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07/06/2008
I've had so many Blackberries over the years, I can't remember them all. I've disliked most of them. They were generally great PDAs but terrible phones. Last year, I made the switch to the Blackberry-compatible Nokia e62, and for the first time ever, I had a truly useful all-in-one device. It seemed to me that Nokia had out-Blackberried RIM. Well, a year of wear and tear later, my little e62 was clearly ready to be retired, and I bought myself a lovely unlocked Blackberry 8800 on eBay. Here are my first impressions.
Fit & Finish
What an elegant little thing this Blackberry is. It's mostly plastic, of course, as almost all phones are these days, but it's a high-quality plastic and there are enough chromed metal bits to make the thing look good. The glowing trackball in the middle is a nice touch that somehow manages to not be gaudy, and the bright and clear screen all add to the mix in making the 8800 a very nice looking device, at least to my eyes.
Phone
This is the first Blackberry in my experience that works decently as a phone. Most of this has to do with the speed of operation, which is usually close to instant unlike previous Blackberries, and the revised user interface that makes it far easier to type numbers in during a call. Do note that I've only had a day or two of use, and annoyances often take longer than that to arise. So far so good, though.
GPS
There's not much to say about the GPS other than it seems to work flawlessly. I navigated to the Blackberry Maps application, selected "Turn on GPS" and found myself looking at my position after a few minutes of "searching for satellites". It nicely kept my speed displayed in real-time while driving, and showed the names of upcoming cross streets in a band below the map. Highly useful.
Interestingly, Google's Map application which I also downloaded works much better on this Blackberry than it did on my Nokia e62. The "My Location" feature of Google Maps (which doesn't use GPS but instead uses some cellular-based locating capability) didn't work at all on the Nokia, but works fine on the Blackberry. It's not as useful as Blackberry Maps' full fledged GPS, but it's an excellent alternative and the actual maps themselves are of higher quality overall on Google Maps.
Since both applications get their maps in real time over the Internet, they're much more up-to-date than those on stand alone GPS units, although the stand alone units are often much more feature laden. I don't much care about features, myself. The convenience of carrying a single device and the availability of up-to-date online maps of the entire world far outweigh the lack of a handful of features I wouldn't likely use, anyway.
Email
I didn't think it would be possible to improve on the Nokia's ability to check my 10 or so email accounts quickly, but the 8800 has. One glance shows me all of those accounts in real-time, including which accounts have new mail, and a single click lets me view all the mail from all my accounts in one shot.
One huge feature the Blackberry has over my old Nokia is the ability to set different ringtones for each email account. This lets me keep most silent, while alerting me if an email comes in on one of the accounts I consider important.
Changing from the Nokia was totally trivial, too. I took the SIM out of the Nokia, plugged it in to the Blackberry, and went to the Blackberry website on my computer expecting to spend the next half hour configuring my email on the new phone. Instead, it had detected that the SIM was in a new device and asked me something like, "Do you want to change devices from your Nokia e62 to the Blackberry 8800 you've been playing with?" I said, "Yes, please." and that was all there was to it. All my accounts were available on the Blackberry within a few minutes.
Calendar
I hadn't used the calendar functions on my Nokia because I like the Google Calendar and I didn't want to keep appointments in two places. Well, it seems Google has a sync application available for Blackberry that wasn't available for Nokia. With it, your Google Calendar and Blackberry Calendar are kept 100% in sync, and appointments added/edited/deleted in one are equally affected in the other. It's not perfect. Syncs need to be done manually, generally, as the automatic ones sometimes fail. Still, I've got my schedule synchronized and available from any PC through Google and from my phone through Blackberry Calendar, which is as good as my appointment-keeping has ever been.
Google Talk
A few weeks ago, I uninstalled MSN Messenger. I had a million reasons that I won't bother covering, but the bottom line is that Google Talk is my replacement. It runs in a browser, as a desktop app, and now, on my phone. I can log in from multiple locations without having it log me out at the others, and it seems to work flawlessly. Instant messaging isn't my primary use for the phone, but it's handy to have.
Overall
It's too early to be really definitive, but so far, this is the best phone I've ever owned by far.
26/05/2008You probably don't know this, but there's a huge battle being waged on the Internet, and it's like nothing we've seen before. The net itself is the primary weapon. The combatants are the Church of Scientology and a group calling itself Anonymous which openly seeks to destroy them.
Scientologists, this post does contain OT material, so be aware of that before you read on.
 What is Scientology? First, the basics. The organization itself says "Scientology is the study and handling of the spirit in relationship to itself, others and all of life." From my reading, Scientology is a religion based mainly on the work of L. Ron Hubbard in which adherents proceed through many levels by taking courses and receiving counseling/therapy (called auditing). Each level is alleged to bring benefits to the adherent. This progression through the levels is called the "Bridge to Total Freedom". The organization is heavily structured and has its own paramilitary (the Sea Org), its own CIA-like wing (the Office of Special Affairs or OSA) and even its own prisons (Rehabilitation Project Force or RFP camps). Scientology Doctrine Scientologists strive to rid themselves of the influence of engrams (whatever they're supposed to be) in order to achieve a state called Clear. Once having achieved this state, they are then permitted to embark on what are called the OT (operating thetan) levels, which include most of the more controversial teachings. These include the story that, 75 million years ago, an evil Galactic warlord named Xenu brought billions of people to Earth in DC-8-like spacecraft, stacked them around volcanoes and killed them using hydrogen bombs. Scientology holds that their essences remained, and that they form around people in modern times, causing them harm. The Xenu story is only taught to Scientologists who have attained the OT III level, and is hidden from all those below that level. L. Ron Hubbard even claimed that reading the OT III material before one was ready would result in pneumonia, which may explain my respiratory problems. It's too late for you now, though. You've already heard the story. Criticisms of Scientology I'm going to list some of the main criticisms of the Church of Scientology here without claiming that they're true. I simply note that this is what critics of the CoS allege.
- The CoS is not a religion at all, but is a money-making business with the goal of selling lots of courses and course materials.
- They hide their true doctrine from new recruits who, if told the truth, would probably not join. They also deny their true doctrine when queried, although hundreds of ex-scientologists have confirmed such things as the Xenu story as true.
- Their claims have not been scientifically verified, and any effort to do so is rebuffed by the CoS.
- Almost anyone who leaves the church is labeled a "Suppressive Person" and church members are forbidden from communicating with them. This has resulted in the breakup of many families.
- Their current leader, David Miscavige, is accused of being a temperamental dictator who physically abuses his staff.
- They use litigation as a weapon, aggressively filing suit against their critics.
- The "Fair Game" policy instituted by Hubbard encourages them to attempt to "totally destroy" those critical of the church. This policy was amended to apply only to those declared suppressive persons, but as almost everyone who leaves the church is declared to be one, this amendment doesn't impede them much. Ex-members and critics are often harrassed with extremely sleazy methods, even having leaflets about their sex lives distributed to their neighbours.
- The church brainwashes its members and restricts access to any dissenting opinion.
I've probably missed a few criticisms, but these give you a general picture of what those critical of Scientology have to say. The Tom Cruise Incident Tom Cruise made a video for Scientology that was leaked to the Internet. In this video, he appeared to some as, well, insane. This alone is hardly news, especially as he has done some nutty things in recent years and many people have thought him a bit crazy. What happened, however, is that the CoS aggressively moved to suppress distribution of the video and even forced YouTube to take it down and suspend the accounts of those who put it up. Some very popular anti-Scientology critics like Mark Bunker and Tory Christman had their accounts suspended. These actions on the part of the CoS caused a huge swell of resentment among many people, including many outside the anti-Scientology movement. Anonymous A group calling itself Anonymous was so offended by the actions of the CoS over the Cruise video that they declared war on the CoS. This started as a series of hacker attacks, including attempts to hijack the CoS website, but the group quickly abandoned such methods and is now focused on using only non-criminal methods. Their primary attacks on the church are:
- Peaceful but relentless protests in front of Scientology churches and orgs.
- Flooding the Internet with copyrighted Scientology material with the intention of showing people what they see as the true story behind Scientology.
The CoS considers Anonymous to be cyberterrorists and accuses them of death threats and other such things. The FBI, however, has said they are unaware of any illegal activity on the part of Anonymous and do not consider the group to be a threat. Anonymous is identified by their masks, their dancing at protests, and their unfortunate fondness for awful music, particularly Rick Astley's "Never gonna give you up". Where We Are Today In just a few short months, the methods of Anonymous, whether moral or not, appear to have been extremely effective. Previously unavailable Scientology material is now readily available all over the Internet, and the CoS appears to be unable to keep up with the lawsuits. The real-world protests have been relentless, worldwide, well organized and show no signs at all of subsiding. Every Scientology org worldwide gets "rickrolled" at least once a month, and the resulting news coverage has drawn a huge amount of attention to those critical of the church, allowing them to get their message out. This may be the most interesting battle in the history of the Internet, with the primary weapon being the net itself. Anonymous is clearly violating copyright law by releasing Scientology material, but they're doing it in a way that is nearly impossible to prosecute. Many CoS insiders report a huge decline in recruiting and a huge increase in defections from the church. The CoS, on the other hand, is actually garnering some sympathy for having been targeted by a group that openly seeks to destroy it. As of this moment, my money is on Anonymous, but I don't count the Church of Scientology out at all. It won't be a short fight.
19/05/2008
Happy Victoria Day. Queen Victoria was a hag, but having noted this, I'll happily take the day off and use it to catch up a bit. I remember when I started traveling to the US a lot in 2000. I only stopped in 2007, but for almost 7 years, I was in the US a couple of times a week while living in Canada. Some observations:
- When I first started going, it felt very different down there. After a few months, I got used to all the little things that felt so different and the two places seemed much more similar.
- The roads are wider and more developed in the US, and on the interstate highways, a huge swath of trees is cut beside each highway as a buffer zone. In Canada, the trans-Canada highway is often just 2 or 4 lanes, and we let the trees grow almost up to the edge of the road. I have no doubt the US way is safer and much better for trucks, but our way appeals to my eyes.
- On the other hand, litter is better controlled on US Interstate highways. This might be because of the Adopt-A-Highway program. I don't know. Whatever it is, I wish we'd do the same thing up here.
- Food in the US tastes heavily processed and is served in quantites that boggle the mind and fatten the belly. Americans visiting Vancouver often have to order two meals to get the quantites they're used to, particularly at sushi places.
- Americans like single-family-houses. People there tend to live in townhouses or apartments only if they can't afford a house. In Canada, townhouses and apartments are just as often a lifestyle choice, and often cost more than houses.
- The drivers in northern Washington are more polite than BC drivers, generally. The drivers in Seattle are just as obnoxious as we are, but no worse.
- There's an edge of violence to some US cities, and since you never know if the guy you're arguing with has a gun, you tend to be hyperaware of how badly things can escalate.
- Vancouver has more beggars than Seattle. They tend not to be obnoxious but they're there. Seattle has a normal number of beggars for a city its size, but Vancouver has more than a normal amount and the politicians here tend to be tree hugging communists so they won't do anything about it.
- Vancouver has far more Asians. The US has far more black people.
- Americans are friendlier, I'd say. Strangers often smile at you and chat with you. Women, especially, seem more willing to strike up a conversation in the US in my experience. This is a net positive, of course, but it does mean that you end up exchanging mindless platitudes with total strangers quite a bit.
15/05/2008
Every now and then, I encounter someone in a panic about the fact that a website they've surfed to knows their IP. This panic often results in the discovery of various anonymous web surfing services (sometimes called proxy servers) that purportedly allow you to browse the web without anyone knowing who you are. Now, everyone is welcome to be as paranoid on this topic as they choose. I will note, however, that in my opinion, most of the paranoia on this topic is rooted in a total lack of knowledge on the part of the paranoid.
Every web server has always been able to see the IP address of every visitor. This has been true from the beginnings of the web and is fundamental to TCP/IP. It has never changed. When you browse to a website, what is actually happening is that your DNS subsystem resolves a canonical/host name (like www.regnatarajan.com) to an IP address, and then your networking subsystem initiates a connection to that IP address -- in the case of an HTTP connection, it usually connects to port 80. The web server on the other end usually allows that port to be opened and sends back responses to the requests made by your system.
This is always true. There is no other way to browse to a website hosted on a web server, and all web sites are hosted on web servers of some kind or other. There are minor variances to the mechanisms described above, such as entering the IP address directly in the address line, but these result in the exact same thing minus the DNS resolution and they don't change the basic principles involved. Now, here's the important part: as soon as this connection is open, the web server knows your IP address. Every time. It has to, or it wouldn't know where to send back the responses.
Every web server you connect to knows your IP. Deal with it.
Now, anonymous web surfing services simply introduce a layer between you and the web server. You connect to the anonymizer service, it connects to wherever you want to go, and it passes the information back and forth like a relay agent. The web server only sees the anonymizer's IP and you never connect to the web server directly so you're anonymous, right? Wrong. You are simply now trusting the anonymizer service with your security instead of the web server, which is usually highly dubious. The CIA is strongly suspected of operating many of the popular anonymizer services, and some others are operated by kids and hobbyists who I, personally, wouldn't trust at all with my personal data. I know this to be true as many of them rent servers from my company to do it. Beyond this, any anonymizer service in the US, even if it honestly intends to be credible, is subject to the Patriot Act which allows government to inspect the service's logs and data and forbids that service from informing its clients that this has happened.
Now, if there's a site you particularly distrust but need to access, using an anonymizer service may be a credible thing to do in that case, but don't delude yourself into thinking you're anonymous. You've just shifted your vulnerability from one party to another. 12/05/2008
My mother sent me this. She's 74 and has time on her hands, it seems.
1 x 8 + 1 = 9
12 x 8 + 2 = 98
123 x 8 + 3 = 987
1234 x 8 + 4 = 9876
12345 x 8 + 5 = 98765
123456 x 8 + 6 = 987654
1234567 x 8 + 7 = 9876543
12345678 x 8 + 8 = 98765432
123456789 x 8 + 9 = 987654321
1 x 9 + 2 = 11
12 x 9 + 3 = 111
123 x 9 + 4 = 1111
1234 x 9 + 5 = 11111
12345 x 9 + 6 = 111111
123456 x 9 + 7 = 1111111
1234567 x 9 + 8 = 11111111
12345678 x 9 + 9 = 111111111
123456789 x 9 +10= 1111111111
9 x 9 + 7 = 88
98 x 9 + 6 = 888
987 x 9 + 5 = 8888
9876 x 9 + 4 = 88888
98765 x 9 + 3 = 888888
987654 x 9 + 2 = 8888888
9876543 x 9 + 1 = 88888888
98765432 x 9 + 0 = 888888888
1 x 1 = 1
11 x 11 = 121
111 x 111 = 12321
1111 x 1111 = 1234321
11111 x 11111 = 123454321
111111 x 111111 = 12345654321
1111111 x 1111111 = 1234567654321
11111111 x 11111111 = 123456787654321
111111111 x 111111111= 12345678987654321 19/04/2008
Not being a Christian, it is always interesting to me to watch Christians come to grips with their own holy book. I've maintained for a long time that Christians, even fundamentalist Bible-belt types, tend to pick and choose which Bible verses to follow. This is never more true than in the case of Paul's declaration that women should cover their heads while praying or prophesying. Here's the verse.
1 Corinthians 11:5-6
And every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head—it is just as though her head were shaved. If a woman does not cover her head, she should have her hair cut off; and if it is a disgrace for a woman to have her hair cut or shaved off, she should cover her head. The most common arguments made to justify ignoring this verse (and ignore it most Christians do) are below, along with my responses:
- Hair is given to women as a covering (1 Cor 11:15)
This is the most common argument used to twist this verse. It defies common sense, however. If hair is a covering in this context, how could any woman ever have her hair cut off? If she had hair to cut off, she would be covered. The verse would be meaningless.
- This is a metaphor for some other vague meaning
Ok, I can't refute that as there's no way to know if it was or not, but if you go down that path, be aware that you leave the door open to everything being metaphorical. This is the argument used by many who reject the prohibitions against homosexuality, saying they were metaphors of some other meaning. Heck, if you open this door, maybe the entire salvation thing is a big metaphor. Maybe the creation story is a metaphor of evolution and Darwin was right.
- This only applied to certain people
Paul clearly stated that his letter was "To the church of God in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be holy, together with all those everywhere who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ—their Lord and ours" (1 Cor 1:2). Beyond this, the argument above applies -- if this prohibition only applied to the Corinthians, then maybe the prohibition against homosexuality only applied to the Levites. A study of the actual Textus Receptus clearly states that the word used refers to a veil. "Christian women were expected to cover their heads—but not their faces—in religious exercises, and especially in meetings." Source Paul was an educated Pharisee, a blunt, plain-spoken man who called a fool a fool. Well, I'll call a rationalization a rationalization. When Paul says women should cover their heads, I interpret that as his meaning that women should cover their heads. It is absolutely clear that this is what was meant: 
I have a friend. Let's call him Israel. Well, I think of him as a friend, but he's less sure.
My friend Israel inherited some land that his parents acquired before he was born. They got the land in a way that some feel was shady about sixty years ago, but my friend Israel had nothing to do with that. Having inherited the land, however, he has certainly made something of it. The land is prosperous, now, and is filled with the trappings of modern civilization.
Things are not perfect, though. The children of the previous owners continue to dispute his rightful ownership of the land. My friend Israel, however, is adamant about the matter and refuses to compromise.
It's gotten uglier over the years. The children of the previous owners have given up on peaceful resolution and have tried to take the land back by force. My friend Israel has allied himself with some strong friends who come to his aid every time they try. He has also proactively sent his people into the remaining land of the previous owners and set up positions there to inspect and act as he feels necessary to protect his own land from their attacks.
It has reached the point now where the contrast is jarring. Israel lives prosperously with his people on his land, and the children of the previous owners live, not just in poverty and destitution, but in the humiliation of having Israel's people stop them, search them, and occasionally harm them in the effort to prevent attacks against my friend Israel and his land.
I say to my friend, "Israel, you know this can't continue. You know they will fight you."
"If they will just stop attacking us," he replies, "there would be no problem."
"They will never stop until they live like you live, with the same rights you have," I tell him.
"This is my land," he tells me, "and I have a right to defend it."
And so, the dispute continues. Each year, the children of the previous owners find a new way to attack, and every year, my friend Israel manages to repulse their attacks. Every now and then, he attacks on his own, and the dispute escalates.
Things are not stagnant, however. In the past, my friend Israel would win each fight decisively. The children of the previous owners were a ragtag group with no friends, and they really had no way of harming my friend Israel or his people. As the decades passed, however, they have made some friends and honed their methods. In the last big fight in 2006, my friend Israel actually lost more fighting men than they did, although he did also kill a thousand civilians which didn't help him at all and strained even the patience of his closest friends.
I ask him, "Can't you see they are getting stronger?"
"I have a right to exist," he tells me.
"But your current path leads you to destruction," I say to him, "not just your destruction, but the loss of your land and the death of your people."
"If they would just stop attacking us, there would be no problem," he replies.
"They will never stop," I tell him, "Not until they live as you live, with the same rights you have."
"They won't be satisfied with that," he retorts. "They do not accept my right to exist peacefully in my own nation."
I ask him, "Have you tried? Do you really think they would attack you if this were their nation, too? Do you accept their right to exist peacefully in their own nation?"
The surrounding territories grew restless at the killing of civilians and intervened. They sent their own men in to enforce a peace, but in this peace, the children of the previous owners are protected from the further attacks of my friend Israel. They're using this time to further build up their arsenal of rockets, and they're cultivating a relationship with a new friend who is trying to become a nuclear power.
"Israel," I say to him, "don't you see how desperate this is becoming? You are on a path to destruction. Your enemies are getting stronger. You must make peace with them now."
"If they would just stop attacking us, there would be no problem," he replies.
"They will never stop," I tell him, "Not until they live as you live, with the same rights you have."
"I have many friends who see that I am right," he states defiantly. "They tell me to keep on as I have been. This is my land. I have a right to exist and defend myself."
"For G-d's sake, man," I say to him, "even if that were true, who gives a damn if you are right if you and your people end up dead? Your enemies are building up their arsenals. The next strike could be devastating and, even if you survive, the one after that or the one after that or the one after that will surely destroy you. Can't you see the path you are on leads to sure destruction?"
"Leave me," he tells me. "You are no friend of Israel."
08/04/2008
As with most of us, I've struggled with the basic problem of providing users with updated information without hitting the database endlessly, especially in cases where everyone is just requesting the same information. Well, I thought of a mildly novel solution to it the other day and, not being overly concerned with testing in this case (only a handful of non-critical users), I just put it into production over the last few days.
The concept is simple: create a Microsoft SQL Server stored procedure to generate a tiny raw HTML snapshot of the information I want to provide, and use Microsoft's SQL Agent to run the job every minute, which is plenty real-time enough for this situation. Unlimited users can simply hit the HTML file with almost no overhead and with almost no strain on the database at all. The HTML file in my case rarely exceeds a kilobyte, which means a million concurrent users accessing it once a minute wouldn't strain a single server in the data center.
Step 1: Create the Stored Procedure
-- If the stored procedure exists, kill it
IF OBJECT_ID('dbo.sp_CreateRecentlyBloggedHTML') IS NOT NULL
DROP PROC dbo.sp_CreateRecentlyBloggedHTML
GO
-- Use the correct database
USE [www.bbad.com] ;
GO
-- Create the procedure
CREATE PROCEDURE [dbo].sp_CreateRecentlyBloggedHTML
AS
-- Declare some variables
Declare @myTmpStr sysname, @myTitle sysname, @myURL sysname, @myLastUpdate sysname, @myDaysSinceLastUpd sysname, @myLastUpdateTime sysname, @cmd sysname, @fname sysname;
-- Initialize a file name
SET @fname='c:\data\SQLGeneratedHTML\recentblogs.htm';
-- Declare a cursor and open it using whatever SQL you need
Declare GetRecentBlogs Cursor for
select W.Title, W.FullUrl, DATEADD(hour, -8, max(D.TimeCreated)) AS LastUpdate, DATEDIFF(day, DATEADD(hour, -8, max(D.TimeCreated)), GETDATE()) AS DaysSinceLastUpdate, LEFT(CONVERT(CHAR(8),DATEADD(hour, -8, max(D.TimeCreated)),8),5) AS LastUpdateTime
from AllDocs D
inner join Webs W on D.WebID=W.ID
inner join Webs B on (W.ParentWebId=B.Id) and (B.FullUrl='blogs'))
group by W.Title, W.FullUrl
order by LastUpdate DESC;
Open GetRecentBlogs;
-- Open an HTML page
SET @cmd='echo ^<HTML^>^<HEAD^> > ' + @fname;
exec master..xp_cmdshell @cmd;
SET @cmd='echo ^<meta http-equiv="Content-Language" content="en-us"^> >> ' + @fname;
exec master..xp_cmdshell @cmd;
SET @cmd='echo ^<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=windows-1252"^> >> ' + @fname;
exec master..xp_cmdshell @cmd;
SET @cmd='echo ^<meta http-equiv="REFRESH" CONTENT="120"^> >> ' + @fname;
exec master..xp_cmdshell @cmd;
SET @cmd='echo ^<base target="_top"^>^<^/HEAD^>^<BODY BGCOLOR="#000000"^> >> ' + @fname;
exec master..xp_cmdshell @cmd;
-- Loop through the records
Fetch Next from GetRecentBlogs Into @myTitle, @myURL, @myLastUpdate, @myDaysSinceLastUpd, @myLastUpdateTime;
WHILE (@@fetch_status <> -1)
BEGIN
--Wrap each entry with a div
SET @cmd = 'echo ^<div STYLE="font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 8pt; color: ffffff"^> >> '+@fname;
exec master..xp_cmdshell @cmd;
-- Blog name and hyperlink -- obviously change to use your own records here
SET @cmd = 'echo ^<a href="http://www.bbad.com/' + @myURL + '"^>' + @myTitle + '^</a^>^<br /^> >> '+@fname;
exec master..xp_cmdshell @cmd;
SET @cmd='echo ^</div^> >> ' + @fname;
exec master..xp_cmdshell @cmd;
--Get the next row and loop
Fetch Next from GetRecentBlogs Into @myTitle, @myURL, @myLastUpdate, @myDaysSinceLastUpd, @myLastUpdateTime;
END ;
-- Close the HTML page
SET @cmd='echo ^</BODY^>^</HTML^> >> ' + @fname;
exec master..xp_cmdshell @cmd;
-- Clean up
close GetRecentBlogs;
deAllocate GetRecentBlogs;
GO |
Step 2: Schedule Your Procedure
- Open Microsoft's SQL Server Management Studio
- Start the Server Agent if it isn't already started.
- Create a new job and add your stored procedure to the steps (In my example, I used exec sp_CreateRecentlyBloggedHTML;).
- Schedule the job to run every minute.
- In the alternative, you may be able to get away with setting a trigger to execute your procedure whenever a record is changed, but I had issues in my Sharepoint environment doing this.
Gotchas
- Be sure to enable the xp_cmdshell or none of this will work. Start | Programs | Microsoft SQL Server 2005 | Configuration Tools | SQL Server Surface Area Configuration | Surface Area Configuration for Features. (Nice that they made it so obvious).
- Make sure the SQL Agent is set to autostart or your HTML won't update after a reboot. Administrative Tools | Services | Microsoft SQL Server Agent.
- Be sure to escape all your < and > characters in your code or they won't work. The Transact-SQL syntax for escaping those characters is ^.
- This code is presented as an example of how to do it. If you actually put it into production, you'll probably want to create some inline functions to call for the repetitive tasks.
- Good luck. I won't help you debug your code but I hope this helps.
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Copyright 2008 Reg Natarajan. All rights
reserved.
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