Continuous Refactor

I have used and have been an avid fan of FogBugz for years.  One quirk that I experience when running on Microsoft SQL Standard or SQL Express is that the database grows very quickly.  Even so, it can be reduced back to an acceptable size by running a simple script.  I am now running FogBugz 6.1 and using SQL Server 2008 Express, 64-bit.

Here is the SQL maintenance script:

USE FogBugz
GO
ALTER DATABASE FogBugz
SET RECOVERY SIMPLE;
GO
DBCC SHRINKFILE ([FOGBUGZ DATABASE FILE NAME],1);
DBCC SHRINKFILE ([FOGBUGZ LOG FILE NAME],1);
GO
ALTER DATABASE FogBugz
SET RECOVERY FULL
GO

Since I am running SQL Express edition, there is no built-in support to run maintenance packages, so I use the command line OSQL to run the script above.

Here is the command line:

osql -ic:\tools\fb_shrink.sql -E -S.\SQLEXPRESS -oc:\tools\fogbugz_shrink_results.txt

I saved that command in a BAT file and then scheduled it to be executed once daily.

 

 

Podcast #15 from IBM Fellow Grady Booch explores the Nine Things to Do With Old Software.  Here is the list, but you'll need to listen to his podcast to get the dialogue, discussion and details.

1) Abandon it.
2) Give it away.
3) Ignore it.
4) Put it on life support
5) Rewrite it.
6) Harvest from it.
7) Wrap it up.
8) Transform it.
9) Preserve it.

Philippe Kruchtenn at the University of British Columbia published an article entitled You Are What You Read in the Career Development section of IEEE Software, March/April 2009.  In the article he indicates that his favorite interview question is to ask the candicate what they have read lately.  He goes on to discuss what to read: books, journals, blogs; when to read; and how to retain what you've read.  He develops the concept of a fieldstone to use a sort of bookmark with notes.  Near the conclusion of the article is a real gem, a link to a list of the Top 100 Best Software Engineering Books as listed by Jurgen Appello, the CIO at ISM eCompany in The Netherlands.  I noticed that the author of the book I recently reviewed, Steve McConnell, has four books in the top 100 list with Software Project Survival Guide as #47. 

I just finished an excellent book by software project management guru and author Steve McConnell. After over twelve years in the IT industry as a developer, business analyst, team leader, project manager, architect, engineer and consultant, I was expecting this book to a be a good review and in many ways it was. But as the title implies, it is an excellent guide. It took me through areas of the trade that I am very familiar with and it introduced me to a few more tools and techniques that I'm anxious to put to use. As the author describes, he uses three main references in writing the book: The Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) from the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh PA, NASA Software Engineering Laboratory's (SEL's) Recommended Approach to Software Development, Revision 3, and third, his own experience which itself is extensive.  I highly recommend this book to any one leading or supporting software development projects.

I've made a commitment for the purpose of this blog not to simply put bookmarks out here to other good post.  I'm going to have to make an exception for this one.  Here is a chart of all SQL Versions, their names and release dates.

In the last month and a half I've built out a launch page site at KellyOrr.com, a professional blog at ContinuousRefactor.com, a personal blog at 43five.com and a photo stream at Fotographiti.com.  Aside from the hosting space, I have used a suite of free tools.  Here is the list:

Retaggr - the Definitive Online Profile.  This service dynamically builds and serves out the badge that appears on KellyOrr.com and ContinuousRefactor.com with a collection of logos for each social network on online service that I use.  It shows a brief description of who I am, my picture and my last Twitter update.


Facebook - helps you connect and share with the people in your life.  This site is primarly used for personal social networking.  It enables you to link with colleagues and friends and share udpates, photos and Facebook-enabled games.

LinkedIn - Over 30 million professionals use LinkedIn to exchange information, ideas and opportunities.  The network enables users to stay updates about colleagues as they move between jobs.  I used it to keep an ever-current online resume of my professional activities.

Twitter. I often call this micro-blogging.  Twitter enables you to update your status from anywhere you have access to a web browser.  

Ping.fm - a simple service that makes updating your social networks a snap.  I type my updates into the website at Ping.fm and each social network that I have identified in my account is updated automatically.

Flickr - a Yahoo! service for storing pictures online.  Admittedly, I do pay for the Pro version of this service, the free version is very powerful and only puts limits on daily uploads.  

Flickriver - this service creates a photo stream of pictures from a flickr account.  I like how it presents the pictures and allows users to search by keywords and sort by tags.

BlogEngine.NET -- BE.N, as it's often referred to by fellow developers, is my blog software of choice.  It’s simple, effective, skin-able, written in .NET and free.  I run my personal and professional blogs from it.

Skype -- I used to pay more than $50 per month for a land line and dial tone with no voicemail or caller ID out here on the countryside.  Now that land-based high speed Internet is available, I got rid of my home-office land line and use Skype instead.  For a dedicated number, I pay about $5 a quarter!  Skype-to-Skype calls are free and people can call my Skype number from anywhere in the world and I can take the call anywhere in the world that I can get access to the Internet and Skype.  I've used the service and my account in Germany and Russia with no problems.

Gmail -- For years I insisted on using my own domain names and Microsoft Outlook for email.  I still use my own domain names, but I got rid of Outlook when I realized I have access to Google’s search horsepower in a GMail account.  I no longer have hundreds of nested folders that I sort mail into.  All of my mail gets tagged and added to a single archive folder.  Now I search instead of sort.

Amazon.com -- I signed up for an Amazon.com Associate account.  When I write book reviews or list books referenced in talks that I've attended, the pictures of the books come from Amazon.  If a reader clicks the book, they are transferred over to Amazon and if they buy the book, I receive a commission from Amazon.

Google Analytics -- I've used several web traffic analytics tools over the years, but they all pale in comparison to Google Analytics.  The basic version is extremely powerful and, of course, free.  Once you sign up for your account, Google will generate a simple snippet of code for you to add to your website.  That code will send information about each visitor to Google for analysis.  The aggregated data is presented in numerous reports for your review via a web interface.

Clustrmaps -- This service provides a push pin style map of where your readers are located.  The more visitors you have from a location, the bigger the head of the push pin.  This map is available as a dynamic graphic to include on your site.  The service is free.

I've installed VMWare server on several freshly built hardware servers over the past year.  I'm still tripped up by the message that often pops up: "The system administrator has set policies to prevent this installation."  Here are the steps to adjust the local security policy to allow the installation:

1) Start/Administrative Tools/Local Security Policy
2) Right Click on 'Software Restriction Policies' and select 'New Software Restriction policies'
3) Double click 'Enforcement'
4) Select "All users except local administrators"
5) Exit Local Security Settings
4) Click OK
5) You will not be prompted to reboot, but you should.  Reboot.

I tried to run GPUPDATE to update the global and local policies instead of rebooting, but it didn't work.  I still ultimately had to reboot.  I installed VMWare then still had to reboot again.

For whatever reason, the Tortoise update notices like the one shown here are always intimidating to me.  I right click and select 'SVN Update' and get the update checker pop-up.  I think, "What? There is another update?  I'm not running the newest version?  What am I missing?  Was there something in the last versions that could be a risk to me?  How long will this take to update?  Where do I go again and what do I do?"

It's quite simple really.  Here are the steps:

1. Notice the pop-up and think "Gee, I should update this.  It'll only take a minute."
2. Browse out to http://tortoisesvn.com and click the 'Download' link at the top of the page.
3. Scroll down and select the version needed for your computer.
4. Save the file.  I prefer to just put it on my desktop so I can easily find it again.
5. Double click and walk through the installation.
6. Reboot.  Done.
   

 

Several of my colleagues referred me to Scott Gu's blog entry on ASP.NET Chart Component for the .NET Framework 3.5.  I had time to take a first look tonight.  I downloaded the component, the Visual Studio 2008 tool support and the sample project.  Each package installed easily.  I copied the sample project into the IIS directory on Vista and after encountering several error messages, I set the directory to be an application.  The first look is very impressive.  I've purchased packages from Infragistics and DotNetCharting over the last four years and this free component easily meets or beats quality and quantity of charting options offered by those packages. 

Read Scott Gu's blog entry
Download ASP.NET 3.5 SP1
Download the Control
Download VS2008 Tool Support
Download the sample project

I used Microsoft SQL Server quite a bit and have been stuck numerous times on an ever growing transaction log.  After much pounding on the server this evening I once again found the magic commands.  The commands are executed in Query Analyzer or Management Studio after a full backup of the database.

BACKUP LOG <database_name> WITH TRUNCATE_ONLY
DBCC SHRINKFILE(<logical file name>,0)

With a command line backup:

BACKUP DATABASE <database_name> TO "<path to backup location>"
BACKUP TRAN <database_name> TO "path to backup location>"
DBCC SHRINKFILE 0, TRUNCATEONLY
BACKUP LOG <database_name> WITH TRUNCATE_ONLY
DBCC SHRINKFILE('<logical file name>',0)

You can get the actual database name and logical file names by examining the contents of the sysfiles table:

SELECT * FROM SYSFILES