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December 2006 Entries
Main blog page down

Just in case anyone access the main page for my blog (http://blogs.ipona.com/davids), hey'll notice there is an application error that I haven't tracked down. It's weird, because I've changed no settings and all other blogs hostedwithin the same application work fine, as does the RSS feed. Weird.

posted @ Friday, December 29, 2006 1:57 PM | Feedback (0)
Red Gate SQL Doc

I've blogged before about RedGate and their SQL tools and I've just tried SQLDoc. Once again I'm amazed; another cracking tool. Once installed, it had documented 7 largish databases within a minute, producing complete documentation for them as a set of formatted HTML folders and files. It documents all of the metadata as well as giving you a SQL script so the item can be recreated. I can now check these into source code control, or more immediately, keep them so I can rollback some changes to a known stable version of the database without worrying about losing the test changes.

I really don't know how I managed without these tools for so long; SQLDoc is just one of them, the others I've used provide schema and data comparison between databases. They are all easy to use, are designed well, and actually work the way you expect (a feature lacking in so much software these days). Given the current exchange rate, there's never been a better time to get them. You won't regret it.

posted @ Tuesday, December 12, 2006 2:32 PM | Feedback (0)
Developing ASP.NET on Vista

I've been running Vista on my laptop for a couple of weeks and generally love it. Last week at the ASPInsiders meeting I made the rather unurprising discovery that Vista comes with IIS7, so was looking forward to playing with it more. As ever I've not had time, but have just hit my first IIS7 problem, which could affect many people developing ASP.NET applications on Vista - Vista and IIS7 does not have a local SMTP server. That means anyone using SMTP to deliver mail (we use it for automated error reports) will receive a "transport not present" error, no doubt spending a ton of time looking for the solution.

Christoph has suggested I try MailEnable, which will at least solve the immediate problem.

posted @ Monday, December 11, 2006 3:23 PM | Feedback (4)