January 2010 - Posts

• New entry in the unbelievably-misleading error message category: Windows 7 x64 RDP Client

  I spent quite a while earlier trying to make an RDP connection to another system on my network. The error message from the RDP client was: Your computer could not connect to another console session on the remote computer because you already have another Read More... Posted Saturday, January 23, 2010 5:30 PM by Greg Low | 0 Comments

• Stored Procedure Contracts - Return Values

  Yesterday's blog post on the need for contracts for stored procedures caused a lot of comments and email. One of the most interesting comments came from Jamie Thomson regarding return values. Jamie's totally correct on this. Return values should be part Read More... Posted Wednesday, January 20, 2010 9:23 AM by Greg Low | 15 Comments

• SQL Server 2008 R2: StreamInsight Development Models

  One thing that seems confusing to people when they first look at StreamInsight is that there are several development models: 1. Implicit Server 2. Explicit Server 3. IObservable/IObserver Implicit server is fairly straightforward. You define your input Read More... Posted Tuesday, January 19, 2010 1:38 PM by Greg Low | 1 Comments

• Stored Procedures - Time for a real contract?

  Increasingly, developers are using tools that try to automate code generation when dealing with databases. Stored procedures have been a thorn in the side of this. Mostly that's because it's difficult to obtain the metadata that is really needed. RowSets Read More... Posted Tuesday, January 19, 2010 12:37 PM by Greg Low | 37 Comments

• SQL Server 2008 R2 - StreamInsight - Event Payloads

  One of the key decisions you'll make when working with StreamInsight is the payload that will be carried by each event. Events contain and EventKind (which is related to whether they're inserting a new event or modifying an existing one), some temporal Read More... Posted Saturday, January 16, 2010 1:35 PM by Greg Low | 0 Comments

• SQL Server 2008 R2: Reporting Services - Pagination

  Another item I had on the Connect site was about pagination. I wanted to be able to restart page numbering within a report. In my case, this was because I wanted to output a set of invoices in a single report but I wanted each invoice to have its own Read More... Posted Wednesday, January 13, 2010 5:12 AM by Greg Low | 1 Comments

• SQL Server 2008 R2: Reporting Services - RenderFormat

  I'm really happy with the Reporting Services team. I've had a few items on Connect where I've asked for features and they've come back and said "Done!". One of these is RenderFormat. I wanted the ability to change my formatting based upon where I was Read More... Posted Wednesday, January 13, 2010 5:07 AM by Greg Low | 0 Comments

• SQL Server 2008 R2: StreamInsight Event Models - EventShapes

  Continuing on the theme of describing StreamInsight, the next major concept is the Event Model. Events in StreamInsight are made up of two sets of data. One set is the basic information required by the StreamInsight engine such as when an event occurred. Read More... Posted Wednesday, January 13, 2010 4:34 AM by Greg Low | 0 Comments

• SQL Server 2008 R2: What is StreamInsight used for

  Since I posted some StreamInsight info the other day, I've had a bunch of people asking me what StreamInsight is used for. StreamInsight is Microsoft's implementation of Complex Event Processing. This is not a new market but it is new territory for Microsoft. Read More... Posted Monday, January 11, 2010 4:16 PM by Greg Low | 6 Comments

• The Region: Sofware Industry Predictions for 2010: iPhone General-Purpose Applications

  Our Microsoft RD lead Kevin Schuler has asked us to post predictions for 2010 that will appear in a special edition of TheRegion. (Check out www.theregion.com for any interesting blog if you haven't already). Here's mine: Against all perceived wisdom, Read More... Posted Saturday, January 09, 2010 12:21 PM by Greg Low | 2 Comments

• Windows 7 GodMode

  OK, I'm sure many will have already seen this but if you haven't: Create a folder in Windows 7 and rename it to: GodMode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C} Then check out it's contents. That's seriously geeky and cool. Read More... Posted Saturday, January 09, 2010 11:24 AM by Greg Low | 5 Comments

• SQL Server 2008 R2: StreamInsight AdvanceTimePolicy.Adjust

  While building content for the upcoming Metro training for SQL Server 2008 R2, Bill Chesnut and I were puzzled about the Adjust option for AdvanceTimePolicy in the AdvanceTimeSettings for a stream. It was described in Books Online as causing the timestamp Read More... Posted Saturday, January 09, 2010 11:06 AM by Greg Low | 0 Comments

• SQL Server 2008 R2 - Departmental applications?

  One of the new items coming with SQL Server 2008 R2 and Visual Studio 2010 is the Data-Tier Application. It is designed for (what are described as) departmental applications. What a "deparmental" application is deserves some thought. Mostly it relates Read More... Posted Saturday, January 09, 2010 10:53 AM by Greg Low | 0 Comments

• StreamInsight and Reactive Extensions to .NET

  I've been doing a lot of work lately with StreamInsight, coming in SQL Server 2008 R2. There are three development models you can use with StreamInsight: Implicit Server, Explicit Server and IObservable/IObserver. When I was working through material on Read More... Posted Wednesday, January 06, 2010 1:48 AM by Greg Low | 0 Comments

• Frankly Speaking

  Hi Folks, I was recently interviewed by Andrew and Michael and their Frankly Speaking podcast. Was great fun. The show is here: http://www.noisetosignal.com.au/franklyspeaking/?p=71 Greg Read More... Posted Wednesday, January 06, 2010 1:12 AM by Greg Low | 0 Comments