Switching between dynamic and static DNS

I was fed up typing in the IP address of test machines that are on a different domain and dns within my network so decided to work out how to quickly switch to using that DNS when at work and back to dynamic when not.

It turns out to be really simple. The DNS being used is adapter specific which makes sense when you think of VPN and multiple other uses so you will need to know the name of the adpater you are using.

In my case it is “Wireless Network Connection”

netsh interface ip set dns "Wireless Network Connection" static <ipaddress>

to set it back:

netsh interface ip set dns "Wireless Network Connection" dhcp

netsh should be in your path so this can be run from any directory in the command line.

Android Phone Update

So, I have been using the HTC Inspire for about 2 months now and to be honest I have not missed the iPhone one bit.

It could be that the one thing that is missing on the iPhone (Netflix) is already covered by the iPad but I have not found an application I would like to install that there has not been an Android version of.

There is only really one thing that needs to be resolved before it can blitz the iPhone:

One vendor for Music, Apps and Videos

That vendor already exists you say? Amazon has got it wrapped up. I truly hope so. I am an Amazon Prime customer, EC2 and S3 user and overall Amazon fan. There is one issue. I am on the AT&T network who in their infinite wisdom decided to not allow side loaded apps (no loading of apps that did not come from the Android Market).

This means that the Amazon App Store does not work on AT&T Android phones and until this is resolved I cannot use it :-(

AT&T and Amazon are in talks and hopefully it will be sorted out soon. In the meantime I will continue to enjoy my phone and listening to music using Pandora!

ESRI Dev Summit

I am heading out to the Dev Summit fir the first time in a few years and am super excited about it.

Seeing the tweets from people it looks like the BP part of it was really good. That and the fact that the Dev Summit has not disappointed yet means I think it is going to be a good one.

The Silverlight guys have been doing some awesome stuff in front of the REST API. They have also been doing some cool demos for this week by the sounds of it.

Many of the mobile APIs have there first showing and I really want to hear what they have been up to and what people are saying about it.

More to come!

Google Reader on Android

So one of the best apps that I have been using the is just missing on the iPhone, well the last time a cared to look anyway, is the native Google Reader app.

The iPhone version is just weak. An HTML 5 application that does the best a web app can do but is just nothing compared to native.

I don’t think it makes sense to go into the fine details of why it is better it just is.

Faster
Focused
Large text on the HTC Inspire screen is awesome

Native is the best option for now as far as I am concerned and the Reader app does not disappoint.

Android from an iPhone user

For the past 24 hours I have been using an Android phone rather than my usual iPhone. I have heard a bunch of people get caught up in the lack of apps debate.

It seems to me that counting apps solely based on number is crazy. If someone actually grouped the apps into same function, rated them and got rid of anything but the best 2 then I think the count would be much different.

I for one have only found 1 app missing that I want and need, netflix and I really only watch that on my iPad.

I am not going to worry about apps and focus on if the OS and the functionality in the apps themselves are useful.

For now, first impression is that I like the ios better but the large screen on the HTC inspire is awesome.

ORA-01034: ORACLE not available

I have seen this error so many times that I thought I would note down the resolution (for me anyway)

When logging into the database you get:

ORA-01034: ORACLE not available.
ORA-27101: shared memory realm does not exist

To solve you connect to sqlplus as follows:

sqlplus /nolog

Login in as a sys dba:

connect sys/sys as sysdba

When connected, startup the database using:

startup

The database will startup and can be connected to as normal.

Fixing Orphaned Users in SQL Server

One of the first tasks when loading data from a backup is to match up the
users in the database with the ones defined in SQL Server. Getting data
from clients continually and having to do this you would think I would
remember it but unfortunately no, I have to lookup it up each time.

So this one is mainly for me!!!

EXEC sp_change_users_login 'Update_One', 'john', 'john'

Debugging Silverlight Applications in VS.NET 2008

I spent an hour or so this morning trying to figure out why I could not debug my Silverlight application that is being housed inside a ASP.NET MVC app.

It turned out that the the Silverlight Debugger was not turned on in my ASP.NET MVC app and turning it on solved the issue. Who knows why it was not turned on after I setup the Silverlight app in the website but anyway.

Here are the steps to turn it on:

- Right-click on the web project from within VS.NET
- Select Properties
- In the Properties window select the Web tab
- At the very bottom of the web tab there is a set of checkboxes for the debuggers that will be enabled for this project. Make sure that the Silverlight check-box is set.

Notifications on the iPhone and SMS

After using the iPhone for a whole 6 weeks now I am convinced it is a huge leap in technology that no-one will get close to in years.

In my opinion, the iPhone and the eco-system around it is the best implementation done by apple to date. It is the result of fine tuning their philosophy of building the hardware and the software with one dramatic twist. It is not their software that is selling the phones.

The app store is the single greatest move apple has made. I don’t know if they or any of the application developers make any money right now but they will.

Microsoft have had a decent operating system for many years and there are tons of applications that have been built on it. People do not know about them though and if you do find an app the process of downloading and installing it is a pain. This coming from a guy that develops software for a living is not a good thing!

Apple took a concept given to them by the community an implemented it from a user perspective perfectly.

From a developer aspect it seems like Apple are very restrictive but they have their reasons. The issue is that many developers are used to working in the Microsoft or Linux world where nothing is imposed on you. Just because Apple are different does not mean that they are wrong. Time will tell if their tactic is right.

As for the phone itself this one is the best one I’ve had. Proof is that I am using it to write this post. Try doing that on most other phones!

Resize Infragistics UltraDropDown column in UltraWinGrid

One of the annoying things when using the UltraDropDown with a UltraWinGrid is that it refuses to resize the dropdown, and the columns in it, by default. This is at least in the Infragistics version that I a using (v8.3). After a bunch of searching + trial and error I managed to solve the issue.

The information to solve it ends up being on the Infragistics support forums but it NEVER cm up on any search that I ran. I essentially got lucky by finding it through a a set of links in forum entries.

http://blogs.infragistics.com/forums/p/23539/86168.aspx

Turns out of is a bug, go figure. The workaround plus then setting the width of the underlying column to that width (minus 2 so it doesn not show the scroll bars) worked like a charm.