Working in SQL Server 2008 I received this confusing error when editing the structure of a table:

“Saving changes is not permitted. The changes that you have made require the following tables to be dropped and re-created. You have either made changes to a table that can’t be re-created or enabled the option Prevent saving changes that require the table to be re-created.”

I tried many things but I kept getting this error. After some trouble shooting I found the following information:

This error happens because “Saving Changes is not permitted” when using SQL Server 2008 Management Studio to modify the structure of a table especially when SQL Server needs to drop and recreate a table to save the structural changes. It is always advised to make a structural change for a table using TSQL. However, it is a convenient option for database developers to use SQL Server Management Studio make such changes  as the  Prevent Saving Changes That Require Table Re-creation option is enabled by default in SQL Server 2008 Management Studio.

I can understand why this feature would be helpful to have but to have it enabled by default is just silly.

I found that you can disable this feature by:

1. Open the Tools menu then click on Options
2. Open the “Designers” tree
3. Click on “Table and Database Designers”
4. Uncheck “Prevent saving changes that require table-creation”
5. Press “Ok”

Once I disabled the “Prevent saving changes that require the table re-creation” option,  I was ahead and save the changes I needed to make.

Firefox 3 is awesome we all know that, but there are some things that that would just be nice to have. One of those things would be the ability to control what appears for the auto suggest when you type in the URL bar.

Most of the time FireFox does a very good job of figuring out what you want to do, but when it goes bad, it goes really bad and gets annoying fast.

The other day I accidentally typed in “google.com/a”, and from that moment time on, everytime I wanted to go to “google.com”, it would auto complete to “google.com/a”, and i would end up going there. Very annoying.

I searched the Firefox menus but couldn’t find anything to help. I didn’t want to wipe out all of the auto complete entries, I find most of them helpful. I did some research and realized that you can remove these entries manually, but you have to do it in an unconventional way.

How remove those unwanted auto suggest entries

1. The list appears as you type something.
2. Select an entry by pointing you mouse at the item in the list, it will highlight.
3. Press Shift + Delete from your keyboard to delete the entry.

That’s all! You can remove entries from the address bar.  This trick works on any Firefox auto complete list, including text fields and other dropdown suggestions.

This also works on windows, mac and linux machines

Today I was trying to edit the value in a table cell through the query browser in Microsoft SQL Server Management Itudio and I kept getting the following error:

Data has changed since the Results pane was last retrieved. Do you want to save your changes now?
(Optimistic Concurrency Control Error)
Click Yes to commit your changes to database anyway.
Click No to discard your change and retrieve the current data for this row.
Click Cancel to continue editing.

I would click “Yes”, and get another error:

No row was updated.
The data in row X was not committed.
Error Source: Microsoft.VisualStudio.DataTools.
Error Message: The row value(s) updated or deleted either do not make the row unique or they alter multiple rows(N rows).
Correct the errors and retry or press ESC to cancel the change(s).

I was killing myself trying to figure out what was wrong. I was the only person working on the database, so the data wasnt being changed behind my back.

After an hour on goolge I came across a Microsoft tech article for MS SQL 2005, http://support.microsoft.com/kb/925719

It stated the issue could occure from one of the following conditions:

• The table contains one or more columns of the text or ntext data type.
• The value of one of these columns contains the following characters:
• Percent sign (%)
• Underscore (_)
• Left bracket ([)
• The table does not contain a primary key.

I double checked the table I was working on and realized it didnt have a primary key. It must have gotten dropped in the data migration from MS SQL 2000 to MS SQL 2008. A simple right click, set primary key and my problem was fixed.

Verify the primary keys! It’s a simple fix to a head breaker of a problem. I hope someone finds this and it fixes their issue.

As a professional web developer I have the authority to say this, Internet Explorer is a pain in the ass to support. IE 6 is the browser that shipped with Windows XP, so it was pretty wide spread. Every year on the web is like 10 years in any other industry. This makes IE 6 about 80 years old in practical terms, a literal antique. Microsoft is now on version 8 of Internet Explorer. IE6 is not considered a “modern browser”. Modern browsers honor web site development standards and promote a consistent visual experience are users. The most notable of these modern browsers are FireFox, Chrome, Safari, and even Opera.

In a nut shell, a web browsers is an interpreter of code. Programmers write the code to power a website, but the displaying and presentation of the site is up to the web browser. Modern browsers will all react the programmers code in a similar manner, this gives users a consistent experience and lets programmers worry more about making cool stuff instead of worrying about how to make their pages look consistent on all browsers. IE 6 doesn’t play by the modern rules, it does its own thing, which is often unpredictable. This means that programmers have to write special code just for people who use IE 6 to look at their site.

Despite IE 6 being a horrible browser that is full of security holes, people continue to use it which is mind blowing to me. Upgrading to IE 7 or IE 8 is free, and mandatory if you have Windows XP service pack 2 or 3 installed. Better yet, IE 6 doesn’t come with  Windows Vista or Windows 7. Get with the time people and upgrade your computers!

Because IE 6 is still widely used but doesn’t play by today’s rules so to speak, and it is old, the decision has been made, IE 6 MUST DIE!

Major website announced this week that they would be displaying special messages to IE 6 users telling them to upgrade to a modern browser or lose the use of the site. Some of the big boys behind this effort include Twitter, Facebook, Digg and YouTube. In time these sites are going to stop worrying about IE 6 users all together.

I think this is an amazing step towards the future and would like to see some of the larger websites join together to solve some of the webs other problems.

I never noticed how often I use the “home” and “end” keys when I type until they were taken away from me. I am a programmer by trade, and as a result, I type code all day long. On a PC the end key will take you to the end of a line, and the home key will bring you to the beginning of a line. On a mac, this functionality doesn’t exist. It’s simple missing! It just makes a “ding” at me

Maybe it would be different if I was using a mac keyboard with my mac mini. Right now I am using a KVM switch to share my microsoft mouse and keyboard with my PC and my Mini. As a result, My mind and hands continue to type and work just like I was coding using a PC. “DING DING DING” damn its annoying. I had no idea i hit those keys so often, but the mini does a good job at reminding me

I tried to live with it but it got old fast. I decided to do a google search for “home end keys mac” to see if there was a fix for this. The first result was a God send. keyfixer is a tiny application for pc-to-mac switchers like me, that remaps your keyboard and adds back the functionality of the home and end keys.

It’s amazing how much more productive I feel just by having those 2 keys back. I guess after 15+ years of typing/programing for a living, the home and end keys are a perminiate part of my arsenal and I will never underestimate their power ever again.

It doesn’t matter what application your working with, losing your password is always a pain in the ass. Luckly if you are working with wordpress (man, I blog a lot about wordpress these days), on your server and you have access to the MySql database, resetting your password manually is a snap.

• Login to your PhpMyAdmin
• Select your WordPress database and click on the “SQL” button to open the SQL query window.

• Paste the following code in the window textarea. (Don’t forget to modify the password and username before executing it)

UPDATE ‘wp_users’ SET ‘user_pass’ = MD5(‘PASSWORD’) WHERE ‘user_login’ =’admin’;

That’s it! Your password has been reset, and you should be able to login to your wordpress admin area once again.

I have blogged about it before, I have a HTPC (home theatre pc) running in my living room, hooked to my TV. I started off with MythTV, but settled on Window Media Center 2005.

When I first built the Media Center machine, I had basic cable, with no DVR, so I let the media center handle all of that. Now I have Verizon FIOS with HD, and one of their HD DVR Boxes, and I rarely use my media center pc, but its always nice to be able to flip the input over to it and watch youtube and browse the web. I also like the fact that I can download all sorts of movies and tv from the darkside of the web and watch them on the tv. That was a huge plus.

For a while now, the Media Center has been acting funny. I built it on a shoe string budget with some questionable parts I had laying around, so I didn’t expect it to live forever. The other day it stopped working all together.

Today I took it apart to see what the problem was. After some investigation, I found the cheap power supply was dead, and it took the mother board/processor with it. FAIL!

Well, here I am at a cross roads. Before it was a matter of software, now I need new hardware. What do you think I should build or buy?

The main things I’m looking for in a HTPC

• Ability to browse the web
• Watch Videos I download form the internet, mostly divX files
• Small form factor
• Doesn’t really look like a computer
• Blu-ray is a bonus

Should I build another Window xp MCE machine, Windows Vista Ultimate, mac Mini, apple TV, myth TV? I don’t even know where to start.

I’ll blog my research as I go. Lets see what you think I should do.

If you have been following my blog, you an read that my PC died, and for a moment, I installed OS X Leopard on it. Well, my new drive from western digital arrived, and I am back working in Vista now (I’m not sure if that is a good thing or not!).

Parallels makes it easy to run Windows inside of Mac, but I haven’t found a good way to run Mac inside of windows. Previously, I used a project called “LEO4ALL” to install Leopard on my PC. A little bit of Googeling around after I installed Vista, I found “LEO4VMWARE”

LEO4VMWARE is a pre-packaged and running distribution of OS X Leopard for the vmware, a virtual machine software. You can download the vmware payer here http://vmware.com/download/player.

Side Note: I’m going to be honest here, you are going to want to get vmware workstation, so you can tweak the performance settings. If you are looking at virtually putting OS X on your pc, you have enough smarts to download vmware desktop for free, and then find a serial number.

What this all means is all you have to do is download LEO4VMWARE and install vmware and you are off and running!

I have gotten it to work (not well, but it worked) on a pentium 4 3 ghz windows xp computer with 3 gigs of ram. On my intel core 2 duo, 3ghz, 4 gigs of ram running vista to work great! Check out the picture below.

Getting networking can be tricky, so read the posts on how to do it here

Downloads for LEO4VMWARE can be found by going here http://www.mediafire.com/?ggkr1obgrft, downloading the zip and looking at the links inside. I personally suggest buying a month of rapid share and downloading for there. LEO4VMWARE is about 3 gigs, and rapidshare offers amazing download speeds.

I am not a huge fan of windows, but it the operating system I have been running for the past 14 years (if you dont count college, or my current laptop… both were/are linux based). I have Windows Vista at home, and I have to use Windows XP at work.

Over the years, I have found programs that have worked for me. They have worked well, and helped me to get things done. I decided to make a list of the applications that I use on a rather regular basis. These are the things that I would for sure reinstall if my computer was to die tonight. Most of the software is free, and open source. As a result, many of the programs I am about to list also are available for Linux and Apple OSX. So here is the list of windows program that I love, in no particular order (expect Firefox, its at the top of the list)

Web Browsing:

• Firefox (http://www.mozilla.com)
  Sooooo much better then internet explorer SO USE IT!

File Searching:

• Agent Ransack (http://www.mythicsoft.com/agentransack)
  Soooo much better/faster then the built in windows file search

File Comparison:

• Compare It (http://www.grigsoft.com)
  Great tool for doing differences in files. helpful for programmers.

Text Editor:

• notepad++ (http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net)
  Simple and fast text editor

Sound Editing:

• audacity (http://audacity.sourceforge.net)
  no frills audio editing.

Windows Enhancements:

• taskbar shuffle ( http://www.freewebs.com/nerdcave/taskbarshuffle.htm)
  use this tool to reorder the running programs in the windows taskbar. super light weight

Instant Messaging:

• pidgin (http://www.pidgin.im)
• GoogleTalk (http://www.google.com/talk)

CD Burning:

• infraRecorder (http://infrarecorder.sourceforge.net)
  awesome open source/free cd burner. The only one I use now

Anti-virus:

• AVG 7.5 Free (http://free.grisoft.com/doc/downloads-products/us/frt/0?prd=aff)
  Norton can suck it

Spyware:

• adaware (http://www.lavasoft.de/support/download)
• spybot (http://www.safer-networking.org/en/download/index.html)

Image sharing/hosting:

• Flickr (http://www.flickr.com)
  the place I host my pics

• Flickr Uploadr (http://www.flickr.com/tools)
  how I upload my pics

• FlickrDown (http://greggman.com/pages/flickrdown.htm)
  how I leech my friends pics

VOIP:

• skype (http://www.skype.com)
  cool tool for talking to people

• prettymay (http://www.prettymay.net)
  answering machine for skype! record/download mp3 copies of things

P2P:

• soulseek (http://www.slsknet.org)
  awesome application for finding full albums of music

• utorrent (http://www.utorrent.com)
  my favorite torrent client, use with piratebay and isohunt FTW!

Backup:

• syncback (http://www.2brightsparks.com/syncback/sbse.html)
  an application that will copy your files to a removable hard drive on a scheduled basis. great tool.

• carbonite (http://www.carbonite.com)
  $50 a year for unlimited off site backup? you better believe i use this. you should also!

Blogging:

• WordPress (http://www.wordpress.org)
  if you have your own server, use this! if not, wordpress.com is for you

Programming:

• Eclipse (http://www.eclipse.org)
  I love this IDE, I do all my development in it now. These plugins really help get things done.
  • cfeclipse (http://www.cfeclipse.org)
  • phpeclipse (http://phpeclipse.sourceforge.com)
  • subversive (subversion control) (http://www.eclipse.org/subversive)
  • esftp (sftp control) (http://www.antimatter-studios.co.uk/sites/chris/projects/esftp)

SSH:

• putty (http://www.putty.org)
  simple and sweet ssh client

RSS Reader:

• Feedreader (http://www.feedreader.com)
  one of the best desktop news readers I have used

FTP:

• Filezilla (http://filezilla-project.org)
  so much better then cuteftp

Key Logging:

• BFK (http://sourceforge.net/projects/bfk)
  this came in handy when the guy installing FIOS had to use my computer to “configure” the modem/router. pwned!