Using SQL Server Management tools and Integrated Security/Windows Authentication from a non-domain joined machine

John Paul Cook -  Using Windows Authentication from a non-domain joined machine

“Sometimes it is necessary to use Windows domain credentials to authenticate to SQL Server from a non-domain joined machine. Here’s a trick from my coworker Martin Kastenbaum to pass Windows domain credentials from a non-domain joined machine. Modify the shortcut (or create a copy and modify it) you use to start SQL Server Management Studio to pass your Windows domain and username.

…

…”

I thought this was a neat trick and one I’ll be able to use in a couple ways. First from VM’s that are not domain members and to access other, non-trusted domain resources.

The magic is via shortcuts, RunAs and the /netonly parameter.

On a related note, I find it funny how information flows. Seems this trick has been around for over 7+ years… lol

What’s New in Visual Studio 2010 & .Net 4 – The Official MSDN Source

MSDN - What's New in Visual Studio 2010

“This topic contains links to information about new features and enhancements in Visual Studio 2010 and associated service releases.

…

 

…”

MSDN - What's New in the .NET Framework 4

“This topic contains information about key features and improvements in the .NET Framework version 4. This topic does not provide comprehensive information about all new features and is subject to change.

The .NET Framework 4 introduces an improved security model. For more information, see Security Changes in the .NET Framework 4.

Other new features and improvements in the .NET Framework 4 are described in the following sections:

• Application Compatibility and Deployment
• Core New Features and Improvements
• Managed Extensibility Framework
• Parallel Computing
• Networking
• Web
• Client
• Data
• Communications and Workflow

…

…”

I’ve been asked, “So I’ve heard about VS2010… What’s new with it?” which usually causes me to stop and pause. Given the massive number and scope of additions, changes, enhancements and general coolness, I find myself almost at a loss for words. Of course, me being me, that pause is short and once I start, it’s hard to stop… lol

Still, almost every time, I forget about something (given the scope, that’s understandable ;)

When I saw this I wanted to grab it both so I could use it as a refresher and as a place where I can refer others.

 

Related Past Post XRef:
“Can you tell me about VS2010 in 5 Minutes?” The Visual Studio Quick Reference Guidance project can…

One team’s journey in their upgrading of their TFS from SQL Server 2005 to SQL Server 2008 (i.e. Something you may have to think about in your move to TFS2010)

Nullable Type - Migrating the TFS 2008 data tier from SQL Server 2005 to SQL Server 2008

“Team Foundation Server 2008 qualifies as a showcase of sorts for the Microsoft platform.  It builds on several core elements of the enterprise stack, including SQL Server, Sharepoint, and IIS.  This results in a product that can be difficult to deploy and even more difficult to modify once it is deployed.

Microsoft provides a guide that documents procedures for moving all or a subset of the components, as it should.  Unfortunately, the tremendous flexibility enjoyed in deployment means that covering all possible scenarios becomes a virtually impossible task.

I am currently responsible for the TFS deployment at a client that I would describe as being of middling complexity.  It evolved from a single server deployment to a multi-server deployment.  This deployment has been moved around several times during server reorganizations and survived the upgrade from TFS 2005 to 2008.

Recently, as part of a move from SQL Server 2005 to 2008, it once again became necessary to relocate the data tier.  Just to keep things exciting, this move took place between two instances installed on the same machine (a default instance of SQL Server 2005, and a named instance of SQL Server 2008).  We did not perform an in-place upgrade of SQL Server 2005.  I am going to detail the steps involved in this process, but first I will provide a little background.  I am going to assume you are on TFS 2008 SP1 and WSS 3.0 SP2.

…

…”

I’m very interested in what the final “TFS2008/SQL2005 to TFS2010/SQL2008 upgrade story” will be. I believe we have to move our TFS2008 to SQL 2008 ourselves prior, so have been keeping my eyes open for related articles…

(via Brian Harry - Upgrading a TFS 2008 Server from SQL 2005 to SQL 2008)

 

Related Past Post XRef:
27 pages of Team Foundation Server 2010 upgrade information from the team in the know, the Visual Studio ALM Rangers

Team Foundation Server 2010 installation, upgrade, information and more links
Planning for TFS 2010 (fka Rosario) – A picture says a thousand…
Preparing for Rosario – Think “less legacy” (no Office 2003, SharePoint 2 or SQL Server 2005)

“SQL Server 2008 Upgrade Technical Reference Guide” – 486 pages of SQL Server 2008 upgrade guidance

What’s better than writing/building virtual robot tanks in .Net and having them battle it out? Having them battle Java virtual tanks!

Coding4Fun - Robocode – robot warfare

“Robocode just released a new version of their software which now allows you to use .Net coded robots!  Awesome job guys.  They have a post regarding their implementation and their wiki has a quick example to get you up and running and they also include API references for Robocode.

…”

Robocode (Blog) - Robocode 1.7.2.0 Beta - The ".NET robots are now supported" release

“We are proud to announce the 1.7.2.0 Beta release of Robocode, which is the first version to support .NET robots via using a plugin for Robocode. A lot of hard work has been put into the .NET support by Pavel Savara.

With the .NET plugin for Robocode, Java and .NET robots can participate in the same battles in the same time. [GD: Emphasis added]

You can read our first article on the RoboWiki about how to create a .NET robot with Visual Studio and run it in Robocode.

…

…”

Robocode (Home)

“Robocode is a programming game, where the goal is to develop a robot battle tank to battle against other tanks in Java or .NET. The robot battles are running in real-time and on-screen

…”

Robowiki - Robocode/.NET/Create a .NET robot with Visual Studio

“…

Creating a .NET robot in Visual Studio

From version 1.7.2.0, Robocode supports robots that run under Microsoft .NET framework CLR. Note that .NET robots will only be able to run on operating systems that support the .NET framework 2.0. For now, Mono is not supported due to current limitations of jni4net.

This tutorial assumes that you are familiar with .NET programming. In addition, this tutorial is made for C# programmers, but it should be easy to use this tutorial for Visual Basic .NET or other .NET programming languages instead.

Prerequisites

1. Robocode and Java must be installed on your system (see System Requirements and Download).
2. .NET plug-in for Robocode must be installed on top of your existing Robocode directory. The .NET plug-in is named like this: robocode.dotnet-xxxx-setup.jar, and you can install it by double-clicking on it, which will start the installer.
3. Visual Studio 2005 or newer is required, but Visual Studio 2008 is strongly recommended. You can download one of the Express Edition, which comes for free.

Note that you don't need Visual Studio for developing .NET robots. You can use Microsoft .NET SDK 2.0 if you wish. However, this tutorial will make use of Visual Studio C# 2008 Express Edition, and hence already have it downloaded and installed

…

…”

Robots, .Net, OSS, tanks, virtual battles and free?! Shiny!

Some things you might not have known about System.Uri - “System.Uri FAQ”

Network Class Library Team (System.Net) - System.Uri FAQ

“NCL includes classes for networking related technology such as the base type System.Uri.  URI’s are used extensively to identify network resources, especially on the Internet. We’ve found that different customers frequently ask us the same questions about System.Uri and its capabilities, so we would like to share some of those questions with you here. For space reasons we will address some of the harder questions in an additional post about System.Uri Customization.

1. System.Uri vs. Strings …

2. Standards and History …

3. URI Components …

4. Canonicalization …

5. Uri Manipulation …

6. Supported Schemes …

7. UriFormatExceptions & Validating User Input …

8. MailTo Multiple E-mail Addresses …

9. Implicit Dos/Unc File Paths …

10. Unicode, IRI, and IDN …

…”

System.Uri is something I’m sure we’ve all used at one point or another, but how well do we know it? After reading this, I know I didn’t know it well at all.

Hello there System.Uri, good to meet you!

The fast, yet as complete as, possible SQL Azure Start to Finish Guide – aka What is a “DB as a SQL Azure/web service” demo without Northwind?

Bruno Terkaly - Developer Evangelist - SQL Azure – Relational Database as a Service – Soup to Nuts – The Whole Enchilada

“This post will be very direct. It will get a database running in the Azure cloud ads quickly as possible. There is plenty of material about why SQL Azure might be of interest and how it works.

Brief Goals

• Build a simple data driven ASP.NET Page using the graphical controls in Visual Studio 2008
• Develop against a local SQL Server/SQL Express database before connecting to SQL Azure

Steps in this post

1. Create the northwind database
2. Add northwind to sql server
3. Create a cloud project with 1 web role
4. Add a grid and attach grid’s data source our data (Northwind database)
5. Run our cloud application against local data
6. Create a SQL Azure database
7. Download and install the SQL Server Migration Wizard
8. Upload the customers table to SQL Azure
9. Change our connection string to point our app to the cloud
10. Run our app and verify everything works using the data from SQL Azure (NorthwindInCloud)

…

…”

One of my personal projects I’m thinking about doing will, if I do it, likely use SQL Azure, so when I saw this I wanted to grab it for future reference.

Also I thought this would be great materials for someone out there doing a SQL Azure presentation (say to a user group, etc).

“WPF Toolkit - February 2010 Release” – New controls, bug fixes and more (like the latest changes to Data Visualization assembly from the Silverlight Toolkit)

WPF Client Development - WPF Toolkit Released

“It has been a while since my last post! I’ve been spending time working on the WPF Toolkit, helping port some of the controls over from SL to WPF. With the help of the SL toolkit team as well as the WPF toolkit team, three of the controls were ported and are now part of the latest WPF toolkit release, which you can find here.

The three controls in question are:

• Accordion
• AutoCompleteBox
• Rating

The controls are nearly identical to their SL counterparts, with an explicit goal of maintaining compatibility between the two. This will hopefully make it easier to take a dependency on either toolkit, and allow the application to be ported from SL to WPF, or WPF to SL, without having to come up with creative solutions.

…”

Delay's Blog - This is what happens when two Toolkits fall in love... [The February 2010 release of the WPF Toolkit is now available!]

“The WPF Toolkit team has just published the February 2010 release of the WPF Toolkit! In addition to a variety of bug fixes for DataGrid, DatePicker, Calendar, and Visual State Manager, this release also includes the latest changes to the Data Visualization assembly for Silverlight and WPF, bringing the official WPF implementation up to date with the November 2009 release of the Silverlight Toolkit. And because sharing the Silverlight Toolkit's Data Visualization assembly with WPF Toolkit customers has worked out so well, this release of the WPF Toolkit introduces three other controls from the Silverlight Toolkit: AutoCompleteBox (SDK documentation), Accordion, and Rating!

…

Just as with the Data Visualization assembly, the WPF Toolkit implementation of AutoCompleteBox, Accordion, and Rating are almost identical copies of the latest Silverlight Toolkit implementations - we've even kept the same assembly names and structure. Therefore, everything you already know and love about these controls on Silverlight (including your code and XAML) should translate seamlessly to WPF! …

…

Those of you who follow the progress of the Data Visualization project already know that I maintain a collection of helpful links from all over the web here: http://cesso.org/r/DVLinks. Another handy resource for new users is my DataVisualizationDemos sample project which runs on Silverlight 3, Silverlight 4, WPF 3.5, and WPF 4 and provides examples of a bunch of different things made possible by the Data Visualization project …

…”

CodePlex - WPF

WPF - WPF Toolkit - February 2010 Release

“…

Recommended Download

WPFToolkitBinaries
application, 1766K, uploaded Feb 16…

Other Available Downloads

WPFToolkitBinariesAndSource
source code, 12206K, uploaded Feb 16…

Release Notes

What's new in the WPF Toolkit February 2010 Release?

• AutoCompleteBox
• Accordion
• Rating
• Bug fixes

Bug fixes for common issues, including:

• DataGrid - Templating, multiple selection, runtime sorting, etc.
• Calendar/DatePicker - Styling, default values, focus related issues, etc.
• VSM - Generated transitions
• UI Automation - Mostly DataGrid UI automation fixes and a few for Calendar/DatePicker

Also new in the February release, we are introducing the concept of Quality Bands to rate the quality of the controls and features in the release.

…”

Here’s a snap from the WPFToolkitBinariesAndSource download;

And a snap of solution from VS2008;

Tons of fun and goodness to play with… :)

 

Related Past Post XRef:
Treemap’ing in Silverlight – Treemap control added to the Silverlight Toolkit (available in Experimental Quality Band)

WPF Toolkit January 2009 Release is out – DataGrid, DatePicker/Calendar v1’s released and Visual State Manager previewed
Open source WPF Grid from the WPF Toolkit project released (CTP/Preview)

Free Entity Framework v1 eBook – 514 pages of barebones, yet still good foundational, EF’ness

Guilherme Cardoso - Free ebook - Entity Framework

“This ebook was released in December of 2008, but it stills a good resource for those (like me) who are now introducing to Entity Framework,

The ebook was written by Zeeshan Hirani and it has 514 pages. The design of the ebook isn't pretty, but the content is pretty good :)

…”

Zeeshan Hirani - Contributions to Entity framework community

“…My company was committed in moving forward with EF so I decided to move forward with Entity framework as well. During the process I learned so much stuff and felt the pain most developers went through with this technology. No doubt EF has a learning curve like any other technology but mapping scenarios offered by EF are simply great.

May be the reader base can get the same perception about EF and the mapping scenarios it offers even in version 1 as I did, after reading the PDF that contains 500 pages of content about entity framework. I wish I could complete the whole thing and discuss every aspect of EF that I had learned. Time is definitely a concern for me because I have to move to other cool things that I have been wanting to get to but never made it.

Below is a link to the PDF document that contains examples of various mapping scenarios and concepts that I have learned about entity framework

…”

From the PDF;

Look it’s barebones, but what do you want for free, your money back? :p

I have to applaud Zeeshan for taking the time to do this, let alone sharing it with the world. If you ever done anything like this you’ll know how scary it can be, be it sharing your doc’s, your code, etc. Before you throw stones, make sure you don’t live in a glass house.

“Dynamic Data Center Toolkit for Enterprises” – The best of both, cloud and on-premise, worlds? [Coming later this year, free]

Virtually Connected - through Microsoft UC & Virtualization - Dynamic Data Center Toolkit for Enterprises

“Recently in one of the partner events, I was asked a question around DDTK for enterprises. What will it do, when it will be available etc.

The Dynamic Data Center Toolkit for Enterprises will be a free, partner-extensible toolkit that will enable data centers to dynamically pool, allocate, and manage resources to enable IT as a service. Whether you’re an enterprise customer, a systems integrator, or an independent software vendor, the toolkit will help you create agile, virtualized IT infrastructures. You’ll get:

• An architectural roadmap, deployment guidance, and best practices.
• Familiar tools that are compatible with existing applications.
• Interoperability with hosted and public clouds.

Availability scheduled in the first half of 2010, and free of charge!

…”

From the Dynamic Data Center Toolkit for Enterprises datasheet;

“…

Components

The Dynamic Data Center Toolkit for Enterprises comprises of four operational components or phases.

· On-boarding: Allows IT admins to capture the service requirements from the IT service manager (customer). Some of the features that it might include are: Capture of IT service requirement, Establishment of VM options, Creation of user groups, and Selection of patch options.

· Self Service/ Admin Portal: Allows IT service manager to interact with his/her service from deployment to decommissioning. Service managers also have the option to access VM and charge-back reports.  Some of the features it might include are:  Start/stop VMs, Decommission VMs, and Access reporting functions.

· Provisioning: These are foundational to the enablement of the IT service. Batch creation of the VMs enables the simultaneous or sequenced deployment of multiple VMs into a service environment. Bare Metal provisioning of Windows® Hyper-V™ host is enabled through Microsoft® Deployment Toolkit (MDT).

· Operate: The Dynamic Data Center Toolkit  for Enterprises will utilize the Microsoft System Center family of products (e.g. SCVMM, SCOM, etc) to provide management capabilities such as: Monitoring VM uptimes and host capacity

Archival and decommissioning of VMs, Patching and Software Updates, Backup/restore (no mention of SC Data Protection Manager) etc.

…”

With my work hat on, I like the idea of brining the best of the cloud concepts into my data center. This helps me solve many of my problems without adding new ones (like privacy, data security/location, political battles, etc, etc).

I glad the the TLA isn’t “DDT for Enterprises” :D

A Feed You Should Read #24 – CodePlex.com

One of the best ways I’ve found to learn programming is to read programs, to wander through the paths a project takes to do its magic. The source of all knowledge, so to speak… But where do you find this source?

Today’s feed is one way;

CodePlex.com

Background:

CodePlex.com is a free project hosting site from Microsoft. This site allows you to host your projects, track issues, have discussions, deliver documentation, download releases and be your source code repository.

The issue and version control is based on Microsoft’s Team Foundation Server product. Think TFS in the cloud. Meaning it ties into Visual Studio as seamlessly as your TFS does at work. I’m not going to go into why source control is so important, nor TFS. I’ll just say, if you’re not, what are you thinking? CodePlex is free, easy and if you’re already in a Visual Studio world (or even not as CodePlex supports SVN and Mercurial too) and your working on a OSS, or source available, project, then not using it might be silly… (and if CodePlex isn’t to your like there are other sites to consider… Friends don’t let friends code without version control…)

Why do I like this feed and think you might also? .

The volume of projects and releases on CodePlex is high and getting higher. Trying to keep up with them would be impossible without this feed. This feed makes it easy to keep an eye of the CodePlex happenings, allowing you to easily see what’s new and released (and so you can then spelunk the code, grab the release, etc)

Like browsing, watching, seeing cool OSS/Source Available projects?

Code in the MS space?

Like to see what your fellow developers are building?

Like browsing source?

Then you might like this feed…

Snap of the latest post:

 

Blog Information:

Name:	Codeplex.com
URL:	http://www.codeplex.com/
Feed:	http://www.codeplex.com/rss.ashx
Post Types:	New Projects, Releases, Most Popular and Most Active Projects

 

Related Past Post XRef:
A Feed You Should Read TOC