April 2010 Archives

Well, since I’m running all 64-bit systems now I thought it would be best to install the 64-bit version of Office 2010. Ah, no, this was a mistake. Not the biggest mistake I’ve made (that had to do with assuming that my crew chief knew how to attach an oil line), but pesky. It seems that several of the new features I tried to use were “unavailable” because the corresponding 64-bit driver or module or gizmo was not ready. For example, the codec for Camtasia AVI files must be 64-bit to let me use the new imbedded movie feature in PowerPoint and the feature in Outlook to let you leverage your Facebook or LinkedIn page was not available in 64-bit flavor. In all fairness, Office 2010 is not really out yet—that won’t happen for months. I’m using the MSDN version.

So I’m reverting to 32-bit for now. Consider that they can’t live together. The 32-bit 2010 must be uninstalled (like the 2007 32-bit version) before reinstalling the 64-bit. It seems they can’t co-reside on the system like the 2 versions of IE. Interesting…

I’ve been tuning my monthly webinar again to include more information about SQL Server Reporting Services (R2) and Visual Studio 2010. This high-impact series of six 90-minute webinars held over three mornings is for anyone who wants to leverage Visual Studio, SQL Server and Reporting Services best practices—learning what works, what doesn't and why. These sessions are for developers, architects and managers who want to know how and (more importantly) when to leverage the power and benefits of SQL Server and Reporting Services. The fee also includes both of my Reporting Services and Visual Studio books.

Incidentally, Progressive does not care how many people sit in on the sessions so you can fill a meeting room or the local theater if you want to. These are also designed to be interactive—that is, I encourage the attendees to chat in questions anytime or ask over the phone at the end.

In the latest offering I stripped out the “Connecting” session and pushed in a brand-new session “Report Design Foundations” even though the online outline does not reflect this change. 

Want a front-row seat in my next Webinar? If so, I’m accepting applications for the live studio audience. All you need to do is send me an note saying why you would like to attend. I can comfortably sit about four people so get your application in early. Let me worry about the conference $999 fee, but if you bring doughnuts for everyone... I’ll pick the audience the Friday before the next talk (which is Monday April 26th at 09:00 Pacific time).

The next offering is May 19-21 09:00 Pacific time.

We’re also introducing a more “basic” workshop “Introduction to Reporting Services” in early June. Stay tuned for more details.

I waited until VS2010 RTM to try to import the (working) VS2008 projects I have that use the ReportViewer. So far all of them fail to convert properly. Some throw exceptions some simply don’t let me access the RV control’s action menu. This is the same problem we had when converting VS2005 to VS2008 SP1 projects.

Last time I tried to migrate my oldest server over to a Hyper V, I was less than successful. That attempt used an Acronis application to create a virtual image which I tried to run under an earlier version of Hyper V. Any number of issues popped up and I had to quickly back out of the plans to retire the system.

I finished rebuilding my rack-mount system with a new MSI motherboard and i3 processor. I installed Windows Server 2008 R2 and spent the day installing the motherboard-specific drivers (audio, LAN and video) to support the H55 chipset. Next, I activated the Hyper V role—that’s when things went south. On reboot, the system screen was cut in half with the lower-half looking like it was transmitted from outer space. Not good. After repeated experiments (starting over several times) I determined that Hyper V works fine on the hardware but not with the H55 HD video drivers.