William Vaughn's Musings

Reporting Services—Team Development

Thu, 02 Sep 2010 11:24:42 -0800

Just thinking aloud here. So, let’s say you have a team of report developers and you find that more than one report needs to access a common set of routines.

I’m Done with SharePoint

Wed, 25 Aug 2010 10:17:30 -0800

I was getting terrible performance simply trying to open a file stored on a local SharePoint server. I had upgraded it to 2010 from 2007 and discovered that it would not update in place (no 32-bit support) so I had to manually reload the documents from a Colligo backup. Thank the stars for Colligo. Bottom line: I’m done with SharePoint.

These are the issues I faced:

SharePoint and Office 2010 PowerPoint Files—Not a good mix

Mon, 09 Aug 2010 11:46:16 -0800

I tried to upload a new Office 2010 PowerPoint document to my SharePoint 2007 server and I kept getting “Fail” on the upload. I installed SharePoint 2010 and after having discovered that you have to install the client Office 2010 software on the server to get it to accept bulk uploads I discovered that it too won’t accept certain PPTx files.

LightSwitch—the Discussion Continues

Fri, 06 Aug 2010 09:22:40 -0800

It was brought to my attention that there was some concern that the “amateur” LightSwitch developers would be incapable of writing stored procedures so the tool should not support accessing them—it doesn’t. Here is my response along with a couple of other questions for Microsoft…

LightSwitch Arrives

Wed, 04 Aug 2010 10:52:34 -0800

Microsoft is gearing up to announce “LightSwitch”, it’s newest data application developer tool. Targeted to developers of “…all skill levels” it’s designed to permit access to local or remote data sources including SQL Server, Azure and SharePoint. I assume this means that amateur developers will have another tool to work with—assuming they can afford it and their IT organization will let them use it.

Frankly, I’ve known about this new offering for some time but until now, I was under NDA and could not reveal any of its details (or even the name). Now that it’s been released, I have a few choice words to add to the drumbeat…

RSScripter and Permissions

Mon, 02 Aug 2010 14:31:05 -0800

Note to self (and anyone else using RS Scripter to backup/transport a Reporting Services catalog): If you get a permissions error when scripting, try un-checking any User folders that you don’t own. Apparently, it can’t access other user’s reports when scripting.

Technorati Tags: RSScripter,Reporting Services

Reporting Services BI Tools (2008 R2)—a Wish List

Wed, 28 Jul 2010 13:06:50 -0800

I’ve been working with the new “2008 R2” Reporting Services BI tools (which generate 2010 RDL) that get installed with the latest release of SQL Server. Ah, I have a pretty good idea why Microsoft chose to release this “sub-release” instead of a “2010” version, but I’ll leave that discussion to another post. At this time (unless its already too late) I would like to provide a few suggestions for the Reporting Services team working on the 2011 version of the BI tools. Sadly, I expect that these tools are cast in stone somewhere on campus or on the other side of the world…

Surveys? Some Opinions Are More Valuable than Others

Tue, 27 Jul 2010 16:48:53 -0800

Some time ago, I was asked to sign up to take surveys from one of those e-Rewards sites that advertized that I could get American Airlines miles for answering questions about the stuff I buy and the way I shop. Okay, I can always use a few extra miles. Well, not long afterwards they sent me a message saying that AA had backed out and I would have to settle for the rewards they had. Okay, there seemed to be a number of worthwhile “rewards” but I never really started looking as I didn’t have enough points to get anything.

New i7 980x Axe from Fry’s

Tue, 27 Jul 2010 14:32:28 -0800

My dad told me 50 years ago that if you’re going to cut trees for a living, you need the best, sharpest axe they make or the biggest, baddest chain saw. Well, since my current dev system has been keeping me (and my webinar attendees) staring at hourglasses for far too long, I decided to spring for a more powerful system. I expect the reason for this need for speed is that Microsoft (and everyone else) keeps assuming that everyone has i7 950 systems—like the systems they use to test consumer software. Add to that the pitiful performance of Windows Live Meeting and we all end up frustrated.

Transitioning to SQL Server 2008 R2 Reporting

Tue, 27 Jul 2010 14:28:11 -0800

This week I’m transitioning my existing Reporting Services catalog to SQL Server 2008 R2. I’m also building a separate VM where I can demonstrate the differences in “native” vs. SharePoint integration. This blog will serve as a notepad to log the issues I encounter along the way. Incidentally, I had to bump up the VM RAM to 3GB to get this install sequence to run without swapping. I also allocated 3 processors to the VM as it was also CPU bound with only one processor. I noticed that deploy performance was noticeably longer once SharePoint integration was enabled.

Redmond SQL Saturday #43

Mon, 07 Jun 2010 15:29:01 -0800

They’ve invited me to talk at the local SQL Saturday #47 on June 12th. I’m giving two talks—one on Report Builder 2.0 and another on Visual Studio Local Data Cache.

SQL Saturday is a training event for SQL Server professionals and those wanting to learn about SQL Server. This event will be held Jun 12 2010 at THE MIXER on the Microsoft campus, 15255 NE 40th Street, North Commons, REDMOND, WA 98052. Admittance to this event is free, all costs are covered by donations and sponsorships.

Please register soon as seating is limited, and let friends and colleagues know about the event.

Technorati Tags: SQL Server,SQL Saturday,Report Builder,Reporting Services,Training

Introduction to SQL Server and Reporting

Mon, 07 Jun 2010 14:03:22 -0800

Given the number of people that struggled with the intermediate to advanced topics in my SQL Server and Reporting Services 9-hour series of sessions for Progressive, we've decided to offer the first in a series of introductory webinar courses to be offered each month (for the forseeable future). We're also providing guided labs for this course--as if it's taking place in a classroom. I'll be there to answer questions and if necessary setup a SharedView session with the student to debug their work in real time.

Portland Code Camp and SQL Saturday

Tue, 18 May 2010 12:25:33 -0800

I’m driving down to Portland Oregon on Friday to give a Reporting session and a 3-session marathon Reporting Services (From Soup to Nuts) session at the Portland Code Camp and SQL Saturday to be held Saturday and Sunday May 22nd and 23rd. It’s not too late to register. I’ll be bringing copies of my books as well as other goodies to give away. The 2.5 hr. session is extracted (and compressed) from my monthly Progressive SQL Server Reporting Services workshop.

ReportViewer Projects Don’t Transmogrify

Tue, 18 May 2010 10:30:57 -0800

Well, at least Microsoft is consistent. Remember back in 2008 when we couldn’t import VS2005 ReportViewer projects into VS2008? Well, it’s happened again with VS2010. I logged a couple of Connect bugs but they came back as “By design”.

Pinnacle Studio 14 – a Disappointment

Wed, 12 May 2010 15:20:17 -0800

I took on the job of creating a DVD of this year's choir concert. I used my Canon Vixia HF20 HD (1080i) camera to record the video and sound and frankly, it did a great job. Now came the hard part.