Musings

Gmail Chat Bug: Excessive CPU Usage when Chat is blocked

Gary Pronych — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 16:15:00 GMT

For those of you using Gmail and the integrated Gmail chat client you could be affected by this bug if access to the Google talk server is blocked by a firewall or another method.

The past 2 weeks I noticed that Gmail is using 100% of one of my processors when I am at the office.
Access to the Google talk servers is blocked at our firewall so my Gmail integrated chat client is disabled when in Gmail, at least that is what Gmail tells me.
See the attached picture on the right.

However, when the integrated chat is expanded (+) it uses 100% of one processor even though it reads 'chat is disabled'.
If I collapse the chat module (-) this problem goes away, processor usage goes to normal levels.

I assume the Gmail chat client is unneccessarily trying to connect to the chat server even though the client is 'disabled'.
Fail!

I have posted this bug on Google forums and I will update this post once I have been notified this has been resolved.
http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/gmail/thread?tid=4ba2c7660e1a21d6&hl=en

For now, if your chat client is disabled, collapse the feature or else you will be running with one less processor.

*Gmail integrated chat client expanded

I have confirmed this a problem with
- FireFox 3.5.2
- Chrome 2.0.172.43

Gary Pronych

Regina Technology Community Launch: Sept 16th – SQL 2008 R2 and Project Madison

Gary Pronych — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 12:12:54 GMT

The Regina Technology Community welcomes Nick Nastic!

Topic: SQL Server 2008 R2 and project codename "Madison"
SQL Server 2008 R2 is the next generation of the Microsoft SQL Server database platform, planned for release in the first half of 2010. SQL Server 2008 R2 expands on the value delivered in SQL Server 2008 to help organizations improve IT and developer efficiency with:

new and enhanced tools for the management of applications and multiple servers
master data services
complex event processing

Nick's presentation will cover the new Self Service Business Intelligence (BI) capabilities that empower end users to access, integrate, analyze and share information using business intelligence tools they already know - Microsoft Office. Nick will also discuss the "Madison" Project and the Microsoft Data Platform roadmap.

Speaker: Nick Nastic
Principal Technical Solution Professional for Microsoft Data Platform, Western Canada
Location: University of Regina
Event: Classroom building, room CL 126 (North-West end of campus)
Map: pdf
Date: Wednesday Evening, September 16th, 2009
Cost: Free

Schedule:
5:30 pm: Food and social - please register if you are joining us for dinner
6:00 pm: Welcome and opening announcements
6:15 pm: SQL Server 2008 R2 and project codename "Madison"
8:15 pm: Closing

Registration:
We need to know how much pizza to order! :) If you're joining us for dinner, please register through the Regina Technology Community website.
Registration deadline is Wednesday, September 16th, 2009 12:00 pm.

Sponsors:
A big thank you to our Facilities Sponsor, the University of Regina!
We've just begun our sponsorship drive for the 2009-2010 season. Want to invest in your community? Check out our sponsorship page.

Regina Technology Community: Many Technologies. One Community.

Gary Pronych — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 12:08:08 GMT

I am happy to announce the launch of the Regina Technology Community.
The Regina Technology Community has formed from a consortium of local special interest groups:
• .NET User Group
• IT Pro User Group
• SQL Server User Group
• SharePoint User Group

We recognize that no technology is an island. We work in technological ecosystems that requires an understanding of many disciplines. Having one community allows us to deliver a wide spectrum of content to our members. It also provides the forum for additional topics such as development methodologies, business analysis, project management and information technology management.

The Regina Technology Community is organized by a team of local volunteers. We currently have over 300 members and are growing. The community is composed of developers, analysts, testers, architects, administrators (systems, applications, servers, databases) and students. Many different industries and local organizations are represented.
The community is scheduling monthly events in the above disciplines for IT professionals.

We encourage people interesting in the community and our events to join our newsletter at our website
http://www.regina-technology-community.ca/

Special thanks to Carlin Pohl and Chantal LaPlante that have been champions in developing this new community.

Developer Evangelism at the Office

Gary Pronych — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 18:01:13 GMT

I was reading the Developer Evangelist Handbook which is a good guide for public facing developer evangelists created by Chris Heilmann of the Yahoo Developer Network.
Check out the online handbook here
http://developer-evangelism.com/

In this handbook there is some great advice for people who complete public presentations or someone who want to expand their current speaking engagements.
In reality many developers are evangelists (or should be) at there places of employment. Developers often feel pain in their ecosystem, the only way to change it is to deal with it.
I will take a twist on this article and talk about what developers can do to promote developer evangelism at the office.

First, what do I mean by developer evangelism?
- Someone who is passionate about continuous improvement through process, technology or development strategies
- Speaks with experience or knowledge
- Trusted by developers and employers

How is developer evangelism accomplished?
- Being a proprietor for continuous improvement.
Mediate with the technical staff and determine areas for improvement.
- Introduce new practices, design patterns and technologies.
Note: What was considered 'best practice' last year may be considered harmful today.
- Find an avenue to promote your suggestions such as blogs, speaking or tutorials.

Many employers and project managers do not like change, they like to see consistent progress so they can predict release dates. They consider changes as a risk of failure which complicates the prediction process.
However change requests happen regardless, success can be found through failure.

You may have a meeting with your employer somewhere along these lines
Your Employer: 'Tell me why we should change our development environment from VB6 to Visual Studio 2008?'
Well, if you have this exact conversation, you have other issues.

Typically you may need to sell why you need to upgrade from VS 2005 to VS 2008, SQL 2005 or SQL 2008, etc.
There are times when you may need to sell installing a Service Pack (SP). For example, VS 2008 SP1 included new functionality such as Entity Framework or breaking changes in SQL 2000 sp3.

An example of what is harmful today includes using SourceSafe source control when you have many other free options that will support tagging, branching and Continuous Integration (CI).
Not having these features will cause you pain, that is where the next section comes into play.

How to remove pain from your development ecosystem.
What cause you pain in your current development practices? Is there a better way to complete a task?

Do your research, find out how introducing a practice or technology to ease your pain.
Create a demo project in a timebox (a few hours or days) and demonstrate how this functionality increases productivity.

Know your audience and their needs
Your boss does not want to spend money or delay current progress.
However, if the investment increases productivity those are well spent dollars.
Do the above, do your research and propose your changes.

What is not developer evangelism
Developer evangelism may lead to the 'ooo it's shiney' developer or a Magpie developer.
By the definition above, evangelism comes from experience. If you feel your new process is worth merit, do your diligence, follow the steps in 'How to remove pain'.
Prove this solution is viable solution that meets your project needs and corporate politics.

Providing a list of 5 things your team needs to improve on is a good to note but that introduces major change. Remember, your employer does not like change.
My experience has been to introduce new processes as needed. Select the easiest attainable improvement and work you way to completing that change. Then you can carry onto the next area for improvement.

Sometimes no change is the best change
Keeping up with industry changes can be a daunting task. But is change even necessary?
Will that new design pattern really benefit the team or will it just cause confusion?

An veteran knows that you need to pick and choose your battles; you don't need to win every battle to win the war.

Vista SP2 Release, Evaluation Build 6002 Removal

Gary Pronych — Sun, 03 May 2009 14:54:00 GMT

Last year Microsoft pre-released SP2 for Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 as build 6002.16497 under KB948465.

One of the most annoying features of using this build is that it would apply an evaluation watermark to the bottom right hand corner of each of your desktops (if you have 2+ monitors it will appear on both screens).

Honestly, for months I thought the watermark meant my license was detected as a evaluation license but I know I am using an OEM license.

Afterwards I found some guides to remove the watermark by making some system changes.
I am not one to download DLL’s to override OS libraries for security reasons so I just accepted this annoyance.

April 30th 2009 Microsoft released Vista SP2 RTM to TechNet subscribers.
As KB948465 describes, you need to uninstall any pre-released versions of SP2 prior to the RTM installation.

If it wasn’t for the evaluation build watermark, I may have neglected to update to the RTM build since the pre-release build does not expire until May 1, 2010.
I couldn’t find any other way to detect I was using a pre-RTM build although I only did a couple minor checks;
- Computer | Properties show Service Pack 2.
However, On the same screen Help | About may show a version number; my RTM reads ‘Version 6.0 (Build 6002: Service Pack 2)
- Programs and Features | View installed updates; showed ‘Service Pack for Microsoft Windows (KB948465)’

If you download the 1.4 GB SP2 ISO from TechNet it will tell you if you need to uninstall a previous installation of SP2, it will also tell you if you have the correct build installed.
I am sure their is a better way to detect your build

The x64 SP2 is 591 MB, the x32 SP2 is 356 MB, the I64 SP2 is 461 MB; the TechNet ISO contains all three versions of the KB.

Update:
-------------------------------
As of May 25th 2009, Vista and Windows Server 2008 sp2 downloads are now available.

x86 at this link
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=656c9d4a-55ec-4972-a0d7-b1a6fedf51a7&displaylang=en
64 bit at this link
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=656c9d4a-55ec-4972-a0d7-b1a6fedf51a7&displaylang=en

GreenIT Communities and Events

Gary Pronych — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 15:26:09 GMT

Taking a GreenIT approach does not mean that you have to scrap entire projects.
As IT professionals it is native for us to look for the most efficient way to complete tasks; why not take this skill to the next level?

Everyone in the IT community can participate in GreenIT. Here are some roles and how they can contribute

Architect : Green design, integration
Developer : Reduce the "energy footprint" of your applications, CPU cycles, bandwidth/traffic
SQL Professional : Performance tuning, indexes, Access to SQL back-end as hugely green
DBA : balancing the other 3 and managing actual execution of the green data center
Network / Hosting Environment : Designing, building, maintaining the green data center through virtualization, terminal servers, power management.
Procurement : Small form factor computer components, LED LCDs, Energy Star, RoHS compliance
Everyone : Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
Stakeholders : The more of the above you implement, it reduces your energy footprint which saves $$$$

DevConnections is now offering GreenIT tracks starting with their Orlando conference March 22, 2009.

I met Kathy Malone at DevConnections in Las Vegas 2008, she runs the Green .NET User Group.
Kathy will be hosting 3 of the Green IT sessions

What Green Means to IT Professionals and Why You Should Care
Green Across the Supply Chain: A Global Perfect Storm is Brewing for Chemicals. Will You Ride the Wave or be Washed Away By It?
Greening Your Business Case and Your Corporate Culture: Using Green to Support Your Projects

For those that cannot attend DevConnections there are resources for you as well.

Florida.NET is hosting a Live meeting for anyone Feb 18th on Does Green IT Matter?
Check out Kathy Malone’s blog
Check out the Microsoft Sustainability Panel at TechEd Online
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/events/teched/cc676818.aspx put in keyword “sustain” and it should get you there (low resolution mp3 gets all the content).
Hypothesis on GreenIT
Green Computing on Wikipedia

Stay green,

Gary Pronych

NFL: Story behind the Pittsburgh Steelers Logo

Gary Pronych — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 15:29:58 GMT

As I work in the steel industry, working with individuals wearing hard hats is common in my daily activities.

You can easily point out a consultant from Pittsburgh when you see the black helmet and the yellow strip; I get a kick out of seeing these helmets when compared to the plain helmets we are commissioned with.
With the Super Bowl right around the corner, I would like to share this factual story with you.

Article Source: American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI)

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What do Troy Polamalu, Coca-Cola and Steel have in common? As fate* would have it, Steelers safety Polamalu will appear in a Coca-Cola ad Super Bowl Sunday — and not only bring back memories of the 1980 commercial where “Mean Joe Green gets comforted by a kid who hands him a coke(1)” — but will carry two strong brands and the crushing strength of the Steelers’ defensive line with him.

The Pittsburgh Steeler’s famed three-star logo is one of the most familiar symbols in sports, partly because steel’s inherent strength and toughness is a perfect match for the Steelers’ highly-touted, bone-crunching defense. Only the Steel trademarked logo found on the Steelers helmet brings worldwide recognition and appreciation for these strengths.

Seven decades after Art Rooney purchased the NFL franchise and five Super Bowl victories later, it has come to symbolize the strength of the team and the Steel City it represents. But how many fans know what the starlike figures mean and where the logo came from?

In fact, the three four-pointed starlike figures within the circle, called hypocycloids for their geometric origin, made it to the NFL in 1962, when Rooney adopted the Steelmark for his football team. The Steelers logo is based on the Steelmark logo belonging to the American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI). The Steelmark was originally created for United States Steel Corporation to promote the attributes of steel: yellow lightens your work; orange brightens your leisure; and blue widens your world. The logo’s meaning was later amended to represent the three materials used to produce steel: yellow for coal; orange for iron ore; and blue for steel scrap.

Back in the early 60s, the Steelers had to petition the AISI in order to change the word “Steel” inside the Steelmark to “Steelers” before the logo was complete. Cleveland’s Republic Steel suggested to the Steelers that they use the Steelmark as a helmet logo.

The Steelers are the only NFL team that sports their logo on only one side of the helmet. At first, this was a temporary measure because the Steelers weren’t sure they would like the look of the logo on an all-gold helmet. They wanted to test them before going all-out.

Equipment manager back then Jack Hart was instructed to put the logo only on one side of the helmet — the right side. The 1962 Steelers finished with a 9-5 mark and became the team with the most wins in franchise history to date. The team finished second in the Eastern Conference and qualified for the Playoff Bowl. They wanted to do something special for their first postseason game, so they changed the color of their helmets from gold to black, which helped to highlight the new logo.

Because of the interest generated by having the logo on only one side of their helmets and also due to the team’s new success, the Steelers decided to leave the helmet that way permanently. Today’s helmet reflects the way the logo was originally applied and it has never been changed.

AISI serves as the voice of the North American steel industry in the public policy arena and advances the case for steel in the marketplace as the preferred material of choice. AISI also plays a lead role in the development and application of new steels and steelmaking technology. AISI is comprised of 25 member companies, including integrated and electric furnace steelmakers, and 130 associate and affiliate members who are suppliers to or customers of the steel industry. AISI’s member companies represent over 70 percent of both U.S. and North American steel capacity. For more news about steel and its applications, view AISI’s Web site at www.steel.org.

*Coca-Cola planned the commercial before they knew the Steelers were going to the Super Bowl.

(1) USA Today, Troy Polamalu is the New Mean Joe Greene, by Tom Weir, November 21, 2008.

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Regina.NET Event January 22nd: SQL 2008 Community Launch

Gary Pronych — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 02:32:12 GMT

Regina.NET is participating in the INETA SQL PASS sponsored SQL 2008 launch.

We have 2 sessions at this years event on January 22nd at the University of Regina.

What is a community launch?

Microsoft and others provide registered speakers with Web Casts, PowerPoint, code sample and / or hands on labs for a number of areas in the promoted product.
The beauty of this type of event is that ANYONE can qualify to be a speaker. As a registered speaker, you are provided guidance in the launch topic.
Speakers can provide the sessions verbatim, but the samples are often from beta software may be to general or specific for your needs. I typically get ideas from the web casts and create my own schedule.
Occasionally Connected Systems (OCS) is something that adds value to me personally and I can see it being very useful to others, so that is my topic of choice for this event.

These launch events have been great for small communities that do not have access to many local speakers such as my community, Regina.NET.
Regina.NET and Regina IT Pro participated in the Windows Server 2008 / SQL 2008 / Visual Studio 2008 community launch back in May 2008; it was an excellent cross community event.

Regina.NET SQL 2008 Launch

For the SQL 2008 launch, we are holding 2 sessions.
Vance Petriew and I have been invited to give these sessions at the Saskatoon .NET user group; we haven’t confirmed any dates yet.

ADO.NET Sync Services using SQL 2008 and Visual Studio 2008
Presented by: Gary Pronych .NET User Group Leader (Me)
Abstract:
Do you have client applications that are not always connected to the network? Do you develop using smart clients?
Do you have large tables that contain static data or Slowly Changing Dimensions? What methods do you use to cache this data?

There are time consuming manual methods you can implement to replicate data to these systems but then you must also handle conflicts and sharing cached data.
In this presentation, we will discover how we can use SQL CE 3.5 in standalone and smart client development.
We will advance this topic and discover how SQL CE allows us to develop occasionally connected systems and synchronize changes from the client cache back to the source database.

What's new in SQL Server 2008 for DBAs
Presented by: Vance Petriew, SQL Database Analyst
Abstract:
In this session we will provide an overview of the important new features found in SQL Server 2008.
Then we will dive into feature examples including data compression, encryption, filestream objects and spatial indexes.

How to find Events in your area?

There is a listing for SQL 2008 Launch events located here http://www.microsoft.com/sql/experience/Events.aspx?loc=en
For the previous community launch there was a web site that you can search for an event in your area, it was to the point and easy to use.
I think they dropped the ball this time, the site is quite painful to use and they missed my submission somehow (Bastards!).
Coordinating international events can be difficult so I can give them some slack.

Helpful Links

If you are interested in great SQL 2008 material here is another resource I found; you just need to skip through the cheesy ‘Get on the Case’ theme.

http://www.isvinnovation.com/SQL/Challenge.aspx

Gary Pronych

DevConnections Keynote: Next 10 Years of IT

Gary Pronych — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 00:48:14 GMT

Steve Riley, Microsoft Senior Security Strategist provided a keynote at DevConnections in Las Vegas.

The topic was, ‘Next 10 years of IT’.
The keynote was very unique and thought provoking, so I would like to share some thoughts.

Green IT

How many servers do you have in your server room? What is their utilization?

Personally, over my last few clients I know of a handful of servers that running less than 20% CPU utilization. Is this efficient?
If these machines where VM’d they could be reallocated and share resources on a single box.

This is a very important strategy in an area where businesses have growing concerns with their bottom line as the market tightens.

Streamline IT

In an era with SOA taking the stage, it is very possible program developers will only write services.
Information workers can use tools like WorkFlow (WF) to connect single responsibility services, this tool will allow them to assign business rules and logic.
A lot of productivity is lost explaining business logic / rules to programmers. If we could provide our business users with the tools to write their own rules, there will be signification productivity gains.

Consolidation of Vendors and Services

We did a quick review of hardware vendors from the 80’s to today; there were 20+ server vendors from this area. Today there are less than 10.
Is this because these companies could not adapt to change? Or they could not innovate?

IT must be Adaptive to Change

We did a quick review of the mainframe era, how IBM ruled the industry; soon thereafter, the PC came available.
It was desirable for end users to use personal devices, the mainframe systems could not adapt, therefore were left behind.
IBM ended up being left behind and lost significant market share.

How do we predict the future?
By looking at the past; history tends to repeat. We need to be agile and open to new ideas.

SharePoint Patterns and Practices Announced

Gary Pronych — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 22:03:47 GMT

Microsoft has announced the launch Patterns and Practices for SharePoint at DevConnections Las Vegas.
http://www.codeplex.com/spg

The MOSS P&P launch affirms that MOSS will be around for some time.
Microsoft has been pushing MOSS as their portal solution; Intranet and Internet. It is becoming clear that MOSS is becoming much more than a portal solution.
The director of SharePoint, Thomas Rizzo, wouldn’t comment on the release date of SP1 but he did recommend that all SharePoint users should install the infrastructure update.

Recently I have been working on a Business Intelligence (BI) planning team; we are looking to migrate to SQL 2008 as a BI platform.
A part of our process was to have a webcast with some Microsoft team members to showcase some of the features with company stakeholders.

Our agenda was to discuss reporting services in particular (SSRS). When it came time for the webcast, the demonstration focused more on Performance Point 2007 than SSRS.
One of the requirements for Performance Point is that it must run on SharePoint 2007.

To summarize, in order to get to ‘the Microsoft recommend BI platform’ you need to purchase.

1. SQL 2008

2. MOSS

3. Performance Point 2007

I think it is great that all 3 of these products work well together, but that also means our budget and resource requirements multiply by 3x plus.