Jun 222010
 

Microsoft has been doing a great job at releasing new best practice analyzers.  They have now released one for SQL Server 2008 R2.   The analyzer will look at things like event logs, permissions, and SQL metadata.  The BPA will provide recommendations for any warnings or problems.  You can download the BPA by following the link below.

BPA For SQL 2008 R2
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=0fd439d7-4bff-4df7-a52f-9a1be8725591

Jun 132010
 

The latest version of the Case Of The Unexplained by Mark Russinovich has been released on the Microsoft Tech Ed website.  The case of the unexplained allows you to see how Mark walks through issues step by step to resolve them.   Mark uses Microsoft Debugging Tools along with his own tools from Sysinternals.  This sessions continues to be one of the most popular sessions at Tech Ed.

Case Of The Unexplained 2010
http://www.msteched.com/2010/NorthAmerica/WCL315

Jun 032010
 

I recently took on the task of upgrading a friends computer from XP to Windows 7.  I always forget that doing this also means you have to deal with all of the applications that they have installed.  The one app that I have learned to love and hate is iTunes.  It actually turns out the transferring the iTunes library was fairly easy except for one tricky part.  Here are the steps I completed to transfer their library.  Hopefully it helps somebody out.  The tricky part was step number seven.

1.  Backed up the user profile from the XP machine to the external hard drive.
2.  Connected the external hard drive to the new Windows 7 machine.
3.  Installed iTunes on the Windows 7 machine.  Should be the same version as the old machine.
4.  From the old profile I copied c:\documents and settings\username\application data\apple computer\itunes to             c:\users\username\appdata\roaming\apple computer\iTunes
5.  From the old profile I copied c:\documents and settings\username\application data\apple computer\itunes to
C:\users\username\appdata\local\apple computer\itunes
6.  From the old profile I copied c:\documents and settings\username\my documents\music\itunes to
C:\users\username\music\iTunes
7.  The final step I completed was to launch iTunes and open up preferences.  On the advanced tab changed the
iTunes media folder location from c:\users\username\music\iTunes\iTunes Media to
c:\users\username\music\iTunes\iTunes Music.