Tuesday, November 18, 2008

The final Vista Ultimate extra? Windows 7

I am almost certain they won’t but Microsoft should seriously consider how they will make Windows 7 available to the public when it is released next year.  Ever since Vista came out there has been no end to the complaining that there were not enough extras available for Vista Ultimate.  They say it was not worth the cost and I agree.

So here is what Microsoft should do.  Eliminate all versions of Windows 7 but one.  No ultimate edition, or basic edition, or primary basic edition, or grandma’s pro edition.  Just one.  Very simple.  Windows 7.

Then, considering that almost all of the units sold come from new computers, give a free upgrade to Windows 7 to all who purchased Vista Ultimate sort of as a final Vista Ultimate extra.

Finally, sell the Windows 7 upgrade for $99 and the full package for $189 at retail shops.

This is so obvious that a child could figure it out.  Which is why I have no hope that Microsoft will see it.

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

MySQL connector/net 5.2.4 has been released

MySQL Connector/Net 5.2.4, a new version of the all-managed .NET driver for MySQL has been released.  This release is of GA quality and is suitable for  use in production environments.  We strongly urge you to  review the change log that is shipped with the product for a thorough review of the changes.

We have a ton of fixes in this release so please review the changelog and see if your favorite bug has been fixed.  Version 5.2.4 works with all versions of MySQL including MySQL-4.1,  MySQL-5.0, MySQL-5.1, and the MySQL-6.0 beta.

It is now available in source and binary form from [http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/connector/net/5.2.html] and mirror sites (note that not all mirror sites may be up to date at this point of time - if you can't find this version on some mirror, please try again later or choose another download site.)

Changes since 5.2.3

  • fixed web providers autogenerateschema option where it would fail if no schema is   present at all (bug #39072)
  • backported fix for lingering problem related to bug #37239.  If two columns had the same name but different case then an exception would be thrown.
  • fixed stored procedure parameter parsing when used inside server explorer.  (bug #39252)
  • fixed time data type so that negative values are handled properly (bug #39275)
  • added runtime check for the mono platform to our Membership provider.  The mono runtime as of 1.9.1 did not support the methods needed for hashed passwords (bug #38895)
  • fixed problem where negative time values with a zero hour would return as positive values (bug #39294)
  • fixed problem where using a stored procedure with parameters with a table adapter was no longer working after our parameter schema changes (bug #39252)
  • fixed problem with profile provider where INSERT .. ON DUPLICATE UPDATE syntax would not work correctly with some older server versions (bug #39330)
  • Defaulting max allowed packet to 1024 to account for the possible case where the value doesn't come in as a server variable
  • fixed bug #39728 by making MySqlConnectionStringBuilder.GetConnectionString an internal method.   It should not have been publicly available anyway.  It is used internally by the MySqlConnection.ConnectionString property
  • implemented Disposable pattern on MySqlTransaction class so including one in a using statement and then not calling commit will cause a rollback when the using exits (bug #39817)
  • fixed MySqlScript object so that it handles scripts with user variables
  • fixed bug where specifying 'functions return string=yes' would cause strings to be returned using the 'binary' charset which would not properly render some characters.  Now the connection character set is used. (bug #40076)
  • fixed problem that caused in use connection strings to be modified when a pooled connection timed out and was cancelled.  (bug #40091)
  • fixed problem where using respect binary flags would not use the connection char set and therefore return strings with a bad encoding.
  • fixed bug where provider was attempting to use the new parameters I_S view on servers that didn't have it (bug #40382)
  • fixed problem where CharSetMap.GetDefaultCollation and CharSetMap.GetMaxLengths might have a thread sync issue on high load systems.  They were not locking the static collections there were initializing. (bug #40231)
  • added GetSByte to the reader for returning tinyint columns (bug #40571)

Thanks for using MySQL Connector/Net!

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Using mysql with entity framework webinar

This past Tuesday I was doing more than just voting.  I was giving a live webinar on using MySQL with the Entity Framework.  We had a terrific time (demo machine crash included!) and had a great turnout.  I have been informed that we set records for most number of registrations and attendees.  I’m truly honored and hope that at least some of you got something out of it.

I’ve had a lot of people ask me for the materials from the session so I’ve made them available from my personal server.  You can get the slides, sample projects, and db script here.  The webinar was also recorded and will appear on this page eventually.

Thanks again to all who attended.  I’m hoping to give an expanded version of this session at our users conference in April.  I hope to see some of you there!

Saturday, November 1, 2008

Straight from the WTF category

So last night my family and I go to watch some scary movies that had been recorded and find out that our media center computer is not working.  So like a dutiful geekdad, I march into the office to see what is wrong.  I remote into the media center with no trouble but no matter what I try the 360 just won't connect to it.  Running the network tuner it reports poor network performance, way below the 'Acceptable for TV' line.  Hmm.  So I spend the next hour running wires from various ports around the house, switching ports on the switch in the media cabinet, everything I could think of.  Nothing.

I never really paid much attention to the activation prompt that it was giving me when I remoted into it.  Surely MS would not be that stupid.  Surely.

So this morning I tried to connect to a media center computer I had running in a virtual machine (yeah VirtualBox) and it worked without a hitch.  So I remote back into the non-working media center computer and run through the activation process.  Bingo.  360 now connects perfectly and the network tuning wizard shows the exact same network as maxed out on quality.

Lesson learned?  Instead of just disabling Media center functionality and just telling you that until you activate it won't work, MS apparently just cripples it so that it doesn't work but doesn't tell you what is wrong.  Absolutely ridiculous.