Tag Archives: How to

Catch this train

Posted on by

A good friend of mine, John Cantarella, has been using the training courses provided by Train Signal. I’ve had a look over his sholder at some of this stuff and it’s fantastic.

The Microsoft Small Business Server 2003 R2 training is ‘informal’ in the sense that it actually feels like your in the same room with the guy, him telling me how it all fits together.

I wish I’d had something like this two years ago…. ;-)

Thanks to John for letting me take a look at it – he was able to show me some stuff I didn’t yet know.

Resetting password on Palm T3 PDA

Posted on by

My old beloved Palm T3 PDA, which in my humble opinion is possible the best PDA I’ve ever used, is now used by my daugher. She set the system password… and forgot it… oops.

Thusly, to reset it to factory defaults, and in the process, lose ALL saved data on it, you need to press and hold the POWER button, while pressing the reset button (hidden on the back). Once the “Palm Powered” logo appears, release the POWER button, say YES to erasing all the data, and Bob’s your uncle, all reset to factory defaults.

Unfortunately the Palm doesn’t have a phone in it, like the company provided PDA, hence why I don’t use the palm any longer.

What version of SQL Server is running?

Posted on by

[update: SQL2005 versions more info here]

To find out what version of SQL Server your running, do this:

From the command prompt on the SQL Server itself,

osql -E -S %computername%

This will give you a SQL prompt, at which you do the following:

1>exec master..xp_msver 'ProductName'
2>exec master..xp_msver 'ProductVersion'
3>go

This gives you two bits of information, (1) the Product Name & (2) the Product Version – which requires some interpretation, note them both. But first, at the SQL prompt, type quit.

1>quit

The table below will help determine exactly what SQL Server is running.


2005.90.1399 – SQL Server 2005 RTM
2005.90.2047 – SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 1
2005.90.3042 – SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 2
8.00.194 – SQL Server 2000 RTM
8.00.384 – SQL Server 2000 SP1
8.00.532 – SQL Server 2000 SP2
8.00.760 – SQL Server 2000 SP3
8.00.760 – SQL Server 2000 SP3a *note below
8.00.818 – SQL Server 2000 SP3 w/ Cumulative Patch MS03-031
8.00.2039 – SQL Server 2000 SP4
7.00.1063 – SQL Server 7.0 Service Pack 4 (SP4)
7.00.961 – SQL Server 7.0 Service Pack 3 (SP3)
7.00.842 – SQL Server 7.0 Service Pack 2 (SP2)
7.00.699 – SQL Server 7.0 Service Pack 1 (SP1)
7.00.623 – SQL Server 7.0 RTM (Release To Manufacturing)
6.50.479 – SQL Server 6.5 Service Pack 5a (SP5a) Update
6.50.416 – SQL Server 6.5 Service Pack 5a (SP5a)
6.50.415 – SQL Server 6.5 Service Pack 5 (SP5)
6.50.281 – SQL Server 6.5 Service Pack 4 (SP4)
6.50.258 – SQL Server 6.5 Service Pack 3 (SP3)
6.50.240 – SQL Server 6.5 Service Pack 2 (SP2)
6.50.213 – SQL Server 6.5 Service Pack 1 (SP1)
6.50.201 – SQL Server 6.5 RTM

You will notice that there is SQL Server 2000 SP3 and SP3a both have the same version number. Some software providers require at least SP3a (i.e. some MYOB products). So how does one tell the difference between the two?

By finding the file SSNETLIB.DLL and right clicking it, and checking the version number. If the version number of this file is 2000.80.760.0, you have SQL Server 2000 SP3. If the version number of this file is 2000.80.766.0, you have SQL Server 2000 SP3a.

This file is normally found in one of these two locations:

  • Default instance: C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\Binn\Ssnetlib.dll
  • Named instance: C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQLServer\MSSQL$<InstanceName>\Binn\Ssnetlib.dll

Of course, Microsoft have more to say and you can find it at: www.support.microsoft.com/kb/321185

Painless upgrade to WordPress 2.5

Posted on by

Just did yet another painless upgrade to WordPress, which is the software that powers this web site.

It is now running version 2.5 quite happily. What made this upgrade different was the fact that I did it from my laptop running Ubuntu 7.10.

Every other upgrade I’ve done from a Windows platform, using the FTP tool I’ve been familiar with, FileZilla.

The default install of Ubuntu hasn’t installed FileZilla, so it was a quick click to System | Administration | Synaptic Package Manager | Search | “Filezilla” | Mark for install | approve the dependancies | Apply.

In under a minute, FileZilla was installed and my favorite FTP tool was running just like it does on my Windows laptop. Yay! I just love how easy it is to install most things with Ubuntu.

More GRUB editing

Posted on by

Two pages I’ve found useful when playing with GRUB (a Boot loader that allows you to choose between multiple operating systems on boot up) are these:

It is nice to be able to re-order the menu items, change the length of time the menu stays on screen and change the wording of each entry.

Ubuntu VPN goodness

Posted on by

I’m now running Ubuntu 7.10 on my personal laptop (it dual boots with MS Vista Ultimate, but defaults to Ubuntu). Of course I want to do it all, including connecting to MS Windows VPN’s.

The short set of instructions over at tipotheday were spot-on.

My only addition would be to have the Ubuntu 7.10 install CD (or ISO) handy. Personally I used the command line (CLI) version, worked a treat.

Editing the GRUB records

Posted on by

Posted more for my own benefit

sudo vi /boot/grub/menu.lst

This runs vi as the superuser, editing the grub menu, which is what controls which OS to boot into. Important for me ’cause the new laptop is now dual booting Ubuntu and MS Vista Ultimate. Just changing the default OS, now it’s Ubuntu 7.10, loving it!

Beat Adobe Reader black and red

Posted on by

On a Terminal Server today some users were experiencing red and black patches appearing when they opened PDF files.

A Knowledge Base article at Adobe indicates a similar, but evidently not the same, issue having been rectified in Adobe Reader 8.1 – that of the color not being rendered correctly for the first rectangle object in a section of a PDF document. Evidently not the same because it didn’t work for me. What did work however was disabling Text Smoothing.

Here is how to do it:

Open Adobe Reader | Document | Accessibility Setup Assistant | Set all accessibility options | Next

TICK THE BOX to DISABLE TEXT SMOOTHING

Next | Next | Next | Done

And bingo, no more red and black patches appearing.