CStechcast.com brings you another information filled podcast for IT pros. This week we interview Ben Day, Microsoft MVP for C#, conference speaker, and leader of the Beantown.NET User Group to get into the benefits and how to avoid the controversy of LINQ. Find him online at Benday.com. In the news we see the nail in Windows XP sales coffin, we explore Windows 7 rumors, you get exposed to a plethora of security patches, go head first into IRS phishing, see the resurgence of backscatter spam, more DDoS traffic, get some much needed help from a honeypot client, look at VMWare's latest release to control VM's, and confirm what we already knew about the direction of IT this year. Creative shuts down helpful user written Vista drivers for "The Worst Tech Move of the Week", we show you why SPNs are important for domain accounts in IIS and SQL in the "Weekly Tech Tip", and we take "A Closer Look" at IT conferences. Quest Software is giving away a copy of Change Director for SQL Server. Enter using the "Contest" link at CStechcast.com.
Links to stories discussed during the show:
Microsoft Windows XP Dies June 30, as Planned (eWeek)
Windows 7, Successor To Vista, May Ship Next Year (Information Week)
Critical IE, Office, Windows Patches on Deck (eWeek)
Another Phishing Scam Spoofs IRS (ENT News)
Backscatter Spam Is Back (eWeek)
Internet tubes dripping with "raw sewage" of DDoS attacks (Ars Technica)
VMware Adds Control To Burgeoning Virtual Infrastructure (Information Week)
Report: IT Heads Back to Basics (eWeek)
Creative Labs Stops Guy From Making Its Technology Work Better (Techdirt)
Setspn Overview (Microsoft TechNet)
The Big Giveaway is Closing Soon!
Don't miss our big giveaway of Quest Software's Change Director for SQL Server. Change Director for SQL Server provides a powerful automated solution for managing change to SQL Server databases. Please enter using the "Contest" button on the CStechcast.com homepage.
Leave comments at the blog, on the feedback form, or at our voicemail. Thanks for listening this week and every week.
Link to the episode: http://www.cstechcast.com/home.aspx?Episode=19
- Eric Beehler (consortioservices.com/blog)
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After Microsoft’s Windows Vista went RTM last year I quickly installed in onto my desktop and then my laptop. Both were manufactured before the release of Vista. My desktop was a bit more than a year and a half old and my laptop about 8 months old and came with the ubiquitous Windows Vista Capable sticker. On the desktop, I did an upgrade, followed about a month later by a fresh install to the same partition. Recently, I bought a brand spanking new laptop for my wife, who needed to have her 8 year old Compaq laptop replaced because every time the virus signature update initiates, it locks up the whole machine. It was just getting too slow and its battery was certainly out of juice. I’m not throwing it out, but it’s just not that pleasant an experience if you need to do more than surf the web and check e-mail. So, I went high end with the processor, an HP 2700 Special Edition series Intel Penryn class 2.5 GHz beast, a nice 2GB of RAM, 120 GB hard disk, DVD writer, 14.1” Brite View screen, discrete NVidia 8400 graphics, extended life battery, HDMI port, fingerprint reader; it has the works for an everyday machine. It should last just as long as the last one did. And, it came pre-loaded with Windows Vista Home Premium, my first machine pre-loaded with the OS. The interface was smooth and functionality was without issue. The only problem I ran into was my network printer driver for the HP color laser printer 2605dtn, so I had to download the full CD. HP doesn’t provide the small driver for the network version of this printer. I noted a problem with IE after the installation of the CD where the HP Web Clips feature add on was crashing IE so I disabled it. The experience was so nice that I decided it was time to re-install Windows Vista on my other computers. My first candidate was my laptop, an HP DV 5190. It’s an early dual core Intel processor T2400. It’s sold as a budget processor today, but it was one of the best at the time. I know a reinstall won’t fix everything. It definitely runs hotter than the new model, a given with the Penryn’s advances in power consumption and my bigger 15.4” screen. It’s also been dropped once or twice going through airports, car rental buses, and sitting on hotel beds, so some cosmetic damage has been done. My biggest problems were around my upgrade path for the machine. I chose an in place upgrade to Vista at the time because of all the pre-installed software. From what I could tell, HP put many things on the machine that worked against proprietary features such as the TV tuner, DVD, function buttons, etc. and they were not available for download at the time either. The Vista driver list was very small, just a card reader driver I think. On top of that, I really didn’t have time to get my system right after a full install. I was in the middle of writing a book for goodness sakes. So, after the upgrade I had multiple conflicts with said vendor software. I ran MSconfig and disabled a bunch of startup programs, which seemed to work for some stuff, but MSconfig is not supposed to be a permanent solution so it would pop up to tell me some programs were not started. OK, so then I would go and uninstall a bunch of these programs, but some HP core program kept popping up a C++ error whenever I would resume from sleep or a reboot. It was annoying and the system just seemed slow. Other problems I had was video from DVD being jerky and the inability to run a SD card as a ReadyBoost drive, even though I bought a faster Ultra II series card. This weekend I ran a file backup using the built in File Backup in Vista to an external hard drive. I didn't want a whole image, just the important stuff. After a couple hours and a quick safety backup of some pictures to a USB key, I was ready. I popped the DVD into the drive and rebooted. No problemo. I told Vista setup to install and went to the advanced link for disk management. I deleted two partitions, one of which was the HP partition that was eating 12GB of my hard drive space. That wasn't ever a cool decision by HP in my opinion. I setup a new, single partition. I didn’t format the drive, but just told setup to proceed with the install. Vista handled the rest with no further prompting from me. After a reboot I did the regular things, such as account and time zone setup. After another reboot I was in business. A fresh install, which is the fastest this thing will ever boot with Vista. Next, I setup wireless networking by clicking on the network icon on the taskbar and entered the passphrase for my network. I connected and got an IP address, but it wouldn’t connect to the Internet. I opened the Network and Sharing Center and the graphical network map showed a disconnect to the Internet. After a click on “Diagnose and Repair” an automated repair of the network initiated, first tried an IP address refresh, but it ultimately disabled and reenabled the network adapter. I was now able to browse the web.
 The first order of business was a download of Vista Service Pack 1. It’s not showing in Windows Update yet, so I downloaded it manually without a pass through the 45 patches Windows Update identified as critical and important. Service Pack 1 took another 30 minutes more or less to install. No problems with the service pack, which I’m sure is an easy result on a machine with nothing else installed, including security software. Windows Update only needed to install a couple things after the service pack, along with optional software like my “Vista Ultimate” copy of Texas Hold’em Poker and a couple of hardware drivers. Then I went for anti-virus software. Having more than 3 computers in the house means two buys of Norton Internet Security every year. It may not be the geek's preference for AV, but it keeps all the family computers safe and secure. The only other issue was my integrated card reader. Vista didn’t have the right driver for the TI chipset, so I went over to HP’s web site, downloaded the right driver, and installed. Problem gone, but HP could have provided this driver to Microsoft for availability in Windows Update. Next were my network printers and, to my surprise, the HP Color Laser installed with no need for an external driver download which was required on the other, new laptop. I guess it was added with SP1. This keeps me away from the bloatware like HP Web Clips. Rebuilding your box is kind of like spring cleaning. When you’re done it makes you say ahhhh. All the quirky little problems seem to be cleared up, but some things still needed to be resolved. One is the video driver. Vista still installs the old WDDM version of the NVidia driver that came on the original DVD, which is a very poor performer and has major problems with video from my experience. Since NVidia laptop chipsets are considered OEM, NVidia wants you to download the driver from the manufacturer. The problem is HP hasn’t updated the driver for my laptop since March 2007 and it sucks too. I used the excellent laptopvideo2go.com package, a free download, which plugs in the OEM files to the driver so you can run the latest and greatest. Trust me, you want newer than last year’s drivers because video drivers from all the major chipset vendors were notoriously bad when Vista debuted. You also realize after a fresh install that you are missing certain programs that you don’t even think about until you realize they are gone. For me these are Nero Burning ROM, PowerISO, SnagIt, iTunes, Virtual PC, and Firefox. Microsoft Office 2007 went on too. I’m going to try to stay away from the crapware that tends to bog down your system in the first place. Vista freshly installed with SP1 on my old machine makes it feel like new, its a nice feeling.
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CStechcast.com brings you another audio podcast filled with a half hour of solid information for IT professionals. This week we interview Andy Leonard, Microsoft MVP and co-author of several books including Professional Software Testing with Visual Studio 2005 Team System: Tools for Software Developers and Test Engineers , and we talk about the importance of database testing. In the news we talk about some major security gaffs involving malware on servers that led to identity theft and rigged searches on major web sites, plus new attacks against DNS, hacking Windows Server 2008 and the MacBook Air, and EnterpriseDB's open source Postgres database gets new life with new funding and a competitive update. The "Worst Tech Move of the Week" goes to Warner's proposed music tax on ISPs, the "Weekly Tech Tip" brings you ways to improve page file performance in Windows, and disaster recovery planning gets "A Closer Look". A big giveaway for you from Quest Software for a copy of Change Director for SQL Server, so enter at our web site CStechcast.com by clicking the Contest button. Links to stories discussed during the show: Attackers booby-trap searches at top Web sites (C|Net News.com)
Malware Cited in Supermarket Data Breach (Associated Press)
EnterpriseDB Looks to Bolster Product Line (eWeek)
NIST Unveils Tool To Foil DNS Attacks (ENT Magazine)
Minimizing Information Leakage in the DNS (National Institute for Standards and Technology)
MacBook Air Hacked In Two Minutes (Information Week)
Hacker Pours Cold Water on Windows Server 2008 Security Design (eWeek)
Warner Music Pushes ISP Tax For Music Downloads (Information Week)
Jim Griffin says ISP music tax only one possibility (C|Net News.com) Don't Miss The Giveaway! Don't miss our big giveaway of Quest Software's Change Director for SQL Server. Change Director for SQL Server provides a powerful automated solution for managing change to SQL Server databases. Please enter using the "Contest" button on the CStechcast.com homepage. Leave comments at the blog, on the feedback form, or at our voicemail. Tell your friends to subscribe to CS Techcast! Thanks for listening. Link to the episode: http://www.cstechcast.com/home.aspx?Episode=18 - Eric Beehler (consortioservices.com/blog)
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Web 2.0 is all the rage, making users more productive by offering new programming methods and applications used on an Internet platform. This expanding ability for greater productivity is great, but it comes with a side effect; new security threats that were previously unheard of. New attacks require new security considerations for your environment. We cover recent threats from Web 2.0, Flash, bot-nets, and we talk about some new considerations you should think about as you move forward in protecting your network with these new threats lurking. Download the white paper from us, Eric Beehler and Eric Johnson, at http://redmondmag.com/techlibrary/resources.asp?id=621. - Eric Beehler (consortioservices.com/blog)
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The title, a play on translated Japanese advertising; the cstechcast.com podcast, real information for IT professionals. Get ready for the newly released Microsoft Windows Server 2008 operating system with our interview of Greg Shields, frequent TechMentor presenter, Redmond Magazine contributing editor, and author of the new book: Windows Server 2008: What’s New/What’s Changed. Check out the details and a free sample chapter at sapienpress.com. The news hails the coming of Windows Vista Service Pack 1 along with lingering problems and updated Microsoft Deployment tools; FireFox 3, Safari for Windows, and IE 8 are bringing back the 90's; it's Browser Wars 2: Attack of the Clones, Hyper-V may break the Microsoft release pattern with an EARLY release, and reality show "The Office" proves itself to be a self fulfilling prophecy. Comcast gets all up in the grill of the FCC for the "Worst Tech Move of the Week", the "Weekly Tech Tip" is presented by our SharePoint Zen master, and we discuss the book The Rational Guide to Building Technical User Communities in our rip off segment of Oprah's book club with "What We're Reading". Thank's to Quest Software for sponsoring the software giveaway, enter at cstechcast.com. Find them at quest.com.
Links to stories discussed during the show:
Vista SP1 Goes Live (ENT Mag)
Windows Vista SP1 Wreaks Havoc On Some PCs, Users Complain (Information Week)
Microsoft deployment tools ready as Windows Server 2008 arrives (TechTarget)
Mozilla says Firefox 3 ready for prime-time (Reuters)
Battle of the betas: Firefox 3 beats IE8 (Computer World)
Apple launches Safari for Windows (ZD Net)
Court Notes That Empty 'The Office'-Style Workplace Concepts Not Subject To Copyright (TechDirt)
Comcast Says FCC Has No Authority To Stop Traffic Shaping (TechDirt)
We metioned author Greg Low, author of The Rational Guide to Building Technical User Communities. We also wanted to provide a link to his SQL Server podcast at sqldownunder.com. Thanks Greg for keeping the spirit of real life technology communities alive.
Giveaway!
Don't miss our big giveaway of Quest Software's Change Director for SQL Server. Change Director for SQL Server provides a powerful automated solution for managing change to SQL Server databases. We appreciate your listenership, so take advantage of this attempt at buying your love. This is a great package and your chances of winning are pretty good, so don't forget to enter at cstechcast.com.
Link to the episode: http://www.cstechcast.com/home.aspx?Episode=17
- Eric Beehler (consortioservices.com/blog)
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CStechcast.com brings another podcast episode to the starting line with guest Kalen Delaney. This SQL Server expert and authoritative author of the Inside SQL Server series gives us her take on SQL Server 2008. Find the latest from Kalen Delaney at insidesqlserver.com and SQLCommunity.com. In the news; 10,000 legitimate sites were hit by a SQL injection to deliver malware, Microsoft get their Dynamics apps revved up for the enterprise, Apple makes the iPhone business savvy, and the NCAA gets set to dunk on your network bandwidth. The "Worst Tech Move of the Week" is pre-installed with viruses courtesy of bad Q.C. at Chinese factories, we reach back in our storied histories for our favorite "Data Center Disasters", and the "Tech Tip" exposes easy to use shortcut keys in SQL Server Management Studio.
Links to stories discussed during the show:
Hackers Look to Steal Online Gaming Passwords
Anatomy of a SQL Injection Incident
Anatomy of a SQL Injection Incident, Part 2
A Glimpse of Microsoft's Enterprise Goals
Apple releases iPhone SDK, announces push e-mail, Exchange support
How to Not Bring the Network to Its Knees During March Madness
Shout out to the "Couple of Admins" podcast at mindofroot.com, Steve Jones at the Voice of the DBA podcast and SQLserverCentral.com, and Peter Varhol at the Redmond Report for giving us props. Don't forget to leave your comments here on this blog, refer-a-friend to our podcast from the link on our homepage, leave your feedback, and keep tuning into cstechcast.com.
Link to CS Techcast Episode 16 podcast: http://www.cstechcast.com/home.aspx?Episode=16
- Eric Beehler (consortioservices.com/blog)
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Just a quick note today. Our buddy, SQL Server MVP and author Paul Nielson has decided to throw some code out there (two stored procedures) in the wild that will help DBAs understand and utilize the new data compression feature in SQL Server 2008. Head over to his site, www.sqlserverbible.com, to get the details (I don't want to steal his thunder here)! Thanks Paul!
--Josh
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A special episode at cstechcast.com this week as we record our podcast live from PASS Camp. This keynote address features an expert panel to explore the upcoming SQL Server 2008 database release with questions on features, technology, and strategy for our panel. Featured on our panel are Paul Nielsen - Microsoft SQL Server MVP and author of the “SQL Server Bible” book series (SqlServerBible.com), Kevin Cox – member of the SQL Server Product Group in the Customer Advisory Team at Microsoft (sqlcat.com), and Ben Hoelting - a .NET developer with Colorado Technology Consultants (benhblog.com). Of course, we also have our own co-hosts contribute; Eric Johnson, Microsoft SQL Server MVP, and Josh Jones, published author on many SQL topics. Author and co-host of the podcast Eric Beehler moderates the discussion. We are offering a video version of this episode as well; check it out at cstechcast.com. Detailed topics include the delay of the official launch and it's effect on the market and its supporters. We also discuss SQL Server 2008 in the enterprise and how it takes on its biggest competitors, IBM and Oracle. On the flip side, we discuss perhaps the smallest competitor, mySQL, and what SQL Server is doing to stay small business friendly. Attendees bring up questions on horizontal scalability and data modeling tools. We get into it with new developer feature LINQ and the possible consequences to proper database management. We also get a read on the panelist's favorite new features of SQL 2008. 
We would like to thank Quest Software for allowing us to bring you this event through their sponsorship of this episode. Find out how they can help you with their suite of database management solutions at quest.com. Don't forget our drive to find new listeners through our Amazon.com gift certificate giveaway. Go to cstechcast.com and "refer-a-friend". Leave your comments at this blog post and thanks for listening. Link to CS Techcast Episode 15 podcast: http://www.cstechcast.com/home.aspx?Episode=15
- Eric Beehler (consortioservices.com/blog)
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CStechcast.com brings you the expertise of Michael Stiefel, a Microsoft MVP in Connected Systems Development, to explain the concepts behind Software as a Service (SaaS). Michael can be found at reliablesoftware.com. News on deck: Windows Vista takes price cuts and more lumps from Dell, Google says to Microsoft "Do you want a piece of me?" and releases Google Sites, sliding skills found in the security field, and the Cobra language goes open source. In our segments; Network Solutions steals our domain so we can't register "The Worst Tech Move of the Week", we take a trip down memory lane with "This Month in Tech History", and we talk about SQL Server 2005 and the BUILTIN\administrators group in the "Weekly Tech Tip".
Links to the stories discussed in our podcast:
Microsoft Cuts Vista Prices to Urge Upgrades
Dell Pointed Out Vista Mistakes, Internal Documents Show
Google Takes Aim at SharePoint
IT Security Skills Falling Short
Cobra Language Slithers into Open Source
All comments can be left at this blog post. Click our listener survey at cstechcast.com to provide us feedback and enter our Amazon gift certificate giveaway when you refer-a-friend. It's not spam and we don't want the e-mail address, we just want to bring more tech to the world. Don't forget about the live event next week and, if your in the Denver area, come check out the Colorado PASS Camp a free two day event on SQL Server and related technologies.
Download the Episode Here
- Eric Beehler (consortioservices.com/blog)
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Andy Warren wrote an article on SQLServerCentral.com the other day about the maximum row size in SQL Server 2005. I don't want to re-hash what Andy already said so you can see the article here: http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Development/2862/. The gist is that Microsoft built SQL Server to be able to handle rows of data that grow beyond 8060-bytes. It does this by moving certain data off to other pages and leaving behind a 24-byte pointer. Well, after reading Andy's article, I got to thinking, just how many varchar(8000) columns can you stick in a table and fill up before SQL Server fills the page with pointers. I conducted a test.....first off I made a table that contained 400 varchar(8000) columns using the following, now slightly truncated, script: CREATE TABLE [dbo].[Test](
[BigColumn1] [varchar](8000),
[BigColumn2] [varchar](8000),
[BigColumn3] [varchar](8000),
....
[BigColumn398] [varchar](8000),
[BigColumn399] [varchar](8000),
[BigColumn400] [varchar](8000)
)
GO Use your imagination, or if you want, a little fill magic in Excel to generate the rest of that create table script. Running this script was not all good, SQL Server did warn me of the impending doom, much like SQL Server 2000 would do if you tried to add more than 1 varchar(8000). Warning: The table "Test" has been created, but its maximum row size exceeds the allowed maximum of 8060 bytes. INSERT or UPDATE to this table will fail if the resulting row exceeds the size limit. Now on to the fun part, a quick insert statement to get us going: INSERT INTO Test(
BigColumn1,
BigColumn2,
BigColumn3, ...
BigColumn398,
BigColumn399,
BigColumn400)
VALUES
(
'TestD',
'TestD',
'TestD',
... 'TestD',
'TestD',
'TestD'
) And finally the update statement to really mess things up: UPDATE test SET BigColumn1 = REPLICATE ('0123456789', 800)
UPDATE test SET BigColumn2 = REPLICATE ('0123456789', 800)
UPDATE test SET BigColumn3 = REPLICATE ('0123456789', 800) ...
UPDATE test SET BigColumn272 = REPLICATE ('0123456789', 800)
UPDATE test SET BigColumn273 = REPLICATE ('0123456789', 800)
UPDATE test SET BigColumn274 = REPLICATE ('0123456789', 800) Well, you may now be asking, why didn't you run all 400 updates? Well, after 273 ran without an error, row number 274 finally died with the old familiar error: Msg 511, Level 16, State 1, Line 1
Cannot create a row of size 8064 which is greater than the allowable maximum of 8060.
The statement has been terminated. So there you have it, in case you ever had the same thought that I did about how big a row can really be.......now you know, 273 great big columns! P.S. If you are thinking of designing a 273 column table full of nothing but varchar(8000) columns, please don't. For the love of all that is tech, just stop touching SQL Server and find something else to do with your time. Eric J - www.cstechcast.com
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We’ve had a few people send us e-mail via our feedback page with questions on the book. I thought I would share with everyone the more important questions that can help your effort to study. Usually if one person asked a question, more people are wondering the same thing. The first one is regarding errata. One question specifically about where to find it published. Our publisher, Sybex, handles publishing any errata for the book. It exists on their web site at: http://www.sybex.com/WileyCDA/SybexTitle/productCd-0470165340,navId-291004,pageCd-errata.html and at: http://www.sybex.com/WileyCDA/SybexTitle/productCd-0470165359,navId-291004,pageCd-errata.html. If you have found an error, they have a link available to submit the issue. I am currently working on rebuilding the lab for Vista deployment for our 70-622 Vista enterprise support book in an attempt to make it a little more user friendly. When Vista released, a bunch of new tools for deployment released with it as well as a new method of installation. That is the only issue that has been submitted to me so far. So, if you are struggling with that, I’ll admit, longish lab, I would encourage you to supplement with the Microsoft Guide here: http://technet2.microsoft.com/WindowsVista/en/library/88f80cb7-d44f-47f7-a10d-e23dd53bc3fa1033.mspx?mfr=true until the updated lab is posted. I’ll update the blog when that happens. The background on a book like this is that the release is very compressed. As much as we tried to catch any issues, it’s not like writing the great American novel. We get a very limited amount of time with a brand new operating system and constantly morphing objectives for the test. We pour through the features and try to give you the information you need to meet the objectives and be proficient in support of the product. The publisher actually needs 3 or 4 months after we are done writing and reviewing to prep for publishing and distribution. You can imagine the pressure that creates on an author.
On another note, we received a very nice user review on Amazon.com for our title on the 70-623 Vista consumer support book. We love to get feedback. Otherwise, how would we know how we are doing?
If you have a question for the authors, we welcome your input and accept feedback at our website http://www.consortioservices.com. If the question applies to everyone, I will post a blog about it. - Eric Beehler (consortioservices.com/blog)
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Josh Jones and I got to interview Kalen Delaney earlier today for our podcast. It was really a lot of fun and she provided us with a lot of great information. Come hear what she had to say on CS Techcast by visiting http://www.cstechcast.com. The interview will be released in the next few weeks, probably right after our live show from PASSCamp in Denver.
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