At work we have a system that I feel works pretty well, it does have some hiccups from time to time but overall the pros outweight the cons. You see we have our development machines as virtual machines. We have a beefy server that we've installed Microsoft Virtual Server 2005. On that server we have our development virtual machines setup. This setup works very well for two reasons. One, you always have access to your code on your development machine as long as you have internet access. I've tried syncing a laptop to a desktop and it never worked that well for me. Second it's a server on the network, therefore it is in the backup schedule. It's easy to think to yourself, I know I should back this machine up tonight, but I'll do it tomorrow. But having things done this way, you actual have a backup.

However once in a while you find little issues that crop up because of it. Issues that won't happen on a regular machine. This morning I was using Visual Studio 2005, and decided that I would trying doing this the new way, and create a database in SQL 2005 Express through VS2005. That's when I ran in to the error.

Failed to generate a user instance of SQL Server due to a failure in starting the process for the user instance. The connection will be closed.

Well after several google searches I still couldn't figure out the issues, everything looked configured correctly. Then I found the answer, I can't say it was one I was happy with but it was the anwser. It was right there clear as day in Microsoft's Knowledge Base Site. http://support.microsoft.com/?id=896613

Cause

This problem occurs because the Local Security Authority (LSA) uses the remote session's token for the SQL Server client's session token. The remote session's token is from session 1, and the SQL Server client's session token is from session 0.

The Fix

Well that is where things get a little sticky. Microsoft doesn't have an official hotfix for this issue on their site. They do have one but you have to call Microsoft support and support has to double check that your issue is specific to trying to use SQL Server 2005 Express through Terminal Services. And then they'll give you the hotfix. Which sounds like it could introduce more issues than it fixes, so for today, I'll just use my SQL Server 2000 development server and be happy with it.

Design for Humans

Yesterday I came across this article that I thought really drove him some of the key points of consideration that web designers in their toolbelt. The article is called "Human to Human Design" by Sharon Lee. She makes a great first point by saying, we have to remember that the user on the other side of the computer is a human, our intended audience.  She basically gives a good case for using user case studies in your design. For example, you are creating a website that Loan Officers login to and check what leads they have to work with today. These are busy people who just want the information, but may want to be able to sort it by a couple of different yet common columns. Knowing that about your customer, you aren't going to want to have a large flash based splash page that takese 30 seconds to load and 60 seconds of play time. That's not what they want or need. They want to get in, get their data and get out. So thinking about them while designing, you end up designing a page that is lightweight and quick, gives them their data, the way the want it.  Anyhow, I think it's a great article and definitely worth the read.

 

Time for Accuracy

    As a Developer you always want your application to be fast, useful and well liked. It's great when things work well. However, things don't always work well. From time to time due to hardware or application performance the application is "slow". "Slow" is a word that most Web Developers just hate. Mostly because it is so subjective. 30 seconds may be perfectly acceptable to one user, while another will complain that it's too slow and that they just cant work like that. The subjectivity of time makes it really hard to see what the real problem is. This is where having something in place that takes the subjectivity out of the equation and add objectivity back. So I wrote a down and dirty little app that proxies a URL and times how long it takes the network to get that page, and then javascript is inserted on the page so I can measure how long it took the page to load on the users end too.  Fun Stuff.

Well I haven't written an actual post in a while. I don't claim that this one will be an actual post either, but it will be closer to one them my last three or four attempts. Well between work, family and my hobby (obsession, yes you are right my Beautiful Wife) I've been keeping myself pretty busy. I haven't felt much writing. A blog or, well any other form of writing, journals, short stories, novels, three volume novel etc, are all ways of expressing ones self. Lately I've been doing that with my photography. So I haven't really felt the need to write. However dear friend I've recently experienced something that photographs cannot capture. Mostly because it's auditory.  So on to the back story, from the time I was about 14 years old till I was 24 or so I worked construction with my Dad. It was some of the hardest work and most fun I've ever had. I don't know if you've ever been on a construction job site, but in the 80s and early 90s when I was, there was always one radio on the jobsite with the volume knob turned to 11, blasting rock. Big Hair rock to be exact. Skid Row, Poison, Slaughter, Firehouse, White Lion and many many more. So as with most people, these songs bring back memories of the good times.

Some more back story, As many of you know my Grandma K passed away in November, in a very wise decision, my Mom and Dad and Grandpa K are remodeling Grandpa Ks house, so they can all live together. Being that both of my Brothers are in construction, my Dad is a Sr. Building Inspector for the city, and I have ten years in construction, we felt and knew that we could handle most of the work ourselves. It cuts down on costs and we know it is done right. So the first phase of the remodel/addition is to remodel the kitchen. It was just too small for the number of people cooking in it at one time Sis/Mom/Dad/Brother J, sometimes Brother K and occasionally me. So some walls were moved, some were removed and viola the kitchen is bigger, now we need cabinets for the new walls. We are effectively tripling the amount of cabinet and counter space in the kitchen. Which means there are a lot of cabinets to make. Well cabinetry was and still is one of my favorite facets of construction. So this was the part I was asked to help with.

Sunday was my first day helping build cabinets. We worked till 7pm that night, I was so stiff and sore. I had used construction muscles I haven't used in a decade. However it was a lot of fun. All the tools have been updated. The nailguns are lighter, the miter saw has  a laser sight on it, so you know where your cut will be. And the cordless drills are stronger lighter, and even have a light on them that shines when you are driving in a screw. So while these toys... I mean tools were very enjoyable to work with. Working with my Dad and Brothers was even better. It was like old times, but just a little bit better, because we are all a bit older and maybe even a little bit wiser. As the tools were updated, so was the radio, the Boys were cranking 80s music, however it was from a channel called "Hair Nation" on Sirius Satellite Radio. Man did this take me back.

Well last night I went over to help, we still have a ton more cabinets to build. And of course, we were listening to 80s rock. So I guess that until this project is done, I'll be a cabinet member of hair nation.

My Beautiful Wife sent this to me, and I have to say I just love this. I've watched it 5 or 6 times in a row.

I have no idea if this is a joke or not, by Adobe just released a site through their  Adobe Labs on  April 15 called http://adobenostalgia.com.It looks like it tries to "process" digital images as you would process film. It picks a tank size for the images you are important and even asks you which chemistry you'd like to use to develop them. Then you Using a enlarger you can make test prints, contact sheets and prints of your images. Like I said, I don't know if it's a Joke or not, but it has my interest.

 Warning: This is a tech post. So if this stuff bores you to tears, you may just want to skip it.

Sometimes you think you know how things work, or how a language works and you get a project that just makes you rethink how you use a certain technology or programming language. Well I've been finding that with Javascript lately. Especially digging in to AJAX/XMLHttpRequests objects. The IDE(Integrated Development Environment) I use for coding up html and javascript pages is HTMLKit. It's a great IDE and is shareware, which is fantastic and it allows you to write your own plugins for it. However, in browse mode it does use Internet Explorer (IE). Well IE is a great browser for lazy coders, it finishes your tables, and lets a lot of Javascript do a lot of things, that other browsers just don't do.

 

Firefox however likes to make you work for it just a little bit more. So what I found is while I was making a call to a page on an outside domain, I was getting a very strange and serious error. "uncaught exception: Permission denied to call methods XMLHttpRequest.open." Well this was confusing, how come it works perfectly in IE, but Firefox is giving me this error. Well after a quick google search on the error I found my answer. Simply put Firefox, or More correctly any Browser from Mozilla has a "security" feature that doesn't allow a XMLHttpRequest.open call to a url that isn't on the domain you are using. Funny enough, I've written several AJAX applications, but all of them only call within their own domain. So this error was completely new to me. One of the links that I helped pointed out that you have to set a specific property.

 

   try {
    netscape.security.PrivilegeManager.enablePrivilege("UniversalBrowserRead");
   } catch (e) {
    alert("Permission UniversalBrowserRead denied.");
   }

This is one of my favorite scenes from one of my favorite movies! I am embarassed about the fact I can quote the entire film. Enjoy