it so I wouldn't want to upset anyone!
December Sunflower
Early December, in fact, most of December in London has been dull, grey, cold, and just miserable, so to brighten things up, whilst going to get the Christmas tree I picked up a bunch of sunflowers which really made a huge difference and you can see why from this capture!
The Christmas Tree
This is the first Christmas tree I have gotten since living away from my parents, that’s now been, er, 2-3years. My girlfriend says you can tell it’s been decorated by a bloke! Well, I like it!
From Waterloo Bridge
I was walking through London to meet my work colleagues for a couple of Christmas drinks and as I walked across Waterloo Bridge, for the first time, I didn’t realise the view was so good! I took this on my phone, but really wished I had a proper camera on me!
Family Awaiting Christmas Dinner
Christmas Day – Everyone’s happy, awaiting a lovely roast turkey! :-)
Mr Shifter
Mr Shifter – this is the PG Tips monkey! My girlfriend really likes it (him?), so I managed to get hold of one as one as part of her Christmas presents.
Anisha on the Malvern’s
Boxing Day walk on the Malvern Hills… Anisha was feeling the cold here!
Friends Outing
This is me (Tom), Ehsan and Drew on a night out for Christmas celebrations… Honestly, Ehsan is enjoying himself, he’s just pulling his “Don’t mess with me” face.
The End…. of 2008…. See you in 2009! :-)
Just a quick one, blogging from my home town/area of Worcester (UK), it's Christmas day and I had said to myself that I won't touch the laptop or mobile at all today... But I logged on to check out the (non existant) sales, and while I am here a quick post to say - Happy Christmas to all! :-)
So a couple of weeks ago now I went on Course 2779B: Implementing a Microsoft Server 2005 Database which was provided by QA-IQ and delivered by Gordon Kneller. I should say before I continue that despite the course numbering, this course logically should be completed after Course 2780B: Maintaining a Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Database! So if you're training manager is booking this course and you have never used SQL Server before, 2780B is the course for you!
Both of the courses are preparation courses for Exam 70-431 which will gain you a Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist (MCTS): SQL Server 2005. You might be thinking “why do any of these courses when SQL Server 2008 has been released”, good question, the answer is that Course 6232: Implementing a Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Database is not yet available.
If you are looking for SQL Server certification, then the 2005, Course 2779B, should be enough training/preparation for you to take Exam 70-433 which will gain you a Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist (MCTS): SQL Server 2008, Database Development.
Anyway, less of the blurb… I did this course because I have never had any formal training for SQL Server, I have been using it for the last 4 years and taught it all myself, so really, I needed to fill the gaps in knowledge, I wasn’t expecting too much from the course, but I was pleasantly surprised since it was very good, admittedly it helped having someone who really knew what he was talking about delivering the course.
I think that as a software developer, we generally create our databases fairly quickly with not too much thought, and as long as it works that’s fine, but that’s not really the best way, espeicially if the database is to support a few thousand users and millions of rows of data! So, if you are a software developer, I’d recommend some sort of SQL Server training!
Key modules that helped me on the course are as follows:
- Module 1: Creating Databases and Database Files
- In particular: Creating Filegroups, Schamas and Snapshots
- Module 3: Using XML
- Module 4: Creating and Tuning Indexes
- Module 6: Implementing Data Integrity by Using Triggers and XML Schemas
- Module 9: Implementing Functions
- Module 10: Implementing Managed Code in the Database
- Module 11: Managing Transactions and Locks
- Module 12: Using Service Broker
I host my website, and manage several other websites using shared hosting, these hosting packages all contain some sort of SQL Server database allowance. Using shared hosting, problems can and do arise when you’re ready to deploy from development/test into the live/production environment, e.g. you have your database fully constructed and in working order on your development/test environment with all your static tables populated, with a bit of sample data thrown in on other tables.
SQL Server has a few built-in tools to enable you to copy data to and from servers and databases, “Copy Database…”, “Export/Import Data…” and of course you can always perform a “Backup and Restore” of the database and copy the backup file to another server. These all work great on your local network (most of the time!) where you hold a lot of security rights compared to when you are using a shared hosting environment where you hold a lot less security rights, therefore you cannot perform these built-in tasks (well not always). Problem!
Well, actually, not so much of a problem anymore since there is a tool, Microsoft SQL Server Database Publishing Wizard, which will enable you to script the entire database schema AND data to a single script (.sql) file. If you want, you can script individual parts of the database, and you can also set a target SQL Server, so if you are developing using SQL Server 2008 Express Edition but your host is SQL Server 2000 or 2005 you need not worry about compatibility.
SQL Database Publishing Wizard is built-in to Visual Studio 2008 and can be accessed under the “Server Explorer” window as seen to the left.
Otherwise, if you don’t have Visual Studio 2008, you can download and install the SQL Server Database Publishing Wizard 1.1.
When you’re ready, either going through Visual Studio or sqlpubwiz.exe, first things first, you’ll have to set up your connection string and if you are connecting to a remote server then you may come into difficulties if the database is large and your connection is slow, so bare that in mind and perhaps tweak your connection string, “Connect Timeout”, “Packet Size” and “Max Pool Size”.
I really don’t need to explain anything else since these screenshots speak for themselves:
It really is as simple as that… Once you click finish, the wizard will whiz away generating the T-SQL you need to deploy your database schema and data to any SQL Server, providing you set “Script for target database” appropriately.
Some notes: When executing scripts onto the remote shared host SQL Server, this can take a long time, depending on the size of the database script, and while the script is executing your database will be unavailable.
Also, you can use sqlpubwiz.exe via the command line (CMD), so obviously with that in mind, you could run batch files to generate a script backup.
Hope that helps, it’s certainly made my life a lot easier!
Last Post: My October 2008 Photos
[update]
I have been extremely busy as of late and haven’t managed to update the blog as much as I’d like to! I’m currently studying for Microsoft Exam 70-536 – Application Development Foundation - .NET Framework, which is completely zapping all of my time. This week (1st December), I’m on a five day SQL Server course [Microsoft Course 2779B] which I have to say is a lot better than I thought it would be… Anyway watch out for a post on that, along with some info about exporting schema data to a .sql script file, and quite likely a post on all the studying!
[/update]
Photos! Unfortunately, as I said above I’ve been fairly busy, and haven’t had the chance to get out and about to get some good shotz… However, I’ve got some shots that I’ve taken at random with my new phone / super gadget, the Samsung Omnia (SGH-i900)…
Scary Pumpkin – Halloween 2008
Our pumpkin from Halloween – Nice or Scary?!
Inside Westfield London Shopping Centre
The long awaited Westfield Shopping Centre located in the White City area of (West) London finally opened its doors to the general public in November, it is said to be the largest shopping centre/mall in Europe. I snapped this on its opening weekend where there were discounts galore, and it was packed full of people as you can see in this picture.
Regent Street Christmas Lights 2008
London has now switched on most of the Christmas 2008 lights, this is Regent Street in Central London. The lights are all energy efficient and supposed to look
The London Eye is Blue
On my way past the eye, couldn’t resist this shot!
Hamleys Christmas Lights - Regent Street London
The worlds most famous toy shop – Hamleys on Regent Street, Central London, well light up for Christmas!
Desperados and Corona
With Christmas on the way, I felt the need to stock up on some booze so found a website, Beers of Europe, that sells basically any beer, lager, spirit or wine you can think of! I really enjoy Desperados (Beer and Tequila), and when that gets too much, Corona Extra is perfect!
View all my photos on my Flickr Photostream
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