Entries for cheong

Windows 7 new sales tactics? [Windows 7 new sales tactics?]

cheong — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 16:52:30 GMT

It seems that Microsoft is going to sell a special version of Windows 7 that includes a theme CV-ed byMizuki Nana. ("nana" in Japanese means "seven")

http://akiba.kakaku.com/hobby/0909/25/230000.php

http://www.thebanzaieffect.com/articles/ooga/mizuki-nana-voices-nanami-madobe-in-windows-7-ultimate/

All I can say about that is "Wow". :O

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Hello everyone [Hello everyone]

cheong — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 12:51:20 GMT

Long time no see. :)

Tomorrow is my birthday, and seems that I've got my early birthday present - my first MCTS certification on configuration of MOSS 2007.

Just want to share my happiness to all of you :D

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32/64 bit hybrid OS [32/64 bit hybrid OS]

cheong — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 01:18:28 GMT

I talk with one of my colleague about the old days of 16-bit Windows. When we talk about that in Windows 3.0, you can supply command line switch to "win.com" to instruct it to start in real mode, standard mode (protected mode) or 386 Enhanced mode (virtual real mode).

After the conversation, I thought about why Microsoft doesn't release a OS favour that you can choose to boot into 32-bit or 64-bit mode in boot menu. Sure I can choose to dual boot 32 bit and 64 bit Windows (since it neither violates per-seat nor per-device rule, licensing shouldn't be matter), but it's really painful to have all the applications like MS Office or so on installed twice.

Most 32-bit applications can be run on both realm. 32-bit Windows application takes more memory to run in 64-bit Windows, so meanwhile I can run my daily activities in 32-bit side, then switch to 64-bit when I have some 64-bit binary to run.

Drivers shouldn't be an issue because of the seperation of sysnative and syswow64 folder. If we think about the old days when Vista, the first widely supported 64-bit Windows, is just released and most 64-bit drivers weren't quite stable, it'd also give the chance to users to switch back to 32-bit Windows for a while and wait for driver update when they have driver problems. The switch from 32 bit to 64 bit would be much smoother this way.

It's too late to bring this on, considering Windows 7 has released it's beta, and it's supposed to be the last Windows OS that have 32-bit version. Just curious that whether the decision makers in Microsoft had considered about this kind of idea.

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Happy Lunar New Year [Happy Lunar New Year]

cheong — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 02:17:26 GMT

Happy New Year!

Finally back from the holiday.

I had busy trip on visiting relatives, and feels tired as if I haven't had the holiday before. :P

This is the first year that we visit relatives without my parents, but we'll get used to it soon.

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Tip for solving strange MSSQL distributed transaction problem [Tip for solving strange MSSQL distributed transaction problem]

cheong — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 09:11:08 GMT

This is a solved problem. Posting here only for future reference (and perheps save time from poor souls experiencing the same problem later).

Description:

In certain disaster recovery procedure involving 2 database instances, we found that certain functions that uses distributed transaction to update data across the DB instance fails. By finding the log for jobs done, we found that the job has been a re-run, and the same exact task has run success before.

So we try rerun the task, and found that no matter how many time it runs, it fails with the following error:

Could not find server '<remote_server_name>\<instance_name>' in sys.servers. Verify that the correct server name was specified. If necessary, execute the stored procedure sp_addlinkedserver to add the server to sys.servers.
OLE DB provider "SQLNCLI" for linked server "<remote_server_name>\<instance_name>" returned message "Multiple-step OLE DB operation generated errors. Check each OLE DB status value, if available. No work was done.".

So we run "select * from sys.servers", and found <remote_server_name>\<instance_name> just sit there ok.

And strangely, in "SQL management studio", no matter how many times we run the commands with "begin distributed transaction" and "commit transaction", all SQL statements run successfully.

We restore the same tape to another DB instance pairs, and found the "first time success, second or later times fails" pattern readily reproducetable.

Solution:

It turns out that it's not the "<remote_server_name>\<instance_name>" entry have error, it's the "<local_server_name>\<instance_name>" entry remain to be "the pair for production database". Use 'sp_dropserver' and 'sp_addserver' with local fixes it.

Suggestion (Rant?):

The error message returned in SQL 2005 is misleading. If anyone know someone in SQL server team, please help me ask them to fix it. (Perheps they should add a check to see whether local instance name match that in DB server metadata used for sys.servers before returning the error is a good idea)

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Language feature that I miss from C# for VB.NET [Language feature that I miss from C# for VB.NET]

cheong — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 04:50:12 GMT

Delimited comment.

In C#, I can write:
string[] dec_val = txt_box1.value.Split(new char[] {'-'})
if ((dec_val.length < 5) /* Check element count */ || (dec_val(1).length) < 2) /* Variable 1 */ || ...

In VB.NET, we only have "line comment", so we need to break it into multiple lines to obtain similar effect...

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Office 14 and Exchange 14 begins testing [Office 14 and Exchange 14 begins testing]

cheong — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 09:50:58 GMT

Said CNet...

Will they make it to ship roughly the same time as Windows 7, making people upgrade them all in once?

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Advance in MS C/C++ compiler? [Advance in MS C/C++ compiler?]

cheong — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 08:12:27 GMT

Is there anywhere I can find the information on what's new on C/C++ compiler that come with Visual Studio since VS2003 (unmanaged part)?

Just curious to know...

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Happy New Year! [Happy New Year!]

cheong — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 16:18:57 GMT

It's 2009 here now!!! :D

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Hitting unexpected roadblock on x64 [Hitting unexpected roadblock on x64]

cheong — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 03:49:57 GMT

We're doing a project that one of the task is "generating password protected MS Access database on the server side, then allow the users to download and open it using the application we provided". (We know that MS Access is old and can case problem, but seems that's the only database engine available that don't require users to install anything additionally, and afterall the user only need read access to the data. And the "security requirement" doesn't allow any SQL connection directly to the users.)

The problem is that, Microsoft only provide MS Access driver for 32-bit systems, so we have to change our application to 32-bit.

But we have no control on the server, so we can't ask the admins to change it... even if we can, there's already loads of 64-bit components that our website uses so changing it to 32-bit would be be feasible. Now I have to redesign the subsystem to make it work.

I've made a vote on Microsoft Connect, let's vote for it. Honestly this would be a "show stopper" if I had learnt the "x64 Jet Engine" is not there before. I wouldn't advise them to choose a 64-bit system. I'd comment that the man-hours wasted this way is no where near the word "productive".

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MSN China is about to close the Groups [MSN China is about to close the Groups]

cheong — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 01:32:53 GMT

Received an email from this one.

I'd think it's understandable for them to want to freeze the assets of Iceland companies (whether it's right or not set aside), but with anti-terrorism legistration? WTF?

Just another example of people will use whatever most convienent to do what they want.

The next time whenever your government want to pass any law that is abusable, had better beware.

P.S.: I seldom post things related to politics, but I just found this disturbing...

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Finding register date of domain from DNS record [Finding register date of domain from DNS record]

cheong — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 03:19:07 GMT

Hello everyone,

    We also know of how those spam mailers work... register and pay for a new domain... sending lots of spam mails... requesting for refund... loop it... The frequent change of domain name makes blacklisting almost non-workable.

    I'm thinking of adding a rule to existing mail server plugin that unless the "email address" is in the "whitelist", if the domain is registered within a month, it'll be discarded. Is there anyway to get this information programmably? I'm thinking about getting it from DNS records (I thought it could be in SOA) but it doesn't seems to be there.

    Hope someone can give me a pointer to this.

Regards,
Lau Lei Cheong

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Never thought I'd thank typhoon so much [Never thought I'd thank typhoon so much]

cheong — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 14:05:48 GMT

Today, my family went back to normal daily schedule... My brother and I go working, my aunt had to went back to Taiwan....... That means only my mother is left in my home. She looks far better than she had been before, so we thought it's okay for us to resume normal schedule...

So as you may have guessed, we just almost lost another family member. Fortunately because of typhoon, my aunt's flight is canceled, and she went home soon enough to stop her. Thanks god.

At this point we decided to send my mom with my aunt to go to my grandmother's home and live there for a while... If this situation continues, I'm afraid that our nerve won't stand the stress any longer...

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My father [My father]

cheong — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 14:56:11 GMT

passed away today...

At around 5 pm, we received a call that my father has been drown and we must go to the hospital immediately.

Later, we've been told that he has been bathed in seawater for 3 hours when the helicopter found him, and he has already had no pulse and breath when arriving the hospital...

His went hiking with friends today and it's raining... we've been told that he slipped off the path then pulled away by the waves...

May he rest well...

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Hello everyone [Hello everyone]

cheong — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 14:58:12 GMT

How are things lately here?

I'm back and got a new job. :D

Actually I got the job on 5th June, but things are quite busy lately. I guess that's the price I have to pay for the ~50% raise in salary. :P

in reply to Hello everyone

WinXP SP3 OEM Disc? [WinXP SP3 OEM Disc?]

cheong — Wed, 07 May 2008 15:23:26 GMT

Hello! :)

I talked with my friends for a while and runs into the news that WinXP SP3 will be released to WindowsUpdate soon.

We know that Microsoft has the tradition of selling service-pack-slipstreamed Windows CD to the latest SP level, but as we all know, Microsoft will stop supplying OEM license for WinXP soon. So it come to the question that if we were buying new PC with WinXP next month, will we get the SP3 versiopn of install disc?

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Today is my last day of work [Today is my last day of work]

cheong — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 01:41:27 GMT

Next month I'll begin to dive into certain personal affair. I might not come as often as I used to. (Although I didn't talk much here, I did visit here at least once each workday)

//Wish me good luck ;)

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The Code Room [The Code Room]

cheong — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 08:48:54 GMT

It's been 2 years since their Toshiba Scraps HD DVD, Gives in to Sony in Format War

EDIT: Oops. Not noticed others had posted already...

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"Windows Event Log" service cannot be started in Vista ["Windows Event Log" service cannot be started in Vista]

cheong — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 12:45:12 GMT

I just found some time to install VS2008 at Home, as well as running WindowsUpdate etc.

After a few restart, install is done and I run services.msc just to make sure everything is alright. At there, I found that "Windows Event Log" is not starting.

I started to start it manually, and got error message "Error 5: Access is denied."

I fired up Sysinternals' Procmon.exe to check, and found it have trouble opening "%windir%\System32\winevt\Logs\System.evtx".

Having checked the service runs in "Local Service" account, I granted read/write access to files in this folder, and the service started successfully.

Checked G**gle and see there's other people experienced similar problem but cannot find a solution, I decided to post it here. And also hope the others see if there's other consequence on granting the access to the account.

P.S.: I compared the folder to the raw installation(Jan 2007 DVD only, patches not applied) image of Vista (I created one immediately after installation after my last reinstall) and found this folder does not exist on that copy. So this ought to be something new.

P.S.2: After successfully started the service, the system seems runs significantly faster.

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Am I crazy? [Am I crazy?]

cheong — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 06:05:30 GMT

There is a community that I've been enjoying with is about to end for various reason (e.g. lack of members from new generations, most of the current main workforce are graduated and busy on their life affairs, etc.). The leaders announced the final project that will be finished before they leave.

I'm a bit motivated to quit my current job (which I'm not quite happy with anyway) to dive in that project... After all it'd be the last one and perhaps it's good to burn the remaining energy and love for it... I must be crazy... perhaps...

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Windows Service Parameter problem in WinXP [Windows Service Parameter problem in WinXP]

cheong — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 02:21:14 GMT

I'm writing a Windows Service for reading data from COM port under WinXP. The service requires startup parameters.

I have no problem reading the parameters from Environment.GetCommandLineArgs(). However when I type the parameters at the "Service" MMC panel, the value is lost whenever I press "OK" to close it.

I've tried to set it to "manual" then "automatic" again just to make the "Apply" button enabled. But it also doesn't keep the value when "Apply" is pressed.

I've tried Close the service, set the parameters, then Start it again. The parameters doesn't pass to the service when it starts... and lost when "OK" is pressed.

It seems to me the "startup parameters" box is not connected to anything... is it a bug or it is to be used with some fancy special way?

Meanwhile I just go to HKLM\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\<servicename>\ImagePath and append the parameters there, but ask the user to change COM port setting doesn't sound good to me. I wish it could be done using a more standard way - using the MMC Service panel.

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If activation for software is bad... [If activation for software is bad...]

cheong — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 01:39:54 GMT

activation for hardware is worse...

Yesterday, our company decided to update the OS (or firmware I would say, as it said on the "settings" page) of a S-brand hardware firewall.

Before starting, we exported the settings to a file. And then we also downloaded "current firmware with backup settings" to the machine.

After upload the new firmware and reboot the box, it loses it's all current settings and reverted to factory defaults. When we try login using the default password and upload the exported settings, it said the settings file is corrupted.

Then we try to upload the "current firmware with backup settings" image to the box, but the upload page said we should have entered the registration code before update the firmware. (Before the hardware is first use, we have to go to the company's website and use the serial number plus authentication code to get the registration code) However, when we enter the code at the website, it said the serial number has already been registered. The worse thing is that, the staff who should have registered this box have leaved the company long ago - long enough that we had deleted his mailbox for ages...

Then I figured that I should take a look at the exported settings file, as by chance it could be saved in easily recognizable format. Fortunately it's format is not difficult to be recognized so I can write a little program to extract the registration code out.

We inputted the reg. code, uploaded the "current firmware with backup settings" file, everything restored, happy ending. However if we cannot figure the registration code out in the end, we'd waste a good piece of hardware for no acceptable reason, and we'd be in trouble.

Moral of the story: Don't take for granted that if you had backup before update, you'll be fine. Never update critical hardware unless it is absolutely necessary.

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Non-invasive notification in .NET v3.5 [Non-invasive notification in .NET v3.5]

cheong — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 03:20:51 GMT

Just read this post from the Coding Horror. It mentions the notification on IE download/popup blocker security prompt which I think is a very good design.

Has that notification included in .NET v3.5 package? Or could we call some API/use some ActiveX control in Windows to do that?

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