Microsoft now provides a way to get a hotfix without calling them…

(Will need the KB Article Number)

Simply use this submission form.

Thanks Chris!

Windows 2008 RC0 was released yesterday. I am really looking forward to using IIS7. I am anxious to setup a few web sites with SQL 2008 and see how it works and performs.

Get it Windows 2008 RC0 here
Get SQL 2008 CTP here

Cool Benefits of Windows 2008 (taken from here)

• Cross-site copy allows you to easily copy Web site settings across multiple Web servers without additional configuration.
• Built-in virtualization to virtualize multiple operating systems—Windows, Linux and others—on a single server. With virtualization built into the operating system and with simpler, more flexible licensing policies, it’s now easier than ever to take advantage of all the benefits and cost savings of virtualization.
• Protection of your server with security innovations that reduce attack surface area of the kernel, resulting in a more robust and secure server environment.
• Protection against malicious software with User Account Control with a new authentication architecture. (NOOOOOOOOOOO)
• Simplified management of your IT infrastructure by using new tools that provide a one-stop interface for server configuration and monitoring, as well as the ability to automate routine tasks.
• Effectively pinpointing and resolving trouble spots with powerful diagnostic tools that give you ongoing visibility into your server environment, both physical and virtual.

And the one I really want to see…

• Delegated administration of applications and sites so you can give control to different parts of the Web server to those who need it.

My understanding is that this will allow web hosting companies to give more control of IIS to clients hosting their web applications on your server. Pretty cool!!!

Thanks Somasegar for the announcement.

Brian… you must only have 5 people using this thing!!!

Incase you are clueless to what am writing about… WorldMap is a cool tool that Brian Hitney wrote to show a graphical representation of hits/ traffic on a web site. 

He recently updated his map to use MICROSOFT Virtual Earth… kinda cool Brain!!!

The tool also provides useful and not-so-useful facts about the site’s traffic:

Unique IP’s: 7,500
WorldMap Rank: #5
World Domination: 8.8%
IP Distribution for 5,000+ miles away: 18.18%

So, to that 18.18%…

Merci de la visite !
¡Gracias por la visita!
Für den Besuch danke!
방문을 당신을 감사하십시오!
Grazie per la chiamata!
謝謝你的訪問！
Спасибо за визит!
訪問をありがとう!

And for the English speakers:

Thank you for the visit!

Special thanks to Google for the Translations. (Sure hope those BETA translations work…)

Jacob Sebastian wrote a very cool article on ”power of the merge”…

How many times have you needed to merge data between tables… or mobile devices to central servers…

“MERGE, a new keyword which performs INSERT, UPDATE and DELETE operations at one go”

His example:

Old way to merge tables:

    1 /*
    2 Pseudo code used for saving sales order information with SQL Server 2005
    3
    4 — save order header information
    5 If OrderNumber found in OrderHeader
    6    Update the information
    7 Else
    8    Insert the information
    9 end
   10
   11 — save order detail information
   12 Delete from Order detail table all items not in the order info
   13 Update Order detail for all items present in the order info
   14 Insert into order details all new items in the order info
   15 */

New Way using Merge

    1 /*
    2 Pseudo code for saving the same order with the MERGE statement of SQL Server 2008
    3
    4 — save order header information
    5 MERGE order info to Order Header table
    6
    7 — save order detail information
    8 MERGE order info to order detail table
    9 */

“No, I did not miss anything. You can write the code in just 2 lines.”

Check out entire article here.

Tuesday, September 11, 2007, is our next meeting of  Pee Dee Area .NET User’s Group.

Chris Craft, from ACS Technologies, will be presenting Visual Studio .NET Tips and Tricks – Part II.

Material from Part I will be recovered for any of those who may have missed it, and new tips and tricks will be presented.

Visual Studio .NET is filled with thousands of features and capabilities that make our lives as developers more efficient. The number of features that Visual Studio .NET contains is immense. The Visual Studio .NET Tips and Tricks presentation is a compilation of my favorite, and most popular, tips and tricks for this great IDE. Developers who are unaware of these timesaving features miss out on opportunities to increase their programming productivity and effectiveness. This Visual Studio .NET Tips and Tricks presentation is meant to explain how to use Visual Studio .NET more effectively.

Here is the tentative schedule:

6:00 PM – 6:20 PM Socializing / Dinner
6:20 PM – 6:30 PM Introduction, Sponsor Time, and News.
6:30 PM – 7:45 PM Presentation
7:45 PM – 8:00 PM Drawing and Wrap Up

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