Interesting….
Posted by Andrew Flanagan in Actual Events, Somewhat Random on August 2, 2006
Real Life Quote from Diane:
“It really doesn’t have to be square to the bejare, cohware, bare, cazare!”
NB: We’re not exactly sure what this means, but I believe the intent was that I was being too technical about something…
SQL Server Woes
Posted by Andrew Flanagan in Actual Events, Geekiness, Ranting & Ravings on July 31, 2006
I had been doing some development on our application at work and had been using an outdated version of the database (I’m too lazy to actually stay in sync with the current design). Since most of my work was unrelated to the database itself (or at least the parts that were changin) it was no problem. But, when I finally did sync my laptop’s database with the new one I had some unexpected problems. Everything worked quite well for the application but when I tried to login using SQL Management Studio, I kept getting access issues. I could do certain things but not others (like for example I could view rows from tables but I couldn’t shrink the database). The error message I got was vague indicating that I couldn’t authenticate. I assumed a permissions issue and spent a while trying to figure out what it was.
It turns out, it’s because the new database was given a new name than the old one. Somehow (I don’t know if this is normal) I had assigned the old database as my default database for my user account. When it got wiped and a new one (with a new name) was loaded, it caused problems. The solution was to alter my default database for my user. All the mysterious messages went away.
This seems like bad design to me. When I login into SQL Management Studio I specifically was selecting the table that I wanted to connect to, but that didn’t solve the problem. It was just very cryptic and unhelpful. Maybe there’s some method to the madness but no luck yet.
It is Microsoft after all…
I have a new kid!
Posted by Andrew Flanagan in Actual Events on July 31, 2006
Our family continues to grow — Samuel Jacob Flanagan was born on Monday, 7/24/06 at 7:38am. He’s doing well and so is Mommy. For more information on him or information on where to send small gifts, go to our family website!
Cell Phone Requirements
Posted by Andrew Flanagan in Geekiness, Ranting & Ravings on July 10, 2006
Okay — I know I just posted an entry about 5 minutes ago, but this is important for anyone reading this (i.e. no one):
This is my ideal cellphone:
- PDA (Palm seems the best — no Windows Mobile junk for me)
- QWERTY keyboard (or Dvorak! — but wait — no one uses that…)
- Broadband-like speed
- Decent actual phone features
- Some realistic amount of storage (I can live with SD cards)
- A good friggin provider that actually covers:
- 1. My house
- 2. My work (where, incidentally I can’t even bring my cellphone)
- 3. The roads between the aforementioned locations
- 4. Everywhere else I will ever go (except maybe backpacking locations where I don’t want to be reached anyway)
Oh, and I think it’s fair that I pay $5-10/month for this.
Any takers? Hey, wait! Come back! I’m serious!
Technological Failures
Posted by Andrew Flanagan in Actual Events, Geekiness on July 7, 2006
So anyway, I ended up calling back later and getting Comcast to fix their problem. They had somehow confused my account with someone else’s and had sort of reset or “uninitialized” my account. This time I was told that I had a different cable modem and that the one I’ve had for the last several years that I’ve used for Comcast and other services was never registered with Comcast. So it was my fault. But thankfully they were patient with me and configured the “new” modem to work. Thanks Comcast! 😛
I also got a cell phone from Cingular. I’ve been trying to find some sort of solution for the cell phone crisis I’m currently having. Basically, Sprint (my old provider) has no bars right where our house is. This isn’t killer since obviously the phone is of most use when I’m away from the house, but it’s annoying and in general, quite aggravating to have to leave the area to check my voicemail. So I tried Cingular. I wanted to upgrade and get the data plan that would allow me to check email and such. Cingular’s final charge is about $80/month. Verizon offers faster data speed but costs about $80/month. Sprint costs $55 and has the high speed and some features that I prefer. Quite annoying.
I’m still undecided what to do…
Phone Support
Posted by Andrew Flanagan in Actual Events, Geekiness, Ranting & Ravings on July 6, 2006
Just contacted Comcast trying to troubleshoot a problem with their service. Somehow our account has been disabled or in some way turned off. We can see the “Comcast Account” page but it won’t let us through. Basically, we’re hitting their service but they’re blocking our account from accessing the Internet. Calling Comcast resulted in some dumb solutions with the end result that it doesn’t work. I mentioned that we had it working for a week since we moved into our house. “A new house? A transfer! Ha! that’s your problem — it didn’t transfer”. “But it’s been working smoothly for the first week since we’ve been in here even though I’ve reset the modem several times”, I say. The woman insists that it’s a transfer issue. I keep asking how that makes any sense if we’ve had it working for a week already. I start getting really frustrated and then the woman on the phone gets frustrated but tries to remain calm. She tells me she has no reason to lie to me, (now the punchline!) “I’m very ethical!” she tells me.
Life is amazingly funny. 🙂
P.S. In case you’re ever wondering, routers and cable modems cause interference if they’re plugged together. I learned this today from the cable woman. Don’t laugh! It’s very serious!
Can it be? An update…?
Posted by Andrew Flanagan in Somewhat Random on July 6, 2006
Okay, so the whole “updating daily” thing worked for two days. Yeah — it’s not as easy as it looks. More later today — I have to get work done today but felt I should at least post something for you die-hard Illusory Follies readers in order to give you some amount of encouragement. Also, if you see me, remind me to update this page later today. I may forget.
Exploring Boston
Posted by Andrew Flanagan in Actual Events, Somewhat Random on June 13, 2006
I spent most of the afternoon wandering around Boston. Overall — pretty nice. Here are some pictures.
The swan boats in the Public Gardens
Some office builds from the Boston Public Gardens
View of the downtown from the Charles River
House in Beacon Hill
Downtown shopping area
A church in Beacon Hill
Phone booths in Chinatown (complete with Chinese people!)
More Microsoft Updates
Posted by Andrew Flanagan in Actual Events, Geekiness on June 12, 2006
I guess that’s good — it’s boring though. User Interfaces are the bain of my existence as a software engineer since so often I’m expected to design them (and I don’t tend to do that well). The problem is that designers (graphic/layout designers, that is) are really the people to do this sort of job. There’s sort of a breakdown between “architecture” of a UI and the layout, design, etc. Basically, it’s really hard to write code without having the layout in place and it’s hard to make a layout without the code working.
Anyway — maybe I just wasn’t paying enough attention but I didn’t get many answers from that.
The next session I attended I really disliked. It was regarding Windows/Linux Integration. It was extremely high-level and was basically an advertisement for the speakers book (“…and in my book, you’ll see how to do this”). Very annoying, very uninformed speaker. The worst part was that it basically said that that there were some technical differences that needed to be bridged to get Linux and Windows to play nicely but it didn’t really address just what the advantages of each system were. There were some broad sweeping statements like “Linux isn’t good with desktop applications” that were bandied about, but nothing of any real substance. The overall feeling was that you can get Linux and Windows to work, and please buy his book. Somewhat of a waste. This session doesn’t even get it’s own blog entry.
All for now,
StackOverflow
