TechEd Flair

Last year, I put the Hoff into a TechEd Flair. This year, focussing on the Deep Dive workshops seems appropriate.

IE7Beta3 - uninstalling Beta 2

This happened to a friend of mine. Oh, alright Mitch, it was me.

IE7 Beta 3 has been released. I've been using Beta 2 for a while, and figured that this might answer a few questions.

So I downloaded the IE7 Beta 3 install, and ran it. Turns out I need to uninstall Beta 2, from Add/Remove Programs. But it's not there. Hmm... that's right... I ran some HotFix install-code remover thing a while back when I wanted to clear some space.

I borrowed someone's $NtUninstallie7b2pmx$ directory, and ran spuninst.exe, like you do. ;) Turns out that it thinks that I'm not the same user that installed it. Yeah, that's a point.

So I looked through spuninst.inf, and found that it checks the registry at HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer for an entry called 'InstalledByUser', with value 0x10001. I put that in, and now spuninst.exe works. Now I'm going to reboot, and IE7Beta3 should go in just fine.

Innovative Adelaide

Thanks to Microsoft, Kaz, and possibly someone else I can't think of, the Innovation Day is coming to Adelaide. Register at http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032302016&Culture=en-AU - and soon. It's on Thursday July 13th, which is the day that the SQL Server User Group is normally on.

So instead, the User Group will be on Friday 14th. Usual time and place. Dave Glover speaking on Visual Studio Team Edition for Database Professionals. Because I'm away, Keith Zerna will be your host.

Another Seattle trip

Obviously I didn't offend enough people last time - they've invited me back again. This time to help with content for 70-431. Simulations, etc. Should be good. 2 whole weeks this time, so I'm finding the extra to take the family as well.

A couple of articles

I've tried my hand to writing articles. I've had a couple appear now - one at sqlservercentral.com about using SSMS with SQL2000 servers - and one on sqlblogcasts.com about a fix() function in T-SQL. More to come I hope, time-permitting. I want to convert my recent 'execute as' talk into an article, and also one about people's ages.

10 Simple Rules...

Mitch Wheat has thrown together 10 rules for reporting. Nothing really new here, but it's very nice to see them listed. I particularly like the idea of having an ID code for each report - I would've had that as a rule on its own!

Australia v England

No, they're not playing each other - at least not in football but I wanted to quickly write something about the two teams.

England played Paraguay on Saturday, and looked remarkably ordinary. Many times teams play against weaker opposition, and really don't perform. I consider it like my youngest son Joel, who draws good pictures at home, but at school tends to draw stuff that is much lower quality. You put him around kids that aren't as good, and he drops off too. I think this is what England did against Paraguay. They started well, got an early goal, and then drifted off. Paraguay never really looked like scoring, and I think the highlight of the match was when Paul Robinson (the England goalie) kicked the ball so high that it hit the video screen that was suspended over the pitch.

Yesterday, Australia played Japan. It was a must-win match for both teams, as the countries likely to progress from the group are Brazil and Croatia. Australia flooded the midfield, and had most of the possession. Japan looked chances in the counter-attack. But all too often, you heard "And Kewell fails to find Viduka again" Was Kewell just having a boy-look? Was Viduka down at the pie-shop? It was good that Australia managed to get a few goals in the end, but I think they need to sort out both their attack and defence.

Both sides picked up three valuable points in matches that should've been easier work than they actually were. It will be interesting to see what happens from here.

VS-DB downloaded

Well, I've downloaded the CTP for Visual Studio Team Edition for Database Professionals. Now I need a few minutes in my day to start playing with it...

Scoble leaving Microsoft

Wow, Robert Scoble is leaving Microsoft. I suppose it was always going to happen at some point - his blogging was always very independent, and frequently criticised Microsoft as well as praised it.
Will the world be changed by him leaving? No, I doubt it. Will he keep blogging? I'm sure he will.

Does this make Frank Microsoft's #1 blogger now?

I'm the speaker at the Adelaide SQL UG tomorrow

Well, I'm the speaker at the user group tomorrow. I hope people will enjoy my presentation, I'm going to happily go off on tangents, and stuff like that. The idea is to make people think about some of the stuff they can do with execute as.

VS-DB is coming

The press-release is here, and the excitement is building. A new version of Visual Studio, designed for DB Professionals. It lets you have a proper Database Development Life Cycle, and all kinds of funky stuff. Finally! Now I want to include a bunch of stuff about it in my presentation next week, but the CTP only comes out on June 11th.

I had a few people point me to Greg Low's post this morning. Thanks guys. :)