Iskul Bukol

2007-07-15T16:31:00.000-07:00

It's not uncommon for my apps to have a requirement where a user is given the ability to sort data in a grid by clicking on column headers. The usual problem I've encountered with this requirement is when I have to sort a numeric column that's represented as a string. The following table compares the numeric and string sort:

Numeric sort	Numeric string sort
1	1
5	10
6	150
10	20
20	5
150	6

So if I had a column that was stored numerically and had to represent that column with a unit of measurement, i.e. 150 GB, the sorting would be messed up.

A workaround I used recently was to include that column twice in my SELECT statement, one as numeric and the other as a CAST to string/char. Then I'd show the string column in my grid and hide the numeric one. But whenever I sort, I use the numeric one.

Flashdrive Virus

2007-06-25T02:23:00.000-07:00

Someone borrowed my flash drive this morning and when it was returned I found a virus in it. It had an autorun file that was trying to execute a script FS6519.DLL.VBS.

A quick Google pointed me to a fix here, apparently this was made by a Batangueno,well at least that's what the IE title bar says.

Request.UserHostAddress and Vista

2007-05-18T01:01:00.000-07:00

A common feature I incorporate in my ASP.NET apps is to log the IP address of a visitor. My code worked fine until I upgraded to Windows Vista where my IP logging code failed with the not so friendly error message:

String or binary data would be truncated. The statement has been terminated.

Apparently the Request.UserHostAddress in my code was getting the IP6 address which Vista preferred. I had to do the following which I got from The Cable Guy at Microsoft Technet to make Vista prefer IP4 over IP6:

To selectively disable Pv6 components and configure behaviors for IPv6 in Windows Vista, create and configure the following registry value (DWORD type):
• HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\tcpip6\Parameters\DisabledComponents
DisabledComponents is set to 0 by default.
The DisabledComponents registry value is a bit mask that controls the following series of flags, starting with the low order bit (Bit 0):
• Bit 0 Set to 1 to disable all IPv6 tunnel interfaces, including ISATAP, 6to4, and Teredo tunnels. Default value is 0.
• Bit 1 Set to 1 to disable all 6to4-based interfaces. Default value is 0.
• Bit 2 Set to 1 to disable all ISATAP-based interfaces. Default value is 0.
• Bit 3 Set to 1 to disable all Teredo-based interfaces. Default value is 0.
• Bit 4 Set to 1 to disable IPv6 over all non-tunnel interfaces, including LAN interfaces and Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP)-based interfaces. Default value is 0.
• Bit 5 Set to 1 to modify the default prefix policy table to prefer IPv4 to IPv6 when attempting connections. Default value is 0. For more information about the prefix policy table.

To determine the value of DisabledComponents for a specific set of bits, construct a binary number consisting of the bits and their values in their correct position and convert the resulting number to hexadecimal. For example, if you want to disable 6to4 interfaces, disable Teredo interfaces, and prefer IPv4 to IPv6, you would construct the following binary number: 101010. When converted to hexadecimal, the value of DisabledComponents is 0x2A.

You must restart the computer for the changes to the DisabledComponents registry value to take effect.

SQL Native Client and Vista

2007-04-16T20:24:00.000-07:00

After upgrading to Vista, I tested a form in one of the apps I was working on. What used to be a snappy split second load of the form now took about 3 seconds.

I tried loading other forms that used the same SQL Server connection, which was an SQL Server 2005 Developer Edition instance on my dev machine and got the same slow load time. I changed the connection to a production server with an SQL Server 2000 Standard Edition and got a quicker load.

I tried to create a File DSN with the same local connection and got the same connection load time. I change the driver form SQL Server to SQL Native Client and viola! a much snappier load. I'm not sure why I didn't have this behavior back in XP, though I'm sure this is just the first of one of those quirks during development after switching to a new OS.

Adminpak on Vista

2007-04-10T18:17:00.000-07:00

Great tip here.

First steps towards Office 2007

2007-04-04T20:52:00.000-07:00

As with my previous post, I'm also trying out the new Office 2007 along with Windows Vista on my laptop. If everything goes smoothly, I'll be upgrading my desktop at work and at home.

Of course the first thing I thought of is I'll be the only one using the new Office in the office so I checked out Word's save settings. And as I was hoping, there is an option to set the default save format to Word 2003 or earlier.

I then opened Excel to see if there was a similar option. And as expected, there it was, Save As Excel 97-2003 Workbook.

So far everything seems to be running smoothly, a few more days tinkering...

First steps towards Vista

2007-04-04T08:11:00.000-07:00

Am planning to upgrade my desktop PC to Vista. I've been trying it out on my laptop for the past week now and found several glitches with applications I use. But nothing that couldn't be fixed by an SP here or an app update there. Most notably was MSXML SP2 which was needed to display VFP's Task Manager properly.

Compatibility with some of the most popular apps can be found here. I'm sure similar sites will be sprouting out of the web due to the advent of this new OS.

And if you're not yet ready to upgrade and still using XP but want that Vista feeling in your OS, you may want to try this.

DNS Blacklist 2

2007-02-11T16:56:00.000-08:00

As I mentioned in my last post, I needed to separate the internet connections of the mail server and local gateway of one of my clients. I did just that last Saturday. Fortunately their provider gave several IP addresses as part of the subscription plan and I used one IP for the gateway and one for the mail/web server.

Am now crossing my fingers for the results and will be monitoring the blacklist servers the whole week.

DNS Blacklist

2007-02-06T21:07:00.000-08:00

One of my clients had their emailserver's IP blocked by several blacklist servers around the internet. Apparently, that IP has been sending spam and was detected by these blacklisters. The bungling administrator setup the server as the company's gateway AND mail server. That's me btw.

Thanks to www.dnsstuff.com I was able to determine which servers blacklisted my client.

Sites like this along with www.network-tools.com are invaluable to sysads who are troubleshooting problems like the above.

Notepad bug

2006-12-19T16:00:00.000-08:00

Paul Domag's blog has an interesting entry about a bug of the Windows' default text editor Notepad.

It seems that creating a file in Notepad and typing in a 4-3-3-5 letter combination then saving and closing the file recreates the bug. Try typing "AAAA BBB CCC DDDDD" (without the quotes) in a new Notepad file, save it, close it, then open it and you'll see squares instead of the letters.

I opened the file using Notepad2 and still the squares were there. Interestingly, I tried opening it with UltraEdit, and viola, the letters were back and the squares gone. Hmmm. It seems it has something to do with how Notepad and Notepad2 (not created by Microsoft BTW) internally interprets the characters upon opening the file.

AUTOEXEC.BAT

2006-12-06T02:47:00.000-08:00

Trying to start a new technical blog despite of thousands of great ones out there. Well, my kids might learn something from it in case they also go the IT way even if tech articles I post here will be jurassic by the time their into it.