SSMS Duplicated Menu Entries

Have you ever seen this? Where Management Studio is duplicating its menu entries? I had this happen the other day.




I went hunting, and found this MS link to fix it:

https://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/details/328568/repeating-menu-multiple-menus-on-visual-studio?wa=wsignin1.0

Upgrading Desire

I believe from time to time you have to upgrade what you desire. Sometimes this happens naturally - you experience your first kiss, at some point during your teenage years, and all of a sudden girls aren't so icky anymore. :) Firsts are like that - first car, first love, first kiss, first ice cream cone.

What if you want to control that process, instead of being controlled by it? What would that look like? And, if you could deconstruct the process into its pieces, you should be able to loop it back on itself to create an upward spiral.

That said, I believe the process looks like this:

Desire
|
| seeks
|
V
Experience(s)
|
| Creates
|
V
Knowledge
|
| Refines
|
V
Desire

The big caveat to this is that there's a shadow side, as well.

Desire
|
| seeks
|
V
Experience
|
| Doesn't Expect
|
V
Fear
|
| unchallenged becomes
|
V
Death

It's a little morbid, I know. However, how many people have you met who, unable to confront their own internal issues, are wound up tight, bound up in cages of unfulfilled desires?

What is curiosity?

What is curiosity? Where does it come from? How do you grow it? And, more importantly, how do you grow it in others?

First, curiosity is defined by dictionary.com as

cu·ri·os·i·ty
  /?ky??ri'?s?ti/ [kyoor-ee-os-i-tee] –noun,plural-ties.
1. the desire to learn or know about anything; inquisitiveness.
2. a curious, rare, or novel thing.
3. a strange, curious, or interesting quality.
4. Archaic. carefulness; fastidiousness.

If, perhaps, we first consider where it comes from, we could figure out where it goes. There seems to be cultural awareness that acting curios is the realm of the young. Why is that? Is it associated with youth because only the young have it? I don't think so. I think, instead, that the source is WANTING.

The young and youthful WANT to know things they don't already know. They, quite naturally, and just like the rest of us, really dislike that tone used with a petulant child that keeps asking "Why?" However, the young and youthful are able to ignore the tone and go for the answer. We call this curios-ness.

So the answer would seem to be that, in order to grow this skill in ourselves or others, that we should seek to be more youthful. That seems, to me, to be ignorant of the choice that we have as adults to specialize. The best specialists are those who are constantly questioning, learning, growing, and exploring deeply within one particular topic or subject.

So, can you be a generalist and still desire and WANT knowledge? I believe so, however, that's internally sourced motivation, and not generally the subject of this post.

How do you grow folks desire for knowledge, from the outside in? How to instill the "want to" from the outside? This pre-supposes that they're not coming to you asking for your help to get access to these things.

It takes various forms:

1. Paying direct attention to what's important to them
2. Asking them what's important to them
3. Helping them discover what's important to them

and then, facilitating their getting more access, time, or exposure to that "thing", whatever it is.

Testing Disk IO on a new system?

So, you're feelin all snazzy, cause you gots youselfs some new duds, huh? Yousa likin that brand new LUN? Howzabout them new mount points 'n drive letters, there, pal? Yousa likin it lotsa goods? Hows about a leetle test drive?



Best tool out there, in my opinion, to blitzkrieg a new disk? SQL IO SIM.


You can find out more here:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd819901.aspx


And here's the download link:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/231619

idera's powershell scripts

idera offers some PowerShell scripts for SQL Server for free. Yes, you have to give up your personal info to their checkout system, and if you can handle that, the link is here:

http://www.idera.com/Products/Free-Tools/PowerShell-scripts/

Outlook: clear task due dates

I really like Outlooks 2007's task list features. However, I have some resistance to being told to do things "TODAY, like RIGHT NOW!!! SEE??? I put the task in RED in your task list!! Now you MUST do it!!"

Yeah, that? Not my favorite part.

So, I wrote a macro to adjust the dates in Outlook, so they don't turn red automatically.

Sub BlankDueDates()
On Error Resume Next
  Dim ns As NameSpace
  Dim fld As Folder
  Dim task As TaskItem
  Dim items As Outlook.items
  Dim rest As Outlook.items
  Dim filterSQL As String
  Dim i As Integer
  i = 0
  Set ns = Application.GetNamespace("MAPI")
  Set fld = ns.GetDefaultFolder(olFolderTasks)
  Set items = fld.items
  Set rest = items.Restrict("[Status] <> 'Completed'")
  For Each task In rest
      If task.DueDate <> "1/1/4501" Then
          task.DueDate = "1/1/4501"
          task.Save
      End If
      i = i + 1
  Next

  For Each task In rest
      If task.Importance <> olImportanceNormal Then
          task.Importance = olImportanceNormal
          task.Save
      End If
  Next
  MsgBox ("Done")

  Set ns = Nothing
  Set fld = Nothing
  Set task = Nothing
  Set items = Nothing
  Set rest = Nothing

End Sub

Outlook: Cleaning up contacts

I love my BlackBerry.

I hate manually cleaning up after the fact when it snargleblatts itself inside Outlook.

Here's a quick-and-dirty macro I wrote to clean up after it snargleblatted my contact list by adding the string "(Home)" and "(Work)" to the names of some of my contacts without asking.

Sub AdjustContactName()
On Error Resume Next
  Dim ns As NameSpace
  Dim fld As Folder
  Dim contact As ContactItem
  Dim items As Outlook.items
  Dim i As Integer
  i = 0
  Dim changeflag As Boolean
  changeflag = False

  Set ns = Application.GetNamespace("MAPI")
  Set fld = ns.GetDefaultFolder(olFolderContacts)
  Set items = fld.items
  For Each contact In items
      If InStr(1, contact.FullName, "(Home)") Then
          contact.FullName = Replace(contact.FullName, "(Home)", "")
          changeflag = True
          i = i + 1
      End If
    
      If InStr(1, contact.FullName, "(Work)") Then
          contact.FullName = Replace(contact.FullName, "(Work)", "")
          changeflag = True
          i = i + 1
      End If
    
      If InStr(1, contact.FileAs, "(Home),") Then
          contact.FileAs = Replace(contact.FileAs, "(Home),", "")
          changeflag = True
          i = i + 1
      End If
    
      If InStr(1, contact.FileAs, "(Work),") Then
          contact.FileAs = Replace(contact.FileAs, "(Work),", "")
          changeflag = True
          i = i + 1
      End If
    
      If changeflag Then
          contact.Save
          changeflag = False
      End If
  Next

  MsgBox ("Done." + vbCrLf + "Counted: " + CStr(i))

  Set ns = Nothing
  Set fld = Nothing
  Set contact = Nothing
  Set items = Nothing

End Sub