I use sql express for a lot of things.  On my development server and also on some production sites.  Some of the things that I have noticed is the lack of a backup solution or automation of a backup solution.  I found this article and script to generate a backup that is very close to a Maintenance plan in Standard SQL 2005.

http://www.sqldbatips.com/showarticle.asp?ID=27

Jasper Smith does a great job explaining how to use and schedule backups.  This has come in real handy for me.

Here are some pics of the original google hardware from 98.  http://backrub.tjtech.org/May1998/hardware.htm

2 guys, an idea, and a little hard work.  They changed our search style’s, they changed the NYSE, they make a new use for the word google.  I’ll never forget the day when my Mom said that she would have to google some information on a topic.

It is amazing what people can do.  I hope to be part of something like that.  The concept of taking something and really making it work.

As I progress with using Vista as my primary OS, I am finding some things that need to be addressed.

One of the items left out of vista is an SMTP server.  In XP and older operating systems you can have this installed with IIS.  However, vista does not include an smtp server.

You have a few options out there to download (http://softstack.com/freesmtp.html) or (http://www.smartertools.com/Products/SmarterMail/Free.aspx)

Steve (Steve Schofield) has a good post discussing this.  I wish I would have done a search before I started looking all over vista to find the app to install.  

I am upset that they did not include this in the app or give developers another option.

I was reading my news feeds while waiting for my email to sync (lots of email) and could not resist sharing this post.

http://consumerist.com/consumer/drm/how-i-became-a-music-pirate-245644.php

This individual tried to do the right thing for the love of music.  It appears that the music industry let him down.   It seems to me that at some point we could come to a technolgy solution that would help everyone.

 You have hardware providers (apple, microsoft -zune, creative, sony, etc…) making devices.  you then have software to run on those devices that can or cannot use DRM.  You then add the mix of what type of drm and who can play in what device. 

Ah, the good old days of mixed tapes.  We may have been breaking the law back then, but it sure was fun.

IISreporter 2.0 is now available.  Go and download (www.iisreporter.com/dl). 

The free standalone version allows you to monitor the connections on your local IIS server.  You can install on as many servers / machines you would like.  A new IISreporter Command center version will be released in the next 2 weeks. 

I have closed the source code, but the older version v1.7 is still available at sourceforge.net (source) or download at iisreporter.com. 

 The new version of IISreporter.com has been re-written in C# and .NET 2.0.  Performance has been increased and new features have been added.  

For more information go to http://www.iisreporter.com (screen shots) 

I have an application that I wrote that uses a web service to provide data back to a central app.  I needed a windows sidebar gadget to consume the web service.  However I noticed that when using javascript to consume the service I would get errors.  I then realized that I had to enable my web service to allow for access via HTTP GET. This allows the web service URL to be accessed using a string with any parameters added to the string.   To enable this on your ASMX web service you just need a few parameters in the web.config.

< webServices>
< protocols>
< add name=“HttpGet“ />